Attitude Reflects Results

The room is about to get quiet and the clock is about to start. We lean into that electric, night-before feeling to break down a Super Bowl that will reward patience, poise, and field position more than headlines. We map Seattle’s most likely winning script—defense that turns drives into 12-play marathons and a mistake-free Sam Darnold—then outline how New England flips the game with margins, special teams, and the kind of late-week prep that steals red zone points. Alt-lines, a sensible parlay, and party-prop chaos included, because you deserve to enjoy your wings without sweating a half-point.

Then we widen the lens. The NFL’s push for an 18-game season, more countries, and expanded replay meets a hard truth: great football depends on healthy bodies and real rhythm. We propose a two-bye structure with a league-wide dark week that lifts quality without burning out the product. Back in New York, the Jets and Giants chase stability with new coordinators while the only metric that matters—identity—remains unsolved until the quarterback room and scheme alignment click. We handle a Giants ownership headline plainly and keep moving.

On the hardwood, the Knicks are more than a hot streak; they’re building late-game habits that travel into April. Around the deadline, front offices told on themselves: some took smart ceiling swings, others pivoted with purpose, and a few rearranged chairs and called it ambition. Baseball and hockey have their own pressure tests—Detroit spends big but strains trust in arbitration, the WBC looms with a Dominican lineup that looks unfair, and NHL leverage turns stars into one-team markets. Different sports, same rule: attitude reflects results.

Ride with us, argue the coin toss, and send your card. If this breakdown hits, tap follow, share with a friend, and drop a five-star review. Tell us your Super Bowl pick and your favorite prop—then let’s see who keeps their nerve when the lights hit.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Theme: Pressure As Audit
• 1:21 Super Bowl Vibe Check And Public Lean
• 5:08 Seahawks Path: Defense And Calm Darnold
• 8:26 Patriots Edges: McDaniels Prep And Margins
• 12:36 Brady’s “No Dog” Quote And Optics
• 17:33 League Expansion, 18 Games, And Rest
• 22:01 Jets And Giants Coordinator Moves
• 25:22 Giants Ownership Headline Context
• 27:34 Rapid-Fire NFL Moves And Rumors
• 32:18 Super Bowl Card: Spread, Total, Parlay
• 37:09 Party Props And Degenerate Delights
• 41:17 NBA Deadline: Knicks Heat Up
• 46:06 Stars Staying, Big Swings, And Fits
• 51:07 MLB Pulse: Tigers Spend And WBC
• 56:50 NHL Notes: Panarin, Leverage, Goalies
• 1:07:51 Closing Mindset: Attitude Reflects Results
• 1:10:24 Community, Reviews, And Good Energy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Se on myrafine, että se tällaisia welcome back to Race on the Mics. And today, today I bring you an episode that has some nervous excitement in the air. You know that feeling the night before a big test, that Christmas Eve, that first day back to school? You did the studying, you know what you know, and your brain still wants to run the whole thing back at 2 a.m. just to make sure that things don't get weird tomorrow. Well, that's where we're at in sports right now. The Super Bowl is here, like the final exam that you've had just circled on your calendar for weeks. And this is when everybody says they're feeling fine, everyone says they're locked in, everyone's smiling for the cameras, and then Sunday hits, and we find out who's really built for it. And that's the theme for today's episode: Attitude Reflects Results. So when the pressure shows up, that's the audit. Make sure you don't fold. We kick things off this week with a full Super Bowl preview. We got the story hooks, we got matchups, the stuff that actually matters. And I also got to talk about this whole Tom Brady no dog in the fight thing, which is either the most honest thing he's ever said or the most calculated thing he's ever said. Either way, it's very telling. We're also touching on the league's big picture push, more games, more countries, more everything. Players are already pushing back, and that's a conversation that isn't going to go away. And then we bring it home. Bring it home to New York. Jets and Giants. Got new coordinators, we got new plans, we got some hope, but we still got the same old nerves. And we also do need to address the Giants headline that popped up this week, too. Certain somebody's name ended up on a certain somebody's list. But after that, we're rolling with a dice with rice. We're down to the last game of the year, football-wise, at least. So we'll go over the season record and then one final card. I got spread, I got total, I got a three-legg parlay, five props that I genuinely love. No stake salesman, no fake confidence. After that, we dive into the NBA. Knicks are on a heater, they're adding pieces, and the deadline, the deadline came and went with some big names moving and some big names staying. We'll touch them all and rapid fire through the not so big ones just to make you sound like you know what you're talking about at the water cooler. Follow that up with a little MLB and NHL. Quick but important hits, right? Tiger spending big, WBC notes, Beltran going in as a Met, which I'm not even gonna pretend that I'm unbiased about. And Ranger fans, we gotta talk about Panarin. They got hosed, but their feet were held to the coals. And that's exactly what pressure does. It exposes your options. So that's the menu for tonight. If you're working out, hit another rep for me. If you're in the car, don't forget to use your turn signal. And if you're hanging at home, grab a drink, take a breath, put your feet up. We are right on the edge of the moment where everything turns into receipts. This is Rice on the Mics. We got a lot to cover. Let's do it to it.

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

Tranquility base here. The angle has landed.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

So, like I said before, the Super Bowl is sitting there like the exam that you've been thinking about for weeks. The studying is done. The notes are taken. Now it's just how do you react when the room gets real quiet and the clock starts ticking? If you needed a quick temperature check before we even get into the matchups, the mic check polls that I put out every Wednesday, which you should be voting in on the Instagram, well, it basically told us exactly where the crowd is leading. The people, the fans, they went Seahawks minus four and a half, 76%, and under 45.5%, 76% also. Funny that they both landed on the same. But the the audience is basically saying Seattle wins, and it ain't gonna be a fireworks show. It's one of those games where you're yelling at the TV like, can we just get one normal drive without a penalty or a timeout or delay a game or something? Now, do I always trust the crowd? Do I always trust the public? No, not exactly. I mean, the crowd also thinks that pineapple on pizza is a good idea at some point, right? But it does tell you what the vibe is about this week. It's that people believe in Seattle's ability to control the game, and they think that turns into the grinder, and that's enough to win the Super Bowl. Win the game. So let's start with the obvious the Super Bowl week nonsense, the everybody's fine, quote unquote. Well, Sam Darnold's got the oblique thing hanging over him. We've heard all the tough guy lines, he hasn't flinched, he's playing through it, he's got the injections, the whole, the whole movie. And then in the NFC Championship, he goes out and throws three touchdowns, no turnovers, just trying to erase the entire internet history. That's the story right there. Not the injury itself. The story is the calm. If the Seahawks win, it's not going to be some magical trick play. It's it's going to be Sam Darnold staying clean, staying on schedule, and not seeing ghosts he once claimed to see against the Pats on Monday Night Football. A game that I was at, by the way, which if you've been listening, you know I'm defeated, not undefeated, defeated going to Jets games, but that's a different story for a different day. On the other side, Drake May's got a little shoulder something. But the Patriots have been playing the same game. He's good, he's thrown, he's a hundred percent. Yeah, whatever. Of course he's a hundred percent. Super Bowl week is the week where a hundred percent means he can lift his arm above his head without making a face. So I don't know. We'll we'll see what that really means when somebody's trying to take his head off on third and eight. But yeah, it's the Super Bowl. It's the last game of the year. Winner go home. You're going to Cancun regardless. This is where the theme of the episode comes in early. Attitude reflects results. Your body might be banged up, but your mind can't be. Pressure is the audit. Pressure will check you. You fold for one quarter and all of a sudden it's over. The Seahawks defense story is my favorite angle of the week, I think, because it's them basically saying they're not Legion of Boom 2.0. They're not doing the nostalgia tour. They're not trying to be a remake. They've built an identity all their own, and it's basically we're not the loudest unit, we're not the flashiest unit. We're just going to be annoying for 60 minutes. We're going to make you grind. No weak links, no soft spot, no freebies. So if Seattle wins, this is how it happens. They make May play the long game. They force him to take the check downs, they force him to be patient, and then they wait for the one mistake that every young quarterback makes when the stage starts yelling at him, it's this big. You know, one throw that's a half a second too later, one ball that hangs in the air just a little too long, one I can fit it in that window moment. That's how February works. And it sucks too because Seattle's got the extra layer now of their rookie star nickel in Manawari. He tweaked his ankle in practice like this week. And it was one of those oh no moments where the whole the report came out and all of a sudden everybody's holding their breath. It was like the most important thing in Seattle. They're saying they expect him to play, and you know, and honestly, I hope he does. You get this far in the season for you not to give it a go, it sucks. That's the kind of story that tests the rookie entire wiring moving forward. Look, man, it's Super Bowl week. You you get to scare in practice, but you gotta go line up against the guy across from you like nothing happened. Again, this is the last game of the year, no matter what. That's the job. Don't fold. As far as New England, well, New England's edge in the Super Bowl in any big game has always been the margin for error. Right? That's why Josh McDaniels being back here is kind of the real story, not so much Mike Vrabel. I mean, Mike Vrabel's story right now is great, but the McDaniels angle is the one that I kind of want to focus on. He's he's one of those guys where the resume is messy if you zoom out. I mean, he's a great coordinator, but everywhere he goes, he's a rough head coach. Then he takes a step back for a little bit, he disappears for a minute, and then all of a sudden, here he comes, recalibrated, back in your face, prepping a quarterback on the biggest stage. Brady talked about it in an interview this week, talking about Super Bowl 49. He said they literally installed late red zone packages, like late, like the end of the week before the Super Bowl, like Thursday, did them in walkthroughs, and then they ended up scoring off of them in the Super Bowl and winning. I mean, that's not magic. That's preparation at an elite level. And people hate hearing that. Everybody wants some secret sauce, some Michael Jordan Space Jam water bottle, you know, some magic from the football gods. But in reality, it's not secret sauce. It's reps and detail and caring more about it than the other guy across from you. That's why I love the story of this episode. The night before the test energy, right? You don't win the test by wishing you do good on it. You win by being ready for the questions that are gonna get thrown at you. And another Patriots hook is Diggs of all players, being this emotional centerpiece for the team, the guy that's bringing the edge, which not every team has in a playoff run, but the winning teams that do have that end up winning, usually at least. Most of the time it's the quarterback, sometimes it's the middle linebacker, sometimes it's the coach. Very rarely it's a receiver, and when it's a receiver who's been around the league and can feel it getting late in his career, recognizing what this moment is and doing everything in his body to relay that message to his teammates, it matters. It shows up big. It shows up in the body language, it shows up when you're down 10 and you're walking back to the huddle. Some teams look like they're waiting for the game to end. But winning teams, big time elite winning teams, they're looking like they want to start a fight and they want to claw back into the game. So long and short, here's how I see it. And I'm just gonna keep it simple here. If Seattle wins, the game stays clean, Darnold avoids backbreaking mistakes, and Seattle's defense forces May to be perfect for 12-play drives, making them settle for field goals, bend but don't break, the old Belichick way. Use it against them, making field position matter, making the clock matter. You know, it starts feeling like a game where the Patriots just keep hanging around, but they can't quite land the haymaker, and before you know it, the clock hits zero and the confetti's dropping from the floor, from the ceiling. Now, if New England wins, well, it comes down to May having to be calm, calm early. No panic drives, no hero ball, no bad fumbles, which he has had a couple this postseason. And honestly, the Patriots probably have to steal a possession. A short field turnover, a special team swing, something that turns the game into well, now Seattle feels the pressure. The Patriots are the kind of team that that can survive on sharp decisions. That's the lane for them to win. Now, all of this leads right into a funny story of the week because everything seems to get picked up during media week because there's nothing else to talk about, and everybody gets a microphone shoved in their face. But in that interview with Brady that I was just talking about, they asked him, Who are you rooting for, man? You know, you're a patriot, former patriot. What do you got? And surprisingly, to a lot of people, he jumped out and he said, Yeah, I don't really have a dog in the fight. I'm not rooting either way. And then basically, every former patriot who has ever breathed said, What the fuck, Tom? This is the part of the Super Bowl that I it's like a guilty pleasure for me. It's the theater around the game. A lot of people hate it, a lot of people can't stand it. I don't know, man. Kind of I part of me kind of really likes it. Here's there's two sides to this coin, right? So here's the real thing. Brady can't talk like he used to talk. Right? He's not just the ex-quarterback that won a bunch of rings anymore. He's now involved in ownership on a team. He's a part owner of the Raiders. That changes the tone immediately. You're not just the guy with memories of the Patriots anymore. You're a stakeholder in the league. You're not going to try and set off a league-wide wildfire on Super Bowl week. You have to watch what you say in these interviews. So, on one level, the no dog line kind of makes sense. I get it. It's the corporate answer. It's the safe answer. It's uh, you know, the I said things, it's the Brian Cashman. I said things without saying things, answer. Not to mention, too, on top of it, the OC for Seattle is more than likely going to be the head coach of the team that Tom Brady's a part owner of. So he can't exactly get on the mic and say, yeah, I'm rooting for the Pats, but I also want the losings team offensive coordinator to be my head coach next season. That's an awkward boardroom. That's that's not what you want, right? That's not what you want to hear walking into the job. But on the other side of that coin, come on, man. He's Tom Brady. New England, New England's not just a team that he played for, even if he did win a ring with Tampa. That's his entire legacy foundation. That's where Tom Brady went from being a sixth-round throwaway player to someone who was synonymous with elite-level winning on the level of like Kobe and Michael Jordan, who hates losing more than he loves winning. That's his whole TV 12 origin brand story. Throw on top of it that your teammate, who you won Super Bowls with, is the head coach of that franchise. So to not back the Pats in this moment, it's funny to say the least. But now here's the other thing, right? Here's the fun uh, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire, maybe I'm just grasping at straws kind of thing. But this is the rice on the mics take care. Maybe, just maybe, when you uh lay out the Hall of Fame stuff on top of this whole conversation and start connecting some dots here, it might just maybe get a little more interesting, right? So Robert Kraft doesn't get in the Hall of Fame as the first ballot. Bill Belichick doesn't get in the Hall of Fame as a first ballot. Maybe it's because of Spygate. Maybe it's because of the massage ballers. Either way, for whatever reason, the voters decided to keep two no doubt Hall of Famers out of the Hall of Fame their first time through. So here's the bar combo. And again, it's speculation. I'm not reporting anything, I'm just, you know, throwing some things out there. Is Brady maybe trying to keep the Patriots at arm's length at this stage of his career, partly because he doesn't feel like being the face of the Patriots politics anymore. All while the Hall of Fame is kind of doing this whole song and dance and coming up with reasons to keep guys out of the Hall of Fame that 100% deserve to be in it. Brady is a competitor through and through. And this might be his last itch that he can scratch to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. So in his mind, if for some reason he feels like he might get snubbed because of a franchise's previous actions that he kind of was a part of, I don't know, man. I'm just saying, I'm just throwing it out there. Maybe, maybe not, whatever. Nobody has to tell us, right? But a deep dive on the behavior kind of maybe tells you enough what's going on there. And again, it ties it ties in perfectly to the theme tonight. When your incentives change, your attitude changes. When your attitude changes, people notice, and results follow, one way or the other. So now let's zoom out from uh Super Bowl week and we'll look at the league as a whole, and they're they're trying to turn the NFL into a worldwide tour. The 18-game conversation is floating back out there. Roger Goodell did his yearly state of the league press conference, and it was something that he talked about. The players are basically saying that they have no appetite for it whatsoever, which I get. I mean, these dudes are already being held together by tape and tortural shots by November. The mic check poll was split too. 44% said give me more football, while 56% said the market is flooded already. That's a real conversation. The league wants more inventory, they want more money, they want to be able to sell more product, and the fans kind of want more content, but not really. We're players just want to be able to walk at 45. So here's my solution for it. Here's how you fix it. If you go to an 18-game season, it's two buys, not one. Two. The team throughout the year will get a buy either early or late. But the second buy, instead of a week where there's only, you know, six, seven games going on, you turn that middle of the year week into a full no football week. I mean, think about it. It would be perfect time for you to do the skills challenge pro bowl bullshit that you put on at the end of the year. And if guys actually wanted to participate, they could. It would give every team a chance to get a guy or two on their roster healthier, which then in turn would make the competition of the games going forward better. You know, you're not missing a game because Jamar Chase rolled his ankle in week seven. Well, guess what? He's got week eight off, and they play Sunday night, week nine. He could maybe make it back by then. Then going forward, when you name guys to the Pro Bowl, they don't have to go to it to get the Pro Bowl check on their resume. End of the year, these guys were Pro Bowlers, these guys were first team, etc. etc. You know, whatever. And I listen, I know what you're thinking. Oh my god, what am I gonna do without football for a week? What about my fantasy team? Relax. Okay. The NBA and the MLB, they make it work just fine. And honestly, if I'm college football that week where the NFL is off, I schedule that week as rivalry week. And you just watch the ratings soar. Selfishly, too, that mid-season off week, couples across America are gonna be throwing parties. Wives and girlfriends are finally gonna be like, oh, we can go apple picking now. You can get that thing out of the way that she's been nagging you about, and you're not faking an important division game just to get out of it anymore. Win-win situation. Another story around the league, uh, the global domination layer that we talked about at the very beginning of the season. Actually, I think the preseason, Mexico City coming back, and they're talking about even more countries or throwing Australia in the mix next year. I think there's a game getting played in France, and the Saints are gonna play in it because you know, Florida Lease and NOLA and all that. That's fine. That sounds cool and all until you remember what the travel to countries like that does to the human body, and then get off the plane and go play football. The league is also talking about expanding replay assist, which is good intention, I guess, but it's also a very slippery slope of we're gonna review every single play until the game is six hours long. I mean, the league is the league is basically saying more games, more travel, more review, more everything, and the players are saying, no, man, less strain, we want more time to recover, stop turning us into robots. And meanwhile, the fans are just caught up in the middle saying, I just want my Sundays to be normal again, man. That's that's what's going on in the NFL in a nutshell, league wise, at least. So I promise you some local news, some jets and giant news. And here we are. The pressure is like the local weather. It's cold. It's dreary. And it's right in your face. We'll start with the Jets for once. They hire Frank Reich as an offensive coordinator. Great. That's experience. That's an adult in the room. He's been there. He's called plays. He was a head coach before. You can honestly make a real argument that this is the Jets trying to stop spinning in circles and start acting like a functional franchise for once in their life. Now, will it work out? I mean, he doesn't have a quarterback. There's still a lot of questions to be answered with Aaron Glenn. And if he falters early, well, they just look for Frank Reich to take over as the head coach, as an interim. It's still very messy, but it feels like the first step of an adult move. And the mic check that I put out when it was floating around that they might hire him. 58% of the team of the fan base said, who cares? That's the most Jets thing ever. Jets fans aren't even mad anymore. They're done. They're just tired. They're sick of the meddling and the minutiae and the yada yada yada, the garbage. The question is simple. Is Reich the move that brings stability, or is this just another name on the list while the actual problem stays the same? And you know what the actual problem is? Quarterback, direction, identity. Until that gets solved, everything else is just furniture and an empty house. Still, I uh I like the concept of the adult voice. The Jets have been living on chaos fumes, and if they're serious about changing the results, the attitude has to shift first. Calm, structure, consistency. Then you see what the results start to look like. As for the Giants, well, they missed out on their first offensive coordinator job. So they bring in Matt Nagy as the OC. And funny enough, the mic check was perfectly split, 50-50. So that tells you everything. Half of the fan base is like, okay, maybe this is gonna work. We'll see how it goes. And the other half is like, great, here we go again. We got the big guy, but then he couldn't get the other guy. And what else is gonna go wrong? The whole Giants season is pretty much gonna be about one or two things. It's gonna be developing Dart and maximizing neighbors. That's really the entire assessment. Nobody cares about clever pressers in August. Nobody cares about we like the pieces that we have. The only thing that matters is do you have an offense that looks like it belongs in the century? And can you win games? Last thing to touch on for the Giants here. It's the elephant in the room, but it needs to get talked about. Steve Tish, co-owner of the Giants. Well, his name appears in some release Epstein-related documents. And Tish denies wrongdoing, says it was just a brief association, and the league says they're gonna look into it. Happened a while ago, but it also kind of happened when you kind of knew who Jeffrey Epstein was. He was already a convicted sex offender, eh, whatever. That's where you leave it right now. Okay, there's facts, the statements, the league review, there's no speculation. We'll see what comes out of it. But I will make a little levity of the situation for you, okay? Just for Giants fans here. Can you imagine how bad your franchise has to be to hope that your owner does show up in the Epstein Files? Yeah. Well, that's the life of a Jets fan. A reason for him to sell and get out of there. So trust me, guys, it could always be worse. Okay. So, anyway, before we get out of the NFL, we're gonna do a quick rapid fire. Uh, some stuff that I banked earlier in the week just so nothing gets lost. Uh, Falcons hire Ian Cunningham as the GM. They've got this whole new leadership structure with Matt Ryan leading the charge and not exactly committing to Penix either. I mean, they just took him last year, two years ago, and then he's throwing out there I will never fold. Yeah, it's a great quote, but now comes the hard part. Proving it. Uh also the non-committal starter talk with him that's coming off the ACL. That's pressure, that's uncertainty, that's the attitude test stuff. The Vikings firing their GM Quessy is a shocker, but only really because it was done this late in the offseason. The Bills bring in former Jets safety Jim Leonard as defensive coordinator, which is a serious football move. I followed his career at Wisconsin, and he had some pretty damn good defenses before, even before the NIL days. Uh the Rams extended McVay and Sneed. Stability matters. That's how you stay relevant. And the Raiders, again, they're expected to go Kubiak. Uh Cardinals go Michael Floyd. Titans have Cam Ward hyped about the day ball intensity and wanting to play underneath him. And last but not least, we got some Max Crosby trade rumors that are serious enough to talk about in Dimension. I mean, he was really pissed about getting shut down the last three games of the year last year. They were basically tanking, and they knew if he was on the field, it would give them a chance to win. So if he actually is available, available, that Parsons-like hall language that keeps getting floated around out there, that's not just for vibes. That's you trade him for a franchise reset, all while having the number one overall pick in this year's draft and trying to stack players around Fernando Mendoza, who is pretty much the consensus number one. I don't know, man. I know Raiders fans aren't going to want to see him go, but it might be worth it. He's going to give you at least two first round picks. You can you can really turn around a franchise real quick with four picks, unless you're the Jets, because that's what they're trying to do. Anyway, last two notes that I have here for the NFL. Uh the ESPN NFL Network Red Zone deal got approved. And everybody's kind of sitting around wondering what's going to happen to Scott Hansen and eight hours of commercial free football or whatever the quote is here. I mean, I really not that I'm a big red zone watcher, I usually just watch my games, but if I got to listen to Stephen A. Smith yelling at me for eight hours straight, no commercials, I think I'm good on that. And Joe Flacco. Joe Cool. Well, not Joe Cool, but Delaware zone Joe Flacco making his first Pro Bowl appearance at age 41. So don't worry. If you ever feel like you're behind in life, Joe Flacco, a Super Bowl winning quarterback, just made a Pro Bowl at 41. You can keep going. You got this. But yeah, that's uh that's all I got for the NFL right now. There is pressure everywhere. People are making moves, people are hedging, people are trying to tell you who they are. And if this episode has a thesis, it's this that attitude reflects results. That's the theme. But let's take a breath and let's talk some money. Let's talk the last NFL game of the year. Let's talk rolling the dice with rice. Keep it right here. Picks her up next. Rolling the dice with Uncle Rice. Last one of the year. Well, for NFL, at least. Maybe we'll mix in some NBA and maybe a little March Madness. But once baseball rolls around, I mean, how do you not bet baseball? Call me Pete Rose, right? Anyway, last one of the year for NFL. And this part always feels a little strange. All season we've been doing five games a week. It's moving parts, it's injuries, it's chaos, it's this, that, and the other. Then suddenly now we're down to one game. One stage. One final card. One last chance to either look smart as hell or get humbled in public here. So, quick record check, quick humble check before we fire off some bets here. On the season, we finished 59 and 43. Pretty damn good. In the playoffs, we're 14 and 5. Also, pretty damn good. Strong. And it's something you can actually stand on. I had a terrible, terrible year to start. But boy oh boy, do we come back with a vengeance? So, now, down to the last game. The spread has been sitting at Seattle minus four and a half pretty much all week, pretty much two weeks. I think it went down to three and a half at one point and immediately jumped back up to four and a half. I'm telling you right now, as a Jets fan, I am doing the exact thing I am not supposed to do, and I'm letting my emotions get involved. I can't root for the Patriots. I can't, man. Even just saying it out loud feels wrong. At the same time, the public is super heavy on Seattle. Like 70% heavy. And we all know how this goes. The house always wins. When everybody is running to one side of the boat and it's starting to tip a little bit, you gotta at least have a look at the other side and ask, what am I missing here? So here's where I landed when it comes to the spread. I do think Seattle wins the game. So if you want to take a minus 235 money line, by all means go ahead. What I do like is buying it up and giving myself a little bit of breathing room. So my official spread pick is Patriots plus seven and a half. Buy it up, give me the extra points, keep it within one score, keep it entertaining, and honestly, selfishly, I kind of want that too. I want a Super Bowl where the fourth quarter actually matters. I don't I want it tight enough that everyone's still locked in late, not scrolling on their phones at a halftime, like it's a preseason game, you know? So Seattle wins in my book, but New England covers the bigger number. That's the lane that I'm rolling with for the spread. Now for the over-under, well, same thing. It's been sitting at 45 and a half, 46.5 all week. That number feels like it's exactly where it wants to land. Just to ruin everybody's night. So again, I'm gonna buy up for a little cushion here. Look, Seattle's defense is legit. New England's defense is legit too, but it's a second-year quarterback on the biggest stage of his career. It's Sam Darnold and a young rookie coach, two rookie coaches actually, fighting to who has the bigger uh, you know, big dick energy. So this kind of feels like a heavyweight bout. Lots of feeling out to start, you know, no big plays, nothing crazy, and then late in the second half, a couple big shots, but the score stays under 50. So the official pick for the total is under 50 and a half. As long as we're in 51 points, we're good. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be cute and sweat out a 45 and a half total and it ends up being 27-24. You know, I want to enjoy my wings. I want to be enjoying my beer and my bourbon, not just stare at the wall in silence because they kicked a field goal and it went over by a half a point. Now, since all year we've been doing five games a week, and we've only got the one game, and I've already given the spread and the total, we're gonna mix in a little three-leg parlay here. Nothing wild, not a not a ten-leg rent is due shoot for the moon parlay. Something you can actually defend at the bar without your friends being like, hey man, what what the hell is this? So, first leg, we're gonna keep it simple. Jackson Smith and Jig with 70 plus receiving yards. I mean, the dude is a problem. He gets his yards no matter what. He's led the league in receiving pretty much all year. It's gone back and forth between him and Puka Nukwa. And honestly, he's one broken play away from flipping the whole game upside down. It's a little juiced at 93. I'm gonna take it down to 70. I don't really care. It's minus 270. That's a foundation piece. That's how we start off with a good first leg. Second leg. Well, this is the one that's a little scary, but hey, you gotta risk it to get the biscuit, right? I'm gonna go back to the well, and I'm going Hunter Henry anytime touchdown. He has been Drake May's favorite target all year, and really his safety valve all year. Diggs has had a good season, but Hunter Henry has been the real centerpiece. The postseason has not been great to him, which in my idiot brain makes it feel like he's due for the annoying. Of course he scores game. Safe play would be the yards. His over-under on yards is 39 and a half, so I guess if that's the route you want to go. But Hunter Henry at plus 240 anytime touchdown, that's the second leg on the parlay. Book it. Last but not least, third leg. If we're sticking with the stars, Kenneth Walker, 60 plus rushing yards. His number right now is floating in the low 70s. I actually think he can get there, no problem. But I'm not asking for perfection. New England has been a bend but don't break field defense all year. So guys get their yards, drives move down the field. They just don't get in the end zone. That's the kind of great game script that I'm looking for for Walker. Give me Walker plus 60 rushing yards. It sits at around 260, I think, minus 260, 270, give or take. But all three of them together get you around plus 550. That's five to one on something that's pretty doable if the game plays the way that we think it will. So that's our five picks. But you we can't leave you with that. I mean, it's the Super Bowl, it's the prop bets, it's the pools, the fun, right? We got to do the fun stuff. The silly stuff. The throw a couple bucks on it because why not? And then I get to brag when it actually happens stuff. So we're gonna give you a couple of those. And the first one, the one that we kick it off with every year at the Super Bowl party, all the guys get together, they throw a couple bucks on the table. The coin toss. It's the best odds you're gonna get all year on a true 50-50. Minus 110, heads or tails. The coin can't get hurt in the first quarter. The coin can't get game scripted out of the uh the trajectory here. The house motto for us is always tails never fails. But either way, it's 50-50 odds on the outcome of a guy flipping a coin. It's the purest gamble we got. Second, we're sticking with the under vibe. And I found a great connector to baseball. I found neither team to score on their opening drive at plus 160. So that's basically the no runs in the first inning vibe. That's no runs in the first inning bet. But the football version. The first drive is always scripted. The nerves are high, everybody's a little tight, you know, the pageantry, the whole works. Let the punters get a little shine early in the game. Let them get in. I love that. So again, neither team to score on their opening drive plus 160. That's where I got it at at least. Uh, for our third and fourth plays that we're giving out here, we're gonna go defensive touchdown sprinkles. Both defenses are fast, both are aggressive, and honestly, both quarterbacks have had some moments where the ball security gets a little uh adventurous, I guess. So give me Seattle defense or special teams to score at plus 550, and give me the Patriots defense slash special teams to score at plus eight fifty. Look, a pick six, a strip sack, a block punt, something weird. It's a Super Bowl. It always happens. It's not likely, but anything can happen, you know? And last but not least, just for the pure chaos factor, overtime. Yes, there to be overtime at plus 11.20. 10 bucks. That's it. If it hits, your bar tab is covered, and maybe even the food, the money that you spent on food. And if it doesn't hit, well, it's ten bucks. It costs less than a bad habit at the grocery store. Cigarettes are$16 right now. So that's the final card, the final NFL Rice on the mics gambling card. The spread, the total, parlay that makes sense, and five party props that keep it fun and interesting. Next up, we're gonna get into the NBA because the deadline came and went, and we had some big names that we didn't think get moved, and we had some big names that we thought were to stay. We're gonna dive into it next. Keep it right here. Well, all right, all right, all right. Time for some hardcore time, and the league does the thing again where it turns one random week in February into a full-blown group chat meltdown of who went where and why they went there and what that makes up for their team. The vibe around the NBA deadline is always the same, right? It's everybody swears that they're patient, everybody swears that they're not feeling the pressure and they're gonna make the moves that they want to make, and then you blink, and half the league is starting a new lineup come Sunday. It's like watching people say that they're on a diet and they're holding a slice of pizza and a Diet Coke. Well, the Diet Coke is why. Yeah, stop. If we're keeping the theme consistent, this is the NBA version of it. Attitude reflects results. Right? At the deadline, pressure shows up, and front offices reveal who they are. Some teams push their chips in, some teams panic, some teams convince themselves they're doing something when they really just should be rearranging the furniture in-house. So let's start where we live, and the team that's most important, the team that's been on a heater, the Knicks. And I'm not talking about a heater like we beat the Wizards twice kind of here. They've been stacking real wins. And more importantly, they've been building up a little bit of personality while they're doing it. The Blazers game, that was a cruise. The Lakers game, LeBron's last night at the Garden, more than likely, was one of those big stage, big names in the building kind of nights, and they spoiled LeBron's last night there. That's great. Knicks handle business. The Wizards game the next night. Well, I mean, it was over by the first quarter, to be totally honest with you. That was a blowout. The annoying part of that game, though, is Josh Hart tweaking his ankle with a couple big games coming up. I mean, we got Detroit on Friday and the Celtics on Sunday, I think. You know, the Knicks can never just win a game without a little bit of a by the way, attached to it. But the Nuggets game. Two overtimes. Brunson drops 42. Kat is basically, actually not basically, is bleeding and bandaged like he's in a boxing match. That wasn't just like a highlight real win. That was a grown man, we're here, we mean business win. That's the kind of win you remember in April when the playoff games get ugly. Hey man, we've been here before. We can do this. That's the don't fold game right there. And the best part is it's not it's not just the vibes. I mean, they're making moves that fit who they want to be going forward. Bringing in Jose Alvarado is a perfect Knicks player. He's a Brooklyn guy, loves playing in the garden. There was a video floating around of like when he was playing with the Nets and he was playing in the garden. He's like, I'm looking at my mom, I'm looking at my peoples in the stands. You know, and all the reports is he is just a defensive menace. He'll skim. There's gonna be a game where he skims his knee on the court, you can hear it, and he goes for a steal, and the garden's gonna erupt. The dude is a pest. He's annoying, he's energy. He's the type of player who makes the other team start arguing with each other about what are we doing with this guy. That plays in the garden. I cannot emphasize that enough. I mean, you watch Mitchell Robinson out there defending Jamal Murray and switching off and whatever, and they love Mitch. He plays 25 minutes a game. Jamal, uh, excuse me, Jose Alvarado ain't gonna play 25 minutes a game, but it's gonna feel like he played 40 with the effort that he gives out. Now, I do want to say one thing about the Knicks that's been popping in my head a little bit while they've been rolling. They are kind of borrowing a page out of the Celtics book. They're just jacking up threes, man. And look, when they go in, you look unstoppable. You're blowing teams out. But when they don't go in, you look, you look like you're trying to win on pure confidence and a prayer, to be honest with you. And it's not criticism. That's just what modern basketball has become. It's it's variants, it's the price of doing business. It's it is what it is. The difference is in the Nuggets game, when it got tight and the shots weren't exactly falling, they didn't crumble. They stayed in it, they got the hard bucket, they drove the lane, they found ways.

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That

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That's the part that really matters. Attitude reflects results. The body language has been so much better as of late. And the late game execution has been better. The team is buying in. Everybody seems to know what their role is. No more like, oh, well, there's only why am I on the bench? Why is this guy? No, man. One band, one sound. This team is really coming together when we thought it was falling apart at the seams. That is exactly why the results are showing up. Now, for the elephant that didn't walk out of the room, so to speak. Giannis. Giannis didn't get traded. And uh, you know, honestly, the whole Giannis week has been pretty funny. It was like the NBA collectively decided to treat this deadline like it was a reality show finale. Is he leaving? Is he staying? Is this the last episode? What's gonna happen? Milwaukee held tight. They didn't feel the pressure to trade him. They kept him through the deadline and the offers that they got, they pushed back for more. Then, you know, when he doesn't move, he puts out a social post of when Wolf of Wall Street of the I'm not leaving, I'm not fucking leaving. You know, Giannis, here's where I'm at with that. Him not moving doesn't mean the story is dead. It just means the story maybe moves to the offseason. Who knows? Maybe this Knicks team goes on a run, right? Maybe they go to the finals, maybe they handle business. Then you don't have to worry about anything. Then we're watching a float go down the canyon of heroes for the first Knicks championship in 50 years, first New York championship in 20 years, whatever it is, and all is well. But if it doesn't, then fine, it doesn't. Then in the offseason we make a move for him or we figure it out or whatever happens, right? But I do want to bring something back that I was thinking about before the trade deadline ended. And all through this whole process was that Giannis didn't want to be the bad guy, that I never said I wanted to leave, I never said I wanted to get traded, my agent said this, or whatever, whoever said this, right? I'm the good guy. Well, you know, part of being a champion is being willing to be able to be the bad guy sometimes. Giannis doesn't want to be the villain. He's a likable dude. He's the face of the franchise. He's, I love my city. That's great. But you know who wins championships? Guys who are willing to be cutthroat when it's time to be cutthroat. Kobe was cutthroat. LeBron is cutthroat. Every time he gets on a team and he gets traded around, if you don't like the roster, he's moving it. Pat Riley, Larry Bird, those dudes weren't trying to win the nicest person award. They were trying to win titles. Sometimes you have to say the uncomfortable thing to get the uncomfortable result. And now I'm not I'm not asking for Giannis to go full WWE heel either. I'm just saying if you want a different result, you can't always play it safe socially. Pressure is the audit. Eventually, you got to pick a direction. You got to pick a lane. Knicks fans were split right down the middle on this too for the mic check poll. 50-50. Half of the fan base said go get them, and the other half said they cost too much. That's kind of the real debate. Everybody wants the superstar on their team. Nobody wants to foot the bill. So, now, with all that being said, let's hit on the big stuff that actually changed the league around this week. There's some new faces and some new uniforms. So we'll go over a couple of the bigger ones and then we'll rapid fire some of the later ones. First on the list is Anthony Davis of the Wizards. And you're saying, what the hell are the Wizards doing? And what the hell are the Mavericks doing? This one is still making my head hurt a little bit. The Wizards acquiring Anthony Davis is the most what are we doing move, but at the same time, it's it's actually kind of perfect for the Wizards. They're definitely trying to tank because they have a pick swap, but it's protected if they pick within the top eight. And then as soon as they pick within the top eight, as soon as they're guaranteed that they're just gonna unload uh Anthony Davis out. They want to be bad, but not too embarrassingly bad. But then they also want to build for next year and also pretend that the timeline started yesterday and this, that, and the other. I don't know. The wizards are wizarding, I guess. But really, it comes down to uh Nico Harrison and the Mavericks. I know Nico's not there anymore, but he pretty much got this whole thing kicked off. You traded Jalen Brunson, you traded Luka Doncic, and now who you traded him for for AD, he's gone now too. I think that I think they showed it. It was like you got more. Oh no, that's the stat. This is the stat that I heard. You ready for this? Anthony Davis as a Maverick played 29 games in total. Okay. Luka Doncic with the Lakers has 29 games of 30 plus points. Nico Harrison shouldn't be allowed to serve hot dogs in a stadium. Never mind, run a team ever again. That's a tough, tough break for the Mavs. Next on my list, James Harden to the Cavs. Uh uh Harden to Cleveland is the classic ceiling swing, ceiling push. Cleveland basically said, we're good, but we're not good enough, right? This guy's hurt. This we can't get it done here for whatever reason. So what do they do? They go out and get a guy who can just take over an offense, put him next to Donovan Mitchell, he can get 12 free throws a game and just make everybody's life easier, right? Well, kind of. The hardened conversation is always the same, right? The talent is unquestionable. He can play, he can make his shots. The fit is a little interesting, and what does it look like when it starts getting tight? What does it look like when the opponent takes away the first option? What does it look like when it's game six and everybody's tired? Is he gonna put in the effort? It's kind of where the don't fold theme of the episode lives. I mean, if it works, Cleveland looks brilliant, right? If it's if it doesn't, everybody's gonna say, yep, same movie, different city, couldn't get out of the second round, is what it is. Uh Golden State pivoting to Porzingis is pretty interesting, too. This is I kind of respect it to be honest with you. People kind of scoffed at it at first. The Warriors, look, they were sniffing around Giannis. They were even floating out Draymond, and he even came out saying, hey man, listen, if I gotta get moved, my time here was great, whatever. But then Giannis doesn't move. So Golden State immediate immediately pivots and they land Porzingis. It's kind of a direction pick, man. That's him saying we're not waiting around for a fantasy. We're gonna make a real move that fits our roster that we need. Now, Porzingis is a risk because his health is always part of the deal. He misses games because of body soreness or acheness or something. I think he, if I remember correctly, I think he might have like an autoimmune thing that's not too bad, but sometimes he feels achy. It's something along the lines on that. But if he is on the court, he immediately changes what you are. I mean, he gives you size on a team that likes to play small. He gives you rim protection, he gives you spacing because he can make a three. That's a real basketball move. Him and Steph Curry draining threes, not the worst thing to have. Now, just a couple rapid fire ones just to keep you updated so you can uh make some small talk with that NBA friend at work. Grizzlies send Jaron Jackson Jr. to Utah in a massive deal, and Memphis just stacks picks. You also heard about Ja Morank maybe getting traded, and the Memphis ended up just keeping him. The market apparently was lukewarm. People didn't want to hear him, they didn't want to deal with him. Tells you a lot about the league, how they uh they value availability and trust from their star point guard, potential star point guard. OKC, well, they just do OKC things. They're grabbing assets and talent. They uh they scoop up Jared McCain, another little future pipeline move. Eventually, I mean, look, they have so many young players and so many picks. Eventually, SGA is a star on his own, and Chet's getting there close. Eventually, they're gonna package all those picks and a couple of these players for a monster player. So it's gonna be interesting to see. Vukovic to Celtics is just the pure Celtics move. They just quietly get a little bit better while saving some money, and everybody hates them for it, and I understand why because they go wider than I think of that. Kobe White and Connolly getting bounced around in the Bulls Hornet steel is interesting too. Kobe White, I thought the Bulls were gonna try and build around, but I don't know, he just didn't fit, I guess. Chris Paul to Toronto is uh is pretty funny because he's been bounced around a couple times now, too. And he even said he's like, Yeah, I think I might not even report. That's that's the most 2026 NBA statement I've ever heard in my life. Uh Zubak to Indiana kind of kind of hurts. I kind of wish if he was on the table, I wish the Knicks would have gone for him. It would have given him a little more depth at the center position, maybe a little more size. But Indiana is literally circling the bowl right now. They went from going to the NBA Finals last year to I think they have, I swear to God, I think they have 12 wins right now. Uh DeAndre Hunter to the Kings earlier, that's another move that kind of just makes sense on paper. And Cam Thomas, man, Cam Thomas getting waived by the Nets is wild. It's gonna make some team very, very happy as a bench bucket that they can just sign for a veterans minimum. But the Nets, if the Nets, if you didn't think they were tanking before, just waving Cam Thomas, just letting him go, okay. They're really upset that they didn't win the lottery last year for Cooper Flag. But uh yeah, I don't know. If I miss any trade, it's it's not because it didn't happen. It's just because the NBA, they do this thing once a year where they try to do a month worth of chaos in 48 hours, and I I'm trying to keep up here, you know? But that's where we're at, man. The Knicks are rolling nine straight or eight straight, eight, nine straight, hopefully nine straight against Detroit. Uh it looks real promising. Giana stays in Milwaukee, doesn't get traded. The Buck stays there. That's a good line. Uh the Wizards are doing wizard things, I guess. They're trying to suck but also load up for next year. Cleveland swings the beard. So I wonder how many strip clubs are in Cleveland. Hopefully he can make it out. And Golden State pivots instead of pouting. They don't get Giannis, but they get Porzingis. And that's that's kind of what it is. The through line stays the same. Attitude reflects results. Deadline week is pressure. Some teams fold, some teams get sharper, and some teams just tell on themselves. Now, let's uh let's take a quick lap through some MLB and some NHL. I'm having some fun covering some hockey here. I think I know what I'm talking about. I got some hockey listeners. They they DM me, they let me know what's going on. I mean, I could talk MLB forever. But uh, yeah, let's touch on that a little bit. Detroit is spending like they they mean it, they're trying to go for it. And Ranger fans, we gotta talk about Panarin. Hockey and baseball up next to the Since you stay this long, I mean, you might as well stay for the quick, cool lap through the MLB and the NHL. But like, quick, quick the way we mean it on the show, like quick with purpose, not a whole documentary, just the stuff that matters and the the stuff that's fun, right? The stuff to talk about in the offseason. And we'll start with baseball, specifically with the Tigers, because man, oh man, out of nowhere off the top rope, Detroit woke up and chose violence. They go out and sign Framber Valdez. Big money, big commitment, and that's not a move, that's a statement. That's ownership in the front office basically saying, we are done acting like this is a five-year plan. We are all in right now. I gotta be honest, I kind of don't hate it. And I want to see if they really mean it. This is where the calling their bluff part comes in. Spending big is one thing, which is notoriously not what Detroit does. The real test is what happens when things get uncomfortable. And nothing gets more uncomfortable faster than an arbitration meeting, and especially with your ace, who won back-to-back Cy Young's and is probably the best pitcher in the world right now in Tariq Scoobyl. I mean, you got Scoobyl going to the meeting asking for a number that's pretty much historic. I think he was asking for$32 million. And the Tigers came in offering him 19 million. So it goes to court, and one side has to plead why they deserve this money, and one side has to plead why they think they're worth less. The Tigers had to look Scoobyl in the eye and tell him, We think you're only worth$19 million. Well, guess what? He won his arbitration meeting. He's getting$32 million. And now, unfortunately for them, now it's not just about the money. It's about the relationship going forward. That's the part that fans don't always think about. Arbitration is literally like going to court with someone that you're supposed to be married to. Even if you stay together in the end, you always remember what was said. So Detroit is in this interesting spot. They're building a monster rotation on paper. I mean, Scoobyl, Valdez, Flarity, plus Mise. That's real playoff juice. That's the kind of thing you can walk into an October series with and feel dangerous. But the attitude test is this are you willing to treat your ace like a like your ace when it's time to write the checkout for him? And if history stays true, all signs point to no. Attitude reflects results, right? That's what we've been talking about all episode. If you act like a contender, you have to act like a contender in every meeting, not just at the press conference. And since we're talking about baseball futures and spring training being right around the corner, we get blessed this year with the WBC, the World Baseball Classic, first before spring training starts. And there's definitely some things worth mentioning there that I want to cover real quick. First thing, Otani, everybody's favorite, golden boy. Well, he says he's not pitching. He'll DH. Fine. The tournament will still keep going. It'll still be chaos. Whatever. It is what it is. Second thing, and probably the more important thing, the Dominican Republic is potentially rolling out a lineup that is just disrespectful. And Albert Puos is managing the team, which makes it even cooler. I mean, I'm looking at the projected lineup, and it's literally Julio Rodriguez leading off, then Soto, then Fernando Tatis, then Vladdy Jr., then Junior Comanero, then Manny Machado, Kaito Marte, Perdomo, Joner Diaz. That's not a lineup. That's a good luck message and ask the ump for a new ball. And it gets worse when you realize that they're leaving out guys who could still be in play depending on how they build it out. O'Neal Cruz can still slide into the outfield. Peña can play short. There's other bets. I mean, Jose Ramirez is going to miss the group stage, but still said he'd love to play and he would be available if needed. Thankfully, I mean their pitching isn't the same Avengers lineup level, but it's still solid enough. I mean, Sandy Alcantara is going to lead that rotation off. If they're average on the mound, that offense can win any game in three innings. No problem. USA, on the other hand, well, they feel like the opposite. Uh the lineup is good. All right. It's not scary like that, but it's pretty damn good. I mean, Corbin Carroll, Bobby Witt, Aaron Judge, Cal Riley, Schwarber, Harper, that's real. You can't say no to that. That's those are studs in our game, right? But the rotation, the starting rotation coming out for the USA team, Scoobyl, Paul Skeens, Logan Webb, Joe Ryan, Nolan McLean. That's a real playoff rotation in a tournament setting. USA is going to win tight games. USA can win low-scoring games. They're going to hit, they're going to be fine, and they're going to pitch their ass off, right? DR, well, they can turn a 2-1 game into a 7-2 game in a blink of an eye. So I'm not going to do a whole full world baseball classic preview just yet, but I'm just planting the seed. I'm just getting you guys ready for some baseball, getting you guys ready for some warm weather and some hot dogs and some beer and yelling at some players. The tournament is going to be incredible, and I'm I'm really pumped up for it. We're going to do some good coverage on it. A couple other quick notes that are worth mentioning for MLB. Beltron going into the Hall of Fame as a Met. Selfishly, yeah, I love that. I'm not going to pretend to be unbiased about it. That's a warm, cozy Met fan announcement right there. I love it. And you also got some MLB teams leaving the RSN setup network. That's like the uh media and the uh digital broadcasting network, and they're going to move forward into MLB controlled products. So that means less blackouts for games. You love that. Alright. The sun will come out tomorrow. It will be warm enough soon, and we will have baseball. But for now, we talk some ice and hockey's up. Ranger fans, let's just let's just rip the band-aid off. Let's just get right into it. The Panarin trade, like that trade, it feels like the Rangers got hosed. And not even like in a burn it down hosed kind of way. More like, yeah, they just they got their feet held to the coals. They had no leverage. When a guy has a no-trade clause and that kind of control, and it's basically he wants to go to one destination, you're negotiating with one hand tied behind your back. I know it feels bad, I know it seems like it sucks, but the Rangers had no other option. It's literally the opposite of the Gianna situation. The franchise pretty much came out and put it on blast that they wanted to trade him, and he said, Oh, you want to get rid of me? Okay, fine. I only want to go to LA. So make it work. So, yes, it on paper it looks like a fleecing, and honestly, it is a fleecing. But it also looks like the reality of your mistakes, right? It looks like the reality of modern player leverage. Pressure shows up and it exposes your options. You got to do what you got to do. You're not gonna hold on to them, you gotta at least get something for them. And like I encourage you guys all the time to DM me with any of your takes or anything. One of my good buddies and listener of the show is a very avid hockey fan. And, you know, to I'll be totally honest with you, I haven't listened to as much hockey as I have been. There's a lot of football going on, there's a lot of stuff going on. So I asked him for a quick uh, you know, 101, right? Like uh what's popping around the league? What am I missing? What uh give me some good stuff to chew on. And uh boy oh boy, did he give me a good laundry list of things to go over here? So I'm honestly I'm just gonna read them off. Uh this is the Ethan special. And uh yeah. First off, he hits me with uh JT Miller, never should have been a ranger. Says he's a brutal locker room guy, he's a bad fit, that he's a chemistry killer. Now, look, I I'm not in the room. Uh I'm not acting like I'm breaking some news here. I don't know. But I guess it is a good reminder that hockey trades aren't just about talent. You know, there is always the clubhouse effect. Everybody thinks hockey guys always get along, but you know, sometimes I guess maybe they don't. Sometimes you add a name and you subtract the team. That's not great. From there, he goes on to talk about Colorado coming back down to Earth and literally in the same sentence says that they've only lost eight games in regulation. I did not know that. That's hilarious. If Colorado's coming back down to Earth and they've lost eight games in regulation, what are we talking about here? I guess I don't know. The point is I guess the gap is shrinking. They're not this uh runaway machine anymore, but that's still a big problem. From there, we talk about uh we were talking about the Sharks, and he says that Celebrini looks like Crosby 2.0, and that he is making San Jose look good again. That's a big compliment. That's a big comp. And I guess I get what he means. I mean, I looked up some of his numbers. Certain players just they just change the temperature of a franchise completely, especially in hockey. You turn them on, and the game feels different. We went on to talk about Montreal's kids also, and he's raving about the young guns. Says Demidoff looks like the rookie of the year, hands down, but he also says Kappan is legit, Lane Hudson's legit. And look, I'm again, I'm not crowning awards today, I'm not handing them out, but it looks like from what I'm seeing, what I'm reading, Montreal feels like one of those teams where you can see this big wave coming. It's not so much are they good today, it's more are they building something that's gonna be a pain in the ass the next two, three, four, five years. Uh, he also mentioned team USA Olympic roster and the Canadian roster, actually. He said uh that Evan Breschard from the Oilers leads the NHL in defensive points and he got left off the Canadian roster, and that the USA Olympic roster left the defenseman off because of his height. That's kind of like the most hockey thing I've ever heard. Talent, sure. Skating, sure. How tall is he? I mean he's on skates. That's two extra inches. How short could he be? Lastly, goalie note, which I thought was interesting that we talked about. He said it feels like almost every goalie is beatable this season, which kind of tracks uh how wild some of the scores have been. I've seen some 7-0, 5-0 games. But he did flag two young goalies, uh, Walstead and Brandon Busy. Uh as guys who are quietly really, really good. So if you're a goalie sicker out there, I guess keep an eye out for him. Also, the devils on the trade deadline do a quick little pickup. They pick up Nick uh Bougisted. It's a dept move, nothing flashy. It's the kind of move that you know you don't really talk about or mention now, but then all of a sudden you probably go, Oh, right, I forgot we traded for him. That looks good. And uh yeah, Olympic hockey note. NHL players back on that stage. That matters, man. That's the whole point. It's the best players in the world, it's a tournament setting, it's real stakes. The all-star break that they did last year was kind of like the teaser for it, and guys were going real hard. So it's it's gonna be cool. We'll we'll circle back to it as it gets a little closer. But again, just want to keep it on your radar. MLB and NHL, they're not quite there just yet. But that's our lap. Uh we got Detroit spending like they mean it. We got WBC lineups looking like cheat codes. And we got the Rangers learning the hard way, what it looks like when leverage is gone and you give it all to the player. So we'll get you out of here. I got a couple quick things that we didn't quite get to that are worth mentioning, but we're gonna land the plane with a thank you and some motivation to keep you going through the week. Man, listen here. If this episode ran long, it ran long. My show, my rules. You're not gonna get shorted on Super Bowl week, not on my watch. And that that's that's really been the vibe tonight. This is the night before feeling. The the nervous excitement, the I know what I know. Now I just need to see it. Feeling. Like we could talk story hooks, we could talk spreads, we could talk trades, we could talk who got hosed and who got better. But now it's the best part. Now we get to see the answers. Now we get to get the answers. That's why that's why I kept coming back to the theme all episode. Attitude reflects results. Sports, sports is a cheat code for life. Honestly, it is. You know, we watch these teams and we act like it's just entertainment, and and it is entertainment. But it it's also one big reminder. You know, everybody's confident when it's easy. Everybody's tweeting when they're up 14. The real tell is what happens when the game tightens, when the legs get heavy, when the plan changes, when the shots aren't falling, when the crowd gets too loud, when you make one mistake and you have to respond. That's the part that matters in sports. And it's the part that matters in your life too. Look, if you got something coming up, something you've been sitting with, something you've been putting off, something you're nervous about, that's not a bad sign. That's a good sign. It means it matters to you. It means you actually care. It means you're in the arena. You're trying. So let the nerves be there. Let the excitement be there. Just don't, just don't let it steer the car. Stay steady. Show up. Handle the moment in front of you. One play at a time, one rep at a time, one call at a time, one day at a time. And look, if it doesn't go perfect, good, honestly. That's life. You reset, you learn, you adjust, and you come back better. That's the whole point. Attitude reflects results. It's not instantly, it's not magically, it's over time. Pressure doesn't change you, it introduces you. So when it shows up, don't fold. Embrace the moment, stand in it. I appreciate you rocking with me for episode 51. Seriously, if you if you listen to the whole thing, you're a legend. If you skipped around, hey, that's alright. I still love you, I get it. But your punishment is you have to leave a five-star review. Okay? Uh make sure you're following the show on all the socials. It's at Rice on the Radio. I know it gets a little confusing. Rice on the mics, Rice on the Radio. Is what it is. Send this to a friend. Drop your uh drop your Super Bowl picks in my DM. Tell me your favorite prop bet. Tell me what you want me to talk about next week. I I always read what you guys send me. Always. And I'll respond too. This is a two-way street, man. I want to hear from you guys. But most importantly, when you're done here, go spread some good energy. You know, tell someone you love them. Text your people, check in on your friends, call your mom or your dad, or both. Compliment someone for no reason. You know, the world the world is heavy enough already. If you can be the little bit of light that's good, good things happen to good people. I am Ian Rice. This has been episode 51 of Rice on the Mikes, and I'll be back next week. Same time, same place. Appreciate you.