Furness Show 8-20: John Canzano, Hugh Millen and Brandon Funston

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
No from the Star Rentals Sports to Jordan ninety three
point three kJ RFM sports.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Headlines Helloine's watch to by Frost Brewed cores Light, that
wo'd be cors Light Choose Chill. Frostbrewed Corslight Choose Chill.
One night, after twenty two to nothing drubbing, the MS
jumped out to a seven to nothing lead, and the
second against Milwaukee went on to get a win. Last night,
Taylor ward I had a big hit for the MS
in that game. They held on for a seven to
five win. Not so good today. One of the things

(00:25):
did help though, the Astros won, so Seattle does keep
pace with Houston four behind. Right now two and a
half out of the wild card race, thirty five games remain.
Seahawk's getting on a plane today. They're flying to Nashville
for the joint practice against the Titans. Von Diggs expected
to be out there tomorrow. By the way, Rams and Saints.
According to my buddy Greg Beacham, my former intern in

(00:46):
Salt Lake, actually he was the AP writer in LA.
He's done good for himself too. Again on the second,
I'm the star maker. If you work with me, you'll
have a bigger job oh, waiting for my star, or
you'll get fired by the athletic you know the other.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Way.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
He reported. They ended their joint practice early today. Too
many injuries. It's supposed to be controlled. Can't control everything
in football, so they backed off. Sounders lost again. Man,
I watched the second half of that one. They fell
behind two nothing, got one late, but lost two to
one last night to Austin. That's a franchise record eight
straight losses in MLS play. Ryan Schmetzer is not happy.

(01:22):
They're not They don't have any players. Like god, it's weird.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Weird.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
If you don't have yeah, weird. If you don't have players,
you can't win games. I don't know how that works,
but I guess that's the case. So uh, that's the
case right now. Vidave assigned a contract today Pro Bowl
nose tackle with Buccaneers former Husky Jayden Higgins out for
the season. Houston and truck at Texans wide receiver and
way Oh. I did mention this yesterday. It happened during
our show, but I'll give it a a shout out again.
Soundview Little League Down of Tacoma won their first game.

(01:47):
Their next one is tomorrow. In the league World Series.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
Boom uh.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
John Canzon was going to join us here in about
fifteen minutes. We have a conversation which I'm going to
get to in a second. But a lot of college
football talk out there got just the dumbest thing in
the world. This, this TJ. Harden thing is just Ridiculs
played for the Seahuxs last weekend. Now he's in a
transfer portal. Guy that got a bunch of sacks in
the preseason for the Buccaneers in the transfer portal going
back to college. This is just unheard of. We'll get
into that with him. I want to start here today though,

(02:13):
I'm going to start here. So I saw the tweet today.
A lot of people have seen it. It's getting a
lot of traction on social media. If you're on social
media just listening to the radio, I'll fill you in.
Matt Calkins, eleven year's columnist at the Seattle Times. He resigned.
He resigned, and the reason that Matt resigned was he

(02:35):
was muted by the Seattle Times. Now, I want to
start by saying that nothing I say here is a
reflection or an indictment on those people that work at
the Seattle Times. On a day to day basis covering

(02:57):
I'm just going to use the sports world covering sports.
This is not an indictment of criticism or a reflection
what I'm going to say on Tim Booth, Bob Condota,
Mike Farrell, Ryan Divish, et cetera. All right, this is
all about the people, the empty suits at the Seattle Times.
I don't think it's any secret that our radio station

(03:21):
had an issue with the Seattle Times years ago, so
long ago. This is pre pandemic. I like to use things.
It's kind of like ADBC type of thing.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
It's one of those landscape or landmark moments.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
PP pre pandemic got it years ago. A couple people,
one specifically that no longer works here at our radio station.
And by the way, it's not Mark James, all right,
because I know people automatically just go to go though
that's the default, right almost have been Mark must Mark
said something. No, it wasn't Mark. Now Mark did his thing,

(03:58):
Mark's Mark. But that's not Mark James. This is pre Mark.
I'll just leave it at that. But the Seattle Times
decided that they'd had enough. They made comments to our
boss such as sophomoric humor, immature. Basically, they didn't like
the fact that people in our station had taken shots

(04:19):
at their Frankly, their editorial board is what it was.
Mostly a lot of it was regarding the Sonics in
the arena situation, and they didn't like that. We didn't
like what they wrote about that. And I say, we
all ump us all in together. But the biggest beefs
came from people that aren't here anymore, or towards people
that are no longer here. I want I point that out.

(04:43):
Because of this, Jess and I have been working for
a while kind of behind the scenes, trying to figure
out a way if we can get our friends back
on the air. I consider Tim Booth a friend, a
good friend.

Speaker 6 (04:56):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Brian Divish his first ever radio appe instance when he
was doing preps in Tacoma for the News Tribune. We're
on this station with our Friday night football show, and
then he became a regular guest on my show. First
before any of the show, we almost hired Ryan to
do a radio show here. Our relationships with him and
Condota going back to the days of Steve Kelly hosting

(05:19):
a show with Elise and I at night Condodo was
with you. Dub our history with that newspaper, specifically, their
sports staff is long and it was really a strong one.
We use those guys. Here's the other thing. We paid
those guys.

Speaker 6 (05:38):
They lost income, they lost.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
And the relationship severed because some people got sensitive in
the on the editorial board and frankly the owner, Frank Bleffin.
It is the most thin skinned media outlet I have
ever seen in my entire life. And I've worked in
other markets. I've worked in other markets that were multiple
news markets. Salt Lake had the Deseret News and the

(06:02):
Sali Tribian. Deseret News, by the way, owned by the
Church of Jesus Christ in Latter day Saints not nearly
as sensitive as Blethin and his family and this newspaper,
so they pulled these guys off the air. We've been
trying to get some guys back on hell in some ways.
We work with them on some things. I'll leave it

(06:24):
at that to no avail. Well, today there are true
colors were put out there front and center publicly by
Matt Calkins. He resigned as an eleven year columnist for
the Seattle Times because he had been muted for what
he wanted to write, not once, not twice, multiple times.

(06:45):
I remember having this conversation with Matt a couple of
years ago at a Seahawk practice of all things, and
he was telling me his frustrations about being quote muted,
like they didn't want me to run this or this
because it wasn't what they believed on the editorial board
or they thought it would be. There'd be too much pushback.
A lot of it has to do there were some
things with Black Lives Matter, there were some things with

(07:08):
right now it's the transgender debate that keeps going on.
But there's some other things that he wanted to write.
He put it in a substack. You can go check
it out a fall him on Twitter. He's got to
just search a substack for Matt Holkins. He lays it
all out there. When the newspaper of record is muting
someone they hire to write an opinion because it doesn't
agree with someone's or it might ruffle too many feathers.

Speaker 6 (07:30):
That's more of what I think it is.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
That is a problem. That is a massive problem. We
live in a world where everything has to be black, white, agree, disagree,
right left. There is no middle ground. There is no debate.
There is no conversation. We try, we don't ever succeed anymore.

(07:55):
I don't know what happened or how it happened, and
everyone can blame full the blame game. It's individuals or
people or administrations or whatever, it doesn't matter. We've reached
a point in our world where you cannot have a
logical discussion. So Iphie Cuttingham's a great example of that.
What she stands for, what she says is not what
was being portrayed by those on the other side. And

(08:17):
no one wants to listen to the other side. That's
the other part that's really really frustrating. Nobody wants to
listen to the other side. And I think we're all,
if you look in the mirror, probably guilty of that
at some point, in some level.

Speaker 5 (08:28):
We're in a very divisive time and have been for
quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
For a long time. Yeah, it's unfortunate, But I'll just say,
shame on the Seattle Times. I've said that a lot,
but I'm saying it again. Shame on the Seattle Times.
You hired a guy to write a sports column and

(08:51):
you will not let him do that. So he had
the wherewithal to resign. A lot of us have loved
and with love love love to be able to resign
from a job. He has the wherewithal and the ability
to do so, and I applaud him for that, the
courage takes to do that. Calumnist the sale times. He

(09:13):
could have probably been there forever and follow in the
footsteps of some of the greats Steve Kelly, Larry Stone
and I. But he leaves because for all intents and purposes,
they muted him. Now, this isn't me saying what he
was writing and what he did right on substack I
agree or disagree with. That's not even the point.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
No, you're not talking about that point.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
I'm talking about the point that you when I ran
a Steve Kelly column, And that's why when I first
got here in two thousand and six, coming up on
twenty years ago next month, when I first got here,
I wanted to do something with Steve, like I wanted
to have him on the show. And Elise was friends

(09:57):
with him as well from her time playing basketball at
dub and we called Steve and he came in. He
came in at least a couple times a week, did
a show with us at seven o'clock at night. I
loved it because I always loved reading Steve Kelly. Why
because every time I read Steve Kelly, I had an emotion,
strong agreement, strong disagreement, laugh, anger doesn't matter. I had

(10:19):
an opinion after I read his opinion. That's what opinions
are for. God, it absolutely sickens me to this day.
You know, I tweeted out earlier, I said, you know,
we're going to discuss this today on KJR, and I
have people going, well, I know, I'll turn off. Then
how do you even know what I was going to say? Yeah, exactly,
How do you know what the how do you know

(10:40):
what the hell I was going to say? And if
I said something that you disagreed with? Do you think
of me in worse terms? Do you look and say, Ian,
you're a bad person because I don't agree with something
that you say? Is that the world we live in now?
I don't agree with you? Screw you. I'm not going
to listen to you. I'm not gonna listen to yourself.

(11:01):
I hope I don't do that to you.

Speaker 6 (11:03):
A lot of those people keep listening.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
They just say that I understand that, Jess, I get that,
and I know we all we've been this missus for
a long time, right, I don't listen? Yes I am,
but no, that's it. You don't even know what I
was gonna say today. I'm not talking about the topic
that was the final straw for Matt. That's up for
Matt to decide and discuss and have fun with and
or not have fun. For Matt to to discuss himself.

(11:26):
He's gonna be on softy Day, by the way, at
six o'clock, so you can take a listen to him
then his own words. But the Seattle Times, which has
a section, an opinion section in the newspaper it's called
just that Opinion where they write things. They have an

(11:49):
editorial board or individuals who write things. For example, here's
the big one headline right now put an end to
Tacoma Ice Center's unconscionable refusal of hell inspections. Editorial. You
may or may not agree, but they wrote about it.
Seattle must not leave businesses adrift during city projects editorial.

(12:10):
Cheers of the Seattle Preschool program for keeping its promises,
et cetera. The whole section on it they have here's
the thing, and if Greg was here and if he's
still listening. I bet he would agree with me. One
of the reasons I don't enjoy the Tacoma News Tribute anymore.
And I used to subscribe to both papers. When I
say subscribe, subscribe and have them delivered to my house

(12:31):
every day. Up until two years ago, every morning we
lived south and that where I could get the News
Tribune delivered to my house every day, hard copy. Same
with the Seattle Times. Well, you know what I stopped
doing that with the News Tribune. Why is that? I
love what Greg writes. John Manley's a great dude, does
great job of high school sports. But they don't have
any sports calling this anymore. I want opinion. I want

(12:53):
to be I want to think about what I read.
I want to be having an emotion at the end.
Shame on the Seattle Times. You can comment four nine,
four five one come a Dutch text line. Also talkbacks
welcome as well. John Canzono knows all about this. He'll
join us next.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Now back to in Furness on your Home for the Huskies,
Cracking and the twelfth Man, brought to you by Seattle's
closest It's no call me Casino and Hotel on sports
Radio ninety three point three kjr FM.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
All right, welcome back in Sports Radio nine three point
three KJRFM. He internests with you on a Thursday afternoon,
My guy John Canzono. I had to get ahold of
them because I want to get a bunch of college
stuff out there. But there's something else that I really
really want his thoughts on, and I'm gonna get to
that in a second. First of all, oh, my friend,
how are you.

Speaker 7 (13:48):
I'm well, I'm doing well. This is a fun time
of year. We're about ready to get into things, aren't.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
We We are we are. First of let me ask
you personally, how's the new gig? You got new stuff
going on? How's everything going?

Speaker 7 (13:58):
Really really good, having a lot of fun. Obviously I'm
writing the column at John pinzano dot com. That is
that's fun and I love the connection with readers there.
And then the YouTube show. Adidas has come in as
a big sponsor and doing that YouTube show three days
a week on YouTube and days a week of syndicated radio.

Speaker 8 (14:18):
Just just a one hour show.

Speaker 7 (14:19):
You know how you could do an hour in your sleep, Ian,
but just a one hour show five days a week,
and you know, eight different stations having fun with that.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
The change in the changes and the evolution of college
football is one of the reasons I wanted to grab
you today. But I want to get your thoughts on
something else. And I've mentioned this before. John and I
got to Portland basically the same month. I think it
was like what October November of twenty two of two
thousand and two, I do believe. And I was working
at the Fan down there. He was the hired to

(14:50):
be the lead columnist at The Oregonian, the paper of record,
and really not just Portland but in the state of Oregon.
And so we got there the same time. And one
of the things I always loved about John and still do.
I mean, you're doing it independently now, but when you
work for the mainstream paper, you wrote what you wanted
to write, much of the chagrin of Blazer's management, infamously

(15:10):
Steve Patterson, their old president, others along the way, Dux
s Beavers. You said what you wanted to say and
oftentimes spoke for the fan you left to go on
your own. We found out today I brought this up
in the first Oliver Show. Today. We found out today
that Matt Calkins after eleven years is leaving the Seattle Times.
And what the reason is is he had become muted

(15:33):
for lack of a better term, you're a former column
and I should mention an award winning columnist you were,
and I think Matt is too. Matt actually worked in
Portland for a while as well, for the Vancouver paper,
The Colombian. How troubling is it for not just sports fans, John,
but just for those overall when the newspaper of record

(15:54):
is muting the people it employees to give opinions.

Speaker 7 (15:58):
You as a column have to be unencumbered. You have
to be free to do your job. You have to
feel like you have a firewall that is between you
and even the advertising arm at your at your entity.
And when you lose that, if there's a fracture in that,
it's impossible to your job. And and it stops being uh,

(16:19):
it stops being journalism, it stops being uh, you know,
the fourth estate, it stops being free speech, and it
delves into something else. And you know, I don't know
the full details on this, and I haven't heard from
the Seattle Times, but the stuff that Matt Hawkin's put
out there is troubling that it is alarming to me
that something.

Speaker 8 (16:36):
That he wrote.

Speaker 7 (16:37):
If it's true that he was censored or the columns
were killed because you know, it was just too much,
too much hate for the paper where they were concerned
about backlash, then that's a deal breaker. And and I
could see why he would step away. I can tell
you this, like when you have a firewall, and I
worked at six different pace papers, When you have a

(17:00):
firewall in upper management that you feel like has your back,
it really is liberating. It is you feel free to
go do your job. You'll feel free to tell the truth.
You feel free to bring readers places that you can
go that they can't get to. And when that breaks
down or is even threatened, there's a problem there. And

(17:21):
I did in the late tenure at the Oregonia, and
it was one of the alarm bells that went.

Speaker 8 (17:25):
Off for me.

Speaker 7 (17:26):
Like I had had great bosses that really insulated me
from the kind.

Speaker 8 (17:30):
Of backlash that you talked about.

Speaker 7 (17:31):
The Blazers came in and pulled their advertising because they
didn't like the columns that I were writing, and I
didn't even know about it.

Speaker 8 (17:38):
Like you know, the upper.

Speaker 7 (17:39):
Management did such a good job of insulating me that
they didn't even tell me.

Speaker 8 (17:43):
The Blazers came in and pulled their advertising.

Speaker 7 (17:45):
I found out from the Blazers and I was like, Wow,
I really work at a paper that wants me to
go do my job. And later in my tenure, it
wasn't that people were killing my columns, but I was
critical of It was during COVID, and it was during
mass and I wrote a couple of columns that were
critical of the governor of the state of Oregon, asking
where was she unmasking for athletes who were competing outdoors

(18:09):
in track and field and soccer and and in in
sports where you know, the the infection rates were not
high and these were young people, and what are we
doing to these kids that are running the four hundred
meters and collapsing at the finish line?

Speaker 8 (18:22):
And I did.

Speaker 7 (18:23):
I had an editor call me and say, hey, it
looks like you're beating up on the governor. And I'm like,
why are you even telling me that? Like why are
we having this conversation. It wasn't the deal breaker for me.
Nobody killed a column. It was just a little bit
of pressure, a little bit of you know, hey, read
your column don't totally agree with it. That I don't
need and Matt Hawkins doesn't need that. And so if
you're a person who reads the Seattle Times, you have

(18:43):
to be asking yourself today, what did that newspaper not tell.

Speaker 8 (18:48):
You over the years?

Speaker 7 (18:49):
Why are they trying to steer the opinions of their
columnists instead of setting their columnists free to do their jobs?

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, said John Canzona joining us johncanzono dot com ball
Face Truth. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube. We'll tell
you about that at the end of conversation as well.
You mentioned it. We're getting to that time of the
year college football were what is it to? Eight days,
nine days away from Week zero in the college football season,
getting really close. We're on the cusp of it, and
there's all kinds of news out there. Let me start

(19:17):
with this, the strangest thing. I'm still trying to wrap
my arms run it. I was on the call for
Compass Media, the national radio call on Saturday and for
Dallas and Seattle, and I'm sitting there and I was
calling a guy by the name of TJ. Harden At
running back for the Seattle Seahawks in a preseason game.
And now I see that he is in the transfer

(19:39):
portal and maybe going to go back to college. First
of all, I'll just say this, you ain't getting much
with him, but two, but two, John, He's not the
only one. There's a handful of guys that have been
an NFL training camp cent are now trying to go
back to college. What are we doing?

Speaker 8 (19:55):
Well, they're following the money.

Speaker 7 (19:57):
They know that the opportunity in college might be better
for them than the opportunity in the NFL.

Speaker 8 (20:03):
It's interesting.

Speaker 7 (20:03):
I just talked to Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullins just
a few minutes ago before you know, jumping on this
call with you, and you know, he said, look, we
need uniform rules state the state. You can't have temporary
restraining orders, you can't have injunctions that come in.

Speaker 8 (20:21):
We need a uniform.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
Set of rules that that gives us eligibility and guidance
on eligibility. I think this underscores the need for the
federal legislation that comes in and trumps all that.

Speaker 8 (20:34):
But it should be five years of eligibility.

Speaker 7 (20:37):
It should be a single transfer unless there's a coaching change.

Speaker 8 (20:41):
It should be very simple.

Speaker 7 (20:43):
Unfortunately, we're in this era now where This is absolute absurdity,
and a lot of the programs are gonna be tempted
to go, well, wait a minute, if that's the rule,
let's go get guys that have eligibility left like it.
I think this is really troubling and it threatens college athletics.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
How can a guy be Eligi who was in an
NFL training camp. That's the part I just can't. I
can't wrap my arms around that he was in and
take not just in a camp. John he played and
he's not the only one. The guy from the Buccaneers too,
played in preseason games.

Speaker 7 (21:13):
Yeah, he's already been to UCLA and SMU and you know,
scored twenty one touchdowns in his career and went into
the draft, you know, signed with the Cleveland Browns, then
they got wave, he got waved, and he signed with
the Seahawks, and then he played in the game, you know,
even recovered a fumble in the game, and then he
gets waved. And so what he's doing is the professional

(21:34):
opportunity for him is in college athletics.

Speaker 8 (21:37):
And so he's he's.

Speaker 7 (21:39):
Exercising and jumped at loophole and maybe we need it
to burn down in like maybe the whole thing.

Speaker 8 (21:44):
This needs to burn down and be rebuilt in the
right way.

Speaker 7 (21:48):
And and this, I think is like lighting a match
on one end of college athletics.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I keep hearing about, you know, like the realignment again.
And there's obviously the situation in Washington, d C. And
whether or not that's going to go through or not.
But if that does, it makes you know, realignment and
moving conferences hard. What would burning it all down look like?
What would it look like a year two or ten
or five, however many years down the road, what would
that look like.

Speaker 7 (22:12):
Well, I think if it's gonna, if they're gonna let
it burn down, it happens sooner rather than later. And
I have talked to some athletic directors who say, look,
this Protect College Sports Act is great, but it's a
band aid because even you know, maybe the better thing
would let this thing go. Let it go all the
way off the rails, Let all eligibility get challenged, Let

(22:34):
the transfer portal just become unrestricted free agency all the time.
Let donors come in and just buy players and see
how that goes. Because it's not sustainable. These programs are all,
you know, even the programs that are winning at a
high clip are coming back on their nine to ninety
forums and on their tax filings and saying, hey, we
didn't make any money.

Speaker 8 (22:53):
In fact, we lost money to winning a national championship.

Speaker 7 (22:56):
It just it is not a sustainable system, and I
I think burning it all the way down would look like, hey,
there's no there's widespread impropriety one state to another state.
There's a lack of consistency, and you start to see
media companies and fans tune out on it.

Speaker 8 (23:12):
You know, this Protect College Sports Act.

Speaker 7 (23:14):
I do think it's going to get passed in September.
I think it will become a law. The question is
what will they put in it? And then, oh, by
the way, three to five years from now, are we
going to even have four or five conferences or is
it just going to be the Big two and then
everyone else?

Speaker 8 (23:28):
What are we looking at?

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Awesome guy, You've built a great career and have built
everything that John Cannson dot com is ball face Truth,
largely on uncovering college athletics. You and Wilner's podcast is phenomenal.
But what you've done is is remarkable Since coming to
Oregon twenty years ago, I said two thousand and two.
I dated both of us. It was two thousand and six,
but it was twenty years ago when you got there, John,

(23:51):
along those same lines, you do it because you love
college sports and football, basketball and all the sports you cover,
all of them. Are you losing your your I guess,
passion for what you used to love about college sports.

Speaker 5 (24:05):
No.

Speaker 7 (24:06):
And for me, I'm weird and that I geek out
on trying to figure out where it's going, what happened,
what happened behind the you know, castle walls, the palace intrigue,
all of that stuff.

Speaker 8 (24:17):
The drama of it.

Speaker 7 (24:19):
Matters to me, and who's pulling the levers matter to me?
Is it television? Is it private equity? That stuff is
fascinating to me because I think the more sunshine we
put on it, I mean, really going back to the
original point where we started talking about your ability to
do your job and take people behind the scenes without
worrying about, you know, having.

Speaker 8 (24:38):
Layers between you and your reader.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
That stuff, to me is interesting, and the succession of
college football and these programs is interesting. What happens to
Oregon after Phil Knight is interesting to me. But when
the games kick off, I'm still like college football fans
and that.

Speaker 8 (24:57):
I love the sport of it.

Speaker 7 (24:58):
I love the competition of it, I love the games
of it. I'm going to enjoy watching these Pac twelve
teams try to figure out who gets who's who's going
to get a shot at getting to the playoff and
once they get there are the you know, we'll the
league champion in the Pac twelve if they make the playoff?
Will they get their teeth kicked in?

Speaker 8 (25:14):
Probably?

Speaker 7 (25:14):
And we have to deal with that and what that means.
But I also am interested can Jetfish and Washington can
they matter? And what the Big Ten's like a reality show?
And you know, you have different tiers of families and
they're trying to get into that top tier and make
the playoff.

Speaker 8 (25:30):
Can they get there? There's just a lot of that
intrigue that fascinates me.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
I'm with you. I also think that when you I'm
curious as things going now, listen, I mean, a tenant
says everything. But you know, I went to one Wazoo
game last year and the tail gaining, like it all
felt the same. You know, it was a non conference
game against San Diego State. Every game last year is
a non conference game. I guess now that I think
of it the last two years, but you know it's

(25:54):
a non conference game. September, Weather's warm was great and
I I thought to myself, this feels normal. This feel
like a game in Pullman. I don't know what Beaver
fans think, and it still feels the same down in Corvallis, Washington,
Oregon fans. It probably feels the same on a game
even though the opponents are different. I guess I'm wondering
when the field changes. Maybe it's when the lack of
interest in some of those conference games jumps up. Although,

(26:16):
if I'm being honest, you covered a million games in Corvallis.
I did at Wazoo. You know, when went to a
bunch Hell Washington and Oregon. Arizona rolling in was never
any big deal, right, It was never exciting. It's like,
oh here come the Wildcat, super like, nobody cared like
it was different. Stanford's kind of the same ways after
that little run for Harbaugh, USC made a difference. Things

(26:37):
like that. I'm just wondering, from your standpoint, do you
think it's gonna just feel that much different for the
average fan or do you think it's gonna be kind
of a lesser deal for especially those PAC twelve schools.

Speaker 7 (26:48):
I think that this next three to five seasons is
really a lot of transition. And I think the intrigue
in this next three to five seasons is who separates
in the new Pact twelve. Who positions themselves for whatever
comes next? How much access to the playoff can the
PAC twelve or the American or the Sun Belt Conference?
How much access to the playoff can those conferences get?

(27:11):
Can they muster enough to matter and register? Boise State
regiters as a brand. Boise State has an opportunity, if
you know, if what I think is gonna happen in
the Big ten in the SEC trickles down to the ACC.
In the Big twelve, there'll be about eight spots potentially
that could come open in the bottom of the Power

(27:32):
four for some upwardly mobile schools to slide into.

Speaker 8 (27:37):
So who gets in position? Is it Boise State? San
Diego State?

Speaker 7 (27:40):
Can Washington State and Oregon State slide into that position? Tulane, Memphis,
South Florida? Can they slide in that position?

Speaker 8 (27:47):
Army or Navy?

Speaker 7 (27:48):
Can they become schools that would play at the bottom
of the power four.

Speaker 8 (27:53):
I think those are the questions right now that are
out there.

Speaker 7 (27:55):
But I think, you know, when you see Fresno State
come to Pullman or you see Utah State come to Pullman,
I don't think it's going to move the needle in the.

Speaker 8 (28:04):
Way that USC and UCLA did.

Speaker 7 (28:06):
No, I don't think, you know, you're not gonna be
able to sell those parking spaces around the stadium for
fifty bucks. But I think there's gonna be a little
bit of Okay, this is a game Washington State has
to win this season in order to become a candidate
for getting into whatever comes next or positioning itself for
what comes next. But I could foresee in five years

(28:27):
they're only being a Big two, a power two with
the Big Ten in the SEC and then a second
tier of schools that include you know, the Big twelve
the ACC. I think, you know, there's a real threat
that Miami Clemson in Florida State could move to the SEC.
There's a threat that Notre Dame could end up somewhere else.
Could they end up in the Big Ten. And if

(28:48):
that happens, you know, I don't think the fate of
the ACC, of the Big twelve is much different than
the new PAC twelve.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
That's why I was going ask you if you're sitting
in the Big twelve or the ACC and you're not
one of the gools you just mentioned, and Miami top
of the list, Clemson maybe, but it's only a flip.
I mean, God, they're not good yet, I say maybe.
I mean dabbles there it's and then North Carolina in
in the Big twelve. God, I don't even knowing the

(29:15):
Big twelve, to be honest with you, maybe at Texas Tech, right,
maybe that I if you're not those schools, you could
find yourself in the same boat as the PAC twelve
and the other group of six is right, I.

Speaker 7 (29:28):
Think there already are, because remember we have the luxury
of history and Larry Scott we saw it in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 8 (29:36):
I started writing about the PAC twelve was in trouble.
You know, it was twenty eighteen.

Speaker 7 (29:40):
Hey, the schools are getting ten million dollars a year
less than the schools in the SEC and the Big ten.

Speaker 8 (29:47):
They were falling behind.

Speaker 7 (29:48):
And everyone went, well, it's just ten million dollars, and
I said, yeah, but it's ten million dollars times ten years.

Speaker 8 (29:54):
You're talking about a deficit of one hundred million dollars.

Speaker 7 (29:56):
So how do you compete if your Cow or your
Arizona or you know, you're a legacy Pack twelve school
and you don't have Phil Knight. And it's why in
that era, I really think it explains why Oregon rose
and why Utah rose, and even to some respect, why
Washington State was able to kind of matter a little
bit suddenly. If you were funded at a level that

(30:19):
was ten million dollars a year less than your peers
and other conferences over five, six, seven, ten years, you
had to be an outlier.

Speaker 8 (30:28):
You needed Phil Knight. You needed Mike Leach who could be.

Speaker 7 (30:32):
Your offensive coordinator and your head coach and be a
little different in outside the box. You needed Utah Kyle
Whittingham and a fan base that is really rabid and
different that when you know, was selling out games.

Speaker 8 (30:44):
You needed to be a different kind of school to
rise in that era.

Speaker 7 (30:47):
I think it definitely explains why USC fell off. I
think Washington's success. You look at Chris Peterson, tremendous coach
who brought culture. He brought what he learned at Boase
State to Washing You had to be a little bit
of an outlier to make up for that ten million
dollars a year. The big ten s in the SEC

(31:07):
are now doing that to the big twelve in the ACC.
They're getting less in CFP distributions, they're getting less in
media money. You cannot compete. So you know what we're
left with is a big two.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
It's remarkable where it's gone. Just real quick. Two more
things for John Canzono. One, just to wrap up this conversation.
This Curtesy, my buddy Matt Lovelace. He's a professor over
at Washington State in the Merles School, And someone asked
in the day you know stated it. Hey, one team
has started the season underrank, finished in the top ten
in the AP, top twenty five, pall twenty nine in
the last thirty two years. So people talk about the

(31:40):
polls that they matter. At least one has jumped into
that top ten twenty nine out of last thirty two years.
Wa Zuo's done it more than anybody at four times
during that span. I'm thinking that that's going to be
hard to replicate in the future.

Speaker 7 (31:56):
Yeah, it looks that likes the top eighteen schools or
so in your polls every year will probably be the
same characters over and over. I do wonder how, you know,
Vanderbilt in Purdue and Illinois, I wonder how Northwestern, how
do those schools expect to keep up with, you know,

(32:18):
the fifteen or eighteen schools that can really spend, because
even within the Power four and even within the Power too,
you have tiers that have formed and we all kind
of know that there, you know, there's probably like eight
or ten schools that really could hope to get to
the National Championship Game this year.

Speaker 8 (32:35):
So yes, it's becoming less and less.

Speaker 7 (32:37):
Of a wide open feel in college football and in
college basketball. The Cinderella's gone from the NCAA tournament. I
didn't see George Mason. I didn't I didn't see Butler
in the tournament. I saw a bunch of Power two,
Power four schools.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
And it's probably gonna be that way for a while.
Final thing for a John Canzano, what's the latest on
the Blazers.

Speaker 8 (33:00):
It's still problematic.

Speaker 7 (33:01):
I mean, this whole Lakers thing has really raised some
questions in the NBA about how much diligence they do
about ownership groups. I can't help but think that Tom
Dundan's group is getting their finances in order and to
make sure that on paper they look good, because it
looks like the NBA just did not look into Mark

(33:23):
Walter and did not look into how he was funding
this his Lakers investment and where was the money borrowed from.
And so I think, you know, it really does put
I think a magnifying glass on what is happening in Portland.
I think the league wants the team in Portland. I
think Tom dund And bought the team in Portland hoping
to make as much money as he possibly could. I

(33:44):
don't know if that is going to be in Portland,
because I think he sees opportunities beyond Portland. So I
think if the city and the state, which have by
the way bent over backwards given him everything that he wants,
they continue to do that, I think they have a
shot to keep the team. But he may ultimately have
bought Blazers at four and a quarter billion dollars because
he knew that Vegas and Seattle were gonna cost him

(34:05):
seven eight, nine, ten billion, and that it may be
as simple as that.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Kenzonod Wilder the podcast. By the way, the last update
was five days ago. I've already listened to it. Episode
ninety three, So I hoping a new one comes out soon.
In the meantime, tell people about I blame Willaner. He's
softies guy, Just blame him. I would say this, go
to the ball face truth on YouTube right. And also
John Kanzona dot com, did I get what people need
to see for you?

Speaker 8 (34:29):
Yeah, that's people. That's where you find me, John canzono
dot com.

Speaker 7 (34:32):
You can even link to the YouTube on the menu
right there on the on the website. But it's you know, look,
I'm writing, I'm having fun. The YouTube show is wild,
it's different, and I love being on video. I'm getting
access to people in places that I didn't have before,
and that's my whole goal. Like there's nobody between me
and the viewer, nobody between me and the reader.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
I like it that way. You know what, Keep doing
what you do, buddy, you do it better than anybody
out there. Love having you on, appreciate it really cool
to see the success on your own ventures as well.
So and I'll keep her freshing to see when the
Canzon and Wilner the podcast is going to come back up.
We'll see what happens. I'm just busting your chops. I'm
busting here. Listen. I like the content, you know, I
like the content. Sometimes you gotta put Wilner in his place,

(35:11):
and I really enjoy that part of the content too,
So uh you know, keep him, keep him straight. Good
talking to you, my friend. Talk to you soon. That's
John Canzona. We'll take a break, come back with more
than three point three KJRFM. Real quick segment. Here is

(35:33):
a big thanks to John Canzono. Weall face truth. Johncanzano
dot com. Good stuff on the state of college athletics, sports,
et cetera, and also the situation. Matt Holkins, if you're
just joining us resigning, is one of the columnists for
the The uh Sale Times after eleven years with the
newspaper of record here in Washington. And I'll get in

(35:56):
a little bit more of this later. And let me
just be perfectly clear what Matt wrote and what he
wanted to write when he ended up writing on a substack.
I'm not even gonna go down that road. I haven't,
but my point is simple. You're a newspaper, you have

(36:17):
an opinion section, you have columnists, you pay them to
express opinions. And I think if it was a one off,
then it's one thing, but a one off was five
or six years ago. Then it was a second time,
and a third and fourth where what he wanted to
write was he was muted on it. I'm excited tomorrow
because I'm always excited to talk to Danie O'Neil. But

(36:39):
Danie O'Neil's going to join us for his weekly visit tomorrow,
and that will be at one o'clock. I think we're
going to shoot for one probably as opposed to one
to twenty. We'll be at Georgetown's Brewing tomorrow, but we'll
have Danny on tomorrow. Danny a longtime Seattle Times writer,
beat reporter. His wife, who now works for the New
York Times, was part of the editorial board for the
Seattle Time. So I would say tomorrow is going to

(37:01):
be an interesting and fun conversation with one Dannie O'Neill
tomorrow in the one o'clock hour. You don't want to
miss that. This story's got massive traction. The unfortunate part
is it's now turning into what we all thought it would.
It's a rallying cry for one side or the other.

Speaker 6 (37:20):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
The story is not the column that he wanted to write.
The story is that the newspaper of record did not
want to let him write a handful of stories and
columns over the years. That's the story. This is not
a hey, you know, this is this is not.

Speaker 5 (37:38):
This is an appropriate material for our paper. It's that
they're muting a columnist.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yes, and what they're and then now what's happened is
people on either side of what he did want to
write about and what he wrote about on substack or
are using it as either you know, for their gain
one way or the other.

Speaker 6 (37:58):
But it's just we're making the assumption there. That's what
we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
There's days I just I just I just want to
crawl in a hole. I'll be honest with you. There's
days I just want to crawl in a hole.

Speaker 8 (38:08):
I just do.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
I just I just want. I just I'm excited for tomorrow.
We're with the beer release. We're gonna raise a bunch
of money by selling beer, really good beer to everyone
tomorrow at Georgetown. I'm excited for the inspiration that provides
for three great groups Jordan Morris Foundationallynsky's Hope, and every
Huffman DIPG. I'm excited for that because I'm tired of

(38:32):
so much of the other stuff. I'm actually tired of
watching Josh Naylor as well. My god, oh my god,
that was that was supposed to my favorite guy this year. Wow,
what has happened to you? Dude? All right, we'll take
a break Seahawks preseason games. A little hardcore football humiling next.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Now from the Star Rentals Sports to Jordan ninety three
point three KJRFMS sports headline.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Headline is brought to you by frostbrug Cors. I choose
Chilseahaw's getting in a plane today. They're flying to Nashville.
Joint practice against Titans is scheduled for tomorrow. Travon Diggs
expected to be there as well. He talked to the
media yesterday and excited to be here in Seattle. Why
wouldn't you be You're playing for the defending Super Bowl champions.
Let's go.

Speaker 6 (39:25):
Not a bad choice.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
He's been a pro bowler, been banged up a little bit,
hasn't had quite the success the last couple of years.
Was on the street, but the Seahawks signed him because
they're still waiting for Terry Arnold's situation to be figured out.
I guess we'll find out more about that on Tuesday
with the next episode of Hard Knocks. Sounders lost again
last night, falling two one to Austin. They were down
to nothing, scored to goal in the nineteth minute, but
they've now lost eight straight losses games rather in the MLS,

(39:49):
Brian Schmetzer leading publicly for upper management. Craig Wible the
GM on radier and how are to get more veteran players?
I don't even know what you can do at this point.
I mean, it's not like there's this veteran players everywhere.
Schmeetz love you just might be that kind of year
for you. This is not a vet tree out in
the not a vet tree. Yeah, I can't go find
that tree. Let's see, Let's go find a guy that's
equal to Christian rolled on Or and Jordan Morris, right,

(40:12):
and they got a couple other guys that are constantly hurt.
So away we go. Jane Higgins, Houston, Texans wide receiver
out for the year. ACL. How about our friends from
the sound View Little League there are from Tacoma, Washington.
The two five three first game in the Little League
World Series was yesterday. They got a win over Phoenix City,
Alabama to nothing. Was the final they played next schedule

(40:38):
to play next to Oorrow. There's a bunch of rain
back there in William Sports, so we'll see if everything
stays on schedule or not. Let's talk a little football
with Hugh Millon. My friend Hu Milan joined us. I
was mentioned Hugh earlier. I said last week when we
had John previewing the preseason game, I said, Hey, you know,

(41:00):
I can't wait. We'll do hardcore football on Monday, preseason
style could because this is a preseason friendly show on
like Softy, And then I forgot that I was off Monday,
so I wanted to kind of get John recap a
little bit last Friday or last Saturday, and then also
look ahead to Tennessee. But all that, maybe we're going
to take a step back for a second, because there

(41:20):
has been news in the last forty five minutes or so.
As is the Seahawks right now, actually as we speak
or holding a press conference with Trevon Diggs. He is
being introduced at the Virginia Mason Athletics Center after a
short walk through today before the team heads to Tennessee.
So Diggs, Trevon Diggs does sign with Seattle Q. They
played sixth defensive six cornerbacks, I should say last Saturday

(41:42):
against the Dallas Cowboys. In that preseason game, the only
two that did not play were Witherspoon and Josh Job.
Jamar John Charles is out for the season. He's on
IR so he's one of those guys gone. My quick thought,
this seems to be common sense, but I want yours
and you go deeper on the the dig signing. Does
that tell us that, hey, they're just not happy with

(42:04):
what they've seen at that cornerback position.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
I would think so. I mean, there's certainly room for
an interpretation that that they're happy with their corners, but
they can't have enough. But my sense would be just
kind of analyzing the team. I thought that going into
the Super Bowl that that maybe the guy on the
defense that would be most targeted would be Josh Job.

(42:30):
And that's when they had Rek Wollan. So that now
Reeke Wollan departs, you don't replace him other than Julian Neil,
excuse me, the third round cornerback, and you know he
he wasn't playing. So so I think that there was
a maybe a feeling that there's always some chance greater
in zero that Julian Neil would have impressed as a

(42:51):
third rounder, right, Like, wasn't helped me out the third
rounder that made the Pro Bowl for us? He had
he had there with the.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Max arm Oh yeah, yeah Griffin, Shaquille Griffin, Yeah yeah
yeah Griffin. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
So and he was a third rounder and started as
a rookie, so that that was on the table certainly
that Julian Neil could come in and impress that way.
But but I think that it also speaks to Neamia Pritchett,
and there was a feeling that he would step up
after having been a fifth round pick in twenty twenty four,

(43:31):
and uh, you know, you know, I'm my gut tells
me that hasn't emerged, maybe the degree to the degree
they were hoping. So I don't know, Uh, it just
everything that's happening with these corners, it's not a good
sign in my opinion, right well, because you know, I

(43:53):
mean what Trayvon Diggs was. Couldn't have you assigned him?
Wasn't he on the street?

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:58):
I think the only thing I was talking to Great
Bill about that because I thought the same thing. The
only thing I guess I would say that maybe with Diggs,
a guy that's been around, He's got a little bit
of a resume. He might have been one of those
veterans that was waiting for the exact spots that he
wanted to go. Maybe he had two or three teams,
maybe hoping one of them would call. And I don't know, Hugh,
it's a training camp. I mean, like Aaron Aaron Donald's

(44:20):
gonna sign. Now, he's not the same player as Aaron Donald.
I get that, But Aaron Donald's gonna probably sign with
the Rams. He ain't gonna He's not doing it during
the heat of training camp, right, Like you just kind
of wait until the time is right. So I don't
know that's the only thing because I thought the same
thing I asked Greg that I was talking to him
about a minute ago, like why wouldn't the guys signed,
Like every team needs cornerbacks, right, it's, you know, arguably

(44:40):
one of the most important positions on the field. So
it is odd in that regard. But maybe he was
just waiting for the right situation.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
Well maybe, I mean, if he felt he had that leverage.
We'll know whenhen the contract details come out. Yeah, well,
you know it's is it more likely to be that
that he he didn't you know that that he didn't
have great options, or is it more likely to be
that he had a ton of great options and he
just was going to leverage and sit out. You know what,

(45:07):
most football players are in a training camp right now,
and Aaron Donald is a first ballot Hall of Former arguably,
you know, you could make a case the greatest defensive
tackle of all time. There'd be other guys in that discussion.
But but you know him at thirty five or thirty yeah,
thirty five years old and having sat out a couple
of years. Very unique situation there. I don't I don't

(45:29):
know that that applies much. I think I think it's
more likely that Diggs, I don't know, he's just a
what's his agency?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
He's twenty seven, Yeah, he's young man, and it's that's odd.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
I'm sorry, I'm ignorant, you know what. I had heard
somebody say he hadn't played in a few years, so
I wasn't gonna look at any tape because I thought, well,
what if he hasn't started in a few years.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
He played for Green Bay last year at the end
of yeah, yeah, but you know what, he did start.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Yeah, I mean he started for the Cowboy has started
six games for the Cowboys and in a game for
the Packers. So I gotta I gotta get on the tape.
But look back to the corners of the stuff that
we can speak on more of a solid ground from.
I think it's a concern.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, let me ask you about let me ask you
about the Mike McDonald defense. Because we do hardcore here,
so let me let me ask you this that position.
Because one of the things that we've seen with with football,
the evolution over the years. I thought it was an
interesting thing last night, for example, people watching Hard Knocks
and they show the defensive line room and in that
defensive line are all the edge rushers too, right, but

(46:40):
they're all called outside linebackers. Terminology is a different thing, right,
Like in terms of who is what when we talk
about cornerbacks in the Seahawks Mike McDonald's system. Now you've
got Emon Warri who's listed as a safety, but you
and I've talked about he's more of what a sam linebacker,
right how they play him and they play so much
nickel Maybe to play some dime. Let's talk about just

(47:02):
how important the true cornerback CB is in the Mike
McDonald's system, how he's utilized and frankly, Hugh, I'll ask
you this, This may sound goofy. How many do they need?
Because we know Witherspoon and job, but what else do
they need in terms of what they want to do
with all the safeties they have Bud Clark, they want
to get him on the field. They're talking about geting
Tyree SNTT and field more. What do they want to do?

Speaker 4 (47:23):
Do you think, well, we don't have to make this
complicated that a cornerback in a Mike McDonald's system has
the same responsibilities at its root. Now there's details, there's
a lot of adjustments, but as most coverages, when the

(47:44):
corner lines up, I'll just say, from a quarterback perspective,
we say who if our widest guy, if our number
one and number one is the widest guy close to
the sideline, our number one receiver, if he runs a
go route, who's responsible? Just ask yourself that, because every
coverage will break down based on that answer. If the

(48:05):
corner is the answer, then there's a burden on that
corner because he has to stop the go route first,
and then any I'll just throw him into a category
of stop routes. Could be a hitch, could be a hook,
could be a comeback, even a speed out depending on
the split. Anything where you don't go a go route

(48:26):
and the cornerback is expected to drive on the football.
There's a burden there. That's like, you know, it'd be
like taking away the pitcher, you know, a change up
or an off speed pitch from a fastball. If there's
only the fastball, then then you know it wouldn't be
hard to hit. Well, if if everybody only ran a

(48:47):
go route, then you could cover a go route, just
turn and run. But the problem if you don't have
safety help is you've got to say, well, I got
to defend the go route first, but I got this
whole you know, library of routes that stop in front
of me. I still I can't. I can't be inept
on those. I have to cover those as well. So
so then you say the other category of coverages is

(49:10):
where the where you say this, no, if if the
widest receiver, if the number one receiver runs a go route,
the safety hasn't. Now that's an entirely different I don't
even say burden. It's just an assignment for the corner.
He's got to redirect make sure that that the wide
receivers and does not have free access into the secondary

(49:30):
just running like a track guy out out of a
track block.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
You want to.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
Redirect him and then now you hand him over to
the safety. Well, that's that's a form of of of
zone double covers. That that in fact, that is the
most common way the wide receivers are double covered. Exactly
what I just said. And so, uh so where are
the Seahawks. So the only the only defense that you'd say,
the corners, uh you know, get get to take the

(49:56):
night off is when you play cover two. Cover two
is the corner rolls up on both sides. Hear me
out on that both sides, the corner jams, he's in
the flat. He's what the term is, since we're in
hardcourt's called cloud coverage. Cloud just corner begins the cloud
begins with a sea. That's why it's called cloud. That's

(50:16):
back in the days with a sky coverage, the safety
begins with an S. So he had sky and cloud.
So but cloud is ubiquitous a football term. You could
say that in any high school coach, convention, college Coaching
Convention Pro football coaching cloud is a ubiquitous term just
means corners in the flat and a safety's over the top.

(50:38):
Cover two is the defense that does that to both sides.
The Seahawks are twenty third out in the league in
terms of their propensity to run cover two. Now, the
Seahawks are number one in what's called cover six, and
cover six is cover two to one half. So what

(51:00):
did I I was just described And the easy way
on on for a corner is if you play cover two,
well guess what you play Cover six. One of those
corners is getting the benefit of the safety over the top,
and Seattle's number one in the NFL in cover six.
In fact, there's only one other coverage where the Sea

(51:21):
Arcs are in the top half and and and that
is where did that burger go? I take it back,
There isn't any there. If I'm filtering all other coverages,
they are in the bottom half of the league.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (51:39):
Yeah, at quarters they're seventeenth, and cover three they're twenty fourth,
so yeah, everything, but they're number one in cover six.
So they they play an array of coverages. But but
the one cover let me just condense this cover six
is one corner gets the help over the top. Easy
to play, You and I could play it. I just

(51:59):
jam the guy, redirect him. Now, now that's obviously a
big exaggeration, but not as much as an exaggeration as
you think. You and I could actually go play one
play and we and the Seahawks would not give up
a touchdown because all we do is do our best
to try and jam the receiver. We wouldn't do a
very good job. But but then there would be the
safety's responsibility.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Gotcha.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Now, if they ran a screen to our side and
here comes a lineman, Uh, that's a whole nother discussion.
So like, neither of us want that big offensive tackle
coming out to kick us out. But but but I digress. So,
but on the opposite side of cover six, the corner
does have the go route to the back of the

(52:41):
end zone. He has help to the inside on on
on dagger routes. Now there's I'm sitting here in live
radio trying to say how much do I I want
to explain that the safety on the other side, opposite
side of the cloud, he reads the vertical release of
number two. Who's number counting?

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Now?

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Outside end? If number two, the slot receiver or the
tight end goes vertical beyond five yards. Now the safety
takes him. Now the corner on the other side is
it away from the cloud? He has man and man,
so he is right to get beat by a post so.
So so passing game construction, you want to do what
to decide to cover six? You want to run the

(53:23):
slot receiver at the safety, which eats him up. That
doesn't allow him to rob any en routes because now
he's got to cover the safety. And then the corner
has the post so and the go route and and
out routes and what have you. So there's more of
a burden on the corner opposite of the cloud. A
lot of football terms going out there. But but hopefully

(53:44):
I got your attention when I said the Seahawks are
number one in the NFL in the use of that coverage.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
So so okay, how does this pertain that what Mike
McDonald can do if he says, hey, I don't trust
one of my corners, he can't. He doesn't want to
do this. What I'm about to say is that doesn't
put him in any comfortable zone at all. But in
a in a pinch, Uh yeah, Uh he can. He
can say, hey, we're just we're gonna we can we

(54:12):
can Uh, we can roll cover six to two a
week cornerback. Now there there's time. There's some teams, including
the Seahawks, you want to roll to the boundary receiver,
the X receiver, the single side receiver to help and
then and then you play off coverage to the field.

Speaker 9 (54:30):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Sometimes the Seahawks will roll to the trips, roll to
the field and and leave the the corner on the
X on an island.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
You know what's called meg coverage in their terminology. Man
everywhere he goes, you know, just solo the backside, you know, roll,
roll on the trips, roll to the field, get a
lot of bodies over there, and then you know, you know,
pray to hell that that on the backside.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
You can.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
You can. You can play solo coverage with the running
back on the weak side and the X receiver so
so so they're they're there's This is all the things
that Mike McDonald would be uh thinking through, like, Okay,
if do I have a cornerback deficiency, how am I
going to play this?

Speaker 5 (55:09):
So?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
And the deficiency is it feels like you almost everybody's
not named Devin Witherspoon, to be honest with you, Yeah, right.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
Yes, yes, yeah, and Witherspoon, you know, he played less
snaps in the slot than he had at any year,
so that they were trying to keep him more outside, uh,
in the dime packages. That that's where uh, Emon Worry
who who is as you said that the nickel sam

(55:41):
in there in there what they would call their base,
which which the league would call nickel. Right, just think
of this. We talked all damn year that hey, Nick
Am and Worry had it was either seven or eight
deep half snaps like in the back half. Right, and
so he's not playing safety, playing freaking linebacker, right and

(56:03):
uh And then finally before the forty nine er playoff game,
Mike McDonald went on record, he says, you know, really,
all we have is just a really crazy athletics sam linebacker.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Because because it because it would love it. Okada would
be on the field in playing in the deeper in
the secondary as safeties.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
Sam Cotta Okada when they weren't healthy, Ian, you're right,
and Nakada played a ton, But but when they were healthy,
uh finally didn't Yeah, you had you had Kobean and
Julian and the as the back half guys. You had
Josh Jobinrique Woolen as the outside corners. And then your
slot you're what what's called your apex defenders, your overhang defenders, uh,

(56:45):
your nickeled and dime Uh. They call it the star.
There's a lot of terminology for the for those positions.
But but Emon Worry is normally that the nickel sam
also called the star. And and and he would be
to the field side as a general rule, in nickel
when they went dime. Then Witherspoon he came in and

(57:08):
he would have the field side. Even Worry goes into
the boundaries. Less space to cover you give, you give
as a general rule in these zone coverages, you give
Witherspoon more ground to cover. And then all of a sudden,
as a quarterback, you're looking like, wait a minute, look
at those freaks as the overhang they're they're playing a

(57:30):
two high safety structure. That's a lot of burden on
those outside the linebacker slash nickel slash dime guys over
the slot, they got to cover a lot of ground. Hey,
we can work the flats and what have you. And
then all of a sudden, you see the turbo button
that each of those athletes have and you go, wait
a minute. All the space I thought I had, I
don't have because they reduce space so quickly because of

(57:52):
the turbo buttons that they have. They're beautiful athletes, they're
great competitors, they're smart, they're well coached, and they're are
problem for a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Well Diggs comes in, We'll see what happens with Arnold.
That's still up in the air. But when we come back,
I got one more say with you. Here's what I
want to do again. This is a preseason friendly zone here.
I want Hugh Millen to tell us what he's laying
eyes on, specifically Sunday night, five o'clock national broadcast on
Fox TV for preseason game number two. I'm going to
ask you maybe to even give me a little Jalen

(58:26):
Milroll conversation with that if we could. We'll do that
next with Hugh mill in Hardcore Football preseason edition coming
up next.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Now back Dean Furness on your home for the Huskies
Cracking and the twelfth Man, brought to you by Seattle's
Closest Snow Call Me Casino and Hotel on Sports Radio
ninety three point three KJR FM.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Prcore Football, Humillon, all right, Hugh Sunday, five o'clock, Fox TV,
National TV, Tennessee, Seattle, preseason Game number two. What's Hugh
Millen watching.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
Well, there's a very cool stat about Mike McDonald that
I'm gonna go back to a year ago. Between the
Raider game, which was preseason game, in preseason game number two,
and in the Raider game again last summer, the Raider
quarterbacks were pretty much carving up the Seahawks backup defenders

(59:35):
and they on completions, Raider quarterbacks had air yards a
total of two hundred and thirty two, which we discussed
at the time, like, hey, that's a lot. In fact,
the Seahawks on that night only at one hundred and sixteen.
Since that the beginning of the preseason in twenty twenty
five and including the forty nine games thus far of

(59:56):
this year, there's been one hundred and thirty two games
in preseason, counting both summers. That two hundred and thirty
two yards was the most air yards of all. Sorry,
I said one hundred and thirty two offense. There's been
sixty six games. Sorry, I'm gonna go sixty six games,

(01:00:18):
which means there's one hundred and thirty two offense offenses
to evaluate right, and defenses. That makes sense, I'm sorry, Yeah,
it sounds confusing, But of the one hundred and thirty two,
the worst defense and the best offense was the Raiders
two hundred and thirty two air yards on completed passes.
The very next week against the Chiefs with the Andy

(01:00:40):
Reid the genius and Gardner Minshew, a pretty damn highly
regarded backup. They the Chiefs had for the entire game
on completions fifteen yards. They went from thirty two thirty
two to fifteen. So if you take those again, I'm sorry,
sixty six games, which means one hundred and thirty two

(01:01:01):
offenses and defenses we're evaluating. The very worst was the
Seahawks against the Raiders, and the very best of them
was the Seahawks against the Chiefs. That happened in one week,
the same guys, and so that's his ability, not just
with the starters, that's his ability to identify problems with

(01:01:23):
his defense and fix them. And so there's not much
to fix on the defense. Slant routes that if you
play the two high structures, You're going to see a
lot of what's called what Mike Colemwan would call lion,
which is two slants. I've been on teams what we
call it diesel, which is a word conjunction with double slant.
Get it the diesel double slant.

Speaker 9 (01:01:45):
Ye.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
And so they were giving up a lot of diesels
the other night, not a lot, but one for nine yards,
one for ten yards, one for eleven yards, another one
they got a defensive holding, got an automatic first down.
So I think that you're gonna see a better job
on again. And those slant routes, I'm more looking at
the offense. Ian, and I you know, to me, I'm
just kind of withholding judgment because I think it's the

(01:02:09):
sensible position to be regarding Brian Floory.

Speaker 9 (01:02:14):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
The number one thing that I don't want to say
we the number one thing I like about Brian Floory
is Mike McDonald chosen. That is the thing that makes
me feel the best. But I'm still gonna look at
the tape and and I can't say enough. I want
you to tell me the rules right now, Ian, forness,
you tell me what's the rules that for evaluating preseason

(01:02:36):
game number one. Because if you tell me the rules
are it doesn't matter, then I'll withhold my comments. If
you're saying, hey, that's that's let's let's let's try and
evaluate it the way a team would, I'll give you
a different answer. So you tell me, because I don't
want to be accused of Oh, Millen, are you forgetting

(01:02:57):
that was preseason game number one? No, I'm very aware
of it was. But do you want do you want
my thoughts on it from a team perspective or just
a fan saying it's only preseason game?

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
No, No, I think the rule is this. I think
I want your opinion because I'll just do this. In
Game one against Dallas this year, they played all the offense,
where the twos effectively the two offensive line, number two
quarterback with Drew Locke. Yeah, and I'll use this. You
want to bring up the Chiefs game, I'll do this
last year in the Chiefs game Game two, in the

(01:03:27):
preseason game one for Clint Kubiak as the new Seahawks
offensive coordinator, he was one and done after Ryan Grubb. Right,
they came out and they had their ones play an
offensive series. Sam Darnold went four for four. So I
think the rule is that whether it's the ones or
the twos, I think you can evaluate in a preseason

(01:03:47):
game at least what you see in terms of play calling,
tempo and all those things.

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Well, let me let me tell you about what they
did against the Chiefs on offense. There's a stat. It's
not my stat. It's called play success. When you go
into the NFL stat portal, there's play success forty percent
of the needed yards on first down, so you got
to get you know, four yards on the yards, sixty
percent of the needed yards on second down, and all

(01:04:14):
of the needed yards on third or fourth down. Okay.
The NFL average for success, uh this. I did this
calculation for the prior year, which was twenty twenty four,
because I was I was calculating this for the chief
preseason game, preseason game number two, the NFL average for
success was forty seven point four percent. Okay. The Seahawks

(01:04:37):
in the first quarter against the Chiefs, of their plays,
they went seventeen for seventeen on successful plays, one hundred
percent success rate. Okay, and now it turns out the
first play of the second quarter was unsuccessful. But let
me go back to the first quarter, they were seventeen
of seventeen. If you, if you take now, forty seven

(01:04:58):
point four percent, is a s sessful play. I said,
It's basically like flipping a coin. But if if you,
if you just run it out mathematically using the forty
seven point four percent, assuming that the percentage of the
odds of seventeen straight successful plays is one in three
hundred and thirty three hundred nineteen thousand and seventy three,

(01:05:20):
given the average number plays for UH for the season
for each team is one thousand and fifty seven. Given
that average and ensue, and assuming the average success rate
of forty seven point four percent, a team would expect
to see seventeen straight successful plays exactly once out of
three hundred and seven years.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Okay, that's the That is the efficiency and and and
the math nerds out there are understanding this. You know
that that you know, getting a coin coin to flip
seventeen times, you know, uh, the same and then when
the coin is weighted against you like less than fifty percent,
so at an event, uh what so what does all
that mean? Let's set the math geek stuff aside. What

(01:06:05):
they did in the first quarter against the Chiefs was
literally you could say historic, not that anybody cares. Was
the preseason. But now let's go to Brian Floory. There's
some things because I asked you to tell me the rules,
and I'm just looking at say what does the offensive
tape look like? I can I'm gonna make a defensible statement.
The offensive tape from Saturday Night against the Cowboys look

(01:06:31):
very poor, very sloppy, no precision, no details, things that
would affect with regarding Brian Floory. What I see the
quarterback mill Roll coming out on a boot. He's got
an over route coming from the backside. That's how you
structure it. You got a down flat. That's usually, but
he's usually the guy that's trailing the play. You need
a guy in the flat. There's no there's nobody in

(01:06:53):
the flat. I don't know if a player busted, but
looking at the formation, it doesn't seem that way. So
that that's a poorly constructed place on what's called a
hank route, Mike holmgrin that you get just got two
hooks on the outside, a guy sitting over the middle.
There there's more detail, but I'm not going to get
into it. Hey, there's a window in there. We didn't
come and wrap around that against that coverage. Uh, we

(01:07:14):
got to get that window. The Uh the Bobo on
a deep hook, big miscommunication. Well, you got Cody White,
He's coming on his zone on a shallow cross. He
should be at about six yards. He's at nine yards.
He's jogging, so he doesn't influence the defender.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
Then Uh, Drew Locke looks like he you know, he
and and Bobo are not on the same page. Well,
we're not getting the proper spacing and stretch on the defense.
On the three route on oaki route, actually Milro's best play,
we got, uh outside foot forward. Well that makes a
six step route a seventh step route, which is fine.

(01:07:55):
But I went and I looked at the uh all
the plays last last year to you know, say like, hey,
this has always been a inside leg forward, a sixth
step you know, third inside step. We're doing speed out.
That's the way that times out with the quarterbacks footwork.
And and Milroe took a hitch. We shouldn't do that
on the on the on the three route, why is
the outside leg ford? Well, I went back and looked

(01:08:17):
at a basically ninety five percent I'm not gonna list
you the teams like I can name you fifteen teams
watching Joe Burrow throw those three cuts, watching uh Justin
Herbert throw those three cuts, watching Pat Mahomes. I could
go on and on down the list. Uh. And and
these are beautiful six step timings inside leg ford it

(01:08:40):
times up with the feet and and it just looks
like a clinic. And then I'm like, why are we
putting the outside leg forward?

Speaker 9 (01:08:48):
So so?

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
And then the final thing, final thing that I'll mention
fourth down, uh, fourth down down by the goal line. Yep,
you've got your plays.

Speaker 9 (01:08:58):
And you know they had.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Harden this this what TJ Harden aj Harden who just
got cut a couple of day. Yeah, you know, so
they they called him on an option route and I'm
just thinking he knows, he had to know, he had
to know that that that that's not how who you
want to feature in there, because the the route was
as bad as you could be. So so at an

(01:09:20):
event all that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Let me let me let me wrap it up, because
I think I'm telling me if I'm right here when
we talk on Monday, hardcore football offense, the offense play
construction and and execution. You use the word sloppy, I'm
at the top of the hour. This is luckily no
one's here today, so it doesn't matter. But anyway, I
gotta go, I gotta go. Let me just say this

(01:09:43):
on Monday, sloppy, Let's see if they clean that up.
And I really want to get into it hardcore ways
on Monday about just the play the play structure. You
just say, that's a that's an alarming thing to me.
So let's talk about that Monday. You're on with You're
on with Safty later today. At that point, you'll have
watched I'm sure some Trevan Diggs video and and probably
want to have something to say about the twenty two

(01:10:04):
to nothing game.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
All right, indeed, and we've already be on the clock.
Let me just say this, yeah that you know, I
was on a Cowboy team that had just won the
Super Bowl a few months before, and we lost the
opening preseason game and Jimmy Johnson's neck was as red
as a freaking apple and he was so pissed. And
the and the the the training, the intensity ramped so far.
So so I'm just going by, like, hey, it matters.

(01:10:28):
You want to be a suit and By the way,
we repeated a super Bowl champs, like you want to
be a super Bowl champ. The first preseason game has
got a matter. And because you scored seven points and
look sloppy doing it. I want to see Mike McDonald
that that that marvelous, that that that historic turnaround that

(01:10:49):
that he had. Uh, you know, we need to see
that from the offense.

Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
That is humil and great. Stuff with you is always phenomenal.
He's great. Love you. We will take a break, come back.
We'll set up to two o'clock hour, which includes at
two pm our guy Brandon Funston talking all things fantasy football.
We're gonna running backs. We may go running backs, receivers
or running backs.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Cort.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
We'll start with the running backs and see where that
takes us today. Get you sent for your fantasy football draft.
Your questions are welcome at four nine, four or five
one on the Tacoma Dodge text line. That's four to
nine four or five to one fire away. We'll get
to all that coming up next. All right, we're back

(01:11:35):
here on Wednesday Thursday Thursdays a Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday Thursday afternoon.
Well I should know it's a Thursday, because we're just
moments away from Brandon Funston unofficial unofficial start of the
weekend music. You got that open er, you got that,
You got that, you got that open don't you have
a little music playing with little air guitar with it
all that, we'll take your your text messages four nine,
four or five one. We're gonna keepers trades. I'm gonna

(01:11:58):
ask about running backs. I think that's go down that
road a little bit today. Help you prepare for your draft.
So many people are getting close to that, so we'll
do that, coming up here in just a few minutes
with Funston. Can't wait, and then we'll take your text
a lot of taxs four nine, four or five to one.
Here's here's the Here's the thing with the topic that

(01:12:21):
we brought up earlier, Matt Holkins resigning from the Times,
it has First of all, it is blown up across
the country like blown up, and I don't want to
lose sight of what my whole point of bringing it
up was. And that is just the fact that the
newspaper of Record is censoring it's columnists, at least on

(01:12:46):
the sports side. At least this one comes and as
Matt points out in his subtech. It wasn't just once,
it's multiple times. And now he's give me a softy
today at six, So I think that'll be must listen
to radio. I know pretty much everybody that country probably
wants to talk to Calkins right now. I got an
interesting text from a friend of mine who's a columnist.

(01:13:07):
Wait is he still Yeah? No, former columnist in another city.
He walked away, and I always like these ones. Says
the tenant of journalism is to tell all sides, print
the column, and do another one telling the other side.
Let readers draw their own conclusions. That last line, you
draw your own conclusion, you agree or disagree. I was

(01:13:29):
just telling Jess in the break. Greg Bell had a
rant last week, two weeks ago whenever it was after
the last Mariner homestand I think it might have been
been during the Homestand it was a Jimothy rant. Oh yes,
And as I pointed out, as my thought was, I
don't agree necessary with Greg, because I think you can
separate marketing and selling tickets from the desire to win

(01:13:52):
a baseball team at a baseball game, or the desire
to be a good baseball team. I think you can
separate those two items. I don't think that. I don't.
They're not mutually bound together. The job of one side is.
And so we disagreed on that. And as Greg was
doing his thing that day, I mean, that's good sports radio.
You make you think of a strong opinion. Do you

(01:14:13):
agree or do you disagree? It's really not that difficult.
We just are a living in a world now where
people don't want to have a conversation. It's either yes
or no, I agree or I disagree. It's it's really remarkable,
and it's so divisive at the same time. You know,
Keith Miller had just text it and I'll just read
it now. Usually we've keeped for the end. Free speech

(01:14:36):
can't come with an asterix. Good for men, it can't.
Free speech also is not I know there's a First Amendment,
and I know in some ways it's guaranteed. It's it's
guaranteed within limits, you know. I mean the famous one
obviously is you can't you know, you know, fire in
a crowded movie house or whatever, stuff like that. We
we just finished. Have you done all your training?

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
By the way, Oh, I'm an A plus student. I
get that done right away. Mostly so I don't get
hassled by management.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Yeah, I finished mine yesterday, just in the nicked time.
Sensational stuff couldn't couldn't be happening. But there's things you
can't say, simple as that. It's I applaud Matt. I'm
disappointing the times. It makes me question a lot of things.

(01:15:24):
If you don't take the popular to say popular. Because
I think what Matt was going to, what Matt wrote
on a sub stack, which we wanted to write the paper,
that's maybe the majority would agree with him. The more
majority of people would agree with him a loud, very
loud like like think of the people outside T mobile

(01:15:46):
parks screaming about, you know, the Bible verses that I
want to steal that volume of loud. Yes, that volume loud.
Minority didn't you know. I think the newspaper was a
afraid of that one hundred percent. They were afraid of
that with what Matt wanted to write, and so you
go down that road. I'm really I can't wait to

(01:16:08):
hear what he has to say. I talked to him
out at Seahawks training camp the first day of camp,
what three saturdays for Saturdays ago whenever it was in July,
and I knew, and i've when we were when I
was traveling with the Seahawks, he was on a lot
of the road trips. We would we would hang out
at times, not like we're good buddies or anything like that,
but the media corps we would go to, we would
go to dinner and hang out. I've I've known of

(01:16:29):
his frustration for a while.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
It's not one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Let's just say this because I think this is what's
getting lost in the mix somewhere. I think people are
saying Matt Calkins wanted to write a story that says
girls or boys should not play with girls in sports?

Speaker 5 (01:16:47):
What have you?

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
And he wanted to write that. They wouldn't let him
write it, so we quit. That's not the story. The
story is he wanted to write something like that and
went and did a whole thing with the man on
the street, talking to our women on the street, girls
in the street. He went and talked to people before
the Fever game here against the Storm, put this story
together and they said no, And that was the final straw.

(01:17:10):
There were other ones along the way that had nothing
to do with that particular topic. So it's not Matt
Hawkins's anti trans or anti He wanted to write a
column that was the final one they said no to.
So do not lose that in the sight lines of
what we're talking about pattern by the newspaper where they
do not want him to write certain stories. And Danny

(01:17:33):
O'Neil i mentioned this earlier, is going to join us
tomorrow work for the Times. His wife was on the
editorial board for the Times, and frankly, I'll be honest,
just let's just throw the cards on the table. She
was on the editorial board when things went south for
us KJR and the Sale Times.

Speaker 9 (01:17:50):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
So it'll be a fun conversation with Danny tomorrow too
because he don hold back.

Speaker 6 (01:17:54):
He's very open.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
So we'll get into it. We'll get into all that
with Danny tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I'm more
looking forward to the next segment.

Speaker 5 (01:18:03):
Yes, let's let's get a little palate cless.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Randon Fundston Fantasy Can we all agree, if your name
is not Dave Softy Maller, that fantasy football is fun.
He's the only person American that hates it. Him and
the guy that used to be on ten to one.

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Well, there's another pattern we're sensing.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Well, Funston your questions four nine, four to five one next.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
No from the Star Rentals Sports to us Jordan ninety
three point three kJ R FM Sports.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Will make this quick because we got funds and standing
by uh Seahawks in Nashville. Trevon Diggs is there with
them all. Former All Pro cornerback signed yesterday, spoke yesterday.
He's a Seahawks. No word on Terry and Arnold front
office sports reporting the Seahawks sale is progressing nicely. Should
be confirmed soon. NFL owners are all okay with it now.
That's a surprise me to vass signed of contract. Jade Higgins, Houston,

(01:18:59):
Texans wide receivers out for the season, torn acl and
shout out to Soundview Little League down in teet Down
to come to the two five to three. Getting a
win yesterday in the first day of the Litle League
World Series, knocked off Phoenix City out of Alabama to nothing.
They'll play tomorrow, assuming whether cooperates. Ladies and gentlemen, we've
waited way too long. Let's get to it on this
Thursday afternoon. This is a tradition that will continue through

(01:19:19):
about week fourteen fifteen or sixteen of the NFL season.
It's the unofficial start of the weekend right now. You
heard the voice in a second, and mister Funston, you
know it's that time. Fantasy football is around the corner.
Drafts are happening, maybe some as soon as this weekend.
Draft orders are being determined, Mock drafts are taking place
on cell phones, on apps, on computers. And that's why

(01:19:43):
we got our guy from the Athletic. He makes sure
that Jake Seey and the rest of the crew are
doing their jobs. It is the man, the myth, the
legend right in Funston. Hello, sir, how is it going.

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):
I'll tell you I'm feeling. I'm feeling this feels like
the zenith of the of the pre season run up.
Like this week has just been been crazy. You know
we're gonna have another crazy week next week as drafts
get ready. But we're just like we're pumping out content
and they have a meetings NonStop. It just it feels
feels like it's now time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
I said it last week, I'll say it again, I'll
say it all season. The Athletic. There there's this If
you play fantasy football and you don't subscribe to the athletic.
You're a fool because if nothing, I would encourage you
always to subscribe great stuff, great content on there. But
this is the time because everything you need for your
draft is right there. And the fact that you can

(01:20:34):
customize the rankings to your team via the Excel spreadsheet.
It's so easy. I figured it out without asking my
wife or my son to help me figure out the
Excel spreadsheet. That's how easy it is. It's all there
for you, Jason and brand do not let me forget.
I won't because I'm staring at it. I've got the
greatest text ever that came in.

Speaker 8 (01:20:55):
I'm not even allowed to look at that.

Speaker 10 (01:20:56):
You're not even allowed to.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Look at the text line. But I the greatest that
will wrap things up with. And here's the crazy thing,
not even from Keith Miller, who normally has the best
text usually gets the gold and Steven from Sultan. The
answer is yes, if Steven, if you're listening so, but
we'll get to that in a second. I got a
bunch of texts. We'll get to those in a second.
People are going through like I know, my kid last
I don't have my draft order for both leagues I'm

(01:21:18):
in is determined day off, which I kind of hate.

Speaker 5 (01:21:21):
Oh I'm wait, actually I've started another early ten days
before I even get to that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Actually, I'm sorry. One of the leagues, the league where
you guys know many of the people in one of
my leagues, they're regulars here on the show at we
stay hosted a show once. They will have that determined
a week from Sunday, but after the other one is
day off. So my kid last night got a second
order for drafts, so he's got both. He's just like
going crazy and I'm kind of like, man, I'm jealous.
I'm really jealous. I'll ask you this. He got the

(01:21:46):
number one pick and I know and he told me
who he's going with. It's a running back. And we
talked about this last week kind of with our top
ten guys. And it's weird because I'm looking at this
thing now, I think your ranks that did Jake update
some of the rankings, if they changed.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
A little bit on the updates every day, I mean, okay,
crazy tweaking and yeah, there's it's like soft tissue injury
season right now. And so like everybody's coming out of
these practices like week to week, you know, so he's
kind of like he's kind of adjusting for that, trying
to figure out and you know, figure out what it
all means.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
All right, let's do this. Let's let's let's bang through
the run. I want to go through running backs today
and and kind of do a little bit of a
deep dive there, and then we'll get to your phone
call or your your text as well. I think there
if there's a phone call, we might grab one of
those as well. Uh so, Steven, hold on if I
see you there. Okay, let's let's get this running backs.
We went through a little bit last week. I don't
know things have changed. Uh give me your number one

(01:22:41):
running back for in general terms, every week's got a
different scoring. But your number one running back? Who is it?
And why?

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
It's Jamior Gibbs, you know, and I think you were
talking about your son got.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
The number one pick. That's what we went with. That's
went with.

Speaker 3 (01:22:55):
I think it's the right choice. We just we're doing
we're doing a roundtable series this week. We have a
like having experts weighing in a bunch of questions. One
of them was Jamiir Gibbs versus Bijon Robinson and what
is your reasoning for who you're taking, And five of
us took Gibbs and two took Robinson. But I think
the idea that David Montgomery is gone, this is probably

(01:23:16):
gonna be the biggest workload of Gibbs's career. Detroit's really
consolidated their offense. A lot of the guys like Khalif
Raymond and Montgomery and some of these other guys they've
kind of let go and they're sort of circling the
wagons with the second contract guys like Gibbs. So I
think you know the plan is to lean into him heavily.
If you look at Gibbs, he's averaged over a fantasy point.

(01:23:39):
He's at like one point one five PPR points per
touch last season. He was one point two the year before.
Each of those marks is significantly better than Robinson's over
the last two years. So if you're gonna give him
more volume, and he already beat Robinson last year with
less volume.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
I think you gotta go. Gibbs. Robinson, McCaffrey, Taylor are two,
three and four right now in the rankings on the
Athletic Would you agree with those rankings? And how close
are those three guys two, three, and four.

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
Well, I think any one of them can actually be
the RB one and Johnson. Taylor was great with Daniel
Jones last year and he's he's a touchdown machine, and
both of these guys. The reason why they're falling behind
is because there's just some concern Taylor's had health issues
in the past, but it's been more about Daniel Jones
last year. Things kind of tailed off when Jones went out. McCaffrey,

(01:24:32):
we know the deal with him. I mean, he's he
was awesome last year, but he also was like over
four hundred touches. History of a thirty year old running back,
especially coming off that kind of work, like the history
of any running back coming off four hundred touches, is
not great the following season, but you know, San Francisco's
not hiding what they're doing. He is still the epicenter

(01:24:52):
of that offense and the volume is going to be massive.
It's just kind of like he drops to three four
at running back because you're holding your breath all year
with him.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
All right, So let's go next. How far is a
drop off between Jonathan Taylor and that next wave, which
would be James Cook, Devon h Chan, Chase Brown, Derrick Henry,
Saquon Barkley, and Kenneth Walker.

Speaker 3 (01:25:15):
Well, I think Cook is definitively and I'd almost put
him as a tier by himself after those those first four,
and I put Gibbson Robinson as a tier of their
you know, at number one, and then Taylor McCaffrey two,
and I put Cook by himself at five as a
third tier because they're talking about using him more in
the passing game. They just he just gets served up

(01:25:37):
for touchdown opportunities in that offense when Josh Allen doesn't
take him. But it's worked out well for both of
those two the last few years. So the plan is
for them to lean more in the Cook this year.
And like I said, with the with the passing game,
so I really like that. I will caution on h
Chan that Tua was great at throwing the ball to

(01:25:58):
running backs out of the backfield, and Willis it's been
a small sample size, but hasn't shown that kind of
like touch.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
He's he's still.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Kind of a raw ability guy, but he's by all accounts,
had a good camp. I just don't know if he's
going to be able to serve up the eighty ninety
catches like we've seen him have the last couple of years.
And there's I just saw something where a bottom five
offense has delivered a top ten running back just twice
in the last five years. That was Breisee Hall and

(01:26:27):
Derrick Henry when he was with the Titans. So not
a great history. And I think we all expect Miami
is going to be a bottom five.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Well they got they got their offensive line today and
a joint practice just got annihilated, like just the Giants
just destroke. The whole story coming out of that joint
practice was the fact that the Miami offensive line was
just getting killed.

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):
And Ian can you tell him? Can you name me
a wide receiver or tight end on the team?

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
No, no, okay, No, all I know is Malik Willis.
I mean that's seriously like, it's Malik Willis, right, I
mean that's it's I mean, hell, I'm looking through here.
I mean, you guys are always very high on wide receivers.

Speaker 10 (01:27:02):
Let me go down.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
Let's the first wide receiver I get to Miami. I'm
still at thirty five.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
Yeah, you're probably outside the top fifty. It's it is
Caleb Douglass or Malik Washington, there's.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
Oh my god, Yeah, it's just it's Jalen Tolbert, Is
it Jalen Tolbert.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
Oh, Tolbert's there as well. I mean it's a hodgepodge of.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
I mean, like, if you're playing Miami, which is basically
tanking for the number one pick, I mean you're, yeah,
he would scare me. What about what about our buddy,
the Super Bowl MVP?

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
Yeah, I mean, listen, he's ever really been a bell cow.
He's clearly got the opportunity there. The thing I really
like is if you look back to Kansas City last
year at Cream hunt As, they have a checko that
they kind of were, you know, they were throwing people
out there. It was a mixed bag at running back,
but the yards before contact numbers for all the Casey

(01:27:55):
running backs were really good, which tells you the offensive
line's doing their job. They're they're you know, creating some opportunities,
creating some cushion for the running back to get going.
And I love the way Kenneth Walker finished the year.
It felt like he learned to just just go and
not not dance around. If he carries that over, he's
He's kind of like back end of the RB one class,

(01:28:18):
and I think he can deliver that as long as
he stays healthy. I think the environment is going to
be good for him.

Speaker 5 (01:28:22):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
For those of us that liked Ashton Gent last year
at least on draft day, and then didn't like him
as year went on, what do you say about that?
What about him?

Speaker 3 (01:28:30):
I mean, I get it with him, like, but I'm
always like the naysayer because it feels like every year
the refrain is, Oh, the Raiders are gonna better this year,
They're gonna be better this year. And then it was like, oh,
Pete Carroll's there and Geno Smith's there, it's going to
elevate them, and they were terrible. And so now we're
saying that first time head coach, although we all like
Clint Kubiak, but he's a first time head coach, and

(01:28:51):
it's the you know, it's the it's Kirk Cousins and
a first year quarterback who you know like that. I would.
It's just pumped the brakes a little bit because I've
seen Gent go as high as five overall in drafts.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
People just are really buying it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:06):
I think he's really good, but I just don't know
that it's a slam dunk to this offensive environment is
just gonna be like leaps and bounds better than it's been.
I think it will be ultimately. I trust that they're
going in the right direction. But you know, Rome's not
built in a day, and I think it's this more
baby steps than than giants.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Is that would that goes with Jeremiah Love to playing
for a bad Arizona team.

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):
Yeah, and you know he's now got the high ankle
spring and it's if he's gonna be ready for a
week one and then you've got Tyler Aljier, You've got
Trey Bnson, you got James Connor. So if you know
you're gonna be a bad team, if you know you
want arch Manning, if you know that you want Jeremiah
Love to be part of that future, then are you
gonna rush him back when you're not certain that his
ankle is really one hundred percent? Are you gonna slow

(01:29:50):
play him? I think that's what's gonna happen. I think
we're gonna see I think we're gonna see a slow
play Jeremiah Love out of the gates. I think he's
really good, But that is a tough offensive environment and
they don't really have a lot of motivation to give
him a ton of carrieres and what we expect to
be sort of a sort of a throwaway season, give.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Us a give us a couple later, like you know,
maybe it's a third, fourth round, so later draft picks
that you would go with as a running back.

Speaker 8 (01:30:17):
Yeah, I'm you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
Know, it's so funny, like we talk about like sleepers
and stuff, and like I just have a hard time
finding sleepers. But I will say I'm kind of like
I like Jadarian Price. I want to get him back in.
I think he's got a really good opportunity because he's
gonna bring so much more.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
Juice nothing behind and there's nothing behind him, like if
we're being.

Speaker 3 (01:30:36):
Behind, like okay, we got a bunch of hard hat
type running backs behind him. He's he's a true kind
of sports car and so like, as soon as he's
good to go, I think he's a little bit of
a of a of a deal right now because he's
going in the mid twenties and I think he could
be a top twenty running back. I would play etn
in there.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
It looks like Alvin Kamar is going to miss a
month of nothing else.

Speaker 9 (01:31:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
The thing about New Orleans is Keller Moore runs like
one of the fastest paced offenses in the league. They
get a ton of plays, they keep the pace going.
So without any real competition there for a while, ETN
could be like, could be really good.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
So he is like a you know, third round guy
that you can get. I think you can do really
well with All right, let's do this again. Go download
the XL sheet for running back. That's a good that's
a good primer to get going. Steven Insultan decided to
call in. He texted earlier, Can I call in, dude,
you're a regular? Hell yeah, you can call in Funston

(01:31:36):
Steven from Sultan, one of our regulars. Fire away.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
I'm so glad football seasons back.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
I'm done with those Mariners. They just lost, by the
way for people wondering, so it's games over things lost.
I know we're all shocked on cREL stunt, Yes exactly,
We're all stunted, all right, So am I chiefer league.
I can keep three players up to three out of
the East seven if I want to, I give up
for a second third round picks.

Speaker 4 (01:31:59):
Byah blah blah, Josh Jacobs, Tied Walker, Ted McMillan. I'm
on save Brown, Tyler, Warren dart or Love.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
I can keep up to three only Well, you gotta
keep Love.

Speaker 9 (01:32:11):
I mean it is only a four man bench too.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Yeah, you gotta keep Love. I think he's still got
to keep Amon Ross, Saint Brown. He's he should have
a you know, at least three four really good years
left in him. So it's Walker or it's Tat McMillan.
I'd probably break it down like if you can. If
if it's a like a three wide receiver slot kind
of league plus a flex, I'm probably gonna keep tet.

(01:32:38):
If it's two starting wide receivers and two starting running
backs and then your flex, I might I'd.

Speaker 2 (01:32:43):
Probably go Kenneth Walker love it. Steven, we will, we
will hear from you all year. We love that. All right?
I got a ton of text. I want to get
to one more phone call real quick.

Speaker 3 (01:32:50):
This is bo Bo.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
How old are you?

Speaker 5 (01:32:52):
Bo?

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
Love it? And you're playing fantasy? That's that's golden bow?
What's your question for mister Funston? There? So I'm starting like.

Speaker 3 (01:33:05):
A fantasy football league with nine people in it, Like
what's the like like what's the like, Is that like
a good number for a fantasy football league? Well, I hope,
I hope that means nine other people including yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):
To make ten, right, No, nine nine people totally?

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
You need more, Yeah, you need one more because you
want to you want to have you know, the ability
to play someone each week. If you do that, then
someone's going to be left out each week.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
Because it's an odd number.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
There are ways around that you could play a You
could play it as you know in leagues where you
everybody you compare scores and the upper half gets a win,
in the lower half in scores gets a loss. But
if you can get to ten, I think it's a
great especially as a startup league. It's a little easier
to go out and find some people on the waiver
wire if you if you got to go replace some

(01:33:53):
of your players, there's a little bit more there. So
I think ten's a great number to start. You could
even you could even you know, look up maybe trim
the fat there and drop who you think might be
the biggest deadbeat owner, and then you can go to
eight and that's even that's even better startup. So but
I think you're like right in the ballpark. Just get

(01:34:15):
that number to even.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
Well, that's a great question, bo, that's a good question.

Speaker 5 (01:34:19):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
You got to call again.

Speaker 6 (01:34:20):
All right, wait, didn't you have another question?

Speaker 7 (01:34:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:34:27):
If I have like the fix kicks wor should I
dress a running back or a wide receiver?

Speaker 3 (01:34:36):
First? Yeah, you're probably looking at You're probably looking at
a wide receiver because Jamiir Gibbs and Bjon Robinson will
probably be gone. I think the next the next group
you might, you might. You know, if you like Seattle,
js N is not a bad pick at number five,
Puka Nikua Jamar Chase. I love five as because there's

(01:34:59):
gonna be a lot of good options you could even
if it's if you know, if it's a if the
format favors running backs a little bit, you can even
consider Christian McCaffrey at that spot as well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:09):
So I think five is a great spot to be
sitting in. Love A great job, boll All right, thank
you very much. Let's get a couple of texts for
four five one. Here we go, fun, this is the one.
I'm curious what this is about, Brandon. Your thoughts from
the two five to three year thoughts on death slash
chopper leagues, first time doing one this year, looking forward
to it. What are those and what are your thoughts?

Speaker 5 (01:35:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:35:29):
I was, I was, I was almost in one this.
I got back to my friend who tried to get
me and it's basically GIA team league. So I wanted
to try it because it's kind of a new, a
new fad right now, and there's various formats, but the
one I was going to join was an eighteen team one.
So if you literally were the lowest scoring team in
week one, you were done.

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
You're gonna have a one and done season like a
sur like a Survivor fantasy.

Speaker 3 (01:35:54):
Yeah, so what happens is the lowest scoring team gets
chopped and then all those players go onto the waiver
why for the next week, and so it's a free fall.
So it's pretty high stakes. But I kind of like
the setup where you maybe have twelve teams and you
let the first month everybody plays, and then at that
point the last place team each following week gets cut.

Speaker 2 (01:36:16):
So you go for a few weeks. Okay, you at
least get like the first month of the season to play.

Speaker 3 (01:36:20):
Wow, and if you're really if you're bad at that point,
then most people would be like, okay, yeah, put me
out of my misery.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
Four pick twelve man PPR. If I go receiver first
and I'm not liking the running backs that I'm gonna
cut coming back and seem to be reaching the film
my running back room, I'm crazy. They want to take
either Jonathan Taylor or James Cook at the four spot.
So he's got the fourth pick twelve man PPR. Could
he take Taylor or Cook at the four spot?

Speaker 3 (01:36:44):
He could? It's just PPR. And again, if it's three
wide receivers and a flex where you can play with
I get this hammered to me all the time by
one of my ex one of our analysts, who says,
the math, the math just works out that you really
want to pound wide receivers if you have the ability
to start four wide receivers or more and you're starting
lineup because the ceiling week to week of receivers is

(01:37:07):
better than running backs, and if you can get more
like good, great serviceable receivers in there, you have a
higher chance of hitting on at least one of those.
So so it's not ideal, but look at Jonathan Taylor,
as I mentioned, you catch it, you catch it, You
know he can catch a wave.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
And be the number one running back there. Trade question,
Trade Donald and Michael Wilson for Metcalf and Traravis. Etm
is a super flex PPR tight end Premium league. I
don't have a problem with that at all.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):
I like Sam Donald, but he's gonna be like you're
he's going at like quarterback twenty one twenty two.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
I know, like I'm assuming you're not.

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
You have somebody else you can replace them with you,
so you still have two decent quarterbacks. If that's the case,
then yeah, I just talked about etn and and the
way he's set up in with the Saints, So I
wouldn't mind that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
One at all. Who's number one picked?

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
You?

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
I want to run back? Let's see all so this
guy's actually asking I think he's got the second overall
pick if Gibbs goes number one overall, and you're good
with Gibbs going number one overall? Right, yep? Who goes
number two? Yeah? It's bjon Okay, it's Bjeon.

Speaker 3 (01:38:16):
There they just kind of are standing out, and you know,
I just talked about the guy that always preaches the
format that you play and going wide receiver. If you
can start four of them. He still said he would
take Gibbs and Robinson one and two. And I'm in
the same boat, Like, no matter what league, I mean,
unless it's Super Flex, in which I had the number
one pick and took Josh Allen, I think a lot

(01:38:36):
of people would do that. If it's not a super
Flex league, Gibbs and Robinson are probably going one to
two in most of your leagues.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
Here's one of those. I like these ones. These are
kind of fun, the ones that the auction leagues a
little bit. I kind of like those along the way
keeper question Rice for six dollars or or London for nine,
I would go London.

Speaker 3 (01:38:56):
Rice has been a little bit of a manufactured product
of Casey, you know, and when they started running, you know,
when they started restricting Mahomes's ability to go deep, they
just leaned into Rice and Kelsey, and like, that's kind
of where been what Rice has been doing.

Speaker 2 (01:39:11):
But like Drake, London's just a stud.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
And I hope that Michael Pennix kind of gets a
chance to ultimately get back into that number one spot.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Because I do like him a lot better with Pennix
than I do with Tua all right last one. See
du oh god, Okay, here we go. Dynasty League Keeper
question two hundred dollars salary cap. Christian Watson ten, Tat
McMillan thirteen, Roam A. Duneesday thirteen, Denzel Boston three, Tory

(01:39:42):
Horton twelve. Who would you keep full point PPR? For
just one?

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
I'm gonna keep Roam? Okay, and yeah, Christian Watson. You know,
he's never had more than forty one catches or six
hundred receiving yards, and he's going like wide receiver twenty
eight this year. And I'm like, that guy's a roller coaster.
He's never healthy. When he is, he's a big player
or bust. Often he's just a tough one. And that's
the that's the most draft capital you'd have to spend
to keep. I just think he's probably last on that list,

(01:40:08):
but I would I would go with Rome. I think
Rome's gonna have a really good year this year.

Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Ran and Scott still just read part of this. Hearing
the Funston intro is awesome. It also gave me a
mild panic attack that I didn't text in time. In
times subconscious reaction, We've.

Speaker 5 (01:40:20):
Got Pavlovs fantasy football players.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Out here, guys losing their mind right now? Oh not
quite there yet. Oh you got, I do have a
couple of funny ones. Oh, actually talking about charmonay real quick?

Speaker 9 (01:40:32):
What what what? What? What do you do there?

Speaker 5 (01:40:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
He's he's you know, I think the the idea that
he's doing anything meaningful in the first half of the year,
I think is a stretch is a stretch. So I've
thrown him on the end. I've been in drafts where
it kind of got towards the end. I've already had
like four running backs that I've drafted, but I don't
love it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
I just throw him on on the end.

Speaker 3 (01:40:55):
I you know, the I think the biggest thing you'd
hope for is he's looking somewhat like he used to
buy the fantasy playoff time, and you're able to You're
able to stash him and not have to you know,
and maybe you have a good year with injuries where
you're not having to look for roster spots to clear
for the waiver wire pickups and you can kind of
just hold him.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
But you know, I'm not going out of my way
in drafts.

Speaker 3 (01:41:16):
He's a nice He's nice, like, oh, Yeah, he's still
there and and I could use a little bit of
adepts and.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
Hopefully, you know, you get a little bit sooner return
than you expect. Here's the best text of all time,
Ready to go. I've been waiting for this two oh
six full point PPR. Need one of the following Tequila,
marijuana or Georgetown beer.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
I know where my bread is, butter, let's go with
Georgetown all the way. Oh boy, that's a tough one though.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
Man, that's a really tough one.

Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
Can we just I might make some trades.

Speaker 3 (01:41:49):
I can bring all three of those together.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
God, that's a good one. Oh my god. Mirror IPA
released tomorrow at George ELMBRA. We come on down and
see everybody. And so I'll go Georgetown beer too. I
would say tequila, but if it was Gin, I might
go jin I don't know, but not over Georgetown beer.
There are yes funds and tell people wout be Athletic.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
Yeah, we got so much.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
Stuff going on there.

Speaker 3 (01:42:12):
As you mentioned Jake seely, his rankings, his projections, which
you can play around with customized to your own league
and in your own ideas for what you think certain
players are gonna do. But we also have a roundtable
series this week, go and position by a position, asking
the experts a bunch of you know, key draft questions
and getting their responses. That's always been popular, but something
a bunch of new stuff every day, So come check

(01:42:33):
it out.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
Let's go talk receivers next week. My friend sounds good,
have a good one, as Brandon funds an unofficial start
of the weekend, we'll check the rest of the text
line coming up next.

Speaker 9 (01:42:47):
Jonathan Kelly here in Minnesota, Huge Seahawks Facts, Go twelves.
What I want to know is why are we not
believing in Josh Job. The guy is a great corner.
I think he's really under rated. You look at his numbers,
he's a top eighteen corner. When you look at his
pass breakups, his touchdown is allowed. The guy is a dog.

(01:43:09):
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
I think I think we use the term great too often.
That's just my humble opinion.

Speaker 6 (01:43:18):
Are you the one of the greats kind of used
for that word?

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
I just we used like. I don't know if Josh
Job is a great corner. I don't like Devin Witherspoon
is a great corner. Great corners go to Pro Bowls
and are all pros. That's good, But I think he's
I do. I would agree partly with what that gentleman said.
I think that Joe, I think they believe enough in
him where they gave him the contract probably based a

(01:43:46):
little bit on the contract, like what it was gonna
cost versus what was gonna cost to keep Wollen. They
made a decision of Job over Wollen. Again, it's part
partially based on contract.

Speaker 5 (01:43:55):
M h.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:57):
I think sometimes Joe, Joe, I like, job, jail my helf.
You're not gonna be We talked about this a lot
years ago when they when the offensive line, when the
Super Bowl started getting broken up, or even after the
five season. You're not going to be great across at
every single position. It's impossible, right, Like you're not going
to have twenty two Pro Bowlers on your team or
twenty two All pros. So there's going to be you know,

(01:44:20):
I think Hugh says it really well, you know what's
the weakest link on the seahawks great defense. It's probably Joe.
That's not doesn't mean he's a bad football player.

Speaker 5 (01:44:29):
No, right, well, and I mean you look at the
depth that they need Sue with that position, he's not
someone that.

Speaker 2 (01:44:36):
You're like, well, we had a ton of text on
the earlier topic about Matt Collkin stepping down. This is
the problem though, see like the headline and awful announcing
Sale Times columnist resigns after paper scraped Sophie Cunningham piece.
That's inaccurate. It is, there's multiple pieces. It wasn't even Sophie.
It was more the bigger, larger issue than he was

(01:45:00):
just trying to present. I think, I I I think he's.

Speaker 6 (01:45:03):
Taking a stand ford journalism to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Yes, that's what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, let's see six.
It's why you guys won't discuss the WNBA too sensitive
for the left. I'll address that real quick. I don't
look at the WNBA's left or right. I think the
WNBA is kind of turning into a little bit of

(01:45:26):
a joke right now. The Caitlin Clark hate by not
just players, but my media that full time, like full
time WNBA media. Yeah, I think it's a little sketchy,
you know. I think like Olivia Miles is getting a
lot more love for MVP than Caitlin Clark, and Caitlin

(01:45:47):
Clark's numbers just doesn't even they don't compare like way better.
But it doesn't matter because aj Wilson's the best player
in the league and she's gonna wait for the fifth
time and should. But we're more worried about who's gonna
finish second or third in the voting for the m
v P. We're worried about little things in the.

Speaker 5 (01:46:02):
W n b A.

Speaker 6 (01:46:04):
You know, this is just like that loud minority of
people that we're hearing.

Speaker 5 (01:46:09):
When I say minority, I'm talking about a small amount
of people, not any specific race or gender.

Speaker 2 (01:46:14):
What world do we have to what world do we
have to live in? And we have to do that now.

Speaker 8 (01:46:18):
I just know that I have to.

Speaker 5 (01:46:19):
I know you do, because if I use that word,
people are making assumptions. But when we hear the loud,
vocal minority of people louder than the majority, because the
majority just wants to enjoy the game and enjoy the
great players that we have and that we can watch.

Speaker 6 (01:46:34):
And you don't have to be a w NBA fan either.
You can enjoy the greatness that we see.

Speaker 5 (01:46:40):
When all of a sudden, everyone has to tune in
to see Caitlin Clark the I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:46:44):
Going to I'm going to summarize the text line. Okay,
there's about two thirds of it is about two thirds
of it is one of the other of these two things.
And I'm not saying which is the majority. Okay, everything
is Donald Trump's fault and or I love Donald Trump.

(01:47:08):
Which is the world we live in right now?

Speaker 9 (01:47:10):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
Is we we live in a world now where we
have listen if we want to be honest about him,
because everyone's trying to guess, like if we want to
be honest. It's a very divisive white house. It's the
most it's the most divisive white house we've had since
we had the same White House.

Speaker 6 (01:47:26):
In twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
Yes, right, but what we have become in this country
is we don't have an ability to have discussion anymore.
And that's unfortunate. We should be able to have discussion
with newspapers, if the state whatever you want to call it,
right and opinions we have those, we have that ability.

(01:47:50):
I will say, you know, I being muted in man
so forth is is a frustrating thing. If you're paid
to give an opinion, like we're paid to give opinions,
I pick and choose what opinions I want to express
on a daily basis. The only time I've been muted,
so to speak, has been anything having to do with
Washington the University of partners because they're a partner for us,

(01:48:11):
and and you know, we have to protect that partnership
with the University of Washington.

Speaker 5 (01:48:16):
I was on the other side of the lake Man
partners with both of the two, the two biggest major.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):
To Yes, you've got to be you're a partner, You're
partners with them. I can't say what I want to
say about the athletic director, for example, at Washington, I
have to mute myself and be careful with what I
say about different things. I'll leave that to others, but
also their arrival or where I guess. I'd say it's

(01:48:42):
a fading rivalry now, but you know, I can't really
be like that's why Soft get the applicup. I can't.
It's not a fair fight. I can't say what I
want to say. Well, but take the I can't do that.
I've tried in the past. Puck and I tried in
the past, and we got and we joke about the
Stanford pregame show, and after that I said, I'm done.

(01:49:03):
It's done with the rivalry. On the air at least,
so I get that. But if you're a newspaper an
objective medium, so to speak, you're not. But if you know,
you should be able to be telling and having opinions
from both sides of whatever the issue in the topic is.
I'm not talking politics. I'm talking about writer left of

(01:49:25):
the aisle and in the legislature. I'm just talking about
you should have opinions on everything, would you say, and
have that ability and have the ability to counter those
those as well.

Speaker 5 (01:49:34):
Well, that's what your friend, who is a longtime journalist,
had said. And I got that from a longtime journalist
that I am friends with who said the same exact thing.

Speaker 6 (01:49:43):
Run that article and run a counter article.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
I mean, it's it's just simple. For those who missed earlier.
A guy that I worked with for a long time
in another life in another city say, and he's a
former writer, he's a former columnist. He says, the tenet
of journalism is to tell all sides, print the column
and do another one. I'm telling the other side if
you like, let readers draw their own conclusions. One hundred percent. Yes,
that's what it should be. And that's what I heard
journalists This is also a newspaper that shut out all

(01:50:09):
their writers from coming on our radio station about a
decade ago, now a little a little less than that,
about eight or nine years ago, they shut everybody out
because they didn't like stuff that was on our air.
So what do you expect at the Seattle Times. We'll
take a break. Softy, Well, we got to talk, as
I might tee him up for this, because we're not
partners with the baseball team. You wouldn't believe their postgame

(01:50:32):
show today on TV.

Speaker 6 (01:50:34):
It's not cooking close Hopey.

Speaker 10 (01:50:37):
Next, all right, real quick, before Softy joined us.

Speaker 2 (01:50:47):
Tomorrow we'll be at Georgetown Brewing twelve to three the
release of the Mayor IPA twenty twenty six. Every cent,
every dollar, everything from every pint and growlur of the
Mayor IPA arting tomorrow that is purchase at Georgetown goes
to Helensky's Hope Jordan Morris Foundation, Avery Huffman dip G Foundation.

(01:51:07):
Not a portion of the proceeds. They donate everything, so
it goes. It gets tapped tomorrow at Georgetown. Last year
it ran out in about eight days. It's limited release.
It's an award winning beer. Can I put an order
in now for a growler. Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:51:22):
I don't think it's fair. Yeah, And Jess has complained
about the same thing to me before. What is that
that we work here and we have to get in
line like every other schmuck for a growler. I think
it's ridiculous. There should be some there should be some benefit.

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
There's no line.

Speaker 11 (01:51:38):
There should be some benefit to having to talk to
you every day. And Sita, I get a growler. You
don't like beer. I want one just to help the chair.
It's not a matter if I if I like it
or not. I don't dislike beer. I just don't prefer beer.
You prefer the other.

Speaker 2 (01:51:54):
I'm more of a hard liquor guy. We had a
great question from Brandon Funston earlier.

Speaker 9 (01:51:58):
Yeah, what was that? It was you?

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
It's it's it's a PPR keeper league. Okay, So you
can choose one of these three, right, and it's not
a running back Tequila yes, marijuana yes, or Georgetown beer.

Speaker 11 (01:52:15):
I'll throw out marijuana because my problem with marijuana is
if I edibles or smoke or whatever, I lose all inhibitions.

Speaker 2 (01:52:24):
When it comes to food, I mean I can I
can eat fifteen pizzas. You're gonna go to one of
your five restaurants producers and go bananas.

Speaker 11 (01:52:30):
Dude, it's unbelievable. I mean that that little piece of
your brain that turns on and says you're full. Yeah,
just goes on strike.

Speaker 2 (01:52:38):
Brad donn okay, Brad down a twin Peaks is saying, Hey,
gets Stone to come down here and see any wings
you can eat.

Speaker 11 (01:52:42):
You know what I'm talking about, Like the whole, the
whole munchy thing is a problem for you. Oh dude,
it's un I don't even know where the food goes,
like it ends up in my foot.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
Yeah, it's unbelievable. So you'll go, so I will tell it.

Speaker 4 (01:52:55):
That's the key.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
Look is that we can have a couple of margaritas
or whatever blah blah blah. But no I don't. I
don't dislike beer. I just prefer the other stuff, you
know what. Come on buy tomorrow.

Speaker 11 (01:53:05):
Can I have a growler? Just put an order in
for me, grab one, bring it to the office. Okay,
the hell, we're gonna be a Jimmy's. Bring it by Jimmies.

Speaker 4 (01:53:12):
We'll enjoy it.

Speaker 5 (01:53:12):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:53:12):
I'm not I'm not driving anywhere tomorrow. Okay, good for you,
Good for you. What time will you be there tomorrow?
I will be there at noon at noon? All right,
so I will. I'm on the golf course tomorrow at eight. Yes,
I'll be driving from the north end, so you'll be
there from noon to what noon until three? Well, I'll
be there. Are you doing the.

Speaker 4 (01:53:30):
Show tomorrow from there?

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
Okay? Got it? All right?

Speaker 9 (01:53:31):
So I will.

Speaker 11 (01:53:32):
I will swing by on the way to Jimmy's. That
actually works out. Just have a growler waiting for me.

Speaker 6 (01:53:37):
You figuring it out?

Speaker 2 (01:53:39):
Can I make a donation to the cause right now?
They're twelve dollars?

Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
Well, can I just give you money?

Speaker 5 (01:53:44):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
Okay, just do it there tomorrow. No, I mean, just
do it. If only my wife had that same reaction. No,
you can't. No, you cannot buy me a brand new car.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
I do not want that. Hey, I do not care.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
Are you gonna? Did you know there's a slide in
Milwaukee in the stadium?

Speaker 6 (01:53:59):
I did know that.

Speaker 11 (01:54:00):
Now you're telling me that the postgame show they showed
the hyphen going down it Brad think Brad? That was
their first seven under the game show. Yeah, that's not
that's not good.

Speaker 2 (01:54:07):
Timing. Now, Dan Wilson was on the post game, maybe
he was on the slide. Shove him down the slide?

Speaker 3 (01:54:13):
What is Dan?

Speaker 2 (01:54:14):
How is your slide ride? A tough one? Tough one tonight? Like,
I don't know, have we heard his post game today?
We're talking about have we heard his postgame?

Speaker 1 (01:54:24):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
Did he say tough one? I know, I don't know.
He's been coached out.

Speaker 11 (01:54:27):
I'm sure you know. He needs to really just embrace
that at this point. Yeah, like the whole fifty four
percent thing. I think the Maritors should embrace that when
they lose the next day, all I don't know, popcorn,
hot dogs, whatever you want, fifty four percent off, blah
blah blah. They'll never do that. Dan Wilson needs to
come out and maybe he saves it for a win.
So it's a lighthearted thing and just say tough one tonight,

(01:54:49):
tough one tonight, but hey we battle back by win.

Speaker 4 (01:54:51):
Just have some fun.

Speaker 11 (01:54:53):
Nobody over there, and I understand why because they're losing,
but nobody's ever having fun.

Speaker 2 (01:54:58):
Nobody is having fun. I did well. Good for him,
he went down.

Speaker 11 (01:55:01):
Maybe he should be a pinchit or for us instead
of a guy hitting a buck fifty six. How about
that for an idea? They pinch it cat Rowley for Parita.
I know cal Raley literally is the worst hitter in baseball.
Did you guys see them ob lately? Did you see
the difference between the second worst hitter and baseball and him?

Speaker 2 (01:55:20):
It's like fifty points. Well that's insane. Here's the problem.
If if he ends up having a qualifying number of appens,
which he will this week by the way, by the
end of the Cup Series he will, so you should
probably shut him down tomorrow because he's going to have
historically the worst batting average in Major League history.

Speaker 11 (01:55:35):
You think they'll shut him down to avoid that. That's
a hell of a call. Wow, conspiracy. Otherwise, rally out
for the year with week that's that's in the history
of baseball. Like that's not going away.

Speaker 2 (01:55:47):
No, no, no, not at all.

Speaker 4 (01:55:49):
That's a great call, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
I hadn't thought of that. Man.

Speaker 11 (01:55:52):
The first conspiracy is that they fire Wilson after the
top fifty thing that didn't happen, And now you're thinking
they're going to fire him or shut down cow.

Speaker 2 (01:56:00):
I don't think that.

Speaker 11 (01:56:00):
The minute he gets qualified and then he won't be
qualified because he'll miss.

Speaker 2 (01:56:04):
The rest of it. If you were Cal, would you
want to just say no, I'd want to play. I'd
want to play, all right, I want to play? I
think I don't. I think i'd tap out.

Speaker 4 (01:56:17):
You want to be on that list?

Speaker 11 (01:56:18):
That's a great baseball reference type spatting average. Ever, know
you know what I will I will ask Boone about that.
He's on the show at four o'clock today. If he
were Cal, would he want to shut her down to
avoid it's hurt?

Speaker 9 (01:56:31):
In what?

Speaker 11 (01:56:32):
What year was it that Ted Williams at four or
five or four oh six or whatever in the nineteen forties?

Speaker 4 (01:56:36):
I mean, I know he could have he could have
he could have.

Speaker 11 (01:56:39):
Sat out and protected his three nine and he played,
he played, and he went like six for eight whatever. Right, So,
Brett Boone, if he were in cal Rawley's shoes, what
he want to tap out right now and shut her
down to avoid being qualified?

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
And you're telling me he'll qualified this weekend? I think
this weekend? Yes, because he was three.

Speaker 11 (01:56:56):
He was three plate appearances away going into last night's game,
and he had one PA. No, no, nope, he had
won PA with the walk. Yeah, right, So I think
he's still short, but he will be this weekend. All right,
what are you doing today?

Speaker 4 (01:57:10):
What's today? Thursday?

Speaker 2 (01:57:12):
Hawkins is on today?

Speaker 8 (01:57:13):
You know he quit?

Speaker 4 (01:57:13):
You hear that I got Hawkins quit.

Speaker 2 (01:57:15):
I might have texted Tim Booth and asked me for him. Well,
he told me.

Speaker 11 (01:57:18):
Matt said he'd had enough of Ryan Divish and he
just couldn't stand it. So about time want it out.

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):
So he's done.

Speaker 11 (01:57:23):
He'll join us at six o'clock tonight and talk about
I mean he can now come on the radio show.
Yes he can, and we're going to talk about that too.
By the way, his thoughts on being banned from kJ
R for all these years. Jerry, another former Times employee, Brewer,
he'll join us. I'm sure he'll share some thoughts on
this thing with Matt and then Brett Boone at four
o'clock today.

Speaker 5 (01:57:40):
Yip.

Speaker 2 (01:57:40):
All right, for the mild mannered and marginally objectionably in forness,
this is paddle day, saying so long everyone,

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