Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio. John Smoltz joining us John part of the
Speaker 1: Fox Sports one broadcast Red Sox raise for Game one
Speaker 1: and Game two that starts tomorrow night, followed by MLB
Speaker 1: Network's exclusive broadcast of Game three on Sunday at four Eastern.
Speaker 1: We were just talking about stadiums. John. If I said
Speaker 1: best stadium to pitch in, what would you say today?
Speaker 1: Best stadium? I mean, the old Astro Stadium just doesn't
Speaker 1: get any better than that. I mean, throw fastball, see
Speaker 1: if they could hit it out of the stadium. There's
Speaker 1: not many of those anymore unless Wrigley's blowing in, So
Speaker 1: I would say if the wind's blowing in Wrigley. But
Speaker 1: in the stadiums today, I mean, Dodger Stadium's pretty fair.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm not this marine layer thing that's been
Speaker 1: talked about whether it's gone or there. Ball travels that
Speaker 1: doesn't travel at night, travels during the day. But Dodger
Speaker 1: stadiums a pretty fair place to to pitch when the
Speaker 1: thick marine error is at night. What's the worst stadium
Speaker 1: to pitch in? Oh my goodness, there's more of those
Speaker 1: than there's ever been it's like, you know, Camden Yards
Speaker 1: is a great place to hit. A small American ballpark
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati. I call it small American ballpark because it's
Speaker 1: very tiny. The Central seems to be one of the
Speaker 1: worst places to pitch when it comes to the teams.
Speaker 1: And of course Colorado's not fun at all when you
Speaker 1: think about a visitor in Colorado. Great place to watch
Speaker 1: a game, not a great place to pitch if you're
Speaker 1: a pitcher. What about San Francisco and that feels like
Speaker 1: it there's parts of it that's a good pitchers ballpark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the new stadium is fantastic as far as the weather.
Speaker 1: You know, the weather at old Candlestick could have been
Speaker 1: you start at seventy and you finish at forty. It
Speaker 1: seemed like when the layer would come in over that.
Speaker 1: I don't know who thought putting a stadium right behind
Speaker 1: that rock was a good idea, but I wasn't. I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of the new stadium in San Francisco. Very fair.
Speaker 1: If you hit it down the lines, you can go.
Speaker 1: So they've they've maximized what I thought was the impossible,
Speaker 1: in the fact that they hit so many home runs.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that was part of the I mean,
Speaker 1: this has been the most amazing year of storylines, of
Speaker 1: predictions that you never thought would happen. They're leaving the
Speaker 1: case for the most unpredictable success story. How does it happen?
Speaker 1: You know what? I'd like to say, this is not
Speaker 1: a formula for success long term. Year to year. They
Speaker 1: have made every right decision. They've had every right player
Speaker 1: in the right spot, give their organization, managerial all their strategy.
Speaker 1: I don't know that that can continue year to year.
Speaker 1: You can't keep plugging in those kind of things. But
Speaker 1: I will say this, they're older guys that which I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of because you know, analytics as you're old,
Speaker 1: so you can't play at thirty. They've had a little
Speaker 1: chip on their shoulder, they've been healthy and they have
Speaker 1: delivered big time. So that has been a kind of
Speaker 1: like an organization filled with players that you see there
Speaker 1: longer than most and it's paying off. They won a
Speaker 1: few championships this year. I'll be the first to tell
Speaker 1: you I got on the beginning of the year, no chance.
Speaker 1: They weren't even in the discussion. And that's why I
Speaker 1: said it's the most remarkable year I can ever remember.
Speaker 1: From a team that maybe should have won seventy five
Speaker 1: to eighty games, won one hundred and six or seven.
Speaker 1: That to me is a great credit to their organization.
Speaker 1: Are you all on board with the playoff format, the
Speaker 1: one game playoffs? No, No, I never have been. I
Speaker 1: can say that consistently. I understand why it was put
Speaker 1: in place. Ironically, it was probably put in place because
Speaker 1: of the nineteen ninety three Giants and Braves race to
Speaker 1: the Pennant and we wanted on the last day and
Speaker 1: the Giants had one hundred and three wins and didn't
Speaker 1: make the playoffs. There comes the one game playoff to
Speaker 1: try to secure a team like that situation now fast
Speaker 1: for this year. If both these teams end up not
Speaker 1: moving on, you're going to see a change. I believe
Speaker 1: in the playoff format because it's hard to imagine that
Speaker 1: you would have one hundred and five win team, which
Speaker 1: easily could lose to the Saint Louis Cardinals not move on,
Speaker 1: and our whole season is based on the most wins.
Speaker 1: I think, if anything, Dan, I would tweak if they
Speaker 1: don't want to make a whole sale change, I would
Speaker 1: tweak a scenario where you have tonight the Cardinals should
Speaker 1: have to beat the Dodgers twice, right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: Dodgers won one hundred and some games. The Cardinals did
Speaker 1: a great job down to stretch, but the team with
Speaker 1: the best record in the Wild Cards should at least
Speaker 1: have an advantage to where they only have to win
Speaker 1: once and the second team has to win twice. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see playoffs always have a two out
Speaker 1: of three no matter what scenario you set out. It
Speaker 1: needs to be a series. You need to have a
Speaker 1: fighting chance, and I think we need to start rewarding
Speaker 1: the teams who have the best record them a buy
Speaker 1: so that when they play a team that's already played
Speaker 1: two out of three, there's your incentive for the team
Speaker 1: that's won all those games. Otherwise, you know, it is
Speaker 1: a little bit more random. Let me look at last
Speaker 1: night's game. Aaron Boone takes out Garrett Cole, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if you run the risk of embarrassing your pitcher,
Speaker 1: your three hundred million dollars pitcher in a situation like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I applaud Aaron Boone for doing it because
Speaker 1: I think it was the right call, But man, that's
Speaker 1: difficult for a guy who's probably got his job on
Speaker 1: the line, and you're going out there and taking the
Speaker 1: ball from your starting pitcher. What did you think of
Speaker 1: that move at the time. Well, let's just say Garrett Cole.
Speaker 1: The last three outings haven't been Garrett Cole, and I
Speaker 1: know he had the hamstring injury, and there's probably something
Speaker 1: to do with that, because when Garrett Cole doesn't look
Speaker 1: like Gret Cole, you throw everything out the window because
Speaker 1: it's that one game scenario that you needed a great
Speaker 1: performance and it just didn't look like he was on
Speaker 1: the top of his game. You don't have the time
Speaker 1: and luxury as a manager to factor in all that.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was a really good move to
Speaker 1: just at least give them, and it worked out because
Speaker 1: they got out of an impossible situation. Homes did a
Speaker 1: great job. So those one game playoffs or another reason
Speaker 1: why I don't like it, they're manager killers. You basically
Speaker 1: don't have the luxury of a lot of things because
Speaker 1: the panic and stress on that game doesn't leave you
Speaker 1: any room for air. And the Yankees aren't good enough
Speaker 1: to hate anymore. Right, one World Series in seventeen years.
Speaker 1: That's a good point because you know, the stress on
Speaker 1: the Dodgers and the Yankees was the highest it's ever been.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers won the World Series last year, they hadn't
Speaker 1: won in thirty some years, those two iconic organizations. There's
Speaker 1: so much pressure on the Yankees right now and certainly
Speaker 1: that organization for what they built. But you're right, this
Speaker 1: year just was a roller coaster year. They've been through everything.
Speaker 1: Their offense was hot and cold, and I think that's
Speaker 1: not a good formula for a deep run. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're certainly going to be right back next year and
Speaker 1: could be the favorites. Who knows what the off season brings,
Speaker 1: but this year was the streakiest, most unpredictable baseball season
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. You're talking about teams losing records on
Speaker 1: the road, and then you're talking about home teams, teams
Speaker 1: that have won games over ten in a row multiple times.
Speaker 1: So it's a crazy year. It's one of those that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were waiting to see,
Speaker 1: after the COVID year of the short season, how it
Speaker 1: was going to play out. He's John Smoltz, the Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer, and he'll be part of Fox Sports ones
Speaker 1: broadcast Red Sox at the Rays game one and also
Speaker 1: game two that starts tomorrow night. I look at the
Speaker 1: Dodgers situation where you've been great all year long, but
Speaker 1: then you run into one of the hottest teams that
Speaker 1: we've seen in recent memory. How do you handicap this
Speaker 1: game with these two Well, the beautiful thing for both
Speaker 1: teams they have the pitcher they want on the mound.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get into these games you don't have the
Speaker 1: luxury the Dodgers almost forced to play that. It would
Speaker 1: have been interesting to see how the Dodgers played the
Speaker 1: one game playoffs to determine a division championship had they
Speaker 1: been in that spot. So I think there's some relief
Speaker 1: in that regard where they can put everything towards this
Speaker 1: one game. But it's a high stress and kind of
Speaker 1: flip with a coin. Adam Wainwright the veteran, of course,
Speaker 1: my former teammate. Both pitchers know how to pitch in
Speaker 1: big moments, so that won't be unnerving. It's going to
Speaker 1: come down to who can, kind of like last night's game,
Speaker 1: who can score first and create pressure on the manager.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but notice, and maybe there's nothing to it.
Speaker 1: When Kershaw was pulled from his last start. He kept
Speaker 1: the ball. He walked off the mound with the ball.
Speaker 1: I know he doesn't need Tommy John surgery. He's been
Speaker 1: through an awful lot. Do you think there was anything
Speaker 1: too that that Kershaw kept the ball when he walked
Speaker 1: off the field. You know, until you mentioned it, probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought twice about it. But having the kind
Speaker 1: of career he's had and where he's at his career,
Speaker 1: I know this year there was a lot of talk
Speaker 1: possibly of could he be headed for Tommy John. You
Speaker 1: know you're talking about Kershaw and Burlander two. I consider
Speaker 1: surefire Hall of famers that have some life left in
Speaker 1: their game and probably don't need anything more to get there.
Speaker 1: But I know Verlander coming back from Tommy John as
Speaker 1: an older guy, he wants to win a lot more games,
Speaker 1: and I would think Kershaw is similar. But winning the
Speaker 1: World Series maybe takes a lot of less stress off
Speaker 1: of him from having to prove to people so many
Speaker 1: much more. But it's a great question. I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about it because you don't ever take a ball
Speaker 1: off the mound as the season ends. Yeah, you don't,
Speaker 1: like you have to hand it to the manager when
Speaker 1: he comes out that that's part of the ceremony there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting, interesting thing to follow us. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the Dodgers are monitoring that very closely. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 1: going to miss the postseason because he's got that forearm
Speaker 1: elbow injury like it. I don't know exactly what that is.
Speaker 1: It more elbow than more arm. John. You know, typically
Speaker 1: in a picture, the opposite's work or the top of
Speaker 1: the arm is going to be you're concerning here. If
Speaker 1: it's the bottom side, you're not as concerned. But four
Speaker 1: arms never a great issue to have unless it truly
Speaker 1: is not connected to the elbow, which is hard to
Speaker 1: imagine that they wouldn't. A lot of four arm injuries
Speaker 1: usually turn into what people talk about as a precursor
Speaker 1: to Tommy John, but not necessarily in his case, it
Speaker 1: could be something different. Before you go, introduce America again
Speaker 1: to the Tampa Bay Rays, I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: Like I really am in awe of what they've been
Speaker 1: able to do. I will spend all day Thursday getting
Speaker 1: introduced to the Tampa Bay Rays because I'll be doing
Speaker 1: a deep dive into their rotation, which is almost brand new.
Speaker 1: Their bullpen Is as interchangeable parts. Their offense seems to
Speaker 1: just slug wander franco Is at their real deal because
Speaker 1: when everyone was wanting him up in the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year and they delayed his clock for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: But they're going to start two rookies that you rarely
Speaker 1: see from a team that almost won the World Series,
Speaker 1: that left two of their stud starters to go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: The Rays are an amazing organization that quite frankly, a
Speaker 1: lot of people stop trying to figure out and they
Speaker 1: just go with it. And when they push a button,
Speaker 1: you know it might be the right button. Of course,
Speaker 1: last year the button that was pushed in Game six
Speaker 1: build their formula of while they went about their business.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people you would wonder what would
Speaker 1: have happened if they left him Blake Snell. They don't
Speaker 1: even think about it. They turned the page because they
Speaker 1: are on a quest to prove everybody wrong. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: great to catch up with you, John, have fun with
Speaker 1: the Red Sox and the Rays. Thank you, Bunn, looking
Speaker 1: forward to Thanks. That's John Smoltz, all of Famer MLB
Speaker 1: Network Analyst. Be on Fox Analyst. Be sure to catch
Speaker 1: the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at
Speaker 1: nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
Speaker 1: and the iHeartRadio WAPP bringing Chris Mannix. Here, we got
Speaker 1: a lot of NBA stuff happening, but it's happening off
Speaker 1: the floor. Here. Let me start with the nets with
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving, and let's assume that he continues this stance,
Speaker 1: he's not getting vaccinated. What's going to happen here? Is
Speaker 1: he tradeable? Chris? He is largely untradeable. I would say
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody is completely untradeable, but the teams
Speaker 1: I talked to around the league about Kyrie's trade value
Speaker 1: are essentially operating under the assumption that if you trade
Speaker 1: for him, there's a decent chance he'll just retire and
Speaker 1: decide doesn't want to play anymore as a player. There
Speaker 1: are lots of teams that would love to get their
Speaker 1: hands on him. He has a relatively reasonable contract with
Speaker 1: only one year left on it. He can opt out
Speaker 1: after next season. But the off the court stuff and
Speaker 1: the uncertainty surrounding what he wants that makes it him
Speaker 1: very very difficult to trade. What is this costing him
Speaker 1: financially or what could it cost him. Well, my understanding
Speaker 1: is that I don't know what, if anything, the nets
Speaker 1: are ginging him for missed practices this week. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're doing anything. You know, they don't have
Speaker 1: He's not breaking their rule. He's breaking the city ordinance
Speaker 1: or the executive order, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if they're ginging him anything. But
Speaker 1: my understanding is that if he misses I believe it's
Speaker 1: Friday's preseason game in Brooklyn, it's around three hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars and will be three hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars every time he miss the game. And the
Speaker 1: NBA has been very clear players miss games because of
Speaker 1: these city ordinances, Uh, they are going to get fined.
Speaker 1: They will not be paid, you know, effectively game checks
Speaker 1: as a result of it. That is, in his own words,
Speaker 1: exactly why Andrew Wiggins decided to get vaccinated this week.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to lose all that money. So if
Speaker 1: Kyrie decided to sit out, the big ding comes when
Speaker 1: that first game happens on Friday, and if he can't
Speaker 1: play these home games, he also can't play. Although it'd
Speaker 1: be one trip to San Francisco, he can't play. He's
Speaker 1: not going to play in the games against the Knicks
Speaker 1: because that would have the same ordinance. Uh yeah, play,
Speaker 1: It's not it's not applicable. I don't think in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I think there's an exemption for road players coming in
Speaker 1: so that that game, I believe he could play him,
Speaker 1: but he could not play in Madison Square Garden under
Speaker 1: these these carent rules. It's look the NETS they have
Speaker 1: been just hoping. I think it's basically crossing their fingers
Speaker 1: that Kyrie would come around to the vaccine. That's why
Speaker 1: they have done everything possible, going back to Sean Marks's
Speaker 1: media availability about three weeks ago, to diffuse this situation.
Speaker 1: They have been hoping that the threat of losing money,
Speaker 1: which is not the NETS saying will take away money.
Speaker 1: It's the NBA and the city and the presence of
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, his close friend James Harden, a fellow superstar,
Speaker 1: would convince Kyrie to get the vaccine. To this point,
Speaker 1: and I've checked in when NETS people almost every day
Speaker 1: trying to get a grasp on as to this point,
Speaker 1: that hasn't happened. And as ESPN reported last night, and
Speaker 1: they're right. The optimism is kind of waning here that
Speaker 1: Kyrie is going to get vaccinated by Friday, and that
Speaker 1: puts the Nets in a hole, in a very weird
Speaker 1: situation because not only Dan can ky not playing these games,
Speaker 1: he clearly can't practice. And Steve Nash said yesterday he
Speaker 1: has no intention of like moving the NETS practices back
Speaker 1: to Jersey or wherever they used to practice in near
Speaker 1: the Meadowlands. They have a state of the art facility
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn built for a few years ago. They're not
Speaker 1: doing that for Kyrie Irving. So this presents, really, I mean,
Speaker 1: we use kind of phrases like this a lot, but
Speaker 1: an unprecedented situation evolving between Kyrie Irving and the Nets. Look,
Speaker 1: if he feels this strongly about it and doesn't want
Speaker 1: to play, and you know he's going to retire and
Speaker 1: he wants to sit out the season, then fine, I
Speaker 1: mean I understand it. If he feels strongly about it.
Speaker 1: I just don't want this to be a yeah, notice
Speaker 1: me and I'm quirky, I'm interesting, and hey, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get the vaccine. And it feels like
Speaker 1: that's where we're headed with Kyrie as far as Ben Simmons.
Speaker 1: Ben is just sitting there, has his trade demand, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he looks up and he goes,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm losing how much money? What kind
Speaker 1: of reaction is going on around the league with Ben Simmons. Well,
Speaker 1: the question team executives to say to me isn't it
Speaker 1: isn't the Sixers resolve they're wondering about right now because
Speaker 1: the Sixers have not moved off their position that to
Speaker 1: obtain Ben Simmons, you've got to give up a lot.
Speaker 1: You've got to give us either a player the equivalent
Speaker 1: of Ben Simmons or multiple players that would add up
Speaker 1: to the value of Ben Simmons. That has not changed
Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks. As this, you know,
Speaker 1: the sit out by Ben Simmons has happened, and the
Speaker 1: Sixers position, and I get it is that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of volatility at the top of the NBA right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know how Portland's season is going
Speaker 1: to start, and what the Blazer's mindset might be in
Speaker 1: December about Damian Lillard and or CJ. McCollum. We also
Speaker 1: don't know if the Wizards come out of the gate slow.
Speaker 1: With Bradby Beale able to opt out at the end
Speaker 1: of the season, will they decide now at the time
Speaker 1: to deal deal So it doesn't make any sense for
Speaker 1: Philadelphia to deal Simmons right now. The Simmons side, though,
Speaker 1: like they've been told expressly that these checks, they ain't
Speaker 1: getting that money back, Like that's not something like a
Speaker 1: team that trades for him can backpay him. This is gone.
Speaker 1: Like the money he lost in that Toronto game on
Speaker 1: Monday three and to sixty thousand dollars, that's gone. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the Sixers have been dinging him every
Speaker 1: single day, but that's gone. That's why the Sixers did
Speaker 1: a pretty shrewd thing when they put that money into escrow.
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of described it in the column
Speaker 1: that it was basically a piggy bank that they could
Speaker 1: dig into whenever they wanted to and up until about
Speaker 1: eight point two to five million dollars. And that's what
Speaker 1: they're going to do over the next month or so.
Speaker 1: If Ben Simmons sits out till mid November, he'll lose
Speaker 1: like seven and a half million dollars out of that money.
Speaker 1: So I think the question that comes up I know
Speaker 1: the question that comes up amongst people around the league
Speaker 1: is just how resolved is Ben Simmons to lose that
Speaker 1: kind of money. You can say, well, he made fifty
Speaker 1: seven million dollars in his career on court. Why he
Speaker 1: made more off the court doesn't matter. Like, that's millions
Speaker 1: of dollars that is gone, and I think people are
Speaker 1: wondering just how long Simmons will be okay with that.
Speaker 1: I still don't understand this. Ben Simmons plays poorly. He's
Speaker 1: mad that people expect him to play great since he's
Speaker 1: one of the top end players. We keep hearing he's
Speaker 1: an All Star and he's a defensive Player of the Year,
Speaker 1: all of these great things, and then he gets sensitive
Speaker 1: and he wants to be traded. So what am I
Speaker 1: missing here with Ben? Like? Are there bad people here
Speaker 1: on the other side with Ben? And I know Joe
Speaker 1: l Embiid and Doc Rivers said what they said, but
Speaker 1: all right, maybe they were being an honest, tough thing
Speaker 1: to hear. But you know, when why doesn't Ben Simmons
Speaker 1: put on his big boy pants and say, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna show you guys. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: earn your trust again instead of saying I want out
Speaker 1: trade me. Well Simmons position is that the Sixers don't
Speaker 1: want him back because they want to continue building on
Speaker 1: the Ben Simmons dwell mb to buyas Harris group. They
Speaker 1: want him back to see him play well over a
Speaker 1: couple of months, get his trade value back up, and
Speaker 1: then deal him away. Ben Simmons just isn't down with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, all that being said, he's still getting paid. Like,
Speaker 1: this is your job. You signed this contract. You didn't
Speaker 1: have to sign a long term deal with Philadelphia a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. You chose to, and because of that,
Speaker 1: you have to show up regardless of what the seventy
Speaker 1: Sixers ultimately want to do with you. And I agree
Speaker 1: with you that you know this is not like Philadelphia
Speaker 1: committed some kind of cardinal sin against him. Doc Rivers
Speaker 1: said something he most certainly regrets right now. Dwell emb
Speaker 1: just said anything and some of the stuff that comes
Speaker 1: out of his mouth is definitely critical of Ben Simmons,
Speaker 1: But who cares. I mean, if that's the worst thing
Speaker 1: the seventy Sixers have done to you, lots of other
Speaker 1: players have experienced a lot worse, including Joel embiid earthly
Speaker 1: during the process. So I mean Simmons doesn't want to
Speaker 1: come back because he thinks that if he plays well
Speaker 1: by mid December or February at the latest, he's gone.
Speaker 1: But that's the price of signing that contract and being
Speaker 1: paid like a max player. All Right, you're yearly Laker
Speaker 1: prediction titles. This gets clipped and I wind up. This
Speaker 1: is like, you know, it's like the low hanging fruit
Speaker 1: to pick against the Lakers this year because I don't
Speaker 1: know how it works, and a lot of people, most
Speaker 1: of the people I talked to around the league don't
Speaker 1: really know how it works. I mean, the Lakers, assuming
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis buys into playing center, they could be really good.
Speaker 1: I mean Davis at the five, Lebron at the four
Speaker 1: two shooters around Westbrook. I can see how that works.
Speaker 1: I could also see how Westbrook's presence makes them an
Speaker 1: elite regular season team because Westbrook has proven he can
Speaker 1: win regular season games basically on his own, so you
Speaker 1: can wrest Lebron rest ad if injuries come up, you've
Speaker 1: got a player that can win games. But when you
Speaker 1: get into the playoffs, Westbrook is a career thirty percent
Speaker 1: three point shooter, like he said, thirty one percent last season.
Speaker 1: You can't really get around that. And he's been at
Speaker 1: his best when he has the ball in his hands
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. You want the ball in Lebron James's hands,
Speaker 1: you want the ball at times in Anthony Davis's hands.
Speaker 1: You don't want the ball in Russell Westbrook's hands because
Speaker 1: that not since the Day's of Oklahoma City has that
Speaker 1: proven to be an effective strategy in the postseason. So
Speaker 1: there are lots of reasons to bet against the Lakers
Speaker 1: this year. Okay, so that's the quote, We're gonna pull
Speaker 1: no Lakers in the finals. I'm going with Lakers in
Speaker 1: the finals. If he said we're wrong, everybody else is
Speaker 1: wrong too. Like I just I've eaten that that Lakers
Speaker 1: gonna miss the playoffs quote video for like four with
Speaker 1: the three years now, like every time it comes up,
Speaker 1: it'll come up. So I'm gonna clip it today, Like
Speaker 1: why would you ask Chris Max about the Lakers. Here's
Speaker 1: what he said, and like that comes up every single
Speaker 1: year when the discussion turns to the Lakers. Here's one
Speaker 1: of our favorites from Chris mannox. I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: Spanish stack. I mean they're a team, was you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out Pacosol on a great career. Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: is next, based largely on your career with the Spanish
Speaker 1: national team. All right, here's one more Blazers sixers in
Speaker 1: the final. Okay, that's unedited. I reject the idea that
Speaker 1: we just randomly pulled quotes from Mannix and then we
Speaker 1: played momentously great offense in that. Yes, mclough was that
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy second year? Yeah, when Bill Walton was there,
Speaker 1: they faced doctor Jay. That's a great call call there
Speaker 1: have to. Wasn't there like a preamble to that Blazers sixers? Uh? Now,
Speaker 1: you like asked me, like a bold prediction of some
Speaker 1: kind that maybe maybe not who knows? Who knows? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, yeah, thank you, Chris, you got it.
Speaker 1: D that's the great Chris Mannix, Sports Illustrated NBA Senior writer.
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best talk lineup in the nation.
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Jason McIntyre. Join me every weekday morning on
Speaker 1: my podcast Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your
Speaker 1: typical sportspod, pushing the same tired narratives down your throat
Speaker 1: every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions on all
Speaker 1: the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help you win
Speaker 1: big at the sports book, and all the best guests.
Speaker 1: Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with
Speaker 1: Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Spend a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about urban Meyer today in his future. Michael Silver, host
Speaker 1: of Pass It Down podcast, Washington Football Team contributor formerly
Speaker 1: the Sports Illustrated Yahoo the NFL Network, had some quotes
Speaker 1: yesterday from the Jacksonville locker room, including one that said
Speaker 1: that we looked at him, Urban Meyer, and basically wtf
Speaker 1: Right when he left, everyone started dying, laughing, and he
Speaker 1: knew it. Michael Silver joins us now walk me through
Speaker 1: yesterday meanings players like statement from the owner Urban Houses
Speaker 1: weekly radio show, where are we with the Jags and
Speaker 1: Urban Meyer? Well, Dan, this got off to a really
Speaker 1: poor start, especially earlier this season, with the players, and
Speaker 1: so the latest scandal or fiasco or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, has just exacerbated that but a lot
Speaker 1: of players in that locker room felt that he came
Speaker 1: in acting like he knew everything, kind of denigrating them,
Speaker 1: denigrating other coaches, denigrating the NFL in general. And so
Speaker 1: when one player told me yesterday he didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of credibility to begin with, that's what was being
Speaker 1: referred to. And then of course you start out, you
Speaker 1: lose a couple. They catch you on the hot bike
Speaker 1: telling another NFL head coach, man, it's like Alabama every week,
Speaker 1: which you know, in and of itself, isn't a horrible
Speaker 1: thing to say, but kind of adds to the cascade
Speaker 1: of negative feeling in that locker room like he's this
Speaker 1: guy over his head. And then they also feel like
Speaker 1: he doesn't level with them all the time, and so
Speaker 1: you take all of that background, doesn't fly home with
Speaker 1: the team after a tough defeat, you know, says he
Speaker 1: wants to spend time with his family. The video's surface now.
Speaker 1: If he had gone into the Monday team meeting, which
Speaker 1: was scheduled, and said to the team, hey, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 1: I screwed up. It's on me. I made us look bad,
Speaker 1: he had a chance to maybe, you know, pull through
Speaker 1: that and move on to, you know, the next stage
Speaker 1: of the season. But he canceled the meeting no explanation.
Speaker 1: I'm told that he tried to get a player and
Speaker 1: some assistant coaches to do something of the clean up,
Speaker 1: none of which transpired. He may not have leveled with ownership,
Speaker 1: which is a more serious situation, and then he finally
Speaker 1: went position group by position group kind of popped in
Speaker 1: and gave a story that nobody believed. And so that's
Speaker 1: why you heard the laughter. Okay, he might not have
Speaker 1: been truthful with ownership about what I'm the nature of
Speaker 1: what was seen on the video, and it's possible that
Speaker 1: he wasn't truthful with ownership as to whether he had
Speaker 1: addressed the players and handled the issue. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: told that he may have portrayed to ownership that he
Speaker 1: did do that when in fact, as I said, there
Speaker 1: was no team meeting. Why not just fire him? You know,
Speaker 1: I think two things. If you're shot Khan, you went
Speaker 1: way out in a limb to make this move and
Speaker 1: make a big splash, and you have a lot invested
Speaker 1: in it, not just financial, which I'm sure he could afford.
Speaker 1: Easy for me to say, but you know, emotionally and
Speaker 1: in terms of your own capital. So I think there's
Speaker 1: a sense like we'd love them not to give up
Speaker 1: on this. And then the other reason it is just
Speaker 1: you're probably mad at the way things are going and
Speaker 1: the thought of just giving him a buyout is infuriating. Now,
Speaker 1: could you fire him for cause? I think you know,
Speaker 1: it would be irresponsible if they're not having those discussions
Speaker 1: at least internally and possibly with the NFL in terms
Speaker 1: of contract language and what you know, Could you actually
Speaker 1: get away with firing for cause and all of that?
Speaker 1: Dan could just be, hey, maybe let's get to a
Speaker 1: settlement situation. So it could go that way, where both
Speaker 1: sides want to end it and they settle on a
Speaker 1: number in the middle. It could be that he shot
Speaker 1: Kan gets so fed up that he fires them and
Speaker 1: pays the money. It could be that Urban quits on
Speaker 1: his own and walks away from the money. That seems unlikely.
Speaker 1: Or it could be that they just go on try
Speaker 1: to get past it and hope they can actually do
Speaker 1: something they haven't done in more than a year. And
Speaker 1: that's when a football game. Is it sustainable though? Is
Speaker 1: his tenure sustainable? You know, it's the biggest issue for
Speaker 1: me is if the players are openly laughing at him. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the NFL is not college football. These are not young
Speaker 1: men with dreams of getting paid who you can control
Speaker 1: and manipulate. This is you know. These are alpha's for
Speaker 1: the most part, guys who have funneled through an incredibly
Speaker 1: narrow funnel to get to the highest level. And they
Speaker 1: crave honesty even when it's what they don't want to hear.
Speaker 1: And so he needs to start convincing them that he
Speaker 1: is sincere and honest, and is that salvageable? No? I mean, Dan,
Speaker 1: like I've known you a lot of time, I feel
Speaker 1: like you could do that because I know you and
Speaker 1: I know you are a sincere person and you call
Speaker 1: it like you see it. My sense of Urban, who
Speaker 1: I don't know very well, is that he might not
Speaker 1: be wired that way. Yeah. I just wonder if these
Speaker 1: next two games. How important these next two games are?
Speaker 1: You have one at home, you have one in London,
Speaker 1: and then I think you have a bye week after that,
Speaker 1: so handicap the next three weeks here. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: you don't want to see a really empty stadium at home.
Speaker 1: You don't want to see fans, you know, holding signs
Speaker 1: that are super embarrassing. They may you don't want to
Speaker 1: see a team that looks like it quit. Most of all,
Speaker 1: if you get through that next one, then you go
Speaker 1: to London. So you know, Urban's been linked previously with USC.
Speaker 1: Let's remember the Lane Kiffin situation where he didn't even
Speaker 1: get to get on the plane. Well, that's one thing
Speaker 1: when it's an hour flight or where you know, wherever.
Speaker 1: I can't remember where the tarmac was. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: a couple hours away, and Lane Keffer had to go
Speaker 1: book a flight home because he got fired after a game.
Speaker 1: You don't want that to happen in London because that
Speaker 1: is a long, awkward walk through Heathrow and then you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people on the plane kind of
Speaker 1: go and wait, isn't that oh yeah right? So yeah,
Speaker 1: Urban I think he needs most of all, the team
Speaker 1: needs to look like the play at hard. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wonder about that. Do the players want to play hard?
Speaker 1: Like consciously? I guess you do. Subconsciously you may not
Speaker 1: want to, right, It's a It's it's not as simple
Speaker 1: as we're not going to play hard. I think it's
Speaker 1: football is a game. We talked about sincerity. Insincerity gets
Speaker 1: rooted out really fast in football, and so you could
Speaker 1: tell yourself, yeah, I want to do well, but that
Speaker 1: might not translate to letting your arm get bent back
Speaker 1: at an unnatural angle to make a player throwing your shoulder,
Speaker 1: you know, into a block. And so you see the
Speaker 1: teams that you know ascend to the highest level. They're
Speaker 1: playing for something each other, what you know, the coach,
Speaker 1: their belief, they're doing something collectively and fighting through all
Speaker 1: of that. And so you could say the Jags, can
Speaker 1: you know, get together and say, you know, screw the coach,
Speaker 1: we're doing this for us. Let's go rah rah rah.
Speaker 1: But then you know it gets a little hot out
Speaker 1: and you know the other team is you know, a
Speaker 1: little more committed. It can go downhill al ifect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if the story is simmering right now.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's open season on Urban Meyer. I
Speaker 1: don't know if other things will come out here in
Speaker 1: the coming weeks. Very very fair journalistic sensibility, right, I
Speaker 1: have the same sensibility, and we hear rumblings and I
Speaker 1: think the you know, to me, the biggest red flag
Speaker 1: is he tried to bs his way through it initially
Speaker 1: at least internally right. So that's a bad sign. It
Speaker 1: would be one thing if he just said yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if a coach said to his players, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think off an NFL hunt coach walked
Speaker 1: into a locker room and said to his players, you
Speaker 1: saw a video of me. I was drunk, I was stupid,
Speaker 1: I was caught up in the moment with a girl,
Speaker 1: and I apologize for that transgression. I think most players
Speaker 1: could relate, and most humans would say, Okay, it was
Speaker 1: it was dumb, but it's you know, nobody's perfect. But
Speaker 1: I think what it starts feeling shady and rationalized and
Speaker 1: not totally truthful. Not only do you not trust the person,
Speaker 1: but you, as you said, is there that's gonna come
Speaker 1: out because you're almost daring people now to uncover that. Michael,
Speaker 1: great to catch up with you is always thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. Appreciate you. Dad. That's Michael Silver, host of
Speaker 1: Passing Down podcast, Washington Football team Control Combutter, formerly with
Speaker 1: sports illustrator Yahoo and the NFL Network.