May 21, 2025 • 36 mins
In the first hour, Dick Fain and Hugh Millen react to today’s Mariners win, chat with Mike Florio from PFT about the tush-push vote and validity of the play, then continue to talk about the NFL upholding the play for another year before getting some Fun with Audio.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
AM's gonna win another series, another series victory, and they're
eight games.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Over five hundred and Hueiet they're sucking us in again.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
They're eighty chance to make the playoffs now according to Fangrafts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I just feel like, oh my god, we were
here last year. We were here last year.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Were twenty first June twenty first, we were here last year.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's easy to remember because of course it's the longest
day of the year. So I don't know if there's
some symbolism in that. You know, when things were the brightest,
that's when it's get golf right. You know, when there
was the most sunshine on the calendar, there was the
most sunshine with the mayors. But you know, this is
something the offense has to do when you're down. You're
(00:41):
starting pitchers and and uh and so you know, for
them to be able to push it up and be
you know, at six runs, six five and that's that's
absolutely a beautiful job of the offense covering for the pitching,
you know, for for pitching injury. That's absolute exactly what
(01:01):
how you'd want to draw that up. I mean, you
know in NFL lockers, you know there's always the talk about,
hey team, you know, complimentary. Sometimes the offense is going
to pick up for the defense and vice versa, and
particularly in injuries, and so I think that's part of the
professional mindset in a team sport. Now in basketball, obviously
it's different because you know, both guys are playing offense
(01:23):
and defense. But but there's a commonality of football and
baseball in that regard. And certainly the offense did the
job today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
They did And that's been a consistent theme this year
is just getting enough runs. I mean, how many years
have we watched this baseball team with elite pitching and
then winning close to ninety games, but just not quite
enough because there's just there were just way too way
too many two to one losses, way too many three
to two losses, and we always were.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Screaming, can you just get us four runs?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean, is that too much much to ask for
a Major League baseball team to score four runs? And
it was too much to ask for those marinner teams,
It's not too much to ask for this team. I mean,
particularly on the road. Just look at this road trip.
They're not they're not putting up crooked numbers. But they
scored five. Then they scored four, then they scored six,
then they scored five. Now, yesterday was a goofy, you know,
(02:15):
weird one nothing loss with a three hour rain delay.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You kind of chalk that one up. And then they
score six again. Today.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
They're just getting enough to get it done. And and
that is encouraging to me because it's not like their
talents that much better, but I think their approaching process
is that much better this year with Dan Wilson and.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Edgar Yeah, and and uh, you know, and I think
for the pitching, you know, Logan Evans. Uh now, he
gave up four runs, but but he went six six innings. Yeah,
it wasn't like he got your case in the in
the second or third. And yeah and and uh so
uh yeah, the complimentary baseball and and uh and and
(02:56):
right now, you know Julio, you know, he's pushed up
to thirty one. I mean, I don't th that's no
sin lating average, but he just you know, and he
goes one for five today. But of course the bomb
that that was really in some ways the game winner.
Sometimes the game winner happens.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Early, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, Well, you see football games all the time. You know,
a team goes up fourteen to nothing and you end
up winning by seven. You're like, well, we won this
football game in the first five minutes of the earth of.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
The game with the two touchdows. I was a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I was a little bit concerned with the you know,
with the with the relief today and the and the decisions.
I was like, Okay, this is a you know, this
situation where you got Spire available, they didn't use him.
I believe they had Brash available. I don't know why
unless he's unless he's hurting. I didn't know about it.
They didn't use him. They used Lego Mina, who started
yesterday and threw more pitches yesterday than Spire pitched yesterday,
(03:50):
and they decided to use him, and they go to
Vargas and then they go to Munho. So I gotta
be honest. I was. I was holding my breath, particularly
in the seventh inning with Lego Mina in there.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
But he ended up getting the win.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
He got a couple of strikeouts after getting getting guys
on base, and then Munyos, my god man, sixteen for sixteen.
You look at Munos's line on the E r A
column and it still says zero points zero zero and
it's almost June.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, we we kind of had a slightly tongue in
cheek comment about is Munyo is the best player in
baseball because what other players essentially perfect in doing their
job right exactly. But and and that's a you know,
kind of fun coffee and beer talk. But but as
for laguma As you said, you know, one inning he
(04:37):
did have he had a walk and a hit, but
and he gave up a run. But then Vargas and Munos,
you know, uh, Munyas gave up just the one hit,
no walks, and so so I would say, you know,
solid if you go three, if your bullpen goes three
innings and gives up one run, Okay, So that's that's
(05:02):
the equivalent of a three point er. I think most
of the time, that's that's gonna be good in it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And his war right now is one point nine. I
mean you your closer's war is one point nine. That's
on pace for a six war for a lever, unbelievable.
Almost as good as our next guest, Mike Florio.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
It's time for a weekly conversation with Pro Football Talks
Mike Florio brought to you by Simply Seattle. Tired of
buying and repping the same old Seattle sports gear everyone
else has. For the best Storm Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken, Rainiers, Sounders,
and not to mention, the largest Sonics collection in the world,
check out simply Seattle dot com. Now with Mike Florio,
(05:42):
here's Softy and Dick.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Love Wednesdays at three ten every afternoon where we get
to talk to our friend from Pro Football Talk, Mike Floria.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Michael, how you doing good?
Speaker 5 (05:55):
Hey, where's the butthole today?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, the butthole is he is in Greece. That he's
in Greece. He is a long way aow man.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Wow, he ain't coming back anytime soon. He's got he's
got a long way to come back. So you're stuck
with us this week and next week. But it's great,
great to talk to you. Any you know, you think
we'd have a downtime in the NFL, you know, kind
of mid to late May.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
This should be a downtime. And no, no, no, the
owners get together. We've got this. The Tush Push vote.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What did you make not only of give you your
take on the Tush push itself, but also the process
to how we got here, maybe tell the audience like,
what was the process today, what were the inner workings
and politics going on today?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
With the tush push going forward?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Well, and guys, it goes back farther than today because
after the March meetings, Lion's president Rod would set out
loud and he probably shouldn't have that Detroit's proposal to
change playoff seeding was instigated by the league. The league
approached them and said, hey, would you like to do this,
We'll partner with you on this. What was never presented
(07:09):
as a partnership. It was presented as alliance proposal, which
is very different from the usual procedure for creating new rules.
The league and the Competition Committee work together and they
have a whole procedure that delves into it, and the
team can then make their own proposals. It was just
odds that the NFL went beyond its normal process to
plant this seed. And the moment that Rod Wood said that,
(07:30):
I said, you know what, I bet they did the
same thing with the Packers proposal to ban the turch
parce and lo and behold. I found out today after
the Packers proposal failed, that it was instigated by the
league that basically, the league used the Packers to do
this because the league wanted to get rid of it.
That's the bottom line. And there were various reasons that
(07:51):
may or may not be accurate or logical, but at
the end of the day, the league wanted somebody in
the league office, maybe the guy whose name is on
every football, decided this needs to go. And they tried
in March with a very flawed proposal that would have
banned an immediate push if the player who receives this snap,
and that would have opened a can of worms, because
what's the immediate name When do you throw a flag?
(08:12):
Is it a second? Because the second that half is
it's a foot second. So they took a step back
and they were going to ban all pushing of the
runner anywhere on the field under any circumstances. And they
thought they had enough votes. I thought they had enough votes.
They thought they had enough votes because they let it
go to a vote and they found out they were
to vote short. They needed twenty four. They got twenty two.
(08:33):
And it sounds as if the Eagles put forth a
fairly persuasive case based upon the idea that the safety
risk you speak of is hypothetical. You have no evidence
of any safety risk. So now what they'll do. They'll retreat,
they'll conspire, they'll plan, and by next March they'll probably
(08:53):
make another run at it, and there may be some
evidence real or imagined or embellished of safety risk from
the Tush push, and they'll make another run at it.
And the reality is they only need to twist two arms.
They know who the ten teams are. They voted against
the span and now all they have to do is
get the two of them, make a deal, make a threat,
(09:14):
do whatever. It's how the political sausage gets made in
any political body.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And this is a very political.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
Process as far as the NFL goes. So it's not over.
It's over for now, it's not over for good.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Mike Florian with this, Mike, that's a good rundown. There's
a couple of things about this topic that just both
enraged me and just steimy me. And you know, one
of them is the idea a lot of the defense
as well. The Eagles are so good at it. How
can you penalize a team for being so good? And
(09:49):
you know, particularly in like you know, it's bad optics
because they won the Super Bowl. My point would be, hey,
if all thirty two teams were really great at it,
just I just as successful as the Eagle's still an
ugly play. It's a rugby play. In nineteen ten, assisting
the runner was outlined. You say, well, the league's only
(10:11):
been around since nineteen twenty. That was college football. And
at nineteen twenty when the NFL emerged, they adopted both
the forward progress rule of eighteen ninety six, which is
the compliment preventing a rule that prevents the defense from
pushing an offensive player back, and they viewed it tiedy
in assisting the runner as a compliment to the Ford
(10:32):
progress rules. So I would just say, forget the Eagles.
It's it's a rugby play.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
It doesn't look common to the game of football. And
two thirds of the owners agree, and so I don't know,
we got to get this thing over the finish line
in my opinion, But what's your take on all that?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Hey, Hugh, did the forward task look common to the game?
When yeah, do you think that look to the game?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'll tell you what I mean. I feel like I'm
watching sumer wrestling more or a tough work contest more
when I watched this stupid tush push, then I'm watching football.
But I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Here's the problem. Here's the problem. There's a couple of problems.
Number One, they changed the rules in two thousand and
six to eliminate the ban on pushing a runner as
part of the penalty that gets called when someone assists
the runner. You still can't pull, but as the two
thousand and six you could push now. One of the
(11:26):
reasons they got rid of it is because they never
called the foul. The foul for assisting the runner has
not been called since the nineteen ninety one playoff game
between the Chiefs and the Bill It was called on
Tim Gruenhard in January of nineteen ninety two. That's the
last time assisting runner has been called for pushing or pulling.
And the Bills were pulling runners like crazy, especially in
the postseason at the league. Are they gonna start calling this?
(11:47):
And like, well, we never call it, so we kind
of can't start calling it now. So that's the problem.
They changed the rule and they didn't consider whether this
was gonna lead, and it took sixteen years. It was
like Cicada's burrowed underground. It took sixteen years for the
Eagles to figure out we can use this as part
of our playbook. And here's what I believe. If everyone
was doing it well and we saw it in every game,
(12:10):
they'd either change first and ten to first and twelve
or first and thirteen, or they would just get rid
of it. The problem with one team doing it well
and them not jumping on it immediately, but waiting a
couple of years, it feels petty, It feels small. It
feels like a you know what, we can't figure out
how to stop it, and we can't figure out how
(12:31):
to do it. Holy crap, we got to keep the
Eagles from doing it. And I don't like the disingenuous
nature of the debate. It sounds too much like our
current political climate, where nobody tells the truth on either side.
They just say whatever they have to say to support
their obvious position. And it all felt like a big
pile of crap. And I didn't like that. I didn't
like the precedent it would set. And I'm glad it
(12:53):
failed because I think that there was a refusal to
just admit what it is. The Eagles have cracked the card.
Nobody else can crack it, and we want to take
away the code because nobody else can crack it, either
to stop it or to do it themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, do you think that when you watch Okay? So
we have a difference of opinion, Mike, and obviously I
respect your opinion. But in your mind is is it
fair to have rules that distinguish football from rugby? And
if so, does the touss push look like like the
(13:31):
definition of a rugby play so much that it is
clearly distinguished from other football plays. I think it doesn't
showcase the skills of the game in the way that
I think that football skills out to be showcased. I
think it looks like rugby.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Well, I don't disagree with that. The problem is the
way they handled it. It looks like it's directed at
the Eagles. And I also say this, yes, the Seahawks
for the one team that was doing it, and they
just want a Super Bowl. I don't think you guys
to be pushing back against it. So that's part of
it too. It's a very regional and parochial thing where
Eagles fans love it, everybody else hates it. I just
(14:10):
think that they created the rule book. It's been in
place for one hundred years. It doesn't violate the rules
that's currently written. If they want to change the rules,
that's fine, but just be honest about what you're doing.
Just admit, you know what, we got one team that's
throwing the whole sport.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Out of balance and we don't like it.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
And instead of sneaking back to the Packers and saying, hey,
you know what, we get in idea, we don't want
to do this directly because it'll look like we're, you know,
we're trying to screw the Eagles here. So you be
the ones. You be the ones you lost to them
twice last year. It'll make sense if you're upset and
you propose it. I just don't like any of it.
It's sneaky, it's conniving, and it's dishonest. And that's the
problem I have, and how it was making me root
(14:50):
for the band to go through so that the Eagles
would show up on Thursday night to start the season
against the Cowboys, line up in the quarterback, sneak and
run the ball five yards and do it again, and
do it again, like that scene in Miracle what Kurt
Russell says again, can do it all? The way down
the field and shove it up every one.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So, you know what, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
And I hate being in the middle on this because
I totally agree with Hugh that it's it's a terrible
looking play.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's not an NFL football play.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
But I also agree with with Mike where it's like
it's a bad look that thirteen of the fourteen teams
that are scheduled to play the Eagles were the ones
that voted against it. It's just it's a it's a
total like we're going to try to get them because
we can't stop them on the field.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
But Mike Floria, last couple of minutes of them, let
me get one last thing.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Yeah, one last thing too. If they had passed that today,
the Eagles would still have an unstoppable quarterback sneak, and
it would still so it's a deeper issue than getting
behind the quarterback and giving him a shove. I don't
think the shove really matters. I think it's the surge
up front more than the push from behind. And so
(15:53):
that's why I think at the end of the day,
the Eagles just have an unstoppable quarterback sneak. That's the problem.
Put a prioritize interior offensive line play, and you know
it's all out in plain sight. There's no secret to
what the Eagles are doing. How would that stout on
the way from the Eagles? Pam, Pam. You know, I
held a lot more money and the Eagles are paying
and do it yourself. That's the part of it I
don't like because it's not going to change anything, and
(16:15):
it feels petty and vindictive and small and dishonest and YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Well, there's no question that the Eagles offensive line, coupled
with a very strong quarterback they have, they have better technique,
they get lower, there's no question. You're right, they would
still have a very good quarterback sneak, they'd have the best.
But I think that the extra push from behind does
does assess the You know that certainly the we can't
(16:42):
isolate the variables, right, but the push from behind helps
those those those percentages. And I think it's true, Mike,
just to respond to what you said, I think it
can be. There can be two truths. I think that
the NFL could say we're confounded, we don't know how
to stop the Eagles, and that's that's an ugly response
(17:03):
in the way you describe. But it can also be
true that and it and it's a terrible rugby play, right,
Why can't it? Why can't Why can't an owner who
voted against it today have that position to say, yeah,
you know what, you got me there? I freaking hate
that we can't stop the damn Eagles. And guess what
if if if if all of a sudden twenty five
(17:25):
other teams were really good at it, we I would
still hate the play because it would look too much
like rugby. Seems to me, we got two thoughts, and
we can have two thoughts in our heads because we're
human beings.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I don't disagree with that. I just think I think
if that was the issue, they should have done it
in twenty twenty two, not twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I agree with that, and I agree with that, And.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Because the argument would have been, hey, we don't want
this to spread, we will agree in the buds and
so you know, it just feels like it was handled
poorly and and it doesn't matter because it's here to
stay at least for one more year. I fully expect
them to try to do it again next year.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, Mike, we got a run. I had other stuff
for you, but we got to run because we got it.
Was a good debate. It was a hell of a debate.
We'll have it some more with you in the in
the radio.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
We could talk about everything else on your list, but
we had a good conversation and I think.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
We agreed at some level.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Yes, we do.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
One is the NFL needs to tighten up its act.
I don't like the way they handle this. I don't
like running around behind the scenes. I don't like any
of the backroom deals. I don't like how this looks.
And the backroom deals are going to continue until I
can get two of the ten teams that voted against
today's rule to vote in favor of it next year,
and somebody will be made a promise, for somebody to
be made a threat, and they'll get the two. The
(18:33):
commissioner will be determined to get two of those teams
ten teams to flip love it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Thanks, Michael, talk to you next week. So you got
you met Mike Florio. I think we've opened up a
can of worms that needs to continue to be opened
because I'll give you some of my thoughts as well
coming up the next segment on three KJFM.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
On testing Live from the R and R Foundation specialist
broad Jas Studio. Now back to up Bean Dig powered
by Emerald Queen, the betting capital of the Northwest on
Sports Radio ninety three point three kJ r FM.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well have textimonials at four forty five, got something to
throw out to you here. I was listening to Chuck's
show this morning and he was talking about being in
a you know, a fine eating and drinking establishment yesterday
watching the Mariners game, and just talking about how the
folks around him were. It was.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It was an interesting dichotomy.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
They were very much all negative Nelly's like, Okay, well
this team eventually is just going to crash and burn
because we're the Mariners. And yet they were all fired
up when the game it was one to nothing. They
were just living and dying by every single pitch. So
my question for you at four nine, four or five
one is where are you on the optimism pessimism continuum
(19:53):
for this edition of the Seattle Mariners. Try to put
the past aside, if you can, try to put forty
eight years of frustration aside, just what you see from
this baseball team in this division, in this league, which
is very winnable. Where are you on the optimism pessimism
side four and nine four five to one? Well, Hugh,
(20:14):
we had a great conversation with Mike Florio about the
toush push. Can you put your ex's and o's hat
on for a second and just tell us is there
anything fancy? Is there anything advanced about the tush push
or is it just simply a quarterback sneak where they're
running back behind the quarterback pushes the butt of the quarterback.
(20:37):
Is there anything you know unique about it other than that?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, unique about the way the Eagles do it? Why
they're better? Sure, gohet, Yeah, let's start there. Yeah, I mean,
I'll compare, for example, the Bills. The Bills had a
very noteworthy failure on their quarterback sneak in the playoffs
in the AFC Championship game and uh, right around midfield
late in the game. And if you compare what Buffalo
(21:05):
does with Philadelphia, Philadelphia, they they get.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Into this, like.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The angles of the backs of the offensive linemen are lower,
the heads are lower, their initial movement is lower. They uh,
they do what's called wedge blocking, a little faster. Wedge
blocking is just everybody stepping forward but also toward the
towards the inside, towards the ball. Of course, the quarterback
(21:36):
has got uh you know, squat six hundred pounds and all.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
This is the primary difference why the Eagles.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think, I think I think it's a combination of
you know, now this is going to be part fact factual,
part well interpretation and opinion. I I think that the Eagles,
it's a combination of factors. I think, as I said,
the offensive line, their technique is better. I mean, I
(22:05):
could objectively just show you, you know, the how the
bills lower the bills, the bills they're spacing wasn't quite
as tight. They didn't wedge block quite as much. Josh
Allen he kind of, you know, he there's not an
immediacy to with what you know, he said, well, let
me see if I can get it in the b
gap off to the left side, which he had been
(22:26):
he had shown an inclination to do. I think that,
you know, Hurts kind of just gets right in behind
the A gap and and then you know, you got
and then and then you got the pushing, which which
was impermissible from the entire history of the NFL and
till two thousand and five, and then you know, if
(22:46):
you want to go back to nineteen and ten, right,
football has been assisting the runner. And I'm just going
to read real quickly because I think that so much
as said, I think I'm gonna read from the two
thousand and What were you doing in two thousand and four, Deck.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I was here.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You were here the same thing I'm doing right now,
right like I didn't say nineteen twenty four, I didn't
ask what your great grandpa was doing right two thousand
and four? Right, Okay, this is this is rule number twelve,
Section one use of hands, arms and body and uh okay,
and article one no offensive player may and there's a
(23:25):
B and C. I won't read A and B. Well,
maybe maybe i'll read them quickly. A assist the runner
except by individually blocking opponents for him. B use interlocking interference.
Interlocked interference means the grasping of one another by encircling
the body to any degree with the hands of arms.
(23:46):
So that would be like you and I, if we're
gonna block, were we lock arms around each other's shoulders
like we're taking a photo. Right and then and now,
because we've locked arms, we constitute a grade you're blocking,
so so interlocking blocking that that's impermissible and has been.
And then and then Article one C push the runner
or lift him to his feet. And in the penalty
(24:06):
book there are the rulebrick. Rather there's a a A
section that says penalty for assisting the runner loss of
ten yards, and then it gives an example. Now, the
way they do is they got team A and team B,
all right, so it says second and goal on B two.
That means team b's two yard line. You're going in, okay,
Runner A one gets the line of scrimmage and is stopped,
(24:29):
but A two so A one would be the runner
on Team A. And then A two is the block
who is behind and pushes him from behind and shoves
him over the guyline the goal line, ruling no score
illegally assisting runner a ball. The ball is at second
and goal from B twelve, so they take him from
(24:51):
the two yard line back on them to twelve. I
had to know this, dick.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Why was it changed then? Why did they? Why did they?
Was on his zoom.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
At two o'clock on the thirty third team today and
Joel Bussart was speaking about this.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
He was in the room. Who's Joel Bussart.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
He was.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He's sixty nine years old now, but he is. He
was the senior vice president of player personnel and football
operations for the National Football League. He was speaking about this.
He thinks it's an abomination what has happened. He said,
this is never what we intended. He said, this was
just about downfield scrums and the idea of of sometimes
(25:33):
when there's a scrum on an occasion that somebody blocks
and you say, well, you know, I use the example
Steve Hutchinson because I'm using a guard from that era.
You know, he's trying to push Shawn Alexander little and
and does he hit Shawn Alexander or not. Somebody had said, well,
it's kind of hard to efficiate.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Now you're trying to eliminate the ambiguity of a situation
where Seawan Alexander's run for five yards anyway.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And downfield.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, And hutch is right there and he's like, well,
I'm not just gonna stand here and watch Sean get
stood up. I'm gonna try to push him into the
defense and that that seems yes, that.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
You got it, And and so he said that was
the intent and he thinks that that that that it's
it's it's a humilion and it has no place in football.
Now that's just one's man's opinion. But it was a
guy in the room who was part of the process. Again,
this was and and he for what it's work, said, Look,
(26:31):
he called it. I took notes competitively unfair. The offense
can push forward now, but the the offense is protected
by forward progress, like like think of this link. Think
of if the defense could just say, oh no, no, no,
you don't. We're gonna take five guys and push you
back eight yards and then they and then we're gonna
(26:52):
snap the ball eight yards back. Like we all understand
forward progress.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Right, So so.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I understand, I understand your frustrats.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I went to we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna do
some fun with audio next segment.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
But I want to come back to this again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I want to come back to this as far and
put the Seahawks spin on it because I have a
couple of Seahawks pertinent questions about this tush push that
I want to talk about at four thirty. But we've
got fun with audio coming up next. Petros at four
o'clock Larry Stone at five right here on ninety three
point three KJRFM, It's.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Now time for Softy and Dick's fun with audio. Jimmy
g pawn Star, Jimmy mister Garoppolo. Now let's have some
fun with audio. Let's have some fun with audio that
sounds like a heck of an idea.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Jackson's here, Hughes here, soft In Dick without the soft one.
It is fun with audio time as it always is.
At three forty five, Hey, you did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
What's that?
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Dick?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
On cow Coward Show yesterday, the Fox Sports one host
sounded off on the NFL not having the parody that
they say they do and the only league that actually
does have parody. They say they want parody in sports,
and the NFL does a great job to make you
think they've got parody. But Mahomes and Brady have made
(28:12):
ten to the last fifteen Super Bowls from the AFC,
and Philadelphia's favored again in the NFC. We'll see what
Jaden Daniels can do to disrupt that. But the truth
is what you're seeing in sports right now. The last
seven NBA champions, Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, nugget Celtics. That's
the last six, the seventh this year will make seven
(28:35):
new champs in seven years.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
The only parody is the NBA.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
You get Minnesota, you know, Oklahoma City, you get Indiana.
Only one real major market, New York, and their parody
as well, because they've.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Stunk most of the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
He's exactly right, Hugh. I mean we I'm not gonna
say grew up because we were older than that. But
starting back really in the in the eighties eighties, with
the Lakers and the Celtics moving into the Pistons, to
the Bulls, to the Rockets, back to the Bulls, to
the Lakers three in a row, to the Spurs with
(29:12):
three titles in seven years, to the Lakers back to
back in two thousand and nine, in twenty ten, the
Heat back to back in twenty twelve, in twenty thirteen,
and the Warriors back to back in twenty seventeen, in
twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Since then, here are your champions.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Raptors not good anymore, Lakers not particularly good, Bucks not
good anymore. Golden State couldn't get out of the second round.
Denver couldn't get out of the second round. Boston couldn't
get out of the second round. So not only these
champions not repeating, Hugh, they're not even getting back to
the finals. In the NBA, it is and I don't
know if it's good or not good, but that's the facts.
(29:52):
The NBA has the parody.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Well, I think there's more than one way to define parody,
because there is some data out there that fans generally
like to have a couple of dominant teams. Not that
they're every year, but there was take for example, well
this i'm aging myself, but when the Cowboys and the
(30:16):
forty nine ers had these they kept having these clashes.
They were like clearly the Titans of the NFC. They
had huge numbers when they would play right. And so
one could say there wasn't parody at the very top.
But as long as there's parody where where you're not
stuck on the bottom, that you like, like you know,
(30:38):
things like the draft, the worst teams get the first
right and the scheduling you have the the seting in
the scheduling, and so there's there's efforts of course, you
know the claim waiver claim a team with the worst
record as the first chance that a waiverclaim.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I mean there's a lot of but despite that, we
still have six or seven franchises that are always at
the bottom in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, well that that's why. So you have to say, Okay,
what parody we are? Parody? Are we trying to achieve?
And and and what I'm submitting is there's more than
one definition of parody. It's not just your chance that
that could be defined as parody. And then to what
(31:20):
lengths will you go to try and achieve that objective?
If in fact it's a goal and and you know,
is there any other goals that's that supersede that? So
so I think I think it's a it's an interesting look.
The facts are the facts. If that's how you want
to define it. How many different champions are you then
(31:40):
then that's an argument that can be made with numbers
that are in disputaby.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Well to your point, I mean, baseball is a team
that has, you know, clearly the best team and the
second best team in baseball. It's got to be the
Dodgers in the and the Phillies, and it's been that
way for quite a while. But you can say baseball
has excellent parody because right now I'm only counting about
five teams that really have no shot to make the playoffs,
(32:05):
and I've got you've got twenty five teams that do
have a shot to make it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
How did the the Yankees and Dodgers now they had
This isn't really going to prove my point, but let's
suppose you had when the when the Yankees had had
in the in the two thousands, when they had their dynasty,
when they had Jeter and Mariano Rivera and they had uh,
you know, Bernie Williams and right and yeah, uh uh
Pasada and all the you know, all those guys like
(32:31):
they I think they won four four titles. It's either
four or five with Jeter, right, So they were a
dynasty that were on TV, a lot sexy brand. Obviously
no more the winning this from a championship perspective, the
winning this franchise in American sports history. If if the
Dodgers had been kind of like, uh, what seems to
(32:53):
be emerging right now where with a dynasty, you know,
they've just acquired show hey, you know this second year
with him, but Mookie Betts and all these guys and
their dominant pitching staff. If if you had let's say
three or four years, four or five years where the
Yankees were just you know, just dominant with name players
(33:13):
and their Dodgers were and then they seem to meet
in a lot of World Series. But then you had
all this this parody below. I think that, I mean
there was a churning, yes, a churning of the of
the next best and the middle and the low, and
there was a lot of parody churning below. You might
have a situation where those world series gets huge trainings, no.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Question, especially if it's those two brands. Hey here did
you hear that? What's that?
Speaker 7 (33:39):
Dick?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
On the NBA?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
On TNT, Charles Barkley shared his thoughts on the sensitivity
of current NBA players and their openness and getting criticized
by their head coaches.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
The notion that today's players and such whoossies that they
can't get criticized is so crazy to me. Every first
of all, every bad player and every great player should
want to get coached. And it's not criticism, it's coaching.
And it's so frustrating when you know when people are like, man,
(34:08):
I can't believe he called out this guy, and I'm like,
that's his job. The notion I get so frustrated, like,
no man, coach your team, get on everybody's ass. That's
part of coaching.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Well, that's part of coaching in the nineteen eighties when
Barkley played. But let me tell you, as a guy
that has coached in how many different decades, one, two, three,
four different decades, coaching is way different now. Kids are
way different now. There are great things about it. There
are not so great things about it. But you just, Hugh,
and I'm sure you've seen it. You can't coach kids
(34:41):
with the iron fist like you could thirty years ago.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
You just can't.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I mean, you can get you can coach some kids
like that, but it's a far smaller percentage than it
was thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Well, I've coached in this decade as well. I would
I would say that, I'm you're we're presenting it as
if it's binary either iron fist, uh, you know, Bobby
Knight style, right, or you know, just enfeebling the coaches
and and what he called it, the wissification.
Speaker 7 (35:14):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
But I would say that Charles, I'm gonna agree with
Charles Barkley in this sense, and it's not necessarily disagreeing
with Dick Fame. I I think what Charles Barkley is
saying is is, look, you there used to be a saying, hey,
don't don't be concerned if the coach is yelling at you.
Be concerned when he stops yelling at because he stopped
(35:38):
Karen and I could give an example that with Jimmy
Johnson with the ramp, there's a guy named Beasley who
was supposed to be the backup with Emont Smith. Emont
Smith was gonna be holding out, so really keen on
this Beasley guy, and Jimmy Johnson would ride him and
ride him and ride him, and then all of a
sudden he just stopped writing him, just stop talking to him,
stop coaching him, stop riding him. And then about three
days later. So so I think that I think that
(35:59):
bar Berkley. I'm mostly on Barkley's side in the sense
of the players if they if they can't handle being
coached hard. Now there's a point where you cross the line,
sure and humiliate a guy. But that I don't I don't.
I don't know that Barkley is speaking that.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
No, I think I think you're right about that. Petros
Papadaegis will join us the next segment.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
We'll get back to this this toush push argument at
four four thirty, textimonials at four forty five, and Larry
Stone at five Here on ninety three point three KJRFM
AM's gonna win another series, another series victory, and they're
eight games.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Over five hundred and Hueiet they're sucking us in again.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
They're eighty chance to make the playoffs now according to Fangrafts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I just feel like, oh my god, we were
here last year. We were here last year.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Were twenty first June twenty first, we were here last year.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's easy to remember because of course it's the longest
day of the year. So I don't know if there's
some symbolism in that. You know, when things were the brightest,
that's when it's get golf right. You know, when there
was the most sunshine on the calendar, there was the
most sunshine with the mayors. But you know, this is
something the offense has to do when you're down. You're
(00:41):
starting pitchers and and uh and so you know, for
them to be able to push it up and be
you know, at six runs, six five and that's that's
absolutely a beautiful job of the offense covering for the pitching,
you know, for for pitching injury. That's absolute exactly what
(01:01):
how you'd want to draw that up. I mean, you
know in NFL lockers, you know there's always the talk about,
hey team, you know, complimentary. Sometimes the offense is going
to pick up for the defense and vice versa, and
particularly in injuries, and so I think that's part of the
professional mindset in a team sport. Now in basketball, obviously
it's different because you know, both guys are playing offense
(01:23):
and defense. But but there's a commonality of football and
baseball in that regard. And certainly the offense did the
job today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
They did And that's been a consistent theme this year
is just getting enough runs. I mean, how many years
have we watched this baseball team with elite pitching and
then winning close to ninety games, but just not quite
enough because there's just there were just way too way
too many two to one losses, way too many three
to two losses, and we always were.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Screaming, can you just get us four runs?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean, is that too much much to ask for
a Major League baseball team to score four runs? And
it was too much to ask for those marinner teams,
It's not too much to ask for this team. I mean,
particularly on the road. Just look at this road trip.
They're not they're not putting up crooked numbers. But they
scored five. Then they scored four, then they scored six,
then they scored five. Now, yesterday was a goofy, you know,
(02:15):
weird one nothing loss with a three hour rain delay.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You kind of chalk that one up. And then they
score six again. Today.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
They're just getting enough to get it done. And and
that is encouraging to me because it's not like their
talents that much better, but I think their approaching process
is that much better this year with Dan Wilson and.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Edgar Yeah, and and uh, you know, and I think
for the pitching, you know, Logan Evans. Uh now, he
gave up four runs, but but he went six six innings. Yeah,
it wasn't like he got your case in the in
the second or third. And yeah and and uh so
uh yeah, the complimentary baseball and and uh and and
(02:56):
right now, you know Julio, you know, he's pushed up
to thirty one. I mean, I don't th that's no
sin lating average, but he just you know, and he
goes one for five today. But of course the bomb
that that was really in some ways the game winner.
Sometimes the game winner happens.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Early, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, Well, you see football games all the time. You know,
a team goes up fourteen to nothing and you end
up winning by seven. You're like, well, we won this
football game in the first five minutes of the earth of.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
The game with the two touchdows. I was a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I was a little bit concerned with the you know,
with the with the relief today and the and the decisions.
I was like, Okay, this is a you know, this
situation where you got Spire available, they didn't use him.
I believe they had Brash available. I don't know why
unless he's unless he's hurting. I didn't know about it.
They didn't use him. They used Lego Mina, who started
yesterday and threw more pitches yesterday than Spire pitched yesterday,
(03:50):
and they decided to use him, and they go to
Vargas and then they go to Munho. So I gotta
be honest. I was. I was holding my breath, particularly
in the seventh inning with Lego Mina in there.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
But he ended up getting the win.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
He got a couple of strikeouts after getting getting guys
on base, and then Munyos, my god man, sixteen for sixteen.
You look at Munos's line on the E r A
column and it still says zero points zero zero and
it's almost June.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, we we kind of had a slightly tongue in
cheek comment about is Munyo is the best player in
baseball because what other players essentially perfect in doing their
job right exactly. But and and that's a you know,
kind of fun coffee and beer talk. But but as
for laguma As you said, you know, one inning he
(04:37):
did have he had a walk and a hit, but
and he gave up a run. But then Vargas and Munos,
you know, uh, Munyas gave up just the one hit,
no walks, and so so I would say, you know,
solid if you go three, if your bullpen goes three
innings and gives up one run, Okay, So that's that's
(05:02):
the equivalent of a three point er. I think most
of the time, that's that's gonna be good in it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And his war right now is one point nine. I
mean you your closer's war is one point nine. That's
on pace for a six war for a lever, unbelievable.
Almost as good as our next guest, Mike Florio.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
It's time for a weekly conversation with Pro Football Talks
Mike Florio brought to you by Simply Seattle. Tired of
buying and repping the same old Seattle sports gear everyone
else has. For the best Storm Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken, Rainiers, Sounders,
and not to mention, the largest Sonics collection in the world,
check out simply Seattle dot com. Now with Mike Florio,
(05:42):
here's Softy and Dick.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Love Wednesdays at three ten every afternoon where we get
to talk to our friend from Pro Football Talk, Mike Floria.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Michael, how you doing good?
Speaker 5 (05:55):
Hey, where's the butthole today?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, the butthole is he is in Greece. That he's
in Greece. He is a long way aow man.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Wow, he ain't coming back anytime soon. He's got he's
got a long way to come back. So you're stuck
with us this week and next week. But it's great,
great to talk to you. Any you know, you think
we'd have a downtime in the NFL, you know, kind
of mid to late May.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
This should be a downtime. And no, no, no, the
owners get together. We've got this. The Tush Push vote.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What did you make not only of give you your
take on the Tush push itself, but also the process
to how we got here, maybe tell the audience like,
what was the process today, what were the inner workings
and politics going on today?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
With the tush push going forward?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Well, and guys, it goes back farther than today because
after the March meetings, Lion's president Rod would set out
loud and he probably shouldn't have that Detroit's proposal to
change playoff seeding was instigated by the league. The league
approached them and said, hey, would you like to do this,
We'll partner with you on this. What was never presented
(07:09):
as a partnership. It was presented as alliance proposal, which
is very different from the usual procedure for creating new rules.
The league and the Competition Committee work together and they
have a whole procedure that delves into it, and the
team can then make their own proposals. It was just
odds that the NFL went beyond its normal process to
plant this seed. And the moment that Rod Wood said that,
(07:30):
I said, you know what, I bet they did the
same thing with the Packers proposal to ban the turch
parce and lo and behold. I found out today after
the Packers proposal failed, that it was instigated by the
league that basically, the league used the Packers to do
this because the league wanted to get rid of it.
That's the bottom line. And there were various reasons that
(07:51):
may or may not be accurate or logical, but at
the end of the day, the league wanted somebody in
the league office, maybe the guy whose name is on
every football, decided this needs to go. And they tried
in March with a very flawed proposal that would have
banned an immediate push if the player who receives this snap,
and that would have opened a can of worms, because
what's the immediate name When do you throw a flag?
(08:12):
Is it a second? Because the second that half is
it's a foot second. So they took a step back
and they were going to ban all pushing of the
runner anywhere on the field under any circumstances. And they
thought they had enough votes. I thought they had enough votes.
They thought they had enough votes because they let it
go to a vote and they found out they were
to vote short. They needed twenty four. They got twenty two.
(08:33):
And it sounds as if the Eagles put forth a
fairly persuasive case based upon the idea that the safety
risk you speak of is hypothetical. You have no evidence
of any safety risk. So now what they'll do. They'll retreat,
they'll conspire, they'll plan, and by next March they'll probably
(08:53):
make another run at it, and there may be some
evidence real or imagined or embellished of safety risk from
the Tush push, and they'll make another run at it.
And the reality is they only need to twist two arms.
They know who the ten teams are. They voted against
the span and now all they have to do is
get the two of them, make a deal, make a threat,
(09:14):
do whatever. It's how the political sausage gets made in
any political body.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And this is a very political.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
Process as far as the NFL goes. So it's not over.
It's over for now, it's not over for good.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Mike Florian with this, Mike, that's a good rundown. There's
a couple of things about this topic that just both
enraged me and just steimy me. And you know, one
of them is the idea a lot of the defense
as well. The Eagles are so good at it. How
can you penalize a team for being so good? And
(09:49):
you know, particularly in like you know, it's bad optics
because they won the Super Bowl. My point would be, hey,
if all thirty two teams were really great at it,
just I just as successful as the Eagle's still an
ugly play. It's a rugby play. In nineteen ten, assisting
the runner was outlined. You say, well, the league's only
(10:11):
been around since nineteen twenty. That was college football. And
at nineteen twenty when the NFL emerged, they adopted both
the forward progress rule of eighteen ninety six, which is
the compliment preventing a rule that prevents the defense from
pushing an offensive player back, and they viewed it tiedy
in assisting the runner as a compliment to the Ford
(10:32):
progress rules. So I would just say, forget the Eagles.
It's it's a rugby play.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
It doesn't look common to the game of football. And
two thirds of the owners agree, and so I don't know,
we got to get this thing over the finish line
in my opinion, But what's your take on all that?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Hey, Hugh, did the forward task look common to the game?
When yeah, do you think that look to the game?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'll tell you what I mean. I feel like I'm
watching sumer wrestling more or a tough work contest more
when I watched this stupid tush push, then I'm watching football.
But I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Here's the problem. Here's the problem. There's a couple of problems.
Number One, they changed the rules in two thousand and
six to eliminate the ban on pushing a runner as
part of the penalty that gets called when someone assists
the runner. You still can't pull, but as the two
thousand and six you could push now. One of the
(11:26):
reasons they got rid of it is because they never
called the foul. The foul for assisting the runner has
not been called since the nineteen ninety one playoff game
between the Chiefs and the Bill It was called on
Tim Gruenhard in January of nineteen ninety two. That's the
last time assisting runner has been called for pushing or pulling.
And the Bills were pulling runners like crazy, especially in
the postseason at the league. Are they gonna start calling this?
(11:47):
And like, well, we never call it, so we kind
of can't start calling it now. So that's the problem.
They changed the rule and they didn't consider whether this
was gonna lead, and it took sixteen years. It was
like Cicada's burrowed underground. It took sixteen years for the
Eagles to figure out we can use this as part
of our playbook. And here's what I believe. If everyone
was doing it well and we saw it in every game,
(12:10):
they'd either change first and ten to first and twelve
or first and thirteen, or they would just get rid
of it. The problem with one team doing it well
and them not jumping on it immediately, but waiting a
couple of years, it feels petty, It feels small. It
feels like a you know what, we can't figure out
how to stop it, and we can't figure out how
(12:31):
to do it. Holy crap, we got to keep the
Eagles from doing it. And I don't like the disingenuous
nature of the debate. It sounds too much like our
current political climate, where nobody tells the truth on either side.
They just say whatever they have to say to support
their obvious position. And it all felt like a big
pile of crap. And I didn't like that. I didn't
like the precedent it would set. And I'm glad it
(12:53):
failed because I think that there was a refusal to
just admit what it is. The Eagles have cracked the card.
Nobody else can crack it, and we want to take
away the code because nobody else can crack it, either
to stop it or to do it themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, do you think that when you watch Okay? So
we have a difference of opinion, Mike, and obviously I
respect your opinion. But in your mind is is it
fair to have rules that distinguish football from rugby? And
if so, does the touss push look like like the
(13:31):
definition of a rugby play so much that it is
clearly distinguished from other football plays. I think it doesn't
showcase the skills of the game in the way that
I think that football skills out to be showcased. I
think it looks like rugby.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Well, I don't disagree with that. The problem is the
way they handled it. It looks like it's directed at
the Eagles. And I also say this, yes, the Seahawks
for the one team that was doing it, and they
just want a Super Bowl. I don't think you guys
to be pushing back against it. So that's part of
it too. It's a very regional and parochial thing where
Eagles fans love it, everybody else hates it. I just
(14:10):
think that they created the rule book. It's been in
place for one hundred years. It doesn't violate the rules
that's currently written. If they want to change the rules,
that's fine, but just be honest about what you're doing.
Just admit, you know what, we got one team that's
throwing the whole sport.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Out of balance and we don't like it.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
And instead of sneaking back to the Packers and saying, hey,
you know what, we get in idea, we don't want
to do this directly because it'll look like we're, you know,
we're trying to screw the Eagles here. So you be
the ones. You be the ones you lost to them
twice last year. It'll make sense if you're upset and
you propose it. I just don't like any of it.
It's sneaky, it's conniving, and it's dishonest. And that's the
problem I have, and how it was making me root
(14:50):
for the band to go through so that the Eagles
would show up on Thursday night to start the season
against the Cowboys, line up in the quarterback, sneak and
run the ball five yards and do it again, and
do it again, like that scene in Miracle what Kurt
Russell says again, can do it all? The way down
the field and shove it up every one.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So, you know what, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
And I hate being in the middle on this because
I totally agree with Hugh that it's it's a terrible
looking play.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's not an NFL football play.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
But I also agree with with Mike where it's like
it's a bad look that thirteen of the fourteen teams
that are scheduled to play the Eagles were the ones
that voted against it. It's just it's a it's a
total like we're going to try to get them because
we can't stop them on the field.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
But Mike Floria, last couple of minutes of them, let
me get one last thing.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
Yeah, one last thing too. If they had passed that today,
the Eagles would still have an unstoppable quarterback sneak, and
it would still so it's a deeper issue than getting
behind the quarterback and giving him a shove. I don't
think the shove really matters. I think it's the surge
up front more than the push from behind. And so
(15:53):
that's why I think at the end of the day,
the Eagles just have an unstoppable quarterback sneak. That's the problem.
Put a prioritize interior offensive line play, and you know
it's all out in plain sight. There's no secret to
what the Eagles are doing. How would that stout on
the way from the Eagles? Pam, Pam. You know, I
held a lot more money and the Eagles are paying
and do it yourself. That's the part of it I
don't like because it's not going to change anything, and
(16:15):
it feels petty and vindictive and small and dishonest and YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Well, there's no question that the Eagles offensive line, coupled
with a very strong quarterback they have, they have better technique,
they get lower, there's no question. You're right, they would
still have a very good quarterback sneak, they'd have the best.
But I think that the extra push from behind does
does assess the You know that certainly the we can't
(16:42):
isolate the variables, right, but the push from behind helps
those those those percentages. And I think it's true, Mike,
just to respond to what you said, I think it
can be. There can be two truths. I think that
the NFL could say we're confounded, we don't know how
to stop the Eagles, and that's that's an ugly response
(17:03):
in the way you describe. But it can also be
true that and it and it's a terrible rugby play, right,
Why can't it? Why can't Why can't an owner who
voted against it today have that position to say, yeah,
you know what, you got me there? I freaking hate
that we can't stop the damn Eagles. And guess what
if if if if all of a sudden twenty five
(17:25):
other teams were really good at it, we I would
still hate the play because it would look too much
like rugby. Seems to me, we got two thoughts, and
we can have two thoughts in our heads because we're
human beings.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I don't disagree with that. I just think I think
if that was the issue, they should have done it
in twenty twenty two, not twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I agree with that, and I agree with that, And.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Because the argument would have been, hey, we don't want
this to spread, we will agree in the buds and
so you know, it just feels like it was handled
poorly and and it doesn't matter because it's here to
stay at least for one more year. I fully expect
them to try to do it again next year.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, Mike, we got a run. I had other stuff
for you, but we got to run because we got it.
Was a good debate. It was a hell of a debate.
We'll have it some more with you in the in
the radio.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
We could talk about everything else on your list, but
we had a good conversation and I think.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
We agreed at some level.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Yes, we do.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
One is the NFL needs to tighten up its act.
I don't like the way they handle this. I don't
like running around behind the scenes. I don't like any
of the backroom deals. I don't like how this looks.
And the backroom deals are going to continue until I
can get two of the ten teams that voted against
today's rule to vote in favor of it next year,
and somebody will be made a promise, for somebody to
be made a threat, and they'll get the two. The
(18:33):
commissioner will be determined to get two of those teams
ten teams to flip love it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Thanks, Michael, talk to you next week. So you got
you met Mike Florio. I think we've opened up a
can of worms that needs to continue to be opened
because I'll give you some of my thoughts as well
coming up the next segment on three KJFM.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
On testing Live from the R and R Foundation specialist
broad Jas Studio. Now back to up Bean Dig powered
by Emerald Queen, the betting capital of the Northwest on
Sports Radio ninety three point three kJ r FM.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well have textimonials at four forty five, got something to
throw out to you here. I was listening to Chuck's
show this morning and he was talking about being in
a you know, a fine eating and drinking establishment yesterday
watching the Mariners game, and just talking about how the
folks around him were. It was.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It was an interesting dichotomy.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
They were very much all negative Nelly's like, Okay, well
this team eventually is just going to crash and burn
because we're the Mariners. And yet they were all fired
up when the game it was one to nothing. They
were just living and dying by every single pitch. So
my question for you at four nine, four or five
one is where are you on the optimism pessimism continuum
(19:53):
for this edition of the Seattle Mariners. Try to put
the past aside, if you can, try to put forty
eight years of frustration aside, just what you see from
this baseball team in this division, in this league, which
is very winnable. Where are you on the optimism pessimism
side four and nine four five to one? Well, Hugh,
(20:14):
we had a great conversation with Mike Florio about the
toush push. Can you put your ex's and o's hat
on for a second and just tell us is there
anything fancy? Is there anything advanced about the tush push
or is it just simply a quarterback sneak where they're
running back behind the quarterback pushes the butt of the quarterback.
(20:37):
Is there anything you know unique about it other than that?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, unique about the way the Eagles do it? Why
they're better? Sure, gohet, Yeah, let's start there. Yeah, I mean,
I'll compare, for example, the Bills. The Bills had a
very noteworthy failure on their quarterback sneak in the playoffs
in the AFC Championship game and uh, right around midfield
late in the game. And if you compare what Buffalo
(21:05):
does with Philadelphia, Philadelphia, they they get.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Into this, like.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The angles of the backs of the offensive linemen are lower,
the heads are lower, their initial movement is lower. They uh,
they do what's called wedge blocking, a little faster. Wedge
blocking is just everybody stepping forward but also toward the
towards the inside, towards the ball. Of course, the quarterback
(21:36):
has got uh you know, squat six hundred pounds and all.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
This is the primary difference why the Eagles.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think, I think I think it's a combination of
you know, now this is going to be part fact factual,
part well interpretation and opinion. I I think that the Eagles,
it's a combination of factors. I think, as I said,
the offensive line, their technique is better. I mean, I
(22:05):
could objectively just show you, you know, the how the
bills lower the bills, the bills they're spacing wasn't quite
as tight. They didn't wedge block quite as much. Josh
Allen he kind of, you know, he there's not an
immediacy to with what you know, he said, well, let
me see if I can get it in the b
gap off to the left side, which he had been
(22:26):
he had shown an inclination to do. I think that,
you know, Hurts kind of just gets right in behind
the A gap and and then you know, you got
and then and then you got the pushing, which which
was impermissible from the entire history of the NFL and
till two thousand and five, and then you know, if
(22:46):
you want to go back to nineteen and ten, right,
football has been assisting the runner. And I'm just going
to read real quickly because I think that so much
as said, I think I'm gonna read from the two
thousand and What were you doing in two thousand and four, Deck.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I was here.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You were here the same thing I'm doing right now,
right like I didn't say nineteen twenty four, I didn't
ask what your great grandpa was doing right two thousand
and four? Right, Okay, this is this is rule number twelve,
Section one use of hands, arms and body and uh okay,
and article one no offensive player may and there's a
(23:25):
B and C. I won't read A and B. Well,
maybe maybe i'll read them quickly. A assist the runner
except by individually blocking opponents for him. B use interlocking interference.
Interlocked interference means the grasping of one another by encircling
the body to any degree with the hands of arms.
(23:46):
So that would be like you and I, if we're
gonna block, were we lock arms around each other's shoulders
like we're taking a photo. Right and then and now,
because we've locked arms, we constitute a grade you're blocking,
so so interlocking blocking that that's impermissible and has been.
And then and then Article one C push the runner
or lift him to his feet. And in the penalty
(24:06):
book there are the rulebrick. Rather there's a a A
section that says penalty for assisting the runner loss of
ten yards, and then it gives an example. Now, the
way they do is they got team A and team B,
all right, so it says second and goal on B two.
That means team b's two yard line. You're going in, okay,
Runner A one gets the line of scrimmage and is stopped,
(24:29):
but A two so A one would be the runner
on Team A. And then A two is the block
who is behind and pushes him from behind and shoves
him over the guyline the goal line, ruling no score
illegally assisting runner a ball. The ball is at second
and goal from B twelve, so they take him from
(24:51):
the two yard line back on them to twelve. I
had to know this, dick.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Why was it changed then? Why did they? Why did they?
Was on his zoom.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
At two o'clock on the thirty third team today and
Joel Bussart was speaking about this.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
He was in the room. Who's Joel Bussart.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
He was.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He's sixty nine years old now, but he is. He
was the senior vice president of player personnel and football
operations for the National Football League. He was speaking about this.
He thinks it's an abomination what has happened. He said,
this is never what we intended. He said, this was
just about downfield scrums and the idea of of sometimes
(25:33):
when there's a scrum on an occasion that somebody blocks
and you say, well, you know, I use the example
Steve Hutchinson because I'm using a guard from that era.
You know, he's trying to push Shawn Alexander little and
and does he hit Shawn Alexander or not. Somebody had said, well,
it's kind of hard to efficiate.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Now you're trying to eliminate the ambiguity of a situation
where Seawan Alexander's run for five yards anyway.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And downfield.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, And hutch is right there and he's like, well,
I'm not just gonna stand here and watch Sean get
stood up. I'm gonna try to push him into the
defense and that that seems yes, that.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
You got it, And and so he said that was
the intent and he thinks that that that that it's
it's it's a humilion and it has no place in football.
Now that's just one's man's opinion. But it was a
guy in the room who was part of the process. Again,
this was and and he for what it's work, said, Look,
(26:31):
he called it. I took notes competitively unfair. The offense
can push forward now, but the the offense is protected
by forward progress, like like think of this link. Think
of if the defense could just say, oh no, no, no,
you don't. We're gonna take five guys and push you
back eight yards and then they and then we're gonna
(26:52):
snap the ball eight yards back. Like we all understand
forward progress.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Right, So so.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I understand, I understand your frustrats.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I went to we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna do
some fun with audio next segment.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
But I want to come back to this again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I want to come back to this as far and
put the Seahawks spin on it because I have a
couple of Seahawks pertinent questions about this tush push that
I want to talk about at four thirty. But we've
got fun with audio coming up next. Petros at four
o'clock Larry Stone at five right here on ninety three
point three KJRFM, It's.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Now time for Softy and Dick's fun with audio. Jimmy
g pawn Star, Jimmy mister Garoppolo. Now let's have some
fun with audio. Let's have some fun with audio that
sounds like a heck of an idea.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Jackson's here, Hughes here, soft In Dick without the soft one.
It is fun with audio time as it always is.
At three forty five, Hey, you did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
What's that?
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Dick?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
On cow Coward Show yesterday, the Fox Sports one host
sounded off on the NFL not having the parody that
they say they do and the only league that actually
does have parody. They say they want parody in sports,
and the NFL does a great job to make you
think they've got parody. But Mahomes and Brady have made
(28:12):
ten to the last fifteen Super Bowls from the AFC,
and Philadelphia's favored again in the NFC. We'll see what
Jaden Daniels can do to disrupt that. But the truth
is what you're seeing in sports right now. The last
seven NBA champions, Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, nugget Celtics. That's
the last six, the seventh this year will make seven
(28:35):
new champs in seven years.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
The only parody is the NBA.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
You get Minnesota, you know, Oklahoma City, you get Indiana.
Only one real major market, New York, and their parody
as well, because they've.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Stunk most of the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
He's exactly right, Hugh. I mean we I'm not gonna
say grew up because we were older than that. But
starting back really in the in the eighties eighties, with
the Lakers and the Celtics moving into the Pistons, to
the Bulls, to the Rockets, back to the Bulls, to
the Lakers three in a row, to the Spurs with
(29:12):
three titles in seven years, to the Lakers back to
back in two thousand and nine, in twenty ten, the
Heat back to back in twenty twelve, in twenty thirteen,
and the Warriors back to back in twenty seventeen, in
twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Since then, here are your champions.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Raptors not good anymore, Lakers not particularly good, Bucks not
good anymore. Golden State couldn't get out of the second round.
Denver couldn't get out of the second round. Boston couldn't
get out of the second round. So not only these
champions not repeating, Hugh, they're not even getting back to
the finals. In the NBA, it is and I don't
know if it's good or not good, but that's the facts.
(29:52):
The NBA has the parody.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Well, I think there's more than one way to define parody,
because there is some data out there that fans generally
like to have a couple of dominant teams. Not that
they're every year, but there was take for example, well
this i'm aging myself, but when the Cowboys and the
(30:16):
forty nine ers had these they kept having these clashes.
They were like clearly the Titans of the NFC. They
had huge numbers when they would play right. And so
one could say there wasn't parody at the very top.
But as long as there's parody where where you're not
stuck on the bottom, that you like, like you know,
(30:38):
things like the draft, the worst teams get the first
right and the scheduling you have the the seting in
the scheduling, and so there's there's efforts of course, you
know the claim waiver claim a team with the worst
record as the first chance that a waiverclaim.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I mean there's a lot of but despite that, we
still have six or seven franchises that are always at
the bottom in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, well that that's why. So you have to say, Okay,
what parody we are? Parody? Are we trying to achieve?
And and and what I'm submitting is there's more than
one definition of parody. It's not just your chance that
that could be defined as parody. And then to what
(31:20):
lengths will you go to try and achieve that objective?
If in fact it's a goal and and you know,
is there any other goals that's that supersede that? So
so I think I think it's a it's an interesting look.
The facts are the facts. If that's how you want
to define it. How many different champions are you then
(31:40):
then that's an argument that can be made with numbers
that are in disputaby.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Well to your point, I mean, baseball is a team
that has, you know, clearly the best team and the
second best team in baseball. It's got to be the
Dodgers in the and the Phillies, and it's been that
way for quite a while. But you can say baseball
has excellent parody because right now I'm only counting about
five teams that really have no shot to make the playoffs,
(32:05):
and I've got you've got twenty five teams that do
have a shot to make it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
How did the the Yankees and Dodgers now they had
This isn't really going to prove my point, but let's
suppose you had when the when the Yankees had had
in the in the two thousands, when they had their dynasty,
when they had Jeter and Mariano Rivera and they had uh,
you know, Bernie Williams and right and yeah, uh uh
Pasada and all the you know, all those guys like
(32:31):
they I think they won four four titles. It's either
four or five with Jeter, right, So they were a
dynasty that were on TV, a lot sexy brand. Obviously
no more the winning this from a championship perspective, the
winning this franchise in American sports history. If if the
Dodgers had been kind of like, uh, what seems to
(32:53):
be emerging right now where with a dynasty, you know,
they've just acquired show hey, you know this second year
with him, but Mookie Betts and all these guys and
their dominant pitching staff. If if you had let's say
three or four years, four or five years where the
Yankees were just you know, just dominant with name players
(33:13):
and their Dodgers were and then they seem to meet
in a lot of World Series. But then you had
all this this parody below. I think that, I mean
there was a churning, yes, a churning of the of
the next best and the middle and the low, and
there was a lot of parody churning below. You might
have a situation where those world series gets huge trainings, no.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Question, especially if it's those two brands. Hey here did
you hear that? What's that?
Speaker 7 (33:39):
Dick?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
On the NBA?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
On TNT, Charles Barkley shared his thoughts on the sensitivity
of current NBA players and their openness and getting criticized
by their head coaches.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
The notion that today's players and such whoossies that they
can't get criticized is so crazy to me. Every first
of all, every bad player and every great player should
want to get coached. And it's not criticism, it's coaching.
And it's so frustrating when you know when people are like, man,
(34:08):
I can't believe he called out this guy, and I'm like,
that's his job. The notion I get so frustrated, like,
no man, coach your team, get on everybody's ass. That's
part of coaching.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Well, that's part of coaching in the nineteen eighties when
Barkley played. But let me tell you, as a guy
that has coached in how many different decades, one, two, three,
four different decades, coaching is way different now. Kids are
way different now. There are great things about it. There
are not so great things about it. But you just, Hugh,
and I'm sure you've seen it. You can't coach kids
(34:41):
with the iron fist like you could thirty years ago.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
You just can't.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I mean, you can get you can coach some kids
like that, but it's a far smaller percentage than it
was thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Well, I've coached in this decade as well. I would
I would say that, I'm you're we're presenting it as
if it's binary either iron fist, uh, you know, Bobby
Knight style, right, or you know, just enfeebling the coaches
and and what he called it, the wissification.
Speaker 7 (35:14):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
But I would say that Charles, I'm gonna agree with
Charles Barkley in this sense, and it's not necessarily disagreeing
with Dick Fame. I I think what Charles Barkley is
saying is is, look, you there used to be a saying, hey,
don't don't be concerned if the coach is yelling at you.
Be concerned when he stops yelling at because he stopped
(35:38):
Karen and I could give an example that with Jimmy
Johnson with the ramp, there's a guy named Beasley who
was supposed to be the backup with Emont Smith. Emont
Smith was gonna be holding out, so really keen on
this Beasley guy, and Jimmy Johnson would ride him and
ride him and ride him, and then all of a
sudden he just stopped writing him, just stop talking to him,
stop coaching him, stop riding him. And then about three
days later. So so I think that I think that
(35:59):
bar Berkley. I'm mostly on Barkley's side in the sense
of the players if they if they can't handle being
coached hard. Now there's a point where you cross the line,
sure and humiliate a guy. But that I don't I don't.
I don't know that Barkley is speaking that.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
No, I think I think you're right about that. Petros
Papadaegis will join us the next segment.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
We'll get back to this this toush push argument at
four four thirty, textimonials at four forty five, and Larry
Stone at five Here on ninety three point three KJRFM
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