John Middlekauff (0:00)

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John Middlekauff (1:06)

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John Middlekauff (2:40)

What is going on, everybody? How are we doing? I said, you know what? I got a I got a migraine that I don't get very often, but I was basically bedridden all afternoon on Wednesday and I was unable to do the podcast. So I was like, you know what? We had a little less content this week. Let's put out a weekend mailbag. At John Mittlekoff is the Instagram. At John Middlekopf is the Instagram. Fire in those dms. We're gonna do a little weekend mailbag. So I rattled off about probably about 30 minutes worth of worth of stuff. And that will be the game plan today. Very simple. You guys know the drill. Subscribe to the podcast. Everything's up on YouTube as well. But first, the official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time. If you want to go to a football game, college or pro, we have you covered. Okay. It doesn't get any easier. They got flash deals. You can go to games for as cheap as a hundred dollars. Here's the best part of Game Time. So many of these ticketing apps, you press on a price and then they hit you with the fees. The fees are already baked in, so the price you see is the price you're going to pay. So take the guesswork out of buying professional football tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account and use a code JOHN. That's JOHN, $20 off your first purchase terms apply again, create an account, Redeem the code JN for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go download the Game Time app today. Doesn't get any easier than that. Kind of like. Listen to this podcast. Okay, let's, let's just dive right in. I'm going to try to go rapid fire. So it's not going to be, not going to be too long. If the Chiefs beat the bill Sunday, is it on the board, they win out the rest of the season. I know the Colts are good and the Broncos are ahead of us in the standings, but I feel like Bo Nicks is going to let them down once December and January come around. Also of the podcast, watch it every day. I appreciate you. I would say winning out like it's the NFL, are they going to win out and go 14 and 3? That seems a little, little unrealistic because in the NFL, like I would say, they lose one of those Broncos games, which would probably be the one in Arrowhead, which is very understandable. You can have an excellent. You can go 12 and 5 and lose a couple division games. You know, division games are really hard, I guess. The Chiefs have already lost the Chargers. They're not going to Lose the Raiders, but I could see them splitting the division so I could see them losing one of the Broncos games. Yeah. To me, the Chiefs feel like 12 and 5 now. They got it rolling and they have a higher ceiling than I think they've had in years because the offense is much better, even though they've been going to the playoffs. Big Ravens fan here. Love the show. Keep it up. I just need to understand something. How is the media saying Drake May is the new Josh Allen and the Patriots and the Patriots are back when they clearly see their schedule has been a joke? I know they beat the Bills, but that was one game. Do you actually think they could be better? That he could be better than Allen? No. I mean, Josh is one of the more dominant players we've seen in the NFL in a long time. But, you know, sometimes I think we're very hesitant. Use Brock Purdy as an example. He became a really good player, but he was a seventh round pick, so you had to like fight to get your respect. Jordan Love, Same thing, right? Kirk Cousins and Dak Prescott forever. Russell Wilson. Took him years for people to be like, oh yeah, he's really good. When you're. It's the opposite. When you're drafted really high, it's like one good pass from Caleb Williams. Oh, he's the next great thing. It's like, let's just see if he can play the position. When you're drafted high and you start making plays, we anoint you pretty quickly. Now he's having an excellent year. Now I get they're playing bad teams. He doesn't exactly have, you know, Gronkowski and Edelman running around. I would say his weapons aren't great, but there was a lot of hype on this kid. I mean, once upon a time, Nick Saban offered him $5 million to be their quarterback. Think about that. And it wouldn't have been wrong. I remember it was a big deal when he's like, yeah, I chose to say at North Carolina and he's got a chance to be really, really good. Unless you're Ryan Polls. You thought he sucks again. I'm not making that up. He said that in the draft meeting. Do teams have in house financial advisors to help rookies make responsible financial decisions? It seems common for young athletes to blow through millions of dollars without considering that what they won't earn that the salary for the rest of their lives. I think teams, it probably varies a little team to team. I mean, most teams have some sort of developmental guy, typically former player, like high level guy. I would say like this is going to sound a little cold hearted, but that's not necessarily the NFL's problem. Right. I mean they can hold your hand, but eventually like you got to make the decisions. I would put the onus more on the agent. Right. I'm paying you, so you figure it out. Now ultimately I will help you out. You know, provide things like real estate agents, help you get a lay of the land, obviously help you around land other business deals when you're a good player with our partners. But am I worried about what you do with that money? As long as it's legal? No, not really. So if you want to buy five Lamborghinis or invest it all into one of middle cuff stocks, that's ripping. That's kind of your decision. That to me should be the number one push for an agent is hey, I got multiple financial advisors who are here to support you. I'm caa, I am David Mulgetta, I'm whoever. I have this infrastructure here to take care of you. The team's just the one paying you and they're the ones that we're going to get the money from. So I not saying the teams don't care, but like it's not really their, the least of their worries. If you are financially stable when you're 40 years old, the agent who you're literally paying should be all over that to help you out. That's, that would be my thought. I also think the reality, I've never been super rich when I was, you know, multimillionaire at 23 years old. But you're just, we're men, we're going to make them decisions. We're going to buy dumb, I, I probably buy dumb things. You buy dumb things that if we were the other person we'd be like, wait, you're spending money on that? It's part of life. Big listener mailbag Question, what do you think the Vikings will do with Kevin o'? Connell? Obviously he recently signed an extension, but numerous reports saying he's losing the locker room over how he handled the Wentz injury and how they've been babying J.J. mcCarthy. Vikings haven't won a playoff game since 2019, which was before O' Connell was hired, I believe. Not saying it's all on him, but this is a results based business. I haven't been deep on the Vikings Reddit boards or their local podcasts or radio shows to hear that. I have not seen anything. I'll take your word at it. There have been. And listen, this is part of football. When things get ugly, losing the locker room, I mean, I think a lot of people are wondering and. And rightfully so. Like, the JJ McCarthy thing seems a little sketchy. It's like he roll his ankle. Do you hurt his hamstring? What the fuck's his injury? He's healthy enough where you can put him in pads on game day if there's an emergency, but you can't start him. The whole situation has been red flagged. And when you start babying a player on a good team, I know they're technically not good right now, but a team that is, guys have won and knows what winning a lot of games look like, it can start resentment. And I think he's got to be very careful about it. The best coaches will pivot off. Okay, you like this guy two years ago in the draft. Well, we're three years later and he can't play. And if that's the case and he can't play, then you got to pivot. And if you do pivot, players will respect you. I saw Kyle Shanahan pivot so fast your head would spin. He wanted to like him. Turns out he wasn't good and they pivoted. Now, part of pivoting is you got to have another option. But. So it's like he had Purdy to turn to. But you, you cannot let a mist draft pick on a quarterback sink the ship because if you do, everyone will be fired. Now, Kevin o' Connell now is really rich. Signing the extension he's probably making, my guess, would be 12, 13, $14 million a year. But so it's at the end of the day, whether he's fired or not. Like, it's not like it's going to change the course of his just life with his family. Like, they're set for life. I think that's what you call generational wealth. It's funny, you know, on the Internet, sometimes generational wealth, it's like you got to earn $700 million. Like, no, I mean, I think you guys are a little inflated on some of your numbers. So I think Kevin o' Connell is going to be under a lot of pressure if this year keeps going south. What are we doing next year? And are we going to have loyalty to this guy if he does not play well? Because if you do, then this thing's going to get really ugly really fast. If he will be like the guy that drafted him once upon a time. Listen, you can talk a lot of shit about Belichick. He's not the greatest drafter especially down the stretch these last four or five years. But he would make cold blooded decisions and this is a cold blooded league. You get too emotional about players. I mean Andy Reid traded Tyreek Hill in the peak of his powers. Sia adios will go a different direction. You got to be willing to do that and if you're not, you will lose your locker room and games. So I, I just something to keep an eye on this year. I he'll get a little bit of a pass rightfully so they the quarterback situation which might have been his doing but regardless it happens. How are they going to pivot next year? I wanted to hear your preference on your favorite commentators. Would love to hear your thoughts for football and other sports. Personally, I'm a big Collinsworth guy. I look for a couple of things. One, I like Chris because he enjoys football and you could feel his excitement. Some people might say he's a little cheesy, a little over the top. Like I admire that my go to type commentator would be like Aikman when he's kind of on edge talking some shit. Like that's kind of what I like. You know, maybe I lean a little more negative. Like I have nothing against Tony Romo and every once in a while when I have, you know, now with these four boxes, sometimes you're not always listening to the top game. But when you listen to Romo and Nance, like Nance is a big part of my life. I watch a lot of PGA Tour golf, so I've spent a lot of hours over the last 20 years watching gymnast. So I like hanging out with Jim Lint gymnast. I do think the Romo thing is just can be a little over the top at times. But I also watch it like, yeah, it's an easy hang whether it's cheesy or not. And I would say, you know, Collins Worth is better than Romo, but I think those are easy. I think a lot of like the second and third tier broadcasts can be really horrendous. I mean I'm not going to name names, but if you just start getting anyone that has a team that's not very good, when you're watching the lower rung, like fifth games from CBS or Fox, you're like, oh my God, this is pretty bad. So I would say, I would say Aikman's my favorite. I was watching the World Series. It might have been the gummy I was on, but I was thinking John Smoltz is good. I saw Daniel Jeremiah tweet this out maybe like a Couple weeks ago, just saying how impressed he was. Like, John Smoltz's knowledge of baseball. I was like, God, this guy, if he was a football announcer, he'd be heralded as the top guy, for sure. I mean, the guy knows baseball. Like, the intricacies of the different moments and what you should do, what you shouldn't do. It's like for a guy that plays golf seven days a week, this guy's dialed. I think he's. I think he's excellent. Trying to think basketball. I always liked Van Gundy not stand. Jeff, who's fired, who got fired from tv, is now, I think, the Clippers assistant coach. But I was a big Jeff Van Gundy guy. Yeah, I would say that's. My list is relatively short of people. I would quote, unquote, good. I'm also like most. Most of you probably. I've watched so many games that I get numb to a lot of the commenters. Like, I don't even really pay attention. If anything, I'm just listening for nuggets that I can use in the podcast, like stats they might spit out. I actually like the college game. You know, I think. I think Herb Street's really good. J. Billis has been good for a long time. I think Klatt's good. I like. Yeah, I like actually a lot of the college quarterbacks. McElroy definitely like Jesse Palmer, I'll always enjoy. I feel like I've watched a lot of Jesse Palmer games. I feel like college has better ones than the NFL. Yeah, I feel actually pretty confident. I feel like college has better broadcast than the NFL. Not in terms of, like, maybe the graphics or whatever. I'm just mean actual people in the chair, they just feel a little. And maybe there's a little less pressure so they can just be normal. I just. I don't know, Might have to do a research project on that. How can you take sports gambling seriously after the new NBA scandal came out? The NFL has so many missed calls and so many questionable penalties on a weekly basis. Plus, what happens one week means nothing the next week. It's called gambling. I. The difference between basketball and football, and we've talked a lot about this, is there's always been a human element with the referees. The broadcasts are so good with the cameras now that we see a lot of these things. Like, historically, when a ball hit two people diving for it, it was clear who the ball went out of, went out on. Right. In basketball, for example, forever in the NBA, in college, in high school, pickup basketball. Now with the Slow mo replays like I went off the tip of his finger. We just know more information. It's impossible to rig NFL games now. Like you said, an official can miss a call. It's hard to be an official now. I've always said, like, if you miss serious calls, you should be fired. They never are. And maybe you could say, well, John, they're in on it. I would say, yeah. Part of not knowing what's going to happen week to week is what makes the game so interesting to gamble on where in basketball, like, you know, the bad teams, like they're going to get routed week in, week out. And Chauncey Billups was literally throwing games. I heard someone say this the other day. Like, isn't it crazy that we thought it was a bigger deal for Chauncey Billups to screw over people in a poker game than it was for him to tell someone, I'm going to manipulate the outcome of this NBA game. That was the bigger headline. Tells you everything you need to know. I think the NBA is easier to rig. I think it's harder to rig in the NFL. I also think it would have come out. I think it's just too big, too much money. People, people would have talked. Maybe I'm naive. Lifelong Browns fan and we have two first round picks. We are expected to pair them and take a quarterback. But with our O line literally having nobody coming back and no wide receivers, Judy is a two at best. You almost can't evaluate a quarterback. Dylan is short and looks blah. If Sanders plays for us, he, he has no chance. Stefanski has a bad track record. Watson looked terrible, but how much do you blame him or the organization? He didn't want to play for us, but he took the bag like miles. My thoughts is that Watson, when he comes back might be our best quarterback and we need to draft an ot, a wide receiver and an ot. If we bring a rookie quarterback into this mess, he will just look awful. Do you think this puts. Do you think put best hope. The team's best hope is to build a team around Watson and start him next year. You can never start Deshaun Watson again. That ship hasn't just sailed. You could never roll him out. His career with the Cleveland Browns is 100% done. You just, you can never do that to the fans. I do think I'm with you, you know. And I've been saying this for a while in Stefanski. It's like everyone tells me how great of a coach he is, but I watch him deal with these off these backup Random quarterbacks and the offense looks worse and worse by the week. Now you can say, well, his offensive lines terrible. I've seen a lot of teams with bad teams figure out ways to manipulate points. I do think the organization is effed up. I mean, the owner's nuts. They were given the out with Miles Garrett. He said, trade me 30 years old. You could trade him for like two ones and two twos and reset your franchise. And they refused to do it. And I just have a hard time believing the GM wouldn't have traded him. But I don't know. I do confidently believe that Watson will never play for you again and you can't, you can't play him anymore. I'm a lifelong Buckeye fan, born and raised in Columbus and have been attending games with my dad since I was 4. As you stated, you are a lifelong Ohio State hater. While I certainly can understand and have run into many with similar feelings, I am curious, what do people truly hate about Ohio State? I'm in the cult through and through. So I can't quite see the forest through the trees. Well, I think typically people like, don't hate Minnesota football. Jaguar football. The Atlanta Hawks. Right. The Chicago White Sox. Who do people typically hate? The Yankees. The Dodgers. The Chiefs. Right now the Patriots. Forever. Duke basketball. Part of what makes sports fun is like, I don't have any tangible reason to hate Ohio State. Right. I kind of do, I guess with the Lakers as a kid. But you know, it's like the, the Sacramento Kings, who I was a fan of at the time, have been the worst run franchise probably in all of American sports for 20 years. The Lakers impact them zero. But I have this irrational hate toward the franchise. When I see it, I just cringe. I don't really have a reason. I really don't. Especially now that they're bought by this new owner and Luke is on the team. I would say the same thing for Ohio State football. Like, listen, I want to act like Ryan Day, some scrub, but his resume speaks for itself. He's doing a good job. Matt Patricia hire looks good. I mean that's undisputable. Like it's kind of worked out. Brian Hartline elevated offensive coordinator working out pretty well. They're a. They are the cream of the crop in college sports. And listen, I didn't grow up going to USC football games in their prime. I went to Cal football program sucked in the 90s, wasn't any good, didn't get good till Jeff Tedford showed up there. So my point is, like, I've always. I like some favorites. Like, I've always been a fan of Duke basketball, but I also like the Red Sox with Ortiz and Manny before they could beat the Yankees, because I was kind of rooted for them because they were the underdog. So I kind of pick and choose. I don't know. I just don't like Ohio State football. I feel like I like a lot of the guys that played there. Right. Like reading all about Mangold last year. It's like this type guy. This is my type guy. Dustin Fox used to go on his radio show all the time. Former player in the mid 2000s with those guys. AJ Hawk. They seem like I got a cool crew. I never watch Cam Hayward. I never watched Ohio State guy. Especially ones that go on to do other things and not go. Yeah, guy's really impressive. I just don't root for the team. I'm just rooting for you guys to lose. I need someone to root against. And the power of sports. And this goes back to Howard Stern, when they asked him, like, well, how long do they. Do his fans listen? And then he said, like an hour. He said, well, how long do the people that hate him listen? He said that's where he gained such a big market share. They listened for double the amount of time. And that's the strong part about the Yankees, about Ohio State football, about Duke basketball, is the haters pay attention. And that's. That's the most powerful part of the Ohio State brand, beside being the elite brand, is the haters just have a strong of an emotional connection. I have no reason to hate them. I just kind of do. I don't know why. I don't really like Notre Dame football either, though. Marcus Freeman's kind of grown on me. I don't know. Some people you just don't like. I mean, I just. I think we need to get back to that part of society. You don't need to like everybody or you don't need to pretend to like everybody because clearly humans don't like everybody. Like, we need to get back to that world where it's like, yeah, just don't like this guy. Why? I don't know. I just fucking can't stand him. Today's show is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. Hard Rock Bet is the only sports book for whenever you're in Florida. It's also live in Arizona, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois and Colorado. Coming soon to more states near you, we're down to the final stretch of college football. Every game, every rivalry. Every upset matters more so right now, get in on the chaos. Bet just 5 bucks and if it hits, you can take home $150 in bonus bets on top of your winnings. How do you beat that? Plus today and tomorrow on Hard Rock Bet, you can bet on college football Profit boost for the games. Boost your college football parlay so your bet pays extra winnings payable in bonus bets. Not a cash offer. Offered by the Seminole Tribe in Florida. Offered by Seminole Hard Rock Digital LLC in all other states. 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