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August 14, 2025 • 120 mins
On our maiden voyage on Fox Sports Radio, we discuss the ongoing feud between Jerry Jones and Micah Parsons, Shedeur Sanders' preseason debut for the Browns and more. Plus, Petros Papadakis previews the college football season!
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio, Fox Sports Radio,
Kevin Figures, Adam Altlin here on Fox Sports Saturday, and
Adam Alson. I guess the Cleveland Browns are super Bowl
bound and they have the rookie of the Year, the MVP,
the best player in the NFL after making his pre
season debut for Cleveland, that being Shador Sanders.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I don't know who had more pressure tonight, chadure from
Dion Sanders or us with Brebrey hyping us up so
much and giving us his opportunity to fill in here
on Fox Sports Radio. But I like it, Kevin.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah, It's been a long time coming, but we appreciate
the opportunity. Gonna have a lot of fun tonight or
this morning wherever you may be listening here on Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
And I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
You know how we like to start things off here
in our a block.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Come on pre Brix producer brebre here with us. Well,
Kevin brought it up there my Carolina Panthers.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
That's right, Adam Alson and our one of our producer,
engineer head Han shows here at Fox Sports Radio, Big
Mike lind Guard the only two Carolina Panther fans that
I've ever met, well.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
And there are only two that you're ever gonna meet.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here's the point.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I don't want to bury the lead.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I know the Panthers lost thirty to ten. I think
we have to talk about the Cleveland Browns, which is
weird to say. Oh, I thought we're gonna talk about
Bryce Young. So now all right, look keep you looked
pretty good on that last drive. He looked okay, he
made a nice pass. I know, he kind of turned
things around at the end of last season after he
was benched for Andy Dalton at one point, which is embarrassing.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You know what's embarrassing is the Raiders getting lit up
by Andy Dalton, by the way, after Bryce Young got benched.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
So we all have our cross to bear. Pat Kevin, Yeah, absolutely,
I got a question for you, all right. I think
this is the question of the hour. Is Joe Flacco
elite at holding a clipboard? Because that's what he might
be doing now after what should Door Sanders just showed
us tonight for the Cleveland Browns.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Shador Sanders two touchdown passes, and I would say, I mean,
and I'm rarely one to fall victim to I perble,
especially when it comes to the preseason, but pretty tight
window throws, especially the first touchdown pass tight he threw
against Carolina. I won't say that I was impressed. I'll
say this because I try not to overhype things when
it comes to the preseason, because look, Shador Sanders can
come out and play terribly next week and throw three

(02:12):
interceptions against Philadelphia and now people are going to say, oh,
he's a giant bust. I think all you can say
is he belongs in the NFL. There's a lot of
Vanella defenses, obviously, but his his first run.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Out there, he looked like he belonged.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
He wasn't out there, He wasn't shell shocked, wasn't running
for his life, didn't throw a bunch of interceptions. So
at the very least we can say Shador Sanders can't
make it in the NFL. That's the only thing that
I think the biggest thing we can take away from tonight.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I don't want to be a prisoner of the moment,
but I do wonder still how he slid to being
picked in the fifth round, Like I haven't seen a
slide that embarrassing since David Vasse was in Milwaukee, like
that was what did he say in the interview? What
do you say to bomb the interview? That bad with
NFL coaches to slide all the way to fifth? Earlier

(03:00):
today was posting the Glengarry Glenn Ross clip where he's like,
you see this watch, this watch is worth more than
your car, I mean, nine hundred and seventy thousand dollars
last year. ALC. Baldwin says, did he say something that ridiculous?

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, the problem is you actually have to go to
interviews in order to say something, and that's that's where
the controversy jumps ups in so a lot of people,
and there's been a lot of confirmed reports from a
lot of people that I trust that say he didn't
really respect the draft combine process, didn't interview with a
lot of teams, didn't work out for teams, kind of
had this sense of entitlement. He acted as if he

(03:34):
was Andrew luck or Trevor Lawrence, and he wasn't that.
He had a first round grade for a lot of people,
second round grade for some, but he was kind of
a bit of a tweeter because not the tallest guy
doesn't have the strongest arm, so he didn't really knock
you out with physical measurables, which usually guys who are
thought of as top five picks, top quarterback prospects usually

(03:55):
do that. So if he didn't respect the draft process,
there are a lot of people who said, like, oh, basically,
while if you're gonna, you know, flip us off, then
we're gonna do the exact same thing to you.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
You talk about Geno Smith, now, well we'll.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Get to that later. So that's what happened. So I
do think it's odd that he went to the fifth round.
I think he's much better than that. But I do
think there was a it was kind of a revolt
from NFL team saying like, look, we respect your talent,
would think you could be a good player, but we're
not gonna have you come in here and disrespect the process.
You're not your father who allegedly, you know, went to
the draft combine and jumped out of a limo, ran

(04:26):
the forty yard dash and ran back into the limo
and ran out and said I'm not working.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Out for anybody.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, because Deon Sanders was an undeniable top five pick
turned into a Hall of Famer, nobody said that about
s your door, but S your door again reportedly had
that gave off that vibe to NFL franchises and that's
why he ended up sliding.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, he may not be his father, but tonight that
window of opportunity or the door that was open, he
high stepped right through it like his father would like.
That was impressive because you can say what you want
about vanilla defenses and basic packages that are being used
in the preseason because nobody wants to reveal their hand.
But if you look at the quality of throws, the

(05:02):
precision with those throws, he had very tight windows on
the touchdown passes. His best passes were in the highest
leverage situations. He had another one it was a third
down in the end zone, right before he took a
hit to convert a first down. Like he stepped up
in those big moments. I don't like believing in the
it factor too much or fall into the trap of

(05:24):
the skip baylist, the clutch gene and all these things.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And by the way, I a'll call it clutch. It's
the first three quarters of a preseason game. Hey, I
call him that part.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Now.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
The pressure was on him just like us tonight and
he performed a very high level, just like we're going to.
I'm just saying the way he conducted himself and managed
the huddle pre snap also kind of remarkable in his
first taste of the NFL when all eyes were on him.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, and look, it certainly helps being with someone who
was a bit of a quarterback whisperer.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Now.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Granted, Deshaun Watson might disagree, but it has had his
own host of issues since being signed by Cleveland. Being
with Kevin Stefanski, one of the better quarterback coaches offensive
mines in the NFL, certainly is going to help his progression.
Before we get deeper into this mark, do we have
the sound of Shador Sanders with NFL Network. Let's see
what Shador had to say about his performance tonight in
his preseason debut conversation.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
Now, of course, is about how many reps you get
and what reps you get.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Do you feel like you.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
Did something today to move up the depth chart?

Speaker 6 (06:24):
I honestly don't know, and I don't really care. You know,
whenever it's my turn and I just gotta take ahotage
of it. I feel like, you know, today I did
some good, some bad, and I know moving forward. You know,
I won't make the same mistakes twice, so does not
a MICUs throw. And you know, regardless of whatever the situation,
it is not up to me, and it is what
it is. I just got to, you know, accept whatever

(06:46):
whatever everything come with.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
I know there's a lot of Ben Maller sports cliches
in there, so you can roll your eyes.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Humble young man.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
There by the way, I sound like somebody who would
make a mockery of the draft pre draft process.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
To me, maybe he learned his lesson, I hope. So
maybe he he's been humbled to some degree, but still
has the swag, the energy, the holding his wrist up
to say, perfect timing, whatever his gesture is. Everybody was
doing it tonight. Everybody was talking about it. He went
viral just off of his celebration that he's been doing
for two years now. But there is a little bit

(07:19):
of maturity there that's interesting to me, like control what
you can control, don't worry about the outside noise, and
lock in no regular I don't know if he's gonna
end up being Roger Staubach.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, you listen to some of the Twitter talks. Lebron
James is out of her tweet. Now, I told y'all
of paraphrasing, but that's essentially this is why we just
want to calm a little bit of this down. I'm
happy for Shad Door Sanders.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
I want us to backpedal like his father Dion.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
No, not necessarily. I just want us to just to
manage our expectations here a little bit. People think that
Shador Sanders is like the second coming of Peyton Manny
or something. I'm just saying, the guy played well in
two and a half quarters of the preseason against the
Carolina Panthers. Let's calm it down just a little bit. Wait,
let that height out disrespect to you and Big Mike's Panthers.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, that did feel like hate there. Why they have
to catch us stray here? Just because he went against
their first team and carve their defense up. That doesn't
mean they're gonna have just three wins or whatever this season.
Come on, the Panthers can respond, They can come back
from this.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
You're right, maybe they can have four wins this year.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
No, it's gonna be bad. It's gonna be real bad,
including uh, the worst of vision in football. Maybe, and
they still can't win it. But you mentioned the Lebron
James quote what he put out on x or on
Twitter saying something to the effect of, I don't care
that it was preseason. If he failed, you would have
been on his you know what, Uh huh, So give

(08:39):
him some bleeping credit.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
He's right about that part.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
He's right to a degree. But we all knew going
into this that Shaduur was in kind of a no
win situation, as every young quarterback is in the preseason
that has expectations. If you play well, well you're supposed to.
Are you good or not? It's the preseason. You better
dominate the Carolina Panthers. What are we talking about here?

(09:02):
They got an owner who throws the drink in the
face of opposing fans, And if he plays poorly, it's
how could you play that bad against the Panthers?

Speaker 1 (09:11):
He can't win, it's lose, lose. Well, I think it
actually helps him. The fact that he dropped into the
fifth round. Had he been a first round pick, I
think the pressure would have been on a lot more.
The fact that he fell in the draft for whatever reason,
and there's a lot of people who don't even know
those reasons why he would have dropped all they know is, well, yeah,
he got a lot of height, but he was a
fifth round pick, so what are the expectations. Really? He's
in this four way quarterback battling camp with the Browns

(09:33):
and the only reason he started was because a couple
of their players can he pick it and Dylan Gabriel
were injured.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
He wasn't even slated to start to start on Friday Night.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Here's what I want to know from the same people
that are praising him at defending him, like Lebron James tonight.
If Dylan Gabriel goes out when he gets his time
in the preseason and throws two touchdowns and looks good,
are you gonna put as much weight into that. No,
are you gonna say whatever, it's preseason, he didn't do it,
should or did in the preseason.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I one thing I'll say about this, because you talk
about the pressure that should do is under He is
in a legit quarterback battle. This isn't like he was
drafted and there's an incumbent starter who's in front of him,
who you know is going to be the lynch pin
on for the offense this coming season and maybe for
seasons to come. This isn't Alex Smith playing ahead of
Patrick Mahomes where you knew what it was going to
be for a year. He's in a legit battle with

(10:22):
three other quarterbacks in camp, and so the pressure is
on just from that standpoint going out into a game,
making sure you put on your best face and play
the best way you possibly can because you want to
make sure that you're the starter on day one.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
You can say it's just the preseason, it's just the
Carolina Panthers, but the truth is, bottom line, he passed
his first test with flying colors. Now throw another one
his way, see what happens next. Like, that's what it
has to be. And I think they got the Eagles.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Coming at Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, so maybe a little bit stiffer competition than the
Carolina Panthers.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh, I mean also depends on who Philly's playing. I
don't know if they're going to play their starters up.
I was coming onstall victory.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I wouldn't their third string players are better than the
Carolina Panthers first Dring Kevin, I can own that.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
What the Carolina Panthers beat the University of Georgia, We're
gonna have that conversation.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
No, but there's no defenders out there that I recognized.
I don't see Julius Peppers. I don't see Lamar Lathan, Rip,
Kevin Green, Sam Mills, I love Eric Davis. Nobody like
that is walking through that door for the Carolina Panthers.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
Carew quiz hot shot.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, I will say for the people that say the
preseason is meaningless, I don't know if it means a
whole lot, but I would never say that it's completely
meaningless because we've seen careers made in the preseason. One
of the more popular ones was Terrell Davis Hall of
Famer for the Denver broncos Of. One of his highlights
that actually got him to make the roster undrafted to
begin with, was a special team's gunner. That's how he
made the team. People talk about Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson

(11:40):
was a backup. Russell Wilson was drafted at the third
round by the Seattle Seahawks and they gave a giant
contract that offseason to Matt Flynn, who had what two
good starts for the Green Bay Packers or something in
the previous year. They signed him to a big contract
to be the starter.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Was that Pete Carroll's first year with Seattle.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
It might have been his second or third. I don't
fully remember. I don't know if it was his first year.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, you're right, he still had a little bit of
time at like a seven and nine record before they ascended.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, yeah, a rookie who had no expectations in Russell Wilson,
and he became He was undeniable in the preseason and
became the starting quarterback. So these things do matter. Well,
the Creaseason performances do matter. I just had a lot
of fans come out and say that it doesn't necessarily matter.
It trusts me, it does.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
We should know more than ever how much it matters
because of hard knocks, because of guys on the bubble,
seeing guys compete for jobs, seeing guys have their key
cards revoked heading.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Back to the facility because they got cut, which, by
the way, hard knocks do it for you anymore.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Because I'm not really feeling it.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
We have so much access to access to everything, it's
not necessary. It feels like overkill.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I'm sure it's not getting the ratings that used to
not just because they're covering the bills. Because the bills
are actually good, no, well, which is rare. They usually
have a terrible team. I like, I enjoy the end
season Hard Knocks a lot more. And Amazon Prime started this.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
I think the Arizona Cardinals some years ago when they
had Carson Palmer and they had those runs.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
They were the first.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
It was called something different exactly forget exactly what it
was called. But they chronicled the entire season through the
regular season. And that's a lot more interesting because now
you have narrative, you have injuries, uh you know, you
have a bunch of different things going on through the
course of an entire seventeen game schedule.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
I weirdly almost have Hard Knocks nostalgia now thinking about
the Jets being on there. I think in back to
back seasons a number the terminator John Connor's right, I think,
uh yeah, we had a Schwarzenegger movie on the studio
a little bit earlier, total recall, so maybe it made
me think of it. But there were fun battles going
on and those.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Martin, Oh, that's Mark.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
It had to be Mark. It had to be marked. Now, Brevery, Okay,
come with me, if you want to live, come with me,
if you want to win, said Chadur Sanders. I saw
a sign if you want to win put twelve in
I think from a lady in the crowd. Pretty pretty clever, Kevin.
I'm just gonna catch on the Browns fans be excited
about something.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Well, you know what they should. It's been a long time,
so why not.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I mean, I'm be excited about your Rockie quarterback going
out there and balling out in the preseason.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
When you say long, are you referring to them having
gone through forty different quarterbacks since nineteen ninety nine when
they initially came back with Tim couch O.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Well, look, I don't want to bring up Ernest Byner,
but you know it's been a while.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Okay, so you're talking about I'm actually having success and
then blowing it in an AFC Championship game.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
I mean that's the closest they've ever come to doing anything.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Can I quiz you on something? Since Breed did play
the pop quiz hot shot? Sound out of not hot shot?

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Ye quiz hot shot?

Speaker 7 (14:25):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
We got it from speed here?

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Can you name?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
You're good at this?

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It depends.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
It's really about how quickly you can name these quarterbacks?

Speaker 4 (14:34):
All right?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Just give me ten to the forty Browns quarterbacks that
have been out there, okay since nineteen ninety nine, ninety nine,
the level of turnover they have had. Anybody who has
been under center who has taken a snap for the
Cleveland Browns, Tim Couch, That is correct, Kelly Holcom, I
think so.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, well we'll give.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
It to you.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
It's on this Clay list. Baker Mayfield, Yeah, Baker's doesn't. Uh,
there's some washed quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Derek Beaver quarterback and.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Not only was Derek Anderson a quarterback for the Browns,
they had a ten and six record with him and they.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Missed the posts. Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
We're talking about some panthers.

Speaker 7 (15:29):
At one.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I mean, you could throw a dart at a board
probably play for them. It's like six degrees of separation
with the Cleveland Browns.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Joe obviously.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, I don't want to give you that one, but
I will.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Okay, currently on the team. It's like, okay, like I'm
not I'm not going to give you Dylan Gabriel or
who somebody who technically hasn't you know, played yet.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Give me a Carolina Panther that was a quarterback for
the Browns.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Well, I gave you Derek Anderson, so there was another one.
I don't think Steve Berlin played for the Browns.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Let's think about who I used to like. Jake Deloan, Yeah,
Jake del on the raised occasion.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Who else?

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Somebody that works on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Brady Quinn of course, Brady Quinn or Guy Brady Quinn
for two pros and A.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
That's what round fixed. Sure it was doing the sports
drinks commercials.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Domm done? Oh wait, do I still have more? How
many did that list?

Speaker 4 (16:21):
Right?

Speaker 8 (16:21):
There?

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Is that six?

Speaker 2 (16:22):
He only gets better looking by the year.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yet radios for ugly people?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
How many more? I think I gave?

Speaker 7 (16:30):
What?

Speaker 3 (16:30):
That's six?

Speaker 2 (16:31):
That's enough? Okay, you could go Tyrod Taylor, case Keenum,
Luke McCowan like.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh, Luke McCown of the mccount The Flying mccowns is
like eighteen of them.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, there's a famous Browns fan who has a
jersey with Initially it was a timp couch timpcouch jersey,
and then he stapled on every other quarterback after him. Wow,
it's getting so long, it's going to turn into like
the tail of a wedding gown. It's like, that's how
many quarterbacks comfort through Cleveland.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
It is.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
It's a factory of sadness.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I believe well. I mean not for tonight or this
morning wherever you may be listening here on Fox Sports Radio.
With the way Seorg Sanders performed.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Browns fans are now living their best life. Finally, this
is it.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
This is the one week one of the preseason.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
They've better hold on to this as long as they came.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
They only get worse from here. I don't think that's
the case. I'm optimistic about your door. I'm just saying,
let's not get too overly excited about it.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
The fact that he handled the huddle, they didn't have
a ton of false starts. They look professional out there,
and then in the biggest moments you put the ball
on the money. Those were some dilferd dimes. Man forgot
First of all, how does Trent Dilfer, who didn't throw
many dimes himself, get to call something Dilfer's dimes? Like,

(17:46):
you know, how about Dilpher's two thousand ravens defense that
carried is okay?

Speaker 3 (17:50):
But to that, by the way, I know, we gotta
get to break here.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Dilford did throw a couple of touchdown passes in that
Super Bowl against the Giants.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
I think stokely whatever, he still threw.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Them because he took advantage of a bum Jason Seahorn.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
He's a white corner because he made this from you,
Adam here, take are you taking shots at the white corner?

Speaker 3 (18:09):
I's wrong with you.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I'm taking shots at his messed up ACL after that
kick return in the preseason. You remember I do the
preseason matters. Cays could get ruined forever. Now regular stopbach over,
there's play a cornerback. But all right, Kevin, I know
coming up next, we gotta tell you something out. Why
did Roger Goodell call every other league commissioner the B word?

(18:32):
And I ain't talking about broke.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Because he's probably right.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
It's Kevin figures Adam Alson on Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Don't go anywhere.

Speaker 9 (18:39):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Hey, this is Jason McIntyre.

Speaker 5 (18:54):
Join me every weekday morning on my podcast Straight Fire
with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your sports pod pushing the
same tired narratives down your throat every day. Straight Fire
gives you honest opinions on all the biggest sports headlines,
accurate stats to help.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
You win big at the sportsbook, and all the best guests.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with
Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Fox Sports Saturday, Kevin Figures, Adam alson here with you guys.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Thank you guys, guys for joining us here.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah, good to be with you too.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
You can hit us up on the socials by the way,
on X you can find me at kfig One, Adam
at Follow Adam A, and of course follow us at
Fox Sports Radio. Got a tweet coming in about our
conversation last segment with Sha Door Sanders and everyone going
guy got over his performance?

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Is somebody hating saying we're overreacting.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Not necessarily hating, but just ask you a question inquiring
minds from Abigail saying wasn't he playing against third and
four string players now again? As our resident Carolina Panther fan,
Adam and no, just respect to the Panthers, but it's
gonna sound like it. I feel like most people don't
can tell a starting player from a backup player in
Carolina because over the last couple of years they've all
played the same way, so it doesn't necessarily matter.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
So you tell us starter from a backup to a
practice squad guy, I really can't look my understanding the
at least the first two series of the ball game,
they had their first stringers out there. Now you can
make the argument should or really thrived once the backup
started coming in. That's when he threw the touchdowns. But again,
there were two guys there on that first touchdown pass,

(20:32):
two defenders right near the ball, and he found a way.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Like that was a heck of a throw.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
That was a statement type of performance as much as
you can have one in a preseason game. We're not overreacting.
He could get destroyed by the Eagles next time out,
and you know what, that'd be fine.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
I wouldn't say that he's a total hack in a
bust and he can't make it in this league.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
If that were to.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Happen, I would, I would, we'd we'd revert back to
Oh it was the Panthers.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
I mean, well, you know what, probably that's true.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Let it play out. Let Cleveland Browns fans have a
little bit to celebrate, right now, That's all I ask.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Now, you was their super Bowl? What NFL hanks would say?
You know, a Cleveland Browns Carolina Panthers preseason game would
get better ratings than an NBA Finals game. Now, I
don't know if that's necessarily true or not, but in
a general sense, I think few could argue the NFL
has about eight legs up on pretty much any other
professional sport in this country.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, and Roger Goodell knows.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
It, Evening Commissioner.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yes, the boss man.

Speaker 7 (21:36):
So.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
An eternal email from earlier this week revealed Roger Goodell
saying that the NFL is not in competition with the
NBA and probably the Major League Baseball, any other professional
sport in this country.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, I think you're talking about both.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, their major competition is Apple and Google Giants slapping
the face to other pro sports.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Leagues in this country.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
It is.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
I think that's an accurate statement. Adam Auslin, who by
the way, does Clippers pre half and post for our
local affiliate and five to seventy LA sports.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Okay, full disclosure here. I think that's important. It was
who I would say is an NBA honk NBA honk.
I am a fan the NBA is my favorite sport,
and yet I have to side with Roger Goodell. He's
not lying. If you look at the facts and the
numbers of the case. What are you saying is we've
won the battle against these other sports leagues. We're going

(22:28):
after the biggest companies in the world. Now, we're taking
this beyond sports. We're a compounding machine like the tech
giants of Apple and Google. And by the way, Apple
is up like five percent today.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
But yeah, well, and you still have a high road
to clear when it comes to those like the NFL.
Is in the tens of billions in revenue Apple and
Google's and the hundreds of billions.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
So rich as absolutely well, there's always a bigger fish,
as we learned in episode one, and he has bigger
fish to fry. He's not worried about Major League Baseball.
He's not worried about the end the NFL. Now, it's
different in how you evaluate it versus Apple. In Google,
Apple is evaluated three trillion dollars above. That change changed

(23:12):
them a little bit, a little bit, little bit, Richards Lanister.
Still Google's at two and a half trillion. The NFL.
The difference is, while you can buy stock in one
team and that's only once every ten years, with the
Green Bay Packers, you're basically buying shares to be on
the board of directors. You're not getting a real stock

(23:33):
price where you're actively trading that. It's different. It's not
traditional stock and all the rest of the teams they're
privately owned companies, so it's not the same as adding
it up like you would. Okay, there's all these shares
out there of Apple, and each share is worth I
think like two hundred and twenty dollars as of today,
so therefore it's worth three trillion. It's a different way

(23:55):
to add and subtract, and there's some fuzzy math. Thank you,
Brie bye. But let's go to ratings. Like I know,
Fred Rogan's not in here with us, but ratings Rogan
would be proud of us. Damn it for this. The
NFL is king in this way. Like the first round.
We don't even have to talk about games. The first
round of the NFL draft. There you go, that averaged

(24:18):
thirteen point six million viewers the first round of the
NBA Draft three point twenty seven, only.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
A little more than I would have guessed guests the
boost this pass, sure, but that's still almost five times
less than the NFL. Didn't the NBA Finals get like
an average of nine point eight million viewers or something
like that. Oh I got that, so okay, So the
draft beat out the NBA Finals. This is guys literally
sitting around waiting to hear their names be called.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
The Game seven Game of Consequence between the Oklahoma City
Thunder and the Indiana Pacers that averaged sixteen point five
three million viewers.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
It's really good for NBA standards, Actually it is.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
But if you multiplied that, let's say every game in
that series ended up with sixteen million, and they didn't.
Game seven obviously had the most viewers on a Sunday,
and it's a win, uh winner lose the NBA Finals
winner go home. If you add up sixteen times seven,
that's one hundred and twenty eight million viewers. Well, the

(25:20):
Super Bowl got more than that between the Kansas City
Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Super Bowl alone got
one hundred and twenty eight million viewers one game versus
seven games of the NBA Finals, and they couldn't match that. Yeah,
it's just different. Dodgers and Yankees was a ratings dream
for Rob Manfred and they still at best average sixteen

(25:43):
million viewers per game. It only went five, but even
if it goes seven, you're still cumulatively not better than
the ratings of one game from the Super.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Bowl last year. Yeah, NFL is clearly the king of
the mountaintop when it comes to popularity in this when
it comes to major sports.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
And I guess now the reach internationally.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
We know they've had their international series probably dating back
to what I don't know, the mid two thousands when
they started playing in Europe, and now they were talking
about you know, Brazil and Spain and all these other
different places trying to expand one thing, one place that
the NBA does have them beat. Now. Granted, it's built
in because you have so many star players from so
many different countries in the world, and I think the
global expansion of the if basketball has been popularized by

(26:28):
the Olympics and international tournaments and all that stuff, you
just don't have that football on that sort of scale.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
That is the dirty little secret the NBA globally is
doing better ratings wise, while in the US the ratings
are following right, and I think I don't know if
that will ever change.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
The NFL is certainly making some in rows internationally, so
maybe that's something if you're the NBA you want to
hang your head on. But I mean for people in
this country, no one, with all disrespect to no disrespect
I should say to Lithuania or whoever. People care about
what's happening here, not across the globe.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Now, I think the read on this is to me,
the reason the NFL became king is simple.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Less is more. Absolutely, when you only have.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
A seventeen game season, every game is of magnitudes of
an event.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Every game is an event.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Every game is almost like a Super Bowl versus eighty
two games in the NBA are one sixty two in
Major League Baseball. It's just built in that that game
means more because there's only seventeen of them.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yet, which is why people it will never happen because
of revenue. I understand the sentiment that maybe Major League
Baseball and the NBA should scale back their schedules and
play fewer games and make every game more important. It
makes sense on its surface, there's just no way to
be able to make up the revenue, the lost gate
revenue if you were to do that. But I wouldn't
necessarily mind that the expansion of the Baseball playoffs. Thought
that was one of the worst ideas they could have had. Again,

(27:48):
I know why they did it. This is one of
the great quotes from the great Rick Neuheisel. He always says,
the answer is money, Now ask me the question. So
that's just universal across everything, inside and outside of points.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
I don't know if it was that funny, Rick, but
I could laugh.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
But but that's kind of that's that's kind of what
it is, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
So I think it's about stakes people. Wont you have
to sell them on why this matters right now versus
in today's world all the other options you have correct
and we've never had more the gen zers. It's not
just YouTube, it's not just streaming, it's not just Instagram
now it's TikTok. Everything is about you got about thirty

(28:31):
seconds at most to make me care about this, or
else I'm flipping to something else right, or else I'm
doing something else. We've never had the optionality that we do,
which is why we always say on this show, we
better be entertaining or informative within thirty seconds every thirty seconds,
or else we're gonna lose people.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's just the way it has to be. Yeah, they're
tuning out, so I understand. I'll to go back to
the Major League Baseball point that I was making. You know,
you have the theory behind it is you have more
markets that are more interested later into the season, so
you'll you'll get more ratings and more interest based on that.
The problem is, there are so many teams that are
out of the race or that are kind of teetering.

(29:08):
Maybe they're in, maybe they're not. The trade deadline has
become so much less interesting now the last couple of years.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
True, and remember.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Back in I'm not saying we should go back in
the day where whoever had the best record in the
National League and had the best record in the American
League just automatically play off. But it might not be
the worst idea to just have the best two teams
go straight to the ALCS NLCS or do it that way.
Just have more emphasis on the regular season and have
it mean a lot more as opposed to getting fourteen
teams in more than half the league makes it.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
They've tried to make sure more teams are involved towards
the end of the season. Yeah, I understand that technically
they are, but I also think it waters down the product. Yeah,
you have these one game wild card playoff scenarios like
we I think they've changed since then, but for a
couple of years it was, hey, you've played one sixty two.
Now to have a coin flip of a game and

(29:56):
everything comes down to this. It was a cheap way
to manufacture a game seven instantly. But I don't think
people like that or it was very representative of what
baseball is. You want a series at least, so they
have their own issues, But one hundred and sixty two games,
like every game in baseball makes up just about half
a percent of the entire season. Well, in the NFL,

(30:16):
every game is about six percent of the season. It's math,
it's arithmetic like, this is the stuff that they are
looking at to figure out. We got short attention spans
out there, how do we make sure you're fully invested
into this event? This event tonight, and the NFL wins
because of the nature of the game, you can't play.
I know they'll try to get it up to twenty games.

(30:37):
Probably ten years from now, they'll try to keep adding
games because Rick Neweisel said is about the money exactly,
But there is a limit to this. Whereas the NBA
the physicality, you can play eighty two, whereas baseball the
lack of physicality, you can play one sixty two. It's
just built in and baked into the NFL, making that
drama heightened because there's so few games out there.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, I thought Anthony Gark I know about this when
I've been on the show with him, because he thinks
the NFL should just play every single night during the season.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
I used to stay and you won that argument against me.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
I don't know if I.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Want it, but just my take is to your point
the way we started this segment, the NFL wins because
it's a scarce product and you can't see it every
single night. You put it on every I think this
is what's hurt Major League Baseball and the NBA.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
The league pass as great as it is.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
So that's someone who's a cast fan living in LA
can watch the Cavaliers like our friend Bob Schmidt. It's
different because now you can see everybody anytime it's no
longer an event that standalone NBA on NBC, which we're
gonna get back thankfully, which I love back in the day,
A guy no a ego on the call, by the way, Yeah,
like that's not an event anymore. No one cares because
I can see Gianna's played literally every single night if
I want to, it doesn't matter. Say if you do

(31:43):
that with the NFL and break up all these games,
it don't have the Sunday window with fifty eight games
and the other I think people are nobody's going to
be able to sit down and watch three games every
single day of the week.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
It's just not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, there is an oversaturation problem, but I don't think
it's so much that people don't like the game of
basketball or people don't like the game of baseball. It's
it's just one, one sixty two. Why do I care
about this game tonight? It's one of eighty two and
a half. The stars are out in the NBA tonight.
Why do I care about this? Where in the NFL

(32:16):
it's drama. It matters every single game every single week.
And oh yeah, there's something else that plays into this
factor of why the NFL is king and why they're
running circles around the rest of the league's Uh gambling.
Gambling is a pretty big deal.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
What's now acknowledges actually exist.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
They love to gamble on the NFL more so than
any other league. And if you just add up what
franchises are worth in the NFL versus the NBA versus
Major League Baseball, they're making about or they're worth about
sixty billion more dollars than the NBA. All those franchises
added up, they're worth about eighty billion more dollars than

(32:57):
Major League Baseball. So I can't argue with Roger Goodell
and what he said, even though I'm an NBA guy
through and through.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Kevin Golong live the NBA please, by by the way,
the NBA is fine. If you saw that TV contract
that they just signed, you're right they'll be okay.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Even if it's on Amazon and people are gonna get
frustrated about that.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
I'm not sitting here playing the world's smallest violin for
the NBA. I think they'll end up being okay when
it's all said and done.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Here, David Stern, you can stop rolling over.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
It's like it's Kevin figures Adam Alson here on Fox
Sports Saturday.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Coming up next.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
You know, it's an interesting case. Someone who's bound to
be a first ballot Hall of Famer that also is
kind of a what if case in Major League Baseball.
We'll sort this out next here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
I'll see what you.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Guys are doing here, brim Mark, I love it, I
love it and old to the old FNA podcast. This
is Kevin Figures Adam Olson here on Fox Sports Saturday.
Hit us up on x at kfig one is where
you can find me Adam at follow Adam a next hour,
what will be the resident between Micah Parsons and Jerry Jones.

(34:03):
We got that coming up in the next hour of
the show. Be sure to subscribe to the Fox Sports
Radio YouTube channel. Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube
and you'll see our best videos from all our shows.
After you subscribe to Fox Sports Radio on YouTube, click
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(34:24):
Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Also still to come, we got Petros papadagis college football
analysts and of course you know him with Matt money
Smith on a five to seventy LA Sports on weekdays.
But speaking of local guys, I guess there's one we
can talk about because he's trying to go national, maybe
even international right now, because he's on the cusp of

(34:46):
a career milestone. That would be Mike Trout baseball.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
He was still playing.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
That's your team, Kevin Angels, I know the angel still existed.
You once said that he's like the flower in a
pot of dirt. Mike Trout is the flower in Anaheim
with a pot of dirt around him?

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Did I misspeak? Has anything changed? As I said that
probably about eight years ago.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, So, to be fair, Otani wasn't there when you
said that. That is too clear. He's kind of an
enigma because to me, he's an all time great who's
about to get to four hundred home runs. He has
fulfilled if you look at the numbers through about six
thousand abs, he has fulfilled the promise of being the
next Mickey Mantle.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
And that's with all the injury issues he's had over
the past five years, by the way, and that's what
leaves you wanting more.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, he's still a what if story, even though he's
going to be a Hall of Famer, and the toughest
Hall of Fame to get into is baseball, and you
can already.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Say he's going to be in. The hard part for
me is I you just hate seeing great talents waste
it with bad franchises. Like the first thing that pops
up to me. And depending on how old or young
you are, this name might go over your head. But
Ernie Banks, he's one of the greatest players in the
history of sports, in the history of baseball. Let's play too, Mark,
you're a Chicago in on, you're a White Sox fan,
but you know Ernie Banks. You realize he played what

(36:03):
twenty plus years for the Cubs, won two MVP Awards,
I think fourteen to fifteen time all start go glove,
did not play in a playoff game, did not play
in a single playoff game. That's a travesty that one
of the great players in the history of an entire
sport would never actually have a chance.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Mike Trott at least got to the postseason once with.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
The Angels, and what do you do there, Kevin I
think he likes he had was like zero for eight
and or something like that against the Kansas City Royals.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
That won the World Series that year.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, so at least he had the opportunity to make
the postseason. But you see this all the time great
players is I think this happens in baseball more than
any other sport, especially when you have great players who
who lock up and signed giant contracts with franchises and
then they hit the injury bug. And so now all
of a sudden, if you're Mike Trout and you're making
thirty eight million dollars a year and you're in decline,

(36:48):
nobody's gonna trade for you.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Here's the problem Mike Trout and him declining the way
he has due to injuries. And it is mostly that
because he started getting injured at twenty Yeah, like he
has lost prime years. Twenty eight through thirty three is
where he has had the majority of these injuries going on.
It's been a multitude of them, most recently trimniscus twice

(37:12):
the last couple of years. That takes away from the
athletic freak that he was. But to me, he's also
not just because he was an Anaheim. And although it
does tie in, I do blame baseball for the lack
of marketing with him, and I think this was an
all time botched fumble type play by Rob Manfred in
not making him the face of baseball more well, I

(37:34):
know part of it's on Mike Trout.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Rob called Mike out for that look.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Rob said, you should be more active in trying to
be the face of baseball and to look. I will
say this in defense of Mike Trout, that's not necessarily
his job. Like he's very quiet, just wants to watch
the Weather Channel and play baseball, and that's all he
wants to do. And I don't begrudge him that the
idea of that, because if you want to say, you know,
to who much is given, much is required. I don't
think in this particular situation, Mike's job is to go

(37:59):
out play baseball to the best of his abilities. Would
it be nice if he wanted to go out and
be the face and be out there and do a
bunch of commercials and media tours. Sure, I don't think
that he has the obligation to do that, but I
think it would be great if he did.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
If Adam Silver was the Commissioner of Baseball, he would
have had Mike Trout traded.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
To the Lakers exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
That's what would have happened here. He would have made
him go to a prime time blue blood franchise because
this is an all time missed opportunity in that I
don't know who was the face of baseball from twenty
ten to twenty twenty. I don't Kevin Like the best
guess is Kershaw. Before that, it's obviously Jeter a Rod.
There are guys to market buster posey, Migi Carbera, Jose

(38:42):
Al Tuve and cheating with the Houston Astros.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Ryce Harper was on the back end of that. I
would put him in that conversation for sure.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
He's kind of been better than Mike Trout the last
five years.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Oh, it's kind of been not even a question impactful,
played in the postseason, has had huge hits in the postseason.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
He was Mike Trout light when we started this off.
Between these two, absolutely he's passed them by now, oh easily.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
But that's in a dieapment. I think more of the
organization now. First of all, you can't do anything about
the injuries that just happens to guys. Unfortunately, he got
banged up. But the reason that he hasn't gotten a
lot of exposures because the organization he plays for is
terrible and he has no control over that. And now
what he could have done is forced his hand and said,
trade me to my hometown Phillies. Well, I guess he's
a Jersey guy, but he grew up a Phillies fan.

(39:24):
Trade me somewhere.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
But he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
He's not done that. He has a requested to trade.
The idea is he's kind of fat and happy.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
He's cool.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
He is as a fan of the sport.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Has just bumps me out because he's like a Paris paradox.
He was great, He's gonna be a Hall of Famer.
He's a tree falling in the forced. Nobody's there. He
also could have hit six hundred home runs, and I
don't know if he's getting a five hundred now, and
he's about to get to four hundred, I don't know
if he's getting a five with all the injuries going on.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
If he hangs on for another ten years, you know
why not.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
The dream was he was gonna wipe away all the
steroid use. Didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
I will say the funny thing is he bulked up
at one point in time and that's when he kind
of started getting hurt in. People are like, well, I'm not.
No one actually asked questions about steroids. But maybe he
was doing just a little bit too much at one point.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
A little too many protein drinks. He did it clean,
just protein broccoli.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
That's what Relata believe. It's Kevin Figures. Adam Olson here
on Fox Sports Saturday, Coming Back and next hour with
more NFL talk, Michael Parsons versus the Cowboys.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Welcome back. In is Fox Sports Saturday. He's k FIG.
I'm out of May, yes, sir, follow out of ma
on X. He's at k FIG one if you want
to get to us there. At first, I went by
a little too fast for me, like toast too fast
for your brain, too furious, someone hit the nos. I
don't know the tenth movies coming out. Did you see
Vin Diesel acting all drunk at some promotion for it?

Speaker 1 (40:47):
I lost count after number three, So there's ten of
them now.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
I guess they're bringing back Paul Walker as a hologrammer.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
So tell me they're not doing that.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
They're gonna do it why because it's the final movie.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
I don't I'm sure I thought it was the final movie.
Seven movies.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Ago used to his brother for his voice in Fast
and Furious seven, Rip Paul Walker.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
He wasn't bout wow in one of those movies, or
is it somebody else? Or was it one of the littles?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
That was Tokyo Dreo Drift, which was like a pre
quill or a side mission, And then Ben Diesel showed
up at the very end to tease out the next.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Lost me on that one.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
One of them.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Ludacris is in almost almost all of them, isn't he
Luda Luda's I think Ludacris is since like what the
third or fourth movie has been a regular and they
just keep adding people. He's in there. The Rock is irregular,
then the maren't the Rock? And Vin Diesel beefing about
something for a while.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
They had the cars in space. He also said in
the final movie, they're gonna get back to street racing.
They won't be in the desert, they won't be in
the snow, they won't be in space, they won't be
in these exotic locations.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
You're out of venues after a certain point. It's like
Jurassic Park. They just had their fifteenth movie that came
out recently.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
And that was one big pile of you know what.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
That was called. That was called dinos in space, right
there had a velociraptor fighting against the stegosaurus on the moon.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Is that what?

Speaker 8 (41:58):
No?

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Do do it fit the sci fi type of movie
that you're referencing? There was that bad It was like
Python versus cobra or whatever. Anyways, it's not Sharknato time.
We'll get some more geek news coming up later in
the hour, by the way, because we do that here
on the f and a takeover a Fox Sports Radio
on a Fox Sports Saturday. But Kevin, I think we

(42:19):
have to talk about a pretty big subject that you're
kind of close to in some ways.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
To a certain degree of covered a lot of Cowboy
games over the last decade or so, and there's always drama.
One thing I'll say, the Cowboys are always relevant on
the field, not so much, but everything else surrounding the franchise.
And by the way, I think this is probably how
Jerry Jones wants it, so obviously, the big story this
week Michael Parsons requesting a trade a contract impact with

(42:44):
he and Jerry Jones, and this is obviously something that's
been going on the entire off season. Jerry Jones apparently
approaching Michael Parsons directly about a contract negotiation, and Micah
Parsons probably shouldn't have, but did engage, and they agreed
to some sort of preliminary contract to what Jerry Jones
thought that it was, all right, you've agreed to this,
let's do.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
It handshake deal.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, and Mike I said, we I necessarily agreed to
the entire thing. You got to get my agent involved.
And so now here's the impasse. The issue is Dak
Prescott a couple of years ago before he signed his contract,
Jerry Jones tried this exact same thing. He went to
Dak Prescott and says, hey, let's talk about this contract.
And Dak said, no, thanks, that's my agent talk to him.
That's kind of how it works.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
That's kind of why NFL players have agents.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
If you want to do this legally and not just
say hey, it's a handshake deal and then we're gonna
bro hug and maybe be blood brothers on top of
it that will sign seal and deliver this. No, the
legality part of this is you have to talk to
their age.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Bit all right, Jared now Michah Parsons could he could
pull the old Jared Weaver when he said, forget you,
Scott Boris, I'm signing this contract with the Angels regardless
of what you want to say.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
That rarely ever happens.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
And so that's what Jerry Jones seemingly has been attempting
to do with his star players these last couple of seasons.
Dak Prescott handled it the right way. Michael Parson's probably
now regretting the fact that he handled it the way
that he handled it, And now we're at an impass
where Michael Parsons is requesting a trade. Dak Prescott earlier
this week says that he's number eleven is a cowboy.
He's not has no concern that whether or not he's
gonna be there. Jerry Jones outwardly said that basically Michael

(44:16):
Parsons is just posturing.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Can I lay out my theory on Jerry Jones and
where he is at at the age of eighty two.
The problem with Jerry Jones is he's gotten too old
and too rich. He doesn't just have FU money, he
has f me money where he can afford to screw himself,
and he thinks he can spend his way out of
self created problems, like he no longer values the dollar

(44:40):
like he used to when he first took over. The
need to when you really had to weigh the pros
and cons of every decision with the Dallas Cowboys because
you make a wrong choice and it could implode the franchise.
That's not happening anymore. He can make mistakes, he can
afford to fail. He's built an empire. It's gotten too
big for its own good at times, because, as you mentioned,
it's everything but winning on the field, and his super

(45:03):
Bowl at this point might just be winning press conferences,
might just be being the most popular team, regardless of
how talented they are.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Well, that's what it's been for the last what has
been twenty six years, I think, is what it is
since they won last won that Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, nineteen ninety six.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
I mean they regardless, and a lot of fans not
to get two Inside Baseball here complaining about why is
it that these talking head shows always talk about Lebron
James and the Dallas Cowboys and that's it and the Yankees.
I guess if something important enough happens, because that's what
people care about. That's what people click on, that's what
people listen to. And Jerry Jones knows that. So Jerry

(45:38):
Jones knows if we're not winning on the football field,
we got to find a way to keep the Cowboys
relevant in some way, shape and form. So the way
that we can do this is by the way Jerry
does this all the time. He did this with Ceedee Lamb.
Wait until the last minute. Now it ends up driving
up the price and you might end up overpaying for
a guy, even if he's a great player. You know,
you end up waiting for a lot of other players
to sign their extensions. But Jerry's like, I like these

(46:00):
talking heads talking about the contract impass between me and
Ceedee Lamb, or whether or not Dak Prescott's going to
be playing on the franchise tag or be traded away
or signed an extension. I truly do believe that Jerry
Jones intentionally in his mind says, the Cowboys are being
talked about. That's what's most important for me right now,
That's what keeps us relevant.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
The more dysfunctional they are, the more he gets in
front of a microphone and a camcorder, Yep, there's an
old song by the Counting Crows called mister Jones and
it was off their first album. It was a great
first album, Kevin.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Me and Missus Jones guy personally.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
But sorry, well, I think this song mister Jones, which
I learned on guitar in like seventh grade, because I
thought the song was great and it was about the
lead singer basically his rock star side versus who he
is as a person, and he was jealous of the
rock star version of him. But there's a line in
there in mister Jones that applies to mister Jerry Jones,

(46:57):
and it goes like this, when I look at the television,
I want to see me staring right back at me.
I want to see me staring right back at me.
That is Jerry Jones when he looks at the television.
He wants to see himself up there every news report.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Oh he does.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
It's more cringe than my singing what other what other
owner holds court after every football game and the bowels
of the arena?

Speaker 1 (47:22):
No other owner does that. Jerry Jones basically is not
even the controlling GM anymore. He added that off to
Steve and his son. But yeah, Jerry, after every single
Cowboys game winna lose holds court with the media.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
He's like Jay Jonah Jamison, Spider Man. He's that guy now,
Like all he cares about is the stories, the pictures,
Like it doesn't matter if we won, if it bleeds,
it leads type of mentality out there, never look, never
let a crisis go to waste. Yeah, that's his philosophy.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
And by the way, Michael Parsons is not getting traded
this thing. This thing is gonna get resolved. He's gonna
end up getting the contract that he wants. But then
this goes back to the conversation the way we started
this conversation. Jerry is doing this so that we can
do what we're doing right now, so we can talk
about him. Damn it, he can talk about his franchise. Yeah,
he absolutely won.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
He's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Because if Mikeah Parsons sign is signed, sealed and delivered
already and has a contract, what are we talking about.
I'll talking about the Eagles trying to repeat and trying
to win the NFC East.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Again.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Here's why I find this, I mean I shouldn't find
it baffling because Jerry Jones. Yes, here's why I find
this most objectionable. You bring up CD, you bring up Dak.
I think you can have a legit negotiation with Dak
because you don't believe in him of being a top
tier quarterback that can take you to the promised Land.
I think that's fair, and so therefore you want to

(48:40):
drive down the price. The way he's going about this
with Michah Parsons, he's acting like Michaeh Parsons is twenty
nine going on thirty or something. He's twenty six. You're
gonna get him for all his prime years. Still, this
is the one guy you actually should pay for.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
And even if you overpay', it's not that you got.
It's one of the old Michael Lombardi quotes, who is
now the GM at the University of North Carolina with
Bill Belichick, is you can't overpay for great.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
You can overpay for good, you can't overpay for great.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
He's one of the best pass rushers and game wreckers
in the entire league. And now all of a sudden,
guys like Max Crosby has been locked up. You know,
Hendrickson is still having his issues with Cincinnati, but as
these contracts come down, the pipeline Parsons is going to
get more and more expensive, so he's only making it
more difficult on himself. And what is going to Again,
he has the capital to cover it, but there is
a salary cap. So you're paying Deck, You're paying CD.

(49:33):
Parsons is gonna end up being one of your highest
paid players one way or another. Now, whether or not
he's getting eighty three million dollars guaranteed or one hundred
and three million dollars guaranteed, I'm just making up numbers arbitrary. Obviously,
that's gonna have a giant impact on how you fill
out the remainder of your roster here. So I think
that's the part that he's losing sight on.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Jerry Jones, in no way, shape or form here should
be trusted. And I'll further that point because it turns
out Jerry Jones can act a little bit and maybe
doing some of that right now. I don't know if
you caught this. I don't watch the show, but the
clip made the rounds back in January when he appeared
in an episode of a show called Landman, Land Man.

(50:12):
It's got John Hamm and Billy Bob Thornton. You know,
don Draper's in there well and sling blades in there
like he plays himself.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Okay, you can say, well, he's.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Just playing himself sometimes that's actually not easy to do.
His delivery though, listen to how elite this is.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
I just know it's not gonna be this time. But
you're gonna be sitting here sometime in the future, laying
here sometime in the future, and this room's gonna be
full of your business associates and the people you've worked
with all your life, and more than likely your children
and family gonna be there because they are your children
and your family, but you could have them there because

(50:50):
they're the people you spent your life with. He worked with,
you fell down with, he got up with God. Just
Thanksgiving Christmas.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Those tiers, those were real, Kevin.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
That could have been from a press conference when the
Eagles loss back in December from last year. As far
as I'm concerned, Yeah, I had him to a t
He was good.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
It's one of the better cameos. Actually, it actually makes
me want to watch the show. But the other problem
is you can't believe him because he's a good actor.
The other reason is, speaking of shows, he's got a
new Netflix documentary series. It's basically his own last dance.
It is Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys titled America Team,

(51:32):
The Gambler and His Cowboys. It is a ten part series.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
I'm sure this Michael Parsons situation is not going to
be covered at all in the documentary, by the.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Way, regardless, it's good promotion for when it comes out. Hey,
look what Jerry's doing right now in real time. Why
don't I go back over his story and see where
he came from and how this all started. Let's check
out this Netflix documentary series here, honey.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Yeah, because you know what we're not talking about.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
If this Michael Parson's thing is going on Jerry Jones,
is Netflix show not a topic conversation for us right now.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
I feel like we fell into the trap.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Well we did.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Admiral Akbar told us it was a trap, and we
just went into the death star anyways, and Jerry Jones
shot us down like we just promoted him the show
the Cowboys this way he does.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
There you go, you went again, Jerry.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Not where it matters in Super Bowls, but in the
offseason and the chat, the chatter from the talking heads like.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Us speaking of it's a trap. Our old friend Petros
Papadakas is coming up next and he loves playing that
SoundBite on the Petros and Money Show. College football analyst
the old p Petros papadak is coming up next here
on Fox Sports Saturday with Kevin Figures and Adam Assa.

Speaker 9 (52:40):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot Com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Fox Sports Saturday, Kevin Figures, Adam Alsen here with you.
Hit us up on x at kfig one is where
you can find me. Hit up Adam at follow Adam
A on X. You know, with the iHeartRadio app, you
can stream us wherever you happen to be. Catch us
and all of our Fox Sports Radio shows live twenty
four to seven and the new and improved iHeartRadio app.

(53:14):
Just search Fox Sports Radio on the app to stream
us live all day, every day, and be sure to
select Fox Sports Radio as one of your precints in
the iHeart app so it will always pop up at
the top of your screen. Coming up in about fifteen
or twenty minutes, we'll get into a staple of Adam
and I's old F and A podcast, the Geek News
segment where Adam talks techie stuff, technology stuff, financial stuff,

(53:36):
you name it. We're gonna have a lot of fun
coming up in the next segment with geek News. But
coming up right now. A friend of the show, The
f and A podcast and a frequent contributor here on
Fox Sports Radio. You hear him every week on Two
Pros and a Cup of Joe, and he's back once
again as a college football analyst for FS one and Fox.
Let's get to it, Adam Alan Dragan.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Did, thank you, Dotty.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Well, we haven't had had this guest on this late
since a five seventy raw back in the day when
he was calling us from West Virginia after a game
where Gino Smith was putting up seventy points and eight
touchdowns on Baylor. Of course, we know Gino might not
be throwing that many touchdowns the entire season with the Raiders.
What do you mean, Well, the more things change for some,
the more they stayed the same for us. As our

(54:20):
biggest advocate in our favorite college football analyst, Petrus Papadakis
is back on the show. In the late night hour
as it is the FN A takeover of Fox Sports Radio. Pee,
what's up?

Speaker 4 (54:32):
Hey? Good morning? I mean whatever, Hey, Hey, how's it
going morning? Morning? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:37):
And a good day to you, sir.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
Pee.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Is it too soon or are the member berrys ripening yet?
For your nostalgia for the PAC twelve and what was
a conference that you played in and broadcasted with. Does
it mean anything to you second year without it? Or
you already moved on and just are evolving as college
football does.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Well.

Speaker 10 (54:57):
I think you do have to kind of adjust to change.
I mean there's still people that are a little older
than me, colleagues of mine, guys like Tim Brando, who
are really sad about the Southwestern Conference going away and
what that used to be. And the PAC twelve was
damn near perfect as far as traveling.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
Partners and balance and all that.

Speaker 10 (55:23):
The only thing that wasn't perfect was the TV deal
they did with themselves about twenty years ago. That really
kind of blew up the whole thing. Not twenty years ago,
maybe twelve fourteen years ago, and that was that, and
it kind of slowly bled out. We talked about it
a whole bunch over the years, Yeah, do I miss

(55:45):
having Cal and Stanford play USC and UCLA every year
and USC going to weird places like Washington State and
Oregon State and having them lock the door behind them
in Research Stadium in Corvallis Martin Stadium in Pullman and
have a battle ensue a lot of great games over

(56:06):
the years.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
But everything must change.

Speaker 10 (56:09):
And college football has been a cash cow for a
long time and now it's more like a cash cattle herd,
and the cash has really kind of outpaced the character
and the ability to control the sport. And we're sort
of in a scramble where the offseason is just really
really hard to process and kind of unsavory and not

(56:32):
fun to digest. So it's exciting that the games are
on and we have something to look forward to that's
not you know, talking about the House of Representatives or
the fact that Fox or ESPN.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
And the SEC and the Big ten by proxy can't
get along. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
I promise myself, P I wouldn't ask you about, you know,
realignment and TV contracts and filling out the sixteen team
playoff with what kind of format and try to stick
to football.

Speaker 10 (56:59):
So it is kind of funny because that's all we
talk about it is all off season is. And then
when somebody starts asking me about players, you know, when
the games get a couple weeks away, you're like.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
What, I don't know who? Oh?

Speaker 10 (57:10):
Yeah, you know, and then you got to kind of
start to put your feet in the ground and figure
out who's actually who. We just came from the Fox Seminar,
where the football Seminar, which was pretty pretty interesting this
year actually, and I thought that overall their message just
to their people calling games in college football was really good,

(57:34):
which was, don't assume that anybody knows these players. They
move around a lot. We have to reintroduce these people
throughout the game and the transfer portal, the nil, all
of these different things that we can complain about in
the off season.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
Let's not do that during the games. Let's call the games.

Speaker 10 (57:53):
You know, we have a whole month and month and
month season's process to complain about what's wrong with this,
and here's the time to talk about what's right with
it and enjoy the gathering and the pageantry that the
people call, you know, all of those things the traditions
of college football that make it special. So I'm grateful
for that time of year. To be here and to

(58:15):
kind of start embracing that a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Well, the big question coming out of the Fox Seminar,
now that I know you guys just had it, did
you keep up the tradition of drawing caricatures of all
of the players who.

Speaker 11 (58:23):
Were no did he show you the picture you drew
Brady Quinn a couple of years ago just RiPP like
to be a famous thing. I used to used to
put him up on the overhead, but now it's become much.
I mean, they did you not even know if I'm
allowed to say, but they did a thing for Jimmy
Johnson because he's retired. And then he showed up and

(58:44):
they you know, Terry Bradshaw and all those guys, they
didn't know that, and they were all excited to see him.
And then they brought out Moose Johnson to speak, who
of course works there.

Speaker 10 (58:54):
But then they brought Michael Irvin, who doesn't work there,
and he spoke. And then Troy Akerman, who doesn't work
there anymore, showed up and spoke and that was impactful.
And then Bill Burr came out and roasted him the
community and then Boys Boys to Men came out and
sang End of the Road in Motown, Philly.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Oh damn, yeah.

Speaker 10 (59:12):
I mean it was like really, I mean it was
like it was like crazy by the end of it.
Everybody's highs were spinning, you know. And I've been to
I've been to a lot of these and they always
have you know, different special guests and people that are interesting,
you know, from Roger Garrett Goodell to Jerry Jones to
Keegan Michael Peel. But this was this was beyond I mean,
it was really something else. So wow, Yeah, that that

(59:34):
part of it was was a lot was a lot
more produced than me drawing pictures of Brady quinnin till Clown.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
As far as one question, just about money, Now we
have nil and we know that the schools can now
pay the players directly.

Speaker 11 (59:46):
They're not there yet, but they're getting well, they're getting
there pretty soon here.

Speaker 7 (59:50):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
As someone who played at a high college level at
USC and play with a number of pros, I just wonder,
from your perspective, because they're not professionals quite yet, is
there any sort of resentment that will be held in
the locker room from one guy to another or is
it just an understood pecking order that I'm petro Well
and your Carson Palmer, I know you should make more
than me, or is it a little.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
Bit of you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
I've still had to tell Carson to play in the huddle.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
That's true.

Speaker 10 (01:00:13):
True, every every college football team has its own pecking order,
even in my time right, but that was kind of
the special thing about college football is that we're all
wearing the same outfit to go work out, and we
all get the same stipend check.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
And yes, of course.

Speaker 10 (01:00:31):
You know who a bigger recruit is, and you know
somebody who's gonna get maybe more special treatment or more
leeway than perhaps somebody else. I mean, every situation is individual,
even though it's a team. But this is different, and
it is a big difference. I think in the NFL
that's kind of one of the just starting points where yes,

(01:00:53):
everybody knows that you make your money on the field
and you're trying to get a second contract and you
prove it on the field. But there's number next to
everybody's name in the NFL and that goes into every
decision that's made, whether that's good or bad.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
And bringing that into.

Speaker 10 (01:01:09):
College football is different, and it does change the dynamic
and I think That's why you see some of the
coaches now that are thriving are guys that have come
from places that are very small and very very nuanced
places like you know, Mount Union and.

Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
Like that. You know Kaylin de Boor and.

Speaker 10 (01:01:37):
Lepold at Kansas and Climbing at Kansas State and Matt
Campbell at Iowa State. You know, these guys come from
small schools where they had to worry about, you know,
the bus showing up and nutrition for the players and
all of these different things, just as the head coach.
And it feels like the more flashy college football gets
as far as money being involved going to the players

(01:02:00):
and all the TV money being made, it seems like
the players respond better to these real nuts and bolts,
no nonsense, kind of flat top kick me in the
Jimmy college football coaching, not as flashy play caller types
like Lincoln Niley, even though Sark's got Texas in a
really good position. And we'll see what happens this year.

(01:02:21):
But that part of it as it evolves, is interesting.
But you're right, locker room dynamics, there's no doubt that
they have changed. But I mean to think of college
football locker rooms in my time as like a schoolhouse
in the eighteen hundreds. It's not really fair, you know,
it's not like we were all like, you know, pulling
the same ropes either. I mean there's always been a

(01:02:44):
pecking order and there's always people that got paid under
the table and got special treatment.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Patros papade Guz is our guest here on the f
and a takeover of Fox Sports Radio. If you mentioned
boys to men, Bill Belichick's going from men to coaching
boys here.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
How do you think that's going to go?

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
And can he relate to young people? I know he's
dating one now, so it might work.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
Well.

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
You know, we had an older coach and John Robinson
and an old NFL coach, you know, and Paul Hackett too,
and there's good and bad to that. I think sometimes
an older coach will consider the players doing something because
that's what they should do, when they're not really doing it,

(01:03:27):
if you know what I mean, like telling guys, yeah,
come in the gym's open, but not monitoring when they
work out and if they're working out, you know that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
You just expect people.

Speaker 10 (01:03:37):
To get their their their business done, expect them to
go to class. That's not necessarily the case with everybody.
But I've seen that where a pro coach tries to teach, treat, treat,
and teach the college guys like they're more grown men,
and they're not. Sometimes they need a guy to walk
them to class. Sometimes they need a guy to walk
them to class and stand outside the door. Now all

(01:04:01):
the classes are online, so it's a little bit different.
And I think the dynamics of the sport have changed
so much that the college model with the numbers next
to everybody's name, it really is more of a professional
model anyway, So you're going to see a more professional
style coach.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Now.

Speaker 10 (01:04:18):
Bill Belichick's a dinosaur, right, I mean Bill Belichick is
more of the coaching mold of Chuck Knox and Chuck
Knowle and Marv Levy and these guys that I grew
up watching coach pro football than the Lafleur's and the
Sean mcvas of today. Right, I mean, NFL coaches today

(01:04:39):
are a little bit younger, looking, a little bit more
ceo like vory pants, you know that kind of thing,
and good looking hair. You know, they don't look like
guys that show rocks in the morning like Belichick. So
Belichick's a throwback in any league, so to speak. But
I think a more professional model is what we already

(01:05:00):
have in college or evolving too a big time college
football anyway. Case in point, you have, you know, most
teams having a GM, you know, and.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
That's that's not something we had.

Speaker 10 (01:05:12):
And in my day in college football, we might have
had a recruiting coordinator or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
But as everybody moved to a professional model, I think.

Speaker 10 (01:05:20):
People will be comfortable with Bill Belichick acting like he
did when he was a pro coach.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
Whether that's going to work at North Carolina, I don't know,
but they had an ancient guy.

Speaker 10 (01:05:30):
I mean, he's younger than the guy they had before,
so they're headed in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
You mentioned player movement, and it's really going to have
a huge change of dynamic of how these teams look
from year to year. So I look at a team
like Arizona State from last season, which was pick to
finish last in the Big Twelve, when they ended up
winning the conference and now I believe they're ranked eleventh
in the Coach's Poll. You cover the Big ten a
lot and for Fox and FS one, can you see
a potential worse for first situation coming out of the
Big Ten like that this year or another conference.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Does anybody stick out to you?

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
No, I mean does it to you?

Speaker 10 (01:05:59):
I mean, Washington with the cornerback who's exciting, wins more games.
But I mean, are they going to beat Ohio State?
Are they on Penn State's in a do or die year?
They have the best looking team they've had in years.
Last year they were within two or three plays inside
the ten yard line of being able to beat Ohio State.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
So I mean Oregon is going to be really good.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Yeah, Worster first is probably a little optimistic them up,
but just someone who was you know, I'm thinking like
a Michigan State with Jonathan Smith and ad and Giles.

Speaker 10 (01:06:29):
Maybe better to take. Yeah, you want Aiden Chiles to
take steps forward. I know he didn't have a good
old line last year, but as the number one guy
in the transfer portal last offseason, you can't say Chiles
wasn't disappointing in his first year at Michigan State.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
You'd expect them to get better.

Speaker 10 (01:06:46):
They have a really good old line coach they but
they did not have the old line last year. So
you hope to see them get better for Jonathan Smith's sake.
Arizona's coach is on a real hot seat. He's changed
his offensive coordinator. I know that's Big twelve. And and
and they have another chance with Noah Fafida. I mean,
these just West Coast teams that we know Washington I

(01:07:09):
mentioned with the quarterback situation, Demon Williams I believe is
his name, little guy who can really move around Utah
was disappointing last year. They have a transfer quarterback in
the Big twelve, dam Peer who was really exciting and
just a wild player, little quarterback from New Mexico last year.

(01:07:32):
So it will be interesting to see how it all
plays out, and and and who really meshes with their team.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
You mentioned you don't really know about the rosters. That's true.

Speaker 10 (01:07:41):
Uh, you know you see players and you're like, hey,
I remember that guy from this place, or I remember
that guy from this place. So that part of it
is intriguing. But the other part of it is you
do have more veteran latent teams. You know, it's hard
for these coaches to buy the patients of the fan
base and bring freshmen along and really do it where
you develop a class like they used to.

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
You've got to be able to fill gaps in the portal.

Speaker 10 (01:08:08):
And sometimes guys do it with guys that are from
big time schools that maybe weren't on the field second
third string a lot from a place like Michigan or Georgia.
Some people have had a lot, like Kenny Dillingham at
Arizona State had a lot of success getting like the
best player, captain, two way player from a Division two

(01:08:30):
type of team or FBS FCS type of team and
bringing them up to the FBS or even Division three.
So that type of stuff is different ways to do it,
and it's interesting to talk to the coaches and see
how they're doing it. But it's a lot harder to
get on the field as a young player unless you're

(01:08:52):
Travis Hunter, and that makes it hard to kind of
track teams and they're recruiting and how they're going to
be year in and year out.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
P has the bar ever been lower for USC? And
is Lincoln Riley's still going to find a way to
trip over it? What's going to happen?

Speaker 10 (01:09:07):
You know, they have a really favorable schedule, but at
the same time, you can't say that they haven't been
anything but inconsistent since his first year and his first
year he couldn't get over the hump and beat Utah.
They lost to Utah twice. So I think most people
would agree that if Lincoln Riley didn't have such a
huge buyout, he would have been fired. And the same

(01:09:29):
might be true at the end of this year. So
it's a real holding pattern at USC. And I mean
USC is supposed to be in the Big ten, like
Ohio State or like Michigan or like Penn State, and
they're really far from that right now. And it's not
to say they couldn't turn it around very quickly. I

(01:09:50):
think the city wakes up really fast for USC football
when they have success. That being said, I haven't really
seen it as a sustained thing since the peace Carole era,
And during the peak Caroll era there wasn't the Rams
or the Chargers in town, so there's more football competition
for stories in town. Even though people want USC football

(01:10:11):
to be good, it's been so long since they've been
consistently good. I think you're right the bar has never
been lower when you're talking about after what I just
said about freshman classes and how hard it is to
bring them up in modern college football, when your best
selling point is the freshman class coming in twenty twenty six.

(01:10:32):
That's a red flag. I mean those are only verbal commits.
And even if they do come, how many of those
guys are going to contribute in twenty twenty six and
are they going to be that much better than they
weren't in twenty twenty five to justify Lincoln Riley keeping
his job? The answer is no. So I would say
that reading the tea leaves Yeah. USC has never been

(01:10:54):
never been more of an afterthought, which is amazing because
they're making more money than ever, they're in the Big ten,
but they've hired the wrong coach again and it's hard
to see how they're going to find their way out
of it without one hundred million dollar buyout.

Speaker 7 (01:11:09):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Yeah, you mentioned Steve Sarkisian in Texas there ranking number
one in the coach's poll and a lot of hype.
Are you believing the hype around arch Manning. There's a
lot of people who say, if he was really that great,
he would have beat out Quenn you Weres last year
by Trevor Lawrence beat out an incumbent when he was
at Clemson. Do you buy into that? What do you
think well.

Speaker 10 (01:11:26):
I mean it was a guy with a lot of
arm talent. Yeah, like really elite arm talent, which just
goes to show that you really got to be mobile
and you really have to be durable to get drafted.
You know, they're really trying to find something wrong with you.
And he's a cautionary tale. He fell in the draft.
Should have taken somebody else's at IL money. The arch

(01:11:48):
Manning situation I see is a little bit like the
Matt Barklay situation. Pete Carroll was upset when Mark Sanchez
left early because he knew that he couldn't afford to
start anybody else other than Matt Barkley because of the
hype and the deal he made with the kid and
his family coming out of high school.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
And he's got small hands. It's not gonna work.

Speaker 10 (01:12:08):
You know, I'm not saying that they made a deal
coming out of high school. Sarkesian did address everybody at
the at the seminar for Fox and said, you know,
during the season or anything, he's never had a conversation
with Archie.

Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
Or Cooper or Peyton or Eli. I mean, no one.

Speaker 12 (01:12:25):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:12:26):
They let him coach the kid, and the kid is
a good kid, and he's a teammate and there's a
lot of expectation on him, but he he handles expectation
and does his best. So as far as all that goes,
you know, there's no There's not like off the field,
like he's trying to sell a rap album.

Speaker 4 (01:12:43):
You know, like Shadour.

Speaker 10 (01:12:44):
There's rumors of him beating up guys in the locker
room or anything like that. Seems like a great kid.
Can he be the leader of this football team without
ever having started? We've never seen him really lead the
football team in that kind of way. They're going to
start out at Ohio State, so we're going to find
out early. I don't think the expectations on the young

(01:13:06):
man are fair, but they've been created as well by Texas,
so they can't sit there and say it's unfair and
then run him out there and sell the jersey and
do all the things that they're already doing. I'm interested
in seeing the young man play. I heard he's incredibly
mature and a good leader, and look, I mean, so
is Rayola. But it's not like he was great last year.

(01:13:28):
You know, he was up and down, So I think
there'll be some ups and downs. But if they lose
their first game, I don't think that's the end of
it for them either.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Pete, last one for you. I mentioned the Raiders in
the intro you just brought up Pete Carroll. You think
he'll have success implementing his culture of just win forever
baby with the Las Vegas Raiders now plus with Chip
Kelly's as OC.

Speaker 4 (01:13:50):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 10 (01:13:51):
I mean, they didn't look like they could block very
well yesterday. That was a preseason game. But Pete Carroll
has won everywhere he's gone since he left the page,
so it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't have some
modicum of success. I mean, he's like my dad's age,
and being around my dad, who's inspirational at times but old,

(01:14:12):
it's hard to imagine the energy that he's going to
have to have to get through the whole year and
all the different curve balls that are going to head
his way. But I mean, as much as I've criticized
Pete Carroll over the years and seen some of the
underbelly of, you know, the win Forever mentality, and the
truth is, you don't have that much success as an

(01:14:33):
NFL head coach without being very cutthroat, and that's something
people don't talk about much when it comes to Pete.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
But it's very true.

Speaker 10 (01:14:41):
He's probably a lot more like Bill Belichick than anybody
would be comfortable admitting. But it would be stupid to
say to count him out and say it's passed him by.
But their offensive line play did not look very good
last night, so that could be a problem that even
Pete Carroll could overcome. So we'll see, But no, I'm not.

(01:15:03):
I mean, I know they have a lot to overcome
within their division, but when it comes to Pete and
having success, I counted them out in Seattle and.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Looked like a fool. So I'm gonna stay silent.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Petro's papaineikas college football analysts for Fox and FS one.
He holst the Petrols and Money Show on our local
affiliate AM five point seventy LA Sports, and you can
follow him on x at the Old PP. Thanks so
much for joining us here on Fox Sports Radio. Brother,
appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
No problem. Do you guys sound great? Have a great night.
Fox Sports Radio is lucky to have you tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Appreciate that. Peek Kevin figures Adam Alson on Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
What's coming up at him?

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Well, I found out the real reason my parents would
not let me play video games, and it's not because
they're satanic or anything like that. That's coming up next
in geek News. Here on Fox Sports Saturday with Kevin
Figures and Adam Aulsel. Welcome back in is Fox Sports
Saturday with Kevin Figures. I'm Adam Moslins. It's the FNA
takeover of Fox Sports. Coming up next hour. We got
Breeze three and some NFL FA for you. But first,

(01:16:05):
what's an playing D and D to You want to
come cases?

Speaker 12 (01:16:09):
Let's go, guys, won't be choosed that I've been choying
online with Babs.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Called just keep your power close off her right, Kennelin.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
So, if you know the fn A show, you know
we love talking video games, especially retro, old school, damn
near vintage games. At this point, I think we're that
old here.

Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
Kevin is Madden ninety two vintage?

Speaker 7 (01:16:29):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
I would say, so that was the first Madden game,
right where you have the ambulance running over players going
on to the field. But it was a different era then,
a more physical era of video games. Back in the nineties.
They were tougher. Back then, they were also unforgiving. If
you rented a game like Battle Toads or Silver Surfer,
one of these impossible games to be top gun you

(01:16:51):
can't land the plane, didn't matter, you just had to
keep playing it. You didn't have a lot of options
back then. But for me, the difference now is this,
in modern gaming, the real final boss compared to how
we had it as kids, is the DLC downloadable content
at every single turn, Meaning when you buy a game

(01:17:14):
for sixty bucks, that's not the end. They are going
to nickel and dime you for all the downloads, for
all the extra levels you can get and characters and
weapon upgrades. It's a damn pyramid scheme mixed with a
timeshare painted with snake oil to scam Kevin and I
don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Well, you gotta build the best fortress in Fortnite or
kids still playing Fortnite or is that like so like
two thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
And you know twenty one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Yeah, it's Minecraft still a thing.

Speaker 7 (01:17:41):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
There's a movie, uh for instance, call it Duty, Black Ops,
Modern Warfare or whatever it's called.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
Eight of those two.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
By the time you pay for everything of the game,
it might run you three hundred dollars. I'm not kidding.
The SIMS four to have everything, the complete game. That's
like four grand, four grand, I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
I could buy fifty xboxes.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
I could buy one hundred consoles for that much.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
But here's the problem. As much as I want to
be an old man shaking my fist at the cloud
or at clouds, or saying get off my lawnch hopefully.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
There's a power glove on that fist. Okay, yeah, the
power glove, for those who know what that is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
It's so bad now my parents could complain just as
much back then, in the nineties with how expensive games were.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
I saw this.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Somebody posted it on a reddit, a video game thing
thirty one years ago. They posted this on a reddit
subreddit August of nineteen ninety four. Somebody put into Nintendo
Power a complaint about how high prices were. So it's
like same as it ever was. We complained now. They
were complaining then about games costing one hundred and twenty dollars,

(01:18:53):
about games costing eighty or ninety dollars. Do you remember
my gas was fifty three cent? Do you remember when
shaq Fu was ninety bucks? Do you let me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Put this in such an overrated game? By the way,
but going.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
Awful game ninety dollars in the nineties, that's two hundred
dollars today.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
My parents were.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
Right, Yeah they were.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Yeah, we weren't rich as Atlantister, like that's expensive for
a game. I didn't realize how much they actually were
back in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
I was completely off.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
If I'm spending two hundred on a game, I mean,
Laura Croft ever be doing cartwheels for me, like I
I better get the Metroid Suit. If I'm spending two
hundred dollars, I better add thirty lives to my actual
life with the Konami code with Contra. That's how it better.
Two hundred dollars for a game.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
And that's that's before all the add onles that you
have to you have to buy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Well nowadays, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
I mean no. By the way, I don't even play
video games like that anymore. I don't even have time
for it. Well, which I'm sad about.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
When I play the one game I love to play
a game that brought us together. Streets of Rage, two
grasshop on one of my favorites, and the best Beat
him Up sixteen bit beat him up of all time, I'd.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Say one of the all time greats.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
Well, one of our favorite games, obviously is the NFL,
and a lot of injury news going around. The NFL
is the first week of preseason, and we have guys
going down left and right, and a couple of important figures,
specifically in the city of Los Angeles, that are affecting
a couple of playoff teams. We'll talk about that coming
up next hour. It's Vin Figures, Adam Ausland right here
on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
It's right Fox Sports Saturday, Kevin Figures. That is me,
Adam Austin. That is he. You can follow us on
x at KFIG one and at follow Adam A coming
up in about fifteen to twenty minutes from now. When
do you know that your time has come? As a
professional athlete, sometimes it's harder to gauge.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
There's a few guys I'd like to tell them that
their time is all?

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
Would you?

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Yeah, I can help them out with that decision. Can
you You're washed, bro, You're cooked, You're done?

Speaker 4 (01:20:55):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Speaking of being done, the preseason just started. Had the
Hall of Fame game last week, had a couple of
games on Thursday, few games on Friday, and obviously a
full slate coming up tonight, and already a slew of injuries.
The Baltimore Ravens lost a rookie for the season with
the torn acl A couple of guys around camps have

(01:21:15):
been have suffered some serious injuries, and camp literally just started.
Some good news on that front. From the Falcons Lions
game on Friday night, defensive back Maurice Norris, one doubt,
tried to make a tackle suffered a neck injury. They
actually postponed the game. Both teams actually snapped the ball
and had used a running clock, basically wanted to run
out the clock and not play anymore. Then the officials

(01:21:36):
from the NFL front office called the stadium and said,
let's just call the game completely. This is obviously way
more important than a football game, let alone a preseason game. Thankfully,
for Norris, the latest update he has feelings in all
of his extremities. He's going to remain in hospital overnight,
but he is in stable condition, so that definitely is
a giant relief, but.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Helping first speedy recovery. Of course. Matt Stafford out here
in Los Ane. Speaking of injuries, Yeah, he's been banged
up a little bit Kevin over the years. Now, typically
he plays through injuries. He's a tough guy. Yes, he'll
play through it. I don't know if he's gonna get
a bacchiotomy, because it's not just a sore back that
he's dealing with now, it's an aggravated disc that's a

(01:22:19):
little bit more concerning for the Rams.

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
Something he's been dealing with off and on for the
last couple of seasons. Had an epidural, which is never
a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
Yeah, he should have never stopped.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Yeah, Sean McVay said on for Friday. I believe Friday
morning that if it was a regular season he'd be
able to play, which I guess is great, But what
condition is he actually in. I mean, they've had joint
scrimmages with the Cowboys, who they're gonna end up playing tonight,
but obviously he's not gonna play with them. He's going
to do an individual workout at the Rams facility later

(01:22:48):
this afternoon, but obviously that's not as good as getting
game reps or even practice reps against a different opponent.
And if he's not even good enough to go in
a scrimmage. I have some potential long term concerns about
how healthy even if he is able to play in
Week one at him, I mean, what does it take
one hit, two hits to the wrong to the wrong spot,
and all of a sudden, Jimmy Garoppolos are starting quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
He was already there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Jimmy can at least distract the opposing team with his
good looks.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
I think that's wearing off.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
And not many good throws anymore. What are you saying
he's losing his hair or something.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
But I'm not saying.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
I'm not saying crow's feet. I'm not saying he's not
a good looking guy anymore. But I just feel like
he's he's been around for a while now. It's kind
of wearing off a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
Milk's gone bad. Yeah, look, they need Matt Stafford and
last season, I gotta say the Rams have impressed me
by the fact that they sold out a couple of
years ago, rightfully so to win a Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (01:23:41):
It worked.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Trade them picks, f those picks, trade them all, and
it paid off with a Super Bowl win. They've stayed competitive,
though since then they haven't gotten back to the top
of the mountain. But they've been competitive.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
They've made the playoffs a couple of times. When they
they sent a letter out to their fan base saying,
and not so many words, get ready for a rebuild,
and it never really came. They missed the playoffs once
and I think they've made the postseason ever since.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
Well, they give the Eagles a scare last season.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
Or more than a scare in the snow in Philadelphia,
knocking on the door to beat what ended up being
the eventual Super Bowl champions.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
That might have been the Super Bowl. Actually that was
a closer game than what we got in the Super
Bowl between the Eagles.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
And the Kansas City Chiefs, believe it or not. Yeah,
and the Rams are not going Look that defense is young,
especially that defensive line, young, exciting, Jared Versus Fisk, all
those guys, They're only going to get better. You're bringing
DeVante Adams to replace Cooper Cup, which I think is
an upgrade Cooper Cup. I don't know how much he
has left in the tank. To be honest with you,
you still have Pooka Nakua, you still have Tyler Higbee,

(01:24:36):
you got weapons on offense. You signed Kyraen Williams, who
is I think one of the more underrated running backs
in the entire league. All you were missing is really
competence at the quarterback position, which obviously Matthew Stafford can
give you. Matthew Stafford, I think raises their ceiling to
be a Super Bowl contender. If he's not there, If
Jimmy g is your quarterback, you're probably fighting for a
wild card spotted best.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Yeah, ask Kyle Shanahan about that. Sean McVay is such
a good head coach that they could get by without
him for some time. I feel like he would bring
out the best in Garoppolo. But your ceiling, your peak
with this team is Matt Stafford back under center. And
it sounds like at some point he'll be there, because

(01:25:17):
if it was a regular season game, as you mentioned earlier,
he would be. So I'm not putting up a red
flag or anything like that for Rams fans, but it's
something to monitor. At least the division's worse now. I
guess that helps them out.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
Yeah, I guess what hurts that is the fact that
and a lot of people believe the forty nine ers
are going to take a step back this year. They're
very top heavy. They have guys important guys with injury.
Either are injured like Brandon Ayuk and John Lynch says
he does not expect him to be ready for a
Game one of the season. Christian McCaffrey, who's spectacular when
he's healthy, but the last four years he hasn't been.
So you lose one or two important guys on top

(01:25:52):
of the guys you've already lost through free agency or trades.
With Deebo Samuel, they're an injury or two away from
being irrelevant. The problem is their schedule is it's so easy.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
A lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
People think that the Rams are a better team than
the forty nine ers, But based on the fact that
the forty nine ers schedule is so easy, they're probably
gonna win the division and the Rams are gonna fight
for a wild card spot.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
But as we know, there's five new teams that make
the playoffs in the NFL insition every year, not for long.
You can go from worse to first and win your division.
It happens. There's a ton of turnover like that. So
when you look at strength of schedule, it's like, oh,
you kind of got to see how those teams are
looking this season. Now, I'll say this about the forty
nine ers. This may sound harsh. Nier Empire may not

(01:26:34):
like this because they still have a young quarterback.

Speaker 4 (01:26:37):
They do.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
They still have one of the better coaches in the league,
and Kyle Shanahan, I think, although he can't manage a
fourth quarter very well and there's some mishaps with decision
making going back to when he was the OC with Atlanta.
Of course against the Patriots, Tom Brady, I feel like
because of the salary cap and contracts and the guys
that they have lost. Deebo no longer there, Christian McCaffrey

(01:26:59):
getting long the tooth but no longer with the long runs.
They may have already missed their window. Oh yeah, with
this construction or this team that we know from the
last five years, they made the Super Bowl twice, they
lost to the same team twice within the last five
seasons they got there, they couldn't get over the top.

(01:27:20):
And I don't know if they're ever going to be
better or as good as they were to pull it off.

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Well, their issue has been i'd say over the last
three years, their drafts have been terrible, and usually that's
how you replenished your talent. When they went Shanahan and
John Lynch first got there. It was all about buit
it through the draft. And they had so many great
young players on defense and on an offense that they
were able to build this thing around. And they've not
been able to sustain it. That's why the Eagles have
been so good. The Eagles have won two super Bowls

(01:27:47):
over the last decade with I mean there was some
crossover on the roster, but almost completely different rosters, with
Howie Roseman being the architecture of the entire thing, knowing
how to cycle in offensive and defensive lineman, finding the
right place, continuing to draft the right guys, letting the
right guys go when they get too expensive. There's an
art to being able to do that. Now you can

(01:28:07):
only do that for a certain amount of time before
it catches up with you. No one's gonna be able
to draft, you know, superstar after superstar after superstar.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
But the forty nine ers, to your point, are falling off,
and it's mainly because they have not been able to replenish.
They're excellent players with great young talent behind them. Their
drafts have just not been very good.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Recently, you gotta have guys on cost controlled contracts. Those
young players are so much cheaper. Of course, you have
to hit with those picks because once you pay your quarterback,
it makes things a lot tougher to get to the
top of the mountain. I really think they might have
missed their window, even though they're still young in some areas,
including under center with Rock Perdy. It's not gonna matter.

(01:28:45):
I just don't think they're gonna have enough. Their defense
was so good for so long, Like, I don't know
if they can get back to that elite of a
level on that side of football.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Yeah, that's gonna be the hard part.

Speaker 4 (01:28:56):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
Look, I still think Kyle Shanahan is one of the
best coaches in the NFL. Game management issues aside. I
do think brock Party in his system is spectacular with
the right weapons around him.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
That's the question.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Do you have the right requisite weapons to be able
to put up those numbers on a consistent basis Now
that guys are aging out, Deebo's gone, i UK is hurt,
you know, that's the big question. I don't know if
this is going to be a full scale rebuild for them,
but it's gonna be probably a reload process. They might
be mediocre for a couple of years, but it's gonna
hinge on the fact of whether or not they can
actually draft guys, draft impact players. And that's gonna be

(01:29:30):
that's really difficult to do if you're not terrible. You know,
if you're a middling team, that's gonna be picking in
the twenties and you won eight nine games a year,
you were in purgatory. At that point, you're a no
man's land.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
See when you go back to the Rams in their
own division, the Rams sold everything to win a Super.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
Bowl, traded all those picture away.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
Yes, and it's worth it because you have that equity,
You have that goodwill with the fan base because you
won a couple of years ago. So even if you're
struggling for a few years, you can get by off
of that. The forty nine Ers, they got so close,
but so far twice to Patrick Mahomes, including losing in
overtime in the second game. Like it is very painful

(01:30:08):
for forty nine Ers fans because not only that they
lost a close one to the Baltimore Ravens, the Niners
were living a charmed life forever in the eighties and
nineties where it felt like they were due to win
in the big Game. Now it always feels like they're
coming up short. So it's something to watch there. But
you mentioned some of the injuries going on. Uh, Rashaun
Slater speaking of teams being snake bit like the Chargers

(01:30:32):
fans are like, you think what's going on with the
forty nine Ers is bad? Hold my beer, Like they've
never won the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
You know, Rashaun Slater is saying they got to put
pen to paper, Like forty eight hours before that happened, a.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
Sign and thirteen million dollar contract, the.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Richest guaranteed money for in the history of the sport
for a left tackle, and I believe it was two
days later that he suffers a ptel attendant injury. Is
now out for the season. And now the Chargers went
from having potentially the best tackle combination in the entire sport.
You still have Jolt who it sounds like they're going
to move from right tackle to left tackle. But now
you're talking about the guy likes of Trey Pipkins or

(01:31:09):
other guys who have mightily struggled. Justin Herbert was putting
up big numbers, his first couple of years, but he
was running for his life behind a really bad offensive line,
which is why the Chargers went out and drafted guys
like Joealt and Rashaun Slater. Losing right tackle of his caliber,
a perennial All Pro, it doesn't make a lot of
big headlines for people who follow like that, the names

(01:31:29):
of the big stars and the playmakers. That makes a
huge difference, especially for a team that's built like the
Chargers with Greg Roman and Jim Harball, that want to
run the football down your throat. That's gonna be exponentially
more difficult now that you don't have one of the
best offensive linemen in the league playing for you this year.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
Yeah, just because Jim Harball wears khakis doesn't mean his
teams aren't tough. They're very physical, and that's a debilitating
loss for a team that plays a physical brand of
football and for Chargers fans who have seen this, who
have been tortured over the years due to untimely injuries.
This is one of the worst considering he just signed

(01:32:08):
the contract and how badly they need him to protect
their franchise quarterbacks. Like Charger fans have been in a
special place of sports hell for some time when it
comes to injuries, when it comes to late game situations
and the biggest blown lead ever in a playoff situation
a couple of years ago against the Jacksonville Jaguars. There
is no escape from the sports hell they have been in.

(01:32:31):
I honestly feel bad for them. I feel bad for
our friend Matt Muney Smith of course, the voice of
the Vaults. But this is devastating for the Chargers. It
may not be a national story, it probably should be
because this team is trying to win their first playoff
game with Herbert, they're trying to get over the hump.
And by the way, I got questions about him in
the playoffs now after his first two games like that

(01:32:54):
is a bad start to his young career. You get
a bad taste in your mouth like that. It can
mold you as a young player. Where now he's got
to get the monkey off of his back with how
bad he has played in moments, of course in two
playoff games, but to be without his left tackle on
the best maybe in the game. This is just an
unbelievable bout of misfortune for this franchise.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
So should I walk back my prediction that the Chargers
were gonna unseat the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC
West this year.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
Yeah, you may want to walk that back, Kevin, just
a little bit. Just look, Oh you don't want to
do it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
I don't know if I will.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Oh, you like to live dangerously a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
I do trust Jim Harball. I'm not the biggest fan
of the Charger backups, obviously, but I do love the
toughness that he's instilled in that roster. Sometimes it takes
more than just a year. Last year was his first season.
Justin Herbert has had his playoff issues, you know obviously
that big lead against Jacksonville a couple of years ago,
and not all on.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Him, it's not, but issues is kind. They should not
have lost last season to the Houston Texans, Yes, especially
the way they did.

Speaker 1 (01:33:51):
You're right, I can't disagree with that. Maybe, just maybe
I have too much blind faith in Harball. Not to
say that I don't have faith in Andy Reid, who
you know has also done it multiple times over with
multiple franchises. Uh, But I feel really good about the
Chargers this year, even with this later injury.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
Kevin, I really do.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
You gotta understand something. Chargers fans know this very well.
The Chargers can't have nice things. Yeah, this is just
the way it goes for them. They are one of
the cursed franchises. Like the last great opportunity they had
to get to the Super Bowl back in seven. You
remember what happened. Philip Rivers tore his ACL Now he
played through it in the playoffs admirably. But like when

(01:34:33):
the worst, well, when the worst can happen, it typically
happens to the Chargers at the wrong time. Well, I
don't know if it was that year or the year
before that. They played the Patriots in San Diego. Oh no,
Marty and Philip Rivers through an interception. Excuse me, Tom
Brady through an interception. It was Marlon McCree was a
defensive back.

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
I'll never forget this, even not being a Charger fan,
because it was just the most Charging moment ever.

Speaker 2 (01:34:57):
Was also the low lore, as Rob Parker would say,
the that Tom Brady gets away with throwing this pick.

Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Sure Brady throws the pick to Marlon McCree, who could
have just gone down.

Speaker 3 (01:35:05):
The Chargers could have won the game.

Speaker 1 (01:35:07):
Troy Brown, who's playing cornerback, who was a star receiver
for the Patriots. Because the Patriots had no dbs, they
were so banged up in the secondary. They use one
of their and he was like thirty five or thirty
six at the time. Put him in at a corner.
He comes in from behind. I guess he was receiver
at this point in time. He was on offense, and
he came in and strips the ball out of Marlon
mccree's hands, and the Patriots recover, force overtime. And of

(01:35:28):
course we remember Ladanian Tomlinson crying in the middle of
the field because the Patriots were dancing on the bolt
and all that. That was probably the Charger's best chance
to win a Super Bowl. They were doing the Sean
Marion Dan and lights out dance. They were the best
team in the league. But what's the saying, if it
wasn't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all.
Pretty much that's.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
The epitome of the Chargers, whether in San Diego or
now in Los Angeles. I agree with you, there's hope
because Jim Harbaugh. I love his philosophy. I love him
as a head coach. I think he knows what it
takes to win. It's still about winning in the trenches.
The problem is they lost one of their best guys
in that area this week.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
And maybe I'm biased because I don't like the Chiefs,
though I do like due to your Raiders other than
embarrass them. My entire existence, for the most part, is
that all.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is that
what you're saying with the Chargers.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
To a certain degree, you know, the Chargers, even though
the Chargers have dominated the Raiders the last fifteen years too,
they're still kind of a little bit the little brother
to the Raiders.

Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
To be honest, are you basically giving in saying, well,
the Raiders can't beat the Chiefs, but I can get the.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Chargers to beat them. The Chargers to do it. And
I don't eat the Broncos. I don't I don't need
I don't need that smoke either. Even though I think
they're going to be really good this year, and the
fact that Sean Payton turned what they had last year
into what they were, all the optimism in the world
for the different Broncos. I think the AFC West is
going to be very interesting this year.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
It's usually a gauntlet except for the Raiders.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Why see, why was that that wasn't necessary.

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
Took a shot the Panthers in the first segment of
the show. Kevin, do you think I forgot about that?

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
I was kind of hoping that you would. I keep
receipts or the passers beat the Raiders last year. Can't
you just own that CBS has got nothing on me?

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
Okay, I'm very bitter and I will find a way
to get a dig back at you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
Kevin Figures Adam Lawson broadcasting live from the Fox Sports
Radio studios here on Fox Sports Saturday. Hit us up
on x at k FIG one is where you can
find me. Adam is where you can find Adam A.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
How do you know when a player is fully washed
or heading in that direction? We'll tell you next. Here
on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 9 (01:37:27):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
Kevin Figures Adam Awson with you Fox Sports Saturday here
on Fox Sports Radio. For the best pregame coverage every
weekend or pregame show every weekend, be sure to tune
into Fox Sports Radios. Countdown presented by bet MGM Every
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(01:38:00):
I bet MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning right here
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
So Kevin, like JJ Reddick, I am a basketball siko.

Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
And today when we got to see his player and
Luka Doncic show off his new body. Remember when Krane
and Ninja Turtles was always talking about my body, where's
my body? He was waiting a brain. Yeah, he was
just a brain, remember correctly. But Shredder had to hook
him up with that new hot bod. Luka Dancis played
a ball game today. He did where his team Slovenia

(01:38:34):
wasn't lost in the FOEBA. I don't think it was
a cup. I think it was preliminary pool group play
for the FOEBA Euro Games going on. Slovenia lost one
O three to eighty nine to Germany and from Zavadka
who was out there, he had eighteen. Luka Doncis, though
looking trimmor he did have nineteen points, went three of

(01:38:55):
six from the outside and had five assists in just
twenty four minutes. Much as been made of his new
body and how he looks, I would not say it's
an extreme makeover. This is more like you got two
weeks for a boy's trip to Cabo and you got
to cut down ten pounds or so.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
He just went low car for a few weeks, is
what you're saying. Because he lost like thirty pounds.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
I wouldn't go that far. Okay, I'm not saying. I
don't know if he had thirty pounds to lose, but
Nico Harrison, Nico Harrison makes it seem like he had
an entire basketball team to lose. I think he believed
and he bet against Luca ever getting in this level
of shape. And if you look back, there was a
decline in a specific area with Luka Doncic over the years.

(01:39:37):
That kind of ties in to the weight gain and
him slowing down, which is what Nico Harrison was concerned about.
It drives to the basket. Last season he averaged sixteen.
The year before that, it was eighteen. The year before that,
it was twenty. The year before that it was twenty two.
There was a trend going in the wrong direction for
Luka Doncic as the weight was being gained, he was

(01:39:59):
slowing down and game to the cup as much. So
it was necessary, and he did get to the basket
a couple of times in this ball game today in Foeba,
But I think some may have thought that he was
headed towards being washed at what.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Twenty six, which shouldn't happen. That's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
He hasn't had a devastating injury. He's had some cankel
injuries or ankle injuries. He's had some little dings and knicks,
but nothing major to where twenty six you should be
that concerned. Nico Harrison was, well.

Speaker 1 (01:40:32):
You have the preliminary and I can understand his outlook
because if you see a trend with someone and you're
on the verge of giving them a three hundred plus
million dollar contract and you don't believe that they're going
to be in the best condition to even finish out
that deal healthy, does it not behoove you to get
out ahead of it and get compensation for that player.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
Basically off compensation.

Speaker 8 (01:40:54):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Probably not, But I will say this, if Kyrie Irving
is healthy, that the Dallas Mavericks have as good of
a stake as anybody to get out of the Western Conference.
That's I believe that's fair. That's just if he's healthy
at the end of the season. You could have anticipated
that he would, you know, tear his ACL.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
If he's healthy, If Anthony Davis is healthy, if Cooper
has a good rookie year.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Okay, yeah, sure, there's a lot of ifs. But it
brings on the question of knowing when to cut bait.
When does somebody in decline versus when are they just
hitting a little bit of a drive spell. It's someone
It's something that we're seeing baseball to a certain degree.
Mookie Betts is an example with the Dodgers having a
very down year, the worst year offensively of his career.
He lost a lot of weight with the serious illness

(01:41:32):
before the season started. He was never a big guy
to begin with, so I'm sure that has a lot
to do with it. Bryce Harper's been battling injuries for
the Phillies this year. His production level has not been
what it has been in the past. Are those guys washed,
are they just working through some injuries, or you know,
are they just having a bit of a down year
and they'll bounce back next year.

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
The evidence that I look for in situations like this,
it's too fold with Mookie. He's not hitting for power
or average. It's shocking. I mean, he's at two thirty
six now. I know tonight because he knew we were
going to do this story, he had to hit a
home run and it was kind of the early game
winner for the Dodgers against the Jays. That was big

(01:42:12):
for him, and he's starting to turn things around. He's
six for his last eleven at the plate. But I'm
not convinced yet he's out of the woods. There's too
much evidence this season in entire how many games is
he in over one hundred games where he's looked like
a shell of himself, And there could be reasons. You
mentioned the weight loss due to illness.

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
Which I don't think should be discounted.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
No, it's fair, and maybe a little bit of World
Series hangover from some guys. It hasn't just been him,
but he's been the most severe case for the Dodgers.
He's only thirty two, so you look at age, you
look at what injuries they have had, and then the
type of drop off they've had. If it was just
power with Mookie, I wouldn't be as concerned. I would say,

(01:42:55):
this is the natural aging process, but he shouldn't be
hitting six right now at the age of thirty two.
He's too good for that.

Speaker 4 (01:43:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:43:04):
I don't disagree, uh, but I remember vividly David Ortiz
age thirty three. I think he was eleven years into
his baseball career. Career lows in doubles, hits, home runs,
and he hit two thirty eight. The following years after that,
he was he wasn't right back to where he was
hitting over three hundred and forty eight fifty home runs,

(01:43:25):
but he was pretty damn close to it, and he
had a down year. Yeah, sometimes that happens, I will
say specifically in a sport like Major League baseball for
whatever reason. Sometimes it just ain't your year. Derek Jeter.
Now he bounced back, but I remember vividly as of
like July fifteenth or sixteenth of one season, he was
batting like one sixty one and people were like, he's washed.
He was like nine years into his career. He ended

(01:43:47):
up hitting over three hundred for that season. He ended
up finding it again. It happens uniquely in baseball, where
a guy can fall off. A guy can have a
year where they struggle, and then they can find it
again and they can bounce back.

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
Yeah, reports of guys demise have been greatly exaggerated over
the years where they find it again. And I do
think Mooki, if I had to guess, is not done yet.
And by not done, I mean he can still get
back to playing near an MVP level. I just think
with his age and everything surrounding his particular unique circumstances

(01:44:20):
this season, I could say it's an outlier.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
I could say there's.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
Still time in this regular season for him to show
us something. Remember before with Muki, it was never worrying
about him in the regular season. He looked washed in
the playoffs, but then he turned things around last season
against what the San Diego.

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):
Padres of THESTS in the playoffs for the Dodgers last.

Speaker 2 (01:44:40):
Year, he found his stroke. Then, how much has changed
over a year, Like, I don't think his athleticism, his explosiveness,
his quick twitchness, that type two B muscle fiber stuff,
it shouldn't go by the wayside.

Speaker 1 (01:44:53):
At the age of thirty two, twenty pounds in a
course of ten days at the start of the season
might have something to do with it, all right, But
one thing, gaynor Man, Well, this doesn't happen is football.
When guys fall off, they typically fall off of a cliff.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
So this is something I've been saying here on Fox
Sports Radio for a while. And we get to Breeze
three here in a seconds. We want to make sure
we hit that before we get out of here.

Speaker 7 (01:45:12):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:45:12):
But Derek Henry is a perfect example. I've been saying, like,
you gotta get out. This guy's gonna fall off a cliff.
It's gonna happen. I've seen it happen to Eddie George,
I've seen it happen to Ladanian Tomlinson, and I've looked
like Boo boo a fool for the last four years.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
Is this the sunk cost fallacy? Right at this point,
like you just have to keep saying it because it.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Will happen eventually. It's gonna happen. Now he might be
forty eight still running for twelve hundred yards. I don't know,
but he's gonna happen eventually.

Speaker 2 (01:45:34):
I swear you hurt wrong just early, That's all it is.
I was kind of there with you with Derek Henry
a guy that big. We saw it with Brandon Jacobs. Sure, yeah,
it fell off. Eventually, they lose that verse, they lose
that spark, that juice out there. I don't know what
he is going on. That's just a different level with
King Henry.

Speaker 3 (01:45:52):
Yeah, some guys are just You're just different level of athletes.

Speaker 1 (01:45:54):
You know. Kurz Martin played for a long time and
had a thousand yards rushing I feel like every single
year of his career, which is the reason why he
made it into the Hall of Fame. It's rare in
football that you have a guy lose it and then
find it again. The only one that I could think
of was Brett Farr. Brett Farr left the Packers, went
to the Jets, was not good. Went to the Vikings
was phenomenal until they had that playoff game against the Saints,

(01:46:16):
the bounty gate and all that stuff and this isn't
Detroit man, that whole thing, and then his following season,
his second year of the Vikings was awful. So he
went from looking terrible to where he should have stayed
retired when it came to the Jets, and then turned
into basically an MVP again when he played for the
Minnesota Vikings when he was rejuvenated.

Speaker 2 (01:46:34):
That's kind of a wild up and down situation. See,
because he was I thought he was done. Didn't he
have as many picks as touchdowns with the Jets?

Speaker 1 (01:46:44):
Yeah, like thirty three touchdowns and thirty three interceptions or something.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
There was the Jets Surger stuff. That's for a different show.
There was a lot going on. There was a lot
going on with Brett Farva at that time. But then
he got his revenge against the Packers the next year,
just to blow it in the NFC Championship game.

Speaker 3 (01:46:58):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
All right, let's get to one of the staples of
this time slot that we have every single Saturday morning.
It's Breeze three, not one.

Speaker 4 (01:47:08):
But three. It's entertainment. It's good. It's Breeze three.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
Light bree What do we got?

Speaker 8 (01:47:19):
Welcome to you, guys, is first Breeze three.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
So exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:47:22):
I love this.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
I'll listen to you and Chris do this every single
Friday nights, last Saturday morning. It's a it's a highlight
for me to be able to be a part of
it today.

Speaker 8 (01:47:30):
Yes, absolutely so. I'm obviously we're super excited to see
Travis Hunter later today playing offense and defense. He said
this with Kay Adams on up and Adams yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:47:42):
Unicorn is it the unicorn?

Speaker 1 (01:47:44):
Traps Unicorn Hunter? Let me get it right, the Unicorn,
the unicorn okay, TM trademark that everybody.

Speaker 8 (01:47:52):
Alrighty, So basically now he's obviously known as the Unicorn.
I kind of thought for zingis was the unicorn at
one point? Yeah, But I think this is a better
way for a better like nickname for Travis Hunter. So
I was like, let's talk about like athletes like best nicknames,
like teams athletes like awesome, like memorable nicknames, because I
don't think we'll ever not think of Travis Hunter as Unicorn,

(01:48:13):
because he literally is a unicorn. So my first one,
I'm a Suns fan, as everyone knows. So so I
went Sean Marion the Matrix one.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
That like the Matrix not bad.

Speaker 2 (01:48:25):
I like what you did to the Lakers and six
he got that big rebound, and then found Tim Thomas.

Speaker 8 (01:48:29):
Never forget that game six yea great and they came
back three to one series.

Speaker 2 (01:48:35):
A lot of people forget about that here in Los Angeles,
of course.

Speaker 8 (01:48:37):
Obviously. The second one I went with the death lineup
of the Warriors consisting of like Clay Thompson, Steph Curry,
I can't think of everybody else, Durant and then who
was the five.

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
Was Sean Livingston one of them?

Speaker 1 (01:48:57):
Andrea Goood No no, no, no, no, Giggy was in there.

Speaker 8 (01:49:01):
Yeah, okay, so that was like the death the death lineup,
Steph Clay Draymond, AI well the other ai KG and
Harrison Barnes, North Carolina, Harrison Barnes.

Speaker 2 (01:49:11):
That was the death lineup. That was the original well,
it was the death lineup because Harrison Barnes went like
oh yeah or something like that in game seven for
them for.

Speaker 3 (01:49:19):
That loss against the Cavaliers, as anybody he killed him.

Speaker 8 (01:49:22):
That was really depressing. And then I went Sandman for
Marianna Rivera, just with that entrance music and the cutter
picture about like putting batters to sleep. I just thought
that was super cool.

Speaker 3 (01:49:32):
Slice and off handles for twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:49:33):
Years, right, so it's memorable.

Speaker 2 (01:49:34):
So we're talking nicknames here, nicknames.

Speaker 8 (01:49:36):
Yeah, So the Travis Hunter was the Unicorn. I went
with like three nicknames. And then now I'll throw it
to Mark.

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
What do you got Mark?

Speaker 12 (01:49:43):
So anybody ever heard of a guy named Charles Theodore Davis.

Speaker 1 (01:49:49):
That's Chili Davis. I was speaking about.

Speaker 12 (01:49:51):
Oh, so there's Chilia. So there's Chili Davis. My next
win is a guy named a Decki Matsui.

Speaker 1 (01:49:58):
Ah Godzilla Zilla love it, love that name, just because
of the movies and all that kind of start row
Dan and whatever. But he was just girls, I'm off
for guy Marks to be honest. Okay, got it, I'm
the real Dan person. But anyway, and then my next
one is Frank Thomas, the Big Hurt, The Big Hurt.
Love Frank Thomas. So those are my three.

Speaker 12 (01:50:16):
But then my honorable mentions are Carlton Fisk, Pudge, and
Tom Seaver, Tom Terrific.

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:23):
I love that. Now I guess lest I be a
prisoner of the moment. It's really hard to beat the
big Dumper. It's really really hard to beat Kyle Riley
who went home run number forty three.

Speaker 3 (01:50:33):
By the way, on Friday Night.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
Guys come out of nowhere now, people will say, and
I hope I'm not stealing one from you. When it
comes to Charles Barkley, the round mound of rebound. How's
this for a deep cut? The round mound of touchdown.
Jared Lorenzen was a quarterback for the University of Kentucky.
He weighed like two hundred and sixty pounds, was nimble
as ever. Actually won of Super Bowl as Eli Mining's
backup when they beat the Patriots the second time. The

(01:50:57):
late great Jared Lorenzen round mound of touch down, also
nicknamed the Hefty Lefty. So that's one of my favorites
of all time. There was Jared Lorenzo.

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):
That's pretty good. He was one of those guys's like, wait,
this guy plays a professional sport, Like what's going on?

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
Absolutely is it hackey?

Speaker 9 (01:51:12):
Sad?

Speaker 3 (01:51:14):
And then I gotta go with my guy, the Nigeria Nightmare.

Speaker 1 (01:51:17):
Christannakoye still untackleable when it comes to playing in Techno
Bowl back in the day.

Speaker 2 (01:51:22):
That's strong. That's strong, all right. I gotta go with
Jason Williams playing for the Kings and the Memphis Grizzlies
and won a championship in six with the Heat with
the Miami Heat. White Chocolate's too good.

Speaker 1 (01:51:36):
Yeah, you didn't know if he was going to pass
the ball to in your chest or throw it into
the eighteenth throw.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
Well, sometimes it didn't go your way. But when he
did that elbow pass in What the Futures game, that
was very memorable. Who was that too, Raye la France
or something like that. Lamar Oden was the one who
ended up I guess following him at the end of
the play. White Chocolate was special to me. One of
the great black.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
Room rants too. Of course, you ain't doing nothing. Homeboy,
go touch me. Homeboy was back off of me. We
used to have that sound in the system somewhere, and
I don't know what happened to it.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
He wiped it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
Here's a nickname that the player who's named after this.
He doesn't even like it, but he's Great Durantula for
some reason. He doesn't like that, and he doesn't like
Slim Reaper. Those are badass nicknames.

Speaker 1 (01:52:18):
I'd say he think those are corny, but he's corny.

Speaker 4 (01:52:20):
So that you know.

Speaker 2 (01:52:22):
His other nickname is Cupcake. They do call him, at
least in Oklahoma City, because he left them for a
team that beat him up three to one, and the
Golden State Warriors. I think this is very traditional and obvious,
but it's too good not to bring up because we
actually think this is the guy's name. At this point,

(01:52:44):
Magic Johnson. Correct, it's Irving Johnson. You know that is
his actual name. His nickname stuck. So well, we just
call him magic and that's all you need.

Speaker 1 (01:52:52):
That is true. That was on my honorable mentions list there,
Mark was magic. I mean, how do you beat that?

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
I wanted to go with more of a deep cut,
but sometimes I have to go mainstream.

Speaker 1 (01:52:59):
No, I get it, I get it. I also think
you mentioned Ai Brie, the original Ai Alan Iverson the
answer was always one of my favorites too.

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):
The truth with Paul Parkers is not bad as well.

Speaker 8 (01:53:08):
I was surprised that what he said black Mamba with Kobe.

Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
I was never a big fan of the black mambo
Monitker to.

Speaker 8 (01:53:13):
Be with you, No, I wanted to do it, but
I just I don't want to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
It's the Lakers, you know, I.

Speaker 1 (01:53:18):
Will say ago when I just popped him in too
my head, the Minister of Defense only because Reggie White
was actually an ordained minister.

Speaker 3 (01:53:25):
So I mean, it's just it was just too perfect.
Rodney Pete, who I work.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
With on our local affiliate A five to seventy LA
Sports every day, he said one time Reggie White sacked
him and said, you get man. Your offensive line needs
to pray for you. Brother, they get you. They gonna
get you killed.

Speaker 2 (01:53:41):
Back here, man, exercise those demons.

Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
I'm telling you.

Speaker 2 (01:53:45):
Thank you, Brie.

Speaker 4 (01:53:46):
That was great.

Speaker 2 (01:53:46):
That's pretty fast.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
A fun breeze three.

Speaker 2 (01:53:50):
Coming up next to close things, Alan, Yeah, is it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:54):
Really almost over? It's almost over?

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):
You know what. I think we got to finish where
we start already here, and there was a big story
earlier with Shadure Sanders, and we haven't gotten to everything
for the Cleveland Browns and what this could mean coming
up next here on Fox Sports Radio, I'm out of Maslin.
He's Kevin Figures having deja vu here, Welcome back in

(01:54:17):
It's Fox Sports Saturday. I'm at a Maslim We got
k fig here in the building, gonna be with you guys,
Little f and a takeover. And you know, if you
missed any of today's show, you want to catch the podcast,
just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
Right after the show, today's podcast will be posted. Be
sure to follow the podcast and rated five stars and

(01:54:38):
you can't even provide a review. Again. Just search Fox
Sports Radio wherever you get your podcast, and you'll find
today's full show posted right after we get off the air.
Before that happens, Kevin Shadure Sanders kind of lit the
sports world on fire the man of the hour.

Speaker 1 (01:54:58):
People are printed Super Bowl tickets for the already.

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):
He reminded me with his performance of something from one
of my favorite shows ever, Friday Night Lights, where Tim Riggans,
who's like the brooding cool fullback, is talking with Minka Kell.

Speaker 1 (01:55:15):
Yeah, the guy who's like ripping beers and then running
for five hundred yards the next night.

Speaker 2 (01:55:18):
Yeah, he could roll like that. He could live that
lifestyle and still be good on the field, he told her,
and she was looking good. He was like, you're looking good,
like real good. Like that's how far we're taking this
with Shadoor. People are starting to dream in Cleveland now.

Speaker 1 (01:55:34):
I mean, look, it's nice that you have someone to
offer you a little bit of hope for I think
it's maybe it's mean to say a hopeless franchise, but
that's kind of what they have been. I mean, you
thought you struck gold with Deshaun Watson a couple of
years ago and gave him all that guaranteed money, which
set off a whole controversy with the NFLPA and all
that stuff, and he's been terrible, and now all of
a sudden, just on the heels of that, you luck

(01:55:55):
into a guy that you know, had a lot of hype,
who for a lot of people had a first, second,
third grade. You get him into the fifth round and look,
he's not the second coming of you know, some superstar
quarterback at least you can't judge that off of one
preseason start. But he certainly looks like he belongs on
an NFL field. He looks like he can make some
of those requisite throws. I think anto tight windows. I
think that's the most encouraging part.

Speaker 2 (01:56:16):
He looks professional, he looks competent, He looks how he
should for at least all the people that doubted him.

Speaker 1 (01:56:24):
He's firing back. Yeah, well, he's getting.

Speaker 2 (01:56:27):
Back at all the teams that passed on him. And
he's going to have this chip on his shoulder forever
because of it, and he's gonna beat him with his play.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
Now, was had a self inflicted chip though, That's the
thing to some degree, And if he had you know,
respected again based on sourcing, if he had respected the
process at the combine in the interviews, did personal workouts
for teams, did as much as he possibly could have
to put his best foot forward for teams. Maybe he
doesn't fall into the fifth round. And there's a lot
of people who say, like, Yeah, you know, you're talented,

(01:56:56):
but you're not so talented that we're going to make
all these sacrifices and live and basically live with the
fact that you were disrespectful and disrespect to the process. No,
we're not gonna take you in a second, third round.
We'll find somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
The reason that I couldn't believe he slid that far
was because the coverage of him in college, specifically on
Fox with somebody that I respect as much as anyone
in the football world, Joe Klatt. Yeah, a lot of
games he would say over and over again, that's an
NFL throw right there, that's poison the pocket, that's an

(01:57:31):
NFL arm. And I'm thinking to myself, like, has he
made more NFL throws in college than Tom Brady did
in the actual NFL With the way he talked about.

Speaker 3 (01:57:40):
Him, Yeah, I mean he's right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:41):
I mean a lot of the things that Joel mentioned
from what you were just talking about. If you look
at his player profile coming out of the draft. For
all things, he was complimented on poison the pocket, despite
the fact that he played behind a terrible offensive line
for the majority of his career at Colorado. An accurate arm.
Maybe not the strongest arm, but an NFL arm strong enough.
The biggest issues with him lack of athleticism, didn't move,

(01:58:03):
doesn't move extremely well, doesn't have a power arm, and he's.

Speaker 3 (01:58:06):
Not that tall.

Speaker 1 (01:58:07):
We'll hold up now, But we've seen plenty of guys
be success with Drew Brees. You know, there's been plenty
of shorter quarterbacks who have success to a Tagoba Loa,
you know, the forty nine ers quarterback, you know, like
they brock party. So there's been there's been guys in
the right system who can't thrive despite their physical deficiencies.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
Right you are not one of them yet, not yet,
not yet.

Speaker 3 (01:58:29):
Fill some promise at the end of last year.

Speaker 2 (01:58:31):
The only way he can see over the line is
if he rolls out. Those are the only throws he
can make. Right now, he's shorter than Doug Pluti Ontel.

Speaker 1 (01:58:37):
I thought they just keep a fullback back there to
just prop them up, just put put him over his head.

Speaker 2 (01:58:42):
He alone is keeping the fullback position a lot, right,
But I'll say this, the stuff that I think can
translate is the precision passing for sure, the touch passes
he made in this game in tight windows. That stuff
can translate. That was meaningful in this even though it's preseason,
even though he was taking on the Panthers, Like, there

(01:59:03):
are things that you can legitimately, legitimately be hopeful about
and still move forward and say, all right, it's preseason,
but I don't know, we may have something here.

Speaker 1 (01:59:14):
Yeah, well, look we've seen guys go out there and
look totally lost. I mean I remember Jared Goff his
rookie year and how bad he looked for the Rams. Now,
granted with right coaching and all that, he was able
to turn it around. So I don't think anybody's necessarily
a lost cause at the very beginning of their career.
Nor is anybody, I think the second coming of you know,
a Hall of fame, you know, Peyton Manning type. So
I'm just saying that I think exhortations need to be
tempered a little bit when it comes to szucudor Sanders,

(01:59:37):
but I think it's you can be encouraged by what
you saw in his first outing on Friday Night.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
Poise under Noise, he was able to elevate amongst and
above the pressure. Did we do the same in this
show three hours later?

Speaker 3 (01:59:49):
Well, I like to think so we didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:59:51):
We didn't get you yanked off of the air midway
through the show, so that's always a good sign.

Speaker 2 (01:59:54):
Thanks to Breebreath not having us fail and being taken
off the air like that.

Speaker 1 (02:00:00):
Thank you, Mark, appreciate it. Thanks for you guys having
us Kevin figures. And I'm also on Fox Sports Radio.
My guys the Fellas coming up next. Jason Fitz and
Anthony Gargano, Fox Sports Radio,
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