Furness Show 9-9: Gregg Bell, Corbin Smith, Stewart Mandel

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good five down here, Occidental jamming people everywhere. Man, I'm
going to tell you, Anders, oh, my God, the NFL fan,
he and she, the NFL fan, it's just a different animal.
The NFL fan is a different animal. You love to
see it. And I love it. This is not a criticism.

(00:20):
In fact, it's to the contrary. But we are five
hours and 20 minutes away from kickoff. I've talked to
a number of people here. Jimmy's on first already. They're
not going to the baseball game. They're just here getting
after it. I got a table next to me.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
How many deep?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
How many deep are we? Dude man with a gray
Zabel jersey.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Already I can tell. You have a gray Zabel jersey.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Who I know at some point played some offensive line. 100%
a guard, not a tackle. A beard that would Make
Bucky's old beard look, put it to shame.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
We are at least four shots of bourbon into the day.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Table of four. And I'm going to say each of
the four has had at least two. And on top
of that, and this is where I have great respect,
vitamin R everywhere. Vitamin R, baby. Right. 16-ounce Rainier cans.

Speaker 5 (01:18):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Filling the table at a hotel bar.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
That, ladies and gentlemen, is getting after it. That is
what an NFL fan is. And one of the things,
honest to God, somebody asked me, I was talking to
somebody yesterday, we had our Old Man Fantasy Football League draft,
and somebody asked me, he goes, hey, did you miss
traveling and doing all the games and all that? And
I said, not really. I kind of at the end

(01:41):
was just, I was so burned out with the travel
and the two jobs, and not that I don't have
two jobs now, but at least there's no travel necessarily
at the Kraken, but I was burned out. The thing
I miss... Is going around, and I say this to
people all the time, if you're a diehard NFL fan
or Seahawks fan, go out and see some other stadiums.
Because you're going to find your like person somewhere else.

(02:02):
Whether it be in Cincinnati, maybe not so much LA,
but Cincinnati, maybe in the parking lot at Levi's Stadium.
They actually have great time. Levi's team has great tailgating.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh, good to know.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, really good. But you're going to find your like
man or woman, your person. You're going to find your people.
And what I mean by that is the NFL fan,
he and she, they're all the same. They are all
the same. Very like-minded, huh? They're just different jerseys they're
being worn. But, I mean, let's just get after it.
Like I was always amazed when we go to the

(02:37):
East Coast and it's an 8.30 start in the East
Coast for a primetime game. And people are getting after
it at like 11 in the morning. Oh, my God. Like,
let's just go. Like, I don't have the wherewithal to
do that anymore.

Speaker 6 (02:50):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Go Cougs. At some point, you start running out of
gas a little bit.

Speaker 6 (02:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
But I love it. The NFL fan. When I'm driving
down First Avenue South, just to paint the picture, we're
already tailgating.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
We're already tailgating.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Like, why wouldn't we be? It's opening day. Defending the title.
The Lombardi Trophy is here in Seattle. And they're defending
that title against the New England Patriots today. 5-20 kickoff.
Let's go, man. Let's go. We had a great, by
the way, we had a great roundtable this morning. Chuck
and Softie and Fane and I had a really good

(03:24):
time talking about everything.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Talk about a gong show.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
My God.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, it was a gong show. It was 100% a
gong show. But we had a great time today talking
all things Seahawks. And the one thing, and we'll talk,
Greg Cosell is going to join us here in a
few minutes. We'll talk Sam Darnold and the season upcoming
with the guru of all things NFL Films. And, Anders,
I'm going to ask you one simple question when Greg
comes on. What is it that he can tell us?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think he can only tell us what's on the tape, Ian.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
I want to confirm that.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Only what's on the tape.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'm not a fan. I don't pick sides. I can
just tell you what's on the tape, and he'll tell us.

Speaker 7 (03:58):
The tape's talking to me.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
It is talking to him. God, you know it's football season.
Play that again. This is football season.

Speaker 7 (04:07):
The tape's talking to me.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
This is football season, man. This is foot, by the way,
and I'll make sense of this later. You're going to
miss that, buddy. You're going to miss that.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I really am.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
You're going to miss that. We'll get more to that
later in the week, but you're going to miss that.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I really am.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
But, yeah, we'll talk to Cosell in a second. The
thing that I kind of came away with our roundtable today,
I do have some concerns for this team.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I do have some concerns, and they're basically just depth-related
and they're injury-related. And one of the things we mentioned
this morning with the Rams is, and what could be
the Rams' possible downfall, and honestly, what will probably be
the 49ers' downfall at some point, whether it's this year
or next, what have you. When your roster is so

(04:55):
top-heavy with salaries and talent, it's hard to fill it
out with quality backups.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Unless they're young and they're rookies. Now, we go back
in time, and... One of the things that happened after
the 2013 Super Bowl, the Seahawks lost a lot of dudes,
especially guys that were key role players, special teams players,
backups in the secondary, especially in the secondary, right tackle,

(05:23):
all those places you lost guys. They didn't lose as
many this year, but made the decision financially, no Kenneth Walker,
and I think the running back depth is a concern.
When Charbonnet comes back, if he's healthy, then maybe it
won't be. If both he and Price are healthy, then
you're in good shape. But it doesn't take much to
have a depth issue at that position. Sorry, Corbin, if

(05:43):
you're listening. Helani is just a guy.

Speaker 8 (05:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
All right?

Speaker 6 (05:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
And until proven otherwise, so is Emmanuel Wilson. Maybe he will.
I'm going to trust Hugh Millen's eyes on that one.
The secondary is beat up. The safety position is a
concern at least week one. The good news for Seattle
is get through this thing and you've got a whole
bunch of time off before you go to Arizona, and
that's a lot softer landing next week when you go

(06:08):
down to Glendale.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
But I am a little bit concerned about the lack
of depth at a couple positions, running back and in
the secondary. I'm a little bit concerned because Eamon Worry
is still out. He's not going to play tonight. He's
listed as limited, but there's no chance he's playing.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
No.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
He hasn't had a full practice, so that's not going
to happen. And no Ty Okada. That was a concern.
Your front seven is going to have to be great.
But that was the one kind of thing I came
away with. And that's probably part of the problem. You
have a round table. All these things come in your mind.
But end of the day, I say all that. I'm
really not concerned about this game tonight. I don't know

(06:44):
about you, but I'm just really not concerned about this
game tonight.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I feel the opposite. I'm more concerned about this game
than the season as a whole. Because I do think
like Tyler Cotta being out, Eamon Worry not being back yet.
You know, the kind of revenge factor of New England.
They got better in the offseason. They added A.J.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
Brown.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
I think Drake May is going to kind of come
out to prove that, you know, he wasn't just a
bad schedule merchant last year. They're going to have a
little bit more motivation to kind of get things going
than the Seahawks will for this game specifically. And I
do think a lot of things are lining up for
a possible upset tonight. Now, I still think the Seahawks

(07:25):
will win, but I'm less confident in this game as
a whole than a lot of other people are. But
I think as the season wears on and you start
to get guys back, whether it's Charbonnet, whether it is,
you know, your secondary pieces and stuff like that, the
boys will start to roll in. I think this kind
of is one of those things where they might start
off a little bit slower than we expect them to,

(07:46):
but by year's end, they're still going to be one
of the two to three best teams in football.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well, 49451, that is Tacoma Dodge, Texas. I'm going to
get your thoughts on that. Also, talkbacks are welcome today
as well. Interesting conversation. Are you more concerned about tonight
or the season as a whole? The season as a
whole concern to me would only be this. Can you
win the division again? Because we did kind of a
roundtable prediction thing. I said 12-5 is what I'm expecting

(08:11):
from this team. And it's based on schedule. It's just
based on schedule. Schedule is really hard. Now, part of
it is those teams looking at Seattle and the schedule going, God,
our schedule is really hard. We've got Seattle, we've got
the Rams. But it's a hard schedule. And The balance
of power in the NFL switches and changes really quick,
but it's a tough schedule. It's not a must-win tonight, obviously,

(08:34):
with 17 games. But a loss today, that does hurt you.
That would hurt you quite a bit. And just looking ahead, Anders,
and this is why. Because you're going to lose a
couple along the way, right? You're going to have your
bumps in the road. You're not going 17-0. They're going
to win next week in Arizona for fun. I think

(08:54):
at Washington, so back-to-back road games. Washington, sorry, not concerned.
I love you, Dan Quinn, but not concerned. Chargers at home,
tough game. San Francisco at home, tough game. At Denver,
really tough game. Kansas City at home, tough game. Chicago
at home. That gets you to the end of October.

(09:15):
That's a stretch, man. That's a stretch. You still have
to go to Philadelphia.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Obviously, the two games against the Rams, which the first
one doesn't come up until Christmas. It is a really
daunting schedule. You can't kick games like this at home.
I guess a team that flew across the country. And frankly,
you're better than. Yeah, you're better than.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
You're a better team.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
And I'm not as concerned with the division because I
do see that as a possibility that the Seahawks might
not win the division this year.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
But I don't think they're as dependent on having home
games in the playoffs as they have been in years past. Obviously,
it's an advantage, but I still think there's a possibility
that you get in as a wild card as a
12-5 team with the Rams maybe winning 13 or 14
games and you could still do damage. And like I said,
if you're playing the best football at the end of

(10:05):
the year, which I think this team will be, then
I think that will be the only thing that matters.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I agree. Until they prove otherwise, though, they've never been
in the Super Bowl without having a little advantage.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
No, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
I mean, that's... prove otherwise. I think they will at
some point. Maybe, hopefully, but they've never been able to
prove that along the way. Alright, we'll take a break.
We'll come back. Cosell joins us next. We'll hear from him.
We'll get his thoughts on the game and the season.
Sam Donald specifically and much more. We're at Jimmy's on first.
Opening day of the NFL season. You know what we
just did? We avoided the other thing across the street.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Thank God. And we have 20 more minutes of not
talking about it.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Because we've got our guy Greg Cosell coming up. That's next.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
Now back to Ian Furness on your home for the Huskies, Kraken,
and the 12th man. Brought to you by Seattle's closest
Snoqualmie Casino and Hotel on Sports Radio 93.3, KJR FM.
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Jimmy's on first. They're getting after it today here. Seahawks fans,
I'll tell you what, never, ever, ever disappoint Seahawks fans.
The 12s are here already. It's five hours until kickoff.
We're getting after it.

Speaker 8 (11:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Vitamin R on the– it's all here, man. Let's go.
I love it. This is a good time. Jimmy's on first.
There is a little bit of room here. You can
probably come sneak in. Baseball game is going to start
here in a little while. But across the street, the
main event, Lumen Field, 520 kickoff, Patriots-Seahawks rematch of the
Super Bowl coming up here in just a little while.
20th regular season meeting with Seattle leading 11-8, and Seattle

(11:41):
has won the last four regular season games in this series. And,
of course, they won the last one that really mattered.
That was last year. on February 8th.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
All right.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Greg Cosell joins us every week. He's going to be
back on with us, by the way, on Friday, Anders.
And what will we be able to do on Friday
after the game is over on Friday? What can he
do Friday?

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Only tell us what the tape says. And it's interesting
because Greg normally is kind of like a preview guy.
Here's what you're going to be getting on Sunday. But
we'll get kind of a post-game Greg Cosell on Friday,
which is great.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Which we will enjoy. But we caught up with Greg
Cosell and got a little preview to the season, including
tonight's game. Talking about Sam Darnold and so much more.

Speaker 7 (12:19):
Doing great. I can't believe it's here. You know, it's funny.
I pretty much watch tape of some sort almost every
day this summer. I probably watched about 120 college players,
of which I'm sure 95% of them will be in
the draft. And then, of course, some of them might
be back in college, you know, the way the new
ruling is, you know, that's the way it is. Now

(12:41):
you can, you know, I guess you can be 35
and go back to college. But anyway.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Play for Lane Kiffin.

Speaker 7 (12:47):
Yeah, the last month or so, I've just been, you know, grinding,
rewatching a whole bunch of NFL stuff to get back
in the groove. And, you know, just especially teams that
have the same coaching staff, you know, because that's when
it's a new coaching staff, you never know what kind
of changes will be made. And unless it comes from
the same kind of school, like, you know, for instance,
with the Seahawks, with Brian Fleury, you know, it's essentially

(13:09):
the same school of offensive philosophy that, you know, Kubiak
came from, which is the Kyle Shanahan school.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Well, we're going to get to that. We'll get to
that in a minute. You mentioned the college guys. Let
me just start with kind of a refresher for us
here in Seattle because it's been a while. When we
last spoke, you were telling us that we talked about
Jadarian Price and who the Seahawks drafted in the first round,
the second Notre Dame draft pick of a running back

(13:37):
in the first round behind Love obviously going to Arizona.
We didn't see Jadarian Price. He didn't play in the preseason.
He was banged up a little bit, but he's healthy
as far as we know, and he will be the
starter and the lead running back for Seattle when they
take the field on Wednesday against the New England Patriots. Greg,
what do you recall? What can you tell Seahawks fans

(13:57):
about what you saw on tape during his tenure at
Notre Dame at Jadarian Price?

Speaker 7 (14:02):
Well, he had 113 rushes last year at Notre Dame, Ian,
and I watched them all when I did them prior
to the draft. And obviously, so people understand, I don't
know who's going to draft players when I watch them. So,
you know, they obviously drafted him. I thought what immediately
stood out with Price was his decisiveness as a downhill runner.
I thought he had sudden short area burst. I thought

(14:23):
he had explosiveness. I wouldn't call him loose-hipped, and I'd
say he's a little stiff, but he did have quick feet.
He could make sharp, controlled cuts at the first level
of the defense. I didn't necessarily see him as a
true home run threat, but I don't think that's a
critical trait for a running back in the NFL. But
I think there were times that he did run away

(14:45):
from second and third level defenders, even though he's not
Jameer Gibbs or that kind of bag. But I think
he certainly has enough juice. I really liked the way
he ran. I thought he was competitive. I thought he
was physical. I thought he was tough. I guess I
saw him as a guy, and here was my final

(15:05):
line in my transition. I said, my sense is Price
will be seen as a higher-level volume complement as opposed
to a foundation back that is the starting point of
an offense, but it is certainly possible that he could
be seen as a feature back depending on a team's
offensive philosophy. So obviously the Seahawks see him as a
feature back.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, no doubt, and Charbonnet is going to miss a
few games, and it looks like Helani is going to
be the number two guy for now. Let me— Let's
get to the offense itself because you mentioned Brian Fleury.
We go from Kubiak here in Seattle, who then now
is the head coach of the Raiders, and they bring
in Brian Fleury, first-time play caller, former assistant coach with

(15:48):
Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco. While we don't know really
what Fleury is about as a play caller overall, you
can fill us in a little bit on the philosophy
and maybe what to expect from this offense. Is it
much the same as we've seen?

Speaker 7 (16:04):
Well, let's put it this way. I think what you'll
see conceptually and from a methodology standpoint, I think you'll
see the same thing. The thing that I always think
about when you have a new coordinator is not necessarily
how it's taught, because it'll be taught in a very
similar fashion as to what Kubiak did. The question always

(16:24):
then comes, and there's no way to know this until
you play the games. And it's even hard then because,
you know, you and I are not sitting in the
meetings during the week. But then it comes down more
to the specific calls in a game, you know, how
you go about putting together the game plan. The concepts
will be very similar. The whole structure will be very similar.

(16:47):
But what, you know, what's the game plan going to
be against specific opponents? And what are the calls going
to be, you know, in a given game versus a
specific opponent? And those are the things you don't know
for sure. And and it's very hard to know the
answer to that. And sometimes, you know, obviously, if all
of a sudden week one and obviously it's a big matchup,
it's a Super Bowl rematch. You know, let's say it

(17:09):
doesn't work out great. I'm sure a lot of people
are immediately going to rip Brian Flurry. And that, you know,
that's just coaches know that that's the nature of the business. But,
you know, and that's why watching the tape for me
is so important, because sometimes plays don't work. Not because
it's a bad call, but because maybe the right guard
just missed a block and they had a big play
that was there, but the right guard missed a block.

(17:32):
You never know the reasons until you really see the
tape in detail. But to me, it comes down to
the specific way he goes about game planning specific opponents
and then the calls within a given game.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, Hugh, your friend Hugh Miller and I were talking
about this a couple weeks ago, and one of the
things he's looking for is tempo and things like that
and all those things. And until you get into a
real game, you don't know. We spent the offseason hearing
a lot up here in Seattle, not about the Seahawks title,
but about what the Rams are doing. I don't want
to get to that now, but what I want to
do is I'll let maybe you can kind of wax

(18:04):
poetically and in your own way about what you see
in the film about a couple guys that we're expecting
big things from again this season. And I'll just talk.
We just saw hard knocks. It just finished up. I
don't know if you watched it, but all the Seahawks
fans did. One of the overriding themes was Jackson Smith
and Jigba. the route runner that he is. They did
a graphic once. It looked like he was like 18
Jackson Smith and Jigba's running around. But who and what

(18:26):
Jackson Smith and Jigba was and the chemistry he had
with Sam Darnold last season. And that's something that Brian
Fleury inherits. You watched all the Sam Darnold tape. You've
watched all the JSN tape. What is it about those
two guys that was just so magical last year and
maybe separates them from some other combinations? Well, you know,
it's funny.

Speaker 7 (18:44):
I mean, Look, we know Smith and Jig was a
great player. I don't think I'm going to add to that.
I mean, obviously, he's got unbelievable route quickness and separation
quickness and a little more vertical juice than people probably
thought when he came out of Ohio State. But, you know,
I watched a ton of Sam Darnold over the last
couple of weeks, probably 250 dropbacks from a year ago.

(19:06):
And to me, the Seahawks pass game was an outstanding
mix of scheme and talent. Darnold's a really high level thrower.
And I thought the route concepts and combinations really did
an excellent job of presenting clean, defined reads and throws,
even when Darnold needed to work through progressions. And I
thought he did a really good job with that. But obviously,

(19:26):
you know, we talked about this during the season that
two years ago, Smith and Jigba played predominantly in the slot.
Last year, he played close to 80 percent as an
outside receiver. So he really can do anything that you
ask him to do. So there's no issue with Smith
and Jigba. I just think that, and again, this gets
back to you know, Brian Fleury to some extent, but

(19:48):
I just thought, you know, what they did in the
games with their concepts was so, so good. Now the
concepts won't change because, you know, as I said, it's
the same sort of school and philosophy of offense from
Kubiak to Fleury. But I thought the Seahawks pass game
was really well-schemed, well-designed, Darnold is a fun watch. Now, again,

(20:11):
I have a certain view of the quarterback position that
comes from a lot of years of experience and a
lot of being taught by people smarter than I. But
to me, that's what a quarterback looks like. I mean,
he's big. He's 6'4. He's 225. He throws the ball
really well. One thing that constantly stood out to me

(20:31):
watching Darnold, I thought he did an excellent job marrying
his eyes and his feet when he worked through progressions.
You know, so many quarterbacks, when they work through progressions,
they end up throwing a little off balance. They don't
step to their throws. I thought he did a really,
really good job with that.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
I love that. Greg Cosell joining us, weekly visit. Love
having Greg on every week. Seahawk offense largely intact from
a year ago. They'll have Rashid Shaheed, who's a lot
more a part of the offense. He never really kind
of got acclimated to that part of it. We believe
Torrey Horton will be okay at some point. We think
he might even be ready for Wednesday. Who knows what's

(21:09):
going to happen there. It's a familiar matchup. When did
you think.

Speaker 7 (21:13):
You'd ever say that he'd be ready for Wednesday? Did
you ever think you'd be saying that about an NFL game?

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Greg, I mentioned this last week, or maybe earlier this week.
Of all my years covering this team, and lucky enough
to go all across the country covering this team, I
thought I'd seen it all when I covered a game
on tuesday night football in la and so far and
i think it was 2021 tuesday night football right i

(21:41):
thought that was on now we have wednesday night football
so no i never thought we'd have that i never
thought we'd have that.

Speaker 7 (21:47):
And i can i mention one player on the seahawks
offense that i think is such a blue player let.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Me ask you let me let me guess is it
aj barner yes it is.

Speaker 7 (22:00):
I really, the more I watch their offense, like I said,
the great thing about the offseason is I can sit
and watch, you know, 250 dropbacks by Darnold over the
course of a couple of days. I can't do that
during this season when I have to get through as
many games as possible. And A.J. Bonner, to me, is
one of those glue guys. Like, you know, he's not
going to catch 80 balls. He's, you know, probably not

(22:23):
a lot of people around the league know who he is.
They might know him because the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.
So they, you know, they've seen him on TV. But,
you know, I just think he's a really, really important piece.
He lined up as an attached tight end on about 80%
of his snaps. He's really important in the run game.
He's kind of an interesting player in the pass game.

(22:45):
Like I said, he's not going to get 100 targets,
but it's not as if he's a non-factor in the
pass game.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
How about that? We must have been doing this for
a long time if I was able to guess that
out of 11 guys, huh? Are you impressed?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (22:59):
I just think he's a really, really solid, you know, look,
every team, it's kind of a shame what happened to
Jake Bobo, because I remember seeing when Bobo and hard
knocks when Mike, I think it was Mike, was it
Mike McDonald or was it someone else?

Speaker 1 (23:13):
It might've been his own receiver coach.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (23:16):
It was the receivers coach. You're right. And, you know,
and then he was talking to him just about that,
that you're a glue guy and you're so important to
the team. And then unfortunately tears up his knee and
he's done for the season. But every team needs guys
like that. We all talk about the Darnolds, the Smith
and Jigbiz, the stars on defense, and they've got a
lot of them. But every team needs those kinds of players.

(23:39):
They're really important players, and everybody in the locker room,
the coaching staff in the building knows who those players are.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
That's why they paid him, and he was going to
be on this team. He's one of our favorites in
the media. He's one of the best guys to talk to,
and it's a sad thing for him. Just real quick
on New England. For folks just tuning in, normally on
a Friday, we would be previewing a game on a
Sunday and going through the opponent and really kind of
doing that. We're not doing that today. It's more of

(24:06):
a kind of a preview of the Hawks. But same
matchup as the Super Bowl. Are we going to see,
do you think, a similar team that we saw on
defense from the Patriots in the Super Bowl?

Speaker 7 (24:17):
Knowing Mike Rabel, and I have been around him at
Titans training camp when he coached there, you know that
he seethed all offseason because the thing that probably, going
beyond the X's and O's, what stood out to me,
particularly watching the tape, I mean, I was in the stadium, obviously,
but then coming back and watching the tape, what stood
out to me is that the Patriots on both sides

(24:37):
of the ball were physically beaten. I mean, the Seahawks
beat them up physically. And I'm not sure people expected that.
You know, it's one thing to, you know, Smith and
Jibman making plays, and obviously he didn't make a ton
of plays in that game, but the game didn't require it.
You know, it's one thing if those kinds of things
happen where great athletes make great plays, but they were
physically handled on both sides of the ball. And that's

(25:01):
normally not what happens to a Mike Grable team. So
you know that that's something that I guarantee from the
day the schedule came out that has been talked about
in that Patriots building and and again. My guess is
the game won't play out exactly that way. I'm not
a predictor of games, as you know, Ian. I'm not
going to sit here and say, well, who's going to
win and all that. I don't do that because there's

(25:22):
so many variables. But I guess I'd probably be surprised
if it was a physical mauling the way the Super
Bowl was.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
I would agree. This is Greg Cosell joining us. Other
side of the football, by and large, Seattle pretty intact
from last season on the defense. They lose Reek Wolin. Uh,
there's maybe they're a little thin at that cornerback position.
They got Julian Neal, a rookie and, and, uh, Avery Smith,
the kid they picked up from, from the chargers, but, uh,
they lose Kobe Bryant, but they honestly probably you, I

(25:53):
know you like Ty Okada and Julian Love back there.
We think Nick him in work.

Speaker 7 (25:56):
It would happen to Bud Clark though, because I like
his tape a lot. And I'm sure he would have
gotten snaps.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
That defense. They do add Dante Fowler on the, on
the front.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Uh, yep.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I'm not sure what juice he has left in
the tank, but we'll see. But what is it about
the Mike McDonald defense? You watched 32 defenses around the
league and you're watching tape on all 32. What separates
the Mike McDonald defense from the other 31?

Speaker 7 (26:22):
You know, it's a fascinating point because they're a defense
that's not necessarily like a heavy blitz defense. You know,
that that's, that's not the way they play. And I
did look at them this off season as well, because
I was just really curious. I, here's what stood out
to me. I thought on third down, and I think
they were the number one third down defense in the league.

(26:43):
Is that correct? I thought on third down, and that's
such a critical down in this league, as you know.
I mean, they had a lot of things that stood
out as I kept watching play after play. So there's
certain tactics. They lined up what we call loaded fronts
pretty much consistently on third down, meaning they had three

(27:04):
defensive linemen to one side of the offensive center. And
then they stunt. They were a high percentage stunt defense
with their defensive line. And what they did is they
changed their coverage look from pre-snap to post-snap. They were really,
really good at dropping D linemen out into underneath coverage,
which was foundational to many of their coverage to their

(27:27):
pressure concepts. And that can cause problems. for quarterbacks. And
don't forget, in a game of milliseconds, that's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Because if the.

Speaker 7 (27:35):
Quarterback just for a second feels like he's uncertain, that's
a big deal. They were very multiple on third and
long with their pass rush tactics and their changing coverage
looks on the second level and on the back end.
And then, of course, when Witherspoon came back from injury,
I think it was week nine, they played dime on
more than 25% of their snaps. And that became kind

(27:57):
of foundational to the way they played it was the
third highest percentage in the league. But I got to
tell you another player, we talked about AJ Bonner. There's
a player on defense. And I actually had this conversation
with a very good friend of mine, who's a scout
on a team in the league. And he was tasked
this off season with evaluating every starting corner in the league.
You know, that's what teams do. They ask their scouts

(28:19):
to do those kinds of things in the off season. And,
He validated what I thought. And I didn't tell him
what I thought. I asked him, hey, who are the
guys in your study that were not the obvious guys
that really stood out to you? And one of the
first names he said was Josh Jobe. And you know,
beginning two years ago, he and I started talking about
Josh Jobe and how how good he was, and predominantly

(28:41):
he was playing in the nickel then as an outside corner,
and then he clearly beat out Wolin, which is why
Wolin's not there anymore, probably among.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Other reasons as well.

Speaker 7 (28:50):
But Josh Jobe is a really solid NFL corner, and
I'm not sure a lot of people think about him
that way, but he is an important player in the
context of this defense because one of the things they
do a lot of is they play a lot out
of a two-shell, two-high-safety structure. And they take that boundary safety,
because Job's the boundary corner, they take that boundary safety

(29:14):
and they basically what we call poach him or bring
him inside. So they let Job play what is essentially
zero-man coverage with no safety help. And there's no way
Mike McDonald would let him do that if he didn't
think he could handle that responsibility.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
I wonder if that changes on Wednesday, because last night, check,
the Patriots have a new wide receiver that we didn't
see in the Super Bowl, who's pretty good, right? A.J.

Speaker 7 (29:38):
Brown, who's a boundary X, and that'll be interesting to
see what happens in that game, because he'll be their
boundary X.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Will Campbell kind of had his issues against Seattle in
that game, and the Seahawks, I mentioned Fowler, they re-signed
Derek Hall. They made the decision, Hall over Moffay, kind
of like Job over Wolin, probably. They also re-signed a
guy by the name of Leonard Williams. You've heard of him,
pretty good player. So that defensive front, you mentioned it,

(30:08):
both sides of the line, that Super Bowl, the defensive
front for Seattle. Riley Mills, ladies and gentlemen, made his
appearance in the Super Bowl as well from Notre Dame.
You know what?

Speaker 7 (30:19):
In studying a lot of these teams that play too
high shell as a foundation, and Seattle's one of them.
They're not in the Vic Fangio school, which most people
talk about with the too high safety structures. but Seattle
played predominantly out of a too high shell. The argument
could be made that D-tackle has become one of the most,

(30:40):
if not the most important position for these defenses. And
I'll tell you why. Because now you're not, now a
safety is not in the box. So you have one
less gap player in the run game. So now the
D-tackles are absolutely critical. I mean, look at a team
like the Eagles, the money they just spent on Jordan
Davis and Jalen Carter. Look at you mentioned Riley Mills,

(31:01):
who's now the fourth guy. You know, they have a
group of D tackles starting with Williams and Murphy who
are phenomenal. Murphy was had a great year and Williams
is Williams. And, you know, obviously, Jared Reed has been
a really solid NFL player for a lot of years.
And then Riley Mills, a player I really like coming
out of Notre Dame and then unfortunately tore his ACL
late in his last season. But they could have a

(31:23):
four-man rotation at D-tackle. But it all starts there because
now with one less player in the box, those D-tackles
are so, so critical in stopping the run, which obviously
Seattle does well.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well, Greg, it's a good start for us because every
Friday we will be checking in with you. Next Friday
the game will have been played. So what we'll do
is we will recap what you saw a little bit
and look ahead to– But we'll kind of recap. And
I think what I'm actually looking forward to, Greg, next Friday,
is when we do discuss what you saw on Wednesday,

(32:01):
is kind of getting a feel, maybe, I'm assuming in
a regular season game, you'll have a little better feel
for the Brian Flurry offense after one game, too, right?

Speaker 7 (32:07):
But no question. You know, look, we all understand Ian,
that preseason to coaches and players is so, so important. So,
so important. And believe me, I've been to camps throughout
my career, and the importance for these players is just astronomical.
So I am not downplaying it at all. Just for me,
as far as tactics and schematics and those kinds of things,

(32:31):
it doesn't help me as much. But for the players
and the coaches and their evaluation, I mean, it is
absolutely critical, clearly. And it's these guys' lives. So I'm
not downplaying it at all.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
When's the first matchup show?

Speaker 7 (32:46):
Well, I'm going to tell you I'm very excited about
it because now that ESPN and the NFL Network have merged,
I guess would be the right term, we're going to
be on six times on a lot of weeks starting
week one because we're going to have three airings on
ESPN and three airings on the NFL Network. So I
know people these days don't necessarily watch a lot of
shows when they're on. But there's so many more opportunities now.

(33:10):
Now you can obviously DVR it or whatever people do
these days. But the fact that we're going to be
on six times most weeks, I'm really pleased.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Well, listen, if people want to see Greg Cosell's smiling
pretty face with makeup and a tie on, then make
sure you tune in and you'll get some good football
knowledge mixed in as well, right?

Speaker 7 (33:28):
Well, I appreciate that, even though I do have a
face for radio, Ian, but thank you.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Don't we all, Greg. Don't we all. We'll come back
and wrap up now our number one next 93.3 KJR FM.

Speaker 5 (33:44):
Snoqualmie Casino and Hotel on Sports Radio 93.3 KJR FM.
You have to sweep us seriously.

Speaker 8 (34:00):
And then you have to take the two from the
Astros down the road.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
But for now, if you lose.

Speaker 8 (34:03):
One to the Rangers, that's probably the end of it.
Just because you've got to make up ground. So it's
pretty much, you know, go 5-0 against those teams.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
And what does that leave?

Speaker 8 (34:13):
18? You know, go 11-2 against the three awful teams
left on your schedule. One of which they just lost
3-4 to.

Speaker 9 (34:20):
Right.

Speaker 8 (34:22):
That's the math. But if you don't go 5-0 against
the Astros and Rangers, I don't think you can actually
catch either one.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Joe Sheehan yesterday on our show. Anders, refresh my memory.
How did that game go last night? Can they still
sweep those five games?

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Not only did they not go five and oh, they
lost their first one.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Out of all of them. Is that not good? I
can't tell.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
I don't think that's very good, but I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Joe Sheehan yesterday with us. I asked him just point blank,
are they still in it? And that was his answer.
They got a sweep and they didn't. Best they can
do now is win two or three from the Rangers.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Then you only gain one game.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Even if you do that, you gain one game.

Speaker 6 (34:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, and the way they lost, the fashion in which
they lost last night was awful on every level. Ruined
an incredible moment with Laz Montes with the home run,
the furthest one in the StatCast era at T-Mobile Park. Just,
you watched it more than I did. I was involved
in a little fantasy football world.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh, really?

Speaker 1 (35:18):
But you watched a little bit, and I was just
checking the text thread out. Yeah. What kind of issue
is Bryce Miller?

Speaker 2 (35:24):
I mean, he's a big issue, but they don't have
anyone else that can pitch in the rotation right now
because of Emerson Hancock going to the IL. So, I mean,
you could tell that they were in a tough spot
with him a month ago when he was in the rotation.
And then they finally call up Kate Anderson and they
try and... figure some gymnastics there to move him to
the bullpen and then right after that happens Emerson Hancock

(35:47):
gets hurt so he has to go right back in
the rotation and you're seeing why he shouldn't be in
the rotation right now he just he looks like he's
out of gas he can't pitch for more than two
Innings at a time, maybe three at most. But it's
just not good with him right now. And we always forget,
he actually started the year on the IL. And then
when he came off the IL, he was actually the

(36:09):
best pitcher for the Mariners, but only for about a
month or so. And then he just fell off a cliff.
So I don't know what's going on with him. I
just don't think he's a starter moving forward, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I know Logan had a couple blips on the radar screen.
One was early, and one was a few weeks ago.
But Logan Gilbert, I think he could make.
Logan Gilbert's been the only guy that's been consistent all year.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, I mean, if that, though, it's still not to
the same Logan level that we expect. And this is
where I did a little bit on the postcast last night. Yes,
you can look at the offense and you can look
at the lineup. In the last 30 days, the Mariners
had the lowest 30th place in ERA in the last
30 days. Last place.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
And I'm not, listen, the Dan Wilson stuff, everyone's had
their say, and we all kind of are on the
same page with that. Here's what I don't understand. In
a world in which you have no hesitation, this team,
to go out and throw Pareda or Robles on the
mound in games that are not as bad as last night,
but games that are bad, that are worse than last night,

(37:10):
I should say. Why does Rucker not pitch one more inning?

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
You could say that for Criswell, Rucker, even Vargas could
have gone another inning.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Seven guys pitched last night, right? Yep. And then you
have a short turnaround.

Speaker 10 (37:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
When people criticize Dan Wilson, there's a lot of different
reasons you criticize him. Top of the list would be
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, it's stupid.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
The game's over. Like Rucker or Chris, you've got to
wear it, man. Wear it for a couple innings. That's
your job. That's why you're in the big leagues. That's
why you're making a big league salary. Instead, Wilson, one inning,
one inning, one inning, one inning. You just can't do that,
especially with Kate Anderson pitching today because we all know
he's not going to go more than 80 pitches. That's true.
Or if he does, it'll probably end up in a catastrophe.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Right?

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
So where's Taylor? Where's Taylor Twelman? What are we doing?
My God. What are we? I mean, seriously. That's where
the Wilson criticism is really valid. What are we doing?
Nobody knows. What are we doing? Taylor, nobody knows. Nobody,
nobody knows. Nobody knows. I do know this. Greg Bell

(38:17):
was over talking to the Coastal family. First news conference.
He sat back down with his heart. Jimmy's on first.
We'll get to him, talk a little college football, and
then Corbin Smith at 2 o'clock, 93.3 KJR FM.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
Now, from the Star Reynolds Sports Desk, your 93.3 KJR
FM sports headlines.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Headlines are brought to you by Frost Brewed, Coors Light,
cold as the Rockies.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Hey, you're one for two today.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
I'm going to get it one of these days. Well,
I just got it right now, actually. Now that I
think of it. We're live at Jimmy's on first. Let's
get right to it. Seahawks, Patriots tonight, 520. Rematch at
Super Bowl back on February 8th. We all know how
that turned out. Really well for the home team here.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It's getting popping down there, Jimmy's.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
It's getting going, buddy. It's getting going. 520 tonight, more
on that. Coastal family introduced today at a press conference.
Greg Bell is here. We're going to talk to him
about that in a second. He was at that press conference.
We'll talk to the Coastal family as well. So we'll
get to that in a heartbeat. Mariners getting ready to
get things going here in a couple minutes. It's a
big crowd. You know why? There's apparently giving away, like,
the smushy bobbleheads.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
Is that what it is, Greg?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Oh, the Funko Pops, yes.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Funko Pops.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Dumbest thing in the world.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
10.30 in the morning, a line down Royal Brom to
get in for them.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
What is wrong with people? All right. That's going on today.
As you heard Joe Sheehan tell us a minute ago,
they had to sweep these teams. They didn't do that.
We'll see if they can take two or three and
keep the glimmer of hope, the pilot light alive. It
doesn't feel that way. Rams are officially in the air
on their way to Australia. And they're going to land,
and they're going to play a football game.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
I think they're going straight from the airport in Melbourne
to the stadium.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
It's a 5-20 kickoff here, 10 a.m.

Speaker 6 (39:45):
Tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Or 10 a.m. Friday, actually, in Australia is when that
game kicks off. 49ers and the Rams. 49ers are now
missing three starters, two on the defensive line for the
season after another injury yesterday. Can't even blame that on
the substation as that continues. All right, let's get to it.
Hour number two.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
Snoqualmie Casino and Hotel on Sports Radio 93.3, KJR-FM.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Jimmy's on first is where we are today. Ian Furness
with you. We're hanging out and getting ready for a
big day of sports. Mariners, if that's big. Yeah, probably not.
Big day of sports coming up at 520 today with
the Seahawks and the Patriots on national TV as they
kick off the NFL season on a Wednesday night. We're
at Jimmy's on first, and it is getting loud. It

(40:40):
is getting packed. It's kind of been that way all
day with the baseball game going on as well. So
come on down, check things out. Soto's fun. Tons of
people all ready for a game that is.
Four hours and 17 minutes away from kickoff. And as
Greg mentioned, there were people here early in the morning
as well. So a lot going on. Don't forget Fact
or Fiction coming up today, 2.35. Your chance to make

(41:03):
a pick or agree with a pick or disagree with
a pick. 2.35, Fact or Fiction brought to you by
Lucky Eagle Casino and Resorts.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yours or Anders today?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
It's me today, Anders tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
College or pro?

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Pro. Not sure yet.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
He's scouring the game.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
There's a tug-of-war between two games right now for me.
I'll have it figured out soon.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Greg, I took Detroit minus 6.5 at home versus New
Orleans yesterday.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Yeah, they might win that by two touchdowns.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
That's what I was thinking too.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Good pick. All right, Greg Bell is here, News Tribune,
10 to 12 here on KJR as well. I admittedly
did not hear the news conference. I was wrapped up
with some show things that I had to do. But
you were over there for the Coastal Introduction. Paint the picture,
walk us through it.

Speaker 6 (41:45):
Well, it was in a sweet luxury seating lounge on
the fifth level, just below the press box of Blumenfield,
overlooking the field with the blue end zones and the
sun shining on the field. And although it's not grass anymore, Anders,
from the World Cup, it still looked like a beautiful setting.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
And they noted that. They noted what a beautiful.

Speaker 6 (42:03):
Venue it was, an iconic venue. They reiterated how fortunate
they are. to be buying a Super Bowl champion. This
was largely unprecedented for a Super Bowl champion to become
available for sale months after they won it all. Usually
you're buying a troubled franchise, a franchise dumped for profit.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Not in this case.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
So this is.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Unique in that regard, and a nod to that.

Speaker 6 (42:25):
The biggest takeaway, guys, from it, and listeners to know,
they're not coming in, and as Neil Kozler, the son, said,
we're not coming in here shaking our fists. they're going
to defer and they're going to be stewards of the franchise.
They're trying to make that clear that the football ops
are in his best place. It could possibly be a
Superbowl champion with a 17 year GM and an up

(42:48):
and coming young head coach still in his thirties is
regarded as one of the best at what he does
in the world.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
And they're not going to touch that.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
So that should be good news to all of us
that are watching the football side from the business side,
from other sides, they're going to incorporate artificial intelligence. They
aren't exactly sure yet from a football perspective that, I
can tell you the coaches want it. GM John Schneider
wants it in his scouting department. They want to chase
all the edges they can. Neil Kozlov mentioned that as well,

(43:15):
that John Schneider and Mike McDonald always chase edges, and
they're going to be there to help them chase those
edges if they want AI, but they're not going to
shove it down the football op's throat. I think you
will see it, though, in the fan experience in the stadium,
whether that's video boards or how you buy food from
your seat or the concession lines or the entrance and
egress of the stadium. I think AI is going to

(43:38):
have an influence on a lot of the fan experience
that's still to be determined.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
And then the stadium itself.

Speaker 6 (43:45):
One of the first questions they got asked in the
formal part of the press conference was about Lumen Field.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
It was one of my questions I would have asked.

Speaker 6 (43:53):
And again, Vinod Khosla, the front man, the 71-year-old patriarch, said,
we view this as an iconic venue. Sure, there may
be some improvements down the road that we might want
to learn about to add to, but for now... They
portrayed this as a turnkey operation, and they're going to
keep it the way it's been.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I didn't think about the fan experience in terms of concessions.
And maybe people can text us at 49451. I think
the last time I went to Lumen as a fan
of something and not in a media capacity was the
Kenny Chesney-Zach Brown Band concert a year or two years ago.
I think it was now. And I do remember long lines.

(44:33):
It was really bad. I want to get a beer.
I want to get whatever. Whereas, you know, the one thing,
and maybe that's changed, and if it has 49451, I
don't want to be unfair. But T-Mobile Park, you can
learn some things. Anders, you sit in my seats all
the time.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
The grab-and-go stuff and the AI and all that, Climate
Pledge was ahead of the game of everybody when they
built it. Now, obviously, it's brand new. And then T-Mobile
is the same way. Like, there are no lines.

Speaker 6 (44:58):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
By and large. Like, walk in, walk out, thanks for coming.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
It's almost like they care a lot about people spending
money for them.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
They do. But I think that's a big thing, Greg,
because in the NFL, you really have one opportunity. Yep.
And it's 12 minutes long. Yep. And that's halftime. So
if they can do something like that, I think that
would be welcomed by fans.

Speaker 6 (45:17):
You also in Lumen Field have 25-year-old concourses.

Speaker 8 (45:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (45:22):
In a football stadium that's constantly packed, unlike T-Mobile Park
where it's 30,000, 35,000 most nights, 20,000 some nights, it
is constantly full capacity of 68,000 in Lumen Field in
25-year-old concourses. I think that's one way they could, how
you would redesign the infrastructure of Lumen Field with the
footprint they currently have, I'm not sure. Do they raise

(45:43):
it like Penn State and other stadiums do and put
luxury seating at the end of the first deck? I
think they're going to close the north end and northwest
corners of the stadium. That's an obvious place, the open
end of downtown side next to Hawks Nest, to increase capacity.
The other thing that was interesting that wasn't on the
press conference part, I spent about 20, 25 minutes talking
off the record, more conversationally, with both Vinod Khosla and Neil,

(46:07):
his son. And it struck me that Vinod Khosla made
a point to me that Neil's going to be the
details guy.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
The every day, he's 33 years old only.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (46:17):
Neil Kozler, or Vinod Kozler and his wife, Niru, are 71.
But the day-to-day operations that I think John Schneider and
Mike McDonald are going to deal with, like they did
Jody Allen and Paul Allen, is going to be Neil Kozler.

Speaker 4 (46:28):
He's the details guy, is what Vinod told me.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
And then he went on to brag about his son,
saying that his son developed the first mathematical model for
draft pick values, rounds one through seven, when he was
an intern with the 49ers. There are Jimmy Johnson charts
and variations of the Jimmy Johnson charts that have been
around for decades in the NFL that most people have
heard about. But his dad claimed, and Neil confirmed to
me that this is true, that Neil Kozler, when he

(46:52):
was an intern with the 49ers for a brief time,
developed a mathematical model that was more based less on
hunches of a football guy like Jimmy Johnson's model and
more on empirical numbers and relative values of draft picks.
The 49ers apparently still use Neil Kozler's model. So I
asked him, well, what is it? What numbers are you?
And he was starting to answer to me, and he
looked at me and said, oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
We may use this.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
We meaning now the current Seahawks.

Speaker 6 (47:19):
For those of you that are worried about them being
49er fans, they went to 49ers games when Neil was
a son, a young boy, and his father took him
to games. And Vinod Kozloning, 3% of the 49ers that
he has to divest from by NFL rule when he's
taken over the Seahawks. He said, we're Seahawks now. He said,
we were fans. We were invested money. We invested our

(47:41):
money in the 49ers at the time, but we were fans.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
But we live there. We are Seahawks now. They may
not move here.

Speaker 6 (47:50):
The only one I'm told may think of moving here
is Neil Koza because of the day-to-day operations side. But
Vinod and Nero said they are going to remain living
in the same home in the Bay Area, Palo Alto,
that they've lived since 1986.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
One man's opinion of mine, I agree. I don't think
there could be anything more overblown and less to worry
about than people's paranoia about the Steelers' comment or the 49ers' ownership.
They just spent $ 9. 5 billion to own an NFL team.

(48:21):
To think that this isn't the team they care about most,
that they are now fans of... I think a lot
of our listeners are probably transplants at some point and
have been different places. You and I have lived different places,
so we understand better than maybe some of our hosts
that have never left Seattle, for example. You can change allegiance.
Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it takes a job. But

(48:45):
in the case of someone buying a team, that just
to me is such a thing that I can't even
fathom worrying about. Again, they spent almost $ 10 billion on
a franchise.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
And most.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
Professional sports franchises around the world are not owned by
locally homegrown people.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
People that grew up, I grew up a fan and
I bought the team later. No, that doesn't happen.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
It's not a lemonade stand. No. It's very unusual for
that to happen.

Speaker 6 (49:08):
We've been fortunate in this market that the Seahawks have
been owned by the same family since 1997.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Paul Allen grew up a Sonics fan.

Speaker 6 (49:14):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
But I'm going to tell you from working down there,
he cared about the Blazers.

Speaker 5 (49:19):
A lot.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
A lot. Too much for some people is good. And
I've worked for teams, both in hockey and have switched
the lines at snap of the finger. Didn't Didn't matter
at all. Hell, I know this, working for the Kraken,
my affinity towards that team became instant as soon as
I saw a paycheck. I didn't buy the team, but
it just, I don't think that's a concern. My only

(49:43):
wonder is, how much do they mess with the front office?
And not the front office football.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
No, the business side.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
The business side.

Speaker 4 (49:50):
President Chuck Arnold, who was there at the press conference.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (49:53):
They also nod to the current operations, and they said
they like what they see, and there's no reason to
change it. They are in learning mode and stepping back
to learning mode. They're going to be here quite often,
but they said that they're going to rely on the
people that have already been doing it for all these years.
They also may mention the fact, and I think we
brought this up the other day, of how many long-term

(50:14):
Seahawks employees there are in that building. And Neil and
Vinod Khosla both said, we're going to defer to the
people who have been here a long time working for
the Seahawks.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
I have a friend. We were involved in youth sports
for a long time. He's a senior ticket executive, but
he sells tickets. That's his job. He's been there for
30 years. And that's typical of who they have working
in their front office. And a job that you're grinding,
now it's the NFL. You're going to say, well, there

(50:46):
have been times over his tenure that it's been a grind.
Still there. I'm really curious about the stadium because you
and I have been all across the NFL. I think
this is one of the more unique stadiums in the
NFL because it's a little bit of a throwback. It's
old school. They've done, you mentioned the concourses are old.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
The club levels and some of those places, they've renovated tremendously.
They look great. I don't get what they did where
we walked by to go to the press box. The
nightclub they made down there, I don't get that at all.
I think that's the weirdest.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
They're trying to copy Dallas and Jerry Jones. But Dallas,
you can see the field.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
I know.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
You can't see the field. Outside of that, the stadium,
I think it would be cool to see the loudest
stadium in the NFL fill in the two gaps where
noise can escape.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
That would be wild.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
I think it's going to happen. That will get the
capacity above 70,000.

Speaker 6 (51:35):
That's a threshold to host the Super Bowl if they
have designs on doing that someday.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Okay, stop right there. Stop right there. Before I go,
that's an interesting point. The current ownership front office has
never wanted to do that. Right. I wonder if these
guys changed their mind. I don't know. It seems like
cold weather would be hard. You got a story coming
up in the News Tribune?

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Writing it right now.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
The lead quote is, we're not coming in here shaking
our fists.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
And that's what's going to be on the News Tribune,
that football ops should stay as status quo.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
And why wouldn't it? They're Super Bowl champs.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Get her done. That's Greg Bell. You'll hear him 10
to noon every day. Also in the News Tribune covering
the game tonight. Follow along as well. We'll come back.
Talk a little college football. Stu Mandel next.

Speaker 5 (52:15):
It's time to go inside college football with Ian's weekly
visit with the athletic Stuart Mandell. Brought to you by
Absolute Auto Body. From scratches and dings to major repairs,
trust the folks at Absolute Auto Body for quality work
at fair prices. Visit them in Linwood or Everett or
online at absoluteautobody.com. Absolute Auto Body, when only the absolute

(52:37):
best will do. Now with Stuart Mandell, here's Ian.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
All right, here we go. Stuart Mandel joining us. We're
at Jimmy's on first. Yes, it's opening day for the Seahawks.
The Mariners are playing across the street, and that doesn't
really matter anymore after what happened last night and over
the last few weeks. We've got to talk some college
football because it's all going down. Seahawks, we'll get back
to them coming up at 2 o'clock with our good
friend Corbin Smith. But in the meantime, Stuart Mandel joining

(53:04):
us from The Athletic and The Audible podcast. Hi, Stu.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
How are you?

Speaker 7 (53:07):
Good, Ian.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Nothing to talk about in college football this week. Nothing
whatsoever to talk about in college football. What a week.
What a week. I'm going to get your thoughts on
Washington and the Apple Cup in a second, the standalone
game on Sunday. We had a heck of a game
as well later on Sunday. One of the two turned
out pretty good. We had a power outage on Monday,
but all eyes were still on. Ann Arbor, Michigan, and

(53:32):
the dust is kind of settled. I don't know if
it ever will settle, but how would you just summarize
all things clock gate with the Michigan Wolverines in Western Michigan?

Speaker 11 (53:44):
It was kind of like every aspect of dysfunction in
college football all converged at once that night. You know,
the fact that it took, the game was on Saturday
and it took me until Tuesday night probably to fully
understand what happened.

Speaker 10 (54:00):
Tells you something.

Speaker 11 (54:02):
In the meantime, the public now has this idea in
their heads that there's a secret clock that the conferences keep, right?

Speaker 10 (54:09):
And that's not necessarily the case.

Speaker 11 (54:11):
But, I mean, at the end of the day, when
the NCAA put out that memo on Tuesday, that's really
a clarification going forward, but it kind of tells you, oh, yeah,
the Big Ten did not handle this right, which is,
you know, yes, the replay officials have access to their
own feed, Right. But if it's a situation like this

(54:33):
where it's weather to put a second back on the clock,
they have to use a feed that has the TV
clock because of exactly what happened.

Speaker 5 (54:43):
Right.

Speaker 11 (54:44):
Everybody who's watching at home can see the time ran
out and the Big Ten comes and says, well, but
ours said one second.

Speaker 6 (54:51):
Right.

Speaker 10 (54:51):
Because of the lag or whatever that may be.

Speaker 11 (54:54):
And so the protocol is in that situation, you have
to use the TV version. And from what I'm told,
like in other conferences, this is just like a known thing.
Like everybody's always known this, but nobody ever thought to
put it in writing. And so when I say dysfunction,
like the fact that the head of officiating for the
NCAA has to put out a memo saying, okay.

Speaker 10 (55:15):
Now we're putting this in writing.

Speaker 11 (55:17):
This thing that really would have come in handy the
other night in Ann Arbor just tells you how, I mean,
at the end of the day, the fact that each
conference has their own officiant operation is so.

Speaker 10 (55:29):
Not up to the level of what it should be.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
We're going to get to bigger picture stuff in a
second because a couple of things jump out. I saw
you wrote something like, you know, you're 15 minutes in TV.
I hope you understand a little bit. I've spent most
of my life since college, out of college, in some
form of TV as well as radio and have a
decent handle. I mentioned this yesterday to Anders and our audience. Listen,

(55:54):
I'm sure this didn't happen, but I'm questioning it anyway,
and I'm going to say it publicly again. Stu, in
the world of television, our editor for the Kraken, for example,
Stu Vichu, unbelievable. If I gave him three minutes on
his computer and his post-production stuff, he could make anything
look how he wanted it to. In other words, I

(56:18):
don't give the Big Ten any credit. It might be
all legit, but I don't give them any credit for
coming out two hours later and showing us a video
and saying this. Everything about it was garbage, and I
just got to ask myself, If this was Michigan playing Indiana,
would they have really gone back and put a half
a tenth of a second back on?

Speaker 10 (56:37):
It's a valid question.

Speaker 11 (56:38):
I mean, there's nothing you can say here that's going
to debunk any conspiracy theories. You know, the interesting thing
is initially I did give the Big Ten a lot
of credit for putting that out there because I'd never
seen it. I'd never seen a conference say, here's exactly
what we were seeing and here's the audio of the conversation.
But it turns out that in doing so, is what
let everybody else in college officiating know they did it wrong.

(56:59):
Because you can see they have that angle from behind
the end zone on the left side and the clock
on the right side. And they're kind of matching them up.
And the protocol is, no, no, no. You have to
use something that has a scoreboard, the clock in it.
You can't match them up like that. So I don't
know if nobody told the Big Ten or the Big

(57:20):
Ten didn't care. We do it our way. Clearly nobody
ever thought through what, would happen in a scenario like this.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Stuart Mandel joining us from the athletic. Okay. Here's the
perverse part of me. And this is bad. I'm going to,
I'm a bad person for saying this too. The only
silver lining I found in all that was, Hey man,
it's college football. Something crazy happened. And we're talking about it.
It was on the field. It had nothing to do
with a courtroom, a lawsuit, an appeals court, an appellate judge,

(57:51):
LSU cheating or bringing in NFL players, uh, So there
is part of me that says, Hey, we're back to
college football, Stu.

Speaker 11 (57:56):
Well, I mean, yeah, it's a little unfortunate that the
biggest storyline off week one involved a controversy, like, uh,
you know, the mechanics of replay.

Speaker 10 (58:06):
Um, but it was fun to watch games.

Speaker 11 (58:07):
In fact, probably the two most, you know, three most
fun games.

Speaker 10 (58:11):
One was Boise, Oregon, obviously. And then the other two
were on Sunday.

Speaker 11 (58:15):
Night and Monday night and Louisville Ole Miss was, was, um,
you know, great down to the wire game where we
saw a lot of big plays, obviously trying to add
Chambliss doing his thing.

Speaker 10 (58:26):
SMU Florida state was hilarious.

Speaker 11 (58:27):
I mean, it, it was every, the, the weather, I
mean the, the power outage and the delay, but then
like the fact that that was even a game at
the end when SMU was so clearly the better team
and just actually dominated the box score. And then the
whole subplot of, The Florida State fans are like, on
one second, they're doing the tomahawk chop, and the next second,

(58:47):
they're booing. They couldn't figure out, do I want them
to win or do I want them to lose so
we can get rid of Norvell?

Speaker 1 (58:55):
It was insane. Stuart Mandel brought to you by Absolute
Auto Body from scratches and dings to major repairs. Trust
the folks at Absolute Auto Body for quality work at
fair prices. Visit us in Linwood or Everett online, absoluteautobody.com.
Absolute Auto Body, when only the absolute best will do.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Big thing.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
And big welcome to Troy and the group from Absolute
Auto Body, bringing us Stuart Mandel, some college football talk
every weekend. All right, let's go through some of the
stuff that happened. We'll look ahead to the weekend as well. Stu,
let me start. I'm going to actually stay with Michigan.
I had not given any thought to this, but Here
in Seattle, we have a $ 4. 5 million a year quarterback
in DeMond Williams. We'll get to him in a second.

(59:30):
And the Apple Cup, because there's some people that are
questioning all that. There's a lot of people questioning Bryce
Underwood and Michigan. And the bigger picture is, you were
asked this in your mailbag, and I was fascinated. I
was thinking about this. I hadn't thought in these terms.
All the big money being thrown around in college football,
are there starting to be some red flags when you

(59:51):
start throwing that at an 18-year-old kid that's never taken
a snap in college football?

Speaker 12 (59:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (59:56):
And I think as time has gone on, you know,
the Bryce Underwood deal was one of the last ones
before revenue sharing. And so it was one of the
last kind of crazy moments of literally Larry Ellison of
all people and his wife bankrolled that deal. Now, I
don't know what that looks like now, now that they
have rev share, he's probably making some money from that.

(01:00:19):
So it's getting more sophisticated, but at the end of
the day, the players have all the leverage.

Speaker 10 (01:00:26):
No, let me rephrase that. The players' agents have all
the leverage.

Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
Yes.

Speaker 11 (01:00:29):
Because these deals are not public. In the NFL, everybody
knows everybody makes. So it's kind of hard to pull
a fast one on an NFL team. But these agents,
they'll just go and say, this is what the guy, well,
Alabama's offering this, so you need to pay him this.
And you just kind of have to take their word
for it. But what I was told is, quarterbacks are

(01:00:50):
one thing. I think big time high school quarterbacks have
always been paid a lot, but in general, the prices
for the high school players in this coming class have
gone up quite a bit. I think there's just more
and more money in the system. And for whatever reason,
now the high school players are standing up and saying,
we want some of that too, not just the portal guys.

Speaker 10 (01:01:09):
So the costs are just going to keep going up
and up and up.

Speaker 11 (01:01:11):
But you know, the Bryce Underwood thing, you know, you
kind of wonder if this were five years ago and they,
nobody was being paid.

Speaker 10 (01:01:19):
Would they have tried somebody else by now?

Speaker 5 (01:01:21):
Right.

Speaker 11 (01:01:22):
They probably have to feel like, well, given who, who
stepped up with the money and how much money is involved,
like we got to keep playing this guy, even if
it's starting to become obvious that it's just not going
to work.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
And that's how I think that's the big problem with
the whole process, right? Is that especially the quarterback position,
it's not just a Michigan thing. It's all across college
football is if you have a quarterback and you're spending
a lot of money on said quarterback, it's not like
the NFL where it's a salary cap and you can, Hey,
you know what? We can move on. We, we're going
to trade Kyler Murray or bench him or do something
like that. No, you've invested in probably one player at

(01:01:54):
that particular position. There's got to be pressure on coaches
just to stick with those guys through thick and thin.

Speaker 10 (01:02:00):
Yeah, I think so. Now, we don't know what they're
all making.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:02:06):
Right.

Speaker 10 (01:02:06):
Breitzunder was an example of one that came out.

Speaker 11 (01:02:08):
DeMond Williams was an example of one that came out
because of that legal situation involved in it.

Speaker 10 (01:02:12):
So we don't know what everybody's making. But we have
a good idea. And so.

Speaker 11 (01:02:18):
That's why, again, I think if it's an established portal
guy like a Sam Levitt, Darian.

Speaker 10 (01:02:24):
Mensah, you pretty much know what you're getting. You do
not know what you're getting.

Speaker 11 (01:02:28):
The bust rate on those five-star quarterbacks is very high.
If you look back at the class from three years ago,
Arch Manning's in that class, Dante Moore's in that class,
but so is a guy named Malachi Nelson who started
at USC and couldn't win the job at Boise State.
He went to UTEP, and I think I frankly lost
track of him, right? So for every huge success story

(01:02:51):
among those five-star quarterbacks, there's somebody like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
I've thought about him a lot because back then we
were still talking about the Pac-10 all the time and
Pac-12 all the time. And when Malachi Nelson, when he
couldn't beat out Maddox Mattson, I'll do respect to Maddox Madsen.
He's a good college quarterback, but he's, that's what he is.
Like there's a problem. I, we go back six years, Stu,

(01:03:15):
Sam Heward was a, the top quarterback in the nation
from Kennedy Catholic here in our area. We've looked at
my son played against him. So he, for some reason,
he's kind of buddies with him still. They played high
school hoops and a you together a little bit. He's like,
do you know, Sam still at USC? I'm like, there's
no way he's still at USC. He goes, yeah, he's
at USC. He's on the USC roster six years in
five school, four schools, six years in it's, The bust

(01:03:36):
rate's really high at that position, so we'll see what
people do. All right, Stu, let me get to the
Apple Cup. We'll get to DeMond in a minute and
UW overall. Just your thoughts from outside looking in. It
was a standalone game, so I know you got a
chance to take a peek at it. It's a Sunday afternoon,
75 degrees in September, and it's a non-conference game, first
game of the year for both teams. What did you

(01:03:58):
just think of the overall feel of the game, at
least what you could feel on TV?

Speaker 10 (01:04:01):
It felt weird.

Speaker 11 (01:04:02):
I don't know what it felt like there, but it just,
it didn't feel like the apple cup, um, as we
known it. And I was trying to kind of pinpoint why.
And I just think like when these two were in
the same conference on the same level, um, like nothing
would really surprise.

Speaker 10 (01:04:17):
You one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Right.

Speaker 12 (01:04:18):
Right.

Speaker 10 (01:04:18):
There were a lot of upsets in that rivalry.

Speaker 11 (01:04:21):
It's kind of one of those throw out the records,
but now it's basically big 10 team versus G six team.
And so when Washington comes out and isn't blowing them
off the field, Like, well, what's wrong with Washington? And
it's like more of a, you know, kind of early
season tune-up game than it is intense rivalry game.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
I felt, yeah, and that's the thing that jumped out
at me. It just, the fans, at least the, by
all accounts, the fans weren't as into it as they
used to be for all the reasons you just said.
Wazoo kind of, you know, and I'm a Wazoo guy.
I mean, we're all kind of feeling a little left out,
and so it's hard to get fired up. And, you know,
usually that game would be one where it could ruin
a season, make a season. ruinable, whatever it could be,

(01:05:03):
and that's not the case anymore. You said something interesting there,
because there's been a lot of talk in this town, obviously.
Washington's here, and Jed had his press conference. The offensive
line coach snapped yesterday in his press conference, said how
bad his team was. It's interesting that Washington was bad
and not Wazoo's defense was good. Trent Bray's a good
D coordinator. I liked our defense in that game. I

(01:05:24):
liked Boise State against Oregon as well. It's one game,
but What'd you think of some of the G6 performances
across the country? Cause you had those two that were good,
not the result. Then you had Utah state losing to
an FCS school.

Speaker 11 (01:05:38):
I mean, I have such respect for Boise state and
they were my G6 team coming in that I didn't
come away from it thinking like, Oh, Oregon's overrated, you know, like, yeah,
there were some concerns there, but they, the same exact
thing happened two years ago when Oregon turned around and
went 13 to no, um, you know, had not considered
Western Michigan as being in the G six playoff mix,
but maybe they are depending on what ends up happening

(01:06:00):
with Michigan. I mean, I think both Oregon state and
Washington state and perhaps even more so Oregon state looked
better than expected.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:06:06):
You know, Oregon state has picked dead last in this,
in this new pack 12 and they were competitive against
the Houston team that won double.

Speaker 10 (01:06:14):
Digit games last year.

Speaker 11 (01:06:16):
So it's hard to say with Washington state, like how
much of it was them and how much of it
was dysfunction on the part of Watkins and the offense
that Um, I just know that I definitely come, I
didn't necessarily come away with concerns about Oregon, but I
do definitely with Washington. I mean, the offensive line coach
is right. They did not play well. Um, their top

(01:06:36):
two tailbacks are hurt already. Um, and then DeMond Williams,
4.5 million or not just continues to be this guy
who is like so talented and has these big moments
like he did on the drive towards the end of
the game, but it's still clearly not a finished product.

Speaker 10 (01:06:51):
And that makes you nervous at times.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
Third and nine, and he makes a move in the
open field and jukes a couple guys, and only a
handful of guys in the country can probably do that.
That clinches the game. I'm not so sure our offense
would have gone down the field even with three timeouts
because Pinnock was struggling, but that was a game clincher. But, yeah,
there was a lot of misses on DeMond's part. Undisciplined
play by Washington as well. They should have an easy

(01:07:14):
time against Utah State this week. Stuart Mandell joining us.
Let's look ahead a little bit. Actually, let me ask
you this because I didn't watch him play. I know
they had a huge blowout win. What's Kansas State all about?
We know about the quarterback, kind of maybe similar to
what we just saw a little longer than DeMond, but
what's K-State all about? Because that's where Wazoo is this week.

Speaker 11 (01:07:31):
I think there's still a little bit of mystery there
because new coach, and they didn't play to nobody this week.
But yeah, Avery Johnson, the story of Avery Johnson is highest,
I think highest ranked QB Kansas State had ever signed,
or maybe first, no, first, highest since Josh Freeman all
those years ago. And has been, and now is a
third year starter. has been okay, but he's never quite

(01:07:53):
been the savior that they thought he would be. But
the curiosity now is, okay, Colin Klein comes back. He
was Avery Johnson's OC originally. Is he going to get
something out of him that the previous coaching staff didn't?
So we'll get a sign of that this week.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Stu, we've got a couple big games, and I'm going
to say one's in the G6. I'll get to that
in a second. Obviously, Ohio State and Texas. What are
we thinking in that game? What are you looking for
in that game? What would you tell fans to kind
of keep an eye on? I mean, obviously, March Manning's
all about it. You know, the best wide receiver, maybe
the highest trophy candidate leader on the other side in Smith.
But what are you looking at in that game?

Speaker 11 (01:08:31):
I'm very curious to see Ohio State's defense in this
game last year was first game of the season. They
came out and dominated and it kind of set the
tone the whole rest of the way. But that defense
has now lost some astounding number of draft picks over
the last two years. And so you just keep wondering, like,
can they just keep really plugging in and keep going?

(01:08:52):
That Texas offense is a lot more dynamic this year.
They got Hollywood's mothers and really Brown in the backfield
who both are thousand yard rushers. They added camp Coleman
at receiver. Ryan Wingo is still there. Like Texas goes
into this game much more with many more weapons on
offense than they did going into the first game last year.

(01:09:12):
So that'll be a big test for Ohio state.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
The yeah, there's, there's absolutely no doubt about that. I, I,
This is not an elimination game at all, either, is it?
I mean, I guess I'm asking, what's the ramifications? It's
still a 12-team playoff. If it was 24, it would
be really like, okay, cool, fun game, but really nothing
at stake. 12-team playoff, it's still really not an elimination game,
is it?

Speaker 10 (01:09:34):
Not an elimination game, no.

Speaker 11 (01:09:36):
More of a curiosity and maybe seeding down the road.
But I think the difference between this and what we
might be heading toward is, like, Texas missed the playoff
last year in large part because they lost to Ohio State, right?

Speaker 5 (01:09:48):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11 (01:09:49):
Everybody gets a mulligan. Not everybody's guaranteed two and certainly
not three. And when, you know, when I think of 2014,
this game taking place with a 2014 playoff, first of all,
Ohio State might as well just be penciled into the
bracket before the season even starts. They never go eight
and four. They never even frankly go nine and three.
Like you would go into the season knowing these two

(01:10:10):
teams are definitely going to be in the playoff. And,
you know, the Tony Petitti view of it as a
TV guy is, we'll all still watch because it's Texas,
Ohio state. And the more like concerned viewpoint for me
is a diehard college football fans are always going to watch,
but like in terms of the bigger, the people coming
into the funnel who would be like, Oh, I got

(01:10:32):
to watch this game. Are they still going to say
that knowing that it really has no stakes?

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
All right. So the other one I mentioned G six game, Memphis,
Boise state, Memphis D-line is scary good. Boise State, you
just said you like them a lot to get maybe
to the college football playoff, and they were really good
against Oregon. This is an elimination game, isn't it?

Speaker 6 (01:10:52):
You know what's.

Speaker 10 (01:10:52):
Crazy that it worked out this way?

Speaker 11 (01:10:54):
They are playing Memphis, and then in a couple weeks,
Boise is going to Western Michigan, at Western Michigan. We're
going to have like this G6 derby right here in September. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know about elimination, but definitely– Missed opportunity.
Like each of these teams has an opportunity to get
that resume win that will come in handy if they

(01:11:15):
end up being in the mix down the road. And
if you can't pull that off, you know, it makes
it a lot harder. And I don't even know if
people realize this, but starting this year, this is the
new contract of the CFP. It's no longer highest ranked
G6 champion. It's highest ranked G6 team, period. So let's

(01:11:36):
say Boise Panthers. ends up losing in the Mountain West
Championship game. But they beat Memphis early in the season,
and those two are being compared to each other. Boise's
going to finish ahead of them, probably. So, yeah, I
would say it's funny to think that, like, these G6
games might have higher stakes in September than the Texas
Ohio State game.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
I thought that last week when we had UNLV in Memphis,
that that was, like, You know, UNLV is going to
have a real tough time at this point. I know
Dan Mullins had some high expectations there, and that was
a huge win by Memphis. So fun weekend coming up. Stu,
tell people about the Audible podcast, which is sensational if
you're a college football fan.

Speaker 11 (01:12:12):
The Audible is live on Sunday mornings at 1130 a.m.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Eastern.

Speaker 11 (01:12:16):
Wait, why am I saying Eastern for you guys? The
Audible is live on Sunday mornings at 830 a.m. Pacific
on YouTube at Audible Show, and it's also available.

Speaker 10 (01:12:25):
Audio as well.

Speaker 11 (01:12:26):
And then we have our audio. We're always on YouTube,
but we have our regular episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
And it's great stuff. If you're a college football fan,
make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts on
the Audible. Bruce Feldman, Ralph Russo, and our guy Stuart
Mandel on there. Also check out Stuart's work at The Athletic.
He recaps the games. Last week we had two takeaway columns.
We had a Saturday one and a Sunday one, which
was kind of nice when it was all said and done.
But you'll check that out. Plus, the mailbag comes out
on Wednesdays. Great stuff from Stuart Mandel. We've made it

(01:12:54):
through here at Jimmy's on First, Stu, with the Seahawks
getting ready to go across the street, Mariners across the
street as well. So we'll turn you loose. It'll be
nice and quiet next week, a little more calm and
cool and collected. We'll talk to you then. Thank you,
my friend.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
All right.

Speaker 7 (01:13:05):
Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
That is Stuart Mandel. We're at Jimmy's on First. Corbin
Smith coming up 2 o'clock, talking Seahawks 93.3, KJRFM.

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
Snoqualmie Casino and Hotel on Sports Radio 93.3, KJR-FM.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
Great stuff there from Stuart Mandell. We'll check in with
him every week. Big thanks to Stu for stopping by today.
Got a Seahawk roster moves. You ready?

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
We have roster moves ahead of tonight's game. Which is
exactly what they always say. John Boyle, ahead of tonight's game.
I would say, and Corbin's going to join me here
in a few minutes, this is a little bit of
a surprise to me. A.J. Finley was signed off the
practice squad to the 53-man roster. Safety Rodney Thomas and

(01:14:05):
running back Valus Jones were elevated from the practice squad.
Bryce Cabledew, a guard, was waived off the 53-man.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Hey, Bryce, great camp. Opening day. See ya. God, it's
a brutal business. It is. It is such a brutal business.
Because he would have... So, Thomas and Bayless Jones were elevated. A.J.
Finley getting signed off the practice squad. And there's always
reasons for that in terms of what... It's kind of
like baseball where you have X number of... Options. Options

(01:14:35):
and all that, right? Yep. You never know with guys
where they're at. Veterans, vested veterans, all that stuff. And,
you know, I'll let the football nerds take care of
that stuff. Corbin can explain it to me.

Speaker 6 (01:14:46):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
When Finley signed off the practice squad as opposed to
being elevated like Thomas and Bayless Jones were, they had
to get rid of somebody off the 53 man, and
that ended up being Bryce Cable. Here's a surprise to me,
is that it's not DeAnthony Bell.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
I was going to say, it's Roddy Thomas, not DeAnthony Bell.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
So Roddy Thomas is more of a deep safety, so
is A.J. Finley. Whereas DeAnthony Bell can play both, but
was the backup to Eamon Worre... in training camp in
that kind of that box safety Sam linebacker spot that
Hughes talked about where it's really not even a safety
in terms of the position.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
It's really another linebacker, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Yeah, and so then people would say, well, is Eamon
Warrick going to play? I don't think so. My guess is,
and we'll talk about this with Corbin in a minute,
my guess would be that Tyrese Knight may fill that
role of Eamon Warrick.

Speaker 5 (01:15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
A little bit. I'm guessing that's what they're going to do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
In a different capacity. Won't be the same.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
He's not the same guy, obviously. But they think he's
taken big strides forward. And he got beat out by
Drake Thomas last year. But Tyrese Knight. I'm going to
think we're going to see him on the field quite
a bit today.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Yeah, he had a really good preseason, and then he
didn't even play in the last preseason game after supposedly
battling for a roster spot. So that tells me they
feel pretty good about where he's at.

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
And I should also mention real quick, Trayvon Diggs did
not get elevated either.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
He did not?

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:16:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
So light at the secondary positions.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
I've got the depth chart here. Hang on to the
two deep, as they call it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
The two deep.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Oh, you know what? I had the flip card, and
I don't have it in front of me anymore, but
I'll have to look and see. Yeah, man, I don't know.
I think it's some interesting moves, to be honest with you,
being made. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
Here we go, depth chart. Yeah, I got it right here, too. Witherspoon, Joe, Pritchett, Neal,
and then Avery Smith is the fifth one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Yeah, so those are your five, and then your safeties
are Okada, Love, now Finley, and Thomas.

Speaker 5 (01:16:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Would be your safeties. And Eamon Worry's obviously not going
to play when it's all said and done.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Yeah, he's still on the depth chart right now.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
Yeah. Julian Neal we never saw either, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
He was hurt the whole time during training camp.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
All right, we'll get to all that stuff. Corbin Smith's
going to join us in a second. We're at Jimmy's
on first. He'll be here in just a heartbeat, so
stand by for that. We'll check in with Corbin. Then
we'll get you ready to go over a little factor fiction.
I had a Dave Softy Mauler.

Speaker 6 (01:17:19):
Who?

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
He's a legend. He was in here moments ago leading
the Bronx cheers when the Mariners tied a game. Was
that an actual cheer? It was not a cheer. There
was a lot of sarcasm. It was the most sarcastic cheer.
The most sarcastic cheer for the Mariners. We call that
a jeer, Ian. We call that a jeer. It was
a jeer. It was a jeer. What is a jeer?

(01:17:42):
Just get out of here. Go do your thing. Leave
me alone. Go drink. He's like, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:17:49):
Maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Maybe not.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
That'd be a good thing for him to hold off
until the game, huh?

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
It's not going to happen. There's a full bar like
10 feet from where he's standing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:59):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
He'll wander by it three more times, and that's just
not going to end well.

Speaker 6 (01:18:03):
Fair enough.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
All right. We'll take a break. Come back. Corbin Smith
joins us.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
Now, from the Star Reynolds Sports Desk, your 93.3 KJR
FM Sports Headlines.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
Headlines brought to you by Frost Brewed Coors Light. Cold
as the Rockies.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Two for three.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Let's go. Two for three. Two for three. Better than
any Mariner hitter is going to be. Two for three.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
M's lose yesterday. They had to sweep. Basically, we think Texas.
At least that's what our buddy Joe Sheehan said to
get to the playoffs. So we move on. Seahawks open
up the season. New England Patriots tonight. 520 kickoff NBC.
It'll be the first game of the NFL season. Rams
and 49ers are tomorrow. The Rams, as we speak, are
in the air without Aaron Donald. And the Rams will

(01:18:48):
be without two starting defensive linemen. both interior guys out
for the season along with Ricky Pearsall. So attrition already hitting.
Seahawks made a bunch of roster moves. We'll get into
that with Corbin Smith who's sitting here. We'll get into
that in just a couple seconds. So stand by for that.
Let's get into our number three.

Speaker 5 (01:19:03):

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
All right, we're back here. Jimmy's on first place. He's
packed up really good. I mean, the whole area's been
going since early this morning. Greg Bell was here at
10 a.m. for his show and was talking about the
line outside of T-Mobile for the Funko Pops. I think
that's what you call them. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
That is correct, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Okay, good. I'm glad I got that right. I'm seeing
a lot of Patriots gear. Not a ton, but enough.
You don't usually see East Coast stuff here unless it's Pittsburgh,
but that's okay.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
Seahawks.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Patriots, 520. Our guy, Corbin Smith, is here. Stop by.
Emerald City Spectrum. And what's new?

Speaker 12 (01:19:54):
Ah, the Seahawks Triple Option Podcast. We just started end
of last week. Robert Turbin, Rob Reg, and myself, and.

Speaker 9 (01:20:02):
We're really fired up. The first week's been awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
And where can you find that, he asks?

Speaker 9 (01:20:08):
YouTube, you can get it on Apple, you can get
it on Spotify.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
And iHeart. iHeart Radio, iHeart Media. Well, we're thrilled to
have you guys part of the iHeart family. We're going
to use and abuse you more than you ever thought
before to pump that up. Great stuff. We'll get to
that a little bit later. Let's get right to the,
I didn't talk about it in the headlines, let's get
to the roster results. No D'Anthony Bell. A.J. Finley, Rodney Thomas,
the safeties are elevated. Bayless Jones can be a return guy,

(01:20:34):
kind of a swing guy out of the backfield as well.
Also elevated off the practice squad. Bryce Cabledew had to
be dropped because I think it was Thomas had to
be signed off the 53 man. So some roster gymnastics
and calisthenics going on there. Let's just kind of go
through it. I think we all thought D'Anthony Bell might
get bumped up, was going to get bumped up for
the safety role with him and Warrior unlikely to play. Corbin,

(01:20:56):
does this mean we're going to see maybe some Tyrese
Knight in that role in the box?

Speaker 12 (01:21:01):
I think that has to be what they're doing at
this point because, look, A.J. Finley and Rodney Thomas, those
two are not box safeties. They're not going to be
playing up near the line of scrimmage. Rodney Thomas is
more of a rangy, free safety type.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
A.J.

Speaker 12 (01:21:17):
Finley checks more of that box as well. So Tyrese
Knight has to be playing some snaps in this game.
Because they're going to need to have that extra guy,
the athletic edge that can also cover. They can do
some of their mix and matching with their zone blitzes
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
What do they look like in the back end without
Ty Okada then?

Speaker 12 (01:21:35):
Who slips into that role with Julian Love? I would
think it's got to be Rodney Thomas.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
He's played more? He's played more. He's a two-year starter.
I mean, A.J.

Speaker 9 (01:21:43):
Finley's played a lot, but it's been on special teams.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Right.

Speaker 12 (01:21:46):
So, I mean, maybe Mike McDonald sees something there that
he wants to use, but... Rodney Thomas is the one
that has started games in the NFL, and he's played
against New England several times.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Yeah, so Rodney Thomas slips into an Okada role. Okada's
out tonight. Let's go back to Knight for a second.
We talked about it a lot in the preseason, and
you guys talked about it on the podcast, we talked
about it on the air. They thought, A, he had
a terrific preseason, terrific training camp, Tyrese Knight, kind of
taking those steps forward from when he was drafted in,
what was it, the fourth round, I think it was,
three years ago, and lost his starting spot as an

(01:22:17):
inside linebacker last year to Drake Thomas, but It feels
like he's taken those steps and they want to get
him out there. So how do you envision what role
maybe he would play?

Speaker 12 (01:22:30):
Look, I think that this is going to be his
own version of a hybrid role. He's certainly not going
to be playing slot corner like Nick Emanwari does. However,
he rushed the passer as an edge at UTEP a lot.
They used him there just as much as an off-ball linebacker,
and I think that's why he's had the success he's
had as a blitzer in the NFL. We saw the

(01:22:52):
two forced fumbles against Arizona last year that DeMarcus Lawrence
returned for touchdowns.

Speaker 9 (01:22:57):
He created both of those. So he's got pass rush ability.

Speaker 12 (01:23:00):
I think you're going to see them run some 4-3,
that traditional base defense, but they're going to go into
5-2 looks where he is going to be draping the edge,
and he's either going to be able to rush or
they can drop him back, and they can do some
different stuff exotically with what they're going to blitz with him.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
They also didn't elevate Diggs off the practice squad, so Witherspoon, Joe, Pritchett, Neal,
and Avery Smith are the corners.

Speaker 12 (01:23:22):
Yeah, really no surprise there because of the safety issues.
I figured it was going to be both safety positions. Pritchett,
it seems like he had won that job, even with
Trayvon Diggs being there. That does not mean that it's
his for the entire season. This is a really big
statement game for him. He's got to show that he's
taken a big step forward from the last couple years
where he's been so up and down when he's gotten

(01:23:43):
chances to play.

Speaker 9 (01:23:44):
If he doesn't, then Trayvon Diggs is going to be
ready for that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
How concerned... Should the Seahawks be? How concerned do you
think they are with the issues in the secondary in
terms of injuries? For this game. For this game, I'd
say three out of five.

Speaker 12 (01:24:00):
But I think from a long-term standpoint, I expect Nicky
Muwari is going to play next week. I think he'd
get another week of practice with him.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
You get the ten days off. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 12 (01:24:10):
He'll be out there for the Cardinals game in week two.
And Okada, that's probably that ten-day window is going to
help him too.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Yeah, that's an unfortunate thing there because he's been such
a big part of what they do. Let me stay
with that for a second because Mike McDonald, there are times–
When injuries happen and when you have a defense that's
very complicated, you do different things. You're like, okay, what's
going to happen here? Who's going to fit that role?
This is why Mike McDonald's Mike McDonald, right? This is, okay,

(01:24:37):
here's the challenge. Here are the chess pieces. What do
we do?

Speaker 7 (01:24:41):
This is.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
I don't want to say playing to his strength because
he'd rather be at full strength, but this is playing
to his strength, right?

Speaker 12 (01:24:47):
It is, but I think the difference here, last year
they had Ty Akata waiting in the wings when they
had the safety injuries. Now you don't have Kobe Bryant,
you don't have Bud Clark for the season. Bud Clark
would have been that guy today. Unfortunately, you're not going
to have him for the rest of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
So now that onus is going to fall.

Speaker 12 (01:25:05):
Luckily, you have a guy in Rodney Thomas that has
started a lot of games in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
That helps, but.

Speaker 12 (01:25:11):
But the next man up thing is going to get
pushed a little bit more. Especially, you know, if they
had something happen at corner. Julian Neal basically didn't play.
I was just going.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
To ask you. Julian Neal is a guy that they
thought highly enough of to draft him where they did.
Guy that transferred from Fresno State, went to the SEC. And,
you know, by all accounts, we were all excited to see.
Never saw him. Like in the preseason, right? He's an
unknown factor, too. Yeah, and Avery Smith just came over
in the trade.

Speaker 12 (01:25:38):
Now, they got to watch him in the preseason in
a pretty similar scheme, so they feel comfortable, but still,
he just got here. You have nuances that Mike McDonald
coaches up that are different. You don't want to get
in a position where he's playing a bunch of snaps defensively, either.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Well, now you've got A.J. Brown, though, in this team,
so it's a little bit different team than we saw
last year in the Super Bowl, right? So it's not
that same team when we see these guys today. Let's
go to the offensive side for a second. Because this
is a whole different world now. We've got no Kenneth Walker,
no Zach Charbonnet. Jadarian Price didn't play at all in
the preseason. George Helani, Emmanuel Wilson, Jadarian Price, and now

(01:26:15):
Bayless Jones. But I think Jones is probably more special teams.
They're all there. So what are we doing? What are
we doing in the running back position?

Speaker 12 (01:26:21):
Price is going to start this game. He's going to
play a lot of the first and second downs. I'm
expecting that Helani is going to get about the same
workload with the third downs and the two-minute drills. And
then in the short yardage situations... That's where you're going
to see Emmanuel Wilson come in and get some opportunity.
Maybe he'll play some first and second downs as a change,
but I expect it's going to be mostly Price and

(01:26:41):
Helani as long as they stay healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
And the Price thing is a curious thing, too, because
he hasn't played in the preseason. His last real carry
was in November, I think. I don't think Notre Dame, well,
they didn't play a bowl game. They weren't in the
college football playoff, right? So his last real carry was
in November. It's been a while.

Speaker 12 (01:26:59):
And look, that to me is the gamble they're taking.
A lot of the veteran starters not playing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
In the preseason, I don't have an issue with that.

Speaker 12 (01:27:08):
But a rookie, I understand he was dealing with the
sore legs, and they're like, we don't really want to
push it. But, man, you would have liked to see
him get a little bit of sweat going in one
of these games before getting thrown into a regular season match.
When you've watched him in practice in person, what do
you see? I see the same kid I saw at
Notre Dame. I see a glider. Sean Alexander's the cop

(01:27:28):
that I have. He isn't the same size, but he
runs very similarly if And he's just a guy that's
hard to line up. He's faster than you think he is,
so you end up taking bad pursuit angles, really good vision.
And he's a natural fit for this zone blocking where
things are fluid and you have to be able to
read your blocks. You've got to be patient, but you've
also got to be decisive. He's got all that stuff

(01:27:50):
working for him. It's just going to be how much
faster the NFL is, how much quicker those holes close.
When you haven't had game reps, that's going to be
a little bit of a wake-up call potentially.

Speaker 9 (01:28:01):
For him early.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
And last I checked, probably a little bit of an
elevated competition level from all due respect to Notre Dame
and who they played. This is a little bit elevated.
It's a little bit different in that regard, too. It
was wild. We did a roundtable this morning on Chuck's
show with Softie, Fane, myself, and Chuck Powell. And I
came away thinking about this later. This is what's crazy.

(01:28:24):
We spent an hour on the radio. We spent 30 seconds,
if that, talking about the offensive line. How different is
that than the past? How different is that?

Speaker 12 (01:28:33):
Well, they have the first time since 2003 to 2004
that they have the same five starters returning from the
previous season. It just happens to coincide with a... Super
Bowl championship as well. So, look, the expectations are incredibly
high for that group, and the question's going to be,
are they going to be able to elevate their games
to that, or is that going to be too much

(01:28:55):
pressure on their shoulders, and maybe they have a hard
time living up to this? I don't think that's going
to be the case. I think this is going to
be a really good offensive line, and I think John
Benton's just an excellent coach, too.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
Let's talk about wide receivers. They got a guy by
the name of JSN, pretty good player. He's known to
make a few catches. Finally got a trophy that was
right as the best in the league last year, in
the conference, I should say. And one of the things
that I see our fans are, I'm sorry, they're going
hard all day. The wide receiver position with no Torrey Horton,

(01:29:32):
assuming he doesn't play, I don't think he's going to play, right?

Speaker 12 (01:29:35):
That one is truly questionable to me. Eamon Worry is not.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
I could see a Horton suit.

Speaker 9 (01:29:42):
Now, Montori Foster's made it a little bit easier.

Speaker 12 (01:29:46):
If you feel like he's not quite ready, you can
play Montori Foster, and Sam Darnold's got confidence in him,
and he can play special teams.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
But that one's truly a 50-50 to me. So, Cooper Cup,
more of a role this year, do you think?

Speaker 12 (01:30:00):
I could see him shocking some people and finding the
fountain of youth a little bit. This version of the
Shanahan offense, I see a lot of opportunities for him
to potentially be able to get the football in his hands.

Speaker 9 (01:30:14):
And I just thought he had an excellent training camp
as well.

Speaker 4 (01:30:18):
We'll see.

Speaker 12 (01:30:19):
It's going to be hard with so many good players,
so many mouths to feed, and just one football.

Speaker 9 (01:30:24):
But I could see him getting 60 catches.

Speaker 1 (01:30:27):
I think one of the things, Corbin, that we're going
to see more of, and I think you would agree
with me on this, is that we're going to see
more A.J. Barner. And here's another guy, Elijah Royal. Elijah Royal.

Speaker 12 (01:30:37):
I said this on our Seahawks Triple Option podcast last night.
I picked Elijah Arroyo as my weekly offensive game wrecker candidate.
And the reason I'm picking him, look, preseason darlings and
training camp darlings, sometimes you have to be really careful
with that. But this is not an undrafted guy. This
is a second rounder, 250, runs like a deer, has

(01:31:00):
Pillsbury dough hands, catches everything. I think this offense is
perfect for him, and I just have a feeling he's
going to benefit more from Brian Fleury than anyone else.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
That's the voice of Corbin Smith, and I think we
should point out, he was really never healthy a lot.
He kind of struggled through some nicks and bumps and
bruises and things like that. We didn't see a healthier
Royal last year, did we? Not after the halfway point
of the season.

Speaker 12 (01:31:23):
He missed five or six games in a row, including
the first two games of the playoffs with a knee issue.
But there were flashes. Not a lot, but there were
some flashes where you saw that ability. Training camp, he
was incredible. Preseason, he was incredible. I just have a
feeling that we're going to see a big jump.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
From Elijah Roy. Corbin, what about the guys on the
other side? Different team than last year in the sense
they added two receivers. I do have to kind of
chuckle when I hear, oh, they added Romeo Dobbs. Who cares? Like,
that's the definition of a Jag receiver, just a guy.
The other guy, though, A.J. Brown is– A.J. Brown ain't
a Jag. The other guy– now, we say that. The

(01:32:00):
other guy, is he going to want to play? Is
he going to read a book on the sideline? Is
he going to do a journal? But if he wants
to play, that's a hell of an added asset to
Drake Mays.

Speaker 12 (01:32:12):
They didn't have a number one receiver last year. Stephon
Diggs at this point in his career is a really
good number two.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
They didn't have a number one on their team. If A.J.

Speaker 9 (01:32:20):
Brown's mind is right, which I think being.

Speaker 12 (01:32:22):
Back with Mike Vrabel is going to make that happen,
if his mind is right, he's a top five talent
at the receiver position. And he's just so big, so fast,
and he's a real downfield. And he can make contested
catches unlike his old Ole Miss.

Speaker 1 (01:32:37):
Teammate, D.K. Metcalf, that struggled with that. In his time here.

Speaker 12 (01:32:42):
Not trying to take shots, but A.J. Brown is a
much better... He's just a more complete receiver.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
When he wants to be, his compete level's high.

Speaker 12 (01:32:49):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
What about the other side of the ball for Vrabel's team?

Speaker 12 (01:32:53):
The one thing that jumps out to me, and we've seen...
Quite frankly, I've not seen a lot of people talking
about this. We certainly have on the podcast, but... Harold
Landry being in the pup list to start the season.
He is their best edge by a mile in terms
of getting pressure on the quarterback. I look at the
edges they have, and I'm like, where are they going
to get pressure? Now, their interior is really good. Christian

(01:33:17):
Barmore and Milton Williams are fantastic, and they gave Seattle's
guards problems in that Super Bowl last February.

Speaker 1 (01:33:23):
But I just don't know where they're going to get the.

Speaker 12 (01:33:26):
Pressure from the outside, and that could mean they have
to resort to being more blitz-heavy. And that's where those
tight ends and running backs for Sam Darnold become a
real factor.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
In this football game. Let me go touch base back
on Drake May for a second. I've seen it said
a lot. I don't know how accurate it is, but
I've seen it said a lot. Well, you know, last
year Drake May wasn't healthy. Will Campbell, the left tackle,
wasn't healthy in the Super Bowl. I always kind of
counter with, at that point in time in February, who is?

(01:33:58):
But I don't know. Was that not the real Drake
May that we saw?

Speaker 9 (01:34:02):
I think that what you saw was the real Mike McDonald.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
I think that's what you saw.

Speaker 12 (01:34:08):
I think you saw a head coach and a defensive
mastermind in his bag.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
Now, will he be in that bag tonight?

Speaker 12 (01:34:15):
To an extent, he's going to have to be with
some of the injuries that they have. And New England,
I think the underrated move they made on offense, if
the guy can stay healthy, Elijah Vera Tucker is a
major upgrade for them at left guard.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
And it allowed him to move.

Speaker 12 (01:34:28):
Jared Wilson, who Riley Mills just made look like a
peewee league player last year.

Speaker 9 (01:34:33):
In that Super Bowl. You move him to center, and
that's his more natural spot.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
I think that makes their line better at both spots.
We spent a lot of time talking about the things
that Seattle doesn't have, Corbin, in terms of the injuries
in the secondary and no Charbonnet and question marks at
the depth at wide receiver and even running back without
Charbonnet and the unknown that is Jadarian Price. One of
the things I think has been overlooked by a lot

(01:34:57):
of us this year In the training camp preseason, and
preseason especially because they don't play. The depth up front on,
and I'm going to include the outside linebackers if I can.
I know they're not defensive linemen, but they're rush. They are.

Speaker 9 (01:35:12):
They're D linemen in this system.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
Williams, Murphy, Reed, Lawrence, Derrick Hall, Brandon Peely, Riley Mills,
Mike Morris. You're going to have a hard time finding them.
And Jenna. Jenna. Tyrese Knights is kind of listed to that,
or Dante Fowler, that whole group.

Speaker 12 (01:35:32):
Yeah, that's as deep and talented of a defensive line
as you're going to find in the NFL. Now, I
do wonder at the edge spot, I've talked about this
a lot, if they have a player or two that
gets banged up there, I.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
Do worry about the drop-off after that point.

Speaker 12 (01:35:48):
D-line in the Interior, if you had a guy get
banged up for a little bit, I think Riley Mills
can be that guy now.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
I just think they have really good depth there at
that spot.

Speaker 12 (01:36:00):
And I think there's still some potential Devin Eastern down
the line could play for him.

Speaker 9 (01:36:03):
He missed the beginning of camp.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
He just didn't. He just didn't seem like.

Speaker 12 (01:36:07):
He was quite there yet, but they've got a lot
of pieces there. It's as much depth and talent as
you're going to find in the D-line.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
In the NFL. Last year we had Demarcus Lawrence come
to Seattle, roll into town. People were saying he's done,
it's over, he can't do much, and then we saw
the season he had. Can Dante Fowler Jr., can he
be that guy?

Speaker 12 (01:36:25):
You know, he is always, I call him a put
a blindfold on and throw a dart player. And the
reason I say that is you just don't know what
you're going.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
To get in the sack production from him. It has
been so up and down.

Speaker 12 (01:36:38):
You know there's ebbs and flows with pass rushers, but
he's on the extreme with that. He had 10 sacks
two years ago with Washington, and then last year he
gets three. And then you look early in his career,
he had a couple years with close to double digits
right then he had a couple years where it's like
oh he had two sacks this year you just you
don't know what you're gonna get but i.

Speaker 9 (01:36:58):
Will say this he had better pass rushing numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
Overall last year in terms of win rates.

Speaker 12 (01:37:03):
Than he did in washington when he had all those
sacks so it's again sacks are not always the end
all be all but that's what makes you money in
this league Alright.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
Let's talk about the podcast. What do you got going on?
You got Robert Turbin, you got our guy Rob Rang,
and it's on the iHeart Network now. You're on the
front page of the KJR website as well, and we'll
get to Emerald City Spectrum in a second, but just
tell folks about the podcast. Yeah, we're really fired up
about this.

Speaker 12 (01:37:26):
The ultimate mix of humor with football insight at all
three levels. You got the beat reporter component, Super Bowl
champion player component, and then the scout Rob Rang component,
and the So we got every perspective you could possibly
ask for on our show. 45 minutes of Seahawks and
X's and O's goodness. When can we find it? Yeah,

(01:37:50):
it's up already. We've, we've done how many times a week,
I should say five days. And, uh, we'll have some
different lineups scattered in there. Um, uh, post game show
is always just going to be me tonight. Uh, but
we're going to have turbo at least three to four
shows every week. And, uh, We'll have a few other
former Seahawks that will be jumping on as guest hosts.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
Along the way. He may know a couple people. Yeah.
He may know one. He may know a few. I
know a few. I like it. Rob knows a few people.
Emerald City Spectrum.

Speaker 12 (01:38:20):
Yeah, EmeraldCitySpectrum.com. Just $ 6 a month, $ 60 a year. I'm
going to be doing.

Speaker 9 (01:38:25):
Something tonight that I have never done before, Ian.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
I'm going to be trying to write an article.

Speaker 12 (01:38:30):
During a game with my phone because my charger on
my computer died today.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
That's not good.

Speaker 12 (01:38:35):
So unless somebody else can come and pinch hit and
bring something in for me, I will be doing what
I do. I'm going to find a way, but it'll
be up on EmeraldCitySpectrum.com.

Speaker 3 (01:38:47):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):
Hey, have a great time tonight. I'll try. That is
Corbin Smith in a new podcast. Check it out, The
I Heart. Again, the name of the podcast. Seahawks Triple Option.
Go to the I Heart Radio. Everyone's listening right now.
A lot of you guys are listening on the app.
You can get it on the I Heart Radio app.
Seahawks Triple Option. Download it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:03):
Subscribe.

Speaker 1 (01:39:04):
Away you go. Great stuff. Have fun over there. We'll
talk to you next week. Sounds good, Ian.

Speaker 6 (01:39:08):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
There you go. That's our guy, Corbin Smith. We got
Factor Fiction moments away. Your chance to win a $ 1, 000
weekly prize, $ 10, 000 grand prize, plus your text at 49451
on the Tacoma Dodge text line. All that coming up.

Speaker 5 (01:39:22):
All right, we're back here.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
Jimmy's on first. Seahawks, Patriots, 520 kickoff on NBC, Peacock,
whatever else is NBC these days. I don't know. Netflix tomorrow,
by the way, Anders.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
That'll be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
Netflix tomorrow for the Rams and 49ers.

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
It's like the one service I don't have.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
Is it? What? Yeah. The king of streaming? Nah. Nah.
That's where you draw the line in the sand is Netflix?

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
Absolutely. So what do you do?

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Just blow it off?

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
Doesn't have anything I want. I'll find my ways to
watch the game.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
Whether that's, you know, some streams online or go into
a local watering hole.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
Let's go. I think that's more of a problem than anything,
to be honest with you. Yeah. Because a lot of
people have the ability to do Prime and that type
of thing. Because of the Thursday Night Football, a lot
of places have Prime Video.

Speaker 7 (01:40:36):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
You're talking restaurants now or bars and stuff like that?

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
But Netflix? You don't have Netflix in a bar. I mean,
what are you going to show? Hunting Wives or something? Which,
by the way, is worth the price of your subscription.

Speaker 6 (01:40:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:40:49):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
I'm just going to tell you that right now.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
You sound like a Netflix connoisseur over there.

Speaker 3 (01:40:53):
I am.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
And I told you already. I'm telling you.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Hunting Wives?

Speaker 1 (01:40:57):
Hunting Wives.

Speaker 8 (01:40:59):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:41:00):
All right. Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:41:01):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
And I think people in the 49451 would agree with me.
All right. Factor fiction moments away. Let's get to a
couple texts at 49451. I had them up here. Where
are they? There we go. Let's see. They should have
run a ceremonial baton from T-Mobile to Lumen Field to
symbolize one team season ending and one beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
I love that, actually.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
That's actually good.

Speaker 3 (01:41:22):
They should totally do that. That's actually good.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
Any fans going to both games, just get a group
together and do that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
Run back and forth.

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
4-2-5.

Speaker 1 (01:41:32):
Just a reminder, the Mariners suck. Go Patriots. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Wow, wow, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
I mean, the first part of that I agree with.

Speaker 3 (01:41:40):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:41:41):
Second part, not so much.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
Yeah, that's it. That's it. All right, what else we
got here?

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
Montez absolutely molly whops a 470-foot home run last night. And,
of course, it's not in the lineup today because he's
a lefty and the Rangers are throwing a lefty. Give
your head a shake, quote-unquote.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
Oh, boy. Seahawks team is largely grab-and-go as well, but
not to level T-Mobile. Okay, I asked somebody about that earlier,
so I'm glad to know.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
Yeah, it's been a while since you've been as a fan.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
Yeah, yeah. Let's see.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
Jim in the 253. Randy Rosarena, free agent. Bring him back?
I say no way. Time to make bank. And he
lollygags out in the field when it comes to defense.
Imagine when he gets a guaranteed contract, he'll be picking
daisies out there instead of playing defense.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Really? Okay. Somebody, 4206, what's in your glass? Ian, it
sounds refreshing. Good, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
It does, actually.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
It's water. I'll be honest with you. It's 100% water.

Speaker 3 (01:42:43):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
It's water. Yeah, I'm that guy. I'm just kind of BML.
Softy just tweeted this something, and he knows these things.
He's Softy. I think I know where he got it from.
It says, would be surprised if Jody Allen was on
the flag tonight. Would have loved to have seen it,
but another worthy person is rumored to be raising it. Hint,
don't you ever talk about me. All caps.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
What is that?

Speaker 6 (01:43:05):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
That's Sherman.

Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
Is Sherman going to raise the flag?

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
Oh, I see.

Speaker 2 (01:43:13):
It just makes too much sense to have Jody do it.
I don't know why they're not doing that. I.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
Honestly, over the years, I stopped worrying, caring, or trying
to rationalize who raises a 12th man flag.

Speaker 3 (01:43:27):
That's fair.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
I mean, they had Isaiah Kazavinsky do it one year.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
Maybe she doesn't want to. Who knows?

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
You know what? That's actually a great point. She may
not want to.

Speaker 12 (01:43:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
She may want to say, hey, it's time for the
Coastal family to take over.

Speaker 6 (01:43:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:42):
I could see that.

Speaker 6 (01:43:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:44):
I could see that. Yeah. Yeah, that might be it.
All right, should we get a little Fact or Fiction in?
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
We're set to go.

Speaker 3 (01:43:52):
Glad you're with us.

Speaker 5 (01:43:53):
It's your shot at our weekly $ 1, 000 and the $ 10, 000
grand prize.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
It's Fact or Fiction.

Speaker 5 (01:44:01):
Proudly presented by Lucky Eagle Casino and Hotel, where every
day feels lucky.

Speaker 3 (01:44:06):
Fact or Fiction is on.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
Sports Radio 93.3, KJR-FM. Anders, I know we've got to
get to fact or fiction. I've got a minute here.
Real fast. 30 seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
30 seconds.

Speaker 6 (01:44:18):
425.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
Hunting Weiss, the first recommendation from Ian I've ever agreed with.
I'm telling you, buddy. That's weird. I'm telling you. You're
going to subscribe to Netflix tomorrow, watch some Hunting Wives,
the new season debuts in November. Boy, am I a
creepy old man. Okay, let's go. Here we go. It's
Factor Fiction brought to you by the Lucky Eagle Casino

(01:44:40):
and Hotel. I'm going to the National Football League, sir.
First of all, here's how you play. I'm going to
give you a pick. If you agree with me, you
text FACT, F-A-C-T, and I'm going to spell it out
today because it's loud in here. I can't even hear myself. Fact, F-A-C-T,
fact to 49451. If you disagree with the pick I
give you, you will text FICTION. F-I-C-T-I-O-N to 49451. Why

(01:45:07):
do you do that, Anders? Why are people texting in?

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
Because you have a chance to win $ 1, 000. You are
entered into the weekly drawing every time you get a
correct pick. So you can have up to 20 correct picks,
so 20 entries. And we draw a $ 1, 000 winner every
single week. And then at the end, whoever has the
most correct picks for the entire season wins $ 10, 000.

Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
Well, I'm going to tell you this right now. I'm
all in on an NFL game this weekend that's going
to take place back east in the city of brotherly love, sir.
The city of brotherly love. You know where that is?
That would be, of course, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Seahawks, not

(01:45:51):
the Seahawks, sorry. The Eagles are taking on the Commanders
of Washington. Anders, is my line still four and a half?

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
It is indeed, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Eagles are favored by four and a half in that game.
I love that. All day, every day. Commanders coming off
a disappointing season. A lot of people think they're going
to bounce back this year. They may. But that's a
tough place to go to start the season. Divisional opponent,
a team that most believe is in that same conversation
with Seattle and the Rams and the Niners, the Philadelphia Eagles.

(01:46:25):
New offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, sir. His name is Sean Mannion.
Does that name ring a bell?

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
It does.

Speaker 1 (01:46:32):
Former Seahawk and Oregon State player. He is apparently wanting
to get Jalen Hurts rolling around, moving around, and chucking
it down the field a little bit more. A little
more aggressive offense. Could lead to some mistakes. Could lead
to some big plays. A.J. Brown is a good player.
Great player, maybe. But he and Hurts were not on
the same page, and that was a problem. That's gone.

(01:46:54):
That's gone now.

Speaker 2 (01:46:55):
It's not like they didn't add talent either. Makai Lemon
in the draft.

Speaker 1 (01:46:58):
And here's where the big thing comes in. They tell
you that football is won at the line of scrimmage, sir.

Speaker 5 (01:47:06):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:47:08):
Well, there is a decided advantage on both sides. Offensive
line for the Eagles is one of the best in
the league. Their defensive line, I don't need to even
express anything besides their defensive line.

Speaker 8 (01:47:18):
Period.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
End of story. They're very good.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
Four and a half. Eagles, minus 4.5.

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):
Fact, 4-9-4-5-1.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
If you disagree, fiction, 4-9-4-5-1. Sir, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 (01:47:32):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:33):
It was one of the games I was looking at yesterday,
and it was probably the one that if I didn't
take Detroit, I would have taken Philly here. I do
think Washington might be better this year. It depends on
if Jane Daniels is going to be healthy. But like
you said, that's a tough landing spot. It's in Philadelphia.
All they have to do is win by a touchdown,
and you're good to go. So even if it's a
relatively close game, and you're kind of just picking an

(01:47:56):
Eagles victory here, a little bit more than that. But
I like it. I like it a lot. I think
the Eagles are going to be one of those really
good teams. The NFC is just loaded, man.

Speaker 6 (01:48:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:48:06):
It's like.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
Detroit's really good. Obviously, L.A. and Seattle are really good.
I don't think San Francisco's really going anywhere. And then Eagles.
There's a lot of really good teams, and they're one
of them. So I think they start off with a
win against the Commanders.

Speaker 1 (01:48:20):
Of Washington. I've seen some that say they don't like
the spread. They think it's a little too much, a
little too high. Listen, that's less than a touchdown, guys.

Speaker 2 (01:48:28):
Less than a touchdown.

Speaker 1 (01:48:29):
And until Jayden Daniels proves that he's back and healthy
and not a little bit frail, which he is. Yes. Tiny.
I'm all in. The commanders have added a couple pieces.
Bobby's not there anymore. Bobby's nowhere right now, actually. I
just can't see them hanging. I can't see them hanging.

(01:48:52):
And I think it's going to be an easy Philadelphia win,
minus 4.5. Eagles, minus 4.5.

Speaker 6 (01:48:55):
Fact.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
4-9-4-5-1. Again, here's what you do. You text in. Why
do you text in? Because the more often you are
correct by texting your answers in, agreeing or disagreeing, That
was the chances you have to win $ 1, 000. For every
time you're correct, it's very simple. You get entered to
win $ 1, 000, and Anders calls somebody every Monday and says,
you just won $ 1, 000. Bigger than that $ 10, 000 grand prize.

(01:49:18):
What's that all about? End of the year, everybody who,
if you're in the top, I mean, you're playing for
10 grand. Most correct answers wins.

Speaker 12 (01:49:26):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:49:26):
What we found out, I can tell you this, light,
light listenership and voting on Monday. So if you miss Monday,
you're fine because really everybody did. Yep. But you don't
want to miss many more days. No, you do not.
So text in Factor Fiction right now. Again, Philadelphia minus
four and a half over the Washington Commanders on Sunday.

(01:49:47):
Fact 49451. If you disagree, it's Fiction 49451. But why
the hell would you disagree with me? Well, based on
my record. No comment. I'm going to miss you, buddy.
I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss you.
Sarcasm and shots at Ian.

Speaker 2 (01:50:05):
That's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
You'll still get that. Oh, I'm sure I will. I'm sure...
I get it at home. I don't even need it
from you, buddy. That is true.

Speaker 2 (01:50:14):
That is true.

Speaker 1 (01:50:14):
I don't need it from you at all.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
I can get it elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
I can get that for free. You don't get that
in the sports world, though. I can get that free
of charge back at the Furness Pass. All right, one
more time. Eagles minus four and a half. Fact over
the Washington Commanders. If you agree, fact, 49451. If you disagree, fiction, 49451.
You've got about eight or nine minutes left to text in,
but don't delay. Do it right now. If you're listening
on the app or online. Do it soon because you're

(01:50:37):
always about 90 seconds behind, so don't delay. All right?
That's just the reality of technology today. Until Anders fixes
that and gets his AI figured out what else it's
going to be, you're going to have a delay. Postal,
help me out. The Coastal family. The analytics-driven Coastal family.
How's Greg Bell doing with that? Anyway, well, Mr. Anti-Analytics

(01:50:57):
came in all fired up about, oh, robot analytics.

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
The mathematic model.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
Wow. I'm like, wait a second.

Speaker 4 (01:51:04):
Time out.

Speaker 1 (01:51:08):
Anyway, we'll take a break. Softy is here. He's been
holding court. Oh, yeah. God, this guy's just a treat.
He's on the phone. He's yelling at people. The king
of Seattle sports is here. He'll join us next.

Speaker 10 (01:51:23):
All righty then.

Speaker 3 (01:51:25):
All righty then. All righty then.

Speaker 1 (01:51:28):
Here he is. He's back from the– Oh, boy. How
were you over there at the news conference? Did you
behave yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:51:33):
I think so.

Speaker 6 (01:51:33):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:51:34):
I think so. All right.

Speaker 3 (01:51:36):
We asked about the uniforms, and that apparently was a
big hit. They're bringing back the white throwbacks in 2027.

Speaker 1 (01:51:42):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:51:43):
So that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:51:44):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):
I think of the Seahawks at Dolphins in 83, wearing
those old white unis from 42, 43 years ago. God,
that was 43 years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:51:54):
What were you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:51:54):
Was that New Year's Eve, by the way, that game?
December 31st of 83.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
I'm trying to think.

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
I thought it was New Year's Eve. Look it up.

Speaker 1 (01:52:02):
I was still in high school. I can't even remember.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
Dude, I was in elementary school.

Speaker 1 (01:52:05):
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
Sometimes, Andrews, I forget how much older Ian is than
the rest of us. He doesn't look like it. He
doesn't act like it. But, man, sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
I'm five years older than Softie.

Speaker 3 (01:52:18):
That was December 31st, 1983, New Year's Eve.

Speaker 1 (01:52:22):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:52:23):
Seahawks beat the Dolphins.

Speaker 1 (01:52:24):
How the hell did you remember New Year's Eve?

Speaker 3 (01:52:26):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
If I asked you something else, you wouldn't know anything.

Speaker 3 (01:52:29):
I can't remember.

Speaker 6 (01:52:30):
100%.

Speaker 3 (01:52:30):
But you remember that. My wife will come home every day.
And I usually get the same question. Yeah. And there's
usually a snarky tone to it also.

Speaker 5 (01:52:38):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:52:39):
What did you do today?

Speaker 4 (01:52:40):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:52:41):
I'll get that a lot from my wife. And I
got to sit there for about a half a second.
I mean, I don't remember. So now, and I keep
telling her, I'm going to start writing down everything I do.
I went and saw mom. I took the dogs for
a walk. I went to the store. I did this.
I did that. I did this. I did that. I
can't remember what I did this morning, yet I can
tell you what the day of that game was and everything. 83.

Speaker 4 (01:53:03):
It's a talent, man.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
It is a talent.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
It's a talent.

Speaker 1 (01:53:05):
What did you think of the Coastless?

Speaker 3 (01:53:07):
I thought they said all the right things. Okay. For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:53:10):
I mean, let's face it, guys. It is really hard
to lose a press conference. You've got to try really
hard to lose a press conference. If you've got a
good PR team behind you, you should be winning every
press conference, especially your first one. They said all the
right things, right? They talked a lot about it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:24):
Because we don't count the one in Atlanta, right?

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
No, not really. I think this was the first one
for the assembled media locally to get together. I mean,
they said all the right things. You know, the basic
thing I wanted to hear is them say, we are
smart enough to know what we don't know. And that
was Paul Allen's MO for 30 years and Jody Allen
after that. And they all admitted that, you know. Leo
Kosla talked about his relationship with John Schneider. And Mike McDonald,

(01:53:47):
he says, look, I don't know anything about drafting safeties
or evaluating offensive linemen.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
I want to learn from them, is what Neil Koslas said.
You know, it was interesting, obviously, hearing Vinod and Neera
talk about their passions outside of football, right, which is
a lot of stuff that's way over my head.

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
Are there some similarities, the Allen Institute and stuff?

Speaker 3 (01:54:07):
Potentially, yeah. AI and all that stuff. He's talking about
Mach 5 planes and spaceships and rockets, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What's going on here? This is way over my head.
So that was interesting stuff. But the biggest takeaway that
I got from the entire press conference, and I talked
to Neil for about seven or eight minutes. We're going
to play that coming up at 4.30 today.

Speaker 4 (01:54:28):
Oh, nice, nice.

Speaker 3 (01:54:28):
I've been speculating and wondering on the air, is Neil
Kosla eventually going to be the face of this thing, right?
I mean, he's the youngest person at that table by
40 years, obviously. How old is he? He's 33.

Speaker 1 (01:54:41):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
He confirmed that today. And I think the answer is
unequivocally yes. Neal Kosla will eventually be the face of
ownership in Seattle. Maybe not for a couple years, maybe
not for five years, but he will be the guy
that I think in 10, 15, 20 years from now,
people will look at as... John Nordstrom, for example, or

(01:55:02):
Paul Allen, right? I mean, that's going to be his gig.
So I would get to know him as much as
you can. It's going to be his deal. He's going
to be the guy. He's going to be the CEO.
He's going to be the chairman. And everything he said
to me was great. You know, I mean, look, when
it shows up one day and they have to replace
John Schneider, and they have to replace Mike McDonald, or
they need to add another 100 suites to Lumen Field.

(01:55:26):
What happens then, right? Right now, it's all gravy. And
if John Schneider hangs out here for a while, and
McDonald hangs out here for a while, it's going to
continue to be gravy. I'm really curious to know, Ian,
when they make that first big move, when that first
big decision has to be made, how do they handle it?
Because we know what Paul Allen's track record was. Paul

(01:55:47):
Allen's track record was, let's go hire Mike Holmgren. who
already had won a title, and then let's give the
job to Jim Mora, but then let's realize after a
year that's not working, so let's whack that guy and
go get Pete Carroll, right? And then Jody went out
and got Mike McDonald. So that's three for four right there.
That's a hell of a track record, man.

Speaker 1 (01:56:07):
My thought always with the Allens, with Paul Allen, was this,
that because people say, well, they spend money.

Speaker 9 (01:56:12):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Everyone in the NFL spends in a cap. Everybody spends money.
So it's not those players' salaries. It's where do you
spend it elsewhere.

Speaker 6 (01:56:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:56:18):
And there's owners that would be reluctant to make a
move if it costs them money. If a guy, like,
do we fire Jim Mora? Like, Todd Laiweke tells a story.
They had to go to Paul Allen and say, hey,
we're going to pay this guy to go away. And
that's where Paul Allen had his thought. No owner's perfect.
You make your mistakes. Are you willing to own those
mistakes and correct them?

Speaker 6 (01:56:39):
100%.

Speaker 1 (01:56:39):
And that's where we're going to know these guys.

Speaker 3 (01:56:41):
Or do you want to compound mistakes and keep the
wrong guy on the job because you're paying him money? So,
I mean, there's a lot of other minority investors that will,
I'm sure, be a part of those conversations as well
down the road. But, yeah, I mean, I was impressed
by what I heard today. You know, I mean, they're
very personable. The fact that they're willing to reach out
to the fan base via social media and have that
kind of connection with us I think is great. They're

(01:57:02):
not going to live here. Not one of them will
be moving here. They're all going to have a base here.

Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Not even Neal?

Speaker 3 (01:57:07):
No, Neal's going to stay where he is, but they're
not moving here. But that might be a good thing, right?
Stay out of the way. Let the VMAC be the VMAC, right?
Everything's fine right now. How often was Jody at the VMAC?
How often was Paul at the VMAC, right?

Speaker 1 (01:57:20):
So my understanding with Jody was she met with John
and And Mike, and before that, John and Pete, once
a week.

Speaker 6 (01:57:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:26):
But that was it, once a week. Right. And I
don't know if it was in person or Zoom, but
I know they met once a week. But that's it. Yeah, listen,
if you have something that's working, hire good people and
let them do their job. Simple as that.

Speaker 3 (01:57:35):
Right now, for me, it's just not anything to worry about.
It's just not.

Speaker 1 (01:57:38):
How are you feeling?

Speaker 3 (01:57:40):
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (01:57:41):
I'm excited. How are we feeling about the game?

Speaker 3 (01:57:44):
I think it's going to be a low-scoring slap fest,
like most week one games are. I told Dick on
the air yesterday or two days ago, I think I
said 19-16. Something like that. I think it's going to
be an ugly, ugly game. But, you know, week one
of the NFL was typically like that. I mean, go
look at it. Guys, go look at the Seahawks-Niners game
last year. Week one, it was gnarly.

Speaker 1 (01:58:00):
Nasty. Well, it could have been worse if Jake Moody
wasn't kicking. Sure.

Speaker 3 (01:58:04):
Or, you know, you got that. What's the guy from Tungus, right?

Speaker 12 (01:58:07):
Tungus.

Speaker 3 (01:58:08):
AMPL.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
Tungus.

Speaker 3 (01:58:09):
Tungus.

Speaker 1 (01:58:09):
Touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (01:58:11):
I mean, Rick Wolin, remember the day he had your boy,
Ape Lucas, giving up that sack fumble to Sam Darnold?
I mean, that was a gnarly game. So, I think
you'll see something similar to that tonight. I will say this.
If the Seahawks go out tonight and do to the
Patriots what they did in the Super Bowl, I think
a lot of people around the NFL are going to
be going, whoa, right?

Speaker 6 (01:58:28):
Wait.

Speaker 3 (01:58:29):
Whoa. Number one, Drake may not be as good as
we thought he was, and whoa, that team may not
win two in a row. They might win three in
a row.

Speaker 1 (01:58:38):
Remember, he was hurt last year, Dave.

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:58:39):
So was Will Campbell.

Speaker 6 (01:58:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:58:40):
God.

Speaker 4 (01:58:41):
God.

Speaker 1 (01:58:42):
Actually, so was Nick even worried about by checking. He
played 70 snaps.

Speaker 4 (01:58:45):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:58:45):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
What do you got coming up?

Speaker 3 (01:58:47):
We got a lot coming up. Kurt Warner with a K,
two-time NFL MVP in town with Kevin Harlan for the
game tonight. They'll join us at 320. Factor Fiction pick
at 335. Hugh Millen at four. Kevin Harlan joins at five.
He's calling the game tonight. He's calling the game tonight
for National Radio. We got both the color guy and
the play-by-play guy. And then Neil Koshla, again, the new owner.

(01:59:09):
one-third of the new ownership group of the Seahawks. He
will join us. I had a conversation with him around
4.30 today. You'll hear from him coming up this afternoon.

Speaker 1 (01:59:18):
That's a big show.

Speaker 4 (01:59:19):
It is a big show.

Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
You know what? Super Bowl champions. Just this one day.

Speaker 3 (01:59:23):
Just today. Tomorrow's going to be mediocre.

Speaker 1 (01:59:25):
Back to normal tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (01:59:26):
Back to normal, yes. Tomorrow we'll have nothing to offer.

Speaker 1 (01:59:28):
Take care.

Speaker 12 (01:59:28):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (01:59:29):
For the mild-mannered and marginally objectionable Ian Furness, this is
Paddle Day saying so long, everyone.

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