December 25, 2019 • 36 mins
Dan Beyer and Aaron Torres, in for Doug Gottlieb, discuss the amazing turnaround of the Los Angeles Clippers and why it is exciting that there is finally a real battle for Los Angeles. The guys share their thoughts on the NBA’s midseason tournament idea and whether they are buying if it will work. The guys react to Ben Roethlisberger’s tweet that he will be back in 2020 and what it means for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Plus, Dan and Aaron discuss the alleged Adam Gase twitter burner account and give their tips on how to properly run one.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug Gottlip
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time, that's twelve to
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for the Doug Gottlip Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs R. This is the best
(00:22):
of the Doug Gottli Show on Fox Sports Radio. You
would think that when the NBA started, when the NBA
started the Christmas Day thing, you'd have the Lakers on
Christmas Day every day, which they are, you know, the
Nicks on Christmas Day every day, which they aren't. And
then you'd never see the Clippers on Christmas Day, which
(00:42):
they actually are this year. So maybe if my family
turns on the TV, they can actually make history not
only by watching the NBA today, but also by seeing
the Clippers actually in the primetime Marquee game coming up
later on tonight. Yeah. If I had told you a
year ago, well I guess there was already k I
Clippers buzz, but that that the Clippers would be in
(01:02):
the Marquee game with the player that maybe we consider
to be the best in the world, which I personally do.
It's kind of It's just incredible how the the ever
evolving NBA landscape has continued to evolve to the point
where we're at today. The Clippers, by the way, this
isn't their first Christmas Day appearance, but it's their first
(01:22):
appearance in what is the prime spot, right, I mean,
there's there's It's like going to a game like where
we went to the guess what we went to the
Super Bowl? Did you sit in the upper deck? Do
you sit to the fifty yard line or in a
suite like there's there's. Yeah, it's awesome to go to
the Super bowls awesome to be included on Christmas Day.
But today the Clippers have fifty yard line seats or
(01:44):
they are in this suite watching the super Bowl. That
is the big deal. Lob City was able to be
put on the late game at times. Maybe if they
played the Blazers, maybe they played the Phoenix Suns. There
was a unique game, but it would be a ten
thirty Eastern time game maybe on t NT or ESPN.
But they're getting prime, prime real estate on a major
network today when they take on the Lakers and that's
(02:06):
what's that's what's so amazing to me, Aaron, about what
this schedule is laid out and really what the Clippers
have just done as a whole. You just said it.
You think that they've got the best player in the NBA.
This was a franchise that was considered the worst franchise
I would argue, not only in the NBA but in
professional sports period because of the previous ownership of Donald Sterling.
(02:29):
And now when you see where they have come, to me,
it's one of the greatest. And we know how it happened,
and there's there's the the unfortunate situation that happened with
the players having to deal with Donald Sterling's comments, but
it did end that era and it brought in a
new era of Steve Baumber and that's where everything changed.
But to me, it's just it's mind boggling to see
(02:52):
the turnaround of this franchise and just how differently we
view them because of a few people Steve Balmer, Kawhi
Leonard and maybe Paul George and that the complete one
eight is just blown my mind. When I look at
this Clippers squad and Doc Rivers to who's who's kind
of become. UM, I feel like he's more than a
(03:16):
coach at this point, if you know what I mean,
in terms of the role that he plays within the league.
You mentioned the Steve Balmer situation or the Steve Bomber,
the Donald Sterling situation where he was kind of the
voice of reason behind the scenes. You hear the stories
about he was kind of running the organization as they
were going through the ownership transition. But um, it is incredible,
(03:37):
and it is incredible, um where this thing could even
go into three four years as they talk about wanting
to transition out of the Staples Center, get their own building, um,
build their own fan base. It's really interesting because I
actually heard Colin cow Heer talking about this in his show.
Is the idea that the Lakers are so entrenched in
l A in the sense that every night as a show,
(04:00):
every night you expect to be entertained and Lebron can't
really um do kind of the load management thing. Whereas
the Clippers it's not the six month play, it's the
twenty year play. And you really feel like this might
be the start of something brand new, not just with
Kawhi Leonard, but in the bigger picture, with Steve Bamber. Yeah,
I want you to put a pin in that, because
(04:21):
I want to say one more thing about Doc Rivers
since you brought him up. This was a guy that
honestly did as much as he could do and was
still criticized for it. When when he went to Boston,
the conversation and they win the title in two thousand
and eight was, yeah, you won it with Paul Pierce
and KG and Ray Allen and all and all these studs,
(04:41):
But what have you done without that marquee talent? And
he did fair decent in Orlando, but obviously when you
win a championship with the Boston Celtics, you go to
another level. But there are people that weren't putting him
on that level because of the team that he had.
And then he comes to the Clippers, and honestly, that
narrative was strengthened because of Lob City not being able
(05:03):
to break through. We're like, see, look you have Chris, Paul,
Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan's what is Doc Rivers doing?
Just even last season in what they went through and
how they were able to navigate and make the postseason
when a lot of people thought they were going to
give up to have that season, and then now you
bring in the players that they have, I think completely
(05:24):
changes the narrative on how we look at Doc Rivers
as a coach and and your point of you're right,
and I probably have fault because I left him out
of talking about the guy. So I'm glad that you
brought him up. But then to go back to your
point about the the franchise and where they are in
the gap that was between the Lakers and Clippers. When
you have what was considered the worst franchise in the
NBA and what you have is almost the beacon of
(05:46):
all franchises and professional sports, you're putting the Lakers up
there with the Yankees, You're putting them out there with
the Cowboys. That gap was enormous. The gap between the
Yankees and Mets is a gap, but it's not like
it is in l A. The gap between the Cubs
and White Sox in Chicago is a gap, but it's
not like it was in l A. To think that
the Clippers would be the team to close that gap,
(06:07):
and at at the moment, not overall, but just at
the moment of them being almost even with the Lakers
neck and neck to me is just to be on
the same stage with them. Maybe that's a better way
to put it as mind boggling. Yeah, and and it's
crazy because you look at the bigger picture and listen,
the Clippers will never have the fifty years of history
that the Lakers have. They will never have uh all
(06:29):
the championships, all the Hall of Famers, whatever. But if
you start to extrapolate out over the next twenty thirty years,
I think you can make an argument that the Clippers
are in better shape kind of structurally and internally, and
this certainly won't be their last Christmas Day market game.
But that's the part that's so interesting to me is
(06:51):
it started with Steve Baumber taking over. But I I
just look at everything that happened this offseason. We obviously
this week spent a lot of time talking about the
Kawhi Leonard sweep, steaks and what happened behind the scenes,
But part of it was the Lakers bungled it because
every single uh, you know, piece of information got leaked
out to the media. And so you look at listen,
(07:11):
the Lakers will always have the history. Players will always
want to play here because it's l a it's the
Marquis brand. But just in terms of the bigger picture
of where these organizations are going, I think you can
argue that the Clippers are in better shape to really
take off over the next decade. What however many years.
I'm going to say something that I I want to
get your response, and this, this may be blasphemous, this
(07:34):
may not be fair because the Lakers do have Lebron
James and they do have Anthony Davis, and we there's
a possibility of the seven year stretch where things didn't
work out for them to come to an end. They're
gonna make the playoffs, are going to be in contention.
But could it be a situation where kids how kids
(07:55):
nowadays look at Notre Dame when being recruits of they don't.
I mean, I remember Notre Dame winning a national championship
with Lou Holtz and being dominant during that time, and
Notre Dame then was Notre Dame. And and I think
you're old enough to remember when Notre Dame was Notre Dame.
But there are seventeen and eighteen year old kids they'll
know about Notre Dame. Do you think that the Lakers
(08:17):
could enter or being endangered into that if things don't
necessarily work out or if this Clippers thing takes off.
For two reasons, because one, I think you even look
at the structure of this team. Think about you said
seven year stretch. Think about all the guys that we heard,
oh they're gonna be a Laker because it's the Lakers.
You think about all the guys through well, Kevin Love,
(08:39):
he's from l A. Well, first of all, he's not
really from l A. He played U l A. Yeah, yeah,
he played at He's not from me. But I can't
even remember all the names now, Kevin Love and um
Russell Westbrook and Paul George and they're all gonna. I
remember the day I came on UM. I I the
day that Kawhi Leonard Amanda trade from San Antonio. The
(09:01):
next day Arnie Spanier and I came out and did
our oh just hand the like, well, of course he's
gonna go that he's from l A. He wants to
be a Laker. And so I bring that up because
you said, you know, are we hitting this stretch. When
is the last time Lebron came for reasons outside of basketball?
It wasn't because that was the best place for him
to win, and then nobody wanted to play with him.
(09:24):
He had a trade for the guy that of course
has the same agent as him. So I'm just saying
I think it's already kind of happened where the Lakers,
you know, for for thirty or forty years, they got
every guy they wanted in free agency or trade or whatever.
And now even the last four or five years, even
as they've built this team that's in first place, it
hasn't really been like that. I think Lebron is has
(09:45):
and you talk about his plans with the Lakers, it's
it's not as urgent. There isn't a necessity. I almost
compare it to the to the to the big wig,
the fortune five hundred CEO that has a membership at
a different golf club in a state that he doesn't
live in, Like he's a member, you know, and maybe
when he's the aerial play around of golf, but he's
(10:06):
not there every day playing at the country club in
his community. And it's because you know what Lebron wants
to be in that club of hey, I was, I
was a Laker and I brought a championship. But if
it doesn't if it doesn't happen. He still has the
other laurels of of winning in Miami and bringing the
title to Cleveland. Like that's good enough. That's how I
like view it, where it's yeh'd be nice. Yeah, I'd
(10:26):
like to compete and win and win that title, but
to add to his legacy and and and not even
of the Jordan Lebron comparison, none of that stuff, but
just okay, that'd be nice. Yeah. You could be like, hey,
you know, hey Kobe, look at what I got or hey, Magic,
I also got one of these two. I think he
wants to be in that club. And that's where where
I think that where his his desire is. And it's
not that he's he's I just don't think it's the
(10:47):
of the utmost important to your point, No, I I
don't think so at all. And we spent a year
talking about this over you know, since the day that
he signed and whatever it was September, uh July of
where when that title would be nice. But he has
his interests off the field or off the court. Excuse me,
uh that that don't pertain to it. And I think
it's turned off a lot of people. But I just
(11:08):
think it's interesting. Like we were saying, is the Clippers
are structurally built I think to maintain this um and
I'm just fascinated to watch tonight. On top of everything else,
be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
gott Leap Show weekdays at three p m. Easter noon
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
(11:29):
With the NBA's difficulty in making the regular season valuable,
we have heard multiple reports about the changes that are
coming to the regular season, and Aaron, I have no
problem with that. I have a problem with the people
who say this won't work. That won't work, and this
is not gonna happen because something needs to change, something
(11:51):
has to be done different. So bring a new idea
to the table. That's what I want from people when
they're talking about the new NBA, possible new NBA schedule
coming into the couple of years. Yeah, it's tough because
I'm actually the guy that's like, like, I can poke
holes pretty easily into the tournament. But I'll readily admit
that in this scenario, I'm John Ramos. I mean John,
I mean John. I don't have a good alternative. I
(12:13):
mean I think my best alternative is we need to
get stricter about load management and who's playing and who's
not playing, and if the best players are playing in
these nationally televised games, I do think the ratings will
go up. I'm not in love with the tournament, but
I I'll also I'll toss it back to you because
I think you have some ideas on how the tournament
(12:34):
could work, and I'm willing to listen to him. I
just I'm not sold that it's going to be this
big boon and and playing whatever it will be four
games and eight days or whatever. I I'm not sold
that this is the answer. There there are There are
a couple of things that I've seen recently. There is
the report that each player would get a million dollars.
That's awesome to the guy on the roster that really
(12:57):
would love a million dollars. It's not gonna do anything
for Lebron j It's not gonna do anything for Anthony Davis,
Kawhi Leonard any of that. I don't think that draft
picks are realistic. A player has never played for a
draft pick in the history of sports. There's never been
a guy who was taking the court saying we got
to win this game so our draft stock is better
or worse, and that draft picks probably in the NBA
(13:18):
have never been less valuable too. I mean, we saw
four for Kauhi Leonard for for Anthony Davis. So continue though.
Let's let's and also say, if you're in the NFL
and you're a quarterback and you're Andy Dalton Cincinnati, you're
really gonna tank. So the team could draft Joe Burrow
right now. You don't have a job or you're not
playing anyone like that doesn't make sense. So applying draft
picks to a mid season tournament doesn't doesn't do anything.
(13:40):
Here is my solution, and the reason I think this
solution works is because it adds value to what a
tournament would be. And this is a drastic change, Aaron.
You're not gonna fix all eighty two games. You're not
gonna make every single game watchable and must watch TV.
So you've got to at least add some value. Because
(14:03):
the real value in an NBA season starts in April
and it ends in June. That's really what we're playing for.
Despite the season starting in October. We only care about
the NBA playoffs. I do think that an NBA mid
season tournament would be useful, and I think that it
could be beneficial, and I think that it could be
very interesting if the NBA does this. Number One, you
adopt a system like you do in soccer or like
(14:24):
you do in the NHL, and you give points for victories.
This takes win loss record out of the case. So
if you just for the tournament or just for the
whole regular season, So you would take the Milwaukee Bucks,
for example, last year had the most wins in the
NBA with sixty, they would have a hundred and twenty
points if you assigned two points for every win. There's
no points for games going into overtime. It's you win,
(14:45):
you get to You lose, you get zero. But if
you play a tournament, you then add the value of
points within that tournament. So let's say you have a
thirty team tournament. You would start off giving the top
two teams buys that so you would have value of
playing well early in the season prior to the start
of the tournament. So the box of the top record
(15:05):
in the East. Lakers have the top record in the West.
Guess what, they don't have to play a first round
game in the tournament, and then they get a point
value that will be assigned to every single bracket or
every single round of that tournament. I hope I'm not
getting too much in the weeds here, but this is
where this is where it sorts out erin. If you
assigned say one point for a first round victory, you
(15:26):
add that to your season total. If you win your
second round game, you get two points, and you're adding this.
So a team like the Boston Celtics, who last year
had forty nine wins, finished with ninety eight points. Under
this scenario, if you made a run through the tournament,
they could have improved their seeding from a four seed
to a two seed. It allows for incentive within the
(15:48):
season where if we win this tournament, we could really
set us up for the postseason, or this can add
benefits down the line. What now is happening is it's
the regular season is dragging on and I just want
to be ready for the playoffs. If you actually give
the team's immediate incentive to pay off what they care about,
(16:09):
and that's winning the playoffs and winning an NBA championship,
that's how I think you get players and teams involved
and fans involved. If you put like ten extra bonus
points for a championship game at the end of this tournament,
that could lift you from a five seed where you
wouldn't have home court in the playoffs, that could have
put you to a three seed where you would be
(16:29):
able to host a game. It's those different incentives that
I think would work in the NBA. Is it too confusing?
Do you think it's not? It's not start because I
I don't want to be John, I don't want to
be think because I actually don't hate it at all.
I'm trying to think of what the argument from the
players Association or the owners would be. Um. Do we
(16:50):
think that most of the owners? I know Mark Cuban's
been very vocal against it. Do we think most of
the owners are on board with this? Just in the
bigger picture, not just your scenario, but just in general. Um,
I think that I think that something needs to be
done because I think when you when I mean it's
definitely for TV, and you have to have some some
(17:11):
some intrigue. The issue that I think that you could
see the pushback is and and I can't answer your question.
I don't know if twenty out of the thirtie for it,
So I don't want to gloss over that part. But
the fact is is these games are great here and
Lakers Clippers today is gonna be awesome to watch, But
in the grand scheme of things, does it give value?
And I just don't think like a game next week
(17:34):
isn't going to be intriguing for us to watch. It's
intriguing because it's Lakers Clippers today, but it's also on
Christmas Day. You could have a Celtics Raptors game that
could be very intriguing for any of the teams that
could possibly try to be holding off the Celtics to
get those bonus points in a bracket. Or you could
(17:55):
be a Celtics fan like there's There are a lot
of different ways where you can involve it, and that
of just having a midseason tournament and giving a fake
trophy if you if you use the tournament as incentive
to improve where you are in April where it really counts,
that's what I think would add value to the NBA's
change of schedule. And it's a very interesting argument. I mean,
(18:17):
my only thing would be I do think it would
be weird if doubts like I'm just using Dallas as
an example. Luca Dodge has played overseas. He play in
these tournaments. Dallas gets hot, they win this tournament, but
they finishes like the seven seed in the West in
the regular season by win loss record, but they end
up with home court advantage throughout the playoffs. And I
(18:39):
know that that's the incentive for winning the tournament, but
I do feel like it could skew too far the
other way where I can't stink, like you can't just
like we need to win the tournament and that's it.
Like you still have to have you still have to
add value to the regular season, and my doing it
with a point system, I think it's the only way
(18:59):
way to really do it. You'd have to change it,
but it would allow the Mavericks who are let's say
the five spot right now, what about if they go
on this amazing or You'd have to figure out the
value and how it would break down. But if you're
getting a you know, a point value for every time
you advance, it also allows the teams who are advancing
to increase some of their value. And if you're upset
(19:22):
in the first round, you're gonna have another team that's
gonna be able to build up those point values, and
that's going to add importance to that game. It's not
going to totally flip the entire power structure of it,
because each game would still have its value of having
two points, but it allows you to have a mid
season tournament that has is maybe a little bit more
(19:42):
important than just the five games that we see on
Christmas Day. Yeah, all I would say is I do
think it feels a lot like Major League Baseball awarding
the postseason home field advantage. I feel like it would
be really fun in real time, and then we'd get
to the playoffs and the Mavericks would have home or
advantage and we'd be like, it kind of sucks for
(20:03):
the Lakers that they had the best regular season record
and they have to play Game seven in Dallas. I'm
not saying I hate it. I'm not being John, I'm
not I'm just speaking out loud here. This is the
first time I heard this, so I don't want to
tear down I know you put a lot of thought
into this. I'm just saying like, that's what it kind
of feels like to me, and that's what like the
thing that I always think about it was home field
advantages is yeah, But when it comes down to it,
(20:24):
is it? You know, is it is it that valuable?
Is it? Um? Is it? I mean if a series
doesn't even go to seven games, does it even matter?
You know? For those things? Sure, maybe a team gets
to start out at home, and that's different is is
starting out on the road. But I just think that
you need to come up with a system that finds
value in the regular season that everybody would play for
(20:46):
and the only thing that these guys are playing for
is that season in the playoffs, which is the reason
why they're resting. Now, if you have the two can
connected to each other, I think you're gonna have great value.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
gott Leap Show week days at three p m. Easter
noon Pacific. Quarterbacking News This Morning in the NFL. And
this kind of started out with a tweets or a
(21:08):
series of tweets sent out by Chris Mortensen, who UH
longtime NFL reporter, and I love Chris Mortenson's work. I
think he's he's great and has done it for so long.
I did have an issue with a tweet that he
sent out regarding the future of Ben Roethlisberger, because Chris
Mortenson said in essence that there is some question on
(21:32):
whether Ben Roethlisberger would play in He then said, for
clarification purposes, the exact opposite. Now that's not a clarification,
that's a retraction from the original tweet. Well, now we've
heard it straight from Big Ben's mouth, or at least
via his Twitter account. It was earlier today that Ben
Roethlisberger tweeted this in addition to a picture of him
(21:55):
and his family on Christmas morning in their pj's, saying quote, PS,
contrary to recent reports out there about my football future
and my uncertainty about playing again, I am working hard
and I'm more determined than ever to come back stronger
and better than ever next year. Exclamation point that from
one Ben Roethlisberger. When you read that, what comes to
(22:20):
mind when Ben Roethlisberger sends out that holiday cheer for
the Pittsburgh Steeler fans, what comes to mind is, um,
Ben Roethlisberger wants Ben Roethlisberger to be back next year,
and listen, he's I just think it's a whole interesting
scenario because you could start to see the even Week
one against the Patriots this year, it was like, we're
(22:43):
doing this song and dance again with Big Ben, Like,
is it's time to start thinking about the future. But
do you have that future? I just think that the
Steelers dynamic is interesting. I don't know, did I miss
something subtle in there? That What what I find interesting
is Big Ben is alway has been the one for
the spotlight, and Big Ben has taken full advantage. I
(23:05):
think of the heart strings of those fans and Steeler Nation,
and it's the threatening of retirement, the threatening of of
years past, of you know what. I I don't know
if I'm gonna play anymore. I just want to sit
down this offseason, take some time. Ben. Are you are
you thinking about not playing anymore? I don't know. I
just have to see a couple of seasons of that.
(23:27):
Then they draft Mason Rudolph and hey, I plan on
being here for years to come, you know, Like I'm like, so,
so after all these all these talks of retirement and
wanting the fan base and maybe the Steelers would be
like Ben, don't go, Ben, please don't go. Then all
of a sudden, the Steelers draft a possible air apparent
(23:48):
at the time, and Ben's like, no, I'm not going anywhere. Now.
What I feel so unique about this is the Pittsburgh
Steelers are this close from missing the playoffs, and the
Titans win on Sunday. Pittsburgh's out. They do need help
from the Texans, and then the Steelers need to beat
the Ravens with Duck Hodges at quarterback. Is Mason Rudolph's out.
But the point is is there was no backup. There's
(24:08):
no backup to Ben Roethlisberger that can play winning football.
So now Ben sends out a tweet and everybody's like, oh, oh,
my goodness, Thank goodness, Ben is back, Thank goodness, he
is gonna do this for us. I picked Ben Roethlisberger
to be the twenty nineteen NFL m v P. That
was my pick. It's on the paper in there for
(24:29):
the simple reason erin is I thought, without Levian Bell,
without Antonio Brown, that Ben Roethlisberger was gonna throw the
heck out of the football and just get it to
Juju Smith Schuster, get it to James Washington, hit James
Conner in the backfield. But I thought it was going
to be the Ben show, and I expected the Steelers
to have success because he wanted to show that, you
(24:50):
know what, he didn't need Antonio Brown For all the
junk that Antonio Brown talked about Ben Roethlisberger, Ben was
gonna show that he didn't need him. And now they
didn't have Levian Bell, and Levian Bell's not whole thing
out anymore as a member of the New York Jets.
That's why I thought like Ben was going to be
in full I can do this mode. He couldn't do
it on the field, but I think that's exactly what
he's saying in this tweet. And now everybody's like, yeah,
(25:11):
we need you back, Ben because they obviously don't have
any answer behind him at the quarterback position. Fun fact,
I had the Steelers in the super Bowl for the
exact same reason. Yeah, I just thought. I just thought
the whole organization is out to prove that Antonio Brown
was a headache and this was this was like we
made our picks like during the peak Antonio Brown Raiders,
(25:32):
you know. And yeah, so I'll say this with the
Steelers just in general, I just think they're so interesting
from so many levels because there are teams that that
are ushering out the previous you know the legend, right,
the Giants come to mind, were they very clearly have
the answer behind him, which is now Daniel Jones and
(25:54):
Eli Manning has basically played his last time as as
a New York Giant. Um the Steelers don't. And Big
Ben is now thirty seven. He will be thirty eight
before the start of next training camp. And excuse me,
he is not Tom Brady. He is not Mr Plio
Metric uh TB twelve. I I just wonder how much
(26:16):
longer can they go with him? But also they don't
have the definitive answer behind him, like the Giants too
or some of these other organizations. I just think it's
an interesting two or three years. And then, oh, by
the way, they were still pretty successful without him this year.
I just think there's a lot of interesting dynamics within
that organization. I think that there's concern just about the
injury in itself, if that's going to have an effect
(26:38):
now it would likely be a full year almost for
him to recover, so hopefully, and and I don't want
Ben Roethlisberger to not be able to throw a football anymore.
That's the farthest thing that that anybody wants, even if
you're the Steeler's biggest rival. I just to your point, yeah,
about the age, there's a question about the actual injury,
there's a question. There's a lot of questions. There also
(26:59):
is a question, and we don't know the answer to this.
We don't know what's gonna happen with the receiving corps
still with Antonio Brown not being there, Juju Smith Schuster
had an awful year. We don't know if it was
because of the quarterbacking play, if he just didn't have
a you know, rapport with with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph.
We don't know, if maybe teams were then just focusing
on him. We don't even know those answers. So that's
(27:20):
all stuff that's gonna be need to be answered by
Pittsburgh and now for the first time in a little while,
you're also trying to figure out how to catch the
team that's the top of you of the division. There
are a lot of questions about the Pittsburgh Steelers and
and where this team is even even with as great
as the season is gone, with everything seemingly going wrong
for them, there's still a bit of a cloud in
(27:41):
the future just because of how serious the departures and
the issues they had to deal with this season. Yeah. Interesting,
And also in the division, it goes out saying that
the Cincinnati Bengals are probably gonna have Joe Burrow going forward.
The Browns, I know, we just talked about them previously.
I'm not ready to give up on this whole Bay
Mayfield deer. I hope that they have a new head
(28:02):
coach next year. I hope that it's somebody that can
bring a little bit more stability And I'm curious to
see what that organization would look like with a and
I don't think he'll get the job, but of Mike
McCarthy or somebody that has experience that kind of had
will have the pulse of that locker room. So yeah,
it's just in general, the a f C North is
very interesting, but obviously the Steelers fit within the dynamic
(28:23):
of it is interesting as well. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. He was reported yesterday that there could
be some trouble in New York when it comes to
(28:43):
Jets head coach Adam Gaze. Beni Shmatta, who covers the
Jets for the New York Deily News, did a piece
where basically, Adam Gaze is telling everybody, I don't care.
I'm rich, right, I am rich as blank. I don't
give a blank. I'm rich and this is my attitude.
There are a bunch of other things in the piece
that also revealed that Adam Gaze doesn't care about the defense.
(29:06):
There was more than one instance where he walked off
the practice field while the defense was still practicing and
being run by Greg Williams. There was also a report
that the team in the front office had to say
something to him about not being a scrooge when it
comes to being the media, that he can't be a
curmudgeon and you've got to be somewhat relatable or friendly,
(29:28):
and he reluctantly did so. But of all of that, Aaron,
you know what struck me as the most juiciest part
of this is that Adam Gaze apparently has a Burner
accounts And this is where we go. And if you're
not from the or of the Burner account, it is
a Twitter account that does not represent who is actually
(29:50):
running it, yet the person who tweets from it seems
to unapologetically support whoever it is that they're trying to hide.
Is that a good way to put it? I think
that's fair enough. And in this case, this burner account
was run by at wyatt V eighteen and kudos to
cool Your the Cooler Jets podcast at c y J pod,
(30:13):
who went out and was able to uncover all of
the tweets sent by wyatt v eighteen throughout the past
season to support Adam Gaze as the Jets head coach.
Now Here were a few of them. First of all.
Number one, this is from a tweet supporting Gaye saying
Adam Gaze hasn't had the opportunity to implement his offense
(30:33):
due to a long list of problems out of his control.
He is one of the more innovative head coaches in
the league. You have a problem with that tweets? My
only problem is it doesn't sound like anything that's an
actual fan would say. It's way too like inside baseball
for the common Twitter user. So it's very very it's
(30:55):
well constructed. Right. Uh, there's this one. He'd be out
of a job for ten seconds, wasn't a high demand
this offseason. Maybe blame the former front office and old
age training staff. So it's real quick, who's your favorite
team in Milwaukee? Bucks? Yes? Yeah, what do you know
about the Bucks training staff? Not much? Not much. My
point exactly, the casual fan that is either going to
(31:18):
defend his coach or not defend his coach, They're not
gonna the casual fan on the couch is not gonna
reference the training staff as a reason to bring back
the coach. These are all tips, by the way, that
Adam Gaze should be writing down and how to run
a burner account. Adam Gaze has turned Robbie Anderson into
a legitimate all around wide receiver. I mean, yeah that one. Okay, Okay,
(31:39):
I get short, it's brief. There's maybe not much harm
in there. Yeah, I'd have to look at Robbie Anderson's
stats pre and post Adam to get too excited. I
can say this. I thought Robbie Anderson was going to
have a magnificent year because I thought he and Sam
Donald at the end of last year's showed to rapport. Obviously,
Sam Donald was out. Robbie Anderson has been hit and
missed this season. He did not live to my expectations.
(32:01):
And I know, yeah, Donald and the mono thing, but
still to me, there was more to build on. So
I don't know how that's Adam Gaze's success when he
probably didn't have as good of a season as he
did last year. See, and that's something that the casual
fan would bring up to defend a coach that they
believed in, which is bro qb had mono. Like that's
(32:22):
something that that you should throw out from the from
the Burner twitter account, not talking about how old the
ages of the training staff be, like Bro coaches quarterback
was out for six weeks with monos. And then there's
a shot at Levian Bell. This was another tweet from
the supposed Burner account. Hasn't been confirmed that it is,
but again the Wyatt V eighteen, Adam Gaze's seven year
(32:45):
old son's name is Wyatt. Maybe that should be the
hint of don't have a Burner account named after your son.
Just be Steve A B nine six two one four
and then people will just think it's, you know, some
sort of hacked account. How about this Levian Bell was
not a Gaye signing coaching staff wanted at Oliver but
front office at the time at draft capital decisions in
(33:08):
terms of control and went with Quentin Williams from Alabama.
Coaching staff was not in agreement to your point and
everything that you just told me, that sounds way too
inside and actually having inside knowledge about what the coaching
staff was doing to sound like just the casual fan. Yeah,
except for NBA nerds. Nobody uses terms like draft capital decisions.
(33:30):
They wrote out draft capital decisions but abbreviated at oliver
to EO right like to me. And by the way,
if you go to the Coolier Jets Twitter page, because
I want to give them the credit because they did
all the work on this. It is on and on
and on and on about and and and here's another
tip that I will give. Criticize the guy once or
(33:52):
twice and then maybe it takes people off the scent.
But the constant support of Adam Gates and this is
just too hard to deny. Yeah, maybe it means nothing.
But the first person that this Wyatt v A team
followed was the New York Jets official Twitter accounts SO
and met Life Stadium in New York Jets Communications and
(34:14):
Levan Bell and a bunch of Jets beat writers. Now
it's not only including our own Colin cowherd Uh. This this,
this I'd follow, So maybe Colin can slide into those
d m s gets get to get a feel for us.
So great. I actually I don't have a problem with
someone going on Twitter, setting up account and seeing what's
(34:35):
out there, seeing what I don't have a problem. It's
it's the whole responding to it right, you know, and
trying to help. And I actually think that with this
whole report of what has come out that is also
intriguing to me because it seems whoever was the source
of Manischmida's report surely wants Adam Gaze gone. Sure And
(34:57):
and I don't know if it's another coach, I don't
know if it's a member of the front office. But
there's too much inside information, uh, in the actual story
about what Adam Gaze is doing, and and with the
slant of we're painting Adam Gaze in such a poor
light that the fans won't want him around. So if
the public outcries at Adam Gays needs to go, it
(35:18):
allows the new regime of the Jets and Joe Douglas
to get him out of there. Yeah. No, it's it's uh,
it's interesting. And as you said, if you're gonna run
a burner Twitter County, I think the number one thing.
First of all, don't you don't use terms like draft capital.
And also you can say something negative about the guy coach,
what were you doing on third and one there? You know,
like like just throw out of just throw them off
(35:39):
your son a little bit. But hey, put out a
Seinfeld meme. Yeah you know, I'll like do something like
that just to show that, hey, you're you're not just
there to support Adam Gaze. Yeah, yeah, there's not there's
not too many pro Adam Gaze accounts just running nonstoff
so through something Gaze closed, we could say this one
there it is. Be sure to catch the live edition
(36:01):
of The Doug Gottlieb Show weekdays at three p m.
Easter noon Pacific
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug Gottlip
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time, that's twelve to
three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for the Doug Gottlip Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs R. This is the best
(00:22):
of the Doug Gottli Show on Fox Sports Radio. You
would think that when the NBA started, when the NBA
started the Christmas Day thing, you'd have the Lakers on
Christmas Day every day, which they are, you know, the
Nicks on Christmas Day every day, which they aren't. And
then you'd never see the Clippers on Christmas Day, which
(00:42):
they actually are this year. So maybe if my family
turns on the TV, they can actually make history not
only by watching the NBA today, but also by seeing
the Clippers actually in the primetime Marquee game coming up
later on tonight. Yeah. If I had told you a
year ago, well I guess there was already k I
Clippers buzz, but that that the Clippers would be in
(01:02):
the Marquee game with the player that maybe we consider
to be the best in the world, which I personally do.
It's kind of It's just incredible how the the ever
evolving NBA landscape has continued to evolve to the point
where we're at today. The Clippers, by the way, this
isn't their first Christmas Day appearance, but it's their first
(01:22):
appearance in what is the prime spot, right, I mean,
there's there's It's like going to a game like where
we went to the guess what we went to the
Super Bowl? Did you sit in the upper deck? Do
you sit to the fifty yard line or in a
suite like there's there's. Yeah, it's awesome to go to
the Super bowls awesome to be included on Christmas Day.
But today the Clippers have fifty yard line seats or
(01:44):
they are in this suite watching the super Bowl. That
is the big deal. Lob City was able to be
put on the late game at times. Maybe if they
played the Blazers, maybe they played the Phoenix Suns. There
was a unique game, but it would be a ten
thirty Eastern time game maybe on t NT or ESPN.
But they're getting prime, prime real estate on a major
network today when they take on the Lakers and that's
(02:06):
what's that's what's so amazing to me, Aaron, about what
this schedule is laid out and really what the Clippers
have just done as a whole. You just said it.
You think that they've got the best player in the NBA.
This was a franchise that was considered the worst franchise
I would argue, not only in the NBA but in
professional sports period because of the previous ownership of Donald Sterling.
(02:29):
And now when you see where they have come, to me,
it's one of the greatest. And we know how it happened,
and there's there's the the unfortunate situation that happened with
the players having to deal with Donald Sterling's comments, but
it did end that era and it brought in a
new era of Steve Baumber and that's where everything changed.
But to me, it's just it's mind boggling to see
(02:52):
the turnaround of this franchise and just how differently we
view them because of a few people Steve Balmer, Kawhi
Leonard and maybe Paul George and that the complete one
eight is just blown my mind. When I look at
this Clippers squad and Doc Rivers to who's who's kind
of become. UM, I feel like he's more than a
(03:16):
coach at this point, if you know what I mean,
in terms of the role that he plays within the league.
You mentioned the Steve Balmer situation or the Steve Bomber,
the Donald Sterling situation where he was kind of the
voice of reason behind the scenes. You hear the stories
about he was kind of running the organization as they
were going through the ownership transition. But um, it is incredible,
(03:37):
and it is incredible, um where this thing could even
go into three four years as they talk about wanting
to transition out of the Staples Center, get their own building, um,
build their own fan base. It's really interesting because I
actually heard Colin cow Heer talking about this in his show.
Is the idea that the Lakers are so entrenched in
l A in the sense that every night as a show,
(04:00):
every night you expect to be entertained and Lebron can't
really um do kind of the load management thing. Whereas
the Clippers it's not the six month play, it's the
twenty year play. And you really feel like this might
be the start of something brand new, not just with
Kawhi Leonard, but in the bigger picture, with Steve Bamber. Yeah,
I want you to put a pin in that, because
(04:21):
I want to say one more thing about Doc Rivers
since you brought him up. This was a guy that
honestly did as much as he could do and was
still criticized for it. When when he went to Boston,
the conversation and they win the title in two thousand
and eight was, yeah, you won it with Paul Pierce
and KG and Ray Allen and all and all these studs,
(04:41):
But what have you done without that marquee talent? And
he did fair decent in Orlando, but obviously when you
win a championship with the Boston Celtics, you go to
another level. But there are people that weren't putting him
on that level because of the team that he had.
And then he comes to the Clippers, and honestly, that
narrative was strengthened because of Lob City not being able
(05:03):
to break through. We're like, see, look you have Chris, Paul,
Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan's what is Doc Rivers doing?
Just even last season in what they went through and
how they were able to navigate and make the postseason
when a lot of people thought they were going to
give up to have that season, and then now you
bring in the players that they have, I think completely
(05:24):
changes the narrative on how we look at Doc Rivers
as a coach and and your point of you're right,
and I probably have fault because I left him out
of talking about the guy. So I'm glad that you
brought him up. But then to go back to your
point about the the franchise and where they are in
the gap that was between the Lakers and Clippers. When
you have what was considered the worst franchise in the
NBA and what you have is almost the beacon of
(05:46):
all franchises and professional sports, you're putting the Lakers up
there with the Yankees, You're putting them out there with
the Cowboys. That gap was enormous. The gap between the
Yankees and Mets is a gap, but it's not like
it is in l A. The gap between the Cubs
and White Sox in Chicago is a gap, but it's
not like it was in l A. To think that
the Clippers would be the team to close that gap,
(06:07):
and at at the moment, not overall, but just at
the moment of them being almost even with the Lakers
neck and neck to me is just to be on
the same stage with them. Maybe that's a better way
to put it as mind boggling. Yeah, and and it's
crazy because you look at the bigger picture and listen,
the Clippers will never have the fifty years of history
that the Lakers have. They will never have uh all
(06:29):
the championships, all the Hall of Famers, whatever. But if
you start to extrapolate out over the next twenty thirty years,
I think you can make an argument that the Clippers
are in better shape kind of structurally and internally, and
this certainly won't be their last Christmas Day market game.
But that's the part that's so interesting to me is
(06:51):
it started with Steve Baumber taking over. But I I
just look at everything that happened this offseason. We obviously
this week spent a lot of time talking about the
Kawhi Leonard sweep, steaks and what happened behind the scenes,
But part of it was the Lakers bungled it because
every single uh, you know, piece of information got leaked
out to the media. And so you look at listen,
(07:11):
the Lakers will always have the history. Players will always
want to play here because it's l a it's the
Marquis brand. But just in terms of the bigger picture
of where these organizations are going, I think you can
argue that the Clippers are in better shape to really
take off over the next decade. What however many years.
I'm going to say something that I I want to
get your response, and this, this may be blasphemous, this
(07:34):
may not be fair because the Lakers do have Lebron
James and they do have Anthony Davis, and we there's
a possibility of the seven year stretch where things didn't
work out for them to come to an end. They're
gonna make the playoffs, are going to be in contention.
But could it be a situation where kids how kids
(07:55):
nowadays look at Notre Dame when being recruits of they don't.
I mean, I remember Notre Dame winning a national championship
with Lou Holtz and being dominant during that time, and
Notre Dame then was Notre Dame. And and I think
you're old enough to remember when Notre Dame was Notre Dame.
But there are seventeen and eighteen year old kids they'll
know about Notre Dame. Do you think that the Lakers
(08:17):
could enter or being endangered into that if things don't
necessarily work out or if this Clippers thing takes off.
For two reasons, because one, I think you even look
at the structure of this team. Think about you said
seven year stretch. Think about all the guys that we heard,
oh they're gonna be a Laker because it's the Lakers.
You think about all the guys through well, Kevin Love,
(08:39):
he's from l A. Well, first of all, he's not
really from l A. He played U l A. Yeah, yeah,
he played at He's not from me. But I can't
even remember all the names now, Kevin Love and um
Russell Westbrook and Paul George and they're all gonna. I
remember the day I came on UM. I I the
day that Kawhi Leonard Amanda trade from San Antonio. The
(09:01):
next day Arnie Spanier and I came out and did
our oh just hand the like, well, of course he's
gonna go that he's from l A. He wants to
be a Laker. And so I bring that up because
you said, you know, are we hitting this stretch. When
is the last time Lebron came for reasons outside of basketball?
It wasn't because that was the best place for him
to win, and then nobody wanted to play with him.
(09:24):
He had a trade for the guy that of course
has the same agent as him. So I'm just saying
I think it's already kind of happened where the Lakers,
you know, for for thirty or forty years, they got
every guy they wanted in free agency or trade or whatever.
And now even the last four or five years, even
as they've built this team that's in first place, it
hasn't really been like that. I think Lebron is has
(09:45):
and you talk about his plans with the Lakers, it's
it's not as urgent. There isn't a necessity. I almost
compare it to the to the to the big wig,
the fortune five hundred CEO that has a membership at
a different golf club in a state that he doesn't
live in, Like he's a member, you know, and maybe
when he's the aerial play around of golf, but he's
(10:06):
not there every day playing at the country club in
his community. And it's because you know what Lebron wants
to be in that club of hey, I was, I
was a Laker and I brought a championship. But if
it doesn't if it doesn't happen. He still has the
other laurels of of winning in Miami and bringing the
title to Cleveland. Like that's good enough. That's how I
like view it, where it's yeh'd be nice. Yeah, I'd
(10:26):
like to compete and win and win that title, but
to add to his legacy and and and not even
of the Jordan Lebron comparison, none of that stuff, but
just okay, that'd be nice. Yeah. You could be like, hey,
you know, hey Kobe, look at what I got or hey, Magic,
I also got one of these two. I think he
wants to be in that club. And that's where where
I think that where his his desire is. And it's
not that he's he's I just don't think it's the
(10:47):
of the utmost important to your point, No, I I
don't think so at all. And we spent a year
talking about this over you know, since the day that
he signed and whatever it was September, uh July of
where when that title would be nice. But he has
his interests off the field or off the court. Excuse me,
uh that that don't pertain to it. And I think
it's turned off a lot of people. But I just
(11:08):
think it's interesting. Like we were saying, is the Clippers
are structurally built I think to maintain this um and
I'm just fascinated to watch tonight. On top of everything else,
be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
gott Leap Show weekdays at three p m. Easter noon
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
(11:29):
With the NBA's difficulty in making the regular season valuable,
we have heard multiple reports about the changes that are
coming to the regular season, and Aaron, I have no
problem with that. I have a problem with the people
who say this won't work. That won't work, and this
is not gonna happen because something needs to change, something
(11:51):
has to be done different. So bring a new idea
to the table. That's what I want from people when
they're talking about the new NBA, possible new NBA schedule
coming into the couple of years. Yeah, it's tough because
I'm actually the guy that's like, like, I can poke
holes pretty easily into the tournament. But I'll readily admit
that in this scenario, I'm John Ramos. I mean John,
I mean John. I don't have a good alternative. I
(12:13):
mean I think my best alternative is we need to
get stricter about load management and who's playing and who's
not playing, and if the best players are playing in
these nationally televised games, I do think the ratings will
go up. I'm not in love with the tournament, but
I I'll also I'll toss it back to you because
I think you have some ideas on how the tournament
(12:34):
could work, and I'm willing to listen to him. I
just I'm not sold that it's going to be this
big boon and and playing whatever it will be four
games and eight days or whatever. I I'm not sold
that this is the answer. There there are There are
a couple of things that I've seen recently. There is
the report that each player would get a million dollars.
That's awesome to the guy on the roster that really
(12:57):
would love a million dollars. It's not gonna do anything
for Lebron j It's not gonna do anything for Anthony Davis,
Kawhi Leonard any of that. I don't think that draft
picks are realistic. A player has never played for a
draft pick in the history of sports. There's never been
a guy who was taking the court saying we got
to win this game so our draft stock is better
or worse, and that draft picks probably in the NBA
(13:18):
have never been less valuable too. I mean, we saw
four for Kauhi Leonard for for Anthony Davis. So continue though.
Let's let's and also say, if you're in the NFL
and you're a quarterback and you're Andy Dalton Cincinnati, you're
really gonna tank. So the team could draft Joe Burrow
right now. You don't have a job or you're not
playing anyone like that doesn't make sense. So applying draft
picks to a mid season tournament doesn't doesn't do anything.
(13:40):
Here is my solution, and the reason I think this
solution works is because it adds value to what a
tournament would be. And this is a drastic change, Aaron.
You're not gonna fix all eighty two games. You're not
gonna make every single game watchable and must watch TV.
So you've got to at least add some value. Because
(14:03):
the real value in an NBA season starts in April
and it ends in June. That's really what we're playing for.
Despite the season starting in October. We only care about
the NBA playoffs. I do think that an NBA mid
season tournament would be useful, and I think that it
could be beneficial, and I think that it could be
very interesting if the NBA does this. Number One, you
adopt a system like you do in soccer or like
(14:24):
you do in the NHL, and you give points for victories.
This takes win loss record out of the case. So
if you just for the tournament or just for the
whole regular season, So you would take the Milwaukee Bucks,
for example, last year had the most wins in the
NBA with sixty, they would have a hundred and twenty
points if you assigned two points for every win. There's
no points for games going into overtime. It's you win,
(14:45):
you get to You lose, you get zero. But if
you play a tournament, you then add the value of
points within that tournament. So let's say you have a
thirty team tournament. You would start off giving the top
two teams buys that so you would have value of
playing well early in the season prior to the start
of the tournament. So the box of the top record
(15:05):
in the East. Lakers have the top record in the West.
Guess what, they don't have to play a first round
game in the tournament, and then they get a point
value that will be assigned to every single bracket or
every single round of that tournament. I hope I'm not
getting too much in the weeds here, but this is
where this is where it sorts out erin. If you
assigned say one point for a first round victory, you
(15:26):
add that to your season total. If you win your
second round game, you get two points, and you're adding this.
So a team like the Boston Celtics, who last year
had forty nine wins, finished with ninety eight points. Under
this scenario, if you made a run through the tournament,
they could have improved their seeding from a four seed
to a two seed. It allows for incentive within the
(15:48):
season where if we win this tournament, we could really
set us up for the postseason, or this can add
benefits down the line. What now is happening is it's
the regular season is dragging on and I just want
to be ready for the playoffs. If you actually give
the team's immediate incentive to pay off what they care about,
(16:09):
and that's winning the playoffs and winning an NBA championship,
that's how I think you get players and teams involved
and fans involved. If you put like ten extra bonus
points for a championship game at the end of this tournament,
that could lift you from a five seed where you
wouldn't have home court in the playoffs, that could have
put you to a three seed where you would be
(16:29):
able to host a game. It's those different incentives that
I think would work in the NBA. Is it too confusing?
Do you think it's not? It's not start because I
I don't want to be John, I don't want to
be think because I actually don't hate it at all.
I'm trying to think of what the argument from the
players Association or the owners would be. Um. Do we
(16:50):
think that most of the owners? I know Mark Cuban's
been very vocal against it. Do we think most of
the owners are on board with this? Just in the
bigger picture, not just your scenario, but just in general. Um,
I think that I think that something needs to be
done because I think when you when I mean it's
definitely for TV, and you have to have some some
(17:11):
some intrigue. The issue that I think that you could
see the pushback is and and I can't answer your question.
I don't know if twenty out of the thirtie for it,
So I don't want to gloss over that part. But
the fact is is these games are great here and
Lakers Clippers today is gonna be awesome to watch, But
in the grand scheme of things, does it give value?
And I just don't think like a game next week
(17:34):
isn't going to be intriguing for us to watch. It's
intriguing because it's Lakers Clippers today, but it's also on
Christmas Day. You could have a Celtics Raptors game that
could be very intriguing for any of the teams that
could possibly try to be holding off the Celtics to
get those bonus points in a bracket. Or you could
(17:55):
be a Celtics fan like there's There are a lot
of different ways where you can involve it, and that
of just having a midseason tournament and giving a fake
trophy if you if you use the tournament as incentive
to improve where you are in April where it really counts,
that's what I think would add value to the NBA's
change of schedule. And it's a very interesting argument. I mean,
(18:17):
my only thing would be I do think it would
be weird if doubts like I'm just using Dallas as
an example. Luca Dodge has played overseas. He play in
these tournaments. Dallas gets hot, they win this tournament, but
they finishes like the seven seed in the West in
the regular season by win loss record, but they end
up with home court advantage throughout the playoffs. And I
(18:39):
know that that's the incentive for winning the tournament, but
I do feel like it could skew too far the
other way where I can't stink, like you can't just
like we need to win the tournament and that's it.
Like you still have to have you still have to
add value to the regular season, and my doing it
with a point system, I think it's the only way
(18:59):
way to really do it. You'd have to change it,
but it would allow the Mavericks who are let's say
the five spot right now, what about if they go
on this amazing or You'd have to figure out the
value and how it would break down. But if you're
getting a you know, a point value for every time
you advance, it also allows the teams who are advancing
to increase some of their value. And if you're upset
(19:22):
in the first round, you're gonna have another team that's
gonna be able to build up those point values, and
that's going to add importance to that game. It's not
going to totally flip the entire power structure of it,
because each game would still have its value of having
two points, but it allows you to have a mid
season tournament that has is maybe a little bit more
(19:42):
important than just the five games that we see on
Christmas Day. Yeah, all I would say is I do
think it feels a lot like Major League Baseball awarding
the postseason home field advantage. I feel like it would
be really fun in real time, and then we'd get
to the playoffs and the Mavericks would have home or
advantage and we'd be like, it kind of sucks for
(20:03):
the Lakers that they had the best regular season record
and they have to play Game seven in Dallas. I'm
not saying I hate it. I'm not being John, I'm
not I'm just speaking out loud here. This is the
first time I heard this, so I don't want to
tear down I know you put a lot of thought
into this. I'm just saying like, that's what it kind
of feels like to me, and that's what like the
thing that I always think about it was home field
advantages is yeah, But when it comes down to it,
(20:24):
is it? You know, is it is it that valuable?
Is it? Um? Is it? I mean if a series
doesn't even go to seven games, does it even matter?
You know? For those things? Sure, maybe a team gets
to start out at home, and that's different is is
starting out on the road. But I just think that
you need to come up with a system that finds
value in the regular season that everybody would play for
(20:46):
and the only thing that these guys are playing for
is that season in the playoffs, which is the reason
why they're resting. Now, if you have the two can
connected to each other, I think you're gonna have great value.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
gott Leap Show week days at three p m. Easter
noon Pacific. Quarterbacking News This Morning in the NFL. And
this kind of started out with a tweets or a
(21:08):
series of tweets sent out by Chris Mortensen, who UH
longtime NFL reporter, and I love Chris Mortenson's work. I
think he's he's great and has done it for so long.
I did have an issue with a tweet that he
sent out regarding the future of Ben Roethlisberger, because Chris
Mortenson said in essence that there is some question on
(21:32):
whether Ben Roethlisberger would play in He then said, for
clarification purposes, the exact opposite. Now that's not a clarification,
that's a retraction from the original tweet. Well, now we've
heard it straight from Big Ben's mouth, or at least
via his Twitter account. It was earlier today that Ben
Roethlisberger tweeted this in addition to a picture of him
(21:55):
and his family on Christmas morning in their pj's, saying quote, PS,
contrary to recent reports out there about my football future
and my uncertainty about playing again, I am working hard
and I'm more determined than ever to come back stronger
and better than ever next year. Exclamation point that from
one Ben Roethlisberger. When you read that, what comes to
(22:20):
mind when Ben Roethlisberger sends out that holiday cheer for
the Pittsburgh Steeler fans, what comes to mind is, um,
Ben Roethlisberger wants Ben Roethlisberger to be back next year,
and listen, he's I just think it's a whole interesting
scenario because you could start to see the even Week
one against the Patriots this year, it was like, we're
(22:43):
doing this song and dance again with Big Ben, Like,
is it's time to start thinking about the future. But
do you have that future? I just think that the
Steelers dynamic is interesting. I don't know, did I miss
something subtle in there? That What what I find interesting
is Big Ben is alway has been the one for
the spotlight, and Big Ben has taken full advantage. I
(23:05):
think of the heart strings of those fans and Steeler Nation,
and it's the threatening of retirement, the threatening of of
years past, of you know what. I I don't know
if I'm gonna play anymore. I just want to sit
down this offseason, take some time. Ben. Are you are
you thinking about not playing anymore? I don't know. I
just have to see a couple of seasons of that.
(23:27):
Then they draft Mason Rudolph and hey, I plan on
being here for years to come, you know, Like I'm like, so,
so after all these all these talks of retirement and
wanting the fan base and maybe the Steelers would be
like Ben, don't go, Ben, please don't go. Then all
of a sudden, the Steelers draft a possible air apparent
(23:48):
at the time, and Ben's like, no, I'm not going anywhere. Now.
What I feel so unique about this is the Pittsburgh
Steelers are this close from missing the playoffs, and the
Titans win on Sunday. Pittsburgh's out. They do need help
from the Texans, and then the Steelers need to beat
the Ravens with Duck Hodges at quarterback. Is Mason Rudolph's out.
But the point is is there was no backup. There's
(24:08):
no backup to Ben Roethlisberger that can play winning football.
So now Ben sends out a tweet and everybody's like, oh, oh,
my goodness, Thank goodness, Ben is back, Thank goodness, he
is gonna do this for us. I picked Ben Roethlisberger
to be the twenty nineteen NFL m v P. That
was my pick. It's on the paper in there for
(24:29):
the simple reason erin is I thought, without Levian Bell,
without Antonio Brown, that Ben Roethlisberger was gonna throw the
heck out of the football and just get it to
Juju Smith Schuster, get it to James Washington, hit James
Conner in the backfield. But I thought it was going
to be the Ben show, and I expected the Steelers
to have success because he wanted to show that, you
(24:50):
know what, he didn't need Antonio Brown For all the
junk that Antonio Brown talked about Ben Roethlisberger, Ben was
gonna show that he didn't need him. And now they
didn't have Levian Bell, and Levian Bell's not whole thing
out anymore as a member of the New York Jets.
That's why I thought like Ben was going to be
in full I can do this mode. He couldn't do
it on the field, but I think that's exactly what
he's saying in this tweet. And now everybody's like, yeah,
(25:11):
we need you back, Ben because they obviously don't have
any answer behind him at the quarterback position. Fun fact,
I had the Steelers in the super Bowl for the
exact same reason. Yeah, I just thought. I just thought
the whole organization is out to prove that Antonio Brown
was a headache and this was this was like we
made our picks like during the peak Antonio Brown Raiders,
(25:32):
you know. And yeah, so I'll say this with the
Steelers just in general, I just think they're so interesting
from so many levels because there are teams that that
are ushering out the previous you know the legend, right,
the Giants come to mind, were they very clearly have
the answer behind him, which is now Daniel Jones and
(25:54):
Eli Manning has basically played his last time as as
a New York Giant. Um the Steelers don't. And Big
Ben is now thirty seven. He will be thirty eight
before the start of next training camp. And excuse me,
he is not Tom Brady. He is not Mr Plio
Metric uh TB twelve. I I just wonder how much
(26:16):
longer can they go with him? But also they don't
have the definitive answer behind him, like the Giants too
or some of these other organizations. I just think it's
an interesting two or three years. And then, oh, by
the way, they were still pretty successful without him this year.
I just think there's a lot of interesting dynamics within
that organization. I think that there's concern just about the
injury in itself, if that's going to have an effect
(26:38):
now it would likely be a full year almost for
him to recover, so hopefully, and and I don't want
Ben Roethlisberger to not be able to throw a football anymore.
That's the farthest thing that that anybody wants, even if
you're the Steeler's biggest rival. I just to your point, yeah,
about the age, there's a question about the actual injury,
there's a question. There's a lot of questions. There also
(26:59):
is a question, and we don't know the answer to this.
We don't know what's gonna happen with the receiving corps
still with Antonio Brown not being there, Juju Smith Schuster
had an awful year. We don't know if it was
because of the quarterbacking play, if he just didn't have
a you know, rapport with with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph.
We don't know, if maybe teams were then just focusing
on him. We don't even know those answers. So that's
(27:20):
all stuff that's gonna be need to be answered by
Pittsburgh and now for the first time in a little while,
you're also trying to figure out how to catch the
team that's the top of you of the division. There
are a lot of questions about the Pittsburgh Steelers and
and where this team is even even with as great
as the season is gone, with everything seemingly going wrong
for them, there's still a bit of a cloud in
(27:41):
the future just because of how serious the departures and
the issues they had to deal with this season. Yeah. Interesting,
And also in the division, it goes out saying that
the Cincinnati Bengals are probably gonna have Joe Burrow going forward.
The Browns, I know, we just talked about them previously.
I'm not ready to give up on this whole Bay
Mayfield deer. I hope that they have a new head
(28:02):
coach next year. I hope that it's somebody that can
bring a little bit more stability And I'm curious to
see what that organization would look like with a and
I don't think he'll get the job, but of Mike
McCarthy or somebody that has experience that kind of had
will have the pulse of that locker room. So yeah,
it's just in general, the a f C North is
very interesting, but obviously the Steelers fit within the dynamic
(28:23):
of it is interesting as well. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. He was reported yesterday that there could
be some trouble in New York when it comes to
(28:43):
Jets head coach Adam Gaze. Beni Shmatta, who covers the
Jets for the New York Deily News, did a piece
where basically, Adam Gaze is telling everybody, I don't care.
I'm rich, right, I am rich as blank. I don't
give a blank. I'm rich and this is my attitude.
There are a bunch of other things in the piece
that also revealed that Adam Gaze doesn't care about the defense.
(29:06):
There was more than one instance where he walked off
the practice field while the defense was still practicing and
being run by Greg Williams. There was also a report
that the team in the front office had to say
something to him about not being a scrooge when it
comes to being the media, that he can't be a
curmudgeon and you've got to be somewhat relatable or friendly,
(29:28):
and he reluctantly did so. But of all of that, Aaron,
you know what struck me as the most juiciest part
of this is that Adam Gaze apparently has a Burner
accounts And this is where we go. And if you're
not from the or of the Burner account, it is
a Twitter account that does not represent who is actually
(29:50):
running it, yet the person who tweets from it seems
to unapologetically support whoever it is that they're trying to hide.
Is that a good way to put it? I think
that's fair enough. And in this case, this burner account
was run by at wyatt V eighteen and kudos to
cool Your the Cooler Jets podcast at c y J pod,
(30:13):
who went out and was able to uncover all of
the tweets sent by wyatt v eighteen throughout the past
season to support Adam Gaze as the Jets head coach.
Now Here were a few of them. First of all.
Number one, this is from a tweet supporting Gaye saying
Adam Gaze hasn't had the opportunity to implement his offense
(30:33):
due to a long list of problems out of his control.
He is one of the more innovative head coaches in
the league. You have a problem with that tweets? My
only problem is it doesn't sound like anything that's an
actual fan would say. It's way too like inside baseball
for the common Twitter user. So it's very very it's
(30:55):
well constructed. Right. Uh, there's this one. He'd be out
of a job for ten seconds, wasn't a high demand
this offseason. Maybe blame the former front office and old
age training staff. So it's real quick, who's your favorite
team in Milwaukee? Bucks? Yes? Yeah, what do you know
about the Bucks training staff? Not much? Not much. My
point exactly, the casual fan that is either going to
(31:18):
defend his coach or not defend his coach, They're not
gonna the casual fan on the couch is not gonna
reference the training staff as a reason to bring back
the coach. These are all tips, by the way, that
Adam Gaze should be writing down and how to run
a burner account. Adam Gaze has turned Robbie Anderson into
a legitimate all around wide receiver. I mean, yeah that one. Okay, Okay,
(31:39):
I get short, it's brief. There's maybe not much harm
in there. Yeah, I'd have to look at Robbie Anderson's
stats pre and post Adam to get too excited. I
can say this. I thought Robbie Anderson was going to
have a magnificent year because I thought he and Sam
Donald at the end of last year's showed to rapport. Obviously,
Sam Donald was out. Robbie Anderson has been hit and
missed this season. He did not live to my expectations.
(32:01):
And I know, yeah, Donald and the mono thing, but
still to me, there was more to build on. So
I don't know how that's Adam Gaze's success when he
probably didn't have as good of a season as he
did last year. See, and that's something that the casual
fan would bring up to defend a coach that they
believed in, which is bro qb had mono. Like that's
(32:22):
something that that you should throw out from the from
the Burner twitter account, not talking about how old the
ages of the training staff be, like Bro coaches quarterback
was out for six weeks with monos. And then there's
a shot at Levian Bell. This was another tweet from
the supposed Burner account. Hasn't been confirmed that it is,
but again the Wyatt V eighteen, Adam Gaze's seven year
(32:45):
old son's name is Wyatt. Maybe that should be the
hint of don't have a Burner account named after your son.
Just be Steve A B nine six two one four
and then people will just think it's, you know, some
sort of hacked account. How about this Levian Bell was
not a Gaye signing coaching staff wanted at Oliver but
front office at the time at draft capital decisions in
(33:08):
terms of control and went with Quentin Williams from Alabama.
Coaching staff was not in agreement to your point and
everything that you just told me, that sounds way too
inside and actually having inside knowledge about what the coaching
staff was doing to sound like just the casual fan. Yeah,
except for NBA nerds. Nobody uses terms like draft capital decisions.
(33:30):
They wrote out draft capital decisions but abbreviated at oliver
to EO right like to me. And by the way,
if you go to the Coolier Jets Twitter page, because
I want to give them the credit because they did
all the work on this. It is on and on
and on and on about and and and here's another
tip that I will give. Criticize the guy once or
(33:52):
twice and then maybe it takes people off the scent.
But the constant support of Adam Gates and this is
just too hard to deny. Yeah, maybe it means nothing.
But the first person that this Wyatt v A team
followed was the New York Jets official Twitter accounts SO
and met Life Stadium in New York Jets Communications and
(34:14):
Levan Bell and a bunch of Jets beat writers. Now
it's not only including our own Colin cowherd Uh. This this,
this I'd follow, So maybe Colin can slide into those
d m s gets get to get a feel for us.
So great. I actually I don't have a problem with
someone going on Twitter, setting up account and seeing what's
(34:35):
out there, seeing what I don't have a problem. It's
it's the whole responding to it right, you know, and
trying to help. And I actually think that with this
whole report of what has come out that is also
intriguing to me because it seems whoever was the source
of Manischmida's report surely wants Adam Gaze gone. Sure And
(34:57):
and I don't know if it's another coach, I don't
know if it's a member of the front office. But
there's too much inside information, uh, in the actual story
about what Adam Gaze is doing, and and with the
slant of we're painting Adam Gaze in such a poor
light that the fans won't want him around. So if
the public outcries at Adam Gays needs to go, it
(35:18):
allows the new regime of the Jets and Joe Douglas
to get him out of there. Yeah. No, it's it's uh,
it's interesting. And as you said, if you're gonna run
a burner Twitter County, I think the number one thing.
First of all, don't you don't use terms like draft capital.
And also you can say something negative about the guy coach,
what were you doing on third and one there? You know,
like like just throw out of just throw them off
(35:39):
your son a little bit. But hey, put out a
Seinfeld meme. Yeah you know, I'll like do something like
that just to show that, hey, you're you're not just
there to support Adam Gaze. Yeah, yeah, there's not there's
not too many pro Adam Gaze accounts just running nonstoff
so through something Gaze closed, we could say this one
there it is. Be sure to catch the live edition
(36:01):
of The Doug Gottlieb Show weekdays at three p m.
Easter noon Pacific
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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