Best of Chuck in the Morning 8-12

Is it the end for the Mariners? We discussed that, Episode 2 of Hard Knocks and more on Wednesday's show! Here are the best moments!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let the game's begin and now broadcasting live from the
city of Champion now World Champions Crystal Clear.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
FM stereo new stereomonic sounds. All right, stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
The next four hours are brought to you by the
Julia Resort Casino Hotel.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Now we've got a long time. We're the action. Never stop?
Are you writing this stuff?

Speaker 5 (00:24):
Something?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
This is Chuck in the morning. Why you people are
beyond Let's go, Let's get the game off. Hey, great

(00:46):
morning to you. Welcome into the radio show on a
home day. It is Chuck Polin Ashley Ryan with you
Sports Radio ninety three point three kh A r f M,
and we do take you till ten o'clock today. We've
got all sorts of things to discuss on today's program,
and yeah, a lot of them.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Great.

Speaker 6 (01:04):
I was gonna say we got all sorts huh yeah, all.

Speaker 7 (01:06):
Sorts of happy stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
No, yeah, I wouldn't call it happy stuff.

Speaker 7 (01:11):
We're thrilled.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Maybe we could weave in some happy stuff at some point. Okay,
maybe we could sprinkle it. I don't know if I
have I don't have enough material for a weave. I
might have to sprinkle dust it.

Speaker 7 (01:24):
What about tears? We got room for tears.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Oh we do, we do.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, yeah, the salty tears. Yeah, we can taste each
other's tears later on in the program as well. Okay,
gonna be that kind of day, but we welcome you
into the show. We do have a lot to discuss
here on today's program, and so welcome in as we
get things started here on a Wednesday. And yeah, it

(01:48):
does feel from you know, this is kind of this
is one of the tough I'm gonna say this the
good thing if there's a silver lining about what I'm
ready to discuss, as I have done this before, and
the team two different times has magically turned the baseball
season around like out of nowhere, like just completely out

(02:09):
of no like the moment I said this, then the
team absolutely reached down and found something magical and went
on a run. This has happened twice in the last
five years now. One time they didn't finish it. Yeah,
the other time they did. But yeah, it is Mariner's

(02:30):
funeral day today. That's what it feels like to me.
That team's not going to come back from this. And
they are now eight games under five hundred after losing
to the Yankees last night, a game that they were
leading one to nothing going into the sixth inning, but
once again, absolutely no offense from this baseball team. Once

(02:52):
again a manager that doesn't know what to do once
the starting pitcher is out of the game, and it
results in a one loss to the New York Yankees,
eight games under five hundred, four and a half games
out of first place, with another with two teams between
them and first place, four games out of the wild card.

(03:13):
There are only three teams in the American League right
now that are worse than the Seattle Mariners in the standings.
Only three, I mean, certainly not out of it completely.
The maths suggests that they could pull something out of
a hat and pull this thing off. But the baseball
team that we're watching, even the postgame comments, I mean,

(03:35):
I do appreciate Ashley, and you know, there's never ever
going to be a time where we don't like Slash
love cal Rawley, right, never going to be a time.
I mean, he's just such a good dude. And then
on top of it, he's given us phenomenal memories in
this city, yep. And he gave us what probably is

(03:56):
the greatest individual season in Mariners history, and a franchise
that had Griffy Junior in it. Cal Rawley authored the
greatest individual season in the history of the franchise last year.
But he's been awful to use his own words, and
last night I appreciate him going out there and meeting

(04:19):
the media head on, and it looks like, I mean,
he could have easily sat in his locker and did
the same three to five minute conversation and gave short,
cliched answers to questions. He went out, he met it
head on. He threw himself under the bus. But it
seems like a really strange time for the captain of

(04:40):
the team, and the manager still hasn't spoken this way.
On August twelfth, eight games under five hundred to have
an entire press conference with both New York and Seattle
media last night and say we got to start playing
with it with an edge. You got to start playing

(05:03):
with an edge. And he might not have said that specifically,
like in those terms, but that was the theme of
his press conference last night. That's what he went out
to tell the media. We got to just play with
an edge. We're not always playing with an edge. What
on earth? So what was the wake up call eight games?

(05:27):
Was it seven wasn't seven games under five hundred, Six
games under five hundred an All Star break in which
you were already being described as the most disappointing team
in baseball. And that's in a league where the New
York Mets have the second highest payroll in the sport
and are the worst team in the National League. And
yet national experts who had your back at the beginning
of the year and said you were going to win

(05:47):
the American League, at the All Star break and at
the trading deadline were describing you as the most disappointing
team in Major League Baseball. And now we're going to
create an edge. Now we're going to set that edge.
And maybe he didn't mean it that way, and maybe
he felt that way a long time ago, but that
seems like a strange time to waltz out in front

(06:09):
of a bunch of cameras and a bunch of reporters
who've been following you all year along some of them,
and announced that we've got to set an it, we
got to play with a greater edge going forward.

Speaker 6 (06:21):
Well wow, And I think I do think that this
team thought they were doing that, Like I think they've
had moments where they're like, yeah, we've got this, we're
playing with our edge, we're fighting for this, we want this.
But I think they were maybe going more through the
motions and maybe him coming out because he I mean,
he said that, but he also kind.

Speaker 7 (06:39):
Of called all of them out.

Speaker 6 (06:40):
He said, we we can't we got we gotta stop
finger pointing.

Speaker 7 (06:43):
I mean, it's not about who did this wrong or
who did that wrong.

Speaker 6 (06:46):
And so I want I don't know if it was
more of a public display to say like, yeah, we're
having these conversations and this is what's.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
Going on and we know we need to be better, or.

Speaker 6 (06:56):
If it was just finally his frustration kind of overflowing
in him.

Speaker 7 (07:01):
Saying saying like I want to say this out loud,
and I want to about himself.

Speaker 6 (07:06):
Yeah, I want everyone to know that I know I'm
terrible right now.

Speaker 7 (07:10):
Awful was his word.

Speaker 6 (07:12):
And this team isn't playing how they're supposed to, and
we are we know that.

Speaker 7 (07:16):
It is a disappointment to everybody.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
And I mean, I I admired that he came out
there because yeah, as you said, he could have easily
just mumbled things in his locker and been like, I
don't know, we've got to be better, gotta try.

Speaker 7 (07:29):
We fought hard.

Speaker 6 (07:30):
I mean he could have, you know, kind of done
a Dan Wilson and just well it was a tough one. Yeah,
I mean even Dan Wilson was a little more irritated.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
I like it, but I'll say this, like it felt
like it felt like closing words to the season. It
felt like we don't have an answer. Yeah, we got
six weeks left to come up with an answer, and
we don't have an answer. And of course Dan Wilson's
typical tough one press conference afterwards. I don't you know,

(08:01):
if if fire is required, I don't think that they
have a match. I don't think I don't think that
they know where to pull that spark from. If it occurs,
it's going to come out from you know, the sky.
It's going to be a lightning bolt that jolts them
into action. It's not going to be anything that they
can generate themselves. That's how it felt to me. It

(08:24):
felt like a eulogy last night, more so than a
pep talk like this, this thing's dead. I'm sorry that
it's dead. I'm partly responsible for it being dead. I
take a lot of the blame for it. Being dead.
Maybe we can resurrect it, but if we do, we
got to play completely different than what we've been playing

(08:47):
as of late. And that it wasn't inspiring to me,
I can I can appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (08:52):
Oh and I don't think he was trying to be inspiring.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
He wasn't inspiring. It didn't feel like there. I didn't
see in his eye fight. I kind of saw in
his eye surrender. That's what I saw in that in
his press conference last night. And Dan Wilson just you know,
Just is gonna be him, gonna be him every single
second of every single day, including in games. Yeah, he's

(09:18):
gonna be nervous and fidgety and and then just vanilla.
That's what afterwards. He's just gonna be vanilla and not
give you anything. And so that's where you're at. And
that's why to me, like I mean, I've said this
week that I'm on the other side of the fence
for the first time. I don't think they're gonna be
able to pull this off. And that's very disappointing.

Speaker 7 (09:40):
Yeah, it really is now.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
I really think it's over. It's done.

Speaker 6 (09:44):
I've gotten I tell you that every year, if we
are out of the playoffs. Mathematically out of the playoffs,
I still hold on to hope, like, well, something crazy
could happen. We could still end up. And I have
this like certain mentality where I'm like, I haven't fully
given up yet, even though I should have given because
there's no chance. That's kind of how I already feel,
even though we're not mathematically out of it. Oh, not

(10:05):
till we have a chance. But I have that same
kind of like I'm trying to will myself to still
believe that they could do something that kind of seems impossible.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, you're gonna have to just I mean, in the
last you've got to find a streak, you've got to
find some tear. Yeah, And that's that's I guess that's
my point. Yeah, certainly you've got plenty of time Mathematically
it comes back from this. But we've been waiting for
this team to play good baseball for four and a
half months, right, and it's not getting better. No, the

(10:35):
offense is getting worse. Yep, that's the worst picture you're
gonna face in this series. And he's pretty good, don't
get me wrong. Weather's is pretty good. Yeah, that's the
worst picture you're going to face. In these three games
and you got three hits off of him and then
with a one nothing lead, And I do blame just
I mean, I think you know what's coming. I mean,
we're going to talk about Dan's decision, but I do

(10:58):
blame the offense. I don't want anybody to get it.
That's the biggest problem. We can't hit right. And so
for all of the people that are worried that the
Mariners are going to have to fire a legend and
Dan Wilson, I got news for you, They're gonna have
to fire two legends because there's no way that this
offensive coaching staff can survive this season in the off season,

(11:19):
and that that legend, that sacred ground right there, Edgar Martinez.
But he can't. He can't stick around after a year
in which you ended up with one of the four
worst records in the American League with maybe the best
roster in the American League. Again, he can't survive that.

(11:40):
As much as I like Kevin Seizer, you know, for
all the Dan Wilson's so nice, Kevin Seitzer's nicer, He's
not gonna survive this. He's not going to and he's
got a much better track record as being a hitting
coach than Dan Wilson does as a manager. He can't
survive this.

Speaker 7 (11:53):
Yeah, Dan Wilson was never a manager before this.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, yeah, So I do blame the offense. And once
again it was the problem that you can only score
one run on three hits in the game last night,
and once you were down, I mean you could just
see the defeat once you fell behind by two runs
or more. This team's cooked. That's the way that they've
played pretty much all season long to this point. But

(12:17):
we do that does not excuse it. In matter of fact,
it highlights the importance of a manager when you can't
score runs and every single run is precious and you
know you're not going to put many runs on the
board from night tonight. You got to treat this thing like, man,
we've got to win this one. Nothing. And I get that.
Apparently gave Spires not available last night. How he's not available?

(12:40):
I mean, what did you do? Did you in you're
two days off of your suspension? Did you help a
neighbor move? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (12:46):
Hardcore, Parkore, I don't get it. Well, yeah, how is
he not available? But I guess he's not available. But
even though he's not available, this is the time of year,
this is the desperation you're in that you have to
break the mold of how you've been doing things for
the long term.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
You have to win that night. The only way to
create a streak is to win a game.

Speaker 7 (13:13):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
And Jose Ferrer has not been good as of late,
but last night he looked like he could strike out
the twelve Disciples like he looked like he was locked in.
And they have a lefty dominated lineup, which you know
doesn't take a talk show hos to do a Yankee
preview and tell you they have seven left handed hitters

(13:36):
in their lineup. So you don't have Gabe Spire, You've
got a horse in Ferrer. He's had two three days
off and I know he hasn't been good lately, but
when he's pitching great and you don't have another lefty
in the pen, you ride that horse. And if Aaron
Boone Pinch hits with a right handed hitter, then you

(13:57):
go to Domingez. Dominguez has been phenomenal this year against righty's.
That's when make make them. You dictate the terms. All
season long, he's let the other manager dictate what he's
gonna do. And so you just played right into Aaron

(14:18):
Boone's hands. He didn't have to pinch hit, he didn't
have to do anything. Oh my gosh, you're going to
your mop up guy in the sixth inning up one run,
thank you. Yeah. And I don't have to I don't
have to take my big lefties out of the lineup
at all. And I don't have to face that horse
who was mowing us down for sixteen pitches in the
last half inning. Let him go a couple if they
don't pinch hit now he goes in inning and two thirds?

(14:39):
Is that gonna kill Jose Ferrer. I'll say another thing.
I'll say this about Jerry and Justin Kate Anderson. If
you don't have Gabe Spiers got to be activated for
this series. You're facing a team with seven lefties in
their lineup. You've got a guy down in Double A
who is toying with minor league hitters and is not

(15:00):
getting challenged in any way. You know you're going to
bring him up at some point this season. Why wouldn't
it be now? Why wouldn't it be in this moment?
Is it not desperation time for the Mariners right? Why
wouldn't you bring in if you don't have another lefty
and you're getting ready for a road trip that is

(15:20):
going to determine whether or not you can save this season.
I mean, why are you this secret weapon that you've
been holding up with, holding up with this entire year.
I mean, it's like getting to the end of the
Avengers and Thanos finally gets the five Stones and then
he just leaves the glove on top of his car

(15:41):
as he's you know, and drives away and it rolls
off into the ditch. Like you have this secret weapon
and you're going to let the season get away before
you ever even use it. Why wouldn't you have used him?
And then let's get to Rucker. I don't get the infatuation.

(16:02):
And look, I'm not saying he doesn't have a spot
on a major league roster. Fine, he's been phenomenal in
mop up situations, not phenomenal, really good. You have to
have mop up guys and then you have leverage guys.
And Michael Rucker has proven to you statistically, I have

(16:23):
the data. He is nothing more than a mop up guy,
a good one. When he enters a game in the
last two months, when the team is out of it,
either they're up big or in most cases, down big.
He's had ten appearances with that ten and a third innings,

(16:43):
he's allowed three earned runs, and he's allowed ten hits
ten base runners. That's less than one base runner per inning. Yeah,
that's that's a mop up guy. Hey, eat some innings
for us so that we don't have to use our
best guys to try to get through this game tonight
that we know we've already won or we know we've
already lost. That's a mop up guy. That's what Michael

(17:05):
Rutger is what he is not. And I implore all
of you that keeps sending me messages about Rutger's numbers
have actually been pretty good. I beg you, I beg
you please look one layer deeper than the surface. I mean,
if you're going to start a fight, I got guns,
don't bring a knife. Michael Rutger in close games this

(17:30):
year in the last month and a half, six and
two thirds innings and seven appearances, eight runs allowed and
fourteen base runners. Now, three of those runs were unearned.
But let's not give Michael Rutcker too much credit there.
If you take away the unearned run, if just say runs.

(17:53):
He'd have an ERA of ten point eight zero in
close games, and he's allowed fourteen base runners and six
and two thirds innings when he's brought in in a
close game like that. Is not a high leverage guy,
and Dan Wilson has turned him into one. How do
you go to Michael Rucker? There? Again, it defies logic,

(18:19):
it defies statistics. That's not even analytics. You're not even
you're not even banking on your analytics at that point.
There is no way that Michael Rutgers the choice there
getting ready to face two left handed hitters after Brian
Wu comes out, stick with WU'SCA, you're down a guy.

Speaker 6 (18:38):
Well, and you're at the point of the season, right,
he is at ninety two pitches. Why wouldn't you put
him in and see if you can get out of
one more inning or two thirds of an inn? Yeah,
just something you gotta get twenty seven outs? Yeah, and
you you apparently were down a.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Guy, which you never told anybody about. And here's Brian
Wu on a roll after the thirty pitch first inning.

Speaker 7 (19:03):
Finally on a roll on the road.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yes, if you're that desperate, see if you can steal
an out or two. Maybe you have a quick inning,
maybe and maybe you get to skip Rucker entirely. But nope.
Dan Wilson loves Michael Rutger. There's no getting around it.
He thinks he's great and the numbers suggest he's not.

(19:29):
And I'm sure they're simple.

Speaker 7 (19:30):
I'm sure he's a nice guy and he thinks he's
great because of that.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, But yeah, but that's just it. Nice guy.
I just keep hearing nice guy. Is that what we're doing?
We're just trying to run a nice guy organization here.

Speaker 7 (19:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Let's get some Let's get some ballers in here. Let's
got get guys that have already set an edge. Let's
get a manager who knows how to set an edge.
One hundred and twenty five games into the season, and
now we're going to start playing with an edge. All right,

(20:03):
Let's find out what's on tap?

Speaker 9 (20:07):
May I have your attention?

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Please?

Speaker 3 (20:08):
This is What's on Tap? Brought to you by Emerald
Queen Casino, bringing you the best in live music, entertainment, dining,
in gaming. Emerald Queen Casino, always Entertaining. For more info,
visit Emerald Queen dot com.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yankees win four to one over the Mariners last night,
fifty six and sixty four. The record now four and
a half games back of the Astros, four back in
the wildcard. In this I mentioned only three teams in
the American League with a worst record now than the
Seattle Mariners. And so tonight they'll play again four pm
at Yankee Stadium. Bryce Miller will go against Will Warren.
That is a battle of two right handers. First pitch

(20:46):
again at four to five Mariner morning after coming up
at six thirty. And of course we're gonna talk more
about this later on in the show. What should have
been our lead story was the Hard Knocks episode two,
where some interesting things came out about Terry and Arnold
and Nick, Eamon Worri and all sorts of culture. I mean,
it was just a show about highlighting, showcasing the culture

(21:10):
of this organization, which I found fascinating. I don't know
of other fans of other teams found it as fascinating,
but my goodness, that's what that episode was about yesterday,
and then the Terry and Arnold story at the very end,
we'll ask Greg Bell about it. At seven oh five,
it's game week for Seahawks. Training camp. We count down

(21:32):
the days till Saturday against the Dallas Cowboys at home,
and they'll kick that thing off. F five o'clock NFL News.
Kobe Bryant, former Seahawk, now Chicago Bear, looks like he's
not even gonna play this year. He is out for
the season or at least four to six months, which
likely puts his season in peril. And the Vikings named
Kyler Murray their starting quarterback. Didn't take them very long

(21:55):
to determine Murray is better than JJ McCarthy, so he'll start.
That says a lot too, not just the naming of Murray,
but it says a lot about McCarthy that the competition
is already over. An Husky's camp continues as well, and
we're gonna spend a lot of time on that tomorrow.
Coming up next though, Mariners Morning after the details of
last night's loss. Right here on Sports Radio ninety three

(22:17):
point three kJ R f.

Speaker 6 (22:18):
M s.

Speaker 5 (22:28):
The trajectory of this thy might now where's it at?

Speaker 4 (22:30):
And the worst leave? I mean it's not good.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
I'm like, well, uh, you know that's for me, you know,
I'm a whole self.

Speaker 9 (22:38):
That's uh, this is what it just gotta got one
way to be better and to hope, you know, bring
it off.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
That long, and they, uh, who's got a player?

Speaker 4 (22:47):
I mean, ultimately we're just playing very very that's.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Well, Hey, great Wednesday morning to you. Happy hum Day.
It is Chuck Collin, Ashley Ryan with you. That the
voice of cal Raleigh being peppered with questions by Ryan Davis.

(23:13):
Very nosy, very nosy person by nature of that guy.
And cal Raley threw himself on the sword last night
after another Mariner's loss. I'm awful, he said, sadly, he's
not wrong, which we're going to get into a little
bit later on in the hour. But the Mariners did
lose the game, and it was a joint effort. They

(23:36):
lost to the Yankees four to one. Brian Woo was
sensational for five innings but was taken out after the fifth.
Jose Ferrara, even better than the sixth, was taken out
after the sixth. Dan Wilson brought in Michael Rucker, who
has struggled in these situations since birth, and the Yankees
scored four times in the seventh inning, and of course

(23:57):
that's way too much for the Mariners offense to over
come so it's another loss, four to one the final score.
We appreciate the audio there. Do I credit anybody for
that kind of painting myself.

Speaker 7 (24:09):
In that corner. This is all over the internet.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Mariners are fifty six and sixty four on the season,
now four and a half games back of the Houston Astros,
four games back in the wild Card. There are only
three teams in the entire American League that have a
worse record than the Mariners right now. They will try
to solve their issues tonight with Bryce Miller taking the
mound at Yankee Stadium against right hander Will Warren first
pitches at four to five. We will certainly talk more

(24:35):
about the Mariners coming up a little bit later on
in the show. But some other headlines brought to you
by Frost Brewed Corps. Light Husky's camp continues in the
National Football League. Kobe Bryant out for the season for
his new team, the Chicago Bears. It looks like four
to six months so could be out for the season.
The Vikings have chosen Kyler Murray over JJ McCarthy said

(24:56):
this before. I think the real story here is how
early they we made that decision in camp, not that
they did make that decision in camp, and Seahawks training camp,
of course continues. We get ready for a game, a
preseason game on Saturday at five o'clock at home against
the Dallas Cowboys to talk about that Hard Knocks Nicky men,
Warri and Terry and Arnold. We welcome to the show

(25:17):
our Seahawks insider Greg.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Bell as part of our continuing NFL coverage for the
twelfth Man. This is twelfth Man News, part of Chuck's
daily visit with our own Greg Bell, brought to you
by Emerald Queen Casino, bringing you the best in live music, entertainment,
dining and gaming. Emerald Queen Casino, Always Entertaining. For more info,

(25:40):
visit Emerald Queen dot Com.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
From morning, Greg, good morning, Uh, all right, what'd you
think of Hard Knocks last night? Enjoy it, have a
good time with it?

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, man, interesting one.

Speaker 5 (25:55):
Yeah, Probably the most interesting thing for me being out
there every day is because of the fans of most
of the music, we can't hear when Mike McDonald erupts,
we kindly see it, so it's.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
Interesting to hear it.

Speaker 5 (26:07):
Yeah, And how he says what he says to Derek Hall,
and how he makes up to him and smooths it
over by the end and turns out I'm.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
The one in charge of the f and practice.

Speaker 5 (26:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's all little leadership, Climpson, the Mike McDonald's
the news of it.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I'm sorry, no, I'm just gonna say it's kind of
like getting like nobody wants to watch movies and close
captioning until you reach a certain age, and then all
of a sudden, you start watching with close captioning and
you can't live without it because you pick up on
so much more that you missed from the movie or
the television show. And what's odd last night is I
was watching Hard Knocks and I, for some reason, I

(26:47):
didn't have my close caption I had it on the
second TV, and I had the remote was too far
away from me, and I was too lazy, so I
didn't put on the close captioning, and and so I
felt I missed some stuff from the episode last night
not having the on, but you getting the audio that
goes with Mike McDonald's rants. I would imagine as like, uh,
like getting close captioning and realizing a big part of

(27:10):
the movie that you wish you could have heard up close.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
In personal right, and I have a good idea now
after this being the third year coroom how he leads,
but I don't always see how he acts it out
and carries it out and in the moment. Yeah, I
definitely don't during the season because we don't have access
to any of the practice during the season.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
So that is interesting to me.

Speaker 5 (27:33):
And it's it's a carrot and stick approach in real time,
within the same realm of the punishment and the mending.
It's as a leader studies, leadership has studies, it's for
West Point days. It's real fascinating to me because the
carrot approach works only if I mean, the stick approach

(27:54):
works only if you have a carrot, and the carrot
approach works when you have a stick and make Ronald
is bitten better by the months at doing both. And
he was not that forceful his first year. I'm certain
of that, even though I wasn't hearing the practices then either.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
But now he's established one.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
My system works, my way works, and now he knows
the players, and he knows when to push him and
how far, and he knows in his teammates for that matter,
know how far they can push Derek hall By now
he's in his fourth year. They've just given him a
forty two million dollar contract. They know him very well
and they know how far they can push him before
they would lose him, or that he would get ticked

(28:34):
off and just tune him out. And they also know
how to get him back, and McDonald in particular, and
that's frankly one of the reasons they chose him over
Boy Moffing. I mean, when you know a guy and
that's why you make investments like they just made me
off season to be able to have moments like that.
It also speaks to the fragility and the value of.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
Quarterbacks in the NFL, does it not. I mean the
second one, he.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
Wasn't all that close to Sam Darnold on the second one,
but because he had already warned him once, he used
that as a coaching moment. I bet looking back at
the tape he probably thought, well, yeah, he wasn't really
putting Dartold in danger that second time, but he just
used it as an example for the whole team that
if you can call out a forty two million dollars

(29:21):
starting Super Bowl champion linebacker and everybody's going to stay
clear of getting near the quarterback so they can avoid injury.
But yeah, the inside ball stuff, that was interesting. They
see it all the time. I just I'm trying to
guess at how he's dealing with and now you get
to see it.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah. Well, Hall has definitely come across as the star
of the show so far, and I think se York
fans will some out there pretty turned off. I don't
see it that way. I don't see any reason to
like Derek Hall less than when this show started.

Speaker 5 (29:52):
What about you no not knowing where he came from,
and his whole story of being declared Medica dead when
he was born at two pounds nine ounces, and the
pass and his mother and as he told us on
my show, we can have for two weeks ago, now
the dream of buying his mother his home at her

(30:13):
new home with his rookie contract. He said, now he's
the second contract for the trucks. The first contract was
Tomma and getting her house. The second contracts for my truck.
And he said, she understands that. But now I find
Derek Call to be kind of is being portrayed in

(30:33):
these series that there's two sides there on the field.
He's one man and off the field, He's entirely different,
and I think most of the best players in the.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
League have to be that way for the job they
have to do.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
All right, what was the other thing that stood out
to you? I cut you off earlier, and I'm really
curious where you were going with that.

Speaker 5 (30:50):
Well, the news. I always I'm starting to say, Okay,
here's the entertainment or the insight part, but then what's
the news of it? Last week, the news of it
was a camera and Devin Wildspooon's car and he got
to just do a monologue about his contract with no
questions asked, and we can get through the questions asked
yesterday we did.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
I mean, I think that's maybe that statement right there
is all that we're talking about. He doesn't say about it.

Speaker 5 (31:14):
Tara and Donold they went into depth that I didn't
think they were going to go. But now it puts
in the context the Mike McDonald comments to me when
I asked him in the press conference on Monday about it,
he was expansive to us, and we were all surprised
that he was that expansive, but he knew it was
about to be on national television, So credit him for
not giving me and everybody else just well, yeah, we're

(31:37):
in on everything.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
And move on. Watch it on HBO.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
But I mean, that's basically what Devil Wathers Food said
yesterday his contract. If you want to learn about Devin
Wiersmon's contract, you have to subscribe to HBO. But McDonald
told us before the program pretty much what we found
out yesterday.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
But it was interesting.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
I thought the Snyder's in the GM's office talking.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
About, Hey, can you dive into.

Speaker 5 (32:01):
What other controversial acquisitions there have been in the NFL.
Snyder's already preparing for the blowback. He's already preparing for
the controversy. It was also very interesting and telling. If
you had to close captions on, maybe you didn't catch it.

Speaker 10 (32:15):
Yea.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
They had a tarry On Arnold magnet on the depth chart.
It was the only magnet that the name wasn't blurred
out for. That was very intentional by the Seahawks. Remember,
the Seahawks get about thirty six hours before the show airs.
They get a chance to review it and object to
anything they find to be too revealing or losing a

(32:37):
competitive edge. They wanted tarry On Arnold's name on that magnet.
The magnet is askew diagonal, just immediately to the left
of the rest the cornerbacks who are already on the roster.
The Seas have gone so far as to make a
magnet and project him where he would go on the
depth chart, as in the top of it at the
right cornerback. I found that very intention all. They want

(33:02):
Arnold in his camp to know that the Seahawks are
very much wanting him to sign here, and it's also
intentional to the rest of the league. And Arnold's representatives
have to love that because that's leverage for the New
York Giants, who Arnold visiting today, the Saints, who he
visited yesterday.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
To drive up his price.

Speaker 5 (33:19):
It's been thought, because of his eight felonies he's facing
and the fact that he has an arraignment tomorrow, that
he would if he does sign is allowed to sign
in the legal system allows him to in Florida that
he would sign for just above the league minimum or
near it. But now the agents can play the Seahawks
off of everybody else that they go visit to try
to drive his price up, and maybe even drive his price.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
Up with the Seahawks.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
But there's no doubt this is not just kicking the
tires in this video the film with him doing the
workout inside and McDonald watching intently.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
With that and dirty and all of that.

Speaker 5 (33:52):
So there's a lot to that, and I thought it
was very intentional by the Seahawks on how that was.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Portrayed at this stage in their relationship. Did they have
to both be completely on board with something like this,
Mike and John or does John get to make a
call because he's technically outranks Mike McDonald in the organization.
Because my read on it, Greg was that John's trying
to figure out how to do this and how to

(34:17):
do it without rankling the twelves, and Mike's like, I'm
not sure we need to do this. That's kind of
the look. That's what I read into it. That might
be completely unfair, but that's what I read into it.
So I would just ask, would they both have to
just say we both have to be one hundred percent
in on this if we're going to do it.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
In this case, yes, not all cases, but in this
case yes. In fact, i'd go so far to say
that new ownership needs to be involved in this, yeah,
because they're the ones Gonn be inheriting this.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Now.

Speaker 5 (34:48):
What's tricky about that is the new ownership technically is
not allowed to be in the building or technically, by
NFL rules, not allowed to be involved in anything Seahawks
not until the sale is approved, but until the money
transaction goes through.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Un they approved sale. The vote is August.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
Twenty sixth in Atlanta of all the team owners. It's
expected to pass that day. But nine point six billion dollars.
You don't just wire this to the local Western Union office.
This takes a little bit of time and the lawyers
and the vetting of the counts and the investors and
the co investors and minority investors, all of that. So
it's not gonna be August twenty sixth at five pm

(35:24):
that this is done deal and the Cosalis move in
and take over. So I don't know how that'll. They
have to be be consulted some way. They have to
be improving this in some way. You don't allow new
owners to pay ten almost ten billion dollars for your franchise.
And then, oh, by the way, we just signed a
guy that's facing eight felonies in Florida.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
How do you deal with that? Thanks? No, you have
to that have approved by the sale.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
I think that there's a little bit of fudging of
the NFL rules if in fact it's a black and
white they can't do anything until the sale's approved and
transaction that's done here. But in the foot Snyders knows
that McDonald and he's earned this. McDonald already has that
anything to do with his defense, McDonald needs to be
all on board with He's not going to import anything

(36:11):
to that defense without McDonald's approval of it. Not to
mention McDonald's culture and what he's built in that locker
room that.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
I think is the overriding factor here.

Speaker 5 (36:20):
Yes, that his GM wants to make sure his coach
is okay with everything that he's built inside that locker
room that he doesn't think Arnold upsets that, which is
why Snyder went into McDonald's office as portrayed in the
episode last night, to say that Jalen Milroe, Arnold's Alabama teammate,
vouches for him and thinks it's going to work out
great up here. That was the GM appealing to the

(36:43):
coach's locker room culture side of this equation.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Did you learn anything last night about Emon Warrior or
did you already have the up to date information.

Speaker 5 (36:54):
I didn't because what's interesting about The Hard Knocks that
everyone gets to see is that the footage is no
later than a couple of days before the production before
the actual airing, right because it has to go through
the editing process. For instance, last week, the viewers saw
him in a walking boot and a stroll and a scooter,
and fans were alarmed, And in fact, that was about

(37:17):
a week and a half old footage, and we had
seen him walking around in crocs or he called him canes.
They're different than crocs, so we had seen him beyond that,
and that's in just a week and a half. Yesterday
I saw him in flat court shoes and T shirt
and shorts doing pass rush drills on the field. It

(37:38):
was spin rip moves and spin moves with an assistant.
He hadn't done that before he passed the physical yesterday,
which wasn't in the episode. He's now cleared to come
back to practice whenever he and the team thinks he's
ready to do it. And he was on the field
doing football work for the first time, So that's advanced
beyond what the editing process of the Hard Knocks was

(37:59):
so yeah in this case and this how these seems
to be healing well by the day. The Hard Knocks
episode is a few days behind reality there.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
All right, what else we got in the Greg Bell
notebook here to wrap up our session today?

Speaker 5 (38:17):
Well, Jackson Smith and Jigba is just proving every day
to be a great route runner against some of the
best in the league. He is going head to head
with Devin Witherspoon every day, and yesterday he beat him
again with a beautiful outside release move and a perfect
pass by Sam Donald over the outside shoulder of the cornerback,
and once again and an adjustment on the ball in

(38:39):
the air and body controlled near the goal line. There
was an underthrown pass by Donald that Smith and jigbab
beat Witherspoon on because of his body control. And I
tell you, if he's like a basketball player boxing out
for a rebound and he's not that big as a
stature and body size to do it. Witherson was slapping
his hands together pretty upset about it. Wyersvin didn't want

(39:01):
anything to do with my question about where he views
the contract situation as it stands right now, so he's
going to leave his monologue to hard knocks last week
to stand for that.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
He did talk a little bit about why.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
He's still practicing full go instead of holding in, and
he said that he focused on getting better and he
wants to be getting better with his.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
Guys and all of that.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
Jake Bobo came back to practice yesterday in full scrimmaging
for the first time. Julian Neil, the third round cornerback,
was on a side field. He's still been about two
weeks from fully practicing the leg injury. Zach Charmonay had
a resistance machine rope tied to his waist while he
was doing lateral moves on the backfield, and next to

(39:44):
him was Jedarian Price, and Price was doing straight line
ten twenty yard sprints. He was doing diagonal sprints. The
most important action of the practice yesterday happened on a
backfield and wasn't even anything to do with the practice.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
I broke up a little bit there at the end.
But okay, cool, all right, Greg, thank you. I appreciate
it what he got. At ten o'clock.

Speaker 5 (40:06):
Today, you just sounded like my wife when I tell
her about my day.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, I was like up against the clock and so
I'm like, do I follow because you broke up like
a little bit and my headsets there and I'm like,
did I hear that right at the end? And I mean,
do I have time to explore that? And now that
I've explained all of this, I probably had time to
explore it.

Speaker 5 (40:29):
That was I know Wendy's listening, honey. That sounds like
your eyes gloss over when I tell you about things
you don't care about. At eleven o'clock, we're going to
talk about our buddy, Wendy's buddy farm Logy TSN Canada
at the training camps he's been through and he's heading
to more this week, including Kenneth Walker and the Chiefs.
We'll talk to him at eleven o'clock and we'll get
more into this Terry on Arnold. We'll talk about what

(40:52):
I think is a lack of in the clubhouse leadership
from the Mariners, and we saw a glimpse of the
much needed leadership they need last night by Raley just
learning it for the entire organization and impromptu press conference
outside the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium will play his comments,
including the one that said he's awful right now, I'm
sure you've talked about it.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, Yeah, we've talked about We're going to play at
eight thirty, so hopefully that that doesn't interfere with your
audience there. All right, man, thank you, We appreciate we'll
we'll be listening at ten.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
Okay, thanks sir.

Speaker 6 (41:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Greg Bell our Seahawks insider. Of course I've been covering
the Seahawks for the News Tribune for over twenty years.
Of course you should be following him at GBL Seattle,
and he joins us nearly every day during the course
of the football season Monday through Friday, courtesy this season
of Emerald Queen Casino, your old friends at Emerald Queen Casinos.
So good stuff, a lot of information and of course

(41:44):
hard knocks reaction, which Ashley and I have a boatload
of more hard knocks reaction coming your way at at
eight o'clock. But coming up next, back to those Mariners,
ABC's of the MS Sports Radio ninety three point three
KJRFM and last night to the New York Yankees four
to one, the final score, no offense, questionable managerial decisions.

(42:05):
The beat just goes on for the twenty twenty six Mariners,
who we keep finding new ways to have a low
point in their season. Eight games under five hundred right now.
Never dreamt that they would be there. We'll recap the
game for you with Baseball Brunch coming up at eight thirty.

(42:25):
But the alphabet, you never know where it's going to
lead you, and so we are at the tail end.
I'm going to try to get in the last four
letters of the alphabet here in the ABCS. We left
off of W and W is for Wu, who was
really good last night, and it was great to see

(42:45):
somebody that had to dig deep in that first inning.
That's the kind of inning that it might slip away
from him. We've seen it slip away from him on
the road. He's not these road woes that he has.
It usually comes down to like one inning where it
gets away from him, and it usually follows either a
bluep pit or a bad defensive play or a play

(43:08):
that maybe maybe not an error, but you know you're
sitting on the mountain like you should have had this.
I should have been out of this inning. Here we
go again. But Brian Wu dug deep in that first inning,
got the job done, so good for him. And I
would just point out this one other thing about it.
W is for win For those who just entirely go
into analytics and don't like anything like wins and RBI

(43:32):
and bunting and stuff like that, Yeah, wins don't matter.
Do you see that Brian Wu handed Randy a rose
arena the trident last night at the top step because
he knew his day was done and he knew a
rose arena gave him a chance to get a win. Yep,
it does matter to pictures, So if it matters to
active pictures, then it does matter a little bit.

Speaker 7 (43:52):
I think, yes, it does matter.

Speaker 6 (43:54):
And I had when he was pitching so well, because
that was the thing I was most nervous about.

Speaker 7 (43:58):
It is Wu going to finally get rid of his road,
his road woes, road wows, his road woes. And he
did and I was like, Okay, this is great.

Speaker 6 (44:07):
But then of course, yeah, our offense can't come through
and that was so disappointing.

Speaker 7 (44:11):
He had a different look on his face last night, too,
did you.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
I mean, he.

Speaker 6 (44:14):
Looked it was like not a scowl, but it was
there was no relaxation in his face. Ever when he
was out there on the field, it was I have
got to do this, Yeah, I have got to overcome this,
and I am I mean, that was focus.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
But I think Dave appropriately pointed out last night that
even in that one inning he was missing, he was
missing the edges. And that's where Brian wu I mean,
he's always at the rails and always at.

Speaker 7 (44:43):
The edges and keeping the whales.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah yeah, And so he he wasn't one hundred percent
on his game last night, but he got out of
that harm yep and then was able to be WU
like from that point forward. So that was good to see,
certainly the highlight of the low point excess for explanation

(45:06):
at this point, I just need an explanation. I mean,
I love the challenge ABS challenge system that we have.
I love the manager as the ability to challenge plays
in the field. If you have this technology, you're a
fool for not being using I think we now all
know that. Now we've been foolish for not using this

(45:29):
over the years, and now I can't even imagine life
without it. And yet when we launched this, in my head,
I thought what a great advantage. I never dreamt that
it would be such a disadvantage to our baseball team.
We are just stone cold horrible at ABS challenge. And

(45:57):
look when you look at the numbers, like challenges one
fifty two this year versus challenges lost sixty eight, and
that that's already indicative of what I'm talking about. But
there are teams. There have been seven teams with fewer
challenges one than what the Mariners have, So we're not
the worst in that area. Challenges lost sixty eight, twenty

(46:19):
second ranked. There are percentage forty three percent. This is
at home, this is at the plate, twenty seventh, so
not bad. Yeah, but there are a couple teams that
are worse. League average, by the way, is forty eight percent,
which indicates hitters, you're not as good as the umpires.
After all. Catchers are better, Yeah, but hitters aren't better

(46:42):
than the umpires after all at knowing the strike zone.
So forty eight percent of the challenges have been unsuccessful
or have been successful. The Mariners are forty three, so
we're five percentage points below. So bad then, and then
on the other side, when our catchers and our pitchers
challenge things, we're twenty third. We've had sixty eight overturns

(47:06):
as opposed to the leader having one hundred and sixteen,
which shows you we're not that aggressive at it. Yeah,
and when we have been successful, it's usually been Garver
because Garver was one of the best at it's very good,
and we don't have him anymore. So those are just
the factors that they give us. What it doesn't factor in, though,

(47:28):
the statistics, because we're new to this abs challenge, or
at least I haven't found a site that has these statistics. Well,
it doesn't factor in is plays that should have been
challenged and weren't, and stupid challenges that were not only
missed but poorly timed. And I think we're horrible. We
got to be dead last in both of those elements. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (47:49):
Well, I was thinking last night in the fifth inning
when that strike, that was the strike on the lower end,
and Cal.

Speaker 7 (47:54):
Kind of thought about, how do you not challenge?

Speaker 6 (47:56):
And then he didn't challenge it and luckily we got
out of the inning there, I mean luckily they got
that out at first and everything was fine, But that
was I mean, Cal's got to have more confidence in
that in himself.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
There.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
He doesn't have any confidence in himself at all. Yeah,
at anything right now. I know he should be the
best in the business at this, but he's even bad
at this right now, he wasn't earlier in this.

Speaker 6 (48:16):
No, I think he's just two in his head over everything,
over everything.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, even at the plate. He's terrible at the plate
and challenging. But all of our hitters are. We saw
cold Emerson again in the ninth inning the other day
when we're down two, we've got two challenges remaining. The
guy clearly throws a ball outside it's two oh, and
he doesn't even challenge it. We've got two. Why are
you not challenging that? Last night? You're right, the wo

(48:40):
one was egregious. Like we're counting pitches here. If there's
any chance of him staying in the game, we got
to keep his pitch count low. He had two strikes
on the battery, he had two balls on the battery.
You want to go to a three to two count,
that's the time to challenge it. We might have struck
that guy out. He's out at the inning, and maybe
he can pitch a seton yep, And instead we don't.

(49:02):
And you could tell Wu was bothered. WU knew it
was a strike, but that's Cal's call. And Cal doesn't
challenge what was an obvious strike at the knees. We're
terrible at it, and I got to get an explanation
from someone this offseason.

Speaker 7 (49:18):
Good luck.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Why we're so bad at it? Yeah, I mean we're
bad at every We're bad at challenging, We're bad at
not challenging.

Speaker 6 (49:26):
Yeah, we're bad at the reason so uncomfortable thing.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, we're bad at when we challenge. We're we're bad
when we don't challenge. I don't understand. Somebody's gonna have
to explain it to me. How we could be given
this gift from the technology gods and we thought it
would help us and it I guess that makes sense.

(49:49):
Though some teams are good at it and got helped
by it, and some teams are bad at it and
got hurt by it. We got hurt by it. We
got hurt by abs challenge this year because of how
terrible we are across the board.

Speaker 7 (50:00):
Yeah that sounds about right. I hate that.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah? Why is for year Ender led the show with this.
It did feel to me like the season's over. It
did last night. It's not. I know a lot of time.
I mean month and a half left, four and a
half game deficit, four in the wild Card. It's not.
But It's just really hard for me to believe that

(50:25):
the team I've been watching play baseball as of late
is going to suddenly summon a hot streak.

Speaker 7 (50:31):
I don't know where it comes from.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Really hard to believe. So it kind of feels like
a funeral here this morning for the twenty twenty six Mariners.

Speaker 7 (50:39):
From my perspective, well, and I understand that.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
I mean, you know me, I'm gonna be subornly optimistic
all the way till the end, even though it's gonna.

Speaker 7 (50:44):
Kill me all the way till the end.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Good I want you to be.

Speaker 6 (50:46):
But I don't know where that hot streak comes from,
because I don't know how just all of a sudden,
someone's gonna like, let's take Cal for example, how all
of a sudden he's gonna walk out tonight and be like,
you know what.

Speaker 7 (50:58):
I figured it out. Let's go.

Speaker 6 (51:00):
Yeah, I want that to happen. But I don't know how.
I mean, I I don't. There's no magic.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah you can't. There's no pick pixie dust that's going
to be sprinkled over this team. They got to do
it themselves. Finally, just to close out the alphabet Z
is for Zenino earlier this year when Cal came off
the injury list and we landed at Z in the
ABC's Z was for Zenino, and I said that he's
basically no more than Mike Zanino at this point in

(51:29):
the season. He wishes he was Mike Sanino at this
point of the season.

Speaker 7 (51:35):
Yeah, I hate this.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
I do too, and I don't even want to pick
on Mike Zanino, but I realized, as I'm putting together
the alphabet, what an insult Cal's season this year is
to Mike Zanino, who's not a bad player. Cal's been
a bad player, and unfortunately, it's time to call him
out and reckless. At Breakfast Next Sports Radio ninety three
point three KJRFM at Hard Knocks coming up eight o'clock,

(52:00):
So we're going to talk about episode two. We'll get
away from baseball for a little bit. But Yeah, it
just seems like really heavy day to be talking about
the Mariners, and maybe it's time to finally call this
thing out. We've been ignoring it. It's been an eyesore
in our corner. But it's time to call this out.
And I don't I have some reluctance in doing it,

(52:23):
because I do have faith in the long term for
the rest of his career. And I do like him
so much, and I know that he's precious to the
Seattle sports scene. He will remain precious, and I think
he will once again be a star. But if we
are going to go all in the previous year in
regards to how great cal Raley is, and we're going

(52:46):
to go have fights in bars and with Yankee fans
over he should be the MVP over Aaron Judge, where
I spent a lot of time on that, and we're
going to say here that he is the best player
in the American League in twenty twenty five, and we're
gonna do that well with vigor. Then when he has

(53:09):
the type of season that he's having this year, then
I think I owe it to my conscience to call
him out for how bad he's been this season. And
it is remarkable how bad he's been this season, Like
he might be the worst player in the American League.
Oh man, to go from the best player in the

(53:32):
American League too, I mean, that has never happened in
the history of sports. That's never happened that you are
the best one year and rock bottom the very next.
And I do believe he brings some intangibles to the
field which separate him from being the worst player in
the American League. I think he'll always carry those, and

(53:53):
he does carry those. He is hitting one fifty nine.
He doesn't qualify for the batting title because of the
time he missed with injury. But right now, of the
one hundred and fifty one hitters in all of Major
League Baseball, only one hundred and fifty one of them

(54:14):
would qualify for the batting title. Have enough at bats
to qualify for the batting title. The lowest batting average
is two oh two. Oh Man, that is a forty
three point gap between the worst qualified batting average hitter
in the sport and the face of our franchise. To

(54:35):
find a gap to go up the ladder, you got
to go all the way up to two forty five hitters.
So there are ninety three hitters ninety four hitters in
Major League Baseball hitting two forty six or better. So

(54:56):
that means what was a one to fifty one to
ninety five, So that's fifty one fifty six hitters, fifty
six hitters the lowest batting average hitters this year in
Major League Baseball. The gap between the worst and the
fifty sixth worst a third of the league. The gap

(55:21):
is the same as the worst hitter.

Speaker 7 (55:24):
And cal Rawley, Well, I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Think about that.

Speaker 7 (55:29):
No, I don't like it.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
I mean it's atrocious. And then let's tack on the defense,
because he hasn't been good to defense either this year.
Like right now, Baseball Savant says he is in the
lowest one percentage of offensive producers in the entire sport.
And it doesn't really clarify if he's absolute worst, it

(55:54):
just says bottom one percent defensively, he's not much better
in the bottom ten defensively metrics, not just of catchers,
of all position players. Really his caught stealing because there's
caught stealing and a lot of that can be blamed
on pitchers, but is caught stealing percentages like, you know,

(56:17):
caught stealing above average. You know how they do that
with war you know, wins above replacement. So they factor
in all the numbers and then they try to figure
out just how many bases have been stolen on you
and the value you bring in that area. Sixty fifth.

(56:40):
There aren't sixty five catchers in Major League baseball. That's
not sixty fifth, So he's been worse at throwing out
base runners this year than many guys that are right
now in Triple A, numerous ones. I mean, we love him,

(57:04):
We'll always love him. I'm going to keep on loving him,
There's no question about it. And I think it will
bounce back next year. I think he's going to have
an awakening and I think he's going to have a
completely different routine, and I think that he will destroy
himself before he comes back and has another year like this.
But how on earth could anyone have planned for this?

Speaker 7 (57:25):
No one could have.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
I mean he no one. I'm hard on Dan. There's
no way that Dan could prepare for cal Raleigh to
be the face of the franchise, heart of the order,
the heartbeat of the entire organization, and then one year
later be talking about, is our catcher the worst player
in this league right now?

Speaker 6 (57:44):
I mean, if anyone predicted that or tries to be like, oh,
I knew he was going to fall off, we shouldn't
have signed him to it.

Speaker 7 (57:49):
I mean, that's bs.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
You absolutely should have given the contract he gave him
after last year, I agree, And there's a lot of
people that are the same.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
You know.

Speaker 6 (57:56):
Oh, and this was the guy that was in the
argument for you know AL MVP. Yeah he was, but
that was on the last season. You don't pick an
AL or NL MVP based on a look at two seasons.

Speaker 7 (58:07):
I mean, that's why it's.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
He should have won the award last year.

Speaker 7 (58:11):
And he had a very valid argument.

Speaker 6 (58:13):
So you can't use that to then talk about what's
happening now other than to say it is shocking.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
It is beyond shocking. It is probably the biggest drop
off from one year to the next of anyone that's
ever played professional sports.

Speaker 7 (58:27):
I hate it. I just feel so sad.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
And so when he says, and we will play the audio,
I'm awful. He is. He has been awful now. Like
I said, he brings other things to the table that
can't be measured. And the team, for the most part,
I think adores him, and I think he'll bounce back
next season, and I think that that contract they signed
him signed him to will be worth it in the

(58:52):
long run. But it, I mean, in terms of shocking
things that have happened in the sports world in my lifetime,
this is about as big of a shock as anything
I've ever experienced. The best player in the American League.
One year later is the worst player in the American League. Yeah,

(59:15):
I don't know, how did that happen? Why did that happen?

Speaker 7 (59:20):
Wish we had answers?

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Sad? Yeah, all right, Hard Knocks Next Sports Radio ninety
three point three KJRFM. My name is Chuck Powell, Ashley
Ryan with you as well til ten o'clock this morning.
A lot of baseball things to discuss today, nothing pleasant,
and a lot of Seahawks stuff to talk about today,
and most of that usually is pleasant. But if there
is one thing making people uncomfortable around these here on

(59:46):
ponds about our world champs, it is whether or not
we should or shouldn't pursue this Terry and Arnold thing.
So good morning to you. Hard Knocks. Episode two did
the air last night. And again I think I say
this because I think some people are like, I'm taping that.
Don't ruin it for me, Serry, this is like a

(01:00:06):
major even this is like a game. I mean, I
can't after a Seahawks game come on Monday morning and
be like, just in case somebody wants to watch it
later on today. Yeah, well, we want to.

Speaker 6 (01:00:19):
Ask you any questions about how Sam Donald did because
someone might wanna might not have been able to watch
it yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah, be careful how you say this year. We don't
want to give anything away.

Speaker 7 (01:00:29):
Yeah, we don't want tell him who won or how
Sam did.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
So yeah, we're gonna have to treat this like a game.
So here we are talking about hard Knocks, which I
think the episode as a whole was really just showcasing
Seahawks culture, how great Mike McDonald has made it. The
type of leader Mike McDonald is, which right now, I mean,

(01:00:52):
who doesn't want that guy? Who doesn't want that guy
as your leader? You know, the guy that's going to
tell you how it's going to be done. He's in control.
He makes that very clear. He gives you all sorts
of a long rope to be yourself. He will pull
it when he needs to. He will be firm about it,
he will be direct about it, and then he'll circle
back and tell you all as well, you know, I

(01:01:15):
got to do this sort of thing. I love you,
you know that. I mean, that is like as good
as it gets. And I don't know how many books
he's read, or how many people he's been around, and
how many nuggets that he's stolen from other people in
his life that have been leaders to him. But whatever
he did to get to this point, my gosh, are
the Seahawks benefiting from it because.

Speaker 6 (01:01:36):
That is a leader well, and it's so fascinating to
me too, because he's able to be a leader without
and exert his authority without seemingly having an ego about it.
I mean even when he says, yeah, it's my practice,
like turns out it I run this, you know, like
even then, it was like it wasn't like, look at me,

(01:01:56):
it's my I mean, it's still the way he delivered
it. It wasn't like, yeah, being a jerk about it. It
was like, hey, man, get in line, come on.

Speaker 7 (01:02:02):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
It's a fascinating and not overcussing but effective cussing.

Speaker 7 (01:02:08):
Effective cussing, which is what I teach my child.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Which is great. And then of course the collection of
people that he's brought in. I mean, if you've watched
two episodes and you're worried about Derek Hall, like they
might be a bad teammate, like number one, I disagree
with you. That's not what I came away with. It
feels like they love him. But he's a little bit
like the crazy kid on the playground. Sometimes he gets

(01:02:33):
a little carried away, and you got scold him every
once in a while, and he might pout for a second,
but he's gonna see the big picture. I think that
Ad and Dirty said it right, like the things that
drive us nuts a little nuts about him are the
things that we love about him and why we gave
him fourteen million dollars a year. So if that's the
if that's the bad character on the roster, I think

(01:02:57):
you're sitting pretty good the way Sam's come off, the
way Jsn's come off, the way Leonard Williams has come off,
the way Emon Warri's like, it's just the culture. You
see the leadership first, and then you see the culture
and you're like, Okay, I get it. I get how
that leader has built this culture, and I get how

(01:03:17):
they've changed their philosophy to make sure the people in
that locker room are on the same page and they're
not just selfish and they do things the right way
and they have their teammates backs and everything else. I mean,
more than anything else, I think maybe that Mike McDonald
has done and that includes bringing the greatest defensive mind
in the sport currently to Seattle. The culture he's built

(01:03:40):
in two short years explains why we're already world champions
under his leadership, because they have changed the way that
they evaluate players and they have shot character way up
that list. And for them to have taken Leonard Williams
when he's thinking about retirement in New York because he
just wasn't having as much upon playing football, and then

(01:04:02):
bring him here to Seattle and we find out how
great a player he is, how great a leader he is,
how great a person that he is. I mean, my goodness,
what a what a boon for this organization. And John
deserves a lot of credit for that too. That's not
just that's not just Mike gets the credit for that.
I mean that's an equal share credit, maybe even more
so for John to pull off the trade to get

(01:04:23):
Leonard Williams. But that it's just a very likable group.
And that might be boring for a Jets fan that's
turning into this, but for a Seahawks fan that's sitting
on top of the world right now, and you watch
Hard Knocks and you get some nitty gritty details from
behind the scenes about how just what does make all
of these players take I think I like that guy.

(01:04:43):
Let's find out more about him, and then you come
away liking him even more. I mean, what a magical
formula that they've got working here right now.

Speaker 6 (01:04:50):
I mean I even just loved the fight between who
Mason Richmond and Riley Mills and they get into it
on the field and everyone's like, and you know, Mills
gets all pissed, and then to settle it they have
to hold sledgehammers in front of the whole team, and
the face of Mason Richmond as he's like, I don't
want to lose this, you know, and everybody gets to

(01:05:13):
be entertained by it. I just I was like, even
that is it was just it was perfectly done, and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Mills didn't look like he was struggling at.

Speaker 7 (01:05:20):
All at all.

Speaker 6 (01:05:21):
Were made of air because he was like, I could
hold these for seven days.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Those are some strong shoulders, Yes, those are.

Speaker 7 (01:05:28):
He did not care.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
So yeah, I mean, I don't know if the rest
of the country's enjoying it all that much. I'll tell
you this, I have not enjoyed the last few hard
knocks with other teams, but certainly for us to get
a little more insight into how our players tick, how
Mike McDonald's operation ticks. It's been fantastic, I mean, can't
get enough of it. Two episodes. I've enjoyed every second

(01:05:51):
of both the episodes. And yet there was some news
yesterday and that kind of is the big story here today.
Seahawks are definitely in on tear Arnold. If you didn't
already know that, he came to visit twice, so that
should give you every indication. And then how are they
discussing it behind the scenes. I didn't think we'd get
as much information as we did about Terry and Arnold

(01:06:16):
last night, including some John Schneider in his office moment
where he's sort of trying to already prepare the organization
for the pr hit that they'll have to take if
they signed Terry and Arnold. So let's pick it up
with leave.

Speaker 11 (01:06:36):
John Schneider is deciding if he can sign Terry and Arnold,
a gifted cornerback facing multiple felony counts. His former team,
the Detroit Lions, cut him after his arrest. He's still
awaiting a resolution to his case. There's no doubt the

(01:06:57):
third year pro could bolster the Hawks secondary, still no
amount of due diligence will spare the team from criticism
if he's offered a contract through that.

Speaker 10 (01:07:10):
I remember, like what is Terry and Arnold thing like
Wobe another controversial signing that's happened, so we could kind
of like, oh, I can understand that situation.

Speaker 7 (01:07:22):
Situations where someone has like an outstanding thing.

Speaker 12 (01:07:25):
Right, and then all though I.

Speaker 10 (01:07:29):
Am or traded for a choirs acquired, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
I mean, I don't know about you, Ashley greg and
I talked about a little bit earlier this morning. I
mean that is a general manager who still has that
talent as talent mentality. Yep, even though drafting for character
and making it more important in the last two or
three years is as big a reason as to It's

(01:07:55):
not like you didn't draft talented guys. It doesn't bring
up a bunch of good guys. You drafted talent guys.
But you certainly have made character a bigger priority in
your last three drafts and in your off season moves.
And yet there's still this part and John that's like, hey,
talent is talent and is already getting out ahead of

(01:08:18):
I want to sign him. That's my takeaway. I want
to sign him. I want him on this roster. Now,
you tell me how big of a PR blow we're
going to get back on this and are we okay
with that?

Speaker 7 (01:08:31):
Yeah? Find some examples that I could use of where
it worked out.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
Yeah. And it's not like he's gonna lose the fan
base if he signs Terry and Arnold. No, you forgave
him for you know, uh, Frank Clark. It took like
one sack before everybody was rooting for Frank Clark, even
though at the time I remember taking phone calls on
this and everybody was done being a seahawk. Not everybody.

(01:08:55):
A lot of people who are there are a lot
of people there are a lot of people are done.
I won't root for a team that signed guy like that.
He gets two sacks and we love him, so he
knows that that's what will happen eventually as long as
Arnold is exonerated.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
But there's that Rascal and John Schneider, that general manager
that sat there with Pete and had conversations at the
table discussing, Hell, let's get him, we'll deal with a PR.

Speaker 7 (01:09:21):
Yeah, they would have done it in a heartbeat.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
And so he's already mapping that out and trying to
figure out we'll take the pr hit. I'm not worried
about that, but for the sake of everybody else in
the organization, how do we lessen it? How do we
deal with it? What are some other examples of how
teams have done this and didn't come away with didn't
come away by angering everybody?

Speaker 6 (01:09:44):
Right, which shouldn't be surprising to any fans that he
would make sure that he did all his research before
he made a move like this, because it is a
big deal. And even if and again this isn't based
on if Terry and Arnold is guilty or not guilty,
because we don't know that. It's just it's also a
it's also I mean, eight felonies. Isn't something like, you know,

(01:10:04):
he accidentally, you know, fell asleep at the wheel and.

Speaker 7 (01:10:08):
Crashed into a parked car. I mean, this is a
big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Could be live in prison, It.

Speaker 6 (01:10:13):
Could be life in prison. So it's it is. It
seems bigger than anything else. So yeah, you better be
doing your research if you're going to think about bringing
this guy in, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
So that was John caught in the office overhead boom
mics here he is being interviewed about it.

Speaker 13 (01:10:30):
We have ninety players here right now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
We're always kind of looking for what's next.

Speaker 13 (01:10:34):
How do we how do we get ready for you know,
a corner that's not here yet. You know, like guys
that we're going to need at a certain point. You
want to be strong as healthy as possible. In December January.

Speaker 12 (01:10:48):
Last I was talking about carrying talk to Jail about him. Oh, yeah,
he was awesome. He's a leash, He's got a buddy,
nice slice bud. He's like this Swiss be Austoin fore
just have a baby his wife and von Piers up
here Malone, Yeah, to be awesome. He's like he's just
like he's just exploder. Joey thinks he is a being

(01:11:12):
able to play in the preseason.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Sweet might be unfair. I read that as man John
is John really wants him because the GM and him
is like, I can get a first round talent who's
still in his mid twenties and probably get him to
play here for league minimum, just selling him on the
fact that he can be a part of a world

(01:11:34):
championship culture and be under the guidance of the best
defensive mind in the National Football League. He's not going
to get some big giant offer from anyone, so that
alone should get him here to Seattle. But I haven't
yet convinced my head coach we should do it.

Speaker 7 (01:11:54):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
That's how I read that. And I know that there
was that little quip maybe you heard it, maybe you didn't,
where he is like sweet Mike said sweet. Yep. I
did not get the impression that Mike is sold on
this at all from that episode, and it's really short clips, right,
but I didn't get the impression that Mike sold on
this idea at all. And I get the impression that

(01:12:15):
John is completely sold on it, and that John is
coming into Mike's office, like I talked to college teammate Milroe.
He thinks he's awesome. He he's the best guy in
the world. So he's really trying to like sell him
on Mike. That's the impression I drew from there.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
And that's the same thing I've seen. I mean, he
even says, oh, it plays just like spoon and then.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
He's oh, geez, really yeah, that was that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:41):
Little thing, and I was like, okay, and then he
when he says and he'll be available for the preseason. Well,
I think that When Mike responds with sweet, I mean
that's for two reasons. One, well, we don't care if
he can play in the preseason, right, what's his eligibility
going to be like in the actual year.

Speaker 7 (01:12:54):
Is he going to be in jail or is he
going to be on a field?

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:12:57):
And when he says sweet, he might as well have
said neat. I mean it was that kind of like, Okay,
I see what you're doing. I know you want this guy,
so you're going to continue to do the thing the
thing you're going to do, But I'm not convinced of
this and he does not fit anything I've been trying
to put together here.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Yeah, and if and if you had that same conclusion.
Ashley and I sort of had the same conclusion.

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Sounds like Leave and HBO had the same conclusion as well,
because this is how they ended the episode.

Speaker 11 (01:13:28):
Getting the right fit isn't always easy. Normally, a highly
skilled player would be a shoe in, but with Terry
and Arnold a free agent with the legal problems, it's
not that simple. So Seattle has invited him to the facility.
Mike McDonald has questions will Arnold make the team better.

(01:13:58):
And equally important, does he understand the culture and what
Seattle is building?

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
And that's what you weigh with every decision as a
professional sports organization. You you weigh reward versus risk. Does
Terry and Arnold make our secondary better?

Speaker 4 (01:14:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Probably, Yeah, I'm sure if he's eligible. Yeah, if he's
not in prison and he's on a football field, and
the Seahawks will be better for having him on the
football field. But at what cost? Certainly nothing cap wise,

(01:14:42):
It doesn't feel like or financial wise. And I think
there's a pretty decent chance that he blends with the personalities.
But why run the risk of bringing on someone that
would take the law into their own hands and voyeor
watch three people be and whether they stole from him
or not, and then didn't even take the time to

(01:15:03):
make sure they were the right three people. You really
want to introduce that into your perfect World champion. The
reason we are world champions is probably because of this
culture that we've created in such a short period of time.
You really want to inject that in there so you
can be a little bit better, so you've got depth
at the nickel position. That's that's what we're doing. That's

(01:15:26):
what you want to do. I think almost I think
almost every NFL franchise in the league would do this,
But I don't think the Seahawks should. I don't think
they need to, And I don't know why you would
risk being in such great position for this upcoming season

(01:15:49):
to defend your title by bringing this into your Chicken Cooper.

Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
And that's the exact thing there is the risk verse.
Is the risk worth the reward? I don't think so,
because you already have a great defense. Yeah, it would
always be nice to improve. Nobody's ever gonna say, Gosh,
I don't want We're perfect, we don't want to improve anywhere.

Speaker 7 (01:16:06):
That's no, that's not the case.

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
But the risk here, with your fan base, with your
locker room, with your coaching staff, with your legal team,
I mean, it's just too big.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
And it's not like this is the I mean this
is big enough, Like what is this crime? What were
you responsible for? Who are these people that you did
this to, what did they do to you? Exactly what
are we going to find out in a hearing? Because
you're certainly going to end up in a hearing. Charges
haven't exactly been dropped, so it certainly wasn't just a

(01:16:37):
clear misunderstanding.

Speaker 8 (01:16:38):
Sorry, fellas, he's got court today, I think, yeah, so
that's not been dropped.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
And and then here's the last piece of information. And
I know I've mentioned this a couple of times this week,
but the Detroit Lions didn't hesitate.

Speaker 7 (01:16:50):
Nope.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
I mean, they've got far more invested in Terry and
Arnold than what the Seahawks would have to invest in him.
They've got millions, they got a first round traf pick,
they got a week secondary. That has been their issue.
Probably the reason why they haven't won a Super Bowl,
or at least gone to a Super Bowl in the
last couple of years is because their secondary two years

(01:17:11):
in a row got devastated by the time crunch time
rolled around in the season. And so of all the
teams that should let's make sure on this Terrian arm
let's not make a rash decision, it would be the
Detroit Lions. And they cut him the next morning. Yeah,
after the news broke. They may have known it longer,

(01:17:32):
but after the news broke, they cut him the next morning, yep,
and have not looked back on that. So, and I
don't think the Detroit Lions have some jackass organization anymore.
And I don't think Dan Campbell is some you.

Speaker 7 (01:17:47):
Know, definitely not a pushover.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Yeah, and they decided, you know what, it's not worth it.
The Jews is not worth the squeeze.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:17:55):
I don't blame him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Let's let him go. And now here we are, here,
we are with this almost perfect culture in sports, sitting
on top of the mountain, and we're gonna invite this
person to sit at our table with all of this
unknown as a not just as a criminal violator potentially,
but just as a human being and as a teammate

(01:18:17):
what makes him tick. And we're gonna we're gonna risk
that just to improve an already good secondary, maybe an
already great secondary. I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:18:29):
Doesn't seem worth it to me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
I wouldn't do it. No, And I my impression of
last night is that John Schneider is really trying to
talk Mike into this. That's the that's the impression that
I was all right coming up next. Yeah, it was
a huge game last night. As ugly as it was,
it was a huge game. And so we will have

(01:18:51):
the Baseball Brunch. Sports Radio ninety three point three kJ A,
r F M All right, we're gonna hop to it.

Speaker 7 (01:19:00):
It's like my mom used to say, up to it
and did you ever hop?

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Yeah? I did as a kid, And then I realized
she was just being colorful with the language. I never
hopped Yeah. Nine o'clock hour, Chuck and Ashley with you.
Last week, as I mentioned, Hugh Millan and I got
into a very interesting conversation about the salary cap. Major
League Baseball is going to try to enforce one on
the Players Association and their new collective Bargaining Agreement in

(01:19:24):
twenty twenty seven. It could cost us a large portion,
if not the entire season, because the Players Association says
it is not going to Budge well Lo and behold
hanging out with you here. Recently I find out that
he was there drafting the first ever collective bargaining agreement
that included a salary cap and was a major voice

(01:19:45):
inside that room as one of the player reps, and
then of course was a player rep for most of
his career in the National Football League. And so just
when we were getting to the part about the advice
that he would give the Major League Baseball Players Association,
we started talking about Scott Boris's role in this last
week and then for whatever reason, technology interfered and pop

(01:20:07):
he went off the air. He left everybody hanging. We
didn't want to wait too much longer to bring him
back and finish our conversation. So rejoining us now is
our QB one. Hugh Millin is with us here on
the radio program.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
You great to be with you, Chuck.

Speaker 9 (01:20:22):
Yeah, it's hard to condense in a segment, you know,
years of negotiation and what have you. There's a lot
of things here, but we'll see if we can make
it clear. All right, Well, let's dive in where we
left off. You were basically you told our audience Scott
Boris is a donkey? Was the word that you use
for his reaction to not having a salary cap in

(01:20:44):
MLB and that the NFL is wrong to have one.
So go go ahead and pick it up where you
left off. Yeah, strong words, right, I better have a
lot to defend that. Well, first of all, I think
there's a distinction in saying, you know, not calling him
a donkey, but he sounded like donkey. I think at
some point we all sound like an ass in our life, right,

(01:21:04):
you know, And and that doesn't mean we are necessarily
an ass or a donkey. I have a tremendous respect
for what he does as an agent, because his job
is to get his players a lot of money, and
he does it, does it as well or better than anybody.
But as as a mouthpiece for uh, the state of
baseball when he comes on with Softy and Dick Fane

(01:21:27):
and he spews these these truths, mistruths, omissions, lies, red herrings,
and I'm just exasperated, and so so you know, you
you start with he comes on and he says, you know,
Dick Fane asked him a very reasonable question, well why
does it? Why does the system work for the NFL?

(01:21:48):
And and Boris immediately says it doesn't. And then he
says uh. And he proceeds to say what percentage of
NFL teams finished in the top eight in the playoffs?
This is his defense, right, He says, well, in the NFL,
it's fifty six percent, it's baseball, and seventy three percent. Now,
he's right on the seventy three percent for baseball, he's

(01:22:09):
wrong on the on the football, it's not fifty six percent,
is six two and a half percent. But Scott Burst,
I'll give you I'll give you that Baseball. On that
metch it sounds like he's walking a plank and trying
to fit a neel, like why top eight?

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
Why not?

Speaker 9 (01:22:24):
Why not all playoffs? Why not top four or the
two or World Series champions?

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
Right?

Speaker 9 (01:22:29):
He chose a very specific statistic, and then he makes
the broad leap that that that is going to define competition.
He's going to say that baseball is more competitive than football.
You know, had he said the final four and in
the last ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, by his
metric of defining competition, football is more so he shows that,

(01:22:55):
and but you know what, I'm going to give him that.
But here's what I'm going to do to show the
imbalance of football versus baseball. If we say that the
teams that come from the bottom half of the revenue,
and this is total revenue for NFL, total revenue for baseball,

(01:23:15):
this is just apples to apples his own.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Window.

Speaker 9 (01:23:20):
He said, the last five years, teams that make the
final eight, that would be the divisional round in baseball, right,
and football, well, coming from the top ten baseball as
twelve out of forty thirty percent football, you'd expect if
it was dead even it'd be twenty out of forty,
but of football's nineteen out of forty forty eight percent.

(01:23:44):
You can go through every one of these charts. Here
these statistics. When you say the bottom half, whether you
want to say made the playoffs, Final eight, Final four,
Final two, the champion, whether it's the last five years,
ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, the football wins in
every single one by an average of thirty six percent

(01:24:06):
more than baseball. And here's glaring to close it. In
the last fifteen years, football has had eleven of its
fifteen Super Bowl champions have come from the bottom half
of payroll. Baseball has had one, and baseball has had

(01:24:26):
none out of the bottom third. So there's a lot
of ways to define what is competition and what is competitive.
He chose a very narrow statistic, and it completely ignores
all the imbalances I'm suggesting.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
Right, of course, from my point of view, like I
can live in a world where somebody's saying baseball's more
competitive than you think it is. But my biggest problem
is the fans don't feel that way. From a business perspective,
if you are running a business and most of your

(01:25:05):
fans won't watch National Baseball games because they think the
league's unfair. A salary cap just kind of changes the
perspective that your customers have on whether or not your
product's fair, And that, to me is important. That, to me,
is everything about this collective bargaining agreement coming up well?

Speaker 9 (01:25:24):
Certainly when a third of the fans feel like their
owners are punting, when the Dodgers pay more in payroll
than sixteen teams, more than half of the league, they
pay more in luxury tax on the payroll than over
half of the league, and then what does it result in?
We're the immense imbalance. How is that you go back

(01:25:51):
to how is that impacted revenue? So in nineteen ninety two,
and maybe you'll ask me about the concerns we had
in the room, but let's just go through this totistics
in nineteen ninety two. Now that's the year before NFL
free agency. Reggie White was signed in early ninety three,
So we can go back and we can look at
the revenues of all of all three sports. Baseball had

(01:26:14):
the lead in revenue at one point five eight three billion,
then came the NFL at one point four to nine
to two billion, and then basketball was nine or ninety
nine million. So now if you look at where they are,
Baseball has jumped to twelve point five three billion. They've
gone seven point nine x. Sounds impressive. Football has gone

(01:26:39):
to twenty four point one billion, sixteen point one x.
So baseball is under eight and and football is over sixteen.
Football has literally lapped baseball. And so both from us
a revenue standpoint and from a growth you're basically double.
So you know, from a standpoint of the growth of

(01:27:02):
the league, uh, it's it's not comparable and basketball. And
as I said, basketball, if if if you take the
NFL the percentage of the growth, basketball has eighty nine
percent of football, Baseball is forty nine percent. So his
system that you know, this for this romantic language of

(01:27:23):
oh the free market operating, uh, you know, resembling a
genuine free market. You know, the way they the way
they have their structure from the the luxury tax and
with the imbalance in the revenue. You know, what they're
doing is they're defending He's defending an open, uncapped auction

(01:27:46):
that really has produced an aristocracy of about six teams
that are clustered on the east coast of each of
the coasts. Yeah, and so you know that's the system
that he defends. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:27:59):
You.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Millan is with a our QB one talking about the
salary cap, finishing our conversation from last week. A lot
of people have asked us, we just can't leave everybody hanging,
and I felt the exact same way. So we've picked
it back up here today. So what were the concerns
that you had as you, you know, like a founding
forefather of salary caps, you being John Adams, maybe what

(01:28:20):
were some of the concerns that you and your peers
had before you did agree to that a free agency
and the salary cap would be the future of the NFL.

Speaker 9 (01:28:31):
Yeah, and just to paint the picture, you got the
twenty eight teams at the time, and you got the
player reps in the room. Dick Bertleson was the in
house counsel for the players Association. They would hire Jeffrey Kessler.
He would come in from time to time, but Burtison
would just sit on the side and he would just say, hey,
if you guys do this, it's this.

Speaker 2 (01:28:50):
If you do this, it's this.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:28:52):
He would say, you second person, not we, and you know,
so the players had to discuss all this. You know,
we had concerns about what the owner said, Hey, if
we get free agency, we're all the player, best player
is gonna go to the Cowboys and the Raiders. There
was concern about quarterback movement that you know, you know,
and of course Drew Brees, Jake Dilomas, super Bowl quarterback,

(01:29:15):
Kirk Cousins. There's been plenty of quarterback movie parody. Would
we thought, you know, if we get parody is everybody
can be bored with nine and seven and eight and eight.
At the time, the Cowboys and the forty nine ers
had the best rivaly in football that was driving all
the TV ratings. But you know, you think, well, are
we going to destroy that the idea that of those

(01:29:35):
real those those dominant teams. The Francise tag, would it
limit the top end of the players? Well, Chuck, if
you look at and I've got the table right in
front of me, if you look at the top ten
players in football right now, the annualized guaranteed value of

(01:29:56):
the top ten football players is forty two and a
half million. For baseball it's thirty eight point nine million.
So the NFL has a nine point one percent advantage.
If you go the top twenty players, NFL has thirty
six and a half million, and a Major League Baseball
as thirty four point six million.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
So the concerns that we had at the time, and
here's the thing.

Speaker 9 (01:30:20):
Back in nineteen ninety two, Scott Boris could come on
and say, hey, in theory, this is nonsense and this
is never gonna work. But we've got thirty three years
of history of showing. And I'm not saying that the
growth that I'm describing is because there's a salary cap,

(01:30:40):
because you can't make that inference logically, but you can
say unequivocally that the salary cap did not hinder the league.
And because what we're really talking about, what the players
should be focused on is the revenue pie and the
percentage of the revenue new But the in nineteen ninety two,

(01:31:03):
baseball players had fifty two percent. Football players had forty
three point eight percent. Remember those numbers. I know I'm
throwing a lot of numbers in this. So the football
players had a much smaller portion of a smaller pie.
So now because of the revenue certainties and the interest

(01:31:24):
in the game, now, the football had that you know,
doubled baseball in terms of the revenue. But now the
football players, like Scott Pors comes on to KGr and
he says he used the word cap thirteen times with
Softy and Dick. He he used the word floor zero.

(01:31:46):
You're not you're not giving away the cap that I mean.
That'd be a surrender. You are you are saying, hey,
we'll give you a cap. What are you gonna give us?
Or we're gonna demand this, X, y and Z. So
so the players in FOOTB I'll have a forty eight
point eight percent of a twice a big a pie
and baseball has forty six point six percent. And here's

(01:32:10):
the irony of this. In early twenty sixteen, Scott Boris
told Baseball Perspective that in the prior year that baseball
players were getting forty three percent. So they went from
fifty and he acknowledged that they had gone from fifty
five percent a decade before. Now they're at forty three percent.

(01:32:31):
Out of his own mouth, and so, so what does
that tell you? There is nothing locking the owners into
paying anything. They can be at fifty five percent, they
can be at forty six point six percent as they
are now. They can be down to forty three percent
in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
There's nothing.

Speaker 9 (01:32:48):
So in theory, you're you're gonna have, You're gonna compel
these owners to spend because you know. Boris comes on,
he calls the Padres owner a genius because of how
he spent, and he barks about and he literally tells
Softie and Dicky says, he goes, the Podres went from

(01:33:08):
six hundred million to four billion. Well, it's an agree
to pray a sale price a three point nine billion,
which is obviously four billion.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
I'm good with that.

Speaker 9 (01:33:18):
But so we have a clear starting point from the
August of twenty twelve to now. So that is six
point five times the value, and he's gonna bark about
the the increase. Well, what's funny about that is if
you take the compound annual growth rate of the NFL
franchise values, the average NFL franchise is conservatively projected to

(01:33:42):
be at eight point two eight billion and twenty twenty
six versus one point one billion and twenty twenty twelve.
So that's a seven point five to three times value.
So Scott, so let me summarize that. Scott Boris comes on,
He's got thirty teams to pick from to to try
and be convincing about the economic prosperity of baseball. He

(01:34:05):
choose the Podrays and he gives you impressive sounding numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Guess what it was.

Speaker 9 (01:34:11):
His number one choice was below the average of the
NFL in growth. So every time he opens his mouth,
you can hand him his hat. Because think of like
when you watch the Kentucky Derby a horse race, you know,
and it's kind of muddy, you know, and the jockeys
they get the mud on their on their goggles and.

Speaker 4 (01:34:32):
What have you.

Speaker 9 (01:34:33):
You know, baseball might as well just take their goggles
off because football is so far in the distance a susspec.
They can't even see the football out in front, so
they're not getting mud on their glasses.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
That was thirty years ago. Yeah, yeah, Would you debate
Scott Boris on the air if given the opportunity, Uh yeah,
I would welcome that.

Speaker 9 (01:34:57):
Now, if you're sensible, you would be saying, Millan, Scott
Boris has made mincemeat. He's chopped up every GM in
all of baseball and contract negotiations. How do you think
you have the chops to argue with him? Well, my
response to that would be this. If we had to

(01:35:20):
debate what is the best dinner and I got to
choose a Ribbi at the met and he had to
choose a Boloney sandwich, I'm gonna win that debate. If
we had to debate who made the most musical impact
and I get the Beatles and he gets the Bengals,

(01:35:41):
I'm going to win the debate. So look, I would
know what Land minds not to step on. But certainly
the uh, he's got a answer to these very central
questions that players would have. What percentage of the pie
do we have? Okay, well you've you've shrunk that what
percent is? How big is the pie?

Speaker 2 (01:36:01):
Ground? Well, football's doubled you.

Speaker 9 (01:36:04):
And so he's arguing for something in theory, you know,
and we haven't talked about a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
How about this.

Speaker 9 (01:36:13):
This is baseball's own own analysis. You know, baseball players
don't get free agency till they're they're in their sixth year, right,
So the percent the share of the war, the pre
arbitration players, the share of the war that's wins above replacement.
The pre arbitration players are forty point seven percent of

(01:36:34):
the war. They're nine point four percent of the salary. Meanwhile,
the free agents, they are twenty eight point eight percent
of the war, but they're sixty one point four percent
of salary. So the people who are getting paid are
aren't the players that are are are playing playing the best.

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
Baseball, right, So players getting rewarded for how good they
were with their previous team and aren't good anymore.

Speaker 9 (01:37:02):
Yeah, So so I would look to I would even
tell that Bryce Harper. Look, I already gave you the figure.
We have thirty three years of data that the cap
with a floor that mandates their spending. Remember, now they
the baseball has to mean football has to spend ninety
percent over a three year period, and if they don't,

(01:37:24):
they're gonna have to write a check to all the
players in the in the offseason. That's never happened because
the football owners have always paid it. So so if
you take if I were to talk to Bryce Harper,
I'd say, wait a minute, Even you superstars, you're the
football players have a higher percentage that both in terms

(01:37:45):
of gross money and in terms of the percentage of
the average. So superstars in getting aren't getting suppressed in football.
And so if you do this model, look at the
growth rate, and look at the franchise valuations and and
the popularity TV ratings. You want to go through TV
ratings since.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
Ninety ninety as a baseball fan, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:38:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:38:08):
Well, you know, look you go through the early nine
the early nineties before free agency, and then the last
five season that average him and then you say, okay,
the percent change Football is up five percent because you
know you got one hundred and thirty million people always watch.
Baseball is down sixty seven percent in.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
Just raw numbers.

Speaker 9 (01:38:32):
In the early nineties, they had thirty point two million
for the World Series. Now they're at a twelve point nine.
And the same goes for the Championship I mean the
Championships Championship Series. Football is ten times more in the
champion Championship Series, specifically ten point zero nine. And you say, well,
what about Game sevens. There's been five game sevens this decade.

(01:38:55):
Football still has a six point three x times viewership
against game sevens in the Championship Series. So the popularyer, oh,
the attendants they set record here Boris comes on KGr.
He says, well, we're sending setting record attendance.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
No, you're not.

Speaker 9 (01:39:13):
Two thousand and seven was the record. You're down three
thousand fans per game from two thousand and seven. So
at any event, uh, he really came on and sounded
like a donkey. Het a donkey. But I don't know
if Ashley can get that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Uh uh No, you can say jackass, you just can't
say a hole. Okay, well all of the above.

Speaker 7 (01:39:39):
Yeah, you can actually say a hole, just not the
full yeah say that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
Yeah, yeah, so all of the I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:39:45):
So look, and I'll make sure next time to have
a donkey sound.

Speaker 9 (01:39:48):
Yeah every time you talk about him. But look, there's
so much more of mean, I got spreadsheets going on.
But what's your reaction to that? I mean, what do
you think is the biggest pushback? Well, my re in
general is this.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
This is I can sum it up in all of this,
when is the last time that a Seahawk fan felt
they didn't have a chance against the New York Giants
and the Los Angeles Rams? And the answer is probably
for some people never where. If I asked what are
your chances as a Mariner fan against the Los Angeles Dodgers,
ninety nine out of one hundred people would say that

(01:40:23):
we don't have a chance. Against them here in this town.
And that's not true, by the way. Those numbers that
you do have a chance against the Dodgers, but the
perception is that you don't. And until they change it
with a salary cap and a lot of other little adjustments,
then then baseball's not going to be able to catch

(01:40:43):
up on a national perspective. Baseball does fine locally, you know,
they fill stadiums and their local ratings are good, very good.
But nationally you've lost ground because nobody in Seattle wants
to watch the Cubs play the Cardinal on Sunday night,
no matter how good they are, because they've got money

(01:41:04):
and you don't. That's just, that's just the perception that
a that a sports fan has right now of the
NFL versus Major League Baseball.

Speaker 9 (01:41:13):
Well, you know, I'll tell you what, because I'm looking
at this show. You tell me the last five years,
ten years, or fifteen years. Picket you tell you you
picket ten.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
We'll go to the mill. Okay, we'll go. We'll go ten.

Speaker 9 (01:41:25):
Okay made playoffs. NFL had seventy. This is out of
the bottom half of the payroll. And by the way,
spow Track, the Mariners are in the bottom half in
every year of this decade. Okay, so this ought to
get your attention as a Mariner fan. So you're these

(01:41:45):
are all coming from the bottom half of the payroll.
The NFL has has seventy out of one hundred and
thirty fifty three percent to thirty six percent for Major
League Baseball, making the final eight base of football was
fifty percent from the bottom half baseball thirty percent, the
Final four football, This is the championship games football fifty

(01:42:11):
five percent coming from the bottom half, baseball twenty three percent.
How about making the Super Bowl and making the World
Series football sixty percent from the bottom half baseball twenty
percent and World Series Champion or Super Bowl champions football
eighty percent in the last ten years from the bottom

(01:42:34):
half baseball ten percent. So those are partially picked by you.
In terms of the duration, I could have done five years,
I could have done fifteen years, twenty football in every
single category by a as I said, an average of
thirty six percent. So here the donkey comes on and

(01:42:55):
I called him a donkey, sounded like a donkey, and
he's bragging about an erroneous figures of seventy three percent
versus fifty six percent. Guess what, even though it's wrong,
I'll give it to you seventeen percent. Well, what about
this chart where football is thirty six percent average on
all of these cells in a spreadsheet pertaining to the

(01:43:18):
bottom half of the league, so that they're in lies.
When you say there's a perception, there's a perception because
there's a reality it when framed when the when the
argument is framed like that, what do teams? How do
teams do from the bottom half of the payroll compared
to football? There is no comparison.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
All right, man, Well, thank you very much. Great stuff
here the last couple of weeks. So I'm glad we
got to the bottom of Donkey and his adventures with
Shrak Yeah, rock and roll. All right, thanks man, all right,
by now you villain r QB Willing with us right
here on the radio program coming up on the other side. Oh,
I know what you're down with. Say it on your

(01:43:59):
face OPQ Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. It's
gonna implicate me in some way, and then I won't
ever be able to be honest with your real quarterback
ever again.

Speaker 7 (01:44:10):
Oh we show the proof.

Speaker 2 (01:44:14):
Yeah, I know, I know it seems like you're bragging
about something that maybe you shouldn't be proud of. But
I do know when I take advantage of it. Every
so often you are down with OPQ other people's quarterbacks.
Oh yeah yeah. But before we get to a little
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(01:44:59):
I got like six different items in OPQ that we
could go over here, but we might not have time.
We might only have time for one, frankly, because that's
a pretty big one. Yesterday, the Minnesota Vikings did announce
that Kyler Murray will be their starting quarterback, not JJ McCarthy,
for this upcoming season. And I mentioned this earlier, but

(01:45:21):
we get a chance to expand on it now. I'm
I don't think the story here is the Vikings have
chosen Kyler Murray to be their starting quarterback. The story
to me is how early they made that decision. I mean,
that's how far JJ McCarthy has fallen in a short
period of time, a guy that they overdrafted and then

(01:45:43):
over promoted and maybe overhyped themselves.

Speaker 7 (01:45:49):
Yeah, they got rid of Sam Donald because they thought
he was gonna be so great.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
Yeat rid of Sam Donald. And now in a span
of two years, Man, have they soured on JJ McCarthy.
If you brought in Kyler Murray as a free agent
and announced before you even played a single preseason game, yep,
he's clearly better than that guy we spent a top
ten first round draft pick on a couple of years ago. Wow.

Speaker 7 (01:46:13):
Yeah, it's it's wow. So surprising.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
That's an abrupt fall.

Speaker 6 (01:46:17):
Yeah, So, I mean not surprising that he didn't make
it really, because if you actually paid attention to his
college games, he was just kind of facilitating. Yeah, he
was facilitating the ball moving around. He wasn't really moving
the ball around, if that makes sense. He was there
to accommodate other people moving the ball around.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
I mean, he won a lot of football games without
throwing a pass.

Speaker 7 (01:46:43):
Correct.

Speaker 6 (01:46:44):
Yes, that's a very distinct, distinct way to put it.
And and yet they were like, no, this is going
to be the guy, and we're gonna get rid of
Sam Darnold because of a playoff game despite the success
he had in the season. Thanks for that, by the
way things, We really appreciate it. And then then they
try to hype him up again. Oh, it was injury
and he's gonna be back. And then it's like, well,

(01:47:05):
you have such little faith, you're gonna go with Kyler Williams.
Kyler Murray, who literally hasn't really done anything. I mean,
he's good, he's fine. He does more than facilitate moving
the ball around. So you've got that going for you.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
Well, like I said, I don't think the surprise is
that Kyler Murray's gonna start for the Minnesota Vikings. But
how far JJ McCarthy has fallen that they didn't even
give him a preseason game before announcing you're not as
good as little Sweet, and so we're gonna go with
him instead of you former top ten draft pick. I
mean that is and it happened fast it really really

(01:47:42):
happened fast for JJ McCarthy's decline there in the eyes
of Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. So that's your situation that
you're dealing with. And so we'll see. I mean, still
time for JJ McCarthy to redeem himself. Probably won't be
in Viking uniform, I would think. But yeah, turns out

(01:48:05):
that maybe it takes a little bit more than just
being on a really great team in college. That's weird,
all right. I think that's pretty much. I got a
couple of other things. I think they're going to take
too much time. I'll ask you this just quickly. Yeah,
let's other one, OPQ, because this is real true gossip
here justin Herbert. You got a problem with Madison Beer
being practice and then playing you know, PDA on the

(01:48:29):
practice field.

Speaker 6 (01:48:29):
I think it's a little weird because it's you're at work.
Like I wouldn't invite five Iron here to play with
my hair while we sat out in the sports pitch.
That would be distracted, right would It would be weird
if like in breaks he just came in and was
like giving me shoulder massages and like cleaning up the
lint off my shirt.

Speaker 7 (01:48:46):
That would be strange.

Speaker 6 (01:48:47):
You are at work even though it's training camp, and
I know it's like more fun and lighthearted.

Speaker 7 (01:48:51):
They do have family days.

Speaker 6 (01:48:53):
Yeah, so on the family day, like let them practice,
then they get to all hang out.

Speaker 7 (01:48:58):
You shouldn't. I don't know. It seems weird to me.
I don't catch you do a problem with it. It's
just weird.

Speaker 2 (01:49:01):
Don't you do the class thing and sneaker in after
everybody's gone.

Speaker 7 (01:49:06):
Yeah, you guys can make out in the weight room.

Speaker 2 (01:49:08):
Yeah, yeah, and you can make out on the trainer's table.

Speaker 7 (01:49:10):
Who wouldn't love that?

Speaker 2 (01:49:11):
That's a class move.

Speaker 7 (01:49:13):
That is how real normal people do it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
I think it's ridiculous. I mean, you're you're a professional
football player. It sort of insinuates you need to act
like an adult. Yeah, and look, I've had moments as
an adult drink or two any where. I've probably showed
some PDA and I look back on it now and
I think it is completely wrong. But you do get
swept up in the moment. You should not get swept

(01:49:37):
up in the moment at football practice. That's there should
never be a moment.

Speaker 6 (01:49:42):
And especially because I don't know if you guys are
aware of this, but the Chargers haven't won a playoff game,
and Justin Herbert has been a reason for that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:49):
Yeah, all right, Coming up next, it's one last thing
to close out our show on Sports Radio ninety three
point three KJRFM.