← Middays With Matt
Middays With Matt
Christmas day games announced (Tues 8/11 - Seg 6)
00:18:55
We now know the full slate for NFL and NBA on Christmas day and Matt goes through the matchups.
Loading summary
Transcript7 lines
- [00:01]
A
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:31]
B
Don't forget to sign up to the 1620 the Zone Golf Tournament. Spots are going fast, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not, I'm not joking when I'm saying that we had a couple of signups yesterday, a couple of signups the weekend before. It is going to be an absolutely incredible event. August 21st, Friday, Miracle Hill Golf Course. We, I, I want to read you here because look, obviously it's $400 for foursome, it's a hundred dollars per person, okay? But on top of that, right, $100 per person gets you the standard stuff. It gets you your 18 holes of golf, it gets you food, it gets you drinks, it gets you VIP access to our after party at the Phoenix. You're going to get an opportunity to go ahead and win prizes, right? Win $10,000 if you hit a hole in one on any of the par threes, you're gonna get $10,000 from Langfeld overhead doors. But I want to read you every hole at our tournament at the Aug. 21 Miracle Hill 1620 the Zone Golf Tournament presented by Cutwater and Tee box is going to. Every hole will have a prize. So here are some of the prizes you can win on every hole. All right. On every hole, here's an individual prize you could potentially win. A pair of Bur Kreischer tickets, a pair of Crane basketball tickets, Storm chasers tickets, an IBEW gift basket designed for custom cornhole board, Early Bird 200 gift cards to Early Bird. A $100 gift card to Stories Coffee, $100 gift card to Lap 100, a cut water golf bag. So you can get all these different prizes and I didn't even mention a few. And if your team gets first place in the first flight, you're all going to get a hundred dollar Visa gift card. If your team is second place in the first in the first flight you get a $75 Visa gift cards. If you're third place in the first flight, you get $50 Visa gift cards. And then you get a first, second and third place offer the second flight. So you could go ahead. You dominate, right? You play well, you can get your buying back and walk away with a couple tickets and even more 100 gift cards. This is an ultimate bang for your buck. The 1620 zone golf tournament spots are going quickly. $400 for a foursome. But like I said, it is a bang for your buck. So sign up now at 1620 the zone.com we'll go ahead here to the Liquid Trucking Zone Twitter feed. It was released this morning. The NBA schedule. We've gotten some info on what the opening games are going to be, but more importantly, we're, we have been told
- [03:08]
A
the
- [03:11]
B
Christmas games for the NBA. Which means that we have our full NFL slash NBA Christmas schedule. Let me read this to you. This is incredible. 11 or sorry, we'll go Eastern time. These are all Eastern times. I know we're in central time, so just move, move one hour back. Bear with me everybody. Spurs at Nicks, 1212 o' clock Eastern. Packers at Bears, 1 o' clock Eastern. Heat at Celtics, 2:30 Eastern Time. At 4:30 Eastern Time you'll have Bills at Broncos, 5 Eastern. 76ers at Lakers, 8 Eastern. Thunder at T Wolves.
- [03:47]
A
Yeah.
- [03:47]
B
8:15 Easter on Eastern on Fox. Rams at Seahawks. And to cap it off, Nuggets at Warriors, 10:30 Eastern Standard Time. The two early football games between the packers at the Bears and the Bills at the Broncos that will be on Netflix. Rams at Seahawks will be at Fox and then all of the NBA games will be on ABC and espn. You'll have only one slate of NBA games that will be competing against each other probably at the same time, which is the 76ers at Lakers. That might overlap, but these matchups are great. Spurs at Knicks, obviously the NBA Finals rematch. You got Heat at Celtics. That is the kind of the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes Final two between the Heat and the Celtics. I mean the Heat getting Giannis really kind of blew up the Celtics because they were forced to trade away Jaylen Brown because the fact that JB could even get traded, that he was on the table to get traded for Giannis made him no longer want to be a Celtic 76ers at Lakers. Obviously LeBron's return to LA after, God, what, seven or eight seasons there, won an NBA title obviously in the COVID bubble championship. Then you get Thunders at T Wolves. I don't not too much backstory there between the Thunder and the T Wolves other than you just got to get Anthony Edwards on a Christmas Day game. Cause that Guy's an absolute superstar. And then you got Nuggets at Warriors, which is just a classic game between two of the best teams in the Western Conference. And then obviously you look at the football slate. I mean, that's the thing. That's definitely been a shift this season for the NFL. They used to have the slate make the game. You didn't always get. Well, first off, they never really had football on Christmas until a couple of years ago, but mainly for like, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving didn't have like the top top games versus the top top teams because they knew that the slate made the game. They knew that having a game on Thanksgiving, people wanted to watch football on Thanksgiving. It didn't really matter what the matchup was. And so we've seen this year, you know, a shift from the slate may or the, the. The game making the, you know, the, the specific holiday making the game to now the game is making the slate. And these games they have on Christmas are bonkers. Packers at Bears, that's going to be at Soldier Field. I'll be in attendance for that game. Very excited about that. But then Bills at Broncos, obviously the revenge game for the Buffalo Bills, who. Well, I went back and I watched some of the highlights of that game a couple of days ago, and I forget about the catch that almost was a catch from Khalil Shakir that got script by the Broncos db. That ended up being an interception. And the. I felt like the debate of whether or not that was a true INT didn't rage on as long as I thought it was. And then obviously the face off between not only two of the best teams in the NFC west, but probably the two best teams in the nfc. Rams at Seahawks probably might end up being the two best teams in the NFL. I think undoubtedly Rams are number one for me. I, I respect the super bowl champion, but Rams are number one for me. And then Bill Simmons called the Seattle Seahawks. He's a very unique way of doing things. He called them what he thought was the most talented team in the NFL. They're really good, don't get me wrong. I think they've lost so much though, with Tariq Wolin, with Kobe Bryant, like, they've. It's going to be pretty difficult for them to patch up some of those holes. And then obviously, like, Clint Kubiak was awesome for that offense. I didn't even mention Kenneth Walker, by the way, who's a Super bowl mvp. No longer on the Seattle Seahawks. Like, they lost some very key players from that super bowl run and they lost their Key coordinator in Clint Kubiak, who is now the head coach of, of the Las Vegas Raiders. I, I just, it's hard to doubt the super bowl champions and I love the Jadarian Price pick. I mean, if you've watched Notre Dame football, you will know how electric, electric Jadarian Price can be and you know, very easily. If he wasn't running behind, one of the best running backs in the country would have been a superstar elsewhere. But kind of adds to the fact the guy's super explosive. He made his reps count and he doesn't have as much tread off the tires as other other running backs that you could potentially take. I think Price is going to be, he could be a league winner this year. For people in fantasy football, that's the type of and by the way, like I, I, I haven't been watching Hard Knocks, but I've been able to catch clips of it on Twitter and some of the highlights I've seen is just the offensive staff of Seattle just blown away with that guy's speed and, and just super, super explosive. Would you like for him to have had more reps? Absolutely. Is there always the nervousness of like, wow, this guy wasn't even the best, you know, on his team in that position? Sure. I still think it was a hell of a pickup for the Seahawks. So maybe, you know, Kendall Walker no longer being on that roster won't be as big of a deal. But it was interesting to see the shift that Seattle took at the beginning of the season to the end of the season. Their run game was non existent in the beginning of the season and their past game was, was very much, I mean, in rhythm. Sam Darnold, Jackson, Smith and Jigba and obviously that defense is absolutely electric. But his team's kind of caught on to the fact that Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker weren't performing to their very best at the beginning of the season. They started lightening up those boxes and as soon as they started lightening up those boxes started putting less guys in the box to defend the run. That's when they started having some great success and Kenneth Walker definitely took advantage of that toward the end of the regular season, obviously the playoffs, and did some more damage catching, catching the ball out of the backfield than maybe get people give them full credit for. So anyway though, hell of a Christmas slate for the Seattle or for both football and basketball. We talked about Husker football. We'll continue to talk about Husker football with Tim Verghese who will be our next Guest joining us around 1222, 1223. We'll talk to Timmy V from inside Nebraska and Rivals. Tim was there at open practice, so we'll get some of his thoughts and some of his breakdowns. Seeing more and more clips on Twitter. We talked about your turning point from optimism to skepticism if that is what your journey has been for Nebraska football from the beginning of the Matt Ruler to where we are now in year four. And we had some interesting answers in terms of games, right? Some people started to lose a little hope during the Indiana game. Some people started to question rules ability to evaluate the quarterback position when he went all in on Jeff Sims and he ended up failing. Right. There are some interesting points. I brought up the 2024 UCLA game, which, you know, the mindboggling play calling that took place toward the end of that game that eventually, you know, ended up in, in Marcus Satterfield losing his job as the OC for Nebraska football. And that obviously has been now taken over by Dana Holgerson. I will like to say this though, as much as I might get accused of fear mongering with the schedule, which I think is, is a ridiculous statement, I'm just clearly stating who they're going to play this season and the fact that those teams are very, very talented and Nebraska will more than likely be underdogs in six of the nine games they play this season in the Big Ten. I will say that if you want to point out turning points of the past, I think it would be very foolish of me and unfair of me to not point out that they have plenty of opportunities to do the, the opposite of that. They have plenty of opportunities this season to turn you from hey, I'm skeptical to I'm optimistic. I think that if they're able to go on the road again on a Friday short week, beat Illinois, especially with Illinois, what they've accomplished over the last two seasons, 19 wins, wins over SEC opponents in their bowl games. Like if they're able to go and beat Illinois, you're going to go, whoa, okay. You know, hey, that's, that's a big one. That's impressive that you can go on the road, you can beat Brett Bielema and you could be the team that is super physical, super disciplined and does the things that you had weaknesses handling last season. If you can beat Washington, especially beat a ranked Washington team. And I know we've had a little bit of discourse with some of our guests about the whole, hey, the, the non, you know, the, the, the winless streak against ranked opponents like, you know, if you go back and you look at Colorado, they beat him in 2022 and, or, sorry, 2024 rather, and they were ranked at the end of the year, like that should count. Like some people have kind of pushed that off. Regardless of how you, whether or not you value that or not, it exists. It exists, okay? It exists. And there are a lot of programs that you would like to be like one day that go ahead and beat ranked teams when they come to your place and they play at your home. And if Nebraska is going to be like those teams they want to be like and compete with those teams at the top of the Big Ten, at the top of college football, they eventually are going to have to beat teams that have a number next to them. That's how this works. That's how the College Football Playoff works. If you want to win in the cfp, if you want to get to the cfp, if you want to be considered for the cfp, you got to do it by getting quality wins, which include being ranked opponents. I think if they were to beat a Washington team that I think is going to be pretty good this year, if they can just kind of keep the core together in terms of not letting the offseason distractions actually affect them in season, if they can do that, I think Washington will be good. Nebraska, were to beat a team like that, probably end up being their best win of the Matt Rule era. So I think that is a turning point opportunity for them. And then obviously the Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon games are massive opportunities to turn you the other way. And you know, we'll, we'll see. I mean, I, I am a big believer in Oregon. You know, they were a good team last year, but a younger team and they brought back a lot of guys from their roster to play for them this year. Additionally, think Dante Moore, one of the top quarterbacks in the country, could be a guy that very easily is the number one overall draft pick next season in the NFL draft. You know, Ohio State, they are the coaches poll number one preseason team in the country. Granted, they lost a ton on the defensive end and losing first round draft picks like Arvel Reese, like Caleb Downs, like Sonny Stiles. Sonny Stiles, by the way, is wowing people currently at the Washington Commanders training camp. Just to add, but it's one of those things where Indiana national champion, it's going to be the second time that a team who had won a national championship or ended up winning a national championship is going to be at Memorial Stadium playing against you. Whether it Be a win or whether it be just a super competitive game, those are three prime opportunities to show your growth, to show your player development, to show how far you've come from last season to this season. And those are three teams that are all minus money, you know, to make the College Football Playoff. That is your time to show, hey, we have an experienced team, we have a team that we retained, we have a team that believes in our coaching, we have a team that believes in our culture. And they took those strides. And so, you know, this, you want to say, oh, like, you know, looking at the schedule and pointing out that, you know, they probably are going to end up being underdogs and six of the nine Big Ten games that they end up playing, you want to call that fear mongering, fine. But the spin zone that you can use in this conversation and the conversation that Matt Rule often has with recruits is look at the opportunities that you have. So, you know, we could sit here and I could sit here and say, hey, these are the turning points that made me go from optimistic to skeptical. But look at this schedule, man. Plenty of opportunity to flip people the other way. Plenty of opportunity to show people the growth that you make. And I, I really do think that you were to ask me right now, Nebraska versus Illinois, who do you think is going to win that game? I think, I think Nebraska's got a pretty good shot at winning that game, you know, and the game though, that they're going to play before that, that Washington game, like that's going to be a, a really big one, man. And if they can win that Washington game, they carry that momentum into the Illinois game, they win the Illinois game, they carry that momentum to a Rutgers game where you're going to be the more talented team. I think that that stretch, that Washington, Illinois Rucker stretch is kind of the season defining stretch. That first stretch in the beginning where you get Michigan State of Maryland, that will set the vibe of the season, that will set the tone of the season, but your money is really going to be made there in the last week of October and the final two weeks or the fire the last week of October and the, and the first two weeks of November. That's where your money is made. I think it kind of, you'll lose a little bit of expectation in the Oregon Indiana game, but momentum carries momentum, right? You win those first few games against Maryland and Michigan State, you carry that momentum into those two games against prime college football opponents in Indiana and Oregon and then you follow that up. That if you're Competitive. Right. And not even if you win those games. If you're just competitive in those games and you prove to yourself and you prove to everybody else that you can compete against the best teams of the country, what is that going to do when you invite Washington into Memorial Stadium? Right. Like the schedule is kind of pieced out in a way where you can build on performance. You can build, you can, you can build yourself up to. Once you get to that Ohio State and Iowa stretch where you're like, all right, hey, we're feeling really good. Those you get your feet wet and two of the bottom opponents that you'll play this year in Michigan skate and Maryland, you care if you win those games, you carry that momentum into. You don't even have to win versus Indiana and Oregon, have confidence heading out of there. Right. You can just be super competitive in those games and you could say, hey, yeah, we didn't win, but man, we're farther along and we're a pretty good team and we could have won those games. What do you do when you carry that momentum into. If Nebraska is 5 and 2 after or 6 and 1 or we're very close to winning the Indiana Oregon games? You don't think that Halloween night might be a night game? Hopefully it's a night game. You don't think that Halloween game versus a ranked Washington team will be a massive game, will be a benchmark game in the history of Matt Rule at Nebraska? It most certainly will if those things were to occur. You can build, you can build on results on the schedule. I think that's an underrated part of the schedule, so. All right, you know, it's not underrated. Tim for Geese. He's an incredible writer for Inside Nebraska Rivals. He was at the open practice for Nebraska football today. Got some 1v ones between defensive linemen and offensive linemen. We got some in depth look at running back drills. We got some really great shots of Rob Orich hands on coaching up the linebackers. We got a lot of, a lot of things to look at on Twitter from the great media core that is Nebraska football. So we'll talk about all of that with somebody who was there. Tim Verghese of Inside Nebraska Rivals joins us next here in the 1620th zone radio network.
- [19:26]
A
Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, Filters ready to clog. H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it.