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Speaker 1: is Prime Cuts, the best of the Colin Coward podcast.
Speaker 1: So give me six or seven minutes on this um.
Speaker 1: I've spent this week overwhelmingly on one time Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: to the Jets, and I know at times it feels tedious,
Speaker 1: but you know, I've something I've said probably twenty five
Speaker 1: times in my thirty year career about my shows radio
Speaker 1: or TV, is that you the consumer, You the listener,
Speaker 1: You drive the bus. So I'm able to, because I'm
Speaker 1: on cable television, to see every minute of my ratings
Speaker 1: every day. You can't do that on broadcast TV, but
Speaker 1: you can do it on cable, and I monitor it,
Speaker 1: and I monitor it for one reason. You tell me
Speaker 1: what you're bored with, you tell me what you're interested with.
Speaker 1: I think the height of arrogance as a broadcaster is
Speaker 1: pretending I know every day what's most interesting, so I
Speaker 1: follow you and I I And this has happened to
Speaker 1: me multiple times over my career that I've loved a topic,
Speaker 1: just thought it was absolutely wonderful and fascinating, and the
Speaker 1: next day I see my numbers and you didn't give
Speaker 1: a shit, and so I move off the topic. There
Speaker 1: are things that interest me far more that interest you.
Speaker 1: And conversely, there are times I've touched on topics and
Speaker 1: I'm really shocked by how much you care. So then
Speaker 1: it's my job to make calls, take better notes, figure
Speaker 1: out why you like it, and talk about it. So
Speaker 1: in the Aaron Rodgers situation of the Jets, it's the
Speaker 1: combination of multiple things. The most popular sport in the
Speaker 1: country the NFL, the most crucial position quarterback, one gigantic
Speaker 1: iconic brand the Green Bay Packers, and the most polarizing
Speaker 1: quarterback in the most popular sport Aaron Rodgers. So this
Speaker 1: week I can watch my downloads, I can watch my
Speaker 1: cable ratings. They've all been really, really good. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to spend it in a couple of minutes on this.
Speaker 1: I listened to most of the comments, the clips from
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers on the YouTube Pat McAfee deal, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's a friendly place for him to go every week,
Speaker 1: and I have no problem with that. I used to
Speaker 1: defend our Cineo Hall all the time when people would
Speaker 1: bang on our city of the Hall and they said, well,
Speaker 1: you know people go on there. He asked puff fluffy questions.
Speaker 1: And my takeaways, it's called the Arsenio Hall Show. He
Speaker 1: can do whatever he wants. It's his show. You know.
Speaker 1: Some people have said, well, McAfee's just it's a comfortable
Speaker 1: place for Aaron to go. And my takeaway is it's
Speaker 1: pat show. He's a punter, you're not a journalist. He
Speaker 1: can do anything he wants with it. I can do
Speaker 1: anything I want with my show. But I'm not a
Speaker 1: former professional athlete. I don't have a relationship with Aaron,
Speaker 1: so I'll defend any broadcaster. This is not The New
Speaker 1: York Times I'm in the opinion space. I've said before
Speaker 1: I liked Aaron Rodgers more than Brett Farve. I think
Speaker 1: he's smarter. I think he's more thoughtful. He's a unique guy.
Speaker 1: Probably wouldn't be my kind of guy to hang out with,
Speaker 1: but that's okay. You know, there's a lot of great athletes.
Speaker 1: You know Tom Brady doesn't have a beer during the season.
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't hang out with him either. I'm drinking
Speaker 1: one right now. Her draft picks, by the way, Pilsner.
Speaker 1: But I do think the most shocking revelation to me
Speaker 1: is that Aaron Rodgers after the retreat said ninety percent
Speaker 1: going in he was going to retire, and then he
Speaker 1: came out and was surprised the packers moved off him.
Speaker 1: It's just remarkable to me that a guy that's that
Speaker 1: smart would lack any self awareness. And I'll double down
Speaker 1: on this, when you're the center of your universe and
Speaker 1: you ghost people, Aaron has a history of ghosting people
Speaker 1: who say anything critical of him. You surround yourself with
Speaker 1: yes men, and nobody called him out on his ship.
Speaker 1: You know, my wife calls me out on mine. My
Speaker 1: kids do I got friends that do I have bosses
Speaker 1: that would. And so the packers have never had an owner, right,
Speaker 1: They don't have an owner who calls him out in
Speaker 1: his stuff. If Green Bay had an owner, Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: would not take eight to nine weeks to make up
Speaker 1: his mind, if Jerry Jones or Stan Cronky would call
Speaker 1: him up and say, pal make a decision or we're
Speaker 1: moving on. So it looks like that's an advantage not
Speaker 1: having an owner, But I think it's a disadvantage. It's
Speaker 1: a disadvantage for Farv who kept threatening retirement. It's a
Speaker 1: disadvantage for Aaron who kept threatening retirement. And neither guy
Speaker 1: had anybody that would demand they give him an answer.
Speaker 1: And then Aaron's not married. You know, he didn't have
Speaker 1: anybody to call him on his crap like our wives do, right,
Speaker 1: And so I really do think I call it the
Speaker 1: green Bay quarterback syndrome. No owner, smallest city, you basically
Speaker 1: own the franchise. And I think ownership at its best
Speaker 1: is non meddling, is highly supportive. But but will hold coaches,
Speaker 1: star players accountable. That's Robert Kraft. He said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not going to trade Tom Brady, We're moving off Jimmy Garoppolo.
Speaker 1: It was the right move. Brady still had Super bowls
Speaker 1: with New England and Tampa left in the tank, and
Speaker 1: Garoppolo's a B quarterback. Some would say SC quarterback got
Speaker 1: to a Super Bowl maybe C plus. So I think
Speaker 1: the lack of ownership has really hurt Green Bay. The
Speaker 1: other thing is they've been overly frugal. An owner can
Speaker 1: sometimes step in and say, go get that free agent,
Speaker 1: make it work. They don't have that, so in the end,
Speaker 1: sometimes in life, things you see as an advantage can
Speaker 1: be a real disadvantage. And it may feel like for
Speaker 1: far Aaron Rodgers it's such an advantage not having that hovering, meddling,
Speaker 1: powerful billionaire. But I think in both cases Farb and
Speaker 1: Rodgers kind of took advantage of it, had leverage, manipulated,
Speaker 1: used it, and in the end the franchise booted both.
Speaker 1: I do think Jordan Love can play. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's going to be great. If he was going to
Speaker 1: be great, if he was Mahomes or Borough, they would
Speaker 1: have already moved off Aaron not given him an extension.
Speaker 1: Didn't take very long one training camp a month in
Speaker 1: September to figure out Mahomes was really good. Let's move
Speaker 1: off Alex Smith, who was a pro bowler and making
Speaker 1: the playoffs when they moved off him. I also don't
Speaker 1: think he's Zach Wilson or EJ. Manuel, where you know
Speaker 1: instantly it doesn't work. He's somewhere in between. My takeaway
Speaker 1: is if you look at who the Packers play next
Speaker 1: year and the quarterbacks they play on average in the NFC,
Speaker 1: they want eight games this year with Aaron, I think
Speaker 1: they're about an eight to nine win team next year
Speaker 1: with Jordan Love barring some injury. I do think they're
Speaker 1: going to get this deal done. I think they're going
Speaker 1: to get either a first round pick or a really
Speaker 1: good player from the New York Jets. But I don't
Speaker 1: see them capsizing at all. I do, however, find it
Speaker 1: absolutely remarkable that Aaron Rodgers was surprised when he came
Speaker 1: out of the darkness retreat his words not mine, and
Speaker 1: the Green Bay Packers had decided to move on. Wow.
Speaker 1: You could be pissed. That's different. You could be upset. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can't be surprised for the second or third year
Speaker 1: in a row talking retirement. You can't be surprised. You're
Speaker 1: not allowed to be surprised. As an adult with a
Speaker 1: functioning brain, you're not allowed to be surprised. Get off
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Speaker 1: dot gambler dot net West Virginia. All right, we bring
Speaker 1: in host of Open Mike Mike Silver. He is he
Speaker 1: is a story breaking maven is what he is So.
Speaker 1: Sam Darnold has a lot of Trey Lance qualities. Coachable,
Speaker 1: big athlete, mobile, but not spectacularly fast, not a pretty thrower,
Speaker 1: not highly accurate, prone to some mistakes, but good in
Speaker 1: the room, coachable, big physical athlete for a big physical
Speaker 1: team and culture. That's what it felt like to me.
Speaker 1: It feels like Trey, Lance and Darnald are battling for
Speaker 1: the backup. Though am I too idealistic on this Brock
Speaker 1: pretty thing? I think Kyle Shanahan loves Purty. I think
Speaker 1: he does. Yeah, he does. And it was settled. It
Speaker 1: was over. Purty was the guy. It was. They were
Speaker 1: good too. Couldn't even touch his contract for the next
Speaker 1: two years, couldn't even renegotiate till two years from now.
Speaker 1: Cheap deal, load up around him. Maybe Lance develops and
Speaker 1: you flip him, maybe he's your backup. Whatever, it was
Speaker 1: all good. And then if Brock Purtty had broken his
Speaker 1: leg in that game, nothing would have changed. A tough break, man,
Speaker 1: we lost, Brock's the guy. He ripped out an important
Speaker 1: link of it in his throwing elbow. So yes, it changed.
Speaker 1: So what they hope, and obviously, based on their behavior
Speaker 1: so far, what they hope is that's six month timeline
Speaker 1: reasonable and if not, maybe it's seven, maybe it's even eight.
Speaker 1: But eventually the guy we get back is going to
Speaker 1: be the guy we had. He'll be able to throw
Speaker 1: it like you threw it before and we're good to go.
Speaker 1: And if that happens, then what you said is absolutely right.
Speaker 1: But they do have to live in a reality now
Speaker 1: where it might not be that way, and sometimes they're setbacks,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're scarred tissue. Sometimes it just never comes back
Speaker 1: to what it was. I don't think that's likely. I
Speaker 1: think the likeliest thing is brock Purty will be back
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, not too late in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three season, looking like he did before. But
Speaker 1: you have to hedge. So after last year's entire offseason
Speaker 1: of trays the Guy, I trace the guy tras the
Speaker 1: Guy and you and I infamously noted during that offseason
Speaker 1: that wasn't going super smoothly and accurately. Yeah, we accurately
Speaker 1: reported that he wasn't super accurate, that his arm was
Speaker 1: experiencing fatigue, and that he wasn't consistent. Um we've since
Speaker 1: been thou born to be true by including Trey Lance,
Speaker 1: who was disgusted. But um so they have to have
Speaker 1: a plan C. I wondered if it would be Matt Ryan,
Speaker 1: if he'd want to do it, given his history with Kyle.
Speaker 1: I wondered if it would be a Dalton Brissette type
Speaker 1: of guy. They went a little younger. Interesting comparison, Darnald
Speaker 1: a lance Um. The one thing I'll give the lance
Speaker 1: is that Darnold is not known for his intelligence. Not
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying Sam Darnold's not intelligent for
Speaker 1: the record, I'm just saying he's not known as a
Speaker 1: quarterback who just you know, blows you away with hiss
Speaker 1: A whiteboard, a whiteboard where trade They saw something intelligence
Speaker 1: wise before the draft that got them super super fired up.
Speaker 1: So that gives me hope that maybe there's a jump
Speaker 1: to be made. So I think Plan A is lance
Speaker 1: is the guy. Darnold's the insurance. Maybe Lands starts a
Speaker 1: game or two, but Party's the guy. Plan B is man.
Speaker 1: Party's not coming along great, but you know what, Lands
Speaker 1: stepped up. He's the guy. Darnold's the insurance. Plans C
Speaker 1: is Trey's not able to do it. He's gonna have
Speaker 1: to be the backup. We'll go with Sam Darnold and
Speaker 1: figure it out. Plan A minus, as you know, and
Speaker 1: I will. I don't think it's likely, but you know,
Speaker 1: John Lynch is going to call Tom Brady in many
Speaker 1: or June and go, hey, I know you said for good,
Speaker 1: but it's your hometown team because he's the perfect guy
Speaker 1: as a hedge against Party. If you don't think Party
Speaker 1: is going to be right next year, but you think
Speaker 1: he's the guy in the future, you can just do
Speaker 1: one year of Brady and still keep that same plan.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that both the Niners in Miami
Speaker 1: have constructed their twenty twenty three rosters to basically say,
Speaker 1: we can win now if our quarterback figure works out.
Speaker 1: In the Nighters case, Party's elbow comes back or lands
Speaker 1: fix a jump. In the Dolphins case too, it doesn't
Speaker 1: keep getting concussed. But hey, Tom, wake quake. We're built
Speaker 1: to win now. And if you came just for one year, WHOA. No,
Speaker 1: you and I are leaning in the same direction. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why the backups Darnald and Mike White are not
Speaker 1: really super viable long term pieces. They are your classic
Speaker 1: emergency starter, meaning if Purdy goes out, Brady steps in.
Speaker 1: Nobody questions whether Brady's the guy right right? Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And again, so you and I can
Speaker 1: sit here and say Brady makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I know they're gonna at least try. But are we
Speaker 1: saying do we know what Tom Brady's gonna want to do? No,
Speaker 1: he said for good, So I'm assuming it's for good.
Speaker 1: I just know that if you were gonna go back
Speaker 1: on that, you've got two really attractive situations, one where
Speaker 1: your kids live and you have a place, and one
Speaker 1: where you grew up and your parents live. So Jimmy
Speaker 1: G to the raiders. You know, Jimmy G. Well, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stories that can now be told because
Speaker 1: you don't have to cover him. So I'll throw out
Speaker 1: what I've been told by the years, by people in
Speaker 1: the building, are around the building. He's a guy's guy.
Speaker 1: There are limitations on his arm. Despite being a pretty big,
Speaker 1: solid guy. He doesn't have much of a whip. Not
Speaker 1: terribly fluid, kind of mechanical. But he's a great locker
Speaker 1: room guy, kind of an alpha could at times not
Speaker 1: be flaky, but disappear in the off season. They felt
Speaker 1: like he relied a lot on God's genetic gift to
Speaker 1: him size, chest, confidence, wasn't a workaholic. He's as good
Speaker 1: as he should be considering his commitment. Okay, so first
Speaker 1: of all, I love Jimmy like I do. And one
Speaker 1: reason I love him is because I did write some
Speaker 1: of that. Last August or September. I came out with
Speaker 1: a thing talking about how they have the press offence
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. After his five wins, they give him
Speaker 1: the money, he's the guy, and then they have the big,
Speaker 1: you know, celebration, and then he leaves and they don't
Speaker 1: hear from him again for months, and ghosting them over
Speaker 1: the off season was habitual, except for the year they
Speaker 1: drafted Trey Lance. He was really a tent of that
Speaker 1: off season. So I wondered how that was gonna go
Speaker 1: for me. After I wrote that, next time I saw Jimmy,
Speaker 1: it was all good. And you know that's yet another
Speaker 1: I do love Jimmy. I think he's awesome. I love
Speaker 1: his temperament. I think he had the best temperament for
Speaker 1: Kyle Shanahan, who gets really tightly wound and gruppy on
Speaker 1: game day. Sometimes not on game day. I think it
Speaker 1: rolled off Jimmy. Well. He was super popular. I think
Speaker 1: his arm, don't I wouldn't say anything bad about his arm.
Speaker 1: His release is so good. And I don't think they're
Speaker 1: five other quarter backs on Earth who really throw it
Speaker 1: like he does in terms of release and short range,
Speaker 1: short to media rage accuracy like it's You know, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of route or plays that were pointed
Speaker 1: out to me where people said it looked like Jimmy
Speaker 1: went through his reads and led this guy perfectly. What
Speaker 1: might have happened here is Jimmy saw it late, but
Speaker 1: he gets it out so quick and so perfectly that
Speaker 1: it just looked like that. So I do think his
Speaker 1: arm is really good. People have talked about his deep balls.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So anyway, is Jimmy Garoppolo. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of quarterbacks who are not grinders. One
Speaker 1: of them we suspect in Arizona because they put a
Speaker 1: clause in his contract about video games. One of them
Speaker 1: is trying to get a fully guaranteed deal. Now we
Speaker 1: should talk about that. By all metrics, he deserves relative
Speaker 1: to Deshaun Watson, and he deserves to get paid way
Speaker 1: more than Daniel Jones, etc. But I think one of
Speaker 1: the things hurting Lamar is this perception that he's not
Speaker 1: grinding in terms of off the field, and Jimmy is
Speaker 1: another guy who has acquired that reputation, and you know,
Speaker 1: will that change with Josh and Vegas probably if you
Speaker 1: look at how he acted when they drafted Lance Yes,
Speaker 1: and also look, I love I love Jimmy in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, I don't give it f Jimmy, which was liberating.
Speaker 1: And I told him, you know, in late December what
Speaker 1: he was hurt. I said, dude, you realize that the
Speaker 1: most Niner thing ever is going to be for you
Speaker 1: to somehow come back and play the Super Bowl like
Speaker 1: it just is. And there was a moment sitting in
Speaker 1: that stadium with the link early where I'm like, purdies out,
Speaker 1: Josh Judson's in, Christian McCaffrey just ran through five dudes.
Speaker 1: They're tied, and I'm like, it's gonna happen. Josh Judson's
Speaker 1: gonna win this game somehow, and Jimmy Garoppolo is gonna
Speaker 1: come back in two weeks and start the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: against Patrick mahofs. So it didn't get quite that far,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to discount what he did. He
Speaker 1: really bailed about last year. He played at a pro
Speaker 1: Bowl level. He got hurt. There was some tension after
Speaker 1: he got hurt. The way it was explained to me
Speaker 1: is that you know, Trey Lance, who was hurt, was
Speaker 1: coming to every meeting and really was engaged with Brock.
Speaker 1: Jimmy's style was to not show up a lot. Kyle
Speaker 1: had never specifically said this is mandatory, get your butt
Speaker 1: in here, and so he wasn't disobeying anything. It was
Speaker 1: just a different approach. And it's possible that that's what
Speaker 1: Jimmy was taught in New England, by the way that
Speaker 1: Bill's approach is when you're injured, just you know, stay
Speaker 1: out of it. But that if there was any tension
Speaker 1: at the end, you know, it was a three year breakup,
Speaker 1: so of course there was tu shit. But if there
Speaker 1: was tension at the end, Kyle, I think, was frustrated
Speaker 1: that Jimmy wasn't hanging around the way Trey was. So
Speaker 1: I do want to move segue into Lamar Jackson. Years ago,
Speaker 1: Kirk Cousins got a guaranteed contract. It was highly criticized, dubious,
Speaker 1: too expensive. Minnesota was pretty desperate in a division with
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers, and so they offered it and Kirk, you know,
Speaker 1: with a chip on his shoulder, said I'm going to
Speaker 1: sign it. However, moving forward, nobody else offered a guaranteed contract,
Speaker 1: including the significantly more talented Aaron Rodgers. My takeaway has
Speaker 1: always been I've seen this since I ran the volume.
Speaker 1: I'll make people an offer. I'm not going to offer
Speaker 1: you something just because I feel an inferior podcast company
Speaker 1: makes you an egregious offer. So Cleveland's a desperate franchise,
Speaker 1: much more desperate than Minnesota was with Kirk Cousins. I
Speaker 1: don't believe Baltimore, a highly functional organization, should look at
Speaker 1: Cleveland and go, well, they set the market. If you're
Speaker 1: not available on Sunday, I can't give you a fully
Speaker 1: guaranteed contract, right you have to I have to be guaranteed,
Speaker 1: you know, buy and large. Brady showed up every Sunday
Speaker 1: Five showed up, Eli Manning showed up, Daniel Jones shows up.
Speaker 1: There are guys that get dinged up for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons. I love Lamar, but I worry that it's
Speaker 1: now personal because he doesn't have an agent. And when
Speaker 1: you don't have an agent, it does get personal because
Speaker 1: you are discussing people who are, if not lamenting, they
Speaker 1: are discussing your weaknesses and liabilities face to face. That's
Speaker 1: why I have an agent. Mike, So I don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with these kind of conversations, which is why
Speaker 1: when you and I renegotiate our deal, will use agents
Speaker 1: and they can do all that crap take the arrows
Speaker 1: for us exactly. Yeah. So, first of all, I believe
Speaker 1: the Ravens are not shiny organizationally, and I have been
Speaker 1: as big a fan of that organization publicly as anyone
Speaker 1: for a long long time. I think they've botched this too.
Speaker 1: I have written that they effed around and found out
Speaker 1: they were willing to go into the season, go and
Speaker 1: find we'll just play it out with Lamar and am
Speaker 1: I saying Lamar intentionally sat out all those games to
Speaker 1: spite them. No, but he didn't have that feeling that
Speaker 1: he was taken care of. And his coach came out
Speaker 1: publicly and was like, hey, I think he'll be back
Speaker 1: in a week or two, and which you know, I
Speaker 1: don't love if I'm a player with a bad D.
Speaker 1: And they lost a winnable playoff game potentially against the
Speaker 1: Bengals they didn't have him, So they've budged it too.
Speaker 1: And if it's personal, maybe it's personal in their ed too,
Speaker 1: but they've budged it so let's let's assess a. Would
Speaker 1: it be easier if he had an agent? Yes, it
Speaker 1: would be easier. Doesn't mean he has to, doesn't. You
Speaker 1: know Roquan Smith doesn't have an agent and they got
Speaker 1: their thing done. It would be easier, especially right now
Speaker 1: gauging the market all that. It would be better I
Speaker 1: think for everyone. But you know that's not my decision.
Speaker 1: Um is. I'm told to Colin that Lamar's Lamar can't
Speaker 1: get past, and we've all been there right in our careers.
Speaker 1: Lamar can't get past. I'm better than Deshaun Watson, and
Speaker 1: I'm not screwing up off the field like and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying he's wrong. I think he is totally. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: He's always been a better thrower than anybody wants to admit.
Speaker 1: So so the you know, Gene Hackman's fallen sheriff in
Speaker 1: unforgiven says to Clint Eastwood, you know, I don't deserve this,
Speaker 1: and you know Clint says, who's got nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it? You know deserves got nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: He deserves to get a guaranteed deal more than Deshaun
Speaker 1: Watson or Kirk Cousins. Yes, he deserves to get paid
Speaker 1: more than Daniel Jones, for Heaven's sake. For Heaven's sake,
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones, I mean, come on, that's that deal's not
Speaker 1: going to age. Well, I'm sorry, but as you know,
Speaker 1: it's all about circumstance and leverage. And he could have
Speaker 1: signed after year three, gotten a bunch of money upfront,
Speaker 1: and now be trying to renegotiate from strength. He didn't
Speaker 1: do that. He didn't do what Kirk Cousins did and
Speaker 1: play out two franchise tags and putting his organization in
Speaker 1: a box to the point where they blinked and took
Speaker 1: Alex Smith and he was free. And they didn't do
Speaker 1: what Deshaun Watch. He hasn't done with Deshaun Watson did
Speaker 1: him Maybe he will, But Deshaun Watson showed up at
Speaker 1: training camp uncomfortably with an organization that didn't want him,
Speaker 1: reporters hounding him about something he didn't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: and fans checking out a circus, and he knew he
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna play. It turned out he wasn't gonna play
Speaker 1: for you know, almost a year and a half from
Speaker 1: that point. But by doing that and having the will
Speaker 1: to do that he created leverage and the Browns were
Speaker 1: desperate and he got that deal. So you know, you
Speaker 1: put all those things together, and if you're Lebar Jackson,
Speaker 1: well you don't have that kind of leverage or you
Speaker 1: haven't exerted that kind of will, now, could you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could say I've not played for thirty two million,
Speaker 1: go ahead and have fun with Tyler Huntley, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna sit away. I'm not saying he should, but
Speaker 1: he could do. You think the Ravens, frustrated by it,
Speaker 1: would just say we're gonna move on. We're gonna draft
Speaker 1: another quarterback because we like our roster, our culture, our coach,
Speaker 1: and our defense. You know, maybe, but I also think
Speaker 1: we're living in a weird world where, yeah, no one
Speaker 1: has stepped up and offered Lamar because partly because a
Speaker 1: lot of teams think we're just doing the Ravens work
Speaker 1: for him. We're gonna give him this deal he likes,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna match it, and we're going to alienate
Speaker 1: the people we have. The quarterbacks we have now who
Speaker 1: knew we were trying to replace him, So why would
Speaker 1: we do that if if Lamar were free? First of all,
Speaker 1: different story. Second, of all, Let's be honest, desperation isn't
Speaker 1: confined to the Cleveland Browns, and there aren't that many
Speaker 1: really good quarterbacks, which is why you and I are
Speaker 1: talking about ninety three year old Tom Brady. Sorry, Tom,
Speaker 1: I know you're only forty five. Yeah, that's why we're
Speaker 1: talking about to Brady. That's why we're talking about Lists
Speaker 1: and Aaron Rodgers. There are only so many transcended ones,
Speaker 1: and I think Lamar's transcend it. I'll stick up for
Speaker 1: Lamar as a player. I think he's one of the very,
Speaker 1: very best. He won seventy five percent of his starts
Speaker 1: in the AFC. Yeah. The only you know, I think
Speaker 1: there is a little PTSD from the Russell Wilson trade, honestly,
Speaker 1: because for ten years we saw a guy be transcended
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and then oh whoa, he looks nothing
Speaker 1: like that guy. And by the way, Geno Smith is
Speaker 1: now a pro bowler in his place. So that was
Speaker 1: that through people. But at some point if Lamar Jackson
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not playing for you, I'm sitting out,
Speaker 1: at some point some owner or some GM or some
Speaker 1: coach or all three are gonna be like, man, our
Speaker 1: quarterback stakes. We're all gonna get fired, or if you're
Speaker 1: the owner, we're gonna lose. But we could go get
Speaker 1: that guy, Just go get him. John Middlecough Azol was
Speaker 1: full of insight. Let's go in to it. The Jalen
Speaker 1: Ramsey move a third and basically a bust tied end
Speaker 1: from the Dolphins who does doesn't play much is that's
Speaker 1: not nearly I'm not sure why they were so impatient.
Speaker 1: It feels like a salary dump. They're trying to clear
Speaker 1: something up to make a big move in free agency.
Speaker 1: That's that's what it felt like to me. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't think Jalen Ramsey's ever been a guy you build
Speaker 1: a culture around at Florida State, Jacksonville or LA. He's
Speaker 1: just really talented. But I think the guys that you
Speaker 1: build a culture around, like Aaron Donald Are Cooper Cup
Speaker 1: are harder to get rid of. Talent comes and goes,
Speaker 1: and so I think Jayalen's really talented. He's he had
Speaker 1: a very good last game with the rams and interception.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure if it was the best
Speaker 1: place for the Dolphins to spend money. They already have
Speaker 1: a corner people like, but their secondaries not very strong.
Speaker 1: They're all in, yeah, but but for the Rams, it
Speaker 1: just felt like they're starting over. You know, they've got
Speaker 1: four sevens, four or fives. They now have a second,
Speaker 1: two thirds. They don't have a first or a fourth yet.
Speaker 1: So they got twelve draft picks. They're kind of rebuilding
Speaker 1: this puppy. Before we dive into my theory on the
Speaker 1: Dolphins and why I think I think this might be
Speaker 1: leading to something, one thing on McVeigh is, you know,
Speaker 1: the knock on Gruden over his ten year as coaching,
Speaker 1: was very impatient, you know, changes on your fast. Lebron
Speaker 1: has some of that, and you know he loves a
Speaker 1: guy that he starts playing with him any sours on him,
Speaker 1: And like, I don't have the theory that they're going
Speaker 1: to tank because McVeigh almost jumped off a bridge last
Speaker 1: year losing a little bit. He's not going to coach
Speaker 1: a season and suck and he's too good to ever
Speaker 1: probably get the top two or three picks, especially next
Speaker 1: year with the with the quarterbacks. But you know he
Speaker 1: loved Matt Stafford two years ago. They traded for him,
Speaker 1: then they extend him. Now he's banged up and it
Speaker 1: feels like, oh, they might trade him or they would
Speaker 1: definitely listen to it. Well, so he was good enough
Speaker 1: to give all this money too, and a year later
Speaker 1: things get weird. I'm Sean McVeigh guy, but it does
Speaker 1: feel he's got a little Gruden in him that he'll
Speaker 1: change on you fast once he thinks you're not as
Speaker 1: good as he maybe thought six months previously. So I
Speaker 1: was told a month ago, and I've set it on
Speaker 1: the air at Fox. I was told a month ago
Speaker 1: that the Rams were going to go heavy this offseason
Speaker 1: to the offense. McVeigh would come back if there was
Speaker 1: a commitment to I'm an offensive coach. The league's pivoted
Speaker 1: to that. Give me guys. So who did they get
Speaker 1: rid of? Bobby Wagner, Jalen Ramsey, Floyd. They've moved off
Speaker 1: defensive guys. So they're gonna draft. They have a second
Speaker 1: and two thirds. They're probably gonna go after an offensive lineman,
Speaker 1: a wide receiver. They may go out for a running back.
Speaker 1: Mcphay's like, listen, if I'm going to come back for
Speaker 1: this thing and have to face the Niners, you gotta
Speaker 1: get me some weapons. You gotta give me some help
Speaker 1: on the offensive side. I mean, of all the people
Speaker 1: in the Ramsey trade, they got like a third string
Speaker 1: tight end. You know, I thought I would have thought
Speaker 1: they would have gone to a backup edge because they
Speaker 1: don't really have an edge rusher. But you know, I
Speaker 1: listen mcvagh had a lot of success early. People that
Speaker 1: do off and get impatient. They haven't had the long road,
Speaker 1: the struggle like the rest of us. Right, So you know,
Speaker 1: I get it. You probably see that in tech, you
Speaker 1: see it in football that you probably see it in
Speaker 1: Hollywood when somebody hits it at twenty eight thirty two
Speaker 1: years old. Man, your standards and impatience rise. The Dolphins
Speaker 1: I think over the weekend or maybe late last week
Speaker 1: they picked up two a fifth year option. I thought
Speaker 1: that was nuts, you know, given his risk history. But
Speaker 1: then when they made this trade, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I think you had mentioned last week and has come
Speaker 1: out since you know the Brady buzz is not going
Speaker 1: to die. Well, what did they do? They get Vick Fanjio,
Speaker 1: They add Jalen Ramsey. They kind of had their backup
Speaker 1: plan long term, just keep two under contract. Tom Brady
Speaker 1: and coming to San Jose. It's just not happening, right,
Speaker 1: But Miami, he's already he's getting the taste of the
Speaker 1: life in Florida now for a couple of years, the
Speaker 1: no state income tax. I think the Dolphins buzz is
Speaker 1: about to pick up, and they're equipped. I mean now
Speaker 1: that their defense was a question mark boom at a
Speaker 1: star corner, you know, add Vic Fangio. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: this team. You see that that clip of Tyreek Hill
Speaker 1: running dusting those guys in the sixty meter dash. So
Speaker 1: you're the one that I think I saw a clip
Speaker 1: of you saying that. The Tom Brady thing, well, people
Speaker 1: are it's not going to die. Yeah, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: so Tom, it's not like you know, he's single now,
Speaker 1: so he's gonna he's not gonna broadcast at Fox. He's
Speaker 1: gonna sit around for a year, just watch football. Tom's connected,
Speaker 1: Um And I just think, you know, people say, oh,
Speaker 1: you spend more time with your family. Kids after a
Speaker 1: while don't want to hang out with mom and dad.
Speaker 1: They want to hang out with little kids, their peers. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think Brady um Hill step he work six
Speaker 1: months a year. I mean, you get six months with
Speaker 1: his family, I know, and whenever you hear you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go spend time with my family. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, guys get off days even in the season.
Speaker 1: You know you're not You're not at the facility all day.
Speaker 1: So I think if you have a popular player Tebow
Speaker 1: in Denver and they brought in Peyton Manning, you gotta
Speaker 1: go big. Nobody's gonna question Brady fills in for Tua
Speaker 1: or Peyton Manning for Tebow because Tua will have success
Speaker 1: with Mike McDaniels. Hell, he was leading in the Pro
Speaker 1: Bowl voting last year, right, So I don't know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen with Tom Brady. I don't have it sourced,
Speaker 1: but I did have somebody I trust out of the building,
Speaker 1: not a Fox employee, say he may play football, So
Speaker 1: you know it was somebody who's smart, somebody I've trusted
Speaker 1: for years. So he obviously heard it somewhere. But I
Speaker 1: said this a year ago, and I'll say it again.
Speaker 1: I thought Aaron Rodgers in Miami made sense. I really
Speaker 1: dig in. Yeah, a big star because TWA's got his fans,
Speaker 1: two is going to have success. Nobody's complaining about Rogers
Speaker 1: or Brady in Miami, And I think sometimes when you're
Speaker 1: place a popular I mean, let's face it, last year,
Speaker 1: up until Thanksgiving, the Dolphins were one of the better
Speaker 1: stories in the league. I found pretty laughable the reaction
Speaker 1: to the Lamar collusion. No one wants him. Last year
Speaker 1: to Shaun Watson was given two hundred and thirty million
Speaker 1: dollars and we all laughed at like, that's the most
Speaker 1: insane contract. Only at one or two guys in the
Speaker 1: league would do that. This guy wants that contract and
Speaker 1: no one will touch it. Well, we just said last
Speaker 1: year that that contract that he wants is moronic. No
Speaker 1: one would do that. Good player, but under no circumstances.
Speaker 1: If I owned a team or ran a team, I
Speaker 1: would trade for the player if I get him for
Speaker 1: a normal quarterback contract. But I can't pay him a
Speaker 1: guy who's been injured, and it's not he doesn't guarantee
Speaker 1: me anything. He's got one playoff win. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you want guaranteed money, You're not guaranteed to play Sunday.
Speaker 1: Of his last twenty two games, he's missed forty percent.
Speaker 1: He's missed ten. So nobody wants to say this because
Speaker 1: it feels like you're taking a shot at Lamar's mom,
Speaker 1: but he needs an agent. Agents do two things. First
Speaker 1: of all, teams are now taking shots at Lamar. Why
Speaker 1: because they don't he doesn't have an agent. You would
Speaker 1: never take a shot at a star player because he
Speaker 1: has an agent. And an agent represents lots and lots
Speaker 1: of people, So you don't want to piss off an
Speaker 1: agent because then he'll steer his clients against you or
Speaker 1: away from you. When you don't have an agent, and
Speaker 1: I've had several of my career, it's a vest. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit like a protective vest. Is that the
Speaker 1: agent keeps you out of the room with your boss
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get emotional. The agent make sure they
Speaker 1: say nice things about you. A good, powerful agent matters.
Speaker 1: He's using his mom, and reportedly now he's doing some
Speaker 1: of it. You know, he's moved her off that. It's like, dude,
Speaker 1: I got no you know if my mom represented me
Speaker 1: or yours, did they get emotional? Were their sons? So
Speaker 1: I think when he did that, you know, I tried
Speaker 1: to tread lightly and be respectful. You can't have a
Speaker 1: parent be your agent. Come on now. Charles Robinson wrote
Speaker 1: a really good article where he got a lot of
Speaker 1: unnamed people in the league, GMS and agents talking and
Speaker 1: this point. Listen, Mike mcglinchey's gonna sign in a couple
Speaker 1: of days. The owner just gives the GM the thumbs up.
Speaker 1: But when you're doing a contract like this two hundred
Speaker 1: plus million dollars guarantee, that's an owner run deal, and
Speaker 1: these agents go right to the owner. This is not
Speaker 1: the GM and the coach ultimately aren't the final say
Speaker 1: on this one, right like they would be with a
Speaker 1: signing a wide receiver or this is the biggest contract
Speaker 1: that team has ever given out in the history of
Speaker 1: the league potentially, So that's coming from the owner and
Speaker 1: he has no direct path to the owner. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's if me and you owned a condo
Speaker 1: for two hundred grand, we could figure out how to
Speaker 1: sell it on our own. If we wanted a two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars piece of property, we probably get some
Speaker 1: representation to help us out on the deal. Right right,
Speaker 1: the amount of money that's on the line is too enormous,
Speaker 1: Like he's at he's at a major disadvantage, and the
Speaker 1: Ravens know it, and that's why they did don exclusive tag.
Speaker 1: They go, We're not even gonna pay as much, and
Speaker 1: we're not worried about people bidding for your services because
Speaker 1: you don't really know what you're doing. I also think
Speaker 1: the culture is so strong that between the GM, the owner,
Speaker 1: the roster, the defense, the assistance, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: feeling in Baltimore. Last year. I mean, shit, they went
Speaker 1: toe to toe with the Bengals twice at the end
Speaker 1: of the year with like third string guys, and we're
Speaker 1: Cincinnati needed a miracle touchdown to win one of those games.
Speaker 1: So I think they look at themselves and think, you know,
Speaker 1: we're really at an a level in terms of drafting
Speaker 1: and developing. If we have to go get Max Duggan
Speaker 1: in the second round or we have to go get
Speaker 1: somebody we like, we will. So I mean, they've won
Speaker 1: a super Bowl with Joe Flacco, Trent Dilfer. They gambled
Speaker 1: on Lamar Jackson to some degree. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought he wouldn't be great. They've been able
Speaker 1: to find quarterbacks who others bailed on, who are different
Speaker 1: and they've got success with all of them. So I
Speaker 1: always just sort of trust the Ravens to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Have a ruler in life you don't have to always
Speaker 1: hire an expert. Hire smart people and they'll figure out
Speaker 1: complex problems. Baltimore is really good at that. Speaking of
Speaker 1: a team that's trying to find their identity, that the
Speaker 1: big trade, that the draft trade that happened, I guess
Speaker 1: would that have been Friday night? On the panther side,
Speaker 1: this feels like it's got Dave Tepper written all over it.
Speaker 1: He's a financial wheeler and dealer. He's getting bored, he's
Speaker 1: getting tired of losing, because that's a lot to give
Speaker 1: up Colin for this. Trevor Lawrence not in this draft,
Speaker 1: you know, and they've even it's been reported they don't
Speaker 1: even know exactly who they're taking. Last time the Niners
Speaker 1: try to do something like that, that's I would not
Speaker 1: operate making a trade without the player that you know,
Speaker 1: just to figure out two or three guys, and this
Speaker 1: is one of those. You know, if Bryce Young hits,
Speaker 1: then it looks like a brilliant move. But I thought
Speaker 1: Chicago essentially solved, you know, people banged on the Chase
Speaker 1: Claypool move. But now the receiving corps DJ Moore Cole
Speaker 1: commet very capable young tight end Darnell Mooney a solid
Speaker 1: two and Chase Claypool, so they don't really have to
Speaker 1: go after a wide receiver in the draft. And they've
Speaker 1: got multiple extra picks so they can attack the interior offensive.
Speaker 1: They're going to get McGlinchey the right tackle from the Niners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by you know, they drafted some offensive lineman last year.
Speaker 1: A couple of them can play. You know, they could
Speaker 1: kind of go solve their defense, so justin fields doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be in shootouts. But I mean Cole Commet, Mooney, Claypool.
Speaker 1: But DJ Moore was getting a thousand yards of season
Speaker 1: with Kyle Allen, Darnald Baker Mayfield. I couldn't believe. I
Speaker 1: understand given away first in two seconds throwing Dj Moore.
Speaker 1: And by the way, so you draft a young quarterback,
Speaker 1: you just lost your best receiver for him. I didn't
Speaker 1: like that addition. At I would have given you a corner,
Speaker 1: I'd have given you something. I would not have given
Speaker 1: you your best I wouldn't if I'm Caroline, I'm not
Speaker 1: giving you Dj Moore. They just extended him last year,
Speaker 1: so he's under contract for the foreseeable future. I thought,
Speaker 1: this is kudos to Ryan Pace because he can do
Speaker 1: two things. One find out if fields can play now
Speaker 1: he's got weapons, and if he can't, he has the
Speaker 1: Panthers pick. They're probably not going to be great. And
Speaker 1: if his team stinks, they'd have two high picks to
Speaker 1: go up and get one of these quarterbacks next year,
Speaker 1: so that they're actually getting the best of both worlds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ryan Poles is the kid, and I did last year
Speaker 1: and he got a corner and a safety to start.
Speaker 1: He got a receiver of Vilas Jones out of Tennessee
Speaker 1: who played at USC. I could have told him he
Speaker 1: can't track the ball. He couldn't at USC, could never
Speaker 1: track the ball. So I still don't trust this organization
Speaker 1: to draft and develop offensive players. But I do think
Speaker 1: what happens after that trade John is now we have clarity.
Speaker 1: There'll be no more excuses. Their running backs are serviceable,
Speaker 1: Cole comits a very nice young tied end. Now you
Speaker 1: have a real grown up wide receiver group. They're going
Speaker 1: to pay for a right tackle. Their offensive line last
Speaker 1: year rated fourteenth. It wasn't the Giants, it wasn't thirty second,
Speaker 1: it was fourteenth, and they're gonna upgrade it. So it's
Speaker 1: going to be a reasonable offensive line. What it gives
Speaker 1: you John, now, whatever Justin Fields does. This is the truth.
Speaker 1: He has more than enough talent. Now you can't say
Speaker 1: he doesn't have this. This This Claypool, Mooney DJ Moore
Speaker 1: are three very nice professional wide receivers see and I
Speaker 1: think on the panther side, I just wonder if if
Speaker 1: Tepper gets involved on who they ultimately want to pick
Speaker 1: and it's not the coach and not the general manners decision.
Speaker 1: I think Bryce Young is an elite player. He's just short,
Speaker 1: which you know can be risky. But you know we've
Speaker 1: seen him two years ago played they played Georgia twice
Speaker 1: in you know, a month, and went toe to toe
Speaker 1: with them with a defense full of eleven pros and
Speaker 1: like first round pros. Yeah, but he's just he's just small.
Speaker 1: And you know, Anthony Richardson I was texting with Daniel
Speaker 1: Jeremiah because Anthony richards I said, what round would those
Speaker 1: guys gone in when you first broke in the league.
Speaker 1: Guys like Anthony Richardson and Will Levis who are just big,
Speaker 1: physical guys. But you know, I have a long way
Speaker 1: to go. He's like those guys would have been mid
Speaker 1: round picks. Now both of them are gonna go in
Speaker 1: the top five. So this notion that that position it's
Speaker 1: so nuanced, it's so hard. You can't just draft like
Speaker 1: you can't a defensive tackle and hope he figures it
Speaker 1: out because the time in time they don't, and whoever
Speaker 1: they pick has this enormous pressure. I've seen it with
Speaker 1: Trey Lance, all these picks, the whole trade. It just
Speaker 1: hangs over you forever. If things don't go well, it's hard. Well,
Speaker 1: the Colts, I think should move up to three because
Speaker 1: if somebody moves up in front of them, they're gonna
Speaker 1: get the fourth quarterback in an average quarterback draft. That
Speaker 1: would worry me. Now again, there's Max Duggan's going to
Speaker 1: be a second or a third round guy, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that think, you know, a team
Speaker 1: like Indy could get him. I'll tell you this about
Speaker 1: I had somebody text me on this inside the league.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting. So I said, you know, Will Levis's
Speaker 1: family has some IVY League connections. He's a four point student.
Speaker 1: He's big, thick kid, good arm. And somebody texts me
Speaker 1: in the league and said, look how chiseled he is.
Speaker 1: He said name the great quarterbacks that are chiseled, they
Speaker 1: don't exist. Is that when you get you ever go
Speaker 1: you ever go to the gym and see a wait,
Speaker 1: look to try to play basketball. How stiff you are.
Speaker 1: There's no fluidity, no fluidity. And and so this person said,
Speaker 1: he is this is a danger sign. He's jacked, he's ripped,
Speaker 1: and he comes off sometimes as a little bit stiff.
Speaker 1: He doesn't come off as fluid. And he's strong. He's
Speaker 1: a smart kid. But the Will Levis stuff is interesting
Speaker 1: because you know there's so much of it. You like
Speaker 1: Ivy League family, huge arm. You know, his numbers look
Speaker 1: like Eli Manning's out of old miss, a non traditional
Speaker 1: SEC quarterback who you know, like one seventeen games in
Speaker 1: two years for a basketball school. It kind of feels Eli.
Speaker 1: But the person who texts me, he's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: go look up the chiseled orderbacks. It's like you see
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning with a tight shirt on.
Speaker 1: They they're big, they got more of a chest, but
Speaker 1: you don't see you don't see ripped guys. It's not
Speaker 1: what you have to be loosed. That's why apply on
Speaker 1: metrics and Brady, You've got to be loose. You've got
Speaker 1: to be able to be flexible and move your feet,
Speaker 1: move your hips, and Levis is just ripped and jacked.
Speaker 1: All right, let's bring on Marcus Thompson. I've said this
Speaker 1: before in my career. My job is to tell you
Speaker 1: what I know, but I don't always need to know
Speaker 1: the why. Sometimes it's none of my business. The Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins situation is really none of my business. I know
Speaker 1: it's very serious. It's a family matter. What I was told,
Speaker 1: and now I have two people that have said it's
Speaker 1: really really serious. The Warriors totally support him, but there
Speaker 1: is some doubt if he'll be available going forward. There's
Speaker 1: no certainty, there's real doubt. So let's bring in Marcus.
Speaker 1: You know a lot more than I do. I have
Speaker 1: been told it's extremely serious and the Warriors completely respect
Speaker 1: his privacy. And so again that's none of my business.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking anybody's fam that's none of my business.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about availability. You're reporting, you're sourcing, You're guessing.
Speaker 1: Is it a reasonable assumption that he would miss the
Speaker 1: regular season but perhaps be a postseason participant. You know,
Speaker 1: it's possible depending on who you talk to. There's some
Speaker 1: people who expect him to be back. There's some people
Speaker 1: who don't want to put that on him, right, like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: what you gotta do. We don't really want to pressure you, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to handle this. The difficulty about
Speaker 1: that proposition of missing the regular season to come back
Speaker 1: from the playoffs is who you're getting. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: two months, two months of no basketball. I doubt he's
Speaker 1: picked up the ball a ball, right not to guess
Speaker 1: his condition. It wouldn't be great, So it would be
Speaker 1: a tall order to ask him, and then we don't
Speaker 1: know what his mental condition will be. We know this,
Speaker 1: this dude doesn't miss games, like he just doesn't. I
Speaker 1: mean his first six years he missed like four total games. Like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't miss games. So whatever it is, it's got
Speaker 1: to be it's incredibly serious. Whatever it is. There's a
Speaker 1: locker room with dudes who want to win a championship
Speaker 1: who are like, oh, this is bad, Like you handle that, like,
Speaker 1: we're not even mad. So I don't know how. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you come back from that in the
Speaker 1: middle of a playoff setting and produce. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: seen crazy things but that would be a lot to ask,
Speaker 1: So I think they just have to start preparing mentally
Speaker 1: for the fact that he won't be there, and if
Speaker 1: he comes, like that's a bonus. Yeah. I mean, they
Speaker 1: wanted Jonathan Kaminga perhaps to develop. He's very twitchy, very athletic,
Speaker 1: can be very forceful around the rim. They wanted him
Speaker 1: to develop. He doesn't have the touch, He's not the
Speaker 1: defensive player yet of Wiggins, but he's wildly athletic. But
Speaker 1: if you could get twelve minutes to night. He didn't
Speaker 1: do squat in the playoffs last year because Kurt didn't
Speaker 1: trust him. Yet, do you think Steve Kerr trusts him
Speaker 1: because Iggy now has an injury? How many minutes per
Speaker 1: night in the playoff game? Do you believe Steve Kerr
Speaker 1: would be comfortable with Jonathan Kuminga. I don't really think
Speaker 1: he has a choice. I mean, the other option is
Speaker 1: a two way guy that they're probably going to convert,
Speaker 1: Anthony Lamb. So, I mean, jeez, Comigo was never seven pick.
Speaker 1: I do think he does a couple of things that
Speaker 1: the words could use, Like he's a ball pressure. He's
Speaker 1: good at that, So at some point they'll use him.
Speaker 1: I think it's somewhere between twelve forty minutes, depending on
Speaker 1: how he plays. Right, it'll probably get twelve baked in
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen. If they're not good, especially in that second half,
Speaker 1: then he just won't go back to him. Like that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of how Steve has been. If he's playing
Speaker 1: really well, if he's giving somebody problems, now you up
Speaker 1: it because they need it. They don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of other defensive options, right, Like they don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of lockdown guys. I mean, here's the interesting part this,
Speaker 1: Gary Payton is second make it back and how does
Speaker 1: that impact Because if if you don't get Wiggins and
Speaker 1: you don't have a GP two, the only other guy
Speaker 1: who can do what they what they do is doctor
Speaker 1: d Vincenzo and Jonathan can be here. That's it. The
Speaker 1: rest is like, y'oll beat you also dribble, So it's
Speaker 1: almost like, yo, what do you have to lose anyway?
Speaker 1: Just run out there. If you don't win, you probably
Speaker 1: are the seventh seed anyways, So would you expect well,
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson's having his best year and maybe sex he
Speaker 1: is absolutely great. Jordan pool Deep and Genzo, Steph Curry
Speaker 1: had fifty against the Clippers. So it's a team that's
Speaker 1: guard heavy, and if things don't work out with the loss,
Speaker 1: with the movement of Wiseman and Wiggins, they're a small
Speaker 1: team and they're not going to be as good defensively.
Speaker 1: So you know I've said this before, I have thrown
Speaker 1: this out there. Is that because Steph can still be
Speaker 1: on any night the best player in the league on
Speaker 1: any night against anybody. Clay has rebounded with an all
Speaker 1: star level second half in performance. Draymond is still a catalyst. Wiggins,
Speaker 1: we presume would come back. I'll throw it out there.
Speaker 1: If they got into the playoffs and got pushed around
Speaker 1: by a big, forget em beat or Jannis. I'm talking Yokich.
Speaker 1: They got pushed around a little bit by a big.
Speaker 1: They have the arsenal of guards now, especially scoring guards.
Speaker 1: They're not moving Steph, but Jordan Poole, you know they've
Speaker 1: got enough guys they can move this team. I still
Speaker 1: believe believes we got a championship left. Could you see
Speaker 1: them going out and getting and I'll throw a big
Speaker 1: at you. You don't have to. He'll give you twenty
Speaker 1: two points a night without designing a single play for him,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and just say, listen, we know you're not
Speaker 1: giving us thirty eight minutes, and we know you're not
Speaker 1: giving us eighty two games. We're not asking that. And
Speaker 1: because I look at the Warriors and I think to myself,
Speaker 1: right now, I've lost confidence without Wiggins and Iggy, I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't think they can get to the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. I don't now the break is of course,
Speaker 1: Marcus k D's out, and you know that's a big thing.
Speaker 1: And I don't trust the Clippers. Have you let's start
Speaker 1: with this. Have you lost confidence in this team going
Speaker 1: forward getting to the finals? Yeah, no question. They can't
Speaker 1: win on the road. They lose the team as they
Speaker 1: should beat. I always thought it was gonna be tough anyway,
Speaker 1: Like repeating is not easy, Like it's not that's not
Speaker 1: now a team to do it. So even if they
Speaker 1: brought back the same team, it's not like what they
Speaker 1: had KD. And it was like, all right, we're we're
Speaker 1: about to repeat, Like normally it gets harder in the
Speaker 1: second year, But now I think they're they'll upset somebody.
Speaker 1: Right That third series though, would be tough because whatever
Speaker 1: they do it's gonna be on stuff, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: on play right, it's gonna be on Dray Run. And
Speaker 1: now it's like you fight through one series, right, you
Speaker 1: upset somebody, you get another series that's gonna be harder.
Speaker 1: Now you can start to see it take toll, because
Speaker 1: keep in mind, they've been playing hard all year. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not like twenty eighteen, eight, twenty nineteen when
Speaker 1: they were chilling on like all right, we're here for
Speaker 1: our finals run. Like, no, they've been They've been trying
Speaker 1: to be teams. So the difficulty I see is they've
Speaker 1: been putting in a lot of work and on the
Speaker 1: back end that catches up. We've seen this before twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen they chase seventy three, you know, got up three
Speaker 1: one and the legs are gone, right, and that's obviously
Speaker 1: a better setting for them, But it's just tough to
Speaker 1: envision and winning three series to get to the fire
Speaker 1: and didn't win a four for him, like that's a lot.
Speaker 1: I just think they need to have a good showing
Speaker 1: and if they knock off Yo Kitch or knock off KD,
Speaker 1: that's something real. Now you're talking about all right, steps
Speaker 1: still legit who were keeping out of Draymond in Clay
Speaker 1: or maybe Draymond's like, yo, I'm out, I got an
Speaker 1: opt out of somebody wants to pay be a max,
Speaker 1: I'm out. Those are the decisions here's I don't think
Speaker 1: the rest. I don't think they're going Anthony Davis, the owner,
Speaker 1: wants to go young. That was the whole Wiseman thing.
Speaker 1: I don't want a bunch of thirty five year olds
Speaker 1: so when they fall off, we're like a lottery team again.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to do that. He wants somebody young.
Speaker 1: He wants to swap out Steff and make it a
Speaker 1: seamless transition to the next guy. So I think he'll
Speaker 1: want a guy who's young and ready to play. He
Speaker 1: wanted Steve Kirks, who played the young guys this year.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he's going thirty plus. He's going.
Speaker 1: He might go twenty five. That might be the compromise
Speaker 1: instead of twenty one. It'll be twenty five. It's there,
Speaker 1: but it won't be it won't be enough, the thirties
Speaker 1: something unless he just asides, let's ride the wheels till
Speaker 1: they fall off with Stephen them. So most have observed
Speaker 1: and speculated that the Draymond pool punch created a bit
Speaker 1: of a rift and a chasm between young and old
Speaker 1: guys in the locker room. And they note, and I
Speaker 1: think with some accuracy, that it's a bad road team,
Speaker 1: and on the road is where unity factors in. There's
Speaker 1: almost no explanation markets for being abysmal ship there as
Speaker 1: bad as the Rockets in the Orlando Magic and Detroit
Speaker 1: on the road. Do you believe it? Does? It does
Speaker 1: feel like this is maybe a clickier team, that the
Speaker 1: gap between young and old is sizable. Oh, I thought
Speaker 1: that that was true from the beginning. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like literally like a red sea in between them. Right.
Speaker 1: I got the old kids who want championships, and then
Speaker 1: you have like the home room squad. Right, you got
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame, and you got the home room.
Speaker 1: They got six guys who have done much before in
Speaker 1: the league, and then you have this super high bar
Speaker 1: of championship standard. Right. It was already like that, I mean,
Speaker 1: just tangibly just thinking about who they are at their ages, right,
Speaker 1: Like I mean Steph is an ancients guy in the league, right,
Speaker 1: he gets along with everybody, but he's thirty five he's
Speaker 1: got like kids and stuff, Like he's got an ira counclibility,
Speaker 1: Like he's not hanging out with twenty one year old
Speaker 1: like he'll do you know, he can put his arm
Speaker 1: around the guy in the locker room and all that,
Speaker 1: but got teenage daughters. They just don't have anything in common.
Speaker 1: And you could look in the locker room and you
Speaker 1: could say this is this is this team looks like
Speaker 1: they're having a bit of fun. There's some like gelling
Speaker 1: that you probably didn't think happened after somebody got rocked
Speaker 1: in training camp, right, But what you can't really there's
Speaker 1: this like unintangible part of the punch that you can't quantify, right,
Speaker 1: Like what happens if they don't have that and they
Speaker 1: get off to a start in the chemistry is great,
Speaker 1: and now they don't lose five straight road games to
Speaker 1: start the season. Like it's like it's almost like not
Speaker 1: saving money. You know what I'm saying. You don't lose money,
Speaker 1: but you don't know you don't know what you would
Speaker 1: have done if you would have invested it, right, So
Speaker 1: we don't know how that impacted the season. All we
Speaker 1: know is they are also a rough start. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a mess and it felt like a set
Speaker 1: of tone for the season. So even if they're fine now, right,
Speaker 1: even if they're like they've overcome in and gotten through it,
Speaker 1: there was a cost that they paid that we can
Speaker 1: kind of see now. And I think it again on
Speaker 1: the road first out the back five game road trip,
Speaker 1: they lose in the Charlotte and Orlando right like, and
Speaker 1: they're playing like Stephan It's not like they had a
Speaker 1: bunch of young guys. They weren't able to close against
Speaker 1: bad teams to start that on five road trip set
Speaker 1: of tone. So I think there is an intangible like
Speaker 1: costs from that, even if they might have gotten through it.
Speaker 1: And since let's pull it back to Andrew Wiggins and
Speaker 1: you know, again I put it out there. I had
Speaker 1: a couple of people tell me they doubted strongly he
Speaker 1: would return. And my takeaway, as I believe people, has
Speaker 1: it been an uncomfortable story for you because you are
Speaker 1: a journalist, You're a guy that is constantly looking to
Speaker 1: uncover things. When you wrote your KD book, Steff book,
Speaker 1: you gave me nuggets that I never knew that's what
Speaker 1: you do. Has it been hard to cover it knowing
Speaker 1: it's intensely private. The organization's not going to let it out.
Speaker 1: But your job is to cover stuff and uncover stuff.
Speaker 1: It hasn't been hard because this team just has fifty
Speaker 1: eight storylines all the time, right, So we could always
Speaker 1: fall back on you know, right about Steff, right about thing,
Speaker 1: right about Drakemond. But the difficulty is this is one
Speaker 1: of the rare situations where nobody's telling you anything. That's
Speaker 1: the difficulty, right. It's like they're they've they've really kind
Speaker 1: of closed ranks. And this is the same team where
Speaker 1: they had a videotape leak, right, like an unprecedented leak
Speaker 1: of a practice punch. So I think they just got
Speaker 1: so fed up that they were like, this is one
Speaker 1: we're going to stop, right, And that to me is
Speaker 1: the most difficult part. Where it's like you talk to
Speaker 1: people and the people who normally be like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what's going on, don't write it. Even
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, we can't. We're not telling you anything
Speaker 1: because just know it's bad and just trust us. Right,
Speaker 1: So in that sense, it's been It's not difficult because
Speaker 1: like I mean, these are pros man, they won championships.
Speaker 1: You know, if there was a player who they thought
Speaker 1: to be on the court and wasn't on the court,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't know how to bite their tongue. Like Draymond
Speaker 1: will pop off on the volume right on volume sports,
Speaker 1: someone why is this guy not playing? So when these
Speaker 1: dudes who are professionals at the highest level, right, who
Speaker 1: are winners, they're like, man, this is bad, Like we
Speaker 1: we we support them, we rock with him. We're not
Speaker 1: We're not gonna throw like, you know, throw them under
Speaker 1: the bus or anything like that. It's easy to trust
Speaker 1: them because you kind of know who they are and
Speaker 1: you know what they are. But I haven't been it's
Speaker 1: been a long time college since I couldn't find out
Speaker 1: like the inner details, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: it's been a while. And that's a testamental Wiggins. Like Wiggins,
Speaker 1: he doesn't put himself out there like that, and that's
Speaker 1: just kind of been his his deal and some guys
Speaker 1: like for most people, as you know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: shut people up. This whole industry runs on the fact
Speaker 1: that people don't know how to shut up. Right. So
Speaker 1: for Wiggins, though, like he doesn't put himself out there
Speaker 1: like that. He's very private, and they are respecting it,
Speaker 1: and I kind of I respect him for that right,
Speaker 1: like I respect him for saying no, not not in
Speaker 1: this situation, because you know, they've literally had fights in
Speaker 1: practice that we found out of that literally the volume.
Speaker 1: Make sure to check out The Draymond Green Show. I
Speaker 1: brought Draymond Green into the Volume because one of the
Speaker 1: more entertaining voices in sports, unique perspective understands behind the rope.
Speaker 1: Also chops up with guests like Gary Peyton, Zach Levine,
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