The Pacers Didn't Get Lucky- The Tush Push Shouldn't be Banned

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Look, I want to be very very clear here, Indiana
did not get lucky last night. New York blew that game.
First of all, they were better without Jalen Brunson in there.
They had built a seventeen point lead without him. But
when Brunton came back in, he got into foul trouble

(00:27):
and at the end of the game he was absolutely
sloppy with the inbound plays. Dan, They're losing the basketball
on several occasions when he was dribbling it, trying to
do too much by himself. He was not clutch last night.
And look, I understand it's not a play on him
being mister clutch, but the reality is this, Number one,
if you're New York, you above everybody should know how

(00:50):
to keep a lead at the end of a basketball game,
because you've seen so many of them blown. They got lazy.
They blew that game. You can say that it was
a lucky basket all you want to, but Indiana is
not in that position to begin with. If the Knicks
do their job and they close out the game. It

(01:15):
was a mismanagement, use of timeouts, fouls, everything about the
way that that game ended In the last two and
a half minutes for the Knicks were symptomatic of how
they played most basketball games this season, including the playoffs.
In the first three quarters, that was who they were
in the last two and a half minutes of that game.

(01:36):
They got exposed for who they really are last night.
And I hate the terms they stole a home game.
They didn't steal anything. Indiana took it because they never
gave up. That is literally all there is to that. Now.
I'm not saying that Jalen Brunson's not a good basketball player.

(01:58):
I'm not saying that Jalen Brunson should have been a
candidate for MVP this year. I'm not saying any of
those things. I'm not even saying that Jalen's not clutch.
What I'm saying is is last night he was everything,
But oh he still did this. Oh he's still that. Look,

(02:19):
a lot of guys are gonna get their numbers no
matter what. They were bad in the last two and
a half minutes. And I'm not taking away anything from Indiana.
They deserve credit because they never gave up. And you
should have stuck with the defense that got you there,

(02:39):
because all of a sudden they were lighting it up
from the perimeter all over again. The way that Indiana
became that game is how they finished that game. They
showed that they were the better team last night, and
they were the better team in overtime. Now that was
last night. I'm not talking about what's gonna happen then

(03:00):
next time that they play. Specifically, this is how it
went down last night. And if I'm a Knicks fan, honestly,
I'm thinking to myself, here we go again. I'm just
going to be let down all over again. Everybody's been

(03:20):
talking about us, right especially ESPN because that's where they are.
They're right next door in Connecticut, so of course the
New York media, ESPN and everybody else is over there,
National News. What are they all talking about? The way
they absolutely drummed Boston. What they're not talking about is

(03:42):
the inability to probably keep up that pace. Where they're
not talking about is how dog tired they looked at
the end of the game. Where they're not talking about
is how lazy they got at the end of that game.
Where they're not gonna be talking about. I'm telling you,
Indiana set a pace that I don't think the Knicks
can keep up with. New York needs to play their game,
which is slow it down. You do not want to

(04:05):
try and play the race track meet that Indiana wants
to set with you every single game. You don't want
to do that with them, and you gotta fall back
into his own defense. You gotta rotate, you gotta do
two on two high traps. You gotta put a lot

(04:27):
of pressure on that offense. You can never get comfortable
around the pacers. And that is exactly what New York did.
They got comfortable and we're just kicking it. It's fine.
There's only a couple of minutes left to go. We're
up by fourteen, and it ain't happening. We're good. This

(04:47):
is just Boston. No worries of me go. We could
just lay down and chill out. Wrong, That's exactly what
it looked like. And I don't think mentally the Knicks

(05:10):
can keep up if that pace is going to be
set over and over again. Now, if they slow it
down and they play their game, they still have a
chance to win this series. But everybody knows that a
Tom Thibodeau basketball team is defense first, which is something
that they decided they weren't going to be anymore when
they traded Randall, and Randall's doing fine. He's having triple

(05:33):
doubles and all that. In Minnesota, he's good. He's had
some really bad plays, don't get me wrong, But overall,
I would take what he's been doing in Minnesota over
what's going on in New York right now. New York
was right plays right time this year. I'm not taking
away from who they were, but it's the reality of it.
Tatum got hurt, Boston was just not quite the same team. Defensively,

(05:58):
they were amazing. That's where it starts. Come on, man,
everybody heard Van Gundy. Did these two make a deal
with each other at the beginning of the game to
not guard one another? Man, I'd be I'd be irritated,

(06:20):
I'm gonna tell you that right now. But honestly, at
the end of the day, Thibodeau doesn't have anybody to
blame but himself. When you're in that situation, you rally
the troops. If you're up by fourteen with like a
minute ago and you're doing what they did, maybe, but man,
they choked that game away and that's all there is

(06:40):
to it. So the Toust push, it's still a thing
to the twenty two teams that voted nay, you're all soft.
I'm a little surprised at Washington, to be honest with you.
I know that they're in the same division as Philly,

(07:03):
but the fact that they voted it away, I personally
thought that everybody and an organization was just a step above.
But you know, it is what it is. Here's the thing.
The NFL can say whatever they want to about injuries.
The reality is is they skew the numbers in order

(07:23):
to justify their financial means. That's all there is to it.
You got to understand these these guys, they are no
longer you know, he's not Patrick mahomes Hell. He's not
even looked at as an athlete anymore. He's looked at
as a five hundred million dollar investment slash liability. Because

(07:45):
I've invested this money into you, I expect to return
and if I can't get that return, then you've become
a financial liability, and you're a financial liability. If you
are hurt because I am losing ticket sales, I am
losing Jersey sales, I am losing everything everything that I
get revenue wise. If you go down and you can't

(08:07):
play anymore, that's it your career is done. I lose everything.
I lose bonuses for the playoffs, I lose TV money
and TV time, I lose sponsorship deals. Everybody starts pulling back,
I lose everything. If I'm an NFL owner. That's exactly
what this is. So with the toush push even being there,

(08:30):
it's not about whether or not it's fair, you know.
And all these guys can make jokes all they want
to let the Bears head coach. Well, I'm this guy,
and to me, that play is whatever your reasoning is, Brody,
you go right on ahead, and me go, I don't
care what your reasoning is. We all know that at

(08:50):
the end of the day, you are trying to protect
your players from getting hurt, which I understand. Don't get
me wrong. I'm not saying I don't get it and
that I don't want anybody to get hurt. But the
NFL skews the numbers in order to justify their means.
And a perfect example is the hip drop tackle. The

(09:13):
NFL tried telling everybody that you have a twenty to
twenty five percent increase possibility of getting hurt with the
hip drop tackle. What they did was they skewed the numbers.
They didn't use the amount of tackles that happened that season,
which was over seventeen thousand, and the fact that only
two hundred and thirty nine of them reportedly were hip
drop tackles, which means it's a play that happens one

(09:35):
point three one percent of the time one percent. What
they did was is they manipulated you by going, well,
it's twenty to twenty five percent. How they get that
number They use the amount of players that could start

(09:55):
every single week in the NFL three hundred was it
three hundred ninety three players? That was the number that
they used, not the amount of tackles, the amount of players.
To get an accurate number, you would use the amount

(10:16):
of times that it actually happened. Then you would use
the amount of injuries that actually happened. And when we
use the amount of injuries that happen, it's literally less
than one percent. You have a less than one percent
chance of suffering an injury, specifically a big injury, which
would be like season ending, career ending, et cetera. With

(10:39):
the hip drop tackle, it looks worse than it is
when it actually happens, but it's the NFL, and an
injury could happen anytime. If you don't believe me, asked
Joe Burrow. If you don't believe me, asked Teddy Bridgewater,
von Miller, a host of guys who have all been
hurt just by doing their summer camps. I mean, everybody

(11:03):
remembers Teddy Bridgewater and that first year with Minnesota and
how heartbroken people were because you saw the potential of
his career and he went down before the season even began.
Let that sink in. But you know, it's all hip

(11:27):
drop tackles, and even then, what we saw last season
with it, it was like, Okay, that's hip drop. Why
are we not throwing the flag? This thing is banned
all of a sudden. Everything is referees discretion. So that
tells me that the officiating crew doesn't even necessarily agree
with the hip drop tackle being banned. So, for my money,

(11:52):
whenever the NFL says we're gonna do something, and we're
gonna do it because we care about player safety, and
that's what we're gonna shroud this all in, I'm gonna
start to look deeper because I know that what's really
going on is something much much different. That's legitimately what
it is. I don't blame them. Look, man, if I

(12:16):
spend five hundred million dollars on somebody, I'm probably gonna
do whatever I can to protect that investment too. To
a lot of people, it makes more sense to go
out and get an offensive line or at least an
offensive line coach that's worth their salt. But simultaneously, those
same people are probably gonna tell you it also doesn't

(12:36):
make a whole hell of a lot of sense to
pay somebody five hundred million dollars. Can anybody really show
me where Brock Purdy is worth nearly three hundred million?
Do you really think Brock Perdy's worth three hundred million?
When we go and we look at that football team,

(12:56):
especially from their Super Bowl run, look at that and
go anytime Christian McCaffrey had a bad game, brought pretty
struggle too, and the forty nine ers would lose, Then
we can look at coaching in the Super Bowl and
we could go, hmm, this is a repeat of Shanahan

(13:19):
doing what he did in Atlanta inability to close out
a game coaching wise, same thing he did again when
they were back in the Super Bowl and they were up. Granted,
guys were open, Jimmy g missed the throws, still incredibly
risk plays. Then you're riding CMAC all the way down
to the goal line, and what do you do. You

(13:40):
start throwing the football again. The inability to close out games,
not understanding overtime rules, not having anything in preparation after
you've been in overtime already. We could look at coaching,
and then we could also look and go rot Purdy's

(14:02):
probably a system QB. And we could also say he's
losing pieces around him right now and Semac. Look, everybody
knows what he's capable of when he's healthy. When he's healthy,
when he's healthy, he's the best player on that football team.
When he's injured, they're in trouble. Despite all the talent

(14:25):
that was still there, they were in trouble. And even then,
guys are getting hurt. Last year, Rock Purdy was forcing
the winning games all by himself and he couldn't get
it done, and they paid him anyway. Everybody was complaining
and oh man, these guys are in nil money. They're
making more money than Brock Purdy. And he's been to
a super Bowl and he's been to an NFC Championship game.

(14:51):
And let's not forget that that win streak started when
Jimmy g was the quarterback. I'm just saying, and where's
Jimmy G now? So we have to put things in
perspective and in logic. But even then, the point is,

(15:11):
now that they've paid him that money, they have to
protect their investment, you know. And here's the thing. It's
not just about on the field. And I've said this
one hundred times, it's not just on the field what
you're worth. It's off the field too. It's the Jersey sales.

(15:33):
It's the fact that Patrick Mahomes can go somewhere where
a team is three and ten and they might sell
out because people want to see Patrick Mahomes play. That's
what's up. It's the fact that they're gonna get in
big sponsorship deals. They're gonna generate more revenue via television,

(15:54):
They're gonna generate more revenue now on the apps like
Amazon and all these apps that they're using, Peacock and
everything else in order to generate money. That's literally what
it amounts to. Because a lot of what the NFL's
money making is media, generating billions of dollars literally in

(16:15):
media revenue. Hell, back in twenty seventeen alone, the NFL
was prime to make fourteen billion if I remember correctly,
that was just in media revenue. That's excluding everything else.
So you wonder why the rules are being pushed away

(16:35):
that they are, This is why. But the test push
has been around forever. There's been a variation of it
in some form since, like what the nineteen twenties and
back then, what they would do is the quarterback though
would be almost like a wing. He'd be behind the tackle,
and then he'd add the half back back there, which
by the way, there are still some teams that use
that formation today. And he'd have the half back or

(16:56):
the full back and then they would do a direct
snap and then everybody would just push the line, or
they would hand it to the quarterback or they'd hand
it to the half back or whatever. Then everybody would
just push. Now somebody who's gonna go. Well, back then,
you know, they had spikes and they did. I mean
literally they were allowed to wwe lay drop somebody with

(17:20):
their spikes. I mean, don't get me wrong, the rules
were skewed, but the principle is really more about is
this fair than anything else, and of course the potential
of injury. Some people don't see it as fair because
the defense can't push that way. Well, the defense gets
to push all the time, they get to bull rush

(17:43):
offensive linemen and pass pro who have to back up.
They're not allowed to go forward in pass protection, which
is why offensive lineman love run blocking so much because
they can actually use strength on strength. At that point
they get to go downhill. So with their thought and
all that in the hands checking, the offensive line technically

(18:04):
has leverage on any run play, whereas on pass plays
the defense has the leverage. So tit for tat, it
is what it is me personally, I think you can
obviously see I don't agree with it being banned. I
think you need to figure out how to stop it

(18:25):
because it's literally all about positioning. It's about who's getting
lower than the other guy. So you're gonna have to
figure out how to get lower. Once you do that,
you're gonna control the line of scrimmage. And it doesn't
always work. It just works a lot. I'm just saying.

(18:50):
I mean there's plays that believe it or not, Like
you know, the wide receiver pass and all that stuff.
I mean, these plays have been around for literally over
one hundred years. I'm not saying that just because something's
been around for a long time doesn't mean they should
stick around. I'm just saying that now it's suddenly a discussion.
And what are they using the age old? Well, we
want to protect our guys, full of it, man, Just

(19:13):
want to protect your financial investment. Just say that and
that'd be a lot easier. But you know they know
people aren't gonna buy that. It's gonna make them mad.
What do you mean, it's all about money? Everything is
about money, man. Don't you know that nothing is free
in this world? Brody? Nothing everything comes with some sort

(19:35):
of price. I'm just saying, all right, everybody, I am
Drew Duncan, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is all at Drew
Dunkin Radio and wherever you're listening to podcasts. Simple tet
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care of yourselves, and have a wonderful rest of your

(19:58):
night and or day.