Hour 1 - The Warriors without Steph Curry

Published Mar 26, 2025, 7:59 PM

Colin highlights the importance of Steph Curry at age 37 as the Warriors continue to struggle in his absence due to injury

He points out the lack of "Cinderella" teams in the NCAA tournament doesn't matter as the TV ratings for the first round are through the roof

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Here we go on a Wednesday Baseball commission, Rob Manfred in one hour as the Major League Baseball season obviously started in Tokyo with the Dodgers Cubs, but it starts tomorrow as well. Major League Baseball. The team's operating going forward starting tomorrow, and Rob Manfred stops buy in Los Angeles. It is the Herd. Uh Jmack. It was interesting. So you know, you can you can add new members. One of my favorite fans of all time was the Eagles, right right, okay, and may you can you can add people to the band. But you know, Don Henley had the voice like in the end. You can add a lot of bad members, and the Warriors can add Jimmy Butler, and Jimmy Butler makes him better. But it is Steph's team. And last night was a great example because Jimmy Butler returned to Miami to the Heat where he got him to the finals, and he has been great. He has been great. When Butler and Steph play together, Warriors are fifteen and three. But last night's the difference between the two. Steph didn't play, Jimmy did, and the offense dried up. The starters for the Warriors at half had ten total points. And Lebron and Steph are transformational all time players, Top ten players. Luca got traded for a reason. Remember Lebron left Miami on his terms. Jimmy was traded out of town, right, So Luca is a great score, but the team's not as good defensively because he didn't share the ball as much. And in the NBA, if I don't touch it, I'm not playing d On the other end, and Steph between iq EQ off ball, on ball, scoring, culture, building, leadership. I love Jimmy Butler, but he's combative. He's a bouncer around the league guy. He's a super grinder. He's a more offensive, least skilled Draymond Green. But Steph's the entire package. Lebron's the entire package. You can love Keith Richards, it's mixed band. You can love Butler, it's Steph's band. You can love Luca, it's Lebron's band. And you saw it last night. Is that without Steph this looked like the team pre Butler, Nobody could score. The movement's not as good, they're not talking as much. And the Heat in the MAVs. Listen, both got to finals, right, The Heat got to the finals. But when they did with Jimmy Butler, Jimmy was overwhelmed and Luca got finals. But do you remember that finals? He was out of shape, he was gassed. Lebron James with Matthew Dellavedova Canosa Finals. He's not out of shape, He's not gassed. He just doesn't have enough combatants on his side. So's I can absolutely love Jimmy Butler, and you can add players to teams even like B plus A minus guys, I've said this. Everybody's got this. Hey, Luca guarantees this. Luca gets worked on the defensive end. We talked about this with Rick Buker yesterday. When Lebron sat out and he didn't play with Luca, they only lost. They were getting boat raced by bad teams because Luca sort of reverts back to who Luca is and why it wasn't Noah's great chemistry with the Mavericks. Guys are sitting around watching, they don't touch the ball. And this was Buker yesterday talking about the Lebron Luca dynamic.

When Lebron stepped out, it became the Lucas Show and it looked like Dallas. And the reason that you had everybody defending as hard as they were because they were touching the ball. They knew that if they ran the floor, the ball is going to be passed ahead and I might get a fast break lay up.

And that doesn't happen much when Lebron's out. So it's interesting. I had said this. I gave baseball about fifteen years off. I didn't talk much about it. The game got really slow, there was no urgency, the emergence of the iPhone. People are distracted and the stars were not in the right places. Otani was down with the Angels who feel invisible here in La County, which neighbors Orange County. And then Bryce Harper goes to the Nats and Aaron Judge becomes a star and Otawni is now a Dodger and all of a sudden, you look up and baseball speeds the game up. The defensive shift is eliminated, the bases are bigger, there's more base runners, more stolen bases, and baseball the last two years ratings attendance up. So Rob manfred as a commissioner of baseball on in one hour. He's always got a battle the purists. Baseball is like half amusement park half museum, and the museum crowd, the old school people, they're grumpy. The sky is falling with any change. So yesterday was a great example of that. So Jeff Passon was on. He's a very popular baseball writer for the other place. He was on a podcast and he said, you know, baseball is in an incredible place right now. They cannot have a work stoppage and all the steam heads come out of the woodwork. Nobody can compete. Oh good lord. The minute the Dodgers Yankees make a World Series, the sky is falling, crowd, nobody can compete. We need a salary cap. Baseball is never going to have a salary cap. Union's too strong. And you know, nobody is repeated in baseball to win the World Series since two thousand. That is the longest streak of any pro league in America, and the longest streak in baseball history. In fact, last year I looked it up this morning, the Guardians, Orioles, Royals, Tigers, and Brewers all made the playoffs. In fact, Detroit wont to playoffs. Thereies, they're all in the bottom half of the league in payroll. The league's never had more parody, never but speed up the game of the pitch clock. The purists didn't like it. The change in extra innings, the larger bases, good god, they suggested the golden knit bat used once a game where a star can bat out of order. People freaked out. Baseball's did an incredibly, incredibly healthy place. But no sport has more ninnies and whiners than baseball. I looked it up this morning. So you had last year, you had six guys sign a hundred plus million dollar contract. Six guys. They must have been all Dodgers. Nope, One was a Yankee, one was a Dodger, one was a Diamondback, one was a matt a Red Sox. One with San Francisco, six different places. They haven't had a repeat champ. But the minute the Dodgers and the Yankees get in the sky is falling. The purists are outrage. You have parody all over the sport. Now, I will say this Dodger team is insane, but we've all had somebody in our social circle. Hopefully you've eliminated them where you know, you go up and say, man, what a beautiful day, and they say, well, it could rain tomorrow. That is baseball purest. The sport's great. There's all sorts of bottom payroll team. I mean in the NBA you have eight teams that feel like perpetually. The Wizards, they're just not watchable. They had John Wall and they weren't watchable. They can't compete. They had Beal and Wall in their prime. They can't compete in the East. So I mean, yeah, the a's situation's ugly. But the NFL several years ago had the Raiders change where they were playing. The Charger moved, they had three to Saint Louis, moved out to LA. There was a real bumpy two year stretch of the NFL where like franchises were moving all over the country. Yes, the A situation is a mess, but this idea, it is just you know, like I gave baseball fifteen years off the first eight years here in the last eight at the other place, I just didn't talk it much. Last year and a half baseball has been unbelievable. All the stars in the right place. The game is faster, more base runners, more stolen bases, more activity. In fact, one of my questions now is I think there's parody in baseball. The place where you lack parody is pitcher and hitter. Not enough teams can hit two sixty five to two seventy as a team because the mound. Pitchers are bigger, stronger, faster, throwing one hundred miles an hour, and batters, even good ones, can be overwhelmed in this sport. That's where you lack parody. The pitchers against the hitters. The sport's fine. And as I've said, who pays forty percent of baseball's bills, TV Network, They don't care about parody. They want six really good teams, preferably in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, LA, and Philadelphia and maybe Houston. That's where they want the good teams, and that's where they are right now. So J Mack, We've got a lot of stuff. You know, it's interesting. People are pins and needles on what Aaron Rodgers is gonna do, and I've said he's a slightly better version of Russell Wilson. So Russell Wilson signed with the Giants yesterday and it landed with an absolute nothing burger. WHOA, I don't think I that is a third to fourth place team right?

Well, certainly, But is it possible that the Giants got win that Hey, Shndor Sanders.

Ain't going to be there with three guys. He's not.

He's gonna be gone. You better grab a quarterback before you get nothing. Right, What if Russell Wilson went to I don't know another team, then they would have no quarterback at all. So I think some draft stuff leaked out and that's why the Patriots went and got Digs.

Is Travis Hunter going to be there at four colin? I don't know.

Yeah, So the Patriots probably heard Travis Hunter is gone at four because the Giants are gonna have to select him because the Browns are taking a quarterback. Yeah. Yeah, So you know there's nobody can keep a secret. I mean, let's be honest. In the NFL, you get close to the draft, you got you got scouts that have worked for multiple teams. You got people who have been fired right, like, so you can't keep secrets anywhere. If you want to keep a secret, don't say anything to anybody. So I think what happened yesterday's a bit of a domino. The Giants find out Cleveland's taking a quarterback. The Patriots find out, oh, we better than signs to Vaughan Diggs because we're not getting Travis Hunter, right, That's probably what's happening.

And Neighbors and Travis Hunter is kind of spicy on the outside.

For the New York Giants.

They got a quarterback who just throws deep balls.

That's all Russ does. He doesn't want to go over the middle.

He just wants to throw the go routes to Pickens and Pittsburg's membery and it worked. Now you get Neighbors and Hunter. That's moderately interesting. With Brian Dable as your head car.

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Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in Neon Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app.

Welcome back Rob mad for Baseball Commission at the top of next hour. So Russell Wilson signed yesterday with the Giants. He's had some success in MetLife as a Seahawk, and Jameis Winston had just signed with the Giants, and you know what are they doing here? It's kind of a Donald Trump thing. Flood the zone. See if anything sticks. My takeaway is what Jay McK and I talked about earlier. It does appear Cleveland and I think this is a good fit. Is going to take Shudur Sanders. So cam Ward's going to go number one Shador Sanders, Cleveland's going to go number two. The Giants got wind of it and they signed Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston and they're probably in the Travis Hunter, who's the best pure athlete in the draft ballpark. And I was thinking about this this morning. The Giants have really become the Cleveland Browns where I'm dead serious, where I like the offensive head coach Stefanski won eleven games, rotated four quarterbacks and got to the playoffs. That's all I've ever needed to see. He's a good coach. Brian Davill won a playoff game with Daniel Jones. That's all I need to know. The rest of the organizations are trouble. I like the coach that got some good defensive players, and they are a sideshow at quarterback. The difference is this morning, Cleveland's going to get Shdor Sanders. The Giants are stuck with Russell Wilson and Jamis Winston. So Cleveland is now a better version of the Giants. The last time Cleveland was legitimate and stable at quarterback was Bernie Cozar mid eighties one five straight. We got five straight playoff appearances, total stability. Never been stable since the last time the Giants were stable. Eli Manning wins two Super Bowls in a five year period. It's been a mess, and if you look at Cleveland, it's been impulsive reactions from the owner. And if you look at the Giants, they've had patients. They're not Cleveland. They've had patients. They've just made horrible decisions. Joe Judge, Dave Gettleman Daniel Jones, then the extension letting Saquon go. So there's a lot of different ways to get bad Cleveland. It's mostly been an ownership thing. The Giants owner has not helped. It's been a bad GM thing. Joe Shane, Dave Gettlman just to me, are they're not elite guys and so. But the difference is this morning is Cleveland's going to get a quarterback who's a pocket guy, Shadeur Sanders, who I like more than the critics. Remember about a month ago when some of these mock draft guys were saying, hey, Shadoor may fall to the second round. J Mack first me following up said you're out of your mind. These guys are nice quarterback prospects. Far less talented quarterbacks have gone in the top five than shaduor Sanders and cam Moore. Cam Ward's going on. What this says today signing Russell Wilson is the Browns are taking Shaduur Sanders and Stefanski's a very good pocket quarterback, very good with Flacco, very good with Baker. That's what he does. Guys that sit in the pocket and throw ye. That's why Deshaun Watson's been if he Deshaun didn't throw great from the pocket. He moves a lot and he's not the athlete he once was, so you think I'm you know, listen, the Giants have the worst record in the league's his twenty seventeen. So when I say they're the Cleveland Browns, they the worst and they have the fewest touchdown passes in the NFL since Eli Manning retired. But the difference is the Browns this morning are gonna get their future quarterback and the Giants are stuck with two guys past their prime. And by the way, you couldn't get two more unique guys. I mean, here is goofy, weird, funny, authentic Jameis Winston and then sort of stoic, corporate some would say inauthentic Russell Wilson. It's a weird combination. But this morning, when I say the Giants of the Cleveland Browns, you snicker. The Browns are actually in the next month in better shape. They've got the best total player, Miles Garrett, they may have a better coach, Kevin Stefanski, and they've got their future quarterback, which they don't have it to pay a fortune for for the next four years. J Mack with the news.

No, no, turn on the news. This is the herd Line news.

All right, Colin, let's start with some crummy news in the NBA Bucks guard Damian Lillard has been diagnosed with a blood clot that's gonna keep him out of the lineup indefinitely. This is terrible news for the Bucks, for Dame Lillard, for NBA fans everywhere. We know the blood clot that Sideline Wemby put him out for the year.

I don't know how Dame is able to play.

In the playoffs, which which would be really crippling.

But this is just really bad. It's just for everyone. There's no winners here. I don't know.

Colin.

My instant take is forget about the Bucks this year, right, Yeah?

Stinks for day?

Yeah?

What about the superstar in Milwaukee?

Does he look around and say, oh, yeah, it's fs Is it working and this is his summer?

He asks out again, when you're Milwaukee and you can win it tight? They did it in seventy one, they did it a few years ago. That feels like enough, like you love like the Denver nug gets win a title with yo, you'd like to get one more. If you were in La or Boston and you win a title early with a superstar, you think you got four coming, maybe five. And so I think Milwaukee's settled the last several years for a team that's not it's not capable of winning, and the media is more friendly. It's a smaller market, if you know. The reality is this team's needed reworking. They took a huge swing on Dame because Giannis had basically threatened the franchise. You got to make a move. But in the process of letting Drew Holiday go, they're not nearly as good defensively in the back court. So I just feel like we just Milwaukee fans wonder why everybody Ohas says it's time to break up the band, And the reason is it's time to break up the band, like you're done making hits. You got no number one albums coming, so like it should have happened three years ago. And also what's worriesome is that Jannis isn't aging particularly well because he has no mid range game and so you can get the points, but literally he's much easier to defend than Jokich. Draymond can shut him down Graham On will acknowledge he can't stop Jokic, he can't stop Wenby. There's nothing he can do. He can stop you, honest, and he did last week. So I think the organization needs to take a big, like a big market swing.

Okay, well you know this is what we do. We do it here in the hot Take Happy Hour. Right we started out. Everybody's gonna say New York Knicks, right, Giannis, go to the Knicks. Okay, that's obvious. Let's not go there. The Clippers, we know, have a lot of money. Colin, I have just listening to you. Just now this crystallize. I have not run up by anybody on staff. Okay, I'm gonna float this.

So the Boston Celtics have a lot.

Of guys they got to pay. We know they don't want to go into the luxury tax. They've got two guys who are similar and Jayleen Brown and Jason Tatum. We just saw Dallas say give us Anthony Davis. It'll give us a chance. We get a star.

We lose one. We don't want like six first round picks.

What if the Boston Celtics said, we'll give you Jalen Brown and Derek White Holiday and a pick give us honest, and then the Celtics going forward would have a Yannis Jason Tatum new.

First of all, I think that's great. And because Porzingis is now which was his his brand is not available a lot, Drew Holiday again passed his prime and you're not gonna get much better on the market than Jalen Brown and Derek White and draft picks. So that, to me is a great movie, and I would do it if I was Boston and Brad Stevens again. If you win it this year. Okay, don't Pace, get fed, Hogs, get Slot, don't get don't get greedy on this lineup, like you guys got Drew's past his prime.

He's still really really good.

Good, Porzingis physically passed his prime. Derek White, this is as good as it gets. So I would do that in a second if I was Brad's story.

We didn't talk about last week, but the Celtics are going to be under new ownership. They were sold for what six billion dollars? Do does the new ownership group say, hey, you guys did great. We're gonna break this up and prolong the Jason Tatums.

Tatum's also having his best season, so he does look more like a clear one this year than any years previous.

And you're not giving up everything. You still got Peyton pitcherd who's one of the best six men in the league.

And you know Jason Tatum.

Give Tatum and I don't think you've a give up White and Holiday you give up one or the other and Jalen Brown and all of a sudden, Boston's got this runway where I don't know you talked three pet Joannisi Tatum together, Colin, there might be something there.

I would absolutely pull the trigger on.

Okay, next story, let's go to baseball, and the Dodgers won the World Series last year.

Yeah, that was.

Fun, but my Yankees also blew it well. LA pitcher Joe Kelly said it was quote a mismatch from the get go. If we had a playoff re ranking, they would have been eighth or the ninth.

Best playoff team.

And outfielder Chris Taylor said, quote they kind of bleeped down their leg A lot of trash talk from the Dodgers.

Well, New York manager Aaron Boom.

Was on Breakfast Ball then here's what he said about the trash talk today.

If we wanted I think it's annoying.

I'll say that.

I think thinking annoyed some guys. But at the end of the day, if we wanted not here, we got to play better and we got to be the team standard. So I don't know about motivation. You know, if you need that to motivate you going into one hundred and sixty two game season, you know, I don't. I don't really think that's what should be motivating us. It should be to be the best we can possibly be. And that's what you go to spring training to start that, and hopefully we can get back there and punch through this time and and and hopefully have some more respectful comments.

What were you doing?

I mean the the Yankees' biggest issue is no Garrett Cole this year because the two games in the World Series where it looked like they were the Dodgers equal, he started, and when he didn't, they were not the equal. And that's what I'll say. They did look like about the fourth best team in baseball because they weren't. I didn't think they were a very They weren't as athletic as the Dodgers, they weren't as deep, their staff wasn't as deep, and the Dodgers just ran better, fielded better, And of course there was that disastrous fifth inning with the Aaron Just drop, which we're showing, but it did it. I don't think that the Yankees are I mean, they're probably a playoff team, stop it, but I probably Well, Garrett Coles, the game change. They're not winning big playoff series without it.

Well, that's a different thing than being a playoff team. They're going to the postseason, that's sure. I will just say this budding rivalry of trash talk Boon saying this Yankees Dodgers Colin, that's really good for the sport as you head into the season to bohemos on each coast that spent a lot of money are now lobbing some barbs back and forth.

I like that, don't you good for the sport?

All right?

Final story Colin is Adam Schefter reported yesterday the Titans were going to have another private workout with cam Ward, but he also reported this is interesting. It would take a substantial package for another team to trade up to one to grab cam Ward. Now, just a few moments ago, news broke that the Browns have a private workout with cam Ward and president will be owner Jimmy Haslam, GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski. So the Browns all of a sudden want to look seat at cam Ward.

What's your read on this?

Is this that, hey, we've got your door in the bag if we want him. Let's just take one more look at cam Ward to see if we want to bump up and maybe we part with.

I don't think these quarterbacks are transformational, so I'm not giving up multiple picks to get them. If they fall to me, I'll take them, but I wouldn't give up multiple first picks for either one of them. Yeah, they're good players, good prospects. I think both can succeed. Listen, last year, the top quarterbacks mostly went to defensive coaches. Pennix to Raheem Morris, Caleb de Eber, Blues, Jaden to Dan Quinn Okay who what was the one that surprised us bo Nicks with Sean Payton. So this year, you know your number one pick the Titans. That's an offensive coach, number two pick, offensive coach, number three pick, offensive coach. So I do think these quarterbacks are less talented than last year. But they're going to go to offensive coaches. That is a huge I mean bon Nicks. A lot of people in the media, not us. A lot of people are like bo Nicks is a second round quarterback. He made the playoffs with an average roster. That's the power of an offensive coach, a good one in Sean Pate Colin.

It's interesting.

Listen, we like Bryce Young as a person we know, but that deal is going to look historically bad giving up DJ Moore and whatever else.

To move up.

I'm gonna go ahead on record and say I don't see teams trading up for a quarterback unless it's like a guaranteed lock that the guy's going to be a superstar, like a Caleb Williams. I think that Bryce Young really reset the market. I don't think anybody's trading up for seor and we like him, but.

I'm not mortgaging.

No, I don't think there's a player. I'm dead serious. I don't think there's a player in this draft in the first round worth trading up for. I'll say one player I like that fits the tight end from Penn State. If you were like, let's say if you were the Jets and you're like we you know, we're not great at quarterback. We could really use because the Jets are, like, we got our running back, we've got our receiver of the future, and our left tackle. Right, you could have your four cornerstones, back, receiver, left tackle for the quarterback that comes in eventually to take over the franchise, the great quarterback. I could see the Jets moving up for a team that wants to get their cornerstone of skilled people in left tackle for next year's draft.

Yeah, and listen, this is a longer discussion, but next year's draft, this whole arch Manning stuff, some fans are gonna be like, let's keep our powder drive for next year. We gotta go get arch Colly. Can we just go on record and say, we don't know if arch Manning is going to be a very good quarter He hasn't started at all.

He's got the last name, he's got you know, he's played pretty well, he moves pretty well.

We just haven't seen enough, right, Like, I don't want to put the brakes too much on arch Manding, Like, but nobody knows if he's even a first round quarterback at this point. Do we think that, God, how many games has he started a.

Text, Well, next year, the quarterback class I think is better at the top. It may not be as deep, but there's there's four or five guys that look like they'll be first rounders. Arch is one of them. But it's it's next year's class is not the one that had like Tua Herbert burd It's not that it's not that class.

I remember last year we were talking, well, hey Carson Beck, he's gonna be picked.

At now that whoa whoa whoa guys.

Hell now Carson Beck got another year, We got another year at tape. It's like he's still in college yet.

J Mack with the news, Well that's the news, and thanks for stopping by.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but it was funny. I was reading some politics yesterday. There was no outside of the Miami Heat Warrior game. There wasn't a lot of games I want to watch, so I watched a live listen to three or four podcasts. I listened to an La Times Patty Hurst podcast. I was listening to podcasts all day yesterday and watching shows, and I was sitting there thinking, you know, there used to be a term that was used a lot it's not used much anymore in sports hot take politics, the hot takes are insane. There's a forty a day. I mean, everybody exaggerates everything. It's like, folks, go look up the Paddy Hurst story, the Pentagon papers. You have no idea what was happening in this country in the sixties and the seventies, and the radicals like take a deep breath and so like today's show. And maybe that got me in the mood watching all the hot takes in politics. But when I saw people attacking Jeff Passon for saying baseball's in a great space. Do just google who made the playoffs last year? It was like a bunch of low payroll teams. You haven't had a World Series repeat champs. It's like twenty two thousand or twenty twenty or whatever it was. It's like forever longer than any other sport. The Patriots and Chiefs have overwhelmingly dominated the last twenty five years in the NFL. Nobody in baseball has nobody. And so the other thing I've been pushing back on is this hot take that I saw this headline yesterday. The nil and the transfer portal are sucking the madness out of March again. TV ratings illustrate that we're not watching for madness. We're watching for Duke. We're watching for favorites. Memories. We know this that lawyers can poke holes in eyewitness testimony because memories fade and change over time. It's called partial recall. You remember something twenty years ago, but your brain fills in the rest. And that's why good attorneys will poke hole and eyewitnesses. And you start talking, talking yourself into circles and misremembering stuff, and you know, you talk about all this mad madness and all these upsets. So give an example. The three biggest memories for most people watching college basketball. Number one is the Christian Latner shot he played for Duke. They beat Kentucky. No Cinderella in that moment, two massive brands. That's the most memorable shot, in my opinion, in the history of the tournament. Second, you could argue second is young Michael Jordan hitting the basket against Georgetown U n C against the Hoyas, No Cinderella, John Thompson and Dean Smith, two huge brands. Now we can go back to the Volvano play, but I would say Chris Jenkins of Villanova a number two or three seed beating North Carolina a number one seed. Those are three semi recent memories of college basketball. You name me, remember a couple of years ago. My point is, there's how much mythology about Cinderella. Never forget Cinderella. That was That was a moment, but she was a house cleaner for the other three hundred and sixty days a year. Okay, right, you've made Cinderella and oh my god, that was a night. That was a ball. That's it, right, that's that wasn't the profession. And my takeaway is it's all mythology. Is that remember a few years ago there was an upset. What was the upset we had? Oh yeah, UMBC, the number sixteen seed beat number one Virginia. Do you remember the next game for UMBC? Oh, you don't either, because that was the greatest Cinderella and you forgot what they did in the next game. So this whole March madness is done. We don't watch for the madness. We watched for big brands. That's why this this weekend is going to be great because one of your upsets was John Calipari beating Rick Matino, and that's about the best upset. You could have Calipari winning as a polarizing head coach. This is just more mythology. And that's like people. A lot of people say they're gonna work out, they're gonna go on a diet, and instead they go on ozempic. They don't go to the gym, and they don't eat right, they don't eat at all. They use ozempic. And you're not watching for these small brands. You can't name two players on VCU with Shaka Smart or George Mason. Unless you're a college basketball coach, you don't remember it. So the NIL helps college basketball. It keeps stars in for another year. Some guys will say, now on a lot of these college basketball programs can pay a million dollars for a great player they step up it. Or I can make three hundred thousand dollars in the G League. I'd rather play in the Big Ten, and I'd rather play at Duke Carolina, Michigan State, Michigan. I'd rather play there. So that's where it helps. And it also cherry picks mid major guys, which nobody watches anyway. So again, take a deep breath. We're watching. We're watching for March and brands, not the madness. And if you want to talk madness, it's Latner hitting the shot over Kentucky. That was nuts. I watched that live. That was crazy Duke against Kentucky.

I'm sure you saw the ratings Colin or thirty plus, a year high. So they had to go back to nineteen ninety three when the ratings were this high for the first two rounds.

Do you want to guess who was playing in nineteen ninety three the Fab Five?

Okay, you go, when they went up against UNC, historically great team, hugely popular, culturally relevant.

That's when the ratings were massive.

Okay, I mean, in my life, the most popular college basketball teams have been the Latner Duke team, the Patrick Ewing Georgetown team, the Jordan Worthy Carolina teams, UNLV UNLV with Tark, which I call Every Johnson's Day. And that was, by the way, it may have been a Vegas was an emerging city, but that was a big brand. Those are the most popular.

And Fab five have to be close to you.

And I'll argue this forever. There is this total false narrative that Villanova beating Georgetown when they were both in the Big East was shocking I did the Roly mass Amino show years later. He said, we matched up great with Georgetown. We got annihilated twice against Chris Mullen, Mark Jackson and Saint John's. Our staff was like, we were hoping we had ed Pinkney. They had Ewing Pinkney could defend he goes. We loved our chances against Georgetown. We could play him anywhere we matched up. So that was seen as a massive upset. If you remember back then, you could slow the game down, you didn't have to shoot and so but it's like baseball's got parody. Take a deep breath. It's fine and march madness. The ratings are telling you people are into everywhere I went this past weekend. I was in Chicago this past everywhere. Who what the game's were on everywhere?

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By the way, did j Max make in fun of me cause I beat During the break? He said, are you watching any streaming things? And I said, I The only thing that gets me. The only thing that gets me to a theater is not actors outside of Tom Cruise, it's directors. I'll go to watch a Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderberg, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, those four, those four will get me to a theater. And Tom Cruise that's him.

So it's a It's official.

You're not only an airport snob, but you are a movie snob.

Now, I'm I am not a movie to get me to a theater, and I have one walking distance from where I live to get me to a theater. It's based on Tom Cruise or the director.

But don't you love the theater. You're not on your phone, nobody's bothering you, no asks, and you're just chilling.

Watching the movie.

Buy My House is amazing. In the bar they got food, it's it's fantastic. But I would say that's what now gets me in the writers and the directors. I don't know a lot of these movie stars. They're political, they're weird, they're precious, they're off putting. It's like, I'm not interested. Give me old school cruise. I know, I sound like an old guy, but there's just you saw what happened to snow White? You get political like America is like not interesting?

Did you see snow White?

Have you seen the numbers? I know all time three four hundred million dollars loss disaster?

Well, who was the actresses?

Snowey?

So that matters if it was Sidney Sweetey. I'm in the theater, okay, night. You know I'm not gonna lie, but I don't know the actress.

So that's why I didn't check it out.

Sidney Sidney Sweety would be snow right.

Oh yeah, there we go.

Okay, So here's a I didn't like stefanng Diggs. Three year deal, seventy million with the Patriots. What is that about? Coming off in acl wrong side of thirty getting? He has My worst quality is any The worst quality a man can have is needy, and he's getting needier and crankier. And I'm not anti Stefon Diggs, but we're talking about now a second major injury. I would not saddle Drake May with that. I just wouldn't do it. And best available option doesn't mean it's a good fit. And you know, I think happened is what Jay McK and I have talked about this morning. What you are basically seeing the Russell Wilson move is a domino move by the Giants getting Russell. That is telling you Cleveland is taking Shadeur Sanders. That is telling you the Giants are taking Travis Hunter and the Patriots at four are trapped. And Mike Vrabel why did he get fired in Tennessee? He lost AJ Brown, they couldn't score, and he kind of felt like an outdated guy in Tennessee. They got rid of him. So his take is, I'm not doing that again. I got to have some receivers because when he inherited this team, the Vrabel's going to figure out the toughness and the physicality and the run game. That's what Rabel does. But there's only so much Rabel can do to the perimeter, and they don't have any weapons. And so my take on Stefon Diggs, they don't love this move. They don't want to pay him half this, but now they think the Giants are going for Travis Hunter because the Browns are getting Shadour Sanders and the Titans are taking cam Ward. So you're seeing the dominoes plant. That Russell Wilson move is not really about the Giants. It's about Shahduur Sanders, and I think that they're kind of trapped and their take is okay, all right. I mean the last the Patriots are desperate ride receiver. The last receiver they had that had ten plus touchdowns is Randy Moss. And so I can see a lot of downside with this. I don't see a lot of upside. And it's super expensive, so I don't get it. Here's another NFL move and I saw this the Some Steeler fans think that Aaron Rodgers won't fit in Pittsburgh. Okay, Aaron Rodgers doesn't fit into any football culture. Okay. He's a really talented guy who is unapologetically independent, and it's very clear since about twenty twenty, Aaron is here's his brand. I'm gonna say what I want when I want. I'm gonna do podcasts, I'm gonna talk politics, i'm gonna talk government. I am what I am, and you can shape around me And by the way, if you get me, I want you to bring in some of my buddies. So that's what he is. That's not a football culture. That's an Aaron culture. And that's fine. He is unapologetically independent and aloof and it's his nature to go against the grain. I don't have a problem with it. But that's why the market's so small for him. But it's not about fitting Pittsburgh's culture. He doesn't really fit. I mean, Tom Brady, the ultimate team quarterback, he had issues. He talked about those yesterday. He and Belichick had some much tension because like he didn't think he kept taking pay cuts and Tom's like, I'm taking pay cuts yet I don't have any wide receivers, so you're not using the money to get me guys that can play. And so at the end, Tom didn't feel Belichick was holding up his end of the bargain, and Tom Brady was right. So football, when you lose collaboration, even Belichick and Brady don't work and they dominated the sport. So by the way, Patrick Mahomes is probably saying to his front office, get me a left tackle. It's not a receiver. I can win without great get me a left tackle, because that's why I said, Joe Tooney leaving the Chiefs is problematic. Best offensive lineman Mahomes has been humiliated twice in Super Bowls. Why O line failed? Left tackle failed. So that's what could disrupt a dynasty in Kansas City if they can't protect him. Guys, get guys. I mean, that's what Brady and Belichick had broken up. It was no longer collaborative. Tom felt like, I'm pay Cutch. You can't get me any skilled players once Edelman, you know, got to the end of his career and left. So you know, I mean, Aaron's not going to Pittsburgh and he and me and Joe Green aren't showing up at a bowling alley in a car wash. He's not going to be a parents guy. He doesn't fit in Pittsburgh. He's not He's not a culture guy. At this point. There are stories out there, you know. Back in twenty nineteen, Tyler Dunn wrote an article and had a source inside the Packer building, and the source told Tyler Dunn that the Packers told Aaron in twenty nineteen, don't be the problem. Well, since that time, Aaron's now seeking his third team, so he his you know, the Packers viewed it as dude, all this independent, sort of passive aggressive stuff. It's a problem. It's not really the way our league works. You can do it in the NBA. That sport is about the player. I mean, it's all you have to do. Pittsburgh. I don't know if Pittsburgh gets Netflix, do they get it there? Look at Netflix? Aaron Rodgers Ayahuasca darkness retreats. He's not a Pittsburgh guy, but it's okay. He wasn't really a New York guy. That that's Aaron Glenn and I have this source. Aaron Glenn basically said to either Aaron or his agent, it's not just the quarterback, it's the guy. We don't want it, so, you know, and my thing is at this point, you know, it's like companies, if you're gonna hire somebody, do your homework and vet them. If you bring in somebody that has an established brand and then you push back on it, that's the company's fault, Like it's Pittsburgh's fault. At this point. The Aaron's not subtle or nuanced or hiding who he is. He's he's Hey, I'm going to Egypt. I'm not I'm off season. You get some of me, you don't get all of me. And Aaron's telling you up front who he is. He's not lying. You're not like, hey, I'm totally committed. It's not He's gonna do music festivals, Egypt, podcast, gonna do.

All of it.

He's very upfront with it. He's up aologetically independent and aloof at times. It's your issue if you bring him in and expect him to fit into your culture. It's not what he is anymore. He's not a fit into your culture. Guy Rob Manfred next

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