Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: The NBA playoffs are heating up. Man, they have been
Speaker 2: so good. I know it's over, but Lakers Nuggets may
Speaker 2: have been a five game series.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 2: Nicks sixers amazing. Why don't you sign up for the
Speaker 2: DraftKings sports book app takes ninety seconds the official sports
Speaker 2: betting partner of the NBA. If you're in DraftKings. Once
Speaker 2: you sign up, you got to check this out. New
Speaker 2: customers bet five bucks to get one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: bucks in bonus bets instantly great proposition right five bucks
Speaker 2: get one hundred and fifty bucks. Download the DraftKings sports
Speaker 2: Book app. The codes colins c O L I N.
Speaker 2: It's me CO L I N really quick, really easy.
Speaker 2: If you've never bet sports before, check it out. Really
Speaker 2: makes the games fun. The code is coling. New customers
Speaker 2: get one hundred and fifty bucks in bonus best by
Speaker 2: betting five only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours.
Speaker 4: Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or in West Virginia,
Speaker 4: visit one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York
Speaker 4: call eight seven seven eight hope and wire text hope
Speaker 4: and y four six seven three six nine in Connecticut.
Speaker 4: Help is available for for problem gambling. Call eight eight
Speaker 4: eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit
Speaker 4: CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill
Speaker 4: casino when resorting. Kansas twenty one and over age varies
Speaker 4: by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario one. No sweat bet per
Speaker 4: new customer issued as one bonus bet based on the
Speaker 4: amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets expire one hundred
Speaker 4: and sixty eight hours after issue. Ince See dkang dot
Speaker 4: com slash promos for deposit wagering and eligibility restrictions, terms
Speaker 4: and responsible gaming resources.
Speaker 2: All right, we do it every few weeks, every couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, and we love it. Nick Wright stops fy
Speaker 2: for about an hour. We'll chop it up. First things first,
Speaker 2: my friend, all that stuff, So I was going to
Speaker 2: start with this. I'm not a traditionalist. I didn't go
Speaker 2: to church as a kid. I'm agnostic. I grew up rurally.
Speaker 2: I wasn't in your classic suburb. My mom was British
Speaker 2: in a rural town where there was no British people,
Speaker 2: especially ones with strong accents. And I've always been a.
Speaker 3: Bit of a loaner.
Speaker 2: So I'm not a traditionalist. I don't cling to stuff, right, okay.
Speaker 2: And so when the PAC twelve, my favorite college football conference,
Speaker 2: or the Seattle Sonics left, I had people that are like,
Speaker 2: how are you not furious? And I said, with the
Speaker 2: PAC twelve, USC gets thirty million dollars annually from the
Speaker 2: PAC twelve TV deal. They're gonna get eighty five million
Speaker 2: annually from the Big Ten. If I could tell you
Speaker 2: you're gonna triple your income, do the exact same thing,
Speaker 2: you'd take the job. You wouldn't be loyal to the
Speaker 2: calendar or your boss. You take the job. So I
Speaker 2: am not a traditionalist. And so I can think two
Speaker 2: things at once. I can love something but move off
Speaker 2: it instantly. And I think about this with the people
Speaker 2: who bang on the NBA. The NBA load management drives
Speaker 2: me fricking nuts. I think it's terrible business. I literally
Speaker 2: have made decisions in the regular season. I'm going to
Speaker 2: watch a game and I'm like, oh, Giannis isn't playing,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go out dinner with my wife or something.
Speaker 3: I literally moved correct. I do it all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh Kd's not playing while I'm not watching
Speaker 2: the Sun's game, So I always think, what about a
Speaker 2: kid that goes to two NBA games a year, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's at that game, so it's funny. But I
Speaker 2: also one of the things I don't like about the
Speaker 2: Internet is that there's a lot of bad actors. It
Speaker 2: is okay to criticize the NBA for that, but no
Speaker 2: that Amazon's going to pay him a fortune. NBC and
Speaker 2: TNT are in a bidding war and they're gonna double
Speaker 2: the revenue the league brings in. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: the playoffs have been absolutely riveting. Can't turn it off
Speaker 2: a place electric. And then, by the way, this is
Speaker 2: the first round. This is the round you can look pat.
Speaker 2: So my take on I never mind people who are
Speaker 2: a pushback contrarian, but I do feel you and I
Speaker 2: are pretty be honest about Yeah, it was either wrong
Speaker 2: or I can I can literally think two things. Load
Speaker 2: management pisses me off, and the NBA is great.
Speaker 3: It's just not great.
Speaker 1: In January, well, and things there are the everything has
Speaker 1: become it feels so tribal.
Speaker 3: Yes that it is. Everything is.
Speaker 1: The way the way a die hard fan of a
Speaker 1: specific sports team, the way a die hard fan of
Speaker 1: Alabama football. Roots for Alabama football is basically how a
Speaker 1: huge percentage of people deal with every aspect of their life.
Speaker 3: I fucking love it.
Speaker 1: So everything about it is correct, and anyone criticizing it
Speaker 1: is wrong, as opposed to any type of I love this,
Speaker 1: didn't like this, this is good.
Speaker 3: This is bad.
Speaker 1: Anyone that acts as if the NBA folks have like
Speaker 1: NBA is dying, you know that is, babe. You know
Speaker 1: it's It's obviously not true. Anybody though, acting as if
Speaker 1: that there aren't aspects to the the overwhelming and what
Speaker 1: is about to be under the new TV deal one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars a year contracts that complicate a lot
Speaker 1: of the day to day factors of the league, They're
Speaker 1: being intellectually dishonest, in my opinion. I I also, I
Speaker 1: do think and I maybe have mentioned this to you,
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned it on my pod, but I
Speaker 1: do think the NBA made a strategic error this season.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell I'm gonna do a Colin
Speaker 1: Coward in a bit. I'm gonna give an anecdote or
Speaker 1: a story. It'll get there. So a guy who you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Connorshell so you know, the he you know
Speaker 1: used to be run was a big executive at ESPN,
Speaker 1: helped start thirty for thirties. Now he runs a company
Speaker 1: of his own. Oddly, his father and my mom worked
Speaker 1: together when I was a little kid, so I knew
Speaker 1: Connor is a little kid, and I never really knew
Speaker 1: exactly what his dad did. And maybe I'm wrong, but
Speaker 1: as a little kid, what it was described to me
Speaker 1: as he was in charge of long term strategy, meaning
Speaker 1: like when Sprint came out with a new phone, his
Speaker 1: job would be like, Okay, when this phone is bordering
Speaker 1: on obsolete, how are we gonna sell the last hundred
Speaker 1: of them?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like long long term thinking. And I think the NBA
Speaker 1: needed someone in that role eighteen months ago to say, guys,
Speaker 1: here is all of NBA history and ages of guys
Speaker 1: on their last playoff run. Are is it on the
Speaker 1: board that we just had the final Lebron deep playoffs,
Speaker 1: STEPH deep playoffs, Durant deep playoffs these guys, Is it possible,
Speaker 1: in fact overwhelmingly likely, that one, two, or all of
Speaker 1: them aren't going to be around when the calendar turns
Speaker 1: to May? If so, is it worthwhile for us to
Speaker 1: take a short term regular season ratings hit by featuring
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Minnesota Timberwolves, these teams to
Speaker 1: prime the audience that this is where our league's going.
Speaker 1: And they didn't do that. Instead it was Warriors, Lakers, Suns,
Speaker 1: these guys. So I do wonder if this second round
Speaker 1: of the playoffs, when you have Nuggets, Timberwolves, and when
Speaker 1: you have Thunder, maybe MAVs, if people are going to
Speaker 1: see a ratings dip. It won't affect the new TV
Speaker 1: contract all of that, But because the audience doesn't know
Speaker 1: this is their league now, Colin, if the Bucks lose
Speaker 1: this series, they're down three to two. And if the
Speaker 1: Clippers lose this series, yeah, the oldest star player left
Speaker 1: in the playoffs Lucas No, not Luca, Kyrie is Kyrie
Speaker 1: who's thirty just turned thirty two. That everyone everyone will
Speaker 1: be gone, like Joker, who's twenty eight or twenty nine,
Speaker 1: will be like the third oldest star left. The Clippers
Speaker 1: are all old guys. They're on the I think gonna lose.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are already out, the Warriors didn't make it,
Speaker 1: the Suns are out, the Bucks are on the brink,
Speaker 1: like this is a massive storming of the gates of
Speaker 1: the twenty somethings. But everyone should have expected it. When
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant's last playoff game ever, he was thirty two.
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan was thirty five, Like the guys don't play
Speaker 1: if people saw what Lebron did, so they thought Stephen
Speaker 1: Durant and Kawhi and Paul George are gonna do it.
Speaker 1: Nobody else is gonna do it. Stephan already exceeded age expectations.
Speaker 1: So I think the NBA made a mistake there. I
Speaker 1: also think my favorite two months of the year are
Speaker 1: the NBA playoffs, my favorite twenty days of the year
Speaker 1: or my twenty NFL Sundays, and my favorite two months
Speaker 1: of the year of the NBA playoffs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't disagree. Last weekend, the draft of the
Speaker 2: NBA playoffs is the best non NFL weekend of the
Speaker 2: year by far. I just I didn't leave my place
Speaker 2: the whole damn weekend.
Speaker 4: I thought it was.
Speaker 2: I was just draft playoffs, drafts so good.
Speaker 3: It was so good. No, you know.
Speaker 2: The other thing is the one thing about the NBA.
Speaker 2: I know leagues wish it was true, but it's not.
Speaker 2: There's been this sense that, you know, market size doesn't
Speaker 2: matter because players can get rich in Oklahoma City or
Speaker 2: New Orleans, right, just like a guy in Boise can
Speaker 2: make more than everybody in New York if he has
Speaker 2: a deal with McDonald's like to produce their French fries,
Speaker 2: which for a long time with Jay, Oh, that's actually
Speaker 2: a simplot.
Speaker 4: That's a guy.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought you were making that up.
Speaker 1: That's actually a guy, a guy forget McDonald's contract or whatever.
Speaker 3: Okay, a long time the.
Speaker 2: Richest guy Boise was richer and the richest guy in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So but I'll push back on markets do matter. First,
Speaker 2: the players do want to play in your Miami's, your LA's.
Speaker 2: It's a winter league. There's a history. Players don't choose Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: The second thing, I'm going to go back to the
Speaker 2: first NBA game I remember watching. So when I was
Speaker 2: a little kid, I would cut out pictures. There was
Speaker 2: a board by my bedroom, almost styrofoam. My dad put
Speaker 2: up that you could put needles.
Speaker 3: And posters on it.
Speaker 2: And Elmore Smith was a six ' nine Lakers center
Speaker 2: and I started putting sports stuff up. I remember Elmore
Speaker 2: Smith was the first one I put up, and then
Speaker 2: it was overtime, and he was a Lakers center back
Speaker 2: when the Lakers like pre Wilt and pre all this.
Speaker 2: I think it was around that time, or may have
Speaker 2: been post Wilt, pre Wit whatever, so.
Speaker 1: It would have been for your age, it would have
Speaker 1: been post Wilt, pre Yeah, go ahead, It was like
Speaker 1: early seven seventies. So I go back and I look
Speaker 1: at the biggest stars in the league. So when I
Speaker 1: first watched, it was either Jerry West or Wilt Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and then it was after that very quickly doctor J Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Doctor J New Jersey in the ABA,
Speaker 1: you know, it might as well be in a New
Speaker 1: York metro.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it was Jerry West, La Jerry, and Wilt.
Speaker 2: It was old Wilt, and then it was Doctor J.
Speaker 2: And then the league went through a little while there
Speaker 2: didn't really have a star, and then it was La
Speaker 2: Magic Boston byrd MJ Chicago Shaq and Kobe La Lebron
Speaker 2: outlier Cleveland Jordan Chicago right Steph San Francisco. Lebron is
Speaker 2: the only face of the league in a small market. Now,
Speaker 2: Cleveland has always played bigger because they have such a
Speaker 2: rich history with all their sports. It may be losing,
Speaker 2: but the Cleveland Browns are like the Cincinnati Reds right,
Speaker 2: like kind of a bedrock franchise. So that this idea
Speaker 2: that markets don't matter. And the reason I say this
Speaker 2: is the danger for the NBA and they've got their
Speaker 2: money is Denver, Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Indiana that Jalen Brunson
Speaker 2: with like a KD. We may not have a face
Speaker 2: of the league coming up, but they will become the
Speaker 2: franchise of the league.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, listen, people have been predicted. The New York
Speaker 1: Knicks have not won a title since nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: The New York Knicks have been to two finals in
Speaker 1: the last fifty years, and one of them they got
Speaker 1: their heads handed to them in the lowest rated season ever,
Speaker 1: first season post Jordan lockout year, fifty games.
Speaker 3: And yet they are.
Speaker 1: Over that same timeframe. You know, top five most talked
Speaker 1: about team. You are seeing it right now. The fan
Speaker 1: base is rabid.
Speaker 3: You have a.
Speaker 1: Disproportionate amount of media members who care about the team
Speaker 1: or root for the team or whatever. They are dying
Speaker 1: for this team to matter, dying for it to matter.
Speaker 1: In a way that is, there are some similarities to
Speaker 1: like what the football media does with the Cowboys and
Speaker 1: what basketball media does with the Knicks, except the Cowboys,
Speaker 1: at least in my lifetime, had a dynasty and have
Speaker 1: had multiple good teams with no great teams. The Knicks
Speaker 1: have only had a handful of good teams, no championships,
Speaker 1: and only really came close once ever, in ninety four.
Speaker 1: And so I think your point on market size is
Speaker 1: multi layered in a lot of ways. I think that
Speaker 1: guys will always young rich usually single guys are just
Speaker 1: also gonna want I want to go pool places and
Speaker 1: live somewhere awesome and that. And again I'm from Kansas
Speaker 1: City and I love Kansas City. But if I were
Speaker 1: twenty four with thirty million, it would suck like that, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It is it's we're blessed that Mahomes was like, oh,
Speaker 1: buy a piece of the Royals. My wife will buy
Speaker 1: a soccer team, and you know what I mean, we'll
Speaker 1: just basically become king and queen of the city or
Speaker 1: else you can outgrow it. Also, football you don't have
Speaker 1: to be there as long as you have to be
Speaker 1: there during the year, as basketball and baseball. I think
Speaker 1: this Nicks run is important for the league. I do
Speaker 1: think that, and I think there is and I think
Speaker 1: that your point on if they were to get a
Speaker 1: Durant and it wouldn't even have to the thing is this,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson scored forty and three straight games.
Speaker 3: I did not. I'll tell you the nobody.
Speaker 1: Nobody did. So I'll tell you a funny story. Turned
Speaker 1: this light on. See if my lighting is a little
Speaker 1: bit better. And I know it's a little dark where
Speaker 1: I am sorry about that. I should turn it around before.
Speaker 1: So I was at Philly Nicks game four in Philly,
Speaker 1: so and I had I was very fortunate. I had
Speaker 1: amazing seats. So I'm basically right between the Knicks bench
Speaker 1: and the scorer's table where they uh and there's row one,
Speaker 1: court side, Row two court side feet on the wood,
Speaker 1: and then Row AA, which is the first row that
Speaker 1: isn't feet on the wood. So that's where I am
Speaker 1: in between the first and the second quarter. Rick Brunts
Speaker 1: and Jail Instead, who's a coach on the Knicks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seize me and he's like, hey, you owe my son
Speaker 1: an apology.
Speaker 3: He's smiling when.
Speaker 1: He says it. And I'm like, what do you mean.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know what I mean, you owe him
Speaker 1: an apology. And I think it was because when they
Speaker 1: signed him, because there's a clip that Nick's Twitter put,
Speaker 1: you know, put out of everyone who was wrong about
Speaker 1: Jalen when they signed him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, listen, he's a nice player, but.
Speaker 1: If he's your if he's your third best I think
Speaker 1: what I said was, if he's your third best guy,
Speaker 1: you can win a title. If he's your second best guy,
Speaker 1: you can be good. And if he's your best guy,
Speaker 1: you're not a good team.
Speaker 3: It's what I thought, Like.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what I mean, Like we did right.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a terrible take. It ended
Speaker 1: up being. And so I'm like, I've already said I
Speaker 1: was wrong. He was like, you need to say it
Speaker 1: on TV, and I'm like, buddy, I'm like, I had
Speaker 1: him fourth on my MVP ballot. Now I don't actually
Speaker 1: have a ballot per se, but in my when I
Speaker 1: list him on the show, and so he's like, he's like, Okay, cool, cool,
Speaker 1: But you know how I talk. I talk like this
Speaker 1: with my hands. He's kind of similar. His back is
Speaker 1: to the court. He has now walked like right to
Speaker 1: the scorer's table, and I've stood up to talk to him.
Speaker 1: So we're not like no to nose, but we're leaning
Speaker 1: in having, you know, a very friendly, great conversation. Second
Speaker 1: quarters about start, one of the refs Jog's over and
Speaker 1: pats him on the shoulders, like, hey, do we need
Speaker 1: to kick that guy out? I thought thought he and
Speaker 1: I were arguing, and Rick, to his credit, started living.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, he's a I think he even said
Speaker 1: that's my buddy, which is nicer than I deserved.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, we're cool.
Speaker 1: And then the ref maybe recognized me and like really
Speaker 1: realize eything was fine. But in the moment I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that would have been the ultimate power move by.
Speaker 3: Him if he decided to refa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know why you're getting kicked out because three
Speaker 1: years ago you were wrong.
Speaker 3: About my kid.
Speaker 1: Now you're out here that doesn't realize it doesn't really
Speaker 1: answer your question. But yes, the Nicks being great, it's
Speaker 1: also why here's another kind of spin off to that take.
Speaker 3: How awful are Brooklyn Nets fans? You had?
Speaker 1: You had Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, No One cared.
Speaker 1: No one in the city cared like it was like
Speaker 1: the Knicks have one guy and a team that plays
Speaker 1: so hard and they are infiltrating Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: The tickets are six hundred dollars to get in. The
Speaker 3: nets were on deep playoff runs against.
Speaker 1: Johannis Yea and people like, ah, do I want to
Speaker 1: go to Barclays and Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: That's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what it is. It shows you the
Speaker 2: power of brand. It's the Clippers Lakers, the late John Madden.
Speaker 2: Eric Shanks has brought this up before.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: John Madden was the only football broadcaster of note that
Speaker 2: literally moved a rating. Now, sports gambling now moves ratings.
Speaker 2: People don't need bad games. You can see it. So
Speaker 2: we know that if you're if you have money on games.
Speaker 2: And as the roll out of legalized gambling happens in America,
Speaker 2: it's helping television. People have more vested financially they stay
Speaker 2: in games. But John Madden was the first and maybe
Speaker 2: only broadcaster to do that. And he always had a theory.
Speaker 2: Say the game out loud, does it sound like a
Speaker 2: big game? And he said, when you say Packers Niners, oh,
Speaker 2: actually gotta be a big football game. They could both
Speaker 2: be four and six. It feels like a big what
Speaker 2: The New York Knicks have always felt big, even when
Speaker 2: they stunk the last twenty years. You if the Knicks,
Speaker 2: here's all you need to know. Jordan goes there, Kobe
Speaker 2: goes there. It felt big to them. They could be
Speaker 2: twelve games under five hundred. Michael, Jordan and Kobe. It
Speaker 2: was like, on going to New York, I'm gonna put
Speaker 2: on a show. So New York just is. It just
Speaker 2: feels big one.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of that branding that you want to this
Speaker 1: is unrelated, but you want to play a.
Speaker 3: Game real quick. Sure.
Speaker 1: So the Chiefs host the obviously the opening game of
Speaker 1: the year, so we know who their eight opponents are.
Speaker 1: I did a thing on the air today where I said,
Speaker 1: I bet I can't. I think I know what game
Speaker 1: the NFL is gonna put there. So let me tell
Speaker 1: you who the opponents are and see where you land
Speaker 1: on it. I will tell you for the Thursday night
Speaker 1: first game of the year last year was Chiefs Lions. Right,
Speaker 1: So your eight possible opponents are obviously Chargers, Raiders, Broncos,
Speaker 1: your three divisional opponents, your NFC opponents, are Bucks Saints,
Speaker 1: and your AFC non divisional opponents are Ravens, Texans Bengals. Now,
Speaker 1: let me give you one piece of info. They have
Speaker 1: NFL has been doing this Super Bowl Champion host for
Speaker 1: you know, the opener, for twenty years. Only once have
Speaker 1: they made it a divisional matchup. So the the NFL
Speaker 1: kind of tells us they tend not to because Chiefs,
Speaker 1: Chargers like balls opener or whatever.
Speaker 3: That's what I that.
Speaker 2: My first guess was the last time we saw Jim
Speaker 2: Koach he won the National Championship at Michigan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought Mahomes.
Speaker 2: And Michigan's brand. I would guess Chargers.
Speaker 1: But if the if the NFL doesn't want to do
Speaker 1: divisional because again, nineteen of twenty years they've gone non divisional.
Speaker 1: So if it's not because I think the give me
Speaker 1: the non divisional teams again. Okay, Bucks, Saints, Texans, Bengals, Ravens.
Speaker 3: Last year it was Chiefs Lions.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be Texans.
Speaker 3: Yes, me too. So the do you want to say
Speaker 3: why you think it or you want to hear from me?
Speaker 2: Well, because the Lions were the team. It was a
Speaker 2: good story losing team looks like they're going to be
Speaker 2: really good. So you got the Champions and this ascending
Speaker 2: young team with this this brand that's well known, the
Speaker 2: Texans dysfunctional, they pop up, there's a since they're ascending brand,
Speaker 2: so that it also the Lions won that game, so
Speaker 2: that game is so big for the Lions and so
Speaker 2: big for the Texans. There's a possible upset in week one.
Speaker 3: And so this is in wrestling.
Speaker 1: I think I don't know what the parlance is, but
Speaker 1: sometimes when they're trying to make someone a star, they
Speaker 1: make sure they have a game against the established star,
Speaker 1: and you know, they get over. So I think that
Speaker 1: I think Bucks and Saints are basically impossible. There's no
Speaker 1: chance that's the opening game. Obviously, Raiders Broncos are not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. There's no quarterback. Chargers would work, but it's divisional.
Speaker 1: So now we're down to three in my opinion, Ravens, Bengals, Texans.
Speaker 1: The reason I said I don't think they'll do Ravens
Speaker 1: is because if the season starts with the Ravens having
Speaker 1: added Derrick Henry, you know, a coming off this great year,
Speaker 1: losing to the Chiefs again, it's going to kind of
Speaker 1: make the AFC feel like, all right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like what like they if the Chiefs start
Speaker 1: the year beating Baltimore, then how many games in a
Speaker 1: row would they have to lose before people are like
Speaker 1: they're in trouble, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So I don't think it's gonna be Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Joe Burrow, unfortunately multiple years now, has been dinged heading
Speaker 1: into the first week of the year. He's also coming
Speaker 1: off that surgery. I think they want that to be
Speaker 1: like later in the year Marquee. Then you have the Texans,
Speaker 1: who if they lose, no one's gonna write them off.
Speaker 3: If they win, it's a catapult.
Speaker 1: It features it's the NFL kind of being like telling you, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the team to watch.
Speaker 3: CJ.
Speaker 1: Stroud all of it. They weren't on national TV at
Speaker 1: all last year. So I just I know it sounds weird.
Speaker 1: I feel almost convinced it's gonna be Chiefs Texans to
Speaker 1: open the NFL season.
Speaker 3: It just makes the most sense.
Speaker 2: And I think what you said is the NBA didn't
Speaker 2: do this, the NFS doing it. Here's the next potential
Speaker 2: star meet them.
Speaker 3: Right over the next they did with the Lions last year.
Speaker 1: They told America the Lions hadn't even made the playoffs.
Speaker 1: They told America, you need to take this team seriously,
Speaker 1: like this is a right, and they ended up winning.
Speaker 1: It was an electric game and all of it so
Speaker 1: one of.
Speaker 2: My favorite things to do. I don't think I'm a contrarian,
Speaker 2: but I think what I am, and this is probably
Speaker 2: not a good quality. I'm a bit of a cynic.
Speaker 2: I'm agnostic. I'm not real religious. Prove it to me.
Speaker 2: I want data, but I don't go off into the weeds.
Speaker 2: I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But one of the things
Speaker 2: I hear all the time, and I just I really
Speaker 2: led with it today and I just felt so strongly
Speaker 2: about it. It probably shouldn't have been in my opening block,
Speaker 2: but I felt strongly about it. Is there's this thing
Speaker 2: out there. I'm a big believer. You have to take
Speaker 2: big swings in life if you're confident in yourself, because
Speaker 2: a if it lands, it changes your life. And if
Speaker 2: it doesn't, yeah, your refinancier, mortgage. You figure out, you know,
Speaker 2: if you if you make a big if you miss
Speaker 2: on something, if you really have confidence in your intellect,
Speaker 2: your stability, and your ascension as a human being.
Speaker 3: You're fine.
Speaker 2: So there's always this talk about oh, dead cap, that
Speaker 2: dead cap money is a killer. The Rams were eighty
Speaker 2: million over the cap last year and made the playoffs
Speaker 2: and were a bad call on Puka Nakua from making
Speaker 2: the NFC Championship. Why mcvay's great Stafford's Great Tom Brady
Speaker 2: was a thirty five million dollar dead kip, dead cap
Speaker 2: hit for the Bucks last year they made the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Aaron Rodgers was a forty million dollar dead cap hit
Speaker 2: for the Packers. They routed the Cowboys and gave the
Speaker 2: Niners a real battle on the way to the NFC Championship.
Speaker 2: Heala twenty twenty one. The Carson Wentz contract, Ooh, how punitive. No,
Speaker 2: Now they've drafted Jalen Hurts and they've been just fine.
Speaker 2: Is that there's this myth? Oh the Kirk Cousins contract.
Speaker 2: If Bo Knicks can play, Denver's fine, They're absolutely fine,
Speaker 2: because they.
Speaker 3: Russell Wilson contract right now. So you look at it, you.
Speaker 2: Go, oh my god, if Bo Knicks can play, he's
Speaker 2: essentially free for four years, and I think he will work.
Speaker 2: He completed seventy seven percent of his college passes against
Speaker 2: like the best PAC twelve has been in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: So my point is there are and I say this
Speaker 2: at Landa. That's why I defended Atlanta. Atlanta said. What
Speaker 2: you don't want to be is last year the Vikings
Speaker 2: had to make a trade to get Josh Dobbs. Atlanta's
Speaker 2: going listen Ritter was terrible. Cousins is the best on
Speaker 2: the market. At eight, we think we can get a quarterback,
Speaker 2: but we don't know. And by the time they got
Speaker 2: to eight, they did get calls from other people and
Speaker 2: they thought, screw it. What if What if Kirk comes
Speaker 2: back and he's okay? And by Thanksgiving we're like, Pennix
Speaker 2: is way better in practice. So my take was it
Speaker 2: is viewed as terrible, but it's a heavily weighted contract early.
Speaker 2: If you had to move off Kirk after a year
Speaker 2: and Pennix is great, that's the That's like rich people
Speaker 2: complaining about taxes. That is the best problem to have
Speaker 2: in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Well, so, okay, so I understand what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: I actually don't. I think that what you said at
Speaker 1: the beginning is the opposite of what they did. I
Speaker 1: don't look at this as a big swing. I look
Speaker 1: at this as the ultimate hedge. I look at this
Speaker 1: as a team that post Matt Ryan has been in
Speaker 1: quarterback hell and said never again, never again. And instead of,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, giving yourself the best chance to be great,
Speaker 1: you lowered your ceiling because you wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: the floor didn't bottom out. Because to use both you
Speaker 1: had two massive assets, your cap space and the eighth pick.
Speaker 3: They used them both on the same spot where only
Speaker 3: one guy can play.
Speaker 1: So if you really and I don't think, here's the
Speaker 1: other thing, because I am a bit of a contract
Speaker 1: nerd as far as the fact that they structured Kirk's
Speaker 1: contract the way they did, where instead of guaranteeing the salary,
Speaker 1: they put it in signing bonus. You could have given
Speaker 1: him the same amount of guaranteed money but made it
Speaker 1: easier to trade him in a year, and they gave
Speaker 1: him a fucking no trade clause. So I don't think
Speaker 1: when they signed him seven weeks ago they thought they
Speaker 1: were drafting the quarterback. And if you really had the
Speaker 1: courage of your convictions in Penix now maybe you're worried
Speaker 1: he's not going to be there. But I don't think
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought Panis wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: there at eight. Then use that money to make the
Speaker 1: rest of your team better. I just I think Atlanta
Speaker 1: was so scared by Desmond Ritter that they're like, we're
Speaker 1: never going through that again the volume.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to part one of the conversations with Nick.
Speaker 3: Don't forget the check back for part two.