Two for the Win
Mike is a U.S. Navy Veteran and Bryan has more than a decade of civil service experience. Together, these blue collar guys dissect the latest sports headlines and events.
Two for the Win
Two For The Win - S2.64 - When Sports & Society Collide
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What a week to love sports. We start with a gut-check on mental health and loss, then swing into a packed slate: Olympic chills and spills, USA hockey’s double-overtime glory against Canada, and the way Italy turned competition into theater. From there, baseball seizes the mic—spring training opens with pure weirdness, the World Baseball Classic brings bracket fever to the diamond, and a Honus Wagner twist proves that story can be as valuable as ink and cardboard.
We also get practical and a little heated. The WNBA’s labor standoff sits at the crossroads of momentum and money: players deserve more, but a holdout could stall hard-earned gains. On the men’s side, we debate whether elite high school stars should leap straight to the NBA and why development still matters even in a world of NIL and pro-ready bodies. College rankings churn, rookies bomb threes, and the NBA’s future looks fast and fearless.
The NFL never sleeps, and neither do contracts. We break down early retirements, cap-trim cuts, franchise tags, and the growing power of elite kickers who change field math from 60 yards out. We question a proposal to let replay officials throw flags—good intent, bad pacing—and highlight a quiet act of class when a team paid a near-miss incentive anyway. Beyond the box scores, we spotlight Robert Kraft’s Blue Square initiative fighting antisemitism with data and Florida’s Teddy Bridgewater Act that lets high school coaches legally help athletes with food, rides, and recovery. It’s the best of sports: performance married to purpose.
If you’re here for sharp takes and real heart, you’ll feel at home. Tap play, share this with a fellow sports nut, and tell us your hottest March Madness upset pick. And if you like what we’re building, follow, rate, and leave a review—your support helps us keep bringing the heat.
Opening, Agenda & Condolences
SPEAKER_01February 27th, 2026. Welcome back everybody and thank you once again for joining us for another episode of Sports Talk. I'm Brian with an eye. And I'm Mike. And we are two for the win. Mike, we have another loaded agenda tonight. Can you uh tell our listeners what we're gonna be discussing this evening? Maybe give us uh small rundown? Small rundown, yeah. Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_02Gladly like to do that. The words right out of my mouth. Olympics may be wrapping up, but world competition has not ceased. We'll get to that. Uh baseball, kicking off spring training, doing its thing. Basketball, not to be outdone. We got the March Madness just around the corner. And NFL, is it ever really over? Because we're talking combine right now, free agency, draft. Draft is right around the corner. We're only a little over a month away.
SPEAKER_01Man, NFL, always on. Man, it sounds like we have a fun agenda tonight. Uh, and uh another and uh announcement of our own coming up here just shortly, as we've uh been teasing. Uh, but real quick, before we dive into any of that, uh we just want to give our condolences to the families and communities of uh Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Rondell Moore, who passed away at the age of 25, and Hall of Famer uh Mazarowski, uh whose home, who's the one whose home or won the World Series in 1960. Uh, you know, our condolences, thoughts, and prayers go out to their families and those affected by their passing. Mike, what do you got, buddy?
Mental Health Reminder & Resources
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so Bill Masarowski, uh Pirates player who uh hit the home run to win the 1960 World Series. Uh obviously his passing is is not a shock because he was older, uh, but still, you know, when you lose a family member, it is still heartbreaking. Uh on the other side, Rondell Moore, uh this was an unfortunate circumstance where he's only 25 years old, so this was a sudden thing because he committed suicide. And don't ever feel like your problems are so much to a point where you have to take this road because this is a permanent solution for temporary problems, even though things may not be great in your life. And I know I know some people are like, he was an NFL player, how could he be sad? How could that look? You don't know the man's problems because you don't know him well enough or have interacted with him to know what was going on with him. But it's okay to reach out for help. It's okay to say you're not okay. So I just implore anybody listening, if you need help, always try to seek it out.
SPEAKER_01I agree, and also uh, you know, feel you know, the National Suicide Hotline as well as available. Um, and I just want to add to that, like um coming you know from myself who's dealt with, you know, uh depression and ups and downs through my life, you know, through various things, uh, as well as some of my close friends and family members. Um, you know, you people every day, you don't know what people are fighting, okay, what they're dealing with, okay? Um, and so for him to go down or anybody to take the avenue of suicide, they must really feel like they have no other escape from what they're dealing with. So you have to understand and empathize with how hard a decision that must be for somebody to make that uh decision for themselves and to go through with it. So I just really want to, you know, give our thoughts and prayers out to those people dealing with uh things of that nature, and that uh don't ever feel bad about reaching out, don't ever feel like you're burdening somebody because we want you here alive and well and happy. Um, and there are people around you that will help you get back to that gladly. All you have to do is ask.
SPEAKER_02All right. And the power of phone calls is a great thing or a text message. Sometimes just reaching out to somebody you ain't you haven't talked to in a long time, you'd be amazed at what it can do for somebody.
Sponsors And New Wrestling Partner
Olympics Wrap-Up And Medal Table
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And before we move on here, don't underestimate the power of doing something for yourself. A lot of people don't do that anymore. Do something for yourself. Take yourself out to eat, get some ideas, take yourself to a show, maybe a live wrestling event by MATW. You know, take yourself somewhere fun that you can enjoy. Because you believe it or not, that will do a ton for your mental health, uh, regardless of what you're going through. But I digress. Uh, and here we go, guys. I want to say thank you to our sponsors and partners uh, real quick before we dive in here. Uh Body by D Gym, located in Yorktown and Gloucester. Uh Deshaun Wright's a former bodybuilding champion uh himself, training future bodybuilding champions right there out of both his locations. Uh that gym, they're doing great things, Mike. I'll tell you what, they are very community-oriented. Uh, they sponsor a lot of youth programs, youth sports, uh, you know, dog training. Uh, you know, where is it? What's the dog training thing? Uh it's not care. I forget it. Uh anyway, moving on. But they're doing a lot of great things up there in that gym. I'm sorry, I'm short-sighted tonight, y'all, so you have to hang with me a little bit. Um, as well as uh our good friends Katie and Christian uh over at Solace Outfitters, two young athletes, basketball players, in fact, uh, and we are in the season of basketball right now, uh, as well as uh, you know, highly talented businessmen as well, so at such a young age, and I think they're seniors, they're graduating this year. So congratulations to them. Uh I know Caden just played his final senior game uh this past week. So congratulations, guys, uh, and keep on going, man. We're watching, uh, as I'm sure a lot of other people are, as well as uh the Giving Tree Chiropractic down here in Virginia Beach. Uh Justin's very knowledgeable, it's very outgoing, very welcoming as well. Uh family run business, actually. Um, and he's uh does he's very good at what he does, and he has his pricing structured so he it can be accessible to anybody regardless of their budget. So I think that's admirable as well. Um and for our final sponsor, Mike, we have a new one, and this one is a big one. They're all big ones. I'm always excited whenever we get a new partner, everybody. Uh, but this one in particular is also very special to me. Uh, Mid-Atlantic uh Territory Wrestling, M A T W. Uh they operate mostly up on the peninsula. Sometimes they come down here on the south side. Uh they're building a very, they have a very strong classic style of uh pro wrestling. Uh just very great. We have some things coming down. We're gonna be raffling off some merch by them as well as tickets for upcoming show. Uh they have a show coming up actually March 14th in Yorktown at the Body by D Gym at 106 Constitution Drive. Uh I believe, let me pull up their page. I had it up here just a second ago. But their next event coming up is a live taping. And by the way, you can catch them on Right Now Network as well as on YouTube. Uh so I I'd say go give them a shout, go check them out, like them on social media. Uh, and also they're now selling, they have merch, but they're also selling minifigs. Uh so you know, these guys are doing a lot, building a solid wrestling company, and we're excited to be partners with them now, uh, Mike. Uh so welcome to the team. We're excited to be part of your team. Uh, and get on over uh matw.com as well as World Championship Creations uh to check out the minifigurines, which just went on sale, and uh, you know, we're as excited as they are here. I got a quick question for you, Mike, and those of you listening, maybe you guys can think about this one as well. Chime in our social media, okay? Uh so speaking of action figures, right? Yeah, Mike, say you're being sold as an action figure. What two accessories do you come with?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'd probably have to come with uh with my dog, you know, have a have a little dog sidekick. Uh would definitely be part of it. Um I don't know. Maybe maybe uh baseball or football or something that I could you know put in the hand and just like hit a button and throw it.
SPEAKER_01I think that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Very uh very vanilla answer, my friend. I appreciate that. Thank you for your honesty. Uh I think I would come with an axe. No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_02No, I think you'd come with a beer.
SPEAKER_01Why did I mean I do enjoy a good beer, but I don't drink as much as maybe we're making it seem like. But I do enjoy a good beer. I'm a good, I am an IPA and craft beer aficionado. I like that. But I would say I'd come with a motorcycle or a car, a nice car, not like a Prius or something. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but that's not an accessory. That's more like that. That is that is something you buy in a whole lot of.
SPEAKER_01Hold on now. A dog isn't an accessory, it's a companion.
SPEAKER_02No, they do they do have action figures that come with stuff like that where they have a sidekick. I can't.
SPEAKER_01Like a dog or something. And I can't come with a vehicle. I can come with a motorcycle. They have action figures that come with motorcycles and cars.
SPEAKER_02The vehicles are always sold separately. You had to buy those separately.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the car is sold separately, but the the motorcycle fit in the package, okay? No, it wouldn't.
SPEAKER_02It'd be sold separately too.
SPEAKER_01It's a unicycle. It's a unicycle motorcycle. That's how they did it. Oh, you'd get a unicycle, would be your obviously I would come with a helmet for safety. So. So a unicycle and a helmet. No, unicycle and an axe. Could you imagine riding down the highway down 264? It's sound like me in my polo shirt wielding an axe. On a unicycle. A big axe. We're talking like stormbreaker.
SPEAKER_02Dude, this is this sounds like something you would see in Portland.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like, you know, this sounds like some Northwest stuff.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no. This like Portland has a sign that says keep it weird, Portland. And they were the first ones. Forget Austin. They didn't have it first. It was Portland first.
SPEAKER_01But I do believe you're right. They introduced gauging your cheeks, which was, you know, I don't know if that's phenomenal or scary.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, we're we're on a little bit of a side rant here. We are on a side rant.
SPEAKER_01Let's go ahead and jump in tonight's agenda, everybody. Let's jump into some Olympics talk here. Here we go. I'm gonna let you take it, Mike.
SPEAKER_02Alright. Alright. So Olympics have wrapped up. They ended, or at least the main Olympics have ended as of February 22nd. So it's wrapped up. Medal count, finally, final medal count is determined with Norway kicking everybody's butt because they had 18 gold medals, 41 medals overall.
SPEAKER_01Even after Crotchgate.
SPEAKER_02Right. But anyway, moving on, moving on to us. We came in second. We had 12 gold medals with 33 overall, just beating out the Netherlands, who snuck into third place. Netherlands with 10 gold medals and 20 overall.
SPEAKER_01Not bad.
SPEAKER_02You know, not bad at all. Not bad at all.
SPEAKER_01And actually, I feel like Italy should be in third.
SPEAKER_02I feel like Italy should be in third. I'm I'm just noticing. There is something askew. You know what it is? You know what it is? They have them in third because they have more golds and silvers than Italy did. Because Italy had exactly 10 with six silver and 14 bronze, giving them 30. So actually, Italy total middle count would be in third. But Netherlands, for the gold count.
SPEAKER_01They got more medals overall.
Speed Skating Injury And Athlete Risks
SPEAKER_02Yes, but they're obviously doing this by the gold.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the Netherlands has one more silver than Italy, and Italy has that's why. But Italy has 14 times. Eleven more bronzes. I think Italy should be in third.
SPEAKER_02If you're talking total middle count, yes, but I that's not how they did it. So don't worry about it. We're not going to analyze that.
SPEAKER_01That is the weirdest. That's weird.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, so they paid somebody over, but really it's not over. Just so everybody's aware. Uh we do still have the Paralympics starting March 6th through the 15th. That's right. So though, so don't get it twisted. The competition in that is just as good as the regular Olympics. So but given that the Olympics have ended the first part, we're talking about some memorable things that happened in it. You know, like there's plenty of things to you know kind of go over and and remember from this Olympics. Um, one thing that kind of got overshadowed though, the speed skating, right? There was an issue in the speed skating where one of the women competitors in the 1500 speed skating event, she actually got a really bad injury. So for those who didn't know that don't know about this, what's happened? These speed skaters actually, underneath their suits, they are required to wear this cut resistant suit underneath their suit because these skates are incredibly sharp. And unfortunately, there was a skater who wound up catching one of these blades. Because you're going so fast, sometimes you just wipe out. And unfortunately, that is what what has happened for the Poland skater named. Come on, Brian, right up here.
SPEAKER_01Where is his name at? In the top right?
SPEAKER_02Camilla, Camellia Cellier. I don't think it's Camellia. I think it's Camellia, not Camellion. You wanted to say Camellion. I say Camellia. Anyway. So she unfortunately caught the skate to the face. And you can't find any video really on this. I mean, if you're watching it, you probably saw it.
SPEAKER_01By the way, this is a this is a joke I usually tell. So the fact that this actually happened.
SPEAKER_02No, this actually happened. And they they quickly got her out of there and got her treatment. They said that she'll she'll be alright, like she didn't get any serious, serious damage. But, you know, these are the types of things that like people don't understand. These competitions are pretty intense. I mean, you know, we did have we did have the crash of Lindsay Vaughn, where she almost lost her leg. Yeah. She apparently, because her doctor was there and was able to help her, she had uh I forget what they call it, but it's basically a syndrome where all of a sudden the blood is not making its way through, so it kind of compresses and gets blocked up, and it starts killing off nerve cells and muscle. Yeah, it's a bad thing. Like you could wind up losing your leg over it. Yeah, but because her doctor was there and noticed what was going on and quickly said, Oh no, no, no, no, we gotta take care of this, and basically opened up both sides of her leg to let stuff come out. Yeah, it uh saved her leg. But she's still got a long road ahead of her, and poor Lindsay Vaughn. She needs an uptick of this roller coaster because after she had her crash, a few days later, she found out that her dog of 13 years passed away.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_02It's like, can we get this woman a break, please? No, I know, but in a good way, like please, man.
SPEAKER_01When it snows, it storms. Sure.
Figure Skating Stories And Golden Moments
SPEAKER_02But how about Alyssa Lou, man? Yes. Like, to go from the point where you're like, I'm done with skating, I'm retired, I don't want to do this anymore, but then to come back and say, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it my way. It's my music, my my show, I'm dressing the way I want to dress. It's all me.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, and this is actually this is actually a uh, in my opinion, a very interesting story, okay? Uh her father, there is a single father, right, and she's the only child. Her father used an anonymous egg donor to have her, right? Uh grew up in skating, quit skating, and I did some reading on her. She kind of like, you know, knew she wasn't dumb, but kind of wanted to be done because she was under a lot of stress and pressure, right? She didn't like the way it was going. Well, they're planning everything for her. And her dad begged her to try skating one more time, and she said, okay, but only under my circumstances. And her dad agreed. And look what happened. She's gold medalist in the Olympics, okay?
SPEAKER_02Um, and honestly, if you didn't catch her skating, like you wouldn't have even known that she was competing in the Olympics with how loose and how calm she was. She was just like, I'm gonna go out here and do my thing. If I win, I win. If I don't, I don't.
SPEAKER_01She is described as one of the most exhilarating and one of the smoothest skaters there is in the competition.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she just didn't there was like no sign of pressure. Unlike the quad god, he uh he felt the pressure and he fell twice during his singles competition and uh unfortunately didn't he finished eighth overall instead of actually getting away.
SPEAKER_01You know obviously the you know, the forbidden move, you know, it was great, but I don't think it helped him much. Did they allow that or did they take points from him for that?
SPEAKER_02You just don't gain anything from it. Yeah, if you do it, they're not gonna be like, you know, here's a bonus points because you did it.
SPEAKER_01Because I was watching a video on this, and the the first person to do a backflip in that competition actually was a uh female African woman or a female black woman. Well, she's first nationality, but she's not the first to do it. She was one of the she was one of the first ones to do it.
SPEAKER_02The first one to do it did it back back in the late 80s. Yes. And was interviewed during these competitions and uh Scott Hamill, I believe his name was, he was the first to do it in competition. And uh wowed people back in the day.
SPEAKER_01You know, and it's history, it's it's funny because they actually go into the history of the popularity of the backflip, not just as it comes to ice skating, but in general. Like gymnast actually popularized that move. So it was a little it's very interesting. I highly recommend it uh if you can find it.
USA Hockey Double Gold Thriller
SPEAKER_02I don't know what it's called, but the but let's move on to talking about the one of the most exciting things during this Olympic for at least for the US our hockey teams. Our hockey teams not only made it to the gold medal game, but both won it and both wanted an overtime, and both against Canada. Sorry, Canada, silver for for you and both, but the women's crushed it and they were they were good the whole way, and so were the guys. Yeah, and it's it's so amazing that they both made it into the finals and did the exact same thing. We both won in overtime. Now, I know Canada, the at least the men's team, is kind of crying about the fact that it went to overtime and you did a three-on-three, but I don't want to hear that because you guys went three on three against Finland in order to get there in the first place. So your crying means nothing when you had to do it to get there. And then, first off, you guys had multiple chances. We were down where it was a three-on-five situation because of penalties, so you had multiple opportunities to score a goal to not even allow it to go to overtime, and then on top of that, you you nail one of our players with a high stick, and Jack Hughes knocking out some of his teeth before we go to overtime, you know.
SPEAKER_01By the way, can I just highlight this crossover by Connor Helbuk? I hope I said his name right. It's Hella Helbuk, right? Helbuk, hellabuck, hella buck. So if you go back and watch this crossover, because this is nothing less than flawless and beautiful. I mean, this guy just put an entire nation on the edge of their seat with this move. Um just I think he had 42 saves in this game. Just absolute flawless cross-up right between the legs. As soon as it comes, as soon as he gets around the opposing player, just swipes it in the goal. I don't think the goalie or the defending player saw that come in. Uh obviously the the move that won it in overtime. I thought that was just an incredible way to win a goalie.
SPEAKER_02I think you're talking about Hulenbach was the goalie who stopped what would have been a winning goal because he he hit it off of his his end of his stick.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I may I may have those players mixed up.
SPEAKER_02You're you're mixed up totally, dude. Yeah, I may have the players mixed up. You got it mixed up. I got you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's fine, but I'm I'm I'm talking about the move itself. I may have the names mixed up in the player.
SPEAKER_02The move you're talking about was to save a goal, not score a goal. The move you're talking about, even President Trump asked him when they weren't because they were invited to the game. I thought he made the goal.
SPEAKER_01I thought the No I thought the winning shot was on the goal.
SPEAKER_02The winning shot was made by by Jack Hughes. That's who made the goal. And that was the guy who got busted in the teeth. I was going to get there. Jump the shark, dude. You got ahead of me. Anyway. So, no, what you're talking about is literally there was a a point where he used the butt of his his goalie stick to knock the goal away. Oh, yeah. It looked like Canada was going to score. But uh more importantly, when they went to three on three, that's not what I went to overtime. And when they went to three-on-3 on overtime, when they went to three and three on overtime, they have Connor McDavid, one of the fastest skaters in the NHL. And most people, if you said, Hey, you're going to go to overtime, we're going to give you Connor McDavid to be part of your three-on-three that we're about to do. You're like, slam dunk, I'm taking that every day. That's like saying, Hey, we're going to play three on three basketball. Uh, you're going to get prime Michael Jordan on your team. Oh, okay, yeah, I'll take that. You know, like, yeah, I mean, this really bothers me because I saw that so Jack had a great move in overtime to get the winning goal and get the golden goal basically, winning this this thing outright. But because of Hallenbach's great performance, uh, President Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his valiant service in the goal. I mean, that's I don't think I've ever seen a president give a medal to an athlete before like this. So that's that's kind of you know cool, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, congratulations to him. I'm not knocking him. Uh and again, it was a great performance by Team USA. I'm sorry for the information mix up. I don't know what clip, I saw a clip of this, what I was talking about, but obviously I got it confused. But Mike got me straightened out, and we will continue on here.
Hosting Kudos And Olympic Side Notes
SPEAKER_02Uh, so you know, beyond that, I mean, I I feel like the Olympics was a huge success. And kudos to Italy for really putting on a great show on both the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony, but also hosting all these nations. And and it really, if you watched any of it, you saw that it was a very beautiful setting for for all of the events, and they really they really did do a great job hosting the Olympics. And to all the athletes that performed, just kudos. I mean, there was there were so many good things that happened. I think even Brazil got their very first medal in the Winter Olympics. So there was a lot of like really cool stuff happening.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this was a I gotta say, this was one of the more fun Olympics. Uh, there was a lot of fun side stories. I mean, the the Olympic village winning out of condoms, you know, uh crotch gate, the bob slitters losing control of their bobsled, all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_02The Canadian curling team getting in trouble for moving stones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and then also, you know, can we also put a brief spotlight on uh Brittany Bowe, the 37-year-old uh Olympian, skated in her final race on Friday. This was obviously, you know, last Friday, uh, which is the day after we record, or two days after we record normally. Uh so she skated, she came in fourth in the women's 1500 meter uh skate final. So she's a four-time Olympian, six-time world champion, uh, and a world record holder, as well as her and her fiance uh are getting married.
SPEAKER_02They pro uh I guess Well, I mean, that's what you do with a fiance getting married.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, her girl, I guess her girlfriend, her fiance, her girlfriend, her is now her fiance. Uh they met at the Olympics and then come around to this Olympics full circle moment, they're turning it into forever. Um, so congratulations to her and them, and capping off an incredible career for her as well. Uh, a lot of these uh Olympians, especially as we've highlighted, some of these female Olympians have overcome quite a number of things to get to where they're at and have really capped off quite a career, some of them pioneers in the sport that they're currently about to retire from. So, congratulations to all the Olympians uh for competing because it really just takes a lot in general to go there and compete.
Hockey Milestone: Coach Hits 1,000 Wins
SPEAKER_02So, switching gears, we're gonna jump into hockey to acknowledge uh a milestone. Uh it's not often when you have something big happen in hockey that it kind of seems like most people just kind of gloss it over. Right. No, no, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and give some love here. Uh the Ducks coach did something that is pretty impressive. He's only the second coach to have this happen. And Brian, go ahead, take it off with the name because we love giving Brian the names to say.
SPEAKER_01Can Brian say the name? Here we go. Uh Joe Quinneville. Joel Quinneville. Joel Quinneville.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, I didn't see the L there. Anyway, reading's hard. He has reached a thousand wins in his career. One thousand thousand wins. And think about it, like, he's only the second to do this. So obviously you've got to have some longevity because you're not gonna get there quickly. You need at least Obviously, you are a hell of a coach as well. You need over a decade at least to try to get close to this. But you've got to be a good coach in general.
SPEAKER_01To have that many wins. I wonder what his win-loss record is. I'm sure it's extremely high. I just I just want to know the numbers. I'm a numbers guy. I should have had this prepared ahead of time. It was pretty cool. We used to do things like that.
SPEAKER_02See this this guy, this guy does not does not want to do it. Do it! Anyway. What are we doing? I was gonna look for the numbers, but I'm not gonna do it. We're gonna move on. We're gonna move on. Because uh, yeah, we just wanted to say congratulations.
SPEAKER_01We might be the most ill-prepared podcasters that ever existed.
SPEAKER_02I don't know about that. It could be worse. It could be, it could be a lot worse. It could have like dead air, could have, you know, random sounds of like coming in and interrupting.
SPEAKER_01Okay, dead air is the devil, okay? That's what mama said. Right.
Spring Training Begins And WBC Pools
SPEAKER_02Anyway, so let's move into some baseball. So, like I said the earlier about baseball's gotten to spring training, but really uh what is exciting right now, and what I was alluding to before about competition not being over, not just because the Special Olympics is happening here soon in March, but we are also getting the World Baseball Classic. So the World Baseball Classic is an awesome event where we bring a bunch of these nations together to square off in baseball and do a bracket style, you know, pool-based bracket kind of situation. So we're gonna have four pools of different nations and they're all gonna compete. And hopefully, hopefully, we'll do well. Honestly, honestly, I like the last time. The last time we did it, Japan just steamrolled everybody because their their team was at the end.
SPEAKER_01I love I love this because this is kind of like NHL's Four Nations bracket. Oh, like I love seeing alternate competitions in brackets for pro sports. Well, and the funny thing was like the World Series and the All-Stars, right?
SPEAKER_02This came before the Four Nations, so you could almost say the Four Nations kind of were inspired.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I guess the Four Nations, you're right, this did come before the Four Nations, and maybe they probably were inspired by this. Uh so I I love it, honestly, because it's like a different flavor of baseball, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean we're getting all kinds of nations. I mean, we're I mean, Israel's gonna be in there, Great Britain, Brazil, excuse me, Italy, America, Japan, I mean, South Korea, like we're we're getting Australia, everybody.
SPEAKER_01This is not just like, oh, we're just getting your sharing a bracket with Brazil, uh England, Italy, uh, Mexico. Yep. So that's a very I mean it's not it's not out of the normal. I would expect to see those cut those countries grouped together. I don't know. Are there any surprises here? No, not really. Just looking at this brief, you know, thumbnail.
SPEAKER_03No, there's no surprises.
SPEAKER_02Looking at this there's no surprises, but what might be a surprise, uh, we we had alluded to before in previous episodes that Jeff Kent is getting ready to go to the Hall of Fame. So, you know, Jeff Kent probably getting a lot of congratulatory phone calls and stuff, but he got a little bit of a surprise recently. You know, typically he does not answer phone numbers he does not know. So he's like, ah, just spam. I'm not answering. I know the feeling I can relate to this. Something told him in the last phone call he was getting that he needed to go ahead and answer this one. He wasn't sure why. He just, you know, decide to answer. Never know. So he answers the phone, and the guy on the other end of the line says to him, Jeff. And he he's he's like, This guy knows my name. Who is this? He's like, Yeah. He goes, Jeff. This is Johnny Bench. Hefey. So Johnny Bench, the Hall of Fame catcher, and probably one of the best catchers to ever play the game, is calling him. And he almost missed the call because he thought he was a spam call. So he answered it and he was like, Imagine my surprise. I'm getting called by one of the legends just to congratulate me on making the Hall of Fame. But kudos to Jeff Kent for answering the phone, because if you didn't, you'd be kicking yourself.
Jeff Kent’s Surprise Call And Viral Spring Clips
SPEAKER_01You know, I guess if there is ever a time to take a chance on a spam call, it was that one time. So good call, good judgment, good intuition there, my friend, on on that one. Something told him to answer that phone.
SPEAKER_02Yes, something did. And kind of impressive things, an impressive thing that came out of spring training here recently. Um, so I kind of alluded to this player last year. Eluded. And I was telling people that Jacob Meserowski, y'all need to pay attention to because this dude's gonna be something else. Jacob Mizery. Mesurowski.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Um sorry. So he's he's known for hitting like triple digits on the regular with his pitching, and you know, he's he's kinda got that almost Randy Johnson vibe to him with the way he comes through and his fastball's just like barreling down.
SPEAKER_01Is his nickname Rampage?
SPEAKER_02No. So anyway, it's not real then. No, Randy Johnson was a pitcher for for many years in the MLB for multiple different teams, and he was he was the guy that one of his pitches he was throwing, I think it was during a spring training game, and he hit a pigeon with the pitch. Like the pigeon flew across right when he was pitching, and he nailed it with the ball, and all you saw was just poof, big old poof of feathers, and then a bird and a ball going to the backstop.
SPEAKER_01I bet PETA had a heyday with that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, they were pissed about it, I'm sure. But getting back to Meserowski and what he did in pr in spring training, I guess he heard that story of William Tell shooting an arrow and nailing the apple off of uh off the head of somebody. Well, he decided to do this trick with a baseball and you know 104 mile an hour baseball with his buddy sitting on a trash can and have an apple on his head and his ball got nailed. If you haven't seen the video, go look it up. It's pretty impressive. But just to have one, for the to have the waivos to sit on that trash can and let him throw that pitch, but two, for that pitch to come in and just wham, nail that ball and not even touch his friend is so impressive. Go look at it if you haven't seen it. Jacob Mizarowski throwing a pitch to knock knock the apple off his friend's head. The other interesting thing that came out of spring training uh happened in one of the games. It was a it was a Red Sox game where their right fielder, and here we go, Brian, name right there in blue.
SPEAKER_01Oh, snap. In blue, it says Thursday's game. Oh, you mean up at the top there. Sorry, my bad. Your fingers okay. Will your abreu. I'm going will your abreu. Okay. We'll go with that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Reminds me of Atreyu. Whenever you whenever you watch baseball, I don't care how long you've been watching it, it seems like something happens that you've never seen before. And this qualifies because he had a check swing and his bat broke. Now you're saying, why is that such an interesting, unique thing? Because we see bats break all the time. Uh, but typically they break when they hit the ball. He didn't even hit the ball. He literally checked his swing and the bat just broke.
SPEAKER_01I'm thinking manufacturer's defect. I I'm thinking the man's so strong that he got that inertia going and the bat said enough and just Yeah, I mean he just he just cracked it in the right spot and it crumbled. I mean, if you look at where the bat broke, it broke right above his grip. Which is also I don't normally see bats break that close to your grip.
SPEAKER_02Usually they're up usually usually it's like there was a hit. You know, there was something in the cause.
SPEAKER_01And you're right, usually they hit the ball too when they break. This guy was on the swing and he didn't even get to the midpoint of his swing before the the it looked like the bat just fell off the handle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I remember the the announcers just seemed dumbfounded.
Triple Plays, Oddities, And Card Collecting Gold
SPEAKER_01Like, what the umpire, the the ball flies. Did the umpire catch the ball or did he get hit with it? I don't know, but I remember the umpire.
SPEAKER_02Oh he was he was pointing at the bat.
SPEAKER_01Pointing at the bat. He was pointing at the bat. He's like, the bats! He's over there.
SPEAKER_02Don't don't get hit by it. But anyway, so if you get a chance, go look up this very unusual Abreu bat break because he didn't touch anything. All he touched was his his hands. So he just snapped his bat.
SPEAKER_01That's right. It's on mlb.com with a whole bunch of letters and signs after that. Sure. So that's the URL. That's how I describe it. Hmm, okay. Just go to MLB.com, we'll be up there on the home page.
SPEAKER_02So hopefully, most of you may have a an older family member that has stuff squirreled away, and maybe you might get lucky and go through that stuff one day and find yourself a Honus Wagner original baseball card. You'd be very lucky considering that this card came out 117 years ago now. So if you happen to find one of those, you just made yourself five million dollars because that's what the most recent Honus Wagner went for was five million dollars at auction.
SPEAKER_01You may ask yourself, how did I get here?
SPEAKER_02No, but here's the thing there's two reasons why this is interesting. Not only the fact that you're making that amount of money on a card, but originally, this is not the first time a Honus Wagner original card has made a lot of money, but originally for this card, there was a time when they had one of these cards go to sell, and it would have been the nicest condition card ever. Ever. So it went to auction, and Wayne Gretzky, the great one from hockey, the great one, happened to be the person who bought it. But here's the thing he went and had it analyzed because there's something not quite right about it. Uh-oh. And it was a little too perfect. And what they found out is the guy who had the card had taken and trimmed the card ever so slightly because it wasn't it the exact size it was supposed to be, because he had trimmed off the edges to make it a perfect card. So now it is one of the most famous doctored cards in history, and actually, because of the story, is worth more money. So Wayne Gretzky made out even after that.
SPEAKER_01Wait a minute. Why did he trim you talk was it for like a card protector sleeve, or was it just not the right standard size of a card?
SPEAKER_02He trimmed the outside edges of it because he's trying to make it a perfect card because the edges were a little messed up.
SPEAKER_01So by trimming it almost like a misprint, right? Where it's a little crooked.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no. It wasn't that it was crooked, it's the edges were a little damaged, and so in the card grading world, the more perfect the card, the better the grade, the better chance you get of getting more money.
SPEAKER_01So he so he took off like a hair of the card.
SPEAKER_02He took a hair off the card, and technically it should be worth nothing now because you screwed it up. But because of the famous story and the famous buyer and the amount of money that was put on it, now people want to get the card.
SPEAKER_01So way to luck out. Oh my gosh, what a stroke of luck and a turn of events. Like, yeah, this should be garbage right now, but it's not.
MLB Injuries, Moves, And Honors
SPEAKER_02It's not, it's not, it's because of the story. You got something cool, cool out of it. So, since spring training is underway, there's been some play and there's been some bad news and good news happening around the league. Unfortunately, for the Orioles, they have gotten some bad news because of their their third baseman, Jordan Westburg. He's not gonna be there for opening day. He has tweaked a right oblique, so he's gonna be down for a little bit. So there's no timeline, and that's not a good thing. When you hear no timeline, that means he could be out for a while. We don't know.
SPEAKER_01We just that's not a good sign.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So again, how I said that baseball kind of produces things you haven't really seen, or maybe you have seen. One of the most rare plays in baseball, you maybe, maybe get one or two a year in baseball, is the triple play. But recently there was a game between the Giants and the Cubs, and this I have to tell you, this triple play made no sense. So, first off, there's two players on, first and second. The batter hits the ball into right field for a single, right? Kind of makes sense right there that you know runners move up because you hit a single. Well, somebody should have told the guy at third to keep running because he didn't. But the guy that was going from first to second, he ran past second base. So the fur the guy that hit the single was thinking, Oh, I'll move up to second. Right fielder said, Nope, threw it to the pitcher. Pitcher threw it to the second baseman who tags out the runner who hit the single, and then he looks over and he's like, Oh, there's two people standing over there at third base. Let me go get my extra out. So he runs over there to tag somebody, and at the point when he goes to tag somebody, the guy that's on third base steps off the base, so he tags them both and gets a triple play. Like he go go look it up. It is it is pretty like even the announcers are like, Did he step off? What a bonehead play! Why would you step off? Yeah. Giving him a triple play. Oh man. Baseball already starting out, giving us some good stuff.
SPEAKER_01You know, baseball's kind of been hitting some good storylines for us all the way to this point, even in the offseason. So uh, you know, baseball has been holding strong for us on the storylines, on the storyline.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Quick little storyline Reese Hop Hopkins has found his next team. He is gonna be playing on a minor league deal with the Guardians, and he'll probably be up. He's a he's a Good player, he just kind of bounced around a little bit. You know, he was a staple there for the Phillies, went to the Brewers, didn't have such a great time with the Brewers, and now he's gonna be playing with the Garden.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, not a bad roundabout of teams there. Phillies, playoff competitive, uh Brewers, playoff competitive, now hoping to bring some of that playoff experience to the Guardians.
SPEAKER_02Who have been playing well and getting into the playoffs. So they're we'll see how it goes.
SPEAKER_01I'm excited for them.
SPEAKER_02So recently, Soto was asked, you know, just in an interview, was just talking about he is determined to snatch the MVP from Shohei Otani. Well he said, I have got to find a way to beat him. Well, you know, it's good to have goals. It's good to have goals. And I mean, Soto Soto is a good player. Let's not take anything away from the man. He is a good player. But I I I hesitate for him to think that he's gonna outshine Shohei. Like that just to me, I don't see that. I don't see it.
SPEAKER_01But honestly, I if anybody, I'm eager to see that new player that came over there from over there. Uh, what was his name? Yamazuka, or was it like Kawas Kawasaki? What was his name? We talked about him on the Dodgers or or over with he he specifically did not want to join the Dodgers. Oh, Amaya. Amaya, yes.
WNBA Labor Standoff And Momentum Risks
SPEAKER_02He's with Houston. He actually uh got hit with a a comebacker the other day off the leg, but he's he's doing okay.
SPEAKER_01Well him, well, him and there's another player that I was eyeballing uh that I think could could be in contention to dethrone shoey, although it will be quite a challenge because Shohei's pretty good himself. Soto's good player, too. Shohei. Shohei. I call listen, I call him Shuey because I ride motorcycles and the brand shoey. No, but it's the way I'm used to saying it. Stop. I am wrong. You are wrong. Stop. I know this. I know this. Don't do this. Listen, sir. Shohei.
SPEAKER_02He's like one of the most popular players in baseball. He transcends baseball.
SPEAKER_01It's not like trying to pronounce LeBron James. It's a I'm not familiar with this dialect.
SPEAKER_02It's literally show hey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I know. You can say the word show. I know that. You can say the word hey. My Virginia Southern Northern North Carolina mix of an accent doesn't want to say that.
SPEAKER_02My mouth and tongue don't want to move like that. This is a this is a you.
SPEAKER_01You want me to you want me to hamburger and my mouth wants the hot dog. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02Look, we don't need this Colin Cowherd mispronouncing of words BS on our show.
SPEAKER_01Look, six, look, look, 64 episodes into mispronouncing names and words. This is we're in the wrong time for this warning, bro.
SPEAKER_02Uh but with no warning, the Blue Jays have gotten a little bit of help to their rotation, bringing back Max Scherzer. He is now going to come back for a 19th season. So it's at a much needed time with them finding out they're losing one of their starting pitchers uh for a little bit of time. So that's good news for them that they're bringing in Max Scherzer. Hopefully he can take the same form he did last year because it did help him get to the uh World Series. But some really good news for one particular former Yankee, CeC Sabathia, has found out that they are going to retire his number 52 on September 26th. He is going to be joining the Ring of Honor. He's going to be out there in Memorial Park. He's going to be with players like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mannle.
SPEAKER_01Yes, congratulations to him. And Sabathia will be retiring to the land of Narnia as well.
SPEAKER_02This guy. No, but congratulations to Cece Sabathia. He was one hell of a pitcher. I hated that he went to the Yankees personally. Uh them damn Yanks. Because he did start start with the Guardians back then with the Indians. But congratulations to him. Yeah. One heck of a career. I miss Chief Wahoo. No, no, we really shouldn't miss that.
SPEAKER_01I mean insensitive. I'm not trying to be insensitive. Forgive me for a second. Let me backtrack while I put my foot in my mouth. And I'm going to probably shove it in a little bit farther.
SPEAKER_02You want some water to wash down that foot?
SPEAKER_01I do, but I I know it was insensitive quote, but I still kind of liked the logo, but I'm not, you know, I understand why they had to change it. And I'm not disagreeing with it, but I I do miss the logo. I thought it was kind of cool myself. But again, I'm not the person that that was meant for, or whatever. So I digress and hopefully the foot has been. I don't know, maybe it's inserted more, maybe it's been removed a little bit. Either way, it still tastes like. Let me help you out here, sir.
SPEAKER_02Why don't we dive into the WNBA?
SPEAKER_01And the does of the WNBA, because I'm not gonna stick my foot in my mouth on any other subject, because I certainly have before. But anyway, I think that's part of the charm to our show is the fact that our listeners largely know that I don't know what I'm talking about, but it's okay. Uh until we at least until we get to football. When we get to football, they can tell because mine, you know, you can just see it, but anyway, you can hear it. But we are learning as we go, all this comes with experience. So the WNBA, the biggest thing with them is they're still threatening to holdout. Um, and the WNBA actually issued a sharp statement in response to all these negotiations to draft. I won't dive too deep into it, but basically, all in all is what it comes down to is uh they can't afford a holdout. Um I thought there's been a couple times where the WNBA uh and the players have had a workable agreement. Like, you gotta start somewhere, right? Uh I just want to put things in perspective. I know that they want MBA money, but like all these girls went to college, and I'm sure some of them uh majored in finance, you know, or economics or business, right? Like you have to be able to pay for these things, right? You can't just, you know, the NBA literally subsidizes the WMBA as a tax write-off.
Should Prep Stars Jump To The NBA
SPEAKER_02Like, yeah, they're they're fun flipping the bill so they can they can manage as a league. And and majority of them play in MBA stadiums, they don't even have their own stadiums, uh, which when you're trying to start up a league, it's kind of hard to just you know go ahead and build your own stadiums. You usually do have to play somewhere else to get that foothold to eventually get your own stadium. But there's one thing that has definitely happened though, that the women have definitely gotten a bump as far as the pay is concerned. Like they've definitely they're making way more now than they ever did in the beginnings of the league. Uh, but that's not to say that they shouldn't want and deserve more. Uh but also, like you were saying, you have to have the ability to pay that. You know, these these owners, I mean, the league has made great strides, it's become much more competitive, and and and it's been widely pushed more now. You're starting to see more ads, they're even doing the three-on-three, you know, full court.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a separate venture, and that's not by the WNBA.
SPEAKER_02It is, but it brings eyes to the WNBA because it's a lot of those players do play there, and it gains, you know, fandom. Well, they have they have players that aren't even in the WNBA in that league as well. Right. So when you see your favorite W or you see your favorite player in that league being in the WNBA, it kind of goes, hey, I still want to watch her play. Oh, she's in the WNBA. Let me go watch her team. And then it brings fans to that team.
SPEAKER_01And they're entitled to revenue. The players are entitled to revenue sharing as well. And I I don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking, look, I am not knocking them at all, okay? Because a WNBA mascot actually makes a few more dollars than a WNBA player, or maybe it was an NBA mascot. I forgot the the statistics. I had it somewhere in my notes. I'm a little disorganized this evening, but uh but let's also keep in mind that you know the they I think they have to perform more games than them. Well, I think I think you're I think you're right. Well, it's a smaller it's a smaller league, the teams are smaller, and they do play less games, and they have a shorter season.
SPEAKER_02Their season is literally only a couple gotta perform at least 41 games because half the home games are gonna be a good thing.
College Hoops Rankings And Movers
SPEAKER_01Well, their WNBA season is literally only like three to four months long because there's just a smaller league. Uh but like I do think that eventually they should get paid more. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but I just don't think the league can afford it. And I I don't understand like the league agreed to raise minimum salaries to a minimum of a million dollars uh for like first year players' contracts and stuff like that. I thought that was a huge uptick because you're barely making six figures to start with. Um, and then a lot of these high-caliber players, a lot of their money comes from sponsorship deals and endorsements. Um, so forget about your WNBA salary, because after a while, if you're a big name player like Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese, um you're getting endorsement deals off the court that are just dwarfing, you know, microscoping your annual WNBA salary. But I think they'll find a way to get there. But I think a holdout, which is really where I was going with this conversation, uh, I think a holdout will really do their theirselves a uh disservice. I don't think that they're gonna benefit from that. I think they'll actually hurt themselves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I think they need to take a little bit of a uh look at what other leagues have what has happened when there's been holdouts. Because look at baseball excuse me back in in uh 94, they had a huge drop off in people supporting baseball when they they had the holdout and the season was basically lost. And and to be honest, at that all at that point in time, it looked like the Expos were the best team in baseball. And after that, they just never never had that same success. So it really derailed that franchise and derailed that team from possibly getting the success the success they really needed to sustain themselves there in Montreal, but now they're the nationals. But for them to go that route, they might lose this the stit the the progression and speed that and stamina that they've been on for as a league to get themselves more and more in the spotlight. I mean, they just gotta deal with USA to uh air their games. So they have momentum, they have momentum TV contracts, they have that upswing happening, and it's like they have you need to stick with that very positive momentum.
SPEAKER_01They're getting there, they're on the right track, and now with social media and broadcasting technology, uh it's a little more accessible to make them more successful. Yeah. Uh but on and off the court. But I I could see like if they hold out and if it's significant enough, I could see them just folding.
SPEAKER_02It it very well could happen, and it would be unfortunate because you're gonna you're gonna really just destroy something that it that uh many women have worked so hard to build.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, and now you have some female stars in the college ranks who are coming up. The the talent for female WNBA players, female WNBA players, what a contradiction. Anyway, the talent for WNBA players and upcoming WMB play WNBA players, college level players. I'm so sorry, y'all. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. These things are evolving, in my opinion, and I I think that the talent level for female basketball players is get ready to take a step forward, such as it does every so often for the NBA and the NFL and other sports, okay, especially men's sports. Every like five to ten years or so, you see the sport take a step forward in evolution. You want to, especially when it comes to especially when it comes to skill. And I think the WMBA is on the cusp of that, as well as building significant momentum uh towards profitability. And I don't think they should stop that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I agree. They should play it smartly, you know, just don't hurt yourselves in the end, is all is is all I'm hoping. Because they've they've gained so much momentum. I I would hate to see it get squashed over something like labor agreements. But let's move over and talk about men's college basketball, and let's talk about right now Hold on.
Quick NBA Notes And Rookie Records
SPEAKER_01What before we dive into college basketball and upcoming March Madness prospects, Mike. I have a quick question for you, okay? Because this is another thing. This might be a little crossover with the NBA as well, okay? But basically, I want to know should top high school prospects be allowed to declare directly for the NBA? No. Why not? Because they're not ready.
SPEAKER_02Flat out. They're not ready. Please elaborate. Okay. We've seen this type of stuff happen, and there's really only been two players that you can say successfully made the jump from high school to being an NBA star, and that's Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Name me another one. You can't, but that's the point. There's nobody, there's nobody else who's had that level of success. And part of the reason, even look, right now, the reigning, you know, possible rookie of the year, you know, the number one overall pick this past year out of Duke, Mavericks, Cooper Flag. Yes, Cooper Flag. Even he, as good as he is, went to college. He played for Duke. I mean, Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan went to college. A lot of players do, but the point of going to college is you're getting coached up to be ready for the NBA. Even when Kyle Pe Kyli Perry was doing the one and duns, you know, there with Kentucky, where he's like, come on, and he was talking about how many of his players came through and then they had big contracts when they went to the NBA. Because they went through the college process, they went through trying to learn more on the game beyond just being a good player in high school.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I I'm gonna add to that uh a little bit because going to college as an athlete, okay. Going to college is about more than just developing talent or proving that you have talent. Okay, number one, it's about maturity. Okay, you gotta develop the level of maturity to be able to handle being in a professional, national professional level class sport. But the other thing is high school preparation, high school games, high school attention is not the same. Okay, when you get to college, you start to, especially if you're good, right? Or if you go to a well-known college, you start to gain some notoriety, okay? You need to learn how to handle that. Okay, you might get an NIL deal. You might start getting money, you need to learn how to handle yourself.
SPEAKER_02That's recent, though. NIL hasn't always been there.
SPEAKER_01No, it has not always been there, but it is now part of the equation, okay? You may now get an NIL deal. Might be big, might be small, you might get money for some capacity, who knows? But going to college as a as an athlete, trying to become a professional athlete, to me is more about learning how to be a pro athlete, learning how to handle yourself, learning how to prepare as a pro athlete and transitioning uh from that. Because once you get to college, you're basically a pro athlete. Let's face it. Some of these sports basically are pro-level sports, especially if you play somewhere like the SEC or the Big Ten, uh, depending on the sport you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02So, with that said, let's let's move on into the AP top 25 and see how the rankings have shaken out as of today. Uh, we're looking at Duke as the number one team in the in the country, followed up by Arizona. Both those teams have moved up two spots, meaning that Michigan falling on hard times moved back to number three. And falling on hard times even more. Houston dropping down to the five spot. What's that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I was gonna say, didn't Michigan and Iowa play today?
SPEAKER_02I am not certain on that.
SPEAKER_01We'll check it in in a second, but I'm pretty sure they played today. But anyway, yeah, Houston falling down to five.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's let's look at some of the other big shakeups.
SPEAKER_01Yukon sitting at six. I think I expect them to kind of make a push.
SPEAKER_02The Jayhawks dropping themselves six spots down to 14. So they're they are not coming in strong. You do not want to be heading towards the bracket on a losing streak for sure. No, no, you don't. You you want to come in hot. I mean, yeah, so looking looking at North Carolina, it's it's weird to see them back at 18 in the rankings. They actually drop two spots. It's just weird when you see a perennial team like that just being so far back. And look at Gonzaga moving up, getting up two spots to number nine. I like seeing, I like seeing that. They've been they're one of those bracket teams that you always think they're gonna move along in the bracket, and they just disappoint you.
SPEAKER_01I'll say Gonzaga and Purdue both, they kind of like you always wonder, they're always in the mix, but you know, you're right, they tend to kind of fall a little short. But Gonzaga, I remember they had a good run a few years ago. As far as teams that move the most when it comes to the St.
SPEAKER_02John's. Yes, well, that's moving in the wrong direction. But I'm talking about the positive moving teams. Uh, so far the biggest jump has been Alabama moving all the way up to 17. And let's see, the next biggest jump would be Florida moving up five spots to number seven.
SPEAKER_01Flow rider.
SPEAKER_02You can tell right now, just by the way the bracket, or not the bracket, the uh rankings are going with this movement, that we might see some fireworks come this this uh March Madness with the bracket. We might have some serious uh messed up brackets after the first round. Always love March Madness, it's always so much fun. But let's uh let's transition over to the NBA for a second.
SPEAKER_01NBA! Talk about some pro-level basketball. Here we go.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Uh since we talked about Cooper Flag a moment ago, we need to talk about his run and mate at Duke, Khan Knippel, having a great season as a rookie and breaking the three-point record in just 59 games for a rookie. So the previous record was held held by Keegan Murray for the three-point, making two hundred and seven. Well, he made his two well, no, Con Knipple made his two hundred and seventh, passing him. Well, yeah, I mean if you're wondering who has the most for the entire year, just in general, Steph Curry. Steph Curry with 402. So I think his uh single season three points uh three-pointers is uh pretty safe. I don't think anybody's gonna touch that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's pretty safe. He's good there. But you know, Kanupo and Flag stepping up pretty well here in Europe. I know Flag's been a little bit injured here and there. Um and actually the Mavs uh hired I forgot his name, Norovisky. I forgot how to pronounce it, I don't have it written in front of me. They hired him as potentially to help with Flag's development. So that'll be good. Yeah, that will be good for them. Um, but I like seeing what Kanupa's doing in Kanipple. Whatever. God, I'm so sorry. I'll get this right, y'all. He's trying. He's trying, y'all. I promise. I know sports better than I can pronounce the players' names. Just bear with me. It's okay. Or just give them shit online. I mean, if you want to make fun of me, that's fine too. I'll laugh with you. I get it. But just cry with me after my feelings have been hurt because I expect you know equality here.
SPEAKER_02Oh Lord. Anyway, so that was a touch on the MBA.
NFL: Retirements, Cuts, And Tags
SPEAKER_01A touch on the NBA. Now, I know it was brief on the NBA. Honestly, there's a lot going on, but we just don't have a lot prepared for tonight with the NBA. Um, but we're gonna go ahead and move along here into one of our favorite subjects uh typically, and one we typically have a lot to say about regardless of the season, Mike. Are you ready to talk about some NFL action? Yes, I am. Let's talk some football. That came out wrong, man. You know, sometimes I hate that we just upload weird. Sometimes I hate that we just upload this the way it's recorded because I feel like I love that we do that. There's opportunity for me to fix these moments. But, you know, it's okay. I think our listeners appreciate the bloopers. But here we go. First subject of the night. Uh and a little bit of a sad uh bittersweet, you know. Charger Center Bozeman, he's announcing he announced his retirement on Instagram. This was just a few days ago. Um, bringing a what is it, a 13-year career? Let me look at it here. I forgot what it was. Uh does it say here?
SPEAKER_02Well, they typically say the NFL stands for not for long.
SPEAKER_01So if you go 13 years, that's uh Oh, he was drafted in the first round of 2022, so he's still a relatively young player, and honestly, oh But this is this isn't uncommon.
SPEAKER_02We've seen players retire early like this. Andrew Luck, Luke Keekly. Well, Andrew Luck had a few more years than him, but uh Luke Keekly was due to injury. I I was thinking uh oh, there were there was a there was a middle linebacker that was on the Niners. He literally one year retired done, and he said he didn't want to deal with CTE.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh oh, what was I remember who you're talking about. The name is on the tip of my tongue. I can't remember it. You would know better than me because you're the last name was Borlin.
SPEAKER_02I remember that. But he he he retired because he was just he was like, I don't want to deal with the injury stuff. Yeah. But I I will say that I think since he's retiring, I think they should go after Tyler Lindenbaum, who's a free agent and who is only 26 years old, and it one of the better centers in the league who was playing for the Ravens, he would be a great pickup for them.
SPEAKER_01I think he would be too, and especially uh Jim Harbaugh picking up a player, a former player of his brother. Um, I expect to see this Chargers team. They were kind of on the fringe of playoff competitiveness this year. I expect to see them fully in the mix next year, maybe even as far as the divisional round.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's not forget that they lost both of their tackles, you know, early on in the year for the year. Yeah. So you and both of them are outstanding tackles. So you're already next year gonna have a boost because you're getting back some of your players that that are all world players, but this will also give them a chance just to add depth. You know, go ahead, get get this next draft, get some depth to that O-line.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I obviously obviously in the draft. Where are they picking at in the draft? They're probably in the mid-teens, I think, somewhere.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you well, no, they might be in the 20s because they were in the they were in the playoffs.
SPEAKER_01They were in the playoffs. So yeah, they're gonna be 20s somewhere. They probably they probably shore up that uh that offensive line a little bit. I mean, maybe they I I can't see anything other. I mean, maybe they take a receiver, but in the 20s, I don't know. You you kind of shoring up protection around there. Um it it all depends on what your needs are. It depends on what it depends on what your needs are, but I could see them trying to get a replacement for him right there in the first round. But we'll see what happens with that. Good luck to the Chargers. Uh, already a competitive team under Jim Harbaugh. I expect to see more from them. Okay. Uh, and you know, this is a little bit of a homebrew, which is weird because Mike added this to the agenda, not me. I actually did it on purpose. I'm gonna be honest, I actually wasn't gonna talk about this. I was just gonna let it go because I already knew that he okay, let me just cut to the chase here. Patriots releasing running back uh Antonio Gibson after two seasons. Ask me as a Commanders fan why I'm not surprised. Crickets, nobody?
SPEAKER_02No. Okay, no anyway. But more so, I wanted to bring this up because of the fact that most people probably didn't realize he was with the team because he got hurt before they even got to the playoffs, like season ending. Yeah, he did. I think he tore an ACL. He did. So it it was like, okay, you got hurt. We're done with you.
SPEAKER_01You you did but I feel like Mike Gibson was just a placeholder, a rotational player, because uh they drafted Trayvon Henderson last year. Uh, they already had Ramon J. Stevenson, who they're still trying to figure out if he's an RB1 or not. They used him like one, so they're still trying to push that. When Gibson left us, I was surprised to hear that he was signing with the Patriots because they already had pretty good running back core, but I was glad to hear he had opportunity. I do like Antonio Gibson. I just, you know, a lot of this comes down to being in the right place at the right time in the right system. And I just think he missed the buck. Um, you know, well, they felt strongly about uh Bill nickname Bill, uh Krosky Merritt, and unfortunately Toyo Gibson, you know, whatever. Well, even though Krosky Merritt was a rookie, but whatever. I digress. Moving on. Moving on to the next one. Uh, Chiefs cutting defensive end Dana as cap trimming continues. This is a straight up cap casualty situation. Where do you think he's gonna land at?
SPEAKER_02I have no clue, man. I mean, honestly, we're we're we're in a situation now where the uh the part of Mahomes contract where the most money is going to be allocated to him is coming up. And yes, we did have the salary cap increase a little bit, I think by uh 22 million or something like that, uh, this next year for all teams. But still, I mean, when when players start making more money, you have to start making these decisions. I'll uh last year when the Niners just started just letting go veterans left and right, ones we didn't want to let go, but we had to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I got I gotta give it up.
SPEAKER_02Dana's casualty.
SPEAKER_01I wouldn't call him a rotational player. I could slide him in actually as a starter. Uh, he missed a couple games last season. He started 32 games overall uh for the Chiefs, has spent his entire career with the Chiefs. Um, you know, I he was drafted in the later picks. I put a I put a fourth or fifth round pick on him, and that's only because I could even give up a third for him, and that's only because he has Super Bowls uh to his name. But uh clearly a cap casualty, as you just mentioned, uh I don't know where he ends up. I haven't even thought about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I haven't really thought about it either. I was thinking more along the lines of some of these players that could possibly be franchise tagged. And case in point, uh Kyle Pitts got hit with the franchise tag. He's gonna be sticking around with the Falcons at least for one more year for them to figure it out. And honestly, with the way he was playing last year, you kind of need to take that extra look to make sure because he was coming on a little bit there at the end.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, I don't think it's a bad gig. You get to be in the top five paid players of your position for at least one year. The and I think the Falcons are kind of up and coming. I like what they're doing. Um, I'm eager to see what they do under the new regime. Well, they did they did release your old boy, cousins. I knew that was gonna happen. That was a bad deal from the start, and they traded for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I don't know why you pay him all that money and then you draft somebody that you uh intended on replacing him for.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I I think Michael Penix clearly had some growing pains to go through, whatnot, but I I think I think the flair is there. I I think he is a starter in the NFL, especially in the right system under the right coaching, but I thought Cousins Cousins is like an overpriced Ryan Fitzpatrick to me. Like, but Ryan Fitzpatrick was more successful, if that makes sense. Like, you could confidently probably make the make the wild card of the playoffs with Ryan Fitzpatrick. With Cousins, you knew he could play quarterback, you just didn't know if you were gonna make the playoffs with him or not. Yeah. So I I I I think that's really the difference there uh between those two guys. And and Cousins, in my opinion, his agent was the greatest scam artist in the history of the NFL. This man got this man got paid everywhere he went. But I digress. We'll see what happens with the Falcons next year. And uh, and what happens with Kyle Pitts?
SPEAKER_02He's currently ranked 59 on the uh all-time player list. No, no, no, the top 101 free agents, like the top 101. So he's right in the middle. Kirk Cousins is right in the middle at 59 as the ranking. But more importantly, another player that got franchise tag, and we kind of could see this coming. Uh, the Cowboys franchise tag, George Pickens. So he's gonna stay with the Cowboys, which will make CeeDee Lamb happy. I mean, CeeDee Lamb did say, I'll take a pay cut if we can if we can bring my boy back, but they're gonna tag him, keep him, maybe do it again, show it right.
SPEAKER_01Bold statement of the night. I think George Pickens is better than CeeDee Lamb. Secondly, um I disagree, sir. The Cowboys have a lot going on, okay? They're gonna franchise Pickens to keep him locked up, but I guarantee you they're trying. Did they sign Javante Williams or is he still?
SPEAKER_02They did. They did. They signed him to a three-year deal. So Javante Williams is gonna be the running back next year.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm excited for the Cowboys offense. Not necessarily the whole team, but I'm excited for the Cowboys offense. I like what they're doing. They got a couple players I've been a fan of for quite some time.
SPEAKER_02Well, what do you what do you think about the uh the Aubrey situation with their kicker?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think there's something deeper going on here. You offer your kicker, who's been reliably a top five kicker in the NFL for easily the past few seasons, if not longer. Um why would he? I I I saw the article that he rejected. I didn't get to read into it. What was it, like$140 million or something like that?
SPEAKER_02So right now, most kickers are making somewhere between like six and seven million for their for their contracts. I think uh the Chiefs kicker is is the one who's the highest paid right now.
SPEAKER_01Bucker.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, butthurt. I mean buckert.
SPEAKER_01Butthurt.
SPEAKER_02Uh uh he's getting he's getting paid the most. And and I think with the way that Aubrey's been playing, he has some legitimate gripes in being, I should be the highest paid, and not only the highest paid, because let's face it, when you can say that your kicker, hey, we're good if we get into 60 yards, we can kick it at 60, maybe 65, maybe even 70, that's a weapon. That's something that like it can turn the tide of games and get you some wins late in the season. I yeah, you gotta respect that. I mean, not every kicker can do that. Ask one of these teams with a bad kicker what that's like, and they'll be jealous as all get out. They'll be like, yeah, we'll take him. Yeah, we'll pay him.
SPEAKER_01And you know, Aubrey, like, when I said he's in the top five, I mean he's probably like more like one, two, or three. Um, the only kicker who's been able to keep up with his long distance, there's only two, Zerline, and he didn't have that many long kicks this year, and rookie Tyler Loop of the Ravens, who also didn't have that many long kicks. Um great run towards the playoffs.
SPEAKER_02Didn't have a great run towards the playoffs either, either for him. They didn't even make the playoffs. No, they're kicking.
Replay Flags Debate And Team Class Acts
SPEAKER_01But Aubrey, easily, arguably one of the top, maybe even the best kicker in the league this last season. Um They did offer him a contract where he would have been the highest player, but he rejected it. So do was this a matter of, I didn't get to read too much into this. So was this a matter of him wanting more money? He wants more money. Okay.
SPEAKER_02He wants he wants to be paid around 10 million a year for his kicking services.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, he kept them in a lot of games, and I think even won them a couple games.
SPEAKER_02That's my point. Yeah, he's a weapon and he should be paid like it. I agree. Anyway, uh I have an interesting side thing I want to ask you. Have you looked at the top 100 yet?
SPEAKER_01This is a trick question.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm asking, have you looked at it? Have you do you know who's in the top 100? You know, I because you know NFL Network or NFL.com, they put out their top 100. They do, it usually have you have you seen it? I thought they well, maybe they do, I thought they do that around June, right? No, no, it's out right now. It's top 100 free agents. Have you looked at it?
SPEAKER_01Oh, top 100 free agents. That's because free agency starts next week. Have you have you looked at it? I have not. You have not.
SPEAKER_02Just answering your question, I have not. I'm tired of beating around the channel. That's what I wanted to say. The answer's no. So no. So if you had to take a guess, who would be at number one? Top free agent. At number one. I I guarantee you, when I show you, you're gonna be like, what?
SPEAKER_01The top free agent at number one. I need to review, I need to refresh myself on who's actually free agents this season. But I I think it's well here to give you some context.
SPEAKER_02Okay, right now Mike Evans is 16 on the list. You know Mike Evans.
SPEAKER_01I mean, at age 33 is, you know, one of the more storied. Yeah, and before he got tagged, there was a lot of analysts who had him go into the commanders.
SPEAKER_02Kenny Walker at number 10. So, any idea of who would be at number one? There's Daniel Jones at number eight, Devin Lloyd at number seven, Trey Hendricks at six. Who's been trying to find a new team for the last couple years? Alec Pierce at number five. Ooh, Alec Pierce. I like that pick. And we already talked about Linderbaum being at four. So, any idea? Any idea?
SPEAKER_01Do you have any top for top rated free agents? Top three. Is it Brandon Ayuk?
SPEAKER_02No. I guess. No, he's not a free agent. So Jalen Phillips, who was traded for at by the Eagles, is at number three. Number two, George Pickens, but he has been tagged, so he's already off the board. So it's not Kirk Cousins. Well, yeah, we know it's not Kirk Cousins. Let me let me just scroll up to show you who's at number one. The look on your face. Oh, I wish y'all could see his face right now because he's just like the what the I'm trying so just so you all know, I'm trying to talk.
SPEAKER_01But I really I really don't have anything. And and it's not because I'm it's not because I disagree. It's because I don't know if I if I might agree.
SPEAKER_02So at number one on the top 101 is Malik Willis, the backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. Yes, and or former, former.
SPEAKER_01And I don't know if this is stupid or a genius. Because when you think Malik Willis, most of the time you don't even know who he is.
SPEAKER_02But well, some of us do, but if you know he played for Liberty, which is a Virginia school, and he also played for the Titans. He was drafted by the Titans. Remember the Titans. He got a quick little whatever with them, and then they drafted uh Will Will Levis, and then they said, bye, Malik.
Fighting Hate: Kraft’s Blue Square Initiative
SPEAKER_01And the fact that he's 27 uh as a quarterback and he played in the green base system behind Jordan Love. And looked good when he came in. He did look very good when he came in. Um, like I said, Mike, I don't know if I'm flabbergasted because I disagree, or if I'm flabbergasted because I might agree. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So let me pose this for you because I know what his agent and Malik are looking for. Uh so would you still feel good about it knowing that he wants 30 mil a year?
SPEAKER_0130 mil a year. Well, top quarterbacks are making over a hundred mil. These are starting quarterbacks. Your backup quarterbacks are probably making your backup quarterbacks are probably making around 30 to 50 million, depending on.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I mean backups usually make make more close to maybe eight to ten. So it's much.
SPEAKER_01To me, this isn't necessarily about starting capability, this is about insurance. And he he provided very reliable insurance.
SPEAKER_02He wants to start. He wants to be a starting quarterback, he wants 30 million a year. Oh no, forget this guy. I'm so sorry. This guy.
SPEAKER_0130 million a year. If you come in and you have a good physical, maybe have a good camp. So here's what I do with Malayqualis. I bring you in on a one-year. He won't do it. He's not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02He wants a multi-year, 30 mil a year.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Jamarcus Russell.
SPEAKER_02No. I just thought that'd be a funny little side thing to do. But so the N the NFL is mulling over mulling over some new new guidelines uh for having the replay official with the ability for them to throw a flag. Now, this means that if the replay official sees something that they could throw a flag then and say, like, oh, that was past interference. Oh, that's you know, uh whatever, you know, this is this is a you know, a a holding by the offensive lineman that wasn't caught by the lion judge, you know, whatever the case may be, and it's kind of like what we already have enough flags, and we're gonna add another way for them to throw flags. This is insane.
Broadcast Experiments And McAfee Moments
SPEAKER_01Why, okay. I don't know, I don't think I agree with this because you're taking the game out of the hands of the officials on the field. Okay, and in some cases this this could be a good thing. Uh I don't like it because I think it gives too much power to people off the field. Uh, I think if you want to overturn a call as a replay official, okay. I just worry about it slowing down the game. I think it's gonna slow down the game as well. Because now, if you're gonna let replay officials throw flags, why even have referees on the field?
SPEAKER_02No, I think you need people to be on the field to see it real time. And honestly, if we went to a no official on the field whatsoever, they're not gonna catch the small stuff. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_01They will they won't catch the little things and this is a significant step forward in what I like to refer to as regulation.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much. Pretty much. This this kind of to me feels like the camera red light camera, the traffic red light camera. Yeah. That's what it feels like to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, red light camera. They tell you not to go above 30. But they send you a ticket if you go above 25.
Teddy Bridgewater Act Becomes Law
SPEAKER_02They send you a ticket when you clearly made a right turn, but they were like, you didn't stop enough. Anyway, uh let's move off this subject. Move off this subject and talk about something kind of kind of cool. Like, so the Patriots, you know, they've caught in a lot of flack over the years for the things, you know, people hate the winner. They hate when people are winning all the time. And this is this is a situation where you know they didn't win this year, so they needed to come up with something. Uh well, they didn't need to come up with anything, but they they decided to do something kind of a classy act, in my my opinion, because you have a player in Matt Collins, a wide receiver for the Patriots, who had some incentives in his contract that said said, you know, if he got X amount of catches or X amount of yards, that they would go ahead and they would give him a bonus. So in this case, Matt Collins received four hundred thousand dollars an additional signing bonus after after he came four catches short of receiving the contract incentive for his his 2025 season. So the Patriots said, okay, you know, you were supposed to reach 50 catches, you got 46. Uh, he he for anybody who watched the Patriots games, he did have some, you know, moments where it was like you needed a catch and he was that kind of got the catch for you. It might have been the only catch of the game for him, but it was like a third and fifteen or something, you know, and he had a crucial catch in the Super Bowl for them to kind of give him a little bit of life during the Super Bowl. So they did all they did good by him, and they still gave him his incentive bonus, even though he didn't reach it. So that's kind of a classy act, in my opinion. You don't always see something like that from an organization, especially one that is has st as has had so much success as the Patriots. You know, they have all those Super Bowl wins and they still want to do something classy and and make that move. So I applaud them in doing that for Matt Collins because they could have just said, you know what, screw you, dude. You didn't reach it, you didn't get your incentive, you're not getting the money. So screw it. We're not giving it to you. But they did right by him, they gave him the incentive and kudos. I I really like when teams, if you if you like the player, they were good, they did right by your team, did right by your organization. Sometimes, all right, just do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01I agree, Mike. Uh, and very well said, by the way.
SPEAKER_02Uh so where are we at here in the we're talking about New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft since we're talking about the Patriots?
SPEAKER_01Actually, you're very correct. Okay, so Robert Kraft, uh, speaking of the Patriots, doing something very interesting here. Actually, something I can get behind. Uh so, and I'll just read it verbatim. This comes from SportsKeda uh via the Wall Street Journal. Okay, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft founded the Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism, FCAS, which has offices, obviously in your and runs initiatives, including the Blue Square campaign. So Blue Square crew monitors uh quote, public-facing online discourse at scale to understand hate. So using data analytics and AI to identify patterns, conspiracy, uh, conspiracy narratives, and spikes in content, and to inform public awareness and counter messaging campaigns. So basically, this is a full-on campaign against uh false information, basically. Uh, and I fully support it because we have needed something like this for the last few years, and now we're starting to finally learn how to combat misinformation. And I I believe this initiative uh will go along with it.
SPEAKER_02I'm on board for it. Yeah, I'm on board for it.
SPEAKER_01I I'm on board for it. I fully agree with it. I I think they should push this as far as they go. I could even see this becoming a government agency uh in the future. Um, and just going down here, so this is interesting. So many of you know, right? You can watch football on your TV, you can watch it on YouTube TV if you have the ticket, right?
SPEAKER_02You can stream it depending on the well it depends on what what all it's being streamed on. If you have stuff that's you know, we've seen games on Netflix, we've seen games on Prime, we've seen games, you know, being aired in a number of different ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so you know if you're familiar, the Manning brothers do their own version. If you turn into ESPN, you can watch, usually it's like I think it's like Sunday night or Monday night football, maybe Monday night football. And you can watch them having some kind of BS conversation while the game's going on and talking about relevant things. So now, having that said, ESPN and Disney, Disney, by the way, owns ESPN, uh, are in talks with uh Pat McAfee to establish like a like a Pat McAfee field pass type content. So basically it would be the same exact thing, okay? So field pass with the Pat McAfee show was part of ESPN's megacast lineup during the 2026 college football uh national championship. So they've already tried to experimented with it once, uh, where an alternate feed featured McAfee and his team from the sideline, okay, on ESPN2. Um so and it had it drew a significant amount of interest.
SPEAKER_02So a little little little side note uh off of this, only because you brought up McAfee, and uh something I heard about McAfee. Uh he didn't want to get any publicity for it and uh wanted to keep it on on the down low, but uh it's it's been leaked. It's been leaked. We like leaks. So not plumbing leaks, though. Pat McAfee, uh when the US hockey team came back to the States and they were doing they were celebrating down in Florida, he called up the bar and and to to talk to these guys, and he's like, Hey, put it on my tab. He he said, Whatever they're doing, it's on my tab. So Pat McAfee flipped the bill for a hockey team, and I don't know if he knew what he was getting into, but he wound up costing himself a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, flipping the bill for them, and he happily he happily paid it uh anyway. But I I just thought it was kind of cool. He you know, showing support for the hockey team.
SPEAKER_01That bar basically said, drinks on the house, everybody come on in.
Thank Yous And Closing
SPEAKER_02And since we brought up Florida, I wanted to bring up a new law that was passed, and it it's kind of cool. Yes, yes, yes, for for Teddy Bridgewater, he had actually left the game of football and was becoming a coach for a local high school down there in Florida, and the only reason he kind of went back to football was he was being forced out. A bunch of coaches in the area found out that he was helping players by you know getting them Uber rides, maybe buying them, you know, a you know, a McDonald's meal or whatever. Like he was just helping out his players because sometimes these players, you know, they need to get to practice and they don't have a way to get there. And they're you know, he just sets them up with a Uber to come to practice, you know. So by doing that, uh, you know, it came up to a point where the Florida Senate passed what they're calling the Teddy Teddy Bridgewater Act. God, I love this so much. The t Teddy Bridgewater Act is is something that will now allow coaches to use up to fifteen thousand dollars of their own money, that's important, their own money to support their student athletes with food, transportation, and recovery services. So this means that now coaches, if you know their players are kind of down and out and need a ride, they don't have to they don't have to be down and out, you know, their coaches can help them out. You know, this is why he went back to football because he got he got suspended and forced out, went back to football and was a backup for Tampa. But this is he was trying to do the right thing for his player. So I I fully support this.
SPEAKER_01This is what I define as truly just served, just as served, okay? He was doing the right thing. And if you have a problem with your coach or honestly, anybody supporting your youth trying to just simply be a part of the team, uh, if you complain about that, first of all, go jump in a lake, okay? Because that's not fair. These kids need support, and some of them don't have a solid support system, okay? Or a good home life in some cases.
SPEAKER_02You know, sometimes these players, they're they're going home and they don't know what they're going home to. So they don't even know if there's gonna be food in the house.
SPEAKER_01So now we know why he returned to the NFL. And having that said, like, it's pretty cool because to him this is justice served because he got forced out, but at the end of the day, the law was passed. He's allowed to do this now, and other coaches can do it too. I think this is monumental, okay? Because you can donate to a football program, but that doesn't necessarily allow the program to identify individual players that need further assistance. So this is just this is incredible to me, okay? Uh, and for our final subject tonight, to wrap up our show this evening, Ray, we got a juicy one tonight, Mike, okay? Nick Wright. I hope some of you are familiar with him. If you're not, just want you to go. Mr. Squidward face. Mike absolutely hates him. I don't know if I hate him yet, but I, you know, I he does have a very punchable face. I'll give him that. Anyway, he looks like he used Squidward. I swear to God, I thought his name was Chad Kroger, but I his name is Nick Wright. Anyway, uh, so basically, this is an interesting take here, and I really want to dive into this one. We don't usually get political, but we do talk about subjects that revolve around politics, and I like the way we present it, and we're gonna go into this one, Mike. Here we go. Okay, so Nick Wright, um he doesn't so if you're unaware by now, Stephen A. Smith um has did he declare for president or did he say he's interested in president?
SPEAKER_02No, it's so people have kind of brought up, and and for most people who may not know, Stephen A. Smith does have a political uh podcast as well, on top of all of the other ventures he's he's in with ESPN. Yes. Um but it is it has led to, since he's been interviewed on you know CNN, Fox News, some of these other organizations, and has been rather outspoken about political stuff, it has let kind of led to people saying, Well, Stephen A, are you gonna run for president? And people have been asking him, Are you gonna run for president? So this has kind of been leading to what people are suspecting may be a presidential run.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and you know, I wouldn't be surprised either. And I don't necessarily disagree with some of the things that he says or wants to do either, but basically, according to Nick Wright, I'll just cut to the chase here. Uh, if we were to go, and this is a direct quote, if we were to go to go from President Trump to President Stephen A. Smith, then that's what the office becomes. Dot dot dot. Uh, if the next president is a celebrity turned politician, then I just think that's what presidents will be from there on. Uh, I don't think that's what's best for the nation. So I'm gonna be honest, Mike. We we do have a number of celebrities from all walks of life who do turn to politics uh as a career, whether it be uh governor, presidential, or something on the side, side committee.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, we we talked about Michelle Tefoya going to the Senate.
SPEAKER_01Another great example that's happening right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but that's that's senators and stuff. I mean, we had uh Jesse the Body Ventura became the mayor uh of Minnesota, and then we had you know Arnold Schwarzenegger be the mayor of California. We've had celebrities, I mean, albeit like Arnold couldn't have gone for presidency because he's not a citizen. He's not well no, he's he is a dual citizen, he is a citizen of the United States, but he's not a birthright. He didn't exactly. I was about to say you have to be a native-born celebration. You have to be born in the United States to be president, you can't be from somewhere else. Anyway, that's a long roundabout way to get to the point of the celebrity topic, which is you know, celebrities becoming president, it wouldn't be the first time. I mean, Ronald Reagan was an actor long before he was president, but that's not necessarily saying that he didn't establish the foundation of becoming a you know career politician to then become president.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and honestly, another good example, and not necessarily a celebrity, but not necessarily a career politician either. Barack Obama, uh, you know, he kind of came up for through an alternate route to get to the presidency as well.
SPEAKER_02So but the foundation of of serving in a a you know government type role was already there. So it wasn't like he just it wasn't like he was a celebrity, then became I that might be a little bit offbeat. You're right. I typically don't I don't agree with Nick Wright most times, but I do agree with what he's saying here. He's basically saying, you know, we're we're we're taking the highest office in government and kind of making it a popularity celebrity type thing, and it it it shouldn't it shouldn't be that. It shouldn't be that. You know, we need to have people in there that are are equipped for it, you know, like you don't just hire any old person to be the heart surgeon. No, you hire the doctor that has the years of training, the years of experience to be the heart doctor. You know, and I I feel like what he's getting at is he's saying, like, we're gonna turn this into a circus show, and it's not gonna be, you know, voting in a president who deals with foreign policy, who deals with, you know, running a you know, any like you there's steps to it. Like you want somebody who's dealt with maybe running a city or running a state that moves up, you know, not somebody that just had a talk show, you know, or was a sports figure. You know, personally, I would never want to be president because no matter what you do, somebody's mad at you.
SPEAKER_01Look, this is the weight that comes with bearing the responsibility of leadership, okay? Is that you have to make decisions, and sometimes nobody's gonna agree with you, but you have to make the decision that you feel is in the best interest of the people who you represent, okay? And I'm not gonna go political blue, green, red, purple, rainbow, whatever the fuck, okay. Excuse my excuse my language, I'm so sorry. But like I I I agree and I disagree, right? Because it's already all about who brings the most money, in my opinion. And if you don't have access to a wealthy amount of money or a wealth of financial funds through either sponsorships or yourself or whatever, you're already an extremely steep uphill climb for something like a presidential run.
SPEAKER_02One of my favorite movies of all time is Man of the Year, and there's a line in there by Robin Williams where he says, Very good example. I love this line, and I I'm giving them credit because I I'm gonna say it, but I've been giving them the credit. He says, Politicians are like dirty diapers and should be changed for the same reason. Mic drop.
SPEAKER_01Mic drop. And I and I agree, like, I mean, I I agree and I disagree. It's such a vivid uh topic to take on, and I do feel like people lack the ability to discuss core differences.
SPEAKER_02ESPN won't want them to, because you're gonna lose one of your bell cows if he goes and becomes president, then you're losing one of your bell cows. There's no way he's doing it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and let's be honest, Stephen A. Smith, yes, he can be inflammatory, but I'm not gonna lie, like some of the things he does say, I I largely agree with, especially as it relates to sports and athletes. Um, so like it's 50-50 for me. Yeah, I know it's 50-50 for you, and you know, neither of us really pays much attention to Nick, right? But I think he makes a solid conversational piece here about the future of America and the future of the presidency, uh, because that also um equates to the integrity of the presidential role, right? Because now it's like, all right, do we take this person seriously given their background, or is this just a fad, right? I I understand his concern.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we might as well be doing like that movie Idiocracy with President Camacho. You know, why don't we just go ahead and vote Terry Crew in and he can be our president if we're gonna go that route, you know? Like that would be so funny.
SPEAKER_01I mean, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a number of people out there who would make good leaders to our nation, but those people just aren't visible at this time at this time in point. And it may be due to financial circumstances, it may do be due to visibility, I don't know. But I don't want to dive too deep on the political side of that. Yeah, but I'm not uh not politics, yeah. But I do think that he brings up a good point, a good talking point, in fact, is something that the future of our country should consider. Uh, but with that being said, uh, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsors and partners one more time Body Body Gym, Solace Outfitters, the Giving Tree Chiropractor, and our new sponsor and partner, uh, Mid-Atlantic Territory Wrestling. Welcome aboard. We're happy to be part of your team, and we look forward to the future of our relationship with all of our sponsors and partners. I want to thank all of our followers. We have had an influx of followers on social media the last couple weeks, and it just really thank you so much for your support, everybody. Uh, and I'm excited to show you where we're gonna go with this podcast. We're just getting started for the last time tonight. I'm Brian with an eye, and I'm Mike, and we are two for the win. Thanks, everybody.