The Sports Thing Podcast - Holmberg, Hellestrae And Nash - Episode 6 - 09-11-25

Summary

Holmberg’s Morning Sickness – The Sports Thing Podcast

Episode 6 – 09-11-25
Date: September 12, 2025
Host: John Holmberg (A),
Co-Host: Dale Hellestrae (B),
Additional Speaker: (C; occasionally supports or laughs/agrees)

---

Overview

This episode of The Sports Thing Podcast finds John Holmberg and three-time Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl champ Dale Hellestrae discussing the role of football as America’s ‘great distraction,’ especially in turbulent times. Dave Nash is notably absent again, as the two hosts tackle topics like the NFL’s navigation of politics, evolving rules, memorable defenses, early-season team evaluations, controversial incidents, and broader sports issues (MLB pitching, NBA salary cap scandals, and boxing’s fate). The tone is sharp, irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, and layered with authentic sports insight.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Football as a Distraction and Its Role Post-9/11

• [00:57-02:34] Holmberg: Reflects on football’s ability to unite and distract, especially in times of national trauma or societal upheaval.
  • “Thank God through all these tumultuous nonsense times we have the NFL, because it really does change things... it is, it's necessary to stay neutral.”
  • Comparison to baseball’s 9/11 healing, but asserts, “Football takes you to a different place. That is the true distraction…”

2. NFL & Political Neutrality

• [02:23-03:21] Hellestrae: Praises NFL’s ability to adapt, including their deliberate retreat from politicization.
  • “We're sports. And I know that some athletes wanted to speak out... but while you're wearing my uniform, if you're playing football, while you're representing my company, you're going to do it my way or you don't have to be employed.”
• [03:21-06:51]: Hosts agree on keeping politics off the field, discuss the symbolic meaning of the ‘uniform,’ and recall the league pulling back after too much analysis—paralysis on rules and issues like “what’s a catch?”

3. On Rule Changes & Replay

• [04:57-06:51] Holmberg: Argues that replay should be viewed only at full speed, not in “super slow mo,” to preserve the human element.
  • “If you need super slow motion to figure out if it's caught or not... It's a catch.”
  • “The thing that fixes replay is, is the refs are not allowed to watch it in slow mo at all.”

4. NFL Rivalries and Personal Anecdotes

• [07:00-08:30] Holmberg: Admits his intense hatred for the Ravens, even prioritizing their losses over Steelers wins.
• [08:30-10:44] Hellestrae: Shares personal stories of playing against legendary defenses (’85 Bears, 2000 Ravens).
  • “My head was on a swivel... I called my dad after the game [against the Bears], said, I don't know if I'm cut out for the NFL.”

5. Football’s Unique Place in the Cultural Landscape

• [10:44-11:32] Holmberg: Again underscores football’s healing powers, even compared to baseball, basketball, or hockey.
• [11:32-13:42] Review of Week 1: focus on the high-scoring Ravens/Bills game and the physical/mental toll of early regular season after limited preseason snaps.

6. Impact of Modern Preseason & Soft-Tissue Injuries

• [13:42-15:42 & 15:42-16:34]
• Hellestrae: Questions the ‘discard’ of preseason, suggests it leads to communication issues and early-season injuries.
  • “I would take it a lot more serious in preseason... We're regular season, then we got 19 guys out with soft tissue injuries.”

7. AFC Contenders Analysis

• [16:34-19:03] Dissects the performances of Bills, Ravens, and Chiefs, highlighting flaws (especially defense) and open Super Bowl opportunities.
  • “I looked at the Ravens and the Bills and I thought the winner in this one is the Chiefs or some surprise team in AFC.” – Holmberg, 18:41

8. NFC Musings: Cowboys & Eagles, Team Persona

• [20:59-23:47] Examination of the Eagles’ psychological collapse (referencing Buffalo’s four straight Super Bowl losses).
• [23:47-24:56] Cowboys’ surprising physicality and resilience despite offseason noise; discussions of team ‘softness’ vs. ‘grit.’

9. CD Lamb Critique & Receiver Culture

• [24:04-25:11] Holmberg: “You make the spectacular easy... Michael Irvin would have never allowed that ball to hit the ground. No, it’s not happening.”

10. Miami Dolphins and Team Culture

• [26:13-29:20]
• Hellestrae (26:54): “Miami doesn’t have any of that. And they’re not high flying either... That is a soft football team.”

11. Coaching Strains and Quarterback Decisions

• [29:50-37:47]
• Giants and Russell Wilson dilemma – How long before a switch to rookie Jackson Dart? Coaching job security, the effect of QB ‘culture fit’ on performance.

12. Spitting Incident: Jalen Carter and Dak Prescott

• [37:55-44:48]
• Details the infamous spitting incident during Cowboys vs. Eagles:
  • “You're the most dominant defensive line... and you're going to...spit on another grown man.” – Hellestrae, 39:27
  • “[Carter] didn’t get to play one snap for spitting on another grown man... that’s spitting on your teammates.” – Holmberg, 39:31
• Dak’s response: Applauded for restraint and psychological gamesmanship.
• Coaching Reaction:
  • “I can't imagine those talks... What an idiot you are.” – Hellestrae, 44:19
  • Both agree the league should suspend Carter for an additional week.

13. Week’s Preview & Game Picks

• [44:48-47:11]
• Commanders vs Packers Thursday game circled as a rare marquee matchup for the slot.
• Discussion of Jaden Daniels and Green Bay’s surprising physicality.

14. QB Success Depends on Franchise Stability

• [47:37-49:51]
• Darnold, Mayfield, Aikman; the fate of QBs in dysfunctional vs. stable organizations.

15. Baseball Tangent: Pitch Counts and Analytics

• [50:34-55:24]
• Outrage at modern pitch counts and ‘babying’ pitchers; long-forgotten feats of endurance (e.g., Nolan Ryan’s 235-pitch complete game in 1974).
  • “I'm sitting in Dodger Stadium and I'm watching a no hitter and the guy doesn’t come out for the eighth.” – Holmberg, 51:38
  • “Nowadays, if you haven’t had Tommy John surgery, you’re going to.” – Hellestrae, 52:47

16. NBA: Kawhi Leonard’s No-Show Salary Scandal

• [56:04-59:09]
• Ballmer’s under-the-table salary cap dodge for Kawhi. Discussion of competitive advantage and the league’s probable reaction (“seedlings of a... you’re going to have to sell the franchise.” Holmberg, 58:54)

17. Cheating and ‘Creative Compensation’

• [59:39-60:34]
• Hellestrae: “At least SMU is getting good football players and winning games. What are the Clippers doing cheating?”

18. Boxing: Canelo vs. Crawford, and the Decline of Heavyweights

• [60:54-64:48]
• Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence “Bud” Crawford preview.
• Tyson as “the worst thing that ever happened to heavyweight boxing” due to early PPV KO’s killing the sport for fans.
  • “You’re paying $80 in 1993 for a fight that lasted 91 seconds.” – Holmberg, 62:40
  • “He never knocked out a good fighter.” – Holmberg, 63:07

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The word ‘uniform’ means one form.” – Holmberg, [03:21]
• “If you need super slow motion to figure out if it's caught or not... it's a catch.” – Hellestrae, [05:20]
• “This is a resort.” – On the Cowboys’ locker room, Hellestrae, [22:26]
• “Miami doesn't have any of that. And they're not high flying either... They are soft.” – Hellestrae, [26:54]
• “I think the players start to see [Russell Wilson] like, you can't back up all this rah rah.” – Holmberg, [30:33]
• “You let 52 teammates, coaches, everybody else... down. You wasted people’s time and energy.” – Holmberg, [44:40]
• “Nowadays, if you haven't had Tommy John surgery, you're going to. It's like a foregone conclusion.” – Hellestrae, [52:47]
• “Ballmer… if you start looking at that roster and some of the forgotten guys on that team… is everybody happy there doing that?” – Holmberg, [59:09]
• “Mike Tyson's the worst thing that ever happened to heavyweight boxing.” – Holmberg, [62:34]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Football as a Distraction, 9/11 Comparisons: [00:57-02:34]
• NFL & Politics, Rule Changes: [02:34-06:51]
• "What's a Catch?", Replay Rant: [04:57-06:51]
• Ravens Hatred, Rivalries: [07:00-08:30]
• NFL Defenses Storytime: [08:30-10:44]
• Soft Tissue Injuries, Preseason Issues: [13:42-15:42]
• AFC Team Analysis: [16:34-19:03]
• Spitting Incident Deep Dive: [37:55-44:48]
• Thursday Game Preview (Commanders-Packers): [44:48-47:11]
• QB Fate/Teams Shape Careers: [47:37-49:51]
• Baseball Analytics & Pitching Rant: [50:34-55:24]
• NBA Salary Cap Scandal: [56:04-59:09]
• Boxing: Canelo/Crawford & Tyson’s Impact: [60:54-64:48]

---

Tone & Style

• Language: Direct, often irreverent, occasionally crude (true to original speakers)
• Style: Conversational but knowledgeable; both hosts freely admit to their own biases, blend personal stories with analysis, and are quick with jokes and sarcasm.

---

For New Listeners

For anyone who hasn’t tuned in, this episode showcases why “Holmberg's Morning Sickness” is top of the heap in Phoenix: a blend of off-the-cuff humor, deep sports nerdery, and honest (often brutal) appraisals—whether of a team, a player, or the entire sports business. Football fans, in particular, will feel right at home, but there's something for every sports cynic or die-hard.

Transcript

[A]

There we go.

[B]

And away we go. It is time for episode five, Time.

[A]

Flies, Johnny boy, does it?

[B]

Episode five of the sports thing. My name is John Holmberg, host of the wildly successful morning sickness on 98KUpD right here in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. I am joined by three time world champion from the Dallas Cowboys back in the Clinton administration. It's Dale Hell Astray, everybody. And we are missing our third part for yet another week because he's just so gung ho.

[A]

He's up in Michigan taking care of all the people in Dearborn.

[B]

That's right, he's in. He's up there in Dearborn being. Being the guy. And he just is too busy for this. So he's been part of three of the five episodes and I honestly think the last one was about as good as they get. We'll see if this one can continue the trend of no Dave Nash. Although if Dave was with us, we would be looking forward to lunatic with a microphone.

[A]

Oh, especially today.

[B]

Oh, boy. After the last few days, it's been time to start listening to Dave maybe, I think. But thank God through all these tumultuous nonsense times we have the NFL, because it really does change things. You know what's crazy, Dale, is everybody obviously knows the Charlie Kirk situation, you know, the political divide in the nation and all the silliness that goes on out there and the crazy behavior of so many people and all the stuff we're inundated with. No other sport fixes things, save for maybe the Olympics, quite like football. Baseball, to a certain degree. I mean, again, we're talking about 911 being in our mindset right now, right? Baseball to a certain degree helped with 9 11. If you remember the. The Diamondbacks locally, here we were. But it was New York, right, The.

[A]

Yankees and the Diamondbacks that year.

[B]

But football takes you to a different place. That is the true distraction that sport is supposed to be. And I thought about that yesterday, as, you know, we were learning about all the stuff that was going on and said, man, I cannot wait for something to take me out of this. I'm diving into so much nastiness. And I started thinking, football's right around the corner, football's right around the corner. That was my salve. That was a nice thing. And oddly enough, it also made me think back to when football started to mess with that. You know what I mean?

[A]

Oh, I do, yeah.

[B]

When they started to go into the political world. And I realized more than ever it is, it's necessary to stay neutral. And I hope the players get that.

[A]

The thing about the NFL that I think has always been fascinating to me is the fact that, number one, they're not afraid to change. They change their rules all the time. Hey, it doesn't work.

[C]

We'll go. Go.

[A]

We're going to go here. We'll get good. They. They delved into the politics a little bit, found out, you know what, this is probably an area we don't need to be involved in right now. There's that arena for that. We're sports. And I know that some athletes wanted to speak out and things like that, but again, I always kept the thoughts that, hey, if I'm employing you, yeah, you can do it on your free time, you can do it on your own. You want to do whatever you want to do. But while you're wearing my uniform, if you're playing football, while you're representing my company, you're going to do it my way or you don't have to be employed. And they got out of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

The word uniform.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Means one form.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Right.

[B]

So, yeah, you put it into one form or another. Like you are a Dallas Cowboy at the time. This is what we do as Dallas Cowboys before and after the game. You may not like it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But this is what we do.

[A]

You also have the choice to say, guess what? I am so passionate about this other thing that I'm going to give up being a Dallas Cowboy.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

That's your choice.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You know, and so anyway, I've always really enjoyed that about that because they made a ton of mistakes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But whether it's just, how do you catch a ball? Is that a catch or not? How many years did that take to figure out?

[B]

I remember the Seahawks again. Seahawks are playing the Steelers this weekend, so that may be why my brain is doing this, but Marcus Wheaton was a receiver for the Steelers, and he caught a ball in a very close. It was another game where the Steelers just didn't play defense for some reason. We were in a shootout and we weren't ever in these. And I remember Marcus Wheaton caught a ball on the sidelines in the height of that. What's a catch?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And he tiptoed in, grabbed it. When they put it to super slow Mo, the ball was still spinning, the spiral was still spinning in the diamond that he was instructed to make. The ball had not stopped, and he was gripping it when his foot went out of bounds. Both feet had touched while the ball in only super slow Mo was spinning. And the ref spent like six minutes. Everybody was just screaming, get this thing going, yeah. And they're not a catch. The ball had not been secured. And I'm like, yes, it was. You know, when you saw him after he was holding the ball, it was secure.

[A]

I just always said, simple way to do this. If. When you're playing on ball in the street with your, with your, with your friends, your boys, if it's a catch, there, it's a catch in the game. And because we're hard, when you're playing with your, with your buddies, it's like you're going to challenge things.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

If it's a catcher and if you need super slow motion to figure out if it's caught or not. And you.

[B]

It's a catch. And yes, yes, I've always said that about replay. I think the thing that fixes replay is, is the refs are not allowed to watch it in slow mo at all.

[A]

And the thing is, what now? Because I don't even really want to go to football games anymore. Because, Siddon, when you get to watch it on tv, you get to see everything. And your beer's right here, your bathroom's right here. You don't have to stand in the line, you don't have to fight traffic, all that stuff. But you're right. The thing is, every TV station, every tv, TV broadcaster is going to slow show it in slow motion.

[B]

The fans will see it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Gamblers will see it. That's the bigger part. And then if you're, if the. But if the referees are asked to call this game in real time with their eyes. Yeah, that's replay, too. So we'll give them three angles, but you got to call it in real time because otherwise it's asking them not to be human. It's ask and then just let computers do it. And each play, we take a minute break to make sure everything went well. And the game will die.

[A]

Yes. And that's it.

[B]

So human error in football is so great. But, yeah, I, I think about that kind of stuff when I'm like, what's a catch? What's not a catch? The NFL got it right. They came back and they said, you know what? We were way too analytical about this. We paralyzed the game for a little bit. We don't do that anymore. And they still have a few rules they're playing with that will occasionally be like, come on. But when it comes to the politics or the other thing, you're not going to stop it. Especially in this day and age where everybody has a bullhorn in social media and they can make their Comments heard. But don't do it on the field and don't do it in a uniform.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

That seems fair to me. And so far, that's like even Lamar Jackson, who. You know my feelings about Lamar. Mostly football based. Like, oh, please, go away.

[A]

When you told me earlier this week that you actually get more enjoyment out of a Ravens loss than a Steelers.

[B]

Win, it's not even close. Like, if you told, if you told me at the beginning of the season, Steelers won't make the playoffs and they're going to have a rough go, but the Ravens are going to win four games. I'm like, I'll take it. I have no. I just.

[A]

That's weird.

[B]

Seething, passionate hate for the Baltimore Ravens.

[A]

Is there a moment, is there something that you can pinpoint that I can't stand them for? Did you hate them when they were the old Browns? Oh, yeah.

[B]

The Browns were so hateable. And then the, the. One of the greatest days of my life as a Steeler fan was the day that I watched Bill Belichick's Browns, which were a Super bowl favorite. I think it was 96. They were 7 and 1. And then Paris Glenn Denning, the mayor of Baltimore, and art model stood on a podium and said, they're coming here in the middle of the year.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I was cheering to no end that the Browns, the whole city of Cleveland, was just, they were bludgeoning.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

My smile so big. And then to find out they're going to Baltimore, I'm like, that doesn't mean a thing to me. Then they became the Ravens. They put that weird Hanna Barbera logo on their heads, painted themselves like a grape, and went out there and just sucked for a year. But then, yes, got real good, real fast. And by 2000, you're like, okay. So then they became so good. I hated them more.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Ray Lewis and, oh my, Terrell Suggs and his gums.

[A]

I did, I did play against that 2000 Ravens team, man, in the middle of October. We were one of the teams that didn't score against them.

[B]

You were a zero.

[A]

Yeah, we were. They were. They.

[B]

That was a. Not just one of those one year dominant defenses that lasted about eight years. They only got one. The good thing about the Ravens, from my perspective, is that they only got one championship out of all that greatness. Well, there was a lot of it on that defense.

[A]

It jumps out to me because in my, in my playing career, I played 17 years. In my rookie year, 1985, the first game I ever played in the preseason was against the 1985 Chicago Bears.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

And. And in my head was on a swivel, and I called my dad out to the game, said, I don't know if I'm cut out for the NFL. So I'm thinking, every defense is like this.

[B]

Even in preseason.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, man.

[A]

I'm like. Because Buddy Ryan, he just wanted to embarrass everybody.

[B]

And you'd never seen a 46 zone def.

[A]

No. And. And I never seen a Richard Dent and Otis Wilson and Dan Hampton. Singletary. Singletary and all these guys. And I'm like, if this is what the NFL is, yeah. I don't know if I belong here.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then. And so I played against that. And then my last year in the league played against the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.

[B]

It's time to go.

[A]

And it's like, I don't know who I would. If you said for one game, you got to pick one. One defense to. To, you know, save your life.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which one I would pick.

[B]

I'd only have to go with the Ravens in 2000 because the rules changed to be a more offensive by the now, especially. But I mean, 2000, what the 85 Bears did was murder compared to today. They got away.

[A]

All been suspended, all of them.

[B]

And the hits that were violent to keep wide receivers out of the middle. Quarterbacks could get, you know, tossed around like rag ball's been gone for four seconds. Throw him down anyway. Block him for no reason. But, yeah, it was the Raven. The joy I got. Okay, we'll get into it. And this is the thing about the NFL. Just to start to. Just to kind of circle back all the crap that's gone here. The 911 cloud that hangs over this time of year, it's fixed. Football fixes. A baseball can't.

[A]

No.

[B]

Basketball can't. Hockey sometimes has that because of the miracle on ice in 80 and then this new international thing when things are bad, hockey can do it. And it's a weird thing, but football does it. Week to week, regular season, nothing special. Games are an awesome distraction. So it is great. Even though they still have stepped in it a little bit, they can never paint over the things they've put in the end zone that's always going to be there, and there's no harm in that. They can't really get out of this whole double national anthem thing they've started. They're not. If they cancel it, it's bad. So they do have some things. We're like, all right, we have to keep the politics a little Bit in here to just keep the. Keep the room safe. But back to the Ravens. Week one. We saw probably the best game of the year already. Bill's Ravens.

[A]

I don't know how you're going to top it for excitement, for scoring anything. Back in the 70s and 80s, people used to like to watch seven to six defensive battles. I still do kind of like a one nothing baseball game. People used to appreciate that. Well, now they want to see 7 to 6 and 8 to 7 in football. 42 to 41 or 41 to 40. I forget which one it was.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And come down to the wire and all that on the edge of your seat. And then when you have the passion that you do. I don't really. I didn't really care about either team other than the Ravens Send me gifts every year.

[B]

They do send you nice things.

[A]

Yeah. Because without me, they would not have become the Ravens. But we don't have to go into that. We don't have to go into that. But just exciting football. And then the great thing about football, John, is they play once a week.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So now you get six days to analyze that and talk about it and look at. You are sick enough to go watch the all 20.

[B]

I watch the all 22 tapes they provided at the NFL app and I go home on. I have a Tuesday afternoon block of about two hours and I run during football season. Once I discovered this.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Everything got better. And not only did I watch the Steelers jets all 22. I watched the Ravens all 22.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I watched how susceptible their defense was. We watched a great 4,140 game on Monday. What we're not talking about is the two AFC favorites other than the Chiefs to go to the Super Bowl. Their defenses didn't do a thing. The Bills defense, Derek Henry has got their number twice. He's done this to him.

[A]

He has most people.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, he. But not for 190 twice. And he went 180 and 190 against him. And he does that. The fumble was huge and so satisfying, but the Bills couldn't stop them. And then at the end, the Ravens and I don't know how much it had to do with preseason and playing a full 65 snaps a game and whatever was going on. They were on skates in the fourth quarter and it gave life to the Bills defense that finally made a couple of stops. So it was kind of interesting to watch that and say they're flawed.

[A]

They're flawed superheroes. And what's so interesting to me is the fact that when I look at these teams first games and I again, I would go about it completely different if I was coaching in today's NFL. The way they just discard preseason. These guys haven't played more than 10 snaps in a preseason game now. So you're asking to play 60. Yeah, you're going to be winded no matter if you're playing in Buffalo and it's pleasant on a, on a Sunday night or you're playing in a warm weather area. I would take it a lot more serious in preseason because the other thing I always hear is, yeah, we can't afford injuries. Well, you go on the first of the regular season, then we got 19 guys out with soft tissue injuries that.

[B]

Are little nagging ones which are worse because they're three, four weeks and then you have to get them back in the mix again. It's like another camp. Yes, again, I always go to the Steelers, but the Steelers didn't play any of their defensive players together for one preseason game. I don't know what's going on at the stuff I'm not watching. But as far as in stadium, they had Jalen Ramsey slay. All these new guys, Thornhill, everybody in the secondary was pretty new. They had never not only played together or they had never played in the system. And the first time they're on the field together, it counts.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the communication is off. Their timing was off. I watched the All 22 coming off the ball was late. They had an injury in the middle. So the guy that did all the camp practice at the nose guard wasn't there. And it's just this weird thing. So I agree completely. Like teams need to take the preseason and say, okay, practice, you look great. Let's get you out there against live rounds in a stadium and see how you act. And a lot of them did not look good. Now the Bills and Ravens, their defenses look gas. They looked bad. But I also think going back to last year, the Ravens gave up a lot of fourth quarter leads last year.

[A]

Well, they've done that under Harbaugh.

[B]

Under Harbaugh. It's a Harbaugh thing, which again, such joy even saying it. I just get such happiness knowing they'll never, mark my words, never win a championship with this combination. Never.

[A]

Dale, when you look at it and you and usually defenses are ahead of offenses at the beginning of the season just because again, when you play offense, one guy screws up and it can blow up the entire play.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

On defense, one guy makes a heroic play and the other 10 could fall flat on their face and one guy.

[B]

Can save a defense. Yes.

[A]

And so it usually starts off defense is ahead of the offense, but when you see teams scoring 40 points, easily an opener.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and, and you know that it's going to be fascinating to see where they go from there.

[B]

Now, what I'll, I'll say about that too is especially in the fourth quarter when it's 40, 25, I, I thought to myself, the, the, the Ravens have given up fourth quarter leads a lot. And I wonder if. Because it started to kind of feel like that was Josh Allen, who I think is incredibly good. They weren't blowing coverages. The Ravens weren't out of. They were a couple of places not out of sorts. They weren't, you know, getting blown off the line. They were getting beat. Josh's throws were good. The scheme was good. The play calling was good. This was an offense beating a defense. It wasn't so much a defense like, wow, what are they doing right? There was none of that. Well, they were a lot on the right side.

[A]

I think the reason that there's a little different feel to it is because about 20,000 Bills fans left and they.

[B]

Okay, that could be, that could be a little quieter, but maybe that has, does that play a part when you're on the field when half the team leaves and you're like, we got this. Did you guys take. Would you ever take your foot off of somebody's throat to, to say, well, their fans don't even think they can come back?

[A]

I think when you, when you look at it, human nature has to come into play. You got a 15 point lead with 10 minutes left in the game, and all you got to do is, is, is get a couple first downs, punt the ball, play a little bit of defense whether they score or not, then you get the ball back with three minutes left, you run the clock out. Yeah, but that means you can't fumble. That means those kind of things.

[B]

And once that ball popped out of Derrick Henry's hands, it was over. It, it felt like, oh, this has swung on us. It was, it was a fantastic football game and. Absolutely. And the finish couldn't have been better. But I do look at that and I say this door in the AFC is wide open. If what we just saw was was defenses ahead of offenses, their defenses are in trouble. Buffalo and Buffalo and Baltimore have the two best rosters in the afc.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

On paper, that doesn't necessarily mean a thing.

[A]

No.

[B]

But looking at that, I saw two flawed defenses and two incredibly good Offenses. So then you just. Let's just shift right over to Kansas City, who may not have the best offense and may not have the best defense, but, man, they're sound on both sides. They're not going to. That's not happening to them. The Chargers looks fantastic, but the Chiefs did this last year.

[A]

Oh, they've done that a couple years.

[B]

They lose games that are kind of like, yeah, we didn't look so great. That's right. And they'll end up 15 and 2. The Charger game will be a forgotten thing or they cave in. I looked at the Ravens and the Bills and I thought the winner in this one is the Chiefs or some surprise team in afc. Somebody's going to pop up and go, we can get them.

[A]

Here's what you always got to look at, or what I always look at. With a team like the Chiefs, who've played in so many big, high pressure games and Super Bowls and afc, what, eight years in a row, AFC Championship. At least they'll start to take their toll now when. Sure is. When's that gonna happen? Because a lot of times you can't. You really couldn't see it coming with the Cowboys. We were just like, good, good, good, good, good.

[C]

And then. Yep.

[B]

And then it fell off.

[A]

And then you fall off a cliff. And a lot of that's mental, a lot of it's physical. You just.

[B]

But how much? Even also, like you said, human nature. How much of it also is.

[C]

We.

[B]

We don't have a hill to climb. We've climbed it. And these teams are trying to chase us. And after a while, like the motivation to climb that hill stops.

[A]

Well, there's things that you sometimes can't control. I was watching a little bit of the. I don't know. You seen the four Falls of Buffalo. Talk about their four Super Bowls and. And their last super bowl was against us.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We've killed them the previous Super Bowl.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They're ahead at halftime on us in the second super bowl. Thirteen. Seven.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And we weren't. We didn't play very good. Troy's playing with a concussion. Big time concussion. We didn't look good. And, you know, again, you're sitting there going, this is back to back. This is Buffalo's fourth Super bowl in a row. And Troy says it. He said, when we're walking into the locker room, you could literally see there was nothing left of Buffalo. Really hear Steve Tasker talk and hear a couple. We were emotionally spent. There was nothing.

[B]

That was the last of our fight.

[A]

Nothing we could do. Really nothing. We. You couldn't. You could come up with a little false enthusiasm, but we couldn't even do that. We were just done.

[B]

No kidding.

[A]

After a half of the Super Bowl. And so you just never know when it's going to happen.

[C]

But I get you.

[A]

I think Kansas City is going to be there at the end. I think the AC is going to be fascinating.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's going to be.

[A]

To see how the thing comes down the stretch.

[B]

And same with the NFC. The NFC's another conference where it's the Eagles. But the Eagles got run by the Cowboys as close as you can run a team. And they came out of that. You know, Dallas was in a soap opera all off season. This was a team that was wildly. Or should be. You know, Bill Belichick's famous. You know, ignore the noise. You couldn't. Dallas had noise happening.

[A]

Well, they brought it on themselves. They were.

[B]

The noise. So it was constant. And you're like, well, this team is not prepared for the regular season. And the Eagles, first week that they're in Philly, you're getting blasted. They played a good football game and their defense may have been better off. With Micah Parsons, they'd have gotten a little more pressure. They did a great job on Saquon Barkley. That. A really nice job on the. They just played a really sound game and probably should have won it.

[A]

They were physical on. And that's been one of my biggest selling points for the Cowboys or jumping off the bandwagon. Parts of the Cowboys is I don't think they're physical. And you go and just look at their operation, the Star, their PAX facility. It's mahogany and chandeliers and carpet, and it's gorgeous. And. And all this stuff. Nothing talks about putting your hand in the dirt, coming off and hitting another guy in the mouth. And you go to smelly locker room. Yeah, I walked in a locker room. I'm like, this is cleaner than our house. There's not a shred of tape anywhere. It's like, no grass. It's like, come on. This is cleaner than our house.

[B]

It's a resort.

[A]

Yes. And then you go to the. The. The stadium at&t. They walk through a bar to get out on the football field. Everything just talks about glitz and glamour not being physical and this cowboy team. Because I was interested to see how they would respond. I thought they were physical, which means they have a chance.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I know you're going to talk about the spinning incident, but I'll take us down that road.

[B]

Well, no, we can do the spitting incident, and that is definitely a part of that game. But I, I, they never, they never looked in disarray, which I expected. I expected maybe the offense to be okay, but I expected that team to be in just shambles. They, they weren't. And maybe that's a credit to Brian Schottenheimer. Maybe he had them like, look, guys, this noise isn't our fault.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's just, it's all behind us now, right. And let's just play some football.

[A]

And maybe Schonheimer's a better head coach and we gave him credit for.

[B]

Is there truth to the idea of, like, okay, it's football now? I, I like all this crap that we've been dealing with, the media and everything else. I can get on a field and play the game. I'm good at that. That may raise you, it raises you.

[A]

And it focuses you because that's becomes your kind of sanctuary. I mean, Michael Irvin would say that when he played, I mean, all the stuff that was going on around and swirling, you walk out of the football field and guess what? It's football.

[B]

It's football.

[C]

Yes. Yeah.

[B]

And I think that's kind of what we were watching with the Cowboys against the Eagles. It's like, we got a chance here.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

We don't have a chance outside these lines because they're just.

[A]

We're just gonna run. Who loves it?

[B]

Exactly. But he shuts up for three hours because there's nothing he can do about this. And that's kind of what I felt like. I almost, I hate the Cowboys, too, but I almost felt sorry for them. Like, these, these guys are putting it on the field.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I mean, they're doing it for each other, and they want to look good and win. And then at the end, and we talked about this CD Lamb dropping those passes one was understandable. Drop. But again, you're making 40 million a year or whatever he's making you. You make the spectacular easy.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And then you especially don't have easy drops on top of earlier in the game, shushing the Philly crowd. After one good play, after a good drive, he got real lippy and he got everything. We talked about Michael Irvin, he wouldn't do that. He might get lippy and put, but. And Jimmy Johnson was the same.

[A]

Right.

[B]

He'd say stuff, and you better back him up. But you guys did. And when you drop passes that are right up against your number and they just fall off, and I believe he had the 88 just hit it was he 88. What number is he? He's 88. Hit him right in the chest and it falls down and it was a crucial drop.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

This is. After you've shushed the Philly fans. You've done the ear thing. You've been, you've been the Michael. Michael Irvin would have never allowed that ball to hit the ground. No, it's not happening. And that's the difference between great and spectacular.

[A]

And you again, if you're paying a guy a couple million dollars a year, well, that kind of comes along with that type of compensation.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

When you're paying a guy who you think is special. Special money, then you make special place.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And the, the ball that he, he laid out for a little bit. Perfect throw. It was.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Into pretty good coverage, but still 30 year. 30 million dollar a year guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You come up with those, you got.

[B]

To grab and then to get another chance later and drop that one. But yeah, that Cowboys team was impressive until then.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Other teams that did that same thing and I don't know if it was first one. Let's talk about that. First week analysis is always way too overblown. But I think there's a couple of teams that you can actually say that's who they are. Miami Dolphins, that is a team who is done well. First week. You just looked at a team that's like, even if they have a nice little resurgence, it's not going to be winning games. It's going to be just prideful performances.

[A]

What's fascinating to me is when Mike McDaniel went from San Francisco to Miami, he was kind of the new cool coach. You play music at practice, he's wearing the jorts and, and all that stuff. And, and everybody thought he was cool, man.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And then now about three years later, guess what? The lack of discipline is showing up. Obviously you got a quarterback very fragile out of his own doing. I mean, you just, you start getting concussions. The first one's the hardest one to get.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Once you get one second one becomes a little easier. Third one. And, and how long is he be able to play this year? And you just see the lack of discipline.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

On that football team. And again, another team in my mind who lacks physicality.

[B]

Oh, they're soft, you know, the end of story. That's a soft football team.

[A]

And in my mind, you're not, you're not going to go very far. Even when Kansas City was high flying.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They still had a pretty damn good defense.

[B]

Defense never gets credit for being as physical as they are, that is a tough defense. And you go, you know, even going back to like Matthew was there. And they've got dudes who will knock you out. Yeah. And, and, and I said something to do with the uniform too. The uniform looks kind. There's nothing intimidating about like a sweet red and orange thing like Ronald McDonald's. Like, you don't really look at their uniform and go, oof, tough. That's tough.

[A]

I see black and gold, black and.

[B]

Gold, black and silver. Even still you're like, yeah, they might knock us out, but they come in dressed like, you know, a pimp or something. I don't know. I don't like any other team. So I can make fun of everybody's uniform. That's why I hate the Ravens. Dress like, you know Violet from Willy Wonka when she licked the wallpaper and turned all blue. They're purple and swollen. They look terrible.

[A]

But would you like to stand in the hole and have Derek Henry running at you?

[B]

Well, they wouldn't put me in the hole.

[A]

They would.

[B]

No, I'm a corner.

[A]

Oh, you are.

[B]

I don't tackle run, John. I stop football.

[A]

No.

[B]

And I. Yeah, but I. You're right. The Chiefs defense is physical and strong and they can high fly all you want, but you got to, you got to counter that with some physicality. Miami doesn't have any of that. And they're not high flying either. No, they've got the horses to do it. Waddle and hill. They are not a high flying offense. And maybe up front they're not physical. I haven't watched them enough to know. Maybe their old line is also.

[A]

I think they fall into that same kind of same as far as not being physical. You could put their entire offense and I believe their defensive lines like that too.

[B]

And you think that's coaching? Because I don't think any man in the NFL is soft.

[A]

No. I guess I should qualify that by saying software soft by NFL stand. Right. You know, I mean any one of those dudes going to walk in here and beat the hell out of both of you and I. Well, not bothered while I'm pointing them to you first.

[B]

Yeah, no, I'll take care of it.

[A]

I'm trying to get out of here, but what do you say, Sock? It's. It's versus other NFL.

[C]

Yeah. Football.

[B]

And it's also not like individuals can be softer than others.

[A]

Right.

[B]

There's still a 7 out of 10, but when you get a bunch of tens, you got a rough team. I see the Dolphins as Just a team that's. I don't know if it's coaching or if it's.

[A]

I think it's the coaching. I think a little bit has to do with Miami. Miami. Because, like, you look at them, they. You have never seen a Miami team, even back when they were winning super bowls in the 70s.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You never said, oh, this is a big physical.

[B]

And they had some. Yeah, they had some. Some bangers in the 70s.

[A]

No names. Yeah, things like that killer beast showed.

[B]

Up in the 80s and you had those guys and they would hit, but you had to score 40 points. And they were oftentimes giving up 33 to win. 45 to 33 in a time no one scored.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So it was. Yeah, they're fragile, they're soft. I don't see that getting better at all. I see it actually probably getting worse. And Mike McDaniel doesn't survive.

[A]

I would think that McDaniel, he. It might be a race between him and the. And the coach of the Giants.

[B]

Oh, Dable.

[A]

Dable.

[B]

Well, and it depends on. Look, he's got a bigger problem. Go up to New York. The Giants have a bigger problem because Dable is on the hot seat. He's committing to Russell Wilson as a quarterback who had a terrible game.

[A]

Game.

[B]

And it looked like the Russell Wilson last year. At the end of the year for the Steelers, beginning of the year, it was all roses and champagne. They looked fun when Russell got in there. Even when Justin played, it was good. Russell was different and better.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

By the end of the season, you're seeing, oh, you don't have anything other than that moon ball and kind of a week out route. But you're still that leader.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so after a while, I think the players start to see him like, you don't. You can't back up all this rah, rah.

[A]

Well, I've always wondered, since he left Seattle, when you started hearing the talk of, oh, yeah, you don't just call Russell, you call his guy.

[C]

His guy.

[A]

It's like, are you kidding me?

[B]

He's got a rep.

[A]

I remember when that came out. I'm like, I can't imagine me saying, hey, I need to call Troy's guy to see if Troy can golf on Tuesday or does he want to go to dinner or if in fact that was true. That just blew my mind.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And that puts you in a situation where your teammates are all, well, I mean, flipping you the bird.

[B]

He went to Denver and just got his own office.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that was his locker room. And when Sean Payton showed up.

[A]

He goes, this is over. Yeah. It's like, and why would you want to. If I'm Russell, why do you want to do that?

[B]

I think he learned his lesson in Pittsburgh that. That was not good. Cause he didn't do that in Pittsburgh immediately. But I do think that after a while, it's like, okay, we're getting knocked around here. And you keep saying everything's great. Like, you're a cheerleader at this point. Back it up. Saw it in New York on Monday, where he's, you know, and he's probably a great teammate on the field. He's a good leader. I do have watched him one season. I'm like, okay, he's got that extra thing. He's a starter in the NFL. That difference between this guy, maybe, you know, I'd watch Kenny Pickett play for a year or two. And you're like, he doesn't have it. You're trying to make it. And he. Like, you want to manufacture in your brain.

[A]

Now, if he would have just followed Roethlisberger, you'd go, well, I'm not sure if Russell has it either, though. But when you.

[B]

We won with Duck Hodges. We won with Mason Rudolph. We won with Kenny Pickett.

[A]

Did you win, though?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You did?

[B]

I mean, nine, seven, or what?

[A]

Nine and eight.

[B]

Nine and seven. You were eight and eight, and then ten and ten and six. I mean, you were winning games, but you just knew everything was a struggle, right? Like, it wasn't like you were winning games. You're like, oh, we got. All right, on to next week. Same thing happened with Russell. Towards the end there, you just. The team just got beat up in New York. Brian D. Either holds on to Russell and says, this better magically turn around, or he realizes early. This is a timing issue for his job. He realizes early. I can't go with Russell. I got to get Jackson Dart in there.

[A]

Well, that's the thing. It's. It's. We're talking about on. On my other show. You know, you have your fabulous. The main event.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

With Steve McCollum. The fact that very similar to when Kurt Warner and Eli Manning were with the New York Giants.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Kurt was a starter. They drafted Eli Manning.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's about five games into the season. They said, okay, we're gonna start Eli. Well, it's pretty soon. Day Ball is going to go, I need to change the young quarterback so that this might save my job. Hey, I'm working with this young quarterback. How do you expect us to win? He's improving as the season goes along. Give me another year with him versus I'm going to stick with Russell Wilson. We're going to go five.

[B]

And so you would change now?

[A]

I would. I would. I said this before the season. I said that there's. First of all, their schedule is really tough to begin with.

[B]

We're in a tough division. Yeah.

[A]

I think I said, I think five games. I let Russell go trot out there and then.

[B]

I mean, after the first performance.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which was dreadful.

[A]

Yes. Again, when you, when you watch Russell Wilson that first game, I was bad. I hate putting too much on the first game because I'm, I'm, I'm definitely not writing off Joe Burrow. Not right now. The Cincinnati Bengals because of one half of football. So I hate to overreact, but I think that in table's mind, hey, get through four or five games that are gonna. They're gonna kick our ass. Now we put Jackson and we got a young guy.

[B]

That doesn't buy him here, though.

[A]

I see. I think, I think if he goes.

[B]

With Jackson now and they struggle, he's like, look, give me, give me time with this kid.

[A]

But you don't. Also don't want him to get battered around. Very few quarterbacks in the history of the NFL or, or like a Troy Aikman or a Peyton Manning to where they get the living snot beat out of them their rookie year.

[B]

Andrew Luck, like.

[A]

Yeah, but Andrew Luck played five years. He's done.

[B]

He quit.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That's what I'm saying. He was a great player who got beat up and had to stop.

[A]

Yes. And so I'm saying, you got a small, small size of quarterbacks who get the crap beat out of him as rookies in the league and then go on to stardom.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Usually it will thwart their growth and all that. So I say Jackson dart around game five, and then, then it might turn into a little bit like Troy Lavello. Troy Lavello. I think it saves a job here at the Diamondbacks because they trade away Everybody. He's lost 18 guys to injured reserve, and yet here they are three games out of the playoffs while playing hard. And so what do you do? You look at him and go, man, look at the job he did well. You look at day ball and go, well, we got this young quarterback who's showing some promise. Maybe we got to give him another year. I'm just saying.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't, I don't disagree with that. I don't think it saves Brian Dable's job. I think no matter what without Russell Wilson being 7 and 4 at one point in the season that you save his job because let's say Russell looks like he did Sunday and he goes out now you're one in five and then you put Jackson Dart in a situation where it's just a nightmare. Dable's fired. If you do it too soon and Jackson Dart gets pummeled and the team just struggles and you get fired. If you put him in after three weeks and he does well but starts to fade, you get fired. Like there's the only scenario that works for Brian Dable is if Russell Wilson makes this team a winner maybe five and four and then he says I got to make a change here. We're close and I think Jackson gives us a better start. I think that would save his job because much like Tory level we bring up for The Diamondbacks, they were 500 and the GM said team isn't going to win anything.

[C]

Right.

[B]

They traded everybody and they're 500 now. They're same. They think they were the best record in August.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

In the nl. I mean they played great baseball. So it's coaching and it's everything else. I don't think Brian Dabel saves his job.

[A]

I don't just.

[B]

I don't either. A route to that.

[A]

There's no road. I'm just thinking that you've seen that before. Hey, we got the young quarterback. He shows some promise. Look what I did. And maybe wins 3, 4, 5 games with Jackson Dart over the last 50, 11 games of the year.

[B]

And maybe that's it. Maybe he lets Russell stink for 11 weeks and goes we're two and nine, right. Darts playing the last few and he gets a couple wins and everybody's like, oh, give him a chance. That's the only path to saving that job to me in New York because there's no and for him. It has to be weird to sit back and go, if I don't play this guy and I get fired, I didn't shoot all the bullets in my gun. If I do play him and I get fired and he gets killed, I'm an idiot for wrecking a guy's career. So he has to play this perfectly. I just don't see a path for Brian Davell to stay in New York unless they just go crazy with Russell. Right it.

[A]

And again the chances of them doing that are minimal.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's get into the week's this week's games tonight we're recording on a Thursday Commanders packers are we Are we, first.

[A]

Of all, are we going to touch on the spitting?

[B]

Oh, yeah, let's get. I forgot about that. All right, let's talk about real quick, though, because Jalen Carter spit. Did Dax bit on or at. He spit at him.

[A]

Yeah, well, he. Dak was in the huddle. So they're offensive lineman between.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Dak and the defensive line, who, by.

[B]

The way, was 3ft, maybe 4ft from.

[A]

On the other side of the ball.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And Dak was talking to these guys. Yeah, he spit. Now, he might have been eyeballing him.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But.

[B]

And then that grin, which has a name he gave him.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And before the game even started, there was that much anger.

[A]

Well, again, in all my life, there's two teams that I hate.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. And that's the Eagles in the NFL and the University of Texas in college.

[C]

All right.

[A]

The burnt orange. I'll never buy anything orange. It's an ugly color.

[B]

I do that with purple.

[A]

I hate everything about it but Philadelphia, the fans, the weather, the city, the team, the stadium. And there's nothing to like about Philadelphia. And so there. And I. I'm not the only obviously cowboy who feels that way.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

The Eagles hate the Cowboys. If you're talking about an actual NFL rivalry.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That is an NFL rivalry. But the spitting thing, two things that jumped on my mind. Number one, what a. What a dummy.

[C]

Idiot.

[A]

Well, what a dummy. They didn't get to play one snap.

[B]

No.

[A]

For. For spitting on another grown man.

[B]

And Chris Collinsworth nailed it. He said, that's spitting on your teammates and your coach and all the preparation that we.

[A]

This week, you were, you. You went through all the whole offseason. You're the most dominant defensive line have.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

And you're going to. And you know, it's not like, oh, you're in a pile. Maybe nobody sees me. It's out in the open.

[B]

And.

[A]

And the other thing that jumped my mind was I told the story with the fact that I was starting in Buffalo. We're playing the Los Angeles Raiders and Howie Long is playing for the Raiders, the Hall of Fame defensive tackle who's going to be lining up over me a lot and see the injury report. He's questionable with a calf and you know, all week. So you're preparing for him because you don't know what's questionable. Questionable to them. Is he out? Is he in? And you're prepared for Howie? Yes.

[B]

You're prepared for his backup?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. And you know it's going to be an all day sucker. And when I walked out for pregame warmups against them and I saw him over on the sideline in street clothes.

[B]

Clicked your heels.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

Do you know that Nothing on.

[B]

Do you remember who his backup was?

[A]

They had a guy named Bill Bacal who's 65 white dude.

[B]

Did that guy come in and go, oh, made you realize this isn't going to be an easy lunch either.

[A]

No, it was. It wasn't easy enough. It was. It got. It got me the contract with the Raiders.

[B]

Really.

[A]

I played a really good game. But what I was. The only reason I tell that story is because if how he's playing against me is an all day sucker, I. When I become a free agent, I don't know how I got to play against him. I know he's going to be tough for them. Who I played against those three Interior offensive line for the Cowboys.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

As soon as the flag went up and they. And they kicked Carter out.

[B]

Thrilled. It's just your job just got a lot easier. It's just easier.

[A]

I don't care who you bring in, they're not him.

[B]

Dak Prescott gets. Should get more credit. Now I do believe his little antagonistic spit over the shoulder, wink and smile was about it. The S eating grin thing, I've never really understood that phrase, but I know when I see it. And that was what he did. And Jalen Carter and then Dak walked towards him, which was brave too. Walked out of the way.

[A]

Well, that's because Jaylen Carter was on the other side of the football.

[B]

Yeah. He closed it up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there was just pausing after the kickoff. Training was in the.

[A]

That blew his knee out for the year.

[B]

And these two are talking and I don't know how Dak Prescott does this because there's a lot of times in football you have to turn the other cheek. You have to, you know, de escalate the situation for the sake of the bigger prize. When a dude spits on another dude, it is awfully hard not to just respond.

[A]

Go.

[B]

Now maybe it's the fact that you're the quarterback and this dude's got you by £125. It could be that there's a lot of that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Also if you do something, it's just so much had to go through his mind to be right and not react. So Dax should get credit for that now. He didn't spit in his face.

[A]

No.

[B]

That I assume changes everything.

[A]

Well, I think that what went through Dax mind was I got him. Yeah, I got him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This guy, he's out, you know, and Again, when it's out of the open like that. So my mind always goes to this. If the Eagle guy doesn't blow his knee out, which means there's a delay in the game and defense is out there. That never happens.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you're coming out, you're getting the hull, you're breaking the hole and you're going. But they were standing around for three or four minutes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's true. That's when that happened.

[B]

And it's just. Anybody ever do that in front of you?

[A]

No. I don't know. That's.

[B]

That's that. You just don't cross that line. You don't spit on people.

[A]

No. It's like. Oh, I. I don't even know the word for it. But, yeah, you do that out in public, somebody's getting in a hustle. It's just such disrespect for another human being.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's.

[B]

Yeah, it is exactly that. It is just demeaning, degrading. It's awful. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. That's it. All right, let's. And I just. I. I also think he should have been suspended another week.

[A]

You know what? I. I don't think you could argue that they suspended a league, but he did not get to play in that game.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Whatever.

[B]

Do you think if anybody spits on you and they're back the next week, that the punishment was just. I think missing the game is what. Because, well, you. Then, let's just spit on somebody at the end of the fourth quarter.

[A]

Well, then you're going to be suspended next week.

[B]

So that's my point. So you should be suspended for a game and then another game.

[A]

So that doesn't. I wouldn't fight that. If we're talking about one of my guys spitting on another guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. He's a dumbass to be a coach. Yeah.

[B]

Sirianni should probably turn to him and say, you realize that I'm not going to prepare a whole week for you if this is what I can trust. So you're out next week, too.

[A]

I tell you, I can't imagine those talks and those. What an idiot you are.

[B]

Had to be horrible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I think if I'm the coach, I'm like, look, I put my entire off season, I placed so much faith and trust in you that I had a game plan with you as the cornerstone of it, and that's how you treat me? Enjoy watching this.

[A]

Not only did you let yourself down and make yourself look like a complete buffoon, but you let 52 teammates, coaches, everybody else time.

[B]

You've wasted people's time and energy. Yeah, I, I, and again, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. I love when the teams that I hate, which are all of them, do something stupid. What do you think this week's potential? We already had what I said was probably game of the year last week. Are you looking at anything this week that could be potentially like. Well, that will, that might top it. There's some good matchups out there. I mean, the one that I look at is tonight, the Commanders and Packers.

[A]

I think that might be the highlight game of the week. And you don't usually get that on Thursday. Usually they get a little Cleveland, Tennessee on Thursday, something like that.

[B]

We're going to dinner, honey.

[C]

Game.

[A]

Yeah. Yes, exactly. I, because I was talking about on our other show, Jaden Daniels. I was dead, dead wrong on Same here. I mean, when he, when the, when there was talk of him going in the top 10 or even in the first round, crazy talk, I said, are you serious?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And that was before his senior year. Then he goes out, wins the Eisenhower Trophy, then he's the third pick in the draft. I'm like, they made such a huge mistake on this guy. He's about a buck 30. You know, he's got two thick legs. Yes.

[B]

He's a human candy.

[A]

He's going to get broke. And then he goes out and has that year, last year.

[B]

Unreal.

[A]

I go to the NFC Championship game and he comes back this year. Wow. There's sophomore slump. There's this. I don't think it's going to affect him now.

[B]

They played a Giants team that was inept and they didn't look great doing it. But Giants, the Giants defensive line is good.

[A]

The Giants defense is not their offense.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm like, is he going to, is he going to usurp that and not even have a sophomore slump?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then Green Bay, I mean, what they did to Detroit last week, I know Detroit was not hitting on all cylinders.

[C]

No.

[B]

They were laid off the ball, too. I was watching that. And they're like, they were a little bit off time.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And again, two new coordinators, you lose some players here and there, but they.

[B]

Also just got punched in the mouth.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And they played pretty well after. But that punch in the mouth was devastating.

[A]

In Green Bay. Another team that I've always looked at kind of finesse, you know, you don't know them as a power team. A team that's going to hit you in the mouth and out physical you. Yeah, I think they out physical Detroit along with having. Yeah, I think Love is going to have himself a monster year. He's legit, you know. And so I think that's going to be a really fun game to watch.

[B]

To me, that's the game of the week. I mean there's some good ones in there. I think the Steelers, Seahawks, if both those teams are as evenly matched as. I think that's more of an evenly matched game than it would be a. Wow, these two teams are so great. And then you got a few in there that could just surprise you. I think the Bucks and Texans game could be fun.

[A]

I just. I. That was one of those. When your co host Brady said The overrunner is 42, I said 42.

[B]

Yeah, it's 42 and a half.

[A]

I said, are you kidding me? I took the over in a heartbeat.

[B]

You want to talk about being wrong about somebody. Baker Mayfield and not us. The Browns, again, they browned him.

[A]

Does that not, does that not show you, if nothing else does that a quarterback's success can be directly tied to the organization?

[C]

Oh yeah.

[A]

And the coaching staff. They're both. Look at Sam Darnold. He's seeing ghost in New York.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Goes to Minnesota last year and he.

[B]

Wins 14 games and like handling.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There was no doubt that Sam was the reason that was happening.

[A]

And everybody talked about the last two games against a really good Detroit team. But he was seeing ghosts in New York.

[B]

Could not figure it out. No. And it also goes to show how. How what a thin line you're walking, especially a quarterback of being Sam Darnold and having a coach or a franchise destroy you so you can never come back.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like to. To. To. He got out just in time.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Baker Mayfield didn't. He had to resurrect, which was nearly impossible after his Rams and Panthers. And he was done.

[A]

And I would even say the difference between the two is Baker Mayfield, I think came in cocky and yeah, he.

[B]

Came in a little arrogant and all that. Well, that Browns team had that swagger. Like we, we figured it out and I always tell people like you had four first round draft picks, good luck. You've got a three year window.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because these dudes are going to need money in a couple of years.

[A]

Bengals, Browns.

[B]

And the Browns are going to Brown and they nearly ruined.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And luckily Baker Mayfield found a home.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And it seems to be thriving down there in Tampa. And he can. Man, he throws a whip and he's.

[A]

He's grown. He's matured. He got married and all those things have come together for him. And those are stories I cheer for. I cheer for Darnold last year after.

[B]

Well, I'm not cheering for Donald anymore.

[C]

He's a Seahawk Steelers.

[A]

I mean, I'm not necessarily. I'm cheering for him personally. I'm so happy that he was able to get that big contract and all that.

[B]

It's a neat story because his career was over and he was 24. That's how bad a franchise can wreck you.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And it makes you wonder how many guys could have been great in football.

[A]

How many couple of Houston Texan quarterbacks who were drafted, you know, in the top five. And that organization was horrible in the early 2000s.

[B]

Think of Tom Brady going anywhere else with any other situation. Does that happen?

[A]

Well, I always tell the story. If Troy Aikman would have been to went to Green Bay, he would. He would probably been out of league in three or four. He couldn't throw a wet ball. He couldn't throw a cold ball. Playing outside in Green Bay versus going to Dallas would have completely ruined disaster.

[B]

Disaster. Yeah. The NFL. It's a good one. I think tonight's game, I think you're right. For the first time, a Thursday night game is going to be the marquee matchup. Five star matchup going in. Occasionally you'd go like that Thursday game was the best game of the year or the week. This one you're going in, you're looking at like this excited about. This is a good game. I'm watching a Thursday night game. No question. Yeah, football's back. It's making us better. Other stuff that's going on. Did you watch the Dodgers two no hitters. Almost.

[A]

I did not watch this Sunday.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Three nothing. Eight and two thirds innings, Dodgers have a no hitter going.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Oriole hits a home run. I've not seen this. Was I again, I hate to talk. I giggled. I giggled for hours. Next, next batter gets on, they start walking. They end up walking in two runs and lose.

[A]

They lost the game.

[B]

They had a no hitter for eight. They were down to their last out of a no hitter and lost the game.

[A]

It couldn't happen in a better franchise.

[B]

I agree completely. A couple nights later, Glass now hits the hill for him. Gives up a run in the first inning on a walk sack fly grounder that moved the guy to third. And then I think there was a like, I don't remember, zero. No hits. Got a run in.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Right. So one nothing through most of the game. He goes seven innings, no hit baseball. And I think the Dodgers are at that point up 3 to 1 or 2 to 1 or something like that. This is, this is why baseball sucks right now. I'm a fan.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm sitting in Dodger Stadium and I'm watching a no hitter and the guy doesn't come out for the eighth. It's, it's, it's 105 pitches. I go back to a time I watched Nolan Ryan play. He had 10 strikeouts, like 11 walks. He was all over the place. I don't remember if it was a no hitter, if it was a shutout or what it was. And I remember, was it Steve Stone? Somebody was saying, oh, it was Bob Costas. He said, how many pitches do you think Nolan Ryan. Three finished the game. How many pitches do you think Nolan Ryan threw in this game? And guys are guessing. I don't know. I had to be like 150, 234 pitches. I think it went extra.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

I think it went extra innings and he finished the game.

[A]

Because I was going to tell you, I remember Randy Johnson talking about he was an open day starter for the Diamondbacks one of those years. 2000, 2001. 99 and opening game of the season. Opening day starter, went nine innings through 160 pitches.

[B]

Opening day, opening day, the first one.

[A]

And guess what? He was fine. But now we baby these guys and if you haven't had Tommy John surgery, you're going to have Tommy John surgery.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, it's like a foregone conclusion. And yet you got 90 pitch limits and 100 pitch limits and, and say, and, and, and six innings and you're out. No matter what's happening. It's crazy.

[B]

Yeah. This is the. I just looked it up. 235 pitches. Sorry, I shorted him one. It was 13 innings. He struck out 19. And I think he walked like 11, 235.

[A]

Could you imagine something like that happening today? No. A coach would be.

[B]

Coach be fired. He done. And this is, keep in mind, this is 1974.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Nolan is probably in what year? 7, 6.

[A]

And he's only got another 15, 16 years.

[B]

He went on to play another 19.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It was when he was a kid and he whipped 235 pitches in a 13 inning game.

[A]

And you know what he was saying in the dugout? He's saying, don't take me out.

[B]

Don't you dare take me out. I'll knock you out. Nolan was a badass. Glass now goes out with a no hitter. And tells his coach, yeah, that's good. 105 is good. I don't want to, I don't want to risk this. You're not throwing. It was a, it was a, you know, one of those, you know, bullpen, no hitters, right? It was a group effort. No, no, you, you got a no hitter.

[A]

It's, it's hard for me to, to get behind that. Yeah. And, and over the last few seasons, I've, I've, I've kind of shied away.

[B]

From baseball a little bit because of stuff like this. Because they go to analytics before they go to the joy of the game.

[A]

No gut feelings? No, no, no. Well, the numbers say, yeah, we bring in this match up and what about that guy pitching right now?

[B]

The numbers have never told you what Glass now is like in the seventh, eighth and ninth with a no hitter.

[A]

Right?

[B]

He might be better.

[A]

Might be juiced up, might be amped up.

[B]

The batters are gripping.

[A]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[B]

It drives me insane. And also, like, you go out with 105 pitches and everybody's like, oh, no, we got to be careful.

[C]

We got to be careful.

[B]

Where's this, you know, magical super training that they always, oh, they're in such great condition and everything else, then why can't they throw more than 105 pitches, right? Why in the world is 100? When did that magic number ruin it for the fans? Well, that's, I get keeping an eye on guys for 100 pitches in a game, that's six to four. Like, he's throwing 100. We're getting good, but we're not getting great. We got a bullpen. We can do this. A no hitter. You robbed the fans.

[A]

Well, what do you. My question was when this all started, this three, four years ago, my question was, what are you doing in the off season?

[C]

Right.

[A]

Why can Randy Johnson pitch 160 pitches on opening day for nine innings? But you're going to be work, you're going to be amped up.

[B]

You're going to work in.

[A]

Yes. You're going to work into it. We got to watch you. Weren't you ready to go at the end of spring training?

[B]

How much are you doing in November, December that's making it so April's a little rough and you better be careful. I don't get it. I don't get it. And I also know you're right. Like Randy Johnson, you can sit back and go, oh, these, these guys are throwing harder. They're throwing different. No, they're not. Randy Johnson, not harder Nolan R. No, Nolan Ryan threw a hard baseball and whipped it and had curveballs. And you tell me after 235 pitches, nobody in the dugout had a decent idea of what he's throwing. Like they say, oh, they're so studied now. And they know the pitches and they know his tendency.

[A]

135 pitches, that's two and a half games in today's pitchers.

[B]

I would venture to say, and I might be wrong, that if you stood me at the plate and I haven't swung a baseball bat in a long time and you said, all right, Clayton Kershaw is going to throw 235 pitches your way, I'll get to one.

[A]

I mean, I will.

[B]

I don't need a TV or a coach to tell me, oh, every time that ball's moved that way, the next one's coming in on me. Like, he's got tendencies. After 235 pitches, you have read that he's just beating you. Oh, it drove me nuts. Also, this Kawhi Leonard thing in the NBA, $28 million no show job that he accepted. The Clippers are saying they didn't know about it, but if they didn't, how did it affect the salary cap that they were trying to stay away from?

[A]

Well, the two things that really set it out to me was, okay, you can say what you want to say. Yeah, but first of all, the audacity. I'm making 200 something million dollars, but I want, yeah, I want a $30 million job that I don't have to show up for. Don't even have to do a card signing. Don't have to take a picture, don't have to anything.

[B]

For now, keep in mind, it's Kawhi Leonard. He loves not doing anything.

[A]

Kawhi, ain't you playing? You know, it's like you sit there and look at him and obviously he had that magical season in Toronto and all that.

[B]

He's amazing.

[A]

But when you go to the Clippers now, you go, okay, well, we don't know anything about it. Well, Balmer, the owner invests $50 million into some aspiration company or whatever it's called, and, and, and 25 million now goes to your star. And then the other thing that I think is going to probably get them is just recently because this company's in trouble. Yeah, they folded up and they fell short of the payments.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like $1.7 million. Well, a minority owner for the Clippers magically invested $1.9 million in this company. So again, well, why would anybody be upset about this? If you want to be dumb enough to pay a guy for not doing anything, that's your prerogative. Well, what it is, is an unfair competitive advantage here locally. You saw it up close and personal the last two years to where the Suns are in the second apron of the salary cap. And so they can't do trades, they can't make this move. They can't do that and all those things. So if you, if you can pay somebody under the table, you can figure.

[B]

Out how Kevin Durant gets 28 million and saves your cap. That.

[A]

Yes. And then you're not paying a tax on it and it gives you flexibility, then that's the competitive advantage for a team. And that's where the other owners are going to say, no, you gotta, you gotta do something about this. Absolutely.

[B]

And I don't know, this, this may, this, this has the seedlings of a. You're going to have to sell the franchise.

[A]

I, I, I more. See, it's going to be a significant fine.

[B]

Oh, yeah. For, as it stands right now. But if this gets exposed and we pull back a layer and find out he's been, he's got a lot of money and a lot of his, his, his fingers are in a lot of pies.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So if he's starting to pay guys like, look, I got this thing over here. Just get involved with me over here and you'll get some money on that. We don't have to count the cap. And if you start looking at that roster and some of the forgotten guys on that team, you know Terrence Mann, who's not there anymore, but he was there and he got some money and it didn't really work out, but he still got paid. But did he get paid by the team? He had a real friendly contract there. And it's like, huh, well, see, is everybody happy there doing that? And James Harden and how many guys have gotten this little extra bump back? And here's Ballmer's moves.

[A]

Here's the other thing that's so interesting about it. And I always, I go back because people bust my chops about smu. When I played there, we were cheating. Well, a lot of people in Southwest Conference back then were cheating. I got offered money to go to, to Baylor, to Houston, to Texas. I chose smu.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, what people said, I'll never forget. Sportscaster said, they're all cheating.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

At least SMU is getting good football players in their winning games.

[B]

Well, you guys, you guys got to a national championship level with Cheating. Other teams that were cheating didn't get there.

[A]

What are the Clippers done cheating?

[B]

Like, I mean Penn State wasn't cheating and they got the national championship and steady because of that tie. But still we just both know. Yeah, it's an interesting thought but, and I understand you might, you know, blur the lines a little. This as it's coming out pretty blatant is just flat out stealing. No.

[A]

John, have you ever done that, went to some boss and go, hey, I'd like a, I'd like a high paying job. I don't want to.

[B]

I'm not going to do it. Actually when I talked to them about this podcast, the words I actually said was I want to do this, I don't want to any money though. And he was scared. They listened to it. Yeah, that's a very true statement. It's a interesting thing. Do you watch boxing at all in the last thing before we go?

[A]

I have not. I don't watch.

[B]

Great fight coming up this week in Canelo Alvarez versus Terence Bud Crawford. It's. It's about two years too late, maybe three.

[A]

That doesn't. That happens.

[B]

Too much happens. And that's again, you're going back to who's going to get paid what, who gets top billing, who gets this. These two guys are, as a boxing fan, the two most fun fighters I've ever watched live that aren't heavyweights. I mean my favorite fights ever were Fury and Wilder. Live, that was the best. But live, you hear their punches like their heavyweights. Both Terence Crawford and Canelo. I'll tell you right now, as a boxing fan, I have no idea who's gonna win this fight. You can make an argument for either one and be like, you're right.

[A]

Is it in Vegas?

[B]

I believe it is, yes. Yeah, I think it's in Vegas. Yeah, in Vegas.

[A]

Because on, on our main event podcast with Steve, we have a gambling guy on and he was always into boxing and then he got out of boxes in the MMA now he said boxing got so.

[B]

Oh, it's a mess tarnished. It's my, it's probably my favorite sport to be honest with you. When it's good. Yeah, it's just so rarely good. It's. You got to seek out great fights with this one. I think if this was in the 80s, this would be Sugar Ray Thomas Hearn. This is that big. I mean it is a.

[A]

You know what really turned me off of boxing and I know you're gonna go somewhere else out there was the pay per views of the 90s I would have parties.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

At my house. I'd pay the 50 bucks for the Tyson fight. You'd sit down, you take two sips of beer. Fights over with, get the hell out of the house.

[B]

I'll tell you exactly what my theory is. Maybe I'll use this as our conspiracy theory instead of what I wanted to do. I'll make this argument, I'll throw it out there. Mike Tyson's the worst thing that's ever happened to heavyweight boxing.

[A]

I, I, I, I think you could make a compelling argument about that.

[B]

He ruined it when they were in the pay per view mode.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You're paying 70, $80 in 1993 for a fight that lasted 91.

[A]

You got Holmberg hell astray on the undercard.

[B]

The undercards were terrible.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Then Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield made you feel like, oh, boxing's still good. And then Mike would come back with another one and another clunker would lay out on the ground. And, and, and also he was only knocking out bad fighters. He never beat a good fighter.

[A]

He never, never demolished him in the first, first minute of the first round.

[B]

He was known as the guy who could knock somebody out. Just unbelievably bigger than you've ever seen. But it was Frank Bruno Hanklin, Thomas Mitch Blood Green. Then you get into him fighting. Evander Holyfield lost. Riddick Bowe lost. Lennox Lewis lost. He couldn't beat good fighters. He couldn't beat a quality boxer. He's the most overrated. God, I hope he doesn't hear this. He's the most overrated heavyweight fighter of all time. He's still great. But he was, he would put him in as the greatest. Not even close.

[A]

No. That's interesting because I think that that's a compelling argument. The fact that he was very bad for boxing in the 90s.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

He was great for it. For blips.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But in the long run, people stopped being interested because one of my dollars.

[A]

For a minute of a fight.

[B]

And you remember in the 80s when it was Friday night fights and Saturday afternoon and you'd get the, you'd get to watch the first pay per view. Really? Well, not pay per View, but there was closed circuits with Ali and Frazier. But I remember when, when Larry Holmes fought Tex Cobb.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Jerry Cooney, the great white hope, which was embarrassing even when I was a kid, but Holmes fought Jerry Cooney and it was on something called on tv. You had to buy a cable network. Really buy a cable thing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Called On TV to watch the fight, and so many people did. And then they just watched this white guy get his ass handed to him for 13 rounds. Although he stood in there for 13. Oh, Cooney got killed. So, yeah, it's. Yeah. Mike Tyson was back. Canelo, Terrence Bud Crawford. If you get a chance to watch, do it. It's great. My conspiracy was about Helen Keller. We'll save that for one day. She wasn't real.

[A]

She lived. Oh, I need. I need Nash. She lived. I need Nash back.

[B]

She lived. But none of what they say happened.

[A]

Do you believe we landed on the moon?

[B]

I think we landed on the moon a couple times. I think we might have lied about a few of them to make Russia go. Anyway, there you go. That Dale, Nice job. That's this sports thing. I'm John Holberg from the wildly successful 98 Kup's Morning Sickness. And Dale Hellistray, former NFL superstar. I said that with a straight face and three time world champion for us. Thanks for hanging out. We'll see you next time.