Brian Noe, Rich Ohrnberger, and Jared Smith talk NBA Finals and rookie NFL QBs!

Brian Noe, Rich Ohrnberger, and Jared Smith talk about the start of the NBA Finals and what the Heat need to do to pick up a win, the weak schedule in Week 1 of the college football season, the suitors for free agent wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, Tom Brady’s commitment to retirement, the NBA coaching carousel, and much more!  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to sports.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
What's going on? Everybody? Man, I've got a brain teaser
of a question on the gate. We'll get to the joker.
How do you slow him down? Lots to do today,
Lots going on. We are broadcasting live from the Tireck
dot Com studios. Tirec dot Com will help get you
there an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection,

(00:24):
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tirec dot com the
way tire buying should be. Good morning gents over here. Now,
this is a question you might you might hate me
for this. Initially, it's such a tough question here. So
I just noticed that in college football, we've got a
bowl game that's gonna be renamed the Cheese It Bowl

(00:46):
now officially is renamed the Pop Tarts Bowl. So in
your life, in your own personal life, are you more
so team cheese It or Team pop Tarts? That's what
I need to know. Come on, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
I to be honest. The it's a good change. It's
a good change because when I just go back through
the the life of Rich Wrenberger and I think about
what's fueled more activity pop Tart by far five far,
I mean cheese it. Cheese it, man, cheese its are great.

(01:19):
I'm not gonna I'll never turn down to cheese it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
By the way.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
You want to give me a hot and spicy cheese it,
by the way, the one with the tabasco. I mean, goodness, gracious,
what an invention. But pop tarts. I mean, I mean
the s'mores pop tart. If we're going to talk about
like top ten foods all time, the Smores pop tart
might be in it.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's funny we did because this came out earlier in
the week and I did another show and we ranked
pop tarts our favorites of all time, and to me,
it was s'mores one, and there was a big gap
between the rest. Now, obviously, the I think all the
berry flavored oop tarts kind of blend a little together.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
I think strawberry is probably the most popular, right, But
here's one that I overlooked that I got a little
heat for.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
I guess sure, cinnamon brown sugar. Yeah, yeah, I see,
everybody does, I you know what. And it's funny because
when you look.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
At it, it's just like a brown slab right, there's
no like it's not very.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Sexy looking sling character. Yeah. But and I've always overlooked it.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
I judged the book by its cover, but I gave
it a chance this week and I was wrong. I'm
not ashamed to admit I was wrong. Brown Sugar deserves
a pretty high ranking.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, I will be the outcast here. I'll be
on no Island. I love pop tarts. Cherry pop tarts
are my favorite. Nice a lot more variety, I would say,
But in terms of what's my go to more often,
I'm team cheese. It more so team cheese.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's a fault there, the sweet dilemma.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I know, I just go straight original cheese. It's
that's it.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
So I don't need to getting there behind me.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I no, no, I normally go industrial box. You know
I can't go through it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, like the Costco double pack where it's like you
can't get together.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
You can't try to hit that one up too hard. You'll.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
By the way, this is funny too with the Pop
Tarts Bowl. So it's going to be in Orlando on
December twenty eighth. Instead of being a Most Valuable Player,
they're going to name the most valuable pastry. What they're
going to do.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
They don't pop tarts on the guy's head.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Probably ye should just go all in with that. And
we still will have the Cheese It Bowl. It's still
in Orlando. It's just on New Year's Day. So we've
got both. We've got the newly named pop Tarts Bowl,
and we still have the cheese Itt Bawl. So as
both worlds right there tell you what they are.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
While ball season is still really a thing, right like before,
playoffs truly expand, and some of these sponsorships are going
to be you know, gleamed away from ball season and
put towards maybe maybe some of these playoff games.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
We're going to see an explosion. I have a feeling.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
I feel like we like we may end up with
like ninety six ball games.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Asking like, you know, teams from other other subdivisions to
play in bowl games.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
So yeah, it might. Yeah, it might be like Grand
Valley State taking.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
On you know, Arnett word, Yeah, we might.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
We might see Southeast Missouri State taking on Idaho.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
In the away for college football season. Guys, it'll be here.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
We're not that far away. We're inch and closer. We'll
have some more college football in the show today. Nice
as you've got the SEC, they're still debating do we
go to nine conference games? They're not going to do
it next year in twenty twenty four, they'll still play
eight conference games. But also they're going to eliminate divisions
next year in the SEC. And so we'll have this

(05:01):
a little bit later in the show. Would you like
to see the same thing in the NFL if you
just had AFC, NFC no divisions, would you prefer that
than the current models? So we'll dive into that. How
about this? NBA is top of mind as well, because
the Nuggets won Game one. They led by as many
as twenty four they held on for an eleven point win.

(05:22):
Jokic had a triple double. Shocker, he was actually at
minus one twenty five was the betting line that he
would average a triple double for this entire set. That's insane,
by the way, it's freaking insane. But he's out of
the gate with his ninth triple double of this postseason alone,
and he only had three shots in the first half.
He ended up with twenty seven points. Highly efficient. How

(05:45):
do you slow this guy down? The question becomes would
you rather see Jokic be a scorer or a passer.
That's the dilemma for the Miami Heat, and I would
just say I would like a blend. I think it
makes the most that I'm not trying to Eric Spolstra here,
but hear me out. I would try to do a
blend over here where I would single cover Jokic earlier

(06:08):
in the game where he's not getting everybody involved and
getting everybody in a rhythm. I would single cover Jokic
if he gets his okay, you got to live with it,
and then later in the game I would look to
double him. And if the role players haven't gotten in
a rhythm, they aren't comfortable, maybe they miss some of
those open looks later on. Yeah, yeah, I mean that
is the question.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Anybody watched that game Thursday night, which, by the way,
Thursday night, and then having to wait until Sunday to
see game two of this series.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean this drives me nuts. I know why they
do it.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
They want local you know, television sports talk shows and
radio shows to be talking MBA.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So they schedule it so you wake up.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Friday morning, first thing you're talking about his NBA Finals,
and then Sunday night's game. You wake up Monday morning,
first thing you're talking about. But it's just it's not
good for the viewer. I digress. The joker is a problem.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
He really is. There's really no.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Stopping and he's gonna get his You just mentioned the
SAT he's averaging a triple double. That means he hasn't
been stopped. So I don't care if it's Eric Spolstra,
it's Phil Jackson, it's Steve Kurtz, Greg Popovich, or you know,
it's Bill Russell when he was a player coach. There's
no coach who can figure out how to stop this
guy in today's modern NBA, because you know, even if

(07:29):
you foul him, even if you found him, I mean,
Shaq was a dominant big man, you found him a
lot because and by the way, he shot like something
over eleven thousand free throws in his career because.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
He was awful at it.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, the one weakness in his game is if
you got him to the foul line, he was like
a fifty percent shooter. So that's the reason why hack
a Shaq was born. You can't do that with Jo Kisch,
so you're you really have to try to get the
ball out of his hands and pray that these other
players have slow night shooting.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
That's the best you could do.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
So I think this is a very This is an
I think this is the most interesting part of the series, frankly,
is how the heat and Eric Bolster, who I would
say is the best tactician maybe in the entire NBA
in terms of how he makes adjustments in game adjustments,
and I'm very fascinated to see what he comes up

(08:26):
with here because it looked like Denver. First of all,
Denver did not have a good shooting game. They're one
of the best shooting teams in the NBA. They did
not have a good shooting game in Game one. That
shouldn't surprise you. They had nine days off and you
would imagine there be some rust. They missed a ton
of open threes. To be fair, Miami missed a ton
of open threes too. Both teams looked a little bit.

(08:46):
I would say the jitters right the game one. Jitters,
especially early in the game first half, went way under.
But I think the most impactful part of this series
is what Eric s Bolster does, not only game to game,
but in game and call back in the prior series
for the Nuggets when they faced the Lakers, it was
it was the Ruy Hatchimorra adjustment, right, all of a sudden,

(09:08):
they put Hachima on Jokic, And let's be honest, those
games were close. Game two was close, Game one got
tight in the fourth quarter, and then Game three and
four in LA where both nip and tuck and Game
four came down to the final shot. So I think
there is an opportunity for Miami to keep this series closed.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I don't think it's going to be a sweep.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
I could see it being in five games, but I
could see Eric Spolster making the adjustment if.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
I was Eric. I'm not an NBA coach.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
I don't have that kind of pedigree, but I would say, Okay, Joker,
go ahead and score fifty, but you're not going to
get the rest of your team involved by dishing fourteen assists,
because that gets everyone else in flow. I would prefer
and in fact, the game that Minnesota beat Denver earlier
in the playoffs, one of their only losses in the postseason,
Jokic had forty three. One of their only losses in

(09:58):
the Phoenix series fifty three. So I think that's he
also a twelve assist in that game. But I think
that's the strategy. The game that Joker at forty three
points and six asses is a game that Denver lost.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
So to me, that's how I would approach it if
I was Exposter.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, hey, I hear you. I definitely hear you. Where
it's what is Shack always says the others, meaning the
role players. Yeah, it's like Becauz Jokicic can still get
his He was eight for twelve. He only took twelve shots,
but still had twenty seven points. So he's still look
scoring threat and a scorer in Game one, and then
he had all the fourteen assists and everybody's just getting

(10:36):
in a rhythm. I think I agree with you though,
Jared where I think that Denver's gonna win this series.
But I think it's gonna be a tougher test than
the general reaction after Game one because you mentioned it.
Jimmy Butler was passive. He was not aggressive. He said
maybe I need to put pressure on the rim. It's like, yeah, absolutely,

(10:57):
you need to do that. The team only shot two
free throws. That's an NBA playoff.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
That's insane. By the way. That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
You lunk your way into a few free like, you know,
a defensive three second you get a free throw like that,
to me wild.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Somebody, somebody, normally somebody gets their I poked or something
out technical foul, someone screams at the ref anything.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
I mean, that was insane that that happened.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
And I it was it was Smid that took them.
It wasn't even Butler or one of their main guys.
That's that was really weird.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
It was weird just from an aggressive standpoint. You just
didn't have the aggressiveness from Miami in Game one. That
will change. And then I also think they're role players.
When you look at Max Struce, Caleb Martin, Duncan Robinson,
those guys combined shot two for twenty three from the
field and the three point you know, scoring was terrible

(11:49):
as a team, and with those three players they were
just two for sixteen. There's no way Max Struce is
gonna go in the series in terms of shooting from
the field. So that will change. Also, I still have
Denver winning this. I just think it's gonna be a
little bit harder than some people are envisioning.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
After Game one, one of the things that has really
bullied the Miami Heat is jumping up on teams early.
You know, I think they kind of snuck their way
into this postseason, but they were a better team than
people thought. Obviously, they're here in the finals, and the
reason for that is because Jimmy Butler was hurt for

(12:27):
a majority of the regular season or just did not participate,
and as a result, this team couldn't find stride or
rhythm and was missing star power. And in the postseason
they were able to win the opening game three times
through their opening three series. You know, the fact that
they're down in a hole. Immediately, I read a funny

(12:48):
stat Well, it did make me laugh, but it made
me kind of like, go, wow, I didn't expect that.
But you win the opening game in the series in
the finals, you have a seventy percent chance of winning
the finals, you know. Now, look, I mean, it makes sense,
but I didn't figure that number would be so high.

(13:10):
But it's dramatic that all of a sudden, this series
tilts so much so in Denver's favor and they're the favorite. Anyways,
Like you said, Brian, I mean, I do think that
the Denver Nuggets win this series.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Too.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I wouldn't bet against them. However, I think Miami's better
than what they showed in Game one because they've showed
a lot more heart, a lot more aggressiveness in past games.
And at least for us, you know, for the average
you know, Jim and Joe television viewer at home watching
NBA Finals basketball.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
I hope they get aggressive.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Because that'll make for a much more interesting series. If
it goes the way it went on Thursday night, we're
in for a snoozer.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Yeah, there's a lot of upside, I think with both teams,
both offenses too. You know, both teams missed a ton
of open threes Miami game. Yeah, I think we're gonna
see some. I think we're gonna see a more in rhythm,
flowing type game on Sunday night. Game one, Jitters, especially Denver,
had and played nine days Miami dealing with the altitude.

(14:15):
Now they get the extra day in between. I think
Game two is going to be Now, don't get me wrong.
Game one had its moments, but I think Game two
is going to be one of the more entertaining games
of this series. And I think Game one will likely
be one of the lower scoring games of the entire series.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, oh I'm running. I've already ran to the betting
window for the game two over. Yeah, it's going up.
It was at two to fourteen. It's a it's speaking
of about two point fifteen right.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
Now, especially after they move the number down five points.
Anytime they adjust game to game, I mean, what's changed
between game one and two? I know five point adjustment
on the total two nineteen two fourteen makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
They looked at it and they're like, whoa, goodness, they
can't hit shots. We got to move this thing that.
I think it's a I think it's an over correction
right there. Agreed times you can take advantage of that stuff. Hey,
we're brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes bundling
easy and affordable. Get a multi policy discount by combining
your motorcycle, r V, boat, at V and more all

(15:09):
your protection in one place. Bundle and save. At Progressive
dot com we are often running. We've got Rich Ornberger,
he's pro popcarts. We've got Jared Smith, he's pro pop tarts.
I'm Brian No, I'm pro cheese it, pro cheese it
over there. But yeah, I can blend both we can blame.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
By the way, we're having a heated discussion right now
on off the side, and the.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Text line is right, yeah, I always Sam, what's your
official heat right now? What's your official stance on your
way in v cheese it? What do you say there?
I'm pro cheese its now. I like pop tarts until
I graduated high school. There, it is sure made a good.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Point about the toasting of it. It does change the
vibe when you just eat them raw.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's got to go raw pop tarts raw. I don't
have time.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Sometimes time is of the essence in the morning.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
But yeah, you know, you get used to it. It's
still very good. I mean unbelievably.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Comedian Ornberger's having a fit over there.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
I mean I'm doing it's just like blasphemy. I got.
By the way, we need to get the nutri grain
bar bowl going on there.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Oh no, that's where I draw the line. You need
to get enough frostting.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
We're trying to help up a poplar.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Thanks, I'm good, all right?

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Coming up next, the SEC will make a big change.
Would you like to see the NFL do the same thing.
We'll investigate. It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot Com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Hi, this is Jay.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
Glaser, and you may know me for the world of
football or fighting or ever shows like HBO's Ballers.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well you don't know is for my entire life.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
I have lived in something I refer to as the
Great Depression anxiety. So now I'm coming out with a
new podcast, Unbreakable. I'm meant Health podcast with Jay Laser,
where each week, well we.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Talk about mental health.

Speaker 6 (17:05):
I hope to describe it, give it words. Listen to
Unbreakable with Jayglazer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
All right, welcome back in It's Fox Sports Saturday Live
from the Tirack dot com studios. We're brought to you
by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes bundling easy and affordable. Get
a multi policy discount by combining your motorcycle, vote atv
RV and more all your protection in one place. Bundle
and save at Progressive dot Com. Okay, so, one of

(17:39):
the changes the SEC will be making next year. So
this is twenty twenty four, no divisions, no SEC West,
no SEC East, just one big ball of SEC goodness
over there. And it got me thinking, would you prefer
to see that in the NFL? If you just had

(18:00):
AFC those sixteen teams, NFC, those sixteen teams, we just
jumble them all up. You don't play your divisional opponents
twice a year. The schedule would look much different. Would
you sign up for that today?

Speaker 3 (18:15):
There's an argument for it, and the argument for it
is maybe you don't have a team like, for example,
the two decade long dynasty of the New England Patriots,
when they had Tom Brady reign over a very weak
AFC East for the entire time. Now, don't get me wrong,

(18:36):
there were times when the Jets got hot and they
were good. The Miami Dolphins had a couple of good
years mixed in there, But for the most part, the Bills,
the Jets, and the Dolphins were laughably poor, and they
would luck into wins at times against a much better
competition in the New England Patriots. And as a result,

(18:57):
you know, you're kind of patting your stats with six
games against inferior opponents. Yeah, I could see an argument
for it, I'd humor it at very least. Look, one
of the things that I love about the NFL that
other leagues seem to be slow on the uptake, is well,
maybe the NBA is starting to catch up in this vein.

(19:18):
They are willing to change things for just one season, right,
you know, they'll just change it for a season.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
They'll say, Hey, we're gonna throw spaghetti at the wall.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
We're gonna see if any of these noodles stick, and
if they don't, we're gonna just scoop it up and
throw it in the trash can. They did it with
the pass interference review rule. They're trying it with this
new kickoff rule this year. You know, the touchback rule.
Everybody gets it at the twenty five, doesn't matter where
you catch it, where you call for the fair catch.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
They could do it with with a.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Scheduling rule where all of a sudden you take the
parameters off of the division to keep the divisions intact.
We can still refer to these teams in their division
talk about maybe how the records need to you know, uh,
still win out in the division divisions first or whatever.
But we could we could see it more a more

(20:12):
wide open, and more exciting perhaps a regular season as
a result.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
Yeah, I'm not for this. I'm pulling a page out
of our guy Bino here. I'm on I guess maybe
I'll be on Beno Island. I don't like I don't
like the fact that we'll just completely get rid of
all the divisions in the NFL. I think I would
maybe consider it if it was conferences, but I kind
of liked the playoff format as it is now. I

(20:41):
think maybe I'm talking about it from the gambling perspective,
but I really like how it gets shorter and shorter
and you can kind of identify which conference is the
stronger conference, and then you can use some of that
ideology to handicap the postseason a little bit when we
get to.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
The super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
I'm I don't know how I feel about all of
a sudden we just blow up all the divisions and say, okay,
it's every free you know, just freewheeling these these schedules,
Like how would we handle the how many games you
play against each team? Would we still have the same
structure of the schedule. I think there's a lot of

(21:21):
questions there, and I don't know if I'm ready to
open that Pandora's box.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
You're a standoffish.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I like it. I don't.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, I don't hate that.

Speaker 4 (21:29):
Well, usually I'm for reform, but I think in this case,
I like the fact that there's these It's kind of
a set routine with who you face every year, and
it helps with planning your schedule, especially win totals, and
I don't know, I think that would be like the
wild Wild West, like that would be insane. If it
was just every team for themselves, the schedule just got

(21:50):
completely perplexed and permutations every year. I'm kind of okay
with facing your division opponents twice every year.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
It sets up those natural rivalries.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, there are things I like in this, like betting analysts,
by the way, and Jared Smith.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Totally, but let's just leave it to this.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
I would love it if the Jets didn't have to
play the Patriots twice every year, but that's from the
my fan perspective.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
But besides that, I'm totally okay with.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
To me, it's case by case. There are things I like,
things I dislike. If it's say some rivalries are better
than others, i'd rather see. I'd love to see the
Cowboys and the Eagles twice a year. I don't necessarily
have to see like the Arizona Cardinals and the LA
Rams twice a year. You know it, case by case.
What I dislike right now is that if you win

(22:33):
your division, you get an automatic home playoff game. I say,
you get into the playoffs, that's what you should get.
I don't think you deserve the cherry on top, the
whip cream and the sprinkles, all the goodness of getting
a home playoff game. We saw that last year. Tampa
was eight and nine and they hosted the twelve and five.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
I hate that. I hate that party. Get rid of that.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
I don't think you have to blow up divisions. You
just say, hey, no home playoff game, right, you get
your playoff birth, but that's it.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
You can just see them by record, Like you don't
need the division right for the postseason, Yeah, you just
need that for the regular season schedule.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Well yeah, but as far as you know, top to bottom,
let's just say sixteen teams, no divisions in each conference.
You could still have relatively the same structure. Like right now,
say you're an AFC team, you would play teams in
your conference that would be twelve games and then you've
got five games against NFC teams. You could still have that. Okay,

(23:34):
it change those twelve matchups because you still.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Have somewhat of a division there. It's just conference, not divisions.
It's not divided by four, it's divided by two.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
I don't hate the way the NBA has it going
right now in terms of I think too many teams
make it to the postseason. But I don't hate the
way that they do it in terms of divisions don't
really matter. Yes, kids, there are divisions in the NBA, but.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
I couldn't even name the teams in each of Frankly,
I don't even know what they are. I think there's
an Atlantic in a Pacific, right, and I don't even
know what else.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
It gets really murky. There's a metro way that's the city. Yeah,
I don't know the American Athletic I believe. Yeah, it
gets very hairy there.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
But but.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, big skuy, it's uh, it's it's confusing, but but
it doesn't need to be. You could just get rid
of the divisions. It would be just as easy in
the NBA and it would be the same outcome. But
I like the fact that toward the end of the year,
like if it were single elimination, for example, in the NBA,
that's where I think that NFL obviously has the edge

(24:37):
over the NBA in terms of playoff urgency, then seating
would be so much more important to these teams. You
wouldn't be trying to sneak into the postseason. Your postseason
would start a month and a half early, and you
would see all of the stars playing on staying on
the court because they realized like, oh no, like we
really don't want to run into the Suns for example

(24:59):
if you're Lakers, or we really don't want to run
into the Nuggets early in this postseason if we can
avoid it, you know. So what you'll see is teams
actually play with submergency. I think you could, I think
you could open it up in the NFL to have
it mimic that playoff style, and you would actually have

(25:21):
a lot more success than the NBA, because again, when
you enter a single elimination playoff bracket, you're going to
have even more of a heightened urgency to increase your
seating because certain teams toward the end of the NFL
season get a little complacent where.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
They'll rest starters and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Seating will become way more important in the NFL if
you have it wide open in terms of conferences and
it's not just hey, win our division and we get
in and we get to host whoever's next.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
I'm glad we talked us out because I think now
I'm going towards I like conferences better, no divisions, Yes, conferences,
But we need to make one more tweak. If we're
gonna do this, every team, just like what baseball is
doing now, you have to play everybody, right, because if
we're gonna take away all the divisions and make it
by conference, you need to play every team in your conference.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
We'll think about there has to be a tiebreaker there
if there are seventeen games, right, which there are right now. Yeah,
so let's just take your Jets. So you're saying, Jared,
the Jets play fifteen games against all of the other
AFC teams. You kind of have to, right, and those
remaining two you play against the NFC against the other conference.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
And now I think that's where the issue is.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
Unlike baseball basketball, there's not enough games to go around, right.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, Well that's an interesting tweak right there. I wouldn't
be completely against it. I really wouldn't. I think we're
really going off the team. Yeah, yeah, off the rails.
We hand the button over now to Nick Off, the
Rails coach. I think is they just sinks up perfectly? Nick.
What's going on, buddy? What's going on? Guys?

Speaker 7 (26:56):
Yeah, just because I didn't know either. Here are the
names of the NBA divisions. By the way, you had
Atlanta Pacific. Those are two of the six. You got Central, Southeast, Northwest,
and Southwest.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
So very creative. So then classic, there you go.

Speaker 7 (27:13):
Some NBA news yesterday, of course, the Suns are finalizing
a deal with former Lakers coach Frank Vogel, reportedly five years,
thirty one million. Some NFL news late on Friday as well,
Chicago Bears announced that the planned site for new stadium
in Arlington Heights is now at risk. It's not their
sole focus, citing some tax issues there. You also have

(27:34):
the city of Naperville, which is about thirty miles west
of downtown Chicago. They have now joined the mix and
are now courting the Bears as well. In baseball, Some
West Coast scores from last night, Dodgers eight to four
winners over the Yankees. Mookie Betts homer twice. Orioles beat
the Giants three to two. Gunner Henderson hit to go
ahead home run in the seventh. Cubs just passed the

(27:55):
Padres two to one. Manny Machana was back, had a
hand injury that had him out more than two weeks. Machano, however,
went just over four. Diamondbacks won their six in a
row of three to two win over the NLS leading
Braves at the French Open. Reigning Wimbledon champ number four
seat on the women's side of Lana Rebakan have pulled
out of Roland Garros this morning prior to her match

(28:17):
due to illness. Got Game one of the Stanley Cup
Final coming up tonight at eight eastern. The Golden Knights
and the Panthers, both franchises looking for their first championship.
Horse racing Churchill Downs is suspending operations and shifting its
current meet to another location as they examine safety measures
after twelve horses have died since late April. And then

(28:39):
one story I'll leave you guys with that's a little
bit off the ledger here he had the NCAA Baseball
tournament getting underway. Yesterday Duke Meat UNC Wilmington twelve to three.
And there's this guy MJ Metz for Duke. He hit
three home runs and he did it with a torn
acl He did it during the ACC tournament last week,
but he took adding practice, told the coach, hey, I

(29:02):
can hit. So they have them go out there as
the DH and the dude hit three home runs.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Back to you, guys, Wow, it's pretty impressive. Run the basis, well,
you can try to. All he did was strikeout in
the bass.

Speaker 8 (29:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (29:14):
Yeah, he struck out and he hit three home runs,
so he didn't have to hustle. Yeah, you either hit.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Home runs or just whif he.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Was just making it, you're not lagging out an infield single,
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
It's he just a base hit right up the middle,
and he's like it's an out.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
So you gotta be a home ruck like softball.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
At the end of your first year, Discover credit cards
automatically double all the cash back you've earned. That's right,
everything you earned doubled. Seriously, see terms and check it
out for yourself at Discover dot com. Slash Match it's
Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio you know,
I'm looking at this week week one schedule. Over here,
we're looking at college football. So this is for ESPN

(29:56):
and ABC. This is not the entire schedule, but I'm
looking at the primetime matchups. Okay, you give me a
thumbs up for a thumbs down, Fellas. First off, Thursday,
August thirty first, Florida at Utah, thumbs up. No problem
with that matchup at all. Get a little cam rising action,
Utah taking on the Gators. Totally fine, no beef with that.

(30:20):
Now here's where it gets dicey. The next night, Friday
September first, in Atlanta Louisville against Georgia Tech. That's your
primetime matchup. What are we doing there? Double thumbs down, Wolf, Yeah,
that is a wolfer right there. And then Sunday we
get to LSU Florida State. That's fine, that's only good.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Especially after last year's game, right the missed extra.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Point, the Brian Keller thing.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, that's a fun game, Jordan Travis Heisman campaign.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
And so now we're riding the Wi wave of momentum
for the fifth straight day. We get ball on Monday,
September fourth, get set for Clemson at Duke.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
It's a doozy, all right. What one was basketball and
one was football would be good. They're both playing football,
then I think we're in trouble.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good point. If you
think of it as football versus basketball, it's good.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, would actually prefer to see their the Duke basketball
team play against the.

Speaker 4 (31:28):
I can't argue with that actually, And well it's kind
of funny because you don't really I don't really have
the frame of reference for a lot of these quarterbacks
because there's so so many new starters.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
But Club Nick is gonna be an interesting one. Oh,
that's gonna be an interesting one this.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Year, big time. Absolutely will be interesting. We'll see if
Clemson can rebound from a down year for them. So yeah,
I just look, man, the NFL gets it right. I
don't know why college football insists on doing it their
own way. I mean, you can do things your own
way as long as it makes sense. But the NFL,
their primetime matchups week one are big matchups. It's like,

(32:04):
you got to check this out and we'll get Louisville,
Georgia Tech Clemson.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
To be fair, it is week zero, right, so it's
almost like it doesn't even exist.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
I think this is actually week one. I think week
zero would be before.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
I know we have a triple header on the Labor
Day Sunday, which I like. It used to be just
the one game. Last year it was just the LSU
Florida State game. I know we have a triple header
this year now. Granted the early game I'm looking at
it now is Northwestern and Rutgers, which again is not
exactly going to Uh.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
He's a little to be desired.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Wouldn't want that in basketball either, right.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'm trying to remember what was it last year? Was Northwestern?
Did they play Nebraska overseas somewhere?

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (32:48):
It was an Ilan?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Was Ireland?

Speaker 4 (32:49):
And didn't they leave They wanted the leaf Scott Frost
because they yeah that's lost.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, he's still in Ireland, I believe.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah. Out again.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Football is like they just will watch anything, right, and
we're desperate at this point. That's what their schedule indicates,
is like we don't have to make it sexy or anything.
They'll watch anyway.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Well, you know what's beautiful about college football is it's
true and because it's so punitive, like if if one
of these lesser programs can sneak up. You know, a
Duke against a Clemson for example.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
You know we're clowning on it.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
But if that's a nailbier for Clemson, Like if that one,
you know, if you got if you got Duke taking
it to Clemson in the first half, all of a
sudden people are turning that game on at halftime or
in the second half, and you're gonna get some action
on that game because people are gonna be like, what
is going on here? That can ruin? That could be

(33:46):
a season runer. So that is the beauty of college
football is you know, if you're an NFL team and
you lose your opening game, okay, I mean that's it's bad.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
You don't want to lose if you can, but it's
not nearly as punitive as it is in college football,
where you're literally looking for perfection. Sometimes too, you know,
you could be the one seed or just be in
the top four, a.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Two touchdown favorite.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
There rich a little early underdog action for you on
the dookies at home?

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Just what are you doing the primetime matchups and the
favorite is favored by two touchdowns on the road, the
bad game on the road.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
It's just a night game on the road, primetime, and
they're they're laying twelve and a half.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
This com twelve and a half Club Nicks first start.
That might be Ormburger's first pick of the year when
we get to the season.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
We got.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Special Oh baby, Monday night.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Let's go spruce up these primetime matchups college football. Good lord,
let's get it together. We got Rich Ornberger, Penn State
All American. He s bruced up college football when he
was playing. We've got Jared Smith FSR, betting analyst. He'll
spruce up your bets if you want to.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
Watching bruce up college football during his days from the
stands at Beaver Stadium.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
And did they have white outs back then?

Speaker 4 (35:05):
That was the first white out, right, Rich, Yeah, first
first white out.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Both of us were in attendance for let's go.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
A big deal. Did you did you have the white
out T shirt underneath?

Speaker 1 (35:14):
I was going that was Penn State Ohio State game day?

Speaker 4 (35:17):
Was there?

Speaker 1 (35:18):
That means Rich, I know you remember that game, but
that man, that.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
Game is is burned into my memory forever.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Okay, coming up next this announcement. It was understandable, yet's
still very very odd. It is Fox Sports Saturday, right
here on Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back in. It is
Fox Sports Saturday, right here on Fox Sports Radio. We're
coming to you live from the tire Rack dot Com studios.

(35:48):
You know, so this is not a great indication for
John Morant, star point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies. He
had a second gun fitting on social media. And so
this is NBA Commissioner Adam Silver with a message about
when the suspension might be announced. Check this out.

Speaker 8 (36:10):
We've uncovered a fair amount of additional information. I think
since I was still asked about the situation, I would
say we probably could have brought it to a head now,
but we made the decision, and I believe the Players
Association agrees with us that it would be unfair to
these players and these teams in the middle of the

(36:33):
series to announce the results of that investigation.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
And yeah, okay, all right, so they're not going to
announce it right now, but they will after the series
between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat and the NBA Finals.
And I certainly understand that this was just an odd
announcement by the commission where I feel like you ever
see a dog that's just sitting there and he's got
like a treat on the end of his nose, and

(36:58):
you know, the is like not yet, not yet, fidoh,
not yet, and the dog just looking cross eyed at
this tree like I want to have the treat right now,
Like I feel like that's where we are, where he's
just sort of like a radio teas like we've uncovered
a fair amount of additional information. We're like like, what
what did you uncover? How bad is it? What's the

(37:19):
length of the suspension? And so it's just a weird announcement.
The way he went about it, sort of like I
don't know, like wetting our appetite for what's going to
be uncovered and what's the suspension we have to wait
till the end of the finals. It was just a
weird announcement. It would have been better just to say, hey,
we're dotting our eyes, crossing our te's we'll announce what

(37:40):
our findings are soon, yeah, and just leave it open ended.
But the way he did it, there's still a ton
of focus on John Moran instead of the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
But it's impossible, right though, And when you think about it,
like like compare this to I don't know the NFL
where it's not necessarily Patrick Mahone getting into trouble, but
imagine it was Justin Herbert or Josh Allen or Joe
Burrow who you know, had some sort of situation like
this pop up.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
They're gonna be really, really.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Careful with how they handle what they do next with
John Moran, because he's one of the emerging stars of
this league. He is easily top ten in terms of
you know, interest quotient, like people people are interested in
this guy for not just for you know, the talking
points that have rolled out since all of these bizarre

(38:34):
Instagram posts that have gotten him in trouble. He's a
fantastic player, So I look at it from this standpoint,
they should take their time with this. I agree the
messaging was a little sloppy, but it doesn't surprise me
that that this is gonna take its time and they're
gonna ull this for a while.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
And I don't know if we're gonna get back.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
To this, but I actually have an idea on how,
you know, they should go about the suspension or handling
his punishment, but we could say that for another time.
I agree with you, it was a little bit of
a clunky statement.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
Yeah, I'm okay with them waiting, Like, let's not pull
an a rod here in the middle of the World
Series and a master two hundred and fifty million dollars contract.
But also, don't come out in the middle of the
series and say, well, we've got all this new.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Information, but we're gonna make you wait, what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (39:19):
Like, just say nothing or no comment will address it
after the finals.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Yes, no comment will address it after the finals. Let's
focus on the games.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Because this wasn't top of mind. John Moreri's second gun
video was on May fourteenth.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
It was a month ago.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Basically, we didn't have this top of mind of Hey,
the suspension should be any day now. Once again, I.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Would imagine Adam Silver if he could do that again,
probably would say he would change his right right there.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, just what's your idea? We got a minute left.
What's your idea here? Rich?

Speaker 3 (39:49):
I think this guy, I mean, assuming parents would be willing,
should go on a world tour of talking to kids
about gun safety and about keeping uns out of the
hands of people who inappropriately practice gun in school.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yoursage, I love you know, maybe social media training.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
I mean, but like I think, I think this guy,
I think this guy needs to see the faces of
the people who would be most affected by these social
media loves.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, totally on board.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
I mean, because then you understand your responsibility. Then you
realize like, oh my gosh, it's these kids, that's the reason.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Sure. All right, coming up next, this headline makes zero sense.
We will dive into that right around the corner. Hang
with us. Oh, what's going on, every buddy. It's a
big name and he's just hanging out in the free
agent wilderness. We'll get to that. We are broadcasting live
from the tire rack dot Com studios. Tirerac dot com

(40:48):
will help get you there an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road hazard protection, and over ten thousand recommended installers.
Tirerac dot com the way tire buying should be okay.
So DeAndre Hopkins free Agent wide receiver was released by
the Arizona Cardinals. Can go anywhere right now, And it's

(41:10):
really interesting if you're paying attention to really is trying
to drum up a bigger market, is my read on it.
So there was a story earlier this week from the
Houston Chronicles. Brooks Cabina. He tweeted this out. DeAndre Hopkins
is interested in rejoining the Texans, per source. Hopkins was
officially released by the Cardinals Tuesday. It's a new regime,

(41:33):
an emerging team that needs a wide receiver. No chance,
no how does DeAndre Hopkins rejoin the Texans. No chance,
no chance, no way. He said he wants to play
for a Super Bowl contender, and he wants to play
for a veteran, proven quarterback. The Texans have none of

(41:54):
those things.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Also, also, if you think about it, I mean stable
front office. If they got it wrong with Stroud and
Ryans that there's gonna be new stability in Houston. So
it's uh, that would be a very hairy pick for
DeAndre Hopkins. I see it very likely that this goes

(42:17):
the way of a lot of aging veterans. He's probably
going to take a contract restructure. He's gonna go somewhere
that doesn't necessarily have the cap room. But if they
get rid of like the third string safety, who's gonna
help them on special teams and they'll be a little
bit light in the defensive secondary to start the season

(42:39):
or start training camp, They're gonna be fine with that.
To save themselves some some salary room, and then they're
gonna restructure DeAndre Hopkins deal to make sense for their capologists,
and yeah, they're gonna move on. So it's gonna be
a Buffalo, or it's gonna be a Kansas City, or
it's gonna be you know, I know the New York

(43:01):
Jets said that they're not necessarily interested in him, but
like it's going to be a team that's emerging with
the culture and could use a little help that wide receiver,
or a team that's fortified with the culture with a
very talented quarterback.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
I'll throw a team out there that maybe doesn't have
a very talented quarterback. But the first part you said,
rich makes sense. How about the New England Patriots And
I hate to see this happen, but talk about a
team that could use a guy like Hopkins more than
any of those other teams you just mentioned. Yeah, any
thoughts on your Pats perhaps swooping in.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
It makes sense for the Patriots. I just don't know
if it makes sense for DeAndre Hopkins. Again, if this
was a trade situation, I'm sure Hopkins, you could squint
and make sense of it and be like a you
know is this one I want to block? And he
talks to his agent. Well, listen, the phones have gone
a little cold. And mac Jones isn't all that bad.
I mean you saw him his rookie year. Yeah, you're right, yeah,

(43:57):
but what are they doing at offensive coordinator?

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Well, Billy os have one?

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Now last year it was uh and.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
He knows Billy o'brock have one. Yeah, and Billy oh
coached him in Houston's.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
That's a good dat's yeah, a very interesting point.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
And traded him for David Johnson. Good point.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Also point, and with the cold water and so let's
just go ahead and put the new England box back
on the show.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
It was fun while it lastly, we played with it
for about thirty seconds and then we got bored.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
That's the thing is so. And earlier this week, DeAndre
Hopkins he tweeted out some interesting emojis you know where again.
I think he's trying to drum up a market, like
trying to drum up interest, because there was the it's
like the cute little oh oh see no evil speak
no evil? Yeah, kind of like the little animal has

(44:49):
like his hands over his eyes and like over his
ears and his mouth like I've got a secret over here.
And now we get this where DeAndre Hopkins there to
report that he's open to all teams. He's not looking
for a specific quarterback. He just set July training camp
as the hard deadline for a deal. And this to

(45:11):
me reeks of he's just trying to drum drum up
a market, which is fine. There's nothing bad going on here.
He's trying to get in the best spot. He's trying
to get as much money as possible. He's trying to
have as many teams in the mix to hopefully drive
up the price tag, and he's hopefully landing on a
Super Bowl contending team with the proven quarterback. He wants

(45:31):
it all right there. But I think what's happening here
is he's realizing this is like becoming single again and like, hey,
let me download bumble. I'm gonna have to fight off
all the ladies over here, and then all of a sudden,
like no matches, no matches.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
No matches like Vegas.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, that's well, I can't speak to that, Jared. I'm
sure dead over there.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
I feel your pain, DeAndre, I feel your pain, my.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
DeAndre, and I on the scene line come week one.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
I just think that teams are not falling over themselves
to sign a guy who's gonna turn thirty one on Tuesday,
who's been banged up, who had a ped suspension last year. Like,
don't get me wrong, I still think DeAndre Hopkins can contribute,
but it depends what his asking price is. He was
set to make over nineteen million dollars this year and

(46:26):
that wasn't guaranteed, so that goes bye bye. So I
don't know how much of a haircut he's willing to
take financially to sign with a team. Yeah, he better be.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
He better be interested in a haircut though, otherwise he's
not going to be playing a ton of football because
that's what it's gonna take. Look, there's a big old
heap in slice of humble pie that you got to eat.
When teams all of a sudden think of you as
on the wrong side of name the age, in this case, thirty,

(46:55):
he's on the wrong side of it. He looks like
he's on the wrong side of thirty. You know, the
injury season, the desperation that occurs after the injury season
looking to make some money. So maybe maybe performance enhancing
drugs wasn't a part of the routine in the past,
and all of a sudden it was because he's looking
to ring the sponge for just a.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Little bit more life. Whatever it is, it's not good,
but it can be great.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Look again, the comp I used last weekend when we
talked about this, and I thought he might even be
signed by now was Christian McCaffrey. Like Christian McCaffrey, no
PD suspension. But he had spent a lot of his
time in Carolina hurt barely saw the field. I shouldn't
say barely, but almost half the time he was on
the training room carpet instead of on the grass for

(47:46):
the Carolina Panthers. And then all of a sudden San
Francisco scoops him up. And again it's a trade situation,
and they're paying that contract, but using him in an
offense where he's surrounded by other talent. You're finding a
way to preserve him health wise and also maximize his talents.
DeAndre Hopkins, if he's smart, he's gonna look at this
situation practically and say, if there is interest from a

(48:09):
team with a stable culture, a real chance to win
a Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
You look at his numbers.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
If he puts a Super Bowl season under his belt,
and he has any sort of resurgence where say he
has another over one thousand yard season in year eleven,
you're gonna have to start talking Hall of Fame for
DeAndre Hopkins. The performance enhancing drugs suspension will keep him
out of the Hall of Fame. But I'm just saying
he's gonna be in that conversation with some of the

(48:38):
greats of the game.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
I wouldn't mind him going back to the Texans. I
think that'd be a really oh gosh.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
I'm not saying it's going to happen, yeah, but if
it does happen, I would be on board with that, because, again,
what is the one thing they don't have on their
team currently. It's a receiver that can groom a young
up and coming quarterback and a very young offense. So
I'm not saying DeAndre Hopkins is this you know, quarterback

(49:04):
whisper or anything. But I think if you asked me
the best landing spot for him personally, obviously the Bills.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Of the Chiefs would be the two options. Right.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
I just don't know if those teams have the cap
space to meet the demands right, Like, those teams are
pretty stretched right now, and I don't know if it
works financially. Again, I'm not a capologist, but that to
me was always the hang up with those teams, Whereas
the Texans I know, have money and they.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Clearly there's some spark there.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Because I'm reading about it in Houston Chronicle on Sports Illustrated,
So there's a little bit of smoke there. I'm not
saying it's gonna happen. I think the Cleveland thing is
interesting too. Reunion with Watson, right, I could see that, Yeah,
that makes sense too, But I don't think it's as
easy as oh, let's just put him on the best
team with the best quarterback Buffalo Kansas City and call

(49:58):
it a day. I think there's a little more nuanced
there because of the financial situation.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
We've got to get creative here.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
I think Cleveland and Houston to me make the most
sense in terms of the fit and the need and
the the money situation.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Right well, I look at it where if you look
at the cap space, the the Bills don't even have
one point five for getting available. The Chiefs don't even
have The Chiefs don't even have a million. They're under
a million left in cap space, so that you're talking
about not just a little trim haircut for DeAndre, You're
talking about shaving him bald to go. Yeah, that's that's

(50:37):
a that's a different realm of a haircut right there.
I just think the Texans, this is like what we
talked about with the Patriots on steroids, is it would
be better for the Texans than it would be DeAndre Hopkins.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
But if but money cures a lot of things, Brian,
if here's a bag, all right, maybe I can deal
with c JS draft for a season.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Right.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I wonder just financially, how big of a difference it
would be. Yeah, I don't know that of Texans, And
there are some teams that have more cap space, Like
what about the Cowboys?

Speaker 1 (51:08):
With the cowboys'd be interesting.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Throw a bag at him, that would be interesting.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
That would the other team in Texas.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
If you're looking at the Cowboys roster currently, I mean
that is a top five roster in the NFL. I
know a lot of people are gonna say, hey, you know,
we say this every offseason about the Dallas Cowboys, and
they always are underwhelming once the season begins. But They've
got a lot of talent around that roster already. If
they added DeAndre Hopkins as sort of almost like.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
A and oh, by the way.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
The same field as Cooks and Ceedee Lamb. I mean,
holy smokes, Dak Prescott, he will officially be out of excuses.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
He will need to win a Super Bowl. I mean,
it would be insane. I think that the Cowboys, even
the Lions, also the Jets have a lot of cap room.
Your Jets, Jared, like, this might be a year. It
could be an Odell Beckham junior type contract here where
it's a one year deal and he's gonna try to

(52:08):
get as much money as possible. But if it's one
year with the Cowboys or Jets, I'd take that all day.
Compared to going back to the Texans.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
I listen, I'm not saying the Texans are this you
know juggernaut that's waiting, and you know Hopkins is the
final piece.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
I just think in the NFL it's not as simple.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Like in baseball or in even other sports like in
the NBA, where you can kind of tweak the cap
a little bit more. The NFL is the most stringent
cap of any sport. And it's really tough to work
around it. And I think that's where a lot of
these teams. I think the timing of everything worked out
against DeAndre too, right, some of its market timing. If this,

(52:50):
if all this goes down last year, maybe Kansas City.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Does have some room for him.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
But it's happening in a season where the two teams
that are making the most sense for who DeAndre wants.

Speaker 9 (53:03):
To go to are literally in the in salary cap
hill as they say, yeah, this is after the draft.
You know this is really after free agency. And yeah,
if this.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Is earlier in the year, if this is we're talking
about this in March, before the draft, it's a whole
different market for DeAndre Hopkins.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Which, by the way, I mean the reason why this
happened to a certain extent, if it was gonna happen
at all, because remember how he became a free agent.
We were all scratching our heads like how did the Cardinals.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Even so stupid it?

Speaker 3 (53:35):
I mean, like, because there is trade value there if
you could get him to hold on. But it almost
feels like if if behind the scenes, which who knows
what happened, but behind the scenes, DeAndre Hopkins was giving
them a hard time or whatever the circumstances were where
they're like.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
All right, if I'm will just cut them.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
I mean doing that at this time really sets him
up for a long wait. And so it may have
been one of those things where like, if you're going
to force our hand, we're gonna make it as hard
for you as humanly possible to get signs. So there
could have been a little bit of you know, yeah,
look we're we're slamming the door shut, but we're hoping
it hits you on the way out.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
I don't know, maybe it's I don't know what the
inner workings were, but I look at it where Arizona
is clearly in Tank Modec. That's what it sends to
the message it sends to me. I don't know if
there was any animosity between the organization and DeAndre, but
I think that you're looking out for number one. I
think the Cardinals are absolutely looking at pots though Ryan

(54:36):
I would say there's both there with what DeAndre.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
I would say animosity and Tank.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
Oh yeah, Like it was like a perfect storm of
everything was going south, and Arizona was like, you know what,
screw it, cut bait, see you later.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
We're moving on.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah, it's possible. I just look at it where they
tried to trade DeAndre, they tried to work it out,
they didn't have any takers, and it be came like, well,
what are we gonna do. We're gonna run it back
and DeAndre can still play.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
We might that's your leading indicator, Brian.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
I think I think the leading indicator in this is
the fact that they definitely tried to trade him and couldn't.
So his value in his mind and maybe to us
because of the name value is less than what his
actual real value is on the street with these NFL teams, well,
no doubt act.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
And that happens because I've been in conversations with you know,
front office guys, personnel guys, and I say, hey, you know,
I am such and such is on the market. I
remember when I was still playing, and be like, yeah,
you haven't.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Been on the phone with his agent. They're delusional, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Like sometimes that happens where you know you're thinking as
a player or as a fan of a team, like.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Oh my god, why are we going after DeAndre Hopkins.
We got a little bit of cap space. We can
make this work.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
We just got to restructure his contract and he should
be amiable to that because he's getting.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Older, he's pa decent speench and blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
And the meanwhile, the agent gets on the phone like, nope,
we want his full con t call us back when
you can offer that, and everybody else in the office
is like.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Ah, no, thanks, goodbye. You know, so that may be it.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
It may be as simple as he needs to reassess
what his value to the rest of the league is
before we have a real answer on where he's gonna land.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
Yeah, well that could be it too, if you know,
if if DeAndre wanted whatever he wanted, uh, and the
Cardinals they're trying to work out a trade. DeAndre wanted
to go somewhere else. The Cardinals like, okay, we'll try
to get some value and work out a deal. And
they had no takers, right, and it's like, well, what
are you gonna do at that point? You can either
run it back with DeAndre and maybe win some games

(56:39):
you're not trying to win this year. You could be
as high in the draft. So they cut bait and
now I think they're looking and saying see seeing is
what we were saying we couldn't work out a deal,
and now you're seeing it's not as easy to come
up with something.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah, the largest tracks the worst, Hopkins, the situation gets Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, all right, We've got rich Ordan, Penn State All American,
Jared Smith, Horizon and Mountain West betting experts college True.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
He just got me in the mood.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
What do you what do you hone in on? In football?
Is it the the AAC? Do you hone in on
the act over there?

Speaker 4 (57:17):
I think in college football because of the way the
markets are, there's like there's not as much mid major vibe, right,
Like I think the Power five just rules everything. I'd
like in college basketball where, let's be honest, FAU and
San Diego State.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
We're in the final four this year, so mid major
city baby.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Yeah different brought note. Coming up next, football predictions blended
with golf, we'll explain. It's Fox Sports Saturday right here
on Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back in. It's Fox Sports
Saturday Live from the tire rack dot Com studios. We're
brought to you by a Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes bundling
easy and affordable. Get a multi policy discount by combining

(57:56):
your motorcycle RV, boat ATV and more. All your protection
in one place, Bundle and save at Progressive dot Com.
I fell so I was looking at There was a
piece by Bill Barnwell Rights for ESPN, and he was
talking about the best and worst NFL off seasons, and
I scrolled down to the ten the Titans. He had

(58:17):
them ranked thirty second. He had them with the worst
off season of all the NFL teams. They shed a
lot of salary, right, they let a bunch of dudes
go shuffling things around with the front office, new OC
all kinds of stuff. So he had them with the
worst offseason. But there was a line in there that
caught my attention where he just wrote Will Levis could

(58:40):
start at quarterback for Tennessee in twenty twenty four and
that just stuck with me. So I thoughtould be fun
today if we look at the top four quarterbacks of
the draft back in April, and we're predicting how many
starts each of these guys will have in this twenty

(59:00):
twenty three season. Let's start with the guy at the top,
Bryce Young. I'm keeping track over here. It's kind of
like golf. Think about it, where you want to have
his few strokes to get the ball into the hole, right, Like,
you're trying to be as close to the actual number
of starts, whether you're higher or lower whatever. If you're
too off, then you get minus two right there, or

(59:23):
plus two. I should say, so Rich, we'll start with you,
Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers quarterback. How many starts do you
see from him in his rookie season?

Speaker 3 (59:32):
I think we're gonna see him start every single game.
And the reason is because Frank Reich, He's worked with
so many different starting quarterbacks over his time as a
head coach and an offensive coordinator. I think he's gotten
really used to bringing the playbook down to a level
where it's attainable for any level of play, whether it

(59:53):
be a brand new rookie quarterback cutting his teeth in
the NFL or a veteran who's walking through the door
with maybe an accumulated knowledge in different places obviously not
necessarily playing for Frank Reich where he can find a
level to communicate with him. So yeah, I'm gonna say

(01:00:13):
Bryce Young, based on Frank Reich's past history, is going
to be ready to play. As far as the Carolina
Panthers are concerned. Game one and he'll play the whole season.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
I agree that he will be the projected starter for
the whole season, but unfortunately there's this thing in the
NFL called injuries.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah, and when I watched when I watched the film.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
Of him, and I know it's just OTA's and they're
basically in shorts and T shirts. But man, I think
the knock on Bryce all off season going into the
draft was his height, his weight, his size. Do we
think he's going to survive the whole season physically? Is
the question that I have. I would say, no, Yeah,

(01:00:56):
what number do you put it on at?

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Let's go twelve?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Twelve, That's about what I was thinking. I'm gonna go eleven. Yeah,
I get priced. Yeah, like you think about Tua tug
of I Looa missed five games last year, Lamar Famar
Jackson's missed five each of the past two seasons. I'm
gonna put it at eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Let's go eleven and a half right over under?

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Right, Okay, Yeah, I'll take the under by a scot right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
I will make I will make the argument that Lamar
Jackson didn't get hurt his first two seasons, and there's
something something to be said about at Alabama, waiting your turn,
not putting too much tread on the tire in terms
of taking hits, and those first couple of years in
the league, you still have that leftover. Hey, this isn't
about self preservation, you know, because college football just bangs

(01:01:40):
it into your head. It's about the team, the team,
the team, the team. You're not thinking about yourself, and
when you're a first overall pick, it's about proving yourself,
proving yourself, proving yourself. You're not thinking about, you know, necessarily,
what's best for your body. And when you put a
lot of those things on the on the shelf and
you say to yourself like, no, I'm not I'm here
to win games. I'm here to get better. You know,

(01:02:02):
you won't take time off the field, you won't think
about your future in the game because you're trying to
get great right now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
So I think if.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
He can survive it, like you said, it's different from
college football, but they protect quarterbacks a lot better at
the NFL level than they do in college. I project
him as finishing out the season, but again, gameplay can.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Dictate it a lot of that too. If he's struggling,
I mean, well, Yeah, that's the thing is I think
they're gonna take their lumps with Bryce Young throughout the
rest of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Andy Dalton.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yeah, it's the worst thing as the two man back there.
If you have your rookie and you start in week
one and then you hit the rough patch, you got
to see it through kind of like it's so bad
to be like I we're gonna sit him in week six.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
For what The schedule two is interesting Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle, Minnesota, Detroit,
Miami than an early by right, Like, no dominating defenses
there except for maybe New Orleans, although on the road
at Seattle that's a tough game for a rookie.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Week three.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Yeah, Seattle's very good defensively typically, although they've been through
some down seasons lately.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
And New Orleans to your point, that's a top five
defense that's.

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
At home Monday night, though, right, Like, I think those
first six games at Atlanta, tough game on the road
week one for your first ever game, then Seattle, Minnesota, Detroit,
Miami those aren't top ten defenses, and New Orleans is,
but you get him at home in its prime time,
So I think it's actually a pretty favorable schedule, and
then you get the early buy to kind of catch
your breath.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
You know what's funny is, however the rookie season goes
for Bryce Young, That's how most people will think the
career is gonna go, right, Like, if he gets banged
up his rookie season, appsie, there it is. And if
he survives, let's just say he starts seventeen games. Yeah,
there'll be a lot of talk of what was all
the speculation about Bryce Young not being able to hold up?

(01:03:45):
It's like, okay, you avoided injury. Is rookie year. It
doesn't mean it's gonna be story going forward. Yeah, gonna
always Yeah, we'll see. I think he looks like Muggsy
Bogues next to Lamar Jack.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
You look really like the video as I saw Aboutta
is like he looked like he was on the junior
varsity team.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
He got called up for the day because the other
guy had a sick day or something.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Let's do another one here real fast. How about c J. Stroud.
We'll do the conveyor belt here, so you're up first here, Jared,
what do you think about c J. Stroud?

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
I hate to say it, but I know you're gonna
disagree with this take. I think Stroud starts every game.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
I might.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
He might. I mean, Davis Mills is not, you know,
a superstar in the making. So I think Stroud's gonna
start to begin the season most likely. I'll put it
at fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
That's fair. In fifteen and a half, I'll go fifteen
and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
I'll go over yeah, I'll go fifteen just in case.
You know, listen, it's still the NFL. There could be
an injury right here, there could be a rough patch
and he sits for a week. I don't I'll put
it at fifteen. What do you say, Rich, I disagree.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
I think they're gonna I mean, look, it comes down
to his ability to catch up with the speed of
the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
But I mean, this isn't necessary. This isn't Lamar.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Jackson, like Stroud, is much more of a pocket passer
than he is a dual threat.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
I look at CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Stroud as potentially having those rookie struggles, and the Houston
Texans have one thing going for them, it's time. I mean,
they are not in the window. I mean they're not
even close to the window. Carolina, by comparison, has an
actual chance to win that division potentially.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
I mean, if.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Bryce Young can deliver, Carolina can sneak up on you,
the Texans are sneaking up on nobody. The Texans are
going to be bad for another year as they're trying
to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
And so it's kind of like, what's the rush.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
I could see Davis Mills starting the season wow and
and yeah, and then taking their time and grooming this
guy to make sure that he is one hundred percent
ready when he takes the field.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Okay, so what's the number I'm gonna put it at.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I don't think they wait a long time, so I
want to say fourteen, but I'll say third team. I'll
say he starts thirteen games as rookie.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Sea that under fifteen and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Oh, very interesting. The one thing too, is they don't
have their first round pick next year because they used
it for Will Anderson Junior this year, right, they moved
up to that number three overall pick, so the Arizona
Cardinals have the Texans first round pick next year. So, like,
I think that makes it even more likely that CJ.

(01:06:27):
Stroud starts more games. You know, if you had that
little carrot dangling in front of you like, well, you know,
we could get a really high pick.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
So it didn't year.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Yeah, that's why they don't have Yeah, they're gonna take
their lumps, I think with what c J. Stroud throughout
most of the year. Okay, we'll get to the other
two quarterbacks in a second. Here first though, Nick Cope
who his girl? Did you guys know this is from
the South Bend, Indiana area?

Speaker 7 (01:06:58):
Hold on, though they're not they're not actually not a
Notre Dame family. They all went to IU. They they
are full Iniana Hoosier people. The shock, I know, I'm sorry, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
How can you grow up?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Might do the rest of the show. I you what
is that?

Speaker 7 (01:07:15):
It's just been I U's been in the family for generations. Man,
I I understand what you're saying. Yeah, they actually are
very much not fans of Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
So I won't go as far as to say I
hate these people. But you know, question, no, don't go
that far. Come on, no, I can't go that far.
A lot of questions, A lot of questions for this
fair enough?

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:07:40):
In the NFL, we do have some news this morning,
the Miami Herald reporting that if running back Dalvin Cook
of the Vikings were to be cut, the Dolphins are
a very real possibility as a landing spot. Here is,
of course, the South Florida Native Minnesota GM quasi Adopho Mensa.
He's been noncommittal when asked if Cook is going to
be on the team for the upcoming season. News in

(01:08:02):
the NBA this morning, a report from ESPN says Nicks
all star for Julius Randall had surgery on his left
ankle yesterday, but he is expected to be ready for
training camp in the fall. Late scores from baseball last night,
Dodgers eight to four over the Yankees. Clayton Kershaw allowed
just two runs in seven innings. Mookie Betts homer twice.

(01:08:22):
Orioles beat the Giants three to two. Manny Machado returned
for the Padres, but he went just zero for four.
Cubs got the win over San Diego two to one.
Diamondbacks won their six in a row, a three to
two win over the NL's leading Braves. In hockey, guy
Game one of the Stanley Cup Final between the Golden
Knights and the Panthers tonight eight to eastern. Both Vegas

(01:08:43):
and Florida hoping to claim their first Championship franchise history,
French Open top remaining American women Coco Goff recovered after
dropping the opening set.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
She wins her third.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Round matches and is now into the round of sixteen
defending women champ egas Fiantek. She is also in the
final sixteen, a double bagel victory for her six zero six.
So finally soccer got the FA Cup final going on.
Manchester City and Manchester United tied to one to one.
City scored thirteen seconds into the match, but United converted

(01:09:14):
just moments ago to tie us up. City trying to
complete the treble. They already have the Premier League Championship.
They could get the FA Cup today and then potentially
win the Champions League final next Saturday against Inter Milan.
Treble has not been completed since Manchester United did it
back in nineteen ninety nine. Guys, back to you, Thanks Nick.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.
At the end of your first year, Discover credit cards
automatically double all the cash back you've earned. That's right,
everything you earned doubled. Seriously see terms and check it
out for yourself at Discover dot com. Slash match. All right,
we go rapid fire style. Our predictions of how many
starts for the top rookie quarterbacks in the NFL. We're

(01:09:56):
onto Anthony Richardson, fourth overall pick with the Colts. I'm
targeting week seven for his first start over here. I
like that Iowa was saying, Oh yes, the NFL film,
let's get it going here. I'm gonna go Anthony Richardson
right around Week seven at home against the Browns. I
don't think he starts at the very beginning of the season.

(01:10:18):
It's a guy who hadn't thrown four hundred passes in
college football only thirteen starts, the additional pressure of being
a week one starter, I just don't see it. So
I'm gonna go with eleven starts for Anthony Richardson this year.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
I'm gonna say Anthony Richardson starts seventeen games this season.
And the reason why is you have an impatient owner.
You have an owner who was willing to bench a
veteran starting quarterback for youth during the middle of a
I mean not a good season, but I mean a

(01:10:53):
season that wasn't going completely sideways until he got involved.
That's the reason why they're in this situation. In the
person first place, picking at the top of the draft,
and I think to prove his point, Richardson's gonna get
early work and it may not look all that bad
because a mobile quarterback can be the vitamin C to
an offense.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
I say, he starts every game.

Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
So unlike Stroud and Young, you're not seeing Richardson's name
at the top of the depth chart right now. So
it looks like and again the depth chart is very
loosey goosey at this stage, but all signs point to
at least Gardner Minshew getting more of a chance to
be the starter, I would say than those other two
that we talked about. I agree with Richard's take about

(01:11:33):
the ownership situation. I just don't know how much that
will impact playing time in year one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
I think it impacted the draft.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
I think the ownership ERSA and all those guys, they
really liked Richardson and they wanted him. But I think
once we get to the season, I would hope that
it's Shane Steichen's decision on who starts. I don't know
that answer though, and if Rich's prognostication is correct that
it's Ers pulling the strings, I could see Richardson starting
earlier than expected, But I don't know. I'll go like

(01:12:04):
eight and a half, nine and a half on the
number here, and I'll go slight over but not not significantly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
So it's where are you going with nine or ten?

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
Yeah, let's go ten, just to make it a nice
round number. But I would be interested in an under too.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
All right, twenty four second shot clock you gas bags?
All right, Will Levis, we'll start with you rich How
many starts for Will Levis? Not a single game?

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
What? Not? One?

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
That one?

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
I agree?

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
I think they will Levis on the shelf.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
I don't even need to give any analysis other than
the fact that they have their starter that they like,
and if they really didn't like him, I think they
would have gotten rid of Ryan tannehill Man.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
That was like a Derek White tippin' he's heard on
the depth chart. One second left there. We didn't even
need twenty four second. Please fine, Stark, senators, you know
I'm going with five five star arts for will to
thrill Levis, because here's the deal. He's backing up Ryan

(01:13:04):
tannehill who's becoming a walking medicine cabinet over there, right,
Tannehill gets banged up all the time, and and Tannehill
might not be great as the starter and might get
yanked for the young guns. So yeah, give me five
starts for Will Levis. I don't think it's a goose
egg this year.

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
I'll go under on whatever number gets posted, though, Like
if we go five and a half on the on
the under, I'm on the under.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
I think the betting line would be.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
I think I think five and a half is a
fair number right around like that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Yeah, you gotta find those. I'm sure you can bet
on him now.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
I wish those existed, Unfortunately you don't.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
So, so the numbers were setting for Bryce, what do
we go?

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
What are we going with? Fourteen and a half? Right,
let's go fourteen and a half? Go on and a
half for Bryce and CJ.

Speaker 4 (01:13:47):
And like five and a half, six and a half,
seven and a half for the other two guys somewhere
in that ring.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Oh, i'd pound the over on Anthony Richardson. I don't know,
over five and a half for six and a half.
Oh yeah, I don't think he's sitting for double digit
games this se that's fair.

Speaker 4 (01:14:00):
Yeah, give me Levis is the only guy we think
is going to be uh riding the pie this year.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
Well, I'll take I'll take Stroud in the under, depending
on where the line's at. I got the over on
Young and Richardson, and I definitely have the under on
Levis wherever that number lass.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Yeah, you know what's so crazy about the NFL. It
keeps you guessing. I would not be shocked. I wouldn't
bet on this, but I would not be shocked if
Will Levis starts more games than Bryce Young. All it
takes is an early season injury for Bryce Young. All
it takes is an early season injury for Ryan Tannehill.
That wouldn't shock me whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Yeah, all right, We've got rich Oarnberger, Penn State All American,
Jared Smith FSR betting analyst. His dog name is Jackpot.
I'm Brian now currently renting a house in Champagne, Illinois,
and there are two cats that we're looking after.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
I saw the cats on Twitter. They look great company
over here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Coming up next, doubling down on being done. It's Fox
Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio. It is
Fox Sports Saturday here on Fox Sports Radio. We're coming
to you live from the tire rack dot Com Studios,
and we're brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes
bundling easy and affordable. Get a multi policy discount by

(01:15:18):
combining your motorcycle, RV, boat, ATV and more all your
protection in one place. Bundle and save at Progressive dot Com.
So the goat Tom Brady. He went on a tour
discussing how he is retired now. He's a partial team
owner of the Las Vegas Radas, and he thought this
would be a good time to reiterate that he is

(01:15:40):
walking away. This was him on Sports Center.

Speaker 10 (01:15:42):
I was very fortunate to play twenty three incredible NFL seasons,
so I think there's always a time to move on
to other things and other opportunities. I know how much
of a grind it is. I know the level of
commitment is, and it's really a year round process. So
if I was going to play football this year, i'd
be working entirely different than the way i'm now. Right now,
I'm catching up on some other priorities which are much needed,

(01:16:04):
and I'm really looking forward to not getting hit anymore
and transitioning to other areas of interest. So I got
some fun things on the Horizon.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Okay, and this was also him with Sports Illustrated. Here's
the goat.

Speaker 10 (01:16:19):
I'm certain I'm not playing again, So I've tried to
make that a clear and I hate to continue to
profess that because I've already told people that lots of times.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
I really like that part. That's my favorite one. I've
tried to make it perfectly clear. It's like, Tom, the
last we heard from you, you were in Miami at
some sort of speaking engagement and they asked you, like, hey,
you're gonna suit up for the Dolphins. And he completely
heisman posed the retirement talk and was like, well, I
got a lot of friends on that team. So I

(01:16:48):
love this sound of him saying I've tried to tell
him over and over and over again, I'm retired. It's like,
this is the first we've really heard of that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Tom.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Yeah, I agree. I agree with what you just said.
It was not what a month ago that that happened
in Miami. So what all of a sudden you've been.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Trying to tell people because you've gone on this recent
media campaign to convince everybody you're done.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Look, the retirement.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
The reason why everybody is struggling with it, Like feeling
like this retirement is real is because none of the
signs point to this retirement being real, like, for example,
the fact that the only announcement was a forty five
second video that you had recorded earlier on a beach

(01:17:35):
in Miami somewhere. I mean, is that it That's how
the storied career of Tom Brady ends. It seems odd,
especially with how you know savvy he's become with media
and his multiple brands and all of the announcements that
he's made for merch that he's dropping or movies that
are coming out from his production company. I mean, it

(01:17:57):
just seems a little odd that that's the way he
walks away from the game. The other side of this
that seems odd to me is the fact that he
is signing up to own a team that is currently
without a starting quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
I mean, last I checked, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
Garoppolo is a backup in San Francisco and a guy
who's over the course of his career, has been made
of glass like cannot be trusted to man the ship
for a full season.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
I know, he just got a contract from the Raiders,
but he's not getting paid starting quarterback money, so it's
very strange to me that all of a sudden, you know,
he's got to go on this press tour.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
It almost feels.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
To me, guys, and maybe maybe you have a different take,
like he's trying to get all these owners to believe
that he's really retired, that he's really made up his
mind that he's retired so he doesn't have to put
anything in writing, you know, when he gets approval from
the owners to own a portion of the Raiders so
that he still has the avenue to come back when

(01:18:56):
the regular season shows up for the Raiders and be
a owner slash player for Las Vegas.

Speaker 4 (01:19:03):
Jackie Moon style baby in that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
I'm gonna watch that movie later today.

Speaker 4 (01:19:13):
I think he is retired this year. That's what I'll say,
because I don't think. Let's be honest, guys, I don't
think the owner player thing. As much as it would
be an awesome story, there are bylaws against it, so
I don't see it playing out, and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
I kind of take Tom at his word here.

Speaker 4 (01:19:34):
This season. We'll see down the road. But this season,
I think Tom's sitting out.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
I think it's done. I do.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
I'm leaning that way too, But definitely this season.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Yeah, because that's the thing. Can you really see him
in silver and black with Davante Adams and a rough
defense and going head to head with Mahomes. I have
a hard time seeing an Herbert and Russell Wilson, I know, collectively,
I just don't see it. I think he's done, but
time will tell. He might get the itch. If anybody

(01:20:07):
gets the itch, it's gonna be Tom coming up next.
The music is about to stop and there's only one
chair left. Oh, the coaching carousel is almost over here.
We will get into that. We are broadcasting live from
the tirack dot com studios. Tire rack dot com will
help get you there, an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road hazard protection, and over ten thousand recommended installers.

(01:20:30):
Tire rack dot com the way tire buying should be okay.
So the latest coaching higher in the NBA Frank Vogel,
former championship winning head coach with the Lakers. He is
going to the Phoenix Suns five year deal thirty one mil.
What's interesting here is Manny Williams, the former Sons coach.

(01:20:54):
He got canned, but he resurfaces with the Detroit Pistons.
Many Williams signs a six year deal for seventy eight
point five million. He's the highest baid head coach in
NBA history. And listen, Monti Williams is highly respected, but
he got bounced in the second round the last two years.

(01:21:15):
This year he lost in an elimination game by twenty
five against the Nuggets. The previous year lost game seven
at home by thirty three against Dallas. And now he's
the highest paid head coach in NBA history. That is
that's a wow right there. And Frank Vogel takes over
his former team and he's making less than half it's

(01:21:38):
one one year. You know, it's only a five year deal.
Money got a six year deal, but the money is
staggering where I guess that's the Detroit tax right there.
We kind of open up the checkbook to get a
name like Manny Williams to come over there. But Frank Vogel,
he gets back in the coaching circuit again as he's

(01:21:58):
taking over in Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
Yeah, and it makes sense that he got another job.
We knew it was coming eventually. What's so strange about
head coach retreads when you know they either win a
championship that a lot of people feel like they didn't
have a lot to do with, or they are unsuccessful
in recent campaigns but had success in the past. You know,

(01:22:23):
Frank Vogel is a perfect example of having success that
not a lot of people attribute this success to Frank
Vogel necessarily the Lakers championship in the bubble recently where
he was a part of, or a Doc Rivers for example,
who his distant past successes has led to him receiving
job after job after job in the NBA, regardless of

(01:22:46):
whether he can successfully navigate a postseason with a team
full of stars. How many opportunities has he's gotten. It's
just it's just comfort, it's familiarity. It's selling it to
the fan base. It's saying, hey, this time it's gonna
be different, and let us tell you why, or hey,
this guy's got real credentialing, Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel, and

(01:23:09):
let me explain to you why it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
It's just an easy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
Pill for a fan base to swallow, and it's money
you have to spend. Anyways, if you're an NBA owner,
and at the end of the day, let's be very
honest with each other. Is Frank Vogel gonna make or
break the Suns next season? Nope, No, No, is Monty
Williams for that matter, going to make or break any
team who would have signed. It's not It's not about

(01:23:36):
the coaches in the NBA. It's the talent you have
on the roster. That's what's gonna win you and net
you championships.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Totally agree.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
It's an NBA league that is a star driven league,
whereas in the NFL, not so much. The coaching, the schemes,
the play calling has a much greater impact on the
outcome of the games than in the NBA. I mean,
you see the miked up segments with these coaches on
the sidelines. It's always funny. When they showed Doc Rivers,

(01:24:05):
He's just like, yeah, guys, let's go play harder. Okay, sure,
anything else you want to head coach any ski you know,
maybe run this play now. I will say this if
you asked me Vogel Williams, right, we just did it
with the rookie quarterbacks. Which coach has a greater impact
on the roster he is about to inherit. I think

(01:24:27):
it's Monni Williams much younger roster much more, I guess,
absorbing some of the information and the coaching and the
leadership that MANI will bring to the table, whereas with
the Sons it's all veterans. And I guess Frank Vogel
has experienced there right, coaching Lebron and just kind of
letting him do his thing, almost shepherding him and just

(01:24:49):
letting him run the run the show. And and Frank's
kind of just that voice in the background, which sounds
weird as a head coach making all that money, But
that's what the situation is in Phoenix compared to Detroit.
Here's the irony six year deal for Monny Williams. He
doesn't complete that right three four years max. I think
like he's not going to satisfy the full six years.

(01:25:10):
Like these coaches, it seems like they just move on
from them very quickly once the messaging goes stale.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
Yeah. Well, that's the thing with the Pistons. It's one
of these tell me you're desperate without telling me you're desperate.
Are you kidding? You signed this guy to the highest
paid contract in NBA history for what was he won champion?
He's gotten boat raced in elimination games, he too the
last two years, and he's the highest paid guy. Like,

(01:25:39):
good lord, you could not be more desperate Detroit. And
think about this. This is a team that not that
long ago is winning titles, you know, so it's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:25:51):
What's that tune of this NBA stuff? Do you think
that's why the amount was so much for Monni? Do
you think another team was after him and Detroit had
to match or no?

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Well, I think that Detroit just wants to be relevant,
which I understand, and they're willing to pay the Detroit
tax to do so. And look, Manti Williams, I'm not
telling you you can't coach at all. He can be
really good for a very young team. But to make
him the highest paid guy, that's the thing right there. Yeah,
did you have to do that to get him on

(01:26:20):
the sideline? Probably not. That just shows me you're bad
at business.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
Well, it's either bad at business or savvat public relations.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:29):
You know, Sometimes sometimes whatever whatever you pay a head coach,
you're not necessarily paying for him to coach your players
into a lather so that they go out there and
they win it all for the gipper. You know, Sometimes
you're just paying a coach to be a great orator
when things aren't going so well, or when it's going

(01:26:50):
to take a little while for a rebuild to occur,
or you need to stabilize a culture and set and
play some good precedence so that young players coming into
your franchise have some guidance, because that's what I think
coaches in the NBA really offer. Can they give you
a couple of pointers at practice? Yeah, there's no question.

(01:27:11):
There's still some coaching that can be done, even at
the highest level. That's the reason why players hire coaches.
Teams higher coaches as well, But their main job is
to be a counselor their main job is to be
the liaison from front office to player level to locker room.
You know, they connect that those two dots, they're they're

(01:27:34):
the mouthpiece for the team. You hear from the coach
more than any other player or any other person in
the franchise. So sometimes you're not paying a coach to
be a coach. You're paying them to be the front
facing political figure that your fan base and your players
are going to interact with.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
Well, it's interesting too, because you hear the saying one
person's trash is another person's treasure. And that's the NBA
coaching carousel. Oh his offseason to a t because you
just saw Many Williams lose his job in Phoenix and
now he's the highest paid coach in NBA history with
the Detroit Pistons. You look at Nick Nurse, he gets

(01:28:14):
canned by Detroit or by Toronto rather now he's in Philly.
Philly's like, this could be our guy to get us
over the top. So I think that and Frank Vogel.
Frank Vogel got canned a couple of years ago with
the Lakers, and now he resurfaces with the Suns and
he's got a legit shot with KD and Devin Booker.
So it's always interesting how the coaching carousel goes. I

(01:28:36):
think the Bucks, what they decided to do is really interesting.
They go with Adrian Griffin because the blessing of Jannie.
I call him the Milwaukee Giannies. Now they're not the
Milwaukee Bucks. They're just all in, like Jannis, you want
Adrian cool, we'll go with him. They could have had
Nick Nurse. Nick Nurse applied for that same job. He

(01:28:57):
was in the running. He interviewed. I say they don't
say applied. I don't think you had to fill out
an application, but he interviewed for that job. They could
have had Nick Nurse, who's won a championship as a
head coach. They went with Nick Nurse's assistant in Adrian Griffin,
who's been an assistant for fifteen years. So Milwaukee gets
the assistant. The Sixers they get Nick Nurse, the championship

(01:29:22):
winning head coach. That will be interesting to see how
it sorts itself out. And the last player is a
couple of big names still on the open market. Mike
Budenholzer got fired by the Bucks, he doesn't have a
new gig. And Doc Rivers, who's the worst Game seven
head coach ever, he's still on the open market and
you can knock him and I get it, but he's

(01:29:44):
still a bigger name. So Bud and Doc, there are
two big names on the open market. And we got
one job left with the Toronto Raptop.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
I'll give you another one though. What about Steve Nash.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
He's a big name, that's true, but as a player,
I'll be honest.

Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
The three we just said, if you asked me young
roster looking for something fresh, Toronto is that. Yeah, I'd
rather have Steve Nash coming back home to Canada than
bringing home retreads like Budenholzer or Doc Rivers.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
That would be my preference.

Speaker 3 (01:30:15):
Yeah, that's a good point about you know, nationalism, a
little bit of pride there. You know, you get him
back in his home country, there could be something I
could be sold again. That's the point I'm making about
head coaches is you're not buying a head coach.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
You're selling one. You know, you're you're you're telling your fan.

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
Base like, here's the guy we got it figured out.
This is how we usher in our next era of winning,
or or you know certain fan bases, it's this is
the guy who's gonna finally get us over that playoff hump.
We keep getting knocked out in the first or second round.
Well guess what here comes Doc. You know, it's like,

(01:30:56):
all right, well maybe or maybe it's gonna be se
you what it's been in the past for that coach.
But one thing you do know about a lot of
the coaches we mention is they are great at talking
their game. They're gonna get in from the media, everyone's
gonna get comfy with them. They're gonna know how to
work the room. They're gonna know which reporters they need

(01:31:17):
to be, uh, you know, to win over. They're gonna
make the organization look good until they can anymore, and
then they're gonna be looking for another job.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
And that's again, that's the that's the NBA to a t.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
These guys, they kind of get used and reused and reused,
and it's because everybody knows. The dirty little secret is
they're they're not all that useful in terms of the
actual coaching. You're just selling them to the fan base
as as a little bit of Hey, look, you know,
we we can't get rid of these players because we're

(01:31:50):
paying them too much and we're under contract for the
next two or three years. But we can change the
coach guys, right right, Okay, that's the big fix.

Speaker 4 (01:32:00):
Yeah, Doc Rivers doesn't move the needle at all for
me in Toronto. Like, if I'm a Toronto fan or
the owner of the team or anyone involved in that
process and I'm bringing in Doc Rivers, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
Know how you sell that. Yeah, Like I could sell
Bud a little bit. He just won a title. Yeah,
he's a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:32:19):
I'd actually don't know their age discrepancy between Doc and Bud.
I would assume Bud's a little younger, but not by
a lot. Bud's been around a while too. But Steve Nash,
to me, that's the fresh, young, new cool toy that
they can bring up to Toronto. And then of course
the nationalism factor as well, with him being from Canada.
I think that would be if I'm a Raptors fan

(01:32:43):
and I'm like, we just hired Doc Rivers, we just
hired Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
Nash, I hear you, yeah, And look, Steve Nash was
a fantastic player, one of the best, and a Canadian.
I get that angle of it too. But as far
as a coach, that to me is a shoulder shrug.
I agree, But is but or.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Doc no a shoulder shrug too.

Speaker 2 (01:33:05):
I don't think Bud is the shoulder shrug.

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
I agree, Idle, I would say Bud of the two
is the only one I would.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
I'll say this about but coach bud Is.

Speaker 3 (01:33:16):
Look in Milwaukee, he he truly, in my opinion, helped
build a culture. Now Janis obviously took that culture over
the top and they built around Yannis and they've become
you know, to your point, the the Milwaukee Giannis is like.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
Whatever he says goes yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
But I mean he he was good for them, and
and he could take a young culture and he could
establish them. I remember the buying was pretty tough there
in Milwaukee too. For a little bit there. There was
some belly aching about how hard they were working at practice,
some of the conditioning that they needed to do in
season or early season to get ready to run you know,

(01:33:56):
the run the offense, run the defenses that he wanted
to see on the but it benefited them and then
it netted a.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Championship from Milwaukee.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
And yeah, I mean that those are the type of culture,
the type of coaches who can.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Actually establish a culture, who are important.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
They're important in the NBA and and they they will
always have jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
But there's also room for the guy.

Speaker 3 (01:34:20):
Like like you said, Jared, I know it seems like
a tough sell to you know, on day one of
Doc Rivers. But you know when you love Doc Rivers
is when you have a genre rant problem. It's when
you have a crisis where you need a veteran who's
got his hand on the tiller and he's seen it all,
he's done it all and he's he's a an impassioned

(01:34:43):
speaker and he knows exactly what to say. Then then
you know, I mean that's a rare situation. But you
know what at your point, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):
Like the special assistant right right. I don't know. I
just I feel like Doc has had his Doc's had
his chance.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
Yeah, he's got that many many teams his chances. I
also think this the last little nugget here is Joe Missoula.
He'll be back with the Boston Celtics. Brad Stevens mentioned
that this week, And the one thing I would say
is the elimination game against Miami in Game seven was
just a disaster. Going nine to forty two from three

(01:35:24):
point range was absurd. Barkley was right on the money.
He was like, you're either coaching it or you're allowing
it to happen. Then both are unacceptable. The one thing
I would say is that I compare it to a
rookie quarterback in the NFL. You know, if a rookie
quarterback struggles in year one, I'm not automatically like trade
this guy, Screw this guy, get him out of here, right,

(01:35:45):
Like it's gonna take some growing pains and I think
the same is true to be an NBA head coach.
This dude's thirty four years old. Granted he's screwed up
at times, but he learned a lot and there's potential
for him to get better. So I think that we
should look at co which is somewhat similarly to the
way we look at players. You're not just gonna say, oh,
you're one, get him out of here. He's not up

(01:36:06):
to speed like Peyton Manning wasn't crushing it initially, and
look how his career turned out. So I wouldn't be
completely against Missoula going forward with the Celtics. Yeah, I'm
not against it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:17):
I hated the way he handled his post season press
conference when they were questioning him on the game, especially
and the decision making and the adjustments.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
Yea.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
And I know there's the Patriot way with Bill Belichick
and playing your cards close to your vest, but there's
also a way to interact with the media where you're
saying a lot but you're sharing very little. And I
just felt like, if I'm the Boston Celtics brass, I
better be completely convinced that he's going to become one

(01:36:50):
of the one of those coaches like you just mentioned Brian,
who learns from his mistakes and gets really really good
at this really quick, because I mean the cold shoulder
to the media and not really explaining yourself after a
loss like that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
Was a bad look for the franch I'll tell you
wrote that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:07):
Though, right, he gets a breakfast ball first year, first
off the t rich you get a mulligan.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
But it's true. It's a good point. Rich. It lands
differently if you're winning a title right short with the media,
if you're Popovich, if you're Belichick. It's one thing when
you're holding the trophies. But Missoula, I'll never forget earlier
in the playoffs, he was a standoffish and he's like,
nothing about the adjustments, huh, and he walked off and
it was like, I kind of liked that. That was

(01:37:32):
after a win, you know, But when you're short after
bowing out to an eight seed, Yeah, it doesn't land
the same way. You're right about that. Hey, at the
end of your first year, discover credit cards automatically double
all the cash back you've earned. That's right, everything you've
earned doubled. Seriously see terms and check it out for
yourself at Discover dot com slash Match. All right, We've

(01:37:53):
got rich oorn Berger, Penn State all American. We've got
Jared Smith FSR betting analyst. I'm briyan No coming up next.
Don't be surprised if the NFL makes another major rule
change in the not too distant future. It is Fox
Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back in.
It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the tire rack dot

(01:38:14):
com studios. At the end of your first year, Discover
credit cards automatically double all the cash back you've earned.
That's right, everything you earned doubled. Seriously see terms and
check it out for yourself at Discover dot com slash Match. Okay,
So Cowboys running back Tony Pollard, he says that he'll
be back for training camp. That's at the end of July.

(01:38:37):
He suffered a high ankle sprain and fractured fibula in
a playoff loss against the forty nine ers. He actually
says he's faster right now, is what he he's going
with right there. But the thing that I take away
from this pretty interesting the hip drop tackle and the
competition committee they talked about this. You might remember Patrick

(01:39:00):
Mahomes he suffered a high ankle spraying against Jacksonville because
there was a quote unquote hip drop tackle. What does
that mean. It's like you're tackling a guy from behind,
and based on the way they're carrying you, you might
accidentally land on his ankle, his foot, his leg with

(01:39:21):
your body weight based on that. This is actually how
the Patrick Mahomes injury sounded on NBC.

Speaker 5 (01:39:27):
Mahomes may have been shaken up as he was taken down,
Grab that right ankle right away in a lot of pain.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
And how about this the very next day, similar tackle.
This was Tony Pollard against the forty nine ers on Fox.

Speaker 7 (01:39:41):
Over in the middle polar passic kupped up by Ward
inside the twenty and now Pollard has heard you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
See Jimmy Ward, he kind of drops.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
It's very similar to what happened last night against Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
It was back to back days in the playoffs there
that those similar tackles took place. Look, my stance is
very simple. You can't prevent every injury in the NFL.
And if the ball carrier, like in Tony Pollard's case,
Tony Pollard is a strong dude. He was being tackled
by Jimmy Ward, who's a defensive back, and so Jimmy

(01:40:15):
Ward hits him initially, and Tony Pollard starts to drag
him and so he's trying to Ward is completing the
tackle and accidentally lands on his leg. Incredibly unfortunate. But
you can't sit here in outlaw hip drop tackles. Are
you supposed to just let someone go and let him
start running?

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
You can't take football out of football? And this, to
me would be an example of that. If they outlawed
that type of tackle.

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
Yeah, I look, we are getting to the point where
I think it's possible we are gonna see the majority
of the tackles that we're still seeing today outlawed, that
you're going to see a game that resembles, from the
defensive side of the ball more rugby than American football.

(01:41:04):
I think we're hurtling towards that reality because these franchises,
they're ran by owners who are paying in ordinance sums
of money to players who, don't, get me wrong, deserve
it because they're risking their health to play this game.
That's netting these owners billions and billions of dollars, But

(01:41:27):
they don't want to see their products, so to speak,
on the shelf instead of on the field. And so
as a result, they're trying to legislate a lot of
the violence at this game. And they're doing it slowly.
We've seen it with the quarterback position and the wide
receivers over the middle, and some of the head to

(01:41:47):
head contact in general, and they're doing it step by step.
This is very methodical, guys, Like you're seeing more and
more of these quote unquote dangerous plays being legislated out
of football until this this game is not going to
resemble anything of what we grew up watching. I mean
that that's the reality we're heading towards. Because again, these owners,

(01:42:09):
they realize we're still we're.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
Still printing money over here.

Speaker 3 (01:42:12):
It's not like any any less viewership as a result
of these rule changes, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:42:19):
So I think we're going to get to.

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
A point potentially of diminishing returns where if they keep
softening up this sport, people are going to be less
interested in it. But it hasn't happened yet, So just
count on this trend continuing. They're going to take more
and more of the violence out of this game.

Speaker 4 (01:42:35):
Yeah, I think the punishment is what I'm more interested here.
I'm okay with this being right, and I'm sure you
guys have talked about this during your off season training programs.

Speaker 1 (01:42:45):
Rich points of emphasis.

Speaker 4 (01:42:47):
Oh right, Yeah, I think I'm okay with it being
a point of emphasis. But if we're going to start
letting the referees use discretionary opinion on he meant to
do that fifteen yard penalty, just like we do on
horse callers and faith, you know, like I do, think
we're getting to that point.

Speaker 1 (01:43:05):
Where it's a little out of hand.

Speaker 4 (01:43:07):
But I'm okay with this being a point of emphasis, like, hey,
we are not going to tackle this way, and if
we do and we review it after the fact, you're
gonna get a hefty fine the next day. And I
think I'm okay with that. But if we start going
to the fifteen yard penalties for the extracurriculars like we've
done with some of these rule changes, that's where I

(01:43:28):
think you open up Pandora's box.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
And I think that's where things get a little murky
for me.

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
Well, I think that in this hip drop tackle thing,
it's funny that all the focus is on the defensive guy. Sure,
you know what I mean, like, if fair is fair,
like Tony Pollard, he's not doing anything wrong. But just
follow me on this for a second. Tony Pollard gets
hit in that playoff game against the forty nine ers
by Jimmy Ward and he does the right thing. He
keeps fighting for extra yardage. Well, that had a role

(01:43:57):
in Jimmy Ward tackling him in land on his ankle.
So it's like, why is it only on the defensive guy? Like,
it doesn't make any sense either to say, well, hey,
Tony Pollard, if you get hit like that, you're just
the play is dead right there? Like what are we
doing here? Like, listen, man, I can understand with horse
collar tackles. I can totally appreciate how that is incredibly dangerous.

(01:44:19):
And you ask yourself the question as a defender, well,
what are you supposed to do? Well, not that you
can't just grab a guy's shoulder pad and yank him
down while he's running forward and you drag him down backwards.
You have to tackle him a different way. That makes sense,
But the hip drop thing. If I'm a defensive back,
for instance, I hit a guy head up and that

(01:44:40):
guy is so strong he starts to drag me. I'm
gonna hold on for dear life. I'm not trying to
land on his ankle. But some stuff just happens on
a football field. You can't legislate all the violence out
of the game. And I totally appreciate trying to keep
these guys healthy and upright because we want to see
the stars play. But some of the be all of
foot is just how violent it is. You can't legislate

(01:45:02):
all of that out of it. It wouldn't be football anymore. Yeah, yeah,
that's Look.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
My main focus here isn't necessarily like what's fair for
the players because they're getting paid handsomely.

Speaker 2 (01:45:17):
You know, as a.

Speaker 3 (01:45:18):
Former player, when a rule changed and it wasn't necessarily
fair to me or my position group.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
All right, boohoo, you know whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:45:27):
If it makes the game safer and it doesn't change
the soul of the game, then who cares.

Speaker 2 (01:45:33):
I mean, I'm all for player safety.

Speaker 3 (01:45:35):
I remember one of the big changes that came during
my career as an offensive lineman specifically affected me was
you weren't allowed to cut block defensive linemen on the
backside of plays.

Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
Now, this is an offensive league.

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
They want offenses to score a bunch of points and
get a bunch of yards. So this actually debilitated offenses
from being productive on the run game because you have
some really fast defensive tackles who out leverage just based
on their alignment these backside offensive linemen, and it's really
difficult to make those blocks. And so the game looked

(01:46:10):
different that season as a result of it. The game
got safer, and not a lot of fans could specifically
notice the difference in gameplay.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
But something like this, where you.

Speaker 3 (01:46:21):
Are slowly and methodically taking away all these different forms
of being able to bring down these stut athletes on
the offense, I mean defenders, what are they going to
be able to actually do to stop It's going to
have to be group tackling because every tackle is going
to have to be an arm tackle otherwise it's going
to be too violent to pass muster in the NFL.

(01:46:44):
It's again, Look, I'm starting to feel like one of
these old farts who's just like.

Speaker 11 (01:46:49):
This game is soft, and back when I played, we
were leather helmets and I mean sweaters.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
That was all the pads they gave us with big letters.

Speaker 1 (01:47:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
No, I'm not trying to be that guy, but there's
going to be a point of diminishing returns, where if
you take too much of the violence out of a
violent game, you're not going to have a game anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:47:12):
It's like trying to say, hey, we love boxing, but
could we stop punching people in the head right, exactly right, Yeah,
it's that gonna work.

Speaker 4 (01:47:22):
I'm okay with point of emphasis. I'm not okay with
penalty fifteen yards. I think point of emphasis fine for
the egregious ones. I'm fine with if we start to
cross the line of if you tackle a guy in
the wrong way, we're gonna add fifteen yards to the
end of the run and we're gonna basically give points
to the other team. That's where I'm a little bit
on the fence on this one. I would say I

(01:47:43):
agree with Rich's take there, but I'm okay with point
of emphasis showing the videos of those injuries. We are
not trying to hurt players. That is not the goal
of tackling. We're just trying to get them to the
ground as efficiently as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:47:59):
Someone I'm not on the fv on would be our
guy Nick Cope. I'm firmly in the corner of him.
Not so much his you know, his wife and the
in laws there being IU fans and hailing from the
South Bend, Indiana area, that is unforgivable in my book.

Speaker 7 (01:48:17):
Hey, I'll take it though, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
Brian, Let's stick.

Speaker 7 (01:48:21):
In the NFL here Miami, Harold reporting that if running
back Dalvin Cook were to be cut by the Vikings,
which a separate report from ESPN says that is likely
to happen, that Harold says the Dolphins are a real
possibility as a landing spot for Cook, reports saying Josh
Harris is set to me with the NFL's Finance Committee
on Wednesday, coming up next week, in another step to

(01:48:43):
a possible vote being had this summer on the sale
of the Commanders. In the NBA, es Peter Ports Knicks
All star for Julius Randall had surgery on his left
ankle yesterday, but he is expected to be ready for
training camp in the fall. French Open top remaining American
woman Coco Off and defending women's champ Egosh Fiantek each
won their matches today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:04):
They're both into the round of sixteen. Hockey.

Speaker 7 (01:49:07):
We got Game one of the Stanley Cup Final coming
up tonight. Eight to Eastern the Golden Knights and the Panthers,
each hoping to claim their first championship in franchise history.
To soccer, the FA Cup Final, Manchester City leads Manchester
United two to one. Ilkai Gundawan scored a second goal
to put City up two to one in the second half.
He nearly had a hat trick moments ago, but was

(01:49:28):
ruled off side. Finally, golf, third round of the Memorial
Tournament underway. Justin Sue leads at eight under Hideki Matsuyama
sits one shot.

Speaker 2 (01:49:37):
Back guys, back to you. Great stuff, Vick. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:41):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:49:41):
Good hanging with you too, Man. Please Fox Sports. Thanks,
It's Fox Sports Saturday here on Fox Sports Radio. You
know real fast. I found this interesting. The SEC so
they have voted on their conference games next season, so
we're not talking twenty twenty three. They'll play eight conference
games next year. In twenty twenty four, when Oklahoma and

(01:50:02):
Texas both joined the conference, they'll still stay at eight
conference games. I love this quote. This is beautiful from
Eli Drinkwitz. He's the Missouri head coach. He said, I'm
a history teacher by trade, and every time I come
to one of these meetings. I'm blown away that the
thirteen colonies actually formed a union, but we can't agree

(01:50:23):
on an eight or nine game schedule, is what drink
Woitz had to say. Now here's the thing. I think
that what's best for us as fans is a lot
different than what's best for the SEC. Because as fans,
I want to see the best matchups. I want to
see Alabama play their rivals Auburn, Tennessee, LSU the way

(01:50:45):
it is right now, it wouldn't be that way. You
would have one permanent rival in seven rotating opponents. That's
an eight game conference schedule in the SEC. But take
Alabama for instance. From the SEC's point of view, they
look at it and they say, okay, cool, if we
go to nine conference games, you might have something similar

(01:51:05):
with what happened last year. Alabama goes on the road,
loses at Tennessee. If they don't play Tennessee, they might
be in the College Football Playoff. So how is it
good for us to go to nine conference games? Exactly?
When you look at it from their point of view,
I see what they're saying. I'm greedy, I want the
best matchups. I hope they do go to nine conference games,

(01:51:29):
but you got to understand why they're reluctant to do so.

Speaker 3 (01:51:31):
Yeah, of course I will say this about rivalries because
I know there's gonna be certain people who are going
to be up in arms saying, hey, you know, my
school that I root for has more than just one
natural rival You know, this is ridiculous. You know that
part of that part of the conversation unfortunately doesn't resonate

(01:51:56):
as much with me, and I understand there are certain
teams that will have multiple teams that the fan base
is excited to root against. But you can still have
a rivalry where the game isn'tplayed every year. I mean,
it can still be characterized as a rivalry. It can
still be enjoyed as a rivalry. I mean, certain games

(01:52:17):
you gotta play every single year, right, I mean we
need to see we need to see Army Navy at
some point, you know what I mean. We need to
see Ohio State Michigan at some point.

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
We need to.

Speaker 3 (01:52:30):
See Look, I mean you go through the list, there's
tons of them, but not every rivalry needs to be
in every year, annual event. And so that part of
the conversation I've never really understood, really never enjoyed engaging
in but in terms of like gamesmanship and protecting the

(01:52:50):
teams that don't want to face don't want to face
the wide birth of the conference so that they can
preserve a great record. I understand where they're coming from.
But if you can make for a more dramatic and
interesting football season as a result of having teams play
more conference games, I'm in favor of it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
I don't. I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:53:11):
I don't want college football ever to steer away from
the end user, which is the consumer, the person watching
at home or filling the seats in these stadiums. Let's
not forget that. That's the reason why these these athletes
are making multimillions dollars. That's the reason why these coaches
for years now have been making tens of millions of dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:53:31):
I like Kirby Smart's approach. He said, it's quote the
most overrated conversation there ever, was the difference between an
eight game and a nine game conference schedule in the SEC.
I don't think it's going to I think it's fodder
for us to talk about, and Kirby made that point
as well, But I just I like going away from

(01:53:52):
the divisions which make no sense. I like going to
a more balanced schedule. The difference between eight and nine
to me, is is not a big debate.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
Oh, I think it's huge.

Speaker 1 (01:54:03):
Okay, tell me why Kirby's wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:54:05):
Then, okay, I'll tell you exactly why. Let's take Alabama,
so their three rivals. If they go to nine games,
what they would do is you would have three rivals
that you play each year, and then you'd cycle through
the other six teams. So each two years you would
play everybody, which makes a lot of sense. But for Alabama,
they would play their main rival Auburn, they also play Tennessee,

(01:54:27):
and they'd also play LSU. Like that's a gauntlet right there,
just for Bama. So if you compare that to just
playing Auburn and in some year skipping both LSU and Tennessee,
that's a huge benefit.

Speaker 4 (01:54:41):
So you think it's a disadvantage to the other teams
that a benefit to Alabama.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
I think that it is a tougher road to the
playoff is if you're going through tougher competition, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:54:54):
I think the.

Speaker 4 (01:54:55):
Thing that makes it a little bit difficult to handicap
is the fact that every team in the SEC has
a different amount of quote unquote natural rivals.

Speaker 1 (01:55:02):
Sure, that makes it murky.

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
But we know that the SEC is the premier conference, absolutely.
So if you get one fewer conference game and you
can schedule whomever from non conference, sometimes it's Billy Bob Tech,
you know your path to the playoffs is easier.

Speaker 1 (01:55:19):
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 4 (01:55:20):
I think however, here's the counterpoint to that. We are
getting expansion to the playoff, and it is obvious to
me based off of what we've seen over the last
couple of years. Teams are getting rewarded for challenging themselves
in non conference and because the playoff is going to
be expanded, you are going to have more competition getting
into that playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:55:41):
It's gonna be hard, I think.

Speaker 4 (01:55:42):
I know it's hard to get into the playoff now,
but when you go from four to eight or eight
to sixteen than nine, ten and eleven or seventeen, eighteen nineteen,
are going to have the gripes. And I think who
you play on the schedule matters in that scenario. So
I think teams will Sure, you can go play Billy
Bob Tech and so off West Dakota, but you're going
to be penalized when the rubber meets the road in

(01:56:06):
January and the committee's picking their teams.

Speaker 1 (01:56:08):
Well, so I think there's a trade off there, I
do you know, and not to play.

Speaker 3 (01:56:12):
Tiebreaker because I think both of you have points that
would like better.

Speaker 11 (01:56:15):
Right idiot, But really, what answer very smartly here in
this occasion, I lean more toward it being very punitive
for certain teams to take on an extra conference game.

Speaker 3 (01:56:28):
So I understand exactly where Brian's coming from, because if
I'm a head coach.

Speaker 2 (01:56:32):
I hate this.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):
Although to your point, look, conferences are waited differently like
the Big Ten.

Speaker 2 (01:56:39):
Every year with an expanded.

Speaker 3 (01:56:43):
College basketball postseason, you have the opportunity for a lot
of Big Ten teams to get in, and other conferences
don't get a lot of teams in, and we know
exactly why because they're just viewed differently publicly. The SEC
obviously is going to get a huge nod over the Pac.

Speaker 2 (01:56:58):
Twelve for example in colle football.

Speaker 3 (01:57:01):
So at the end of the day, if college playoffs
are expanded, yeah, you don't have as big of a gripe.
But right now, with just four teams going into the postseason,
it's a huge gripe.

Speaker 2 (01:57:13):
Right, more playoff teams give you a couple of mulligans
where you can still sneak in. But the SEC wouldn't
be caught dead going to nine conference games when it's
only four teams in the playoffs. Right, there's a reason why.
All right, We've got Rich Ornberger, Penn State All American,
Jared Smith FSR betting analyst, I'm Brian No coming up next.
One big name is looking to cash in, and we'll

(01:57:33):
have some betting advice for you as well. It's Fox
Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 12 (01:57:37):
Truck out a battern, walk it back and there's a
shot to left and deep headed towards the Dodger bullpen.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
It's card. Lookie Bens is on a ten.

Speaker 12 (01:57:50):
This is the second home run of the night and
the Dodgers now have an eight to two lead.

Speaker 2 (01:57:58):
Welcome back in. It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the
tire rack dot Com Studios. That was the Progressive Play
of the day, brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive
makes bundling easy and affordable. Get a multi policy discount
by combining your motorcycle, RV, boat, ATV and more, all
your protection in one place. Bundle and Save at Progressive
dot Com. That was Mookie Betts. Another home run last

(01:58:20):
night AM five seventy Dodgers Radio Network on the CALT
Charlie Steiner, very good job top of the hour, up
on Game, LaVar Arrington and TJ. Hushman Zada with you.
Props to the crew here today, Bo Benson, our trusted producer,
Iowa Sam, trusted technical producer, Nick Cope, trusted upday Acre.

(01:58:41):
Very good job all the way around. A real fast rapper.
Drake has one point two five million dollars writing on
the Nuggets in the NBA Finals. He has them to
win it all, and he also has them specifically in
five games wow. So he's hoping for possibly a game
two upset.

Speaker 1 (01:58:59):
I don't know. I will go around the rule.

Speaker 2 (01:59:01):
Let's start with you, Jared, what do you like in
betting wise today or this weekend in general?

Speaker 1 (01:59:05):
Well, we got the Stanley Cup final tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:59:07):
Guys right here in my backyard, teamobil Areina, Vegas and
Florida the Sun Belt Stanley Cup, right and so Vegas
has been very adept at scoring early goals this year.
They're actually eleven and one to the first period over
so far.

Speaker 1 (01:59:22):
Over the last twelve games.

Speaker 4 (01:59:23):
But we're going under tonight. We're bucking the trend. I
think a little nerves. Florida's had some time off. I
think they're gonna be a little more defensive minded. So
we'll go first period under Vegas Florida, and I think
Miami probably keeps it close tomorrow night, and I'll go
over in the NBA game on Sunday Night.

Speaker 3 (01:59:41):
Yeah, I think we all liked the over for Sunday Night.
I like Jimmy Butler twenty five and a half point total.
Give me the over there too. No chance he goes
cold twice in this series.

Speaker 2 (01:59:52):
I am hugging the over Game two in the NBA
Finals two fifteen and a half. I've bet it already, Broa,
I could have bet more