Sports Live! With Steve and Justin
Sports Talk Live! With Steve and Justin! NFL Offseason Analysis: Team Moves and Super Bowl Predictions. A Recording of our live Youtube Sports show every Monday Night 5pm EST.
Sports Live! With Steve and Justin
NFL Week 10 - Giants Fire Head Coach - MLB Indictments for Gambling! What a Shock LOL
A planned dive into gambling took a back seat the moment the Giants collapsed and Jackson Dart left with a concussion. We walk through the decisions that put a franchise quarterback at risk, why leaning on hero ball is not a development plan, and how firing a coach without addressing front office missteps just resets the clock. If you’re a Giants fan asking whether this is a partial tune-up or a full teardown, we lay out the case for a real reset—and what it would take to make a Belichick or Tomlin hire actually work.
From there, we widen the lens. San Francisco keeps turning quarterbacks into functional winners because the system develops them on purpose. That’s not mysticism; it’s reps, protection rules, smart installs, and patience. We contrast that with New York’s short-termism and talk through the resource misfires around Saquon Barkley, receiver usage, and the cost of asking a young QB to carry a broken plan. We also look at the Jets’ inconvenient win, the Bills’ vulnerability, the Rams’ quiet rise, and why parity this season feels less like chaos and more like details deciding games.
Then we address the elephant on every broadcast: gambling’s shadow. With leagues partnered to sportsbooks and networks invested in betting brands, trust is fraying. Inconsistent reviews, opaque officiating standards, and prop bets that intersect with player access fuel suspicion. We outline simple fixes—clear review protocols, public officiating audits, real team compliance tools—and why integrity has to be treated like a star asset. Finally, we hit your questions: what a real Giants rebuild should prioritize, and why the Mets keeping Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz signals ambition instead of drift.
If this conversation resonates, follow and share the show, join our mailing list at stevenjustin.com, and drop your questions for next week’s live Q&A. And if you’re new here, hit subscribe—your voice shapes what we break down next.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Sports Live with Steven Justin. Hello, Justin.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, Your Honor.
SPEAKER_02:How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:I'm doing alright. I came prepared. I've got my jester hat on for the circus.
SPEAKER_02:I wore my t-shirt too. And I'd like to say I planned it out, but it was basically the only thing I had left clean. I pulled it out. I said, oh, here's a clean shirt. I pulled it out. I was like, oh, it's a giant shirt. So here we go. Um, welcome everyone. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all your watches last week, all your kind thoughts, all your live people that are that are out there. I I appreciate it. And I know, I know Justin appreciates it too, that uh we're somewhat surprised at the people out there that that kind of tune into us, and we really appreciate it. But to get to the problems of it, we originally were going to speak, and we will, a great deal about gambling. Uh the indictments came out today, and more indictments, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can't be surprised, right? And and baseball. So, and we'll we'll speak about that, but you know, Justin and I and a bunch of others were doing a fundraiser yesterday, and we were watching the giant collapse, and there's no other word for it. And it's not the first collapse. And there's one thing that we say to each other, and others say to each other, is that they don't seem prepared. And I don't think that they're prepared. And then to ride on a running back, which is okay, and he ends up getting hurt, and then to to expect your quarterback, who is your future. I mean, I don't know what to say. If the if Dart isn't your future, I don't know who your future is. I mean, you have a quarterback that is exciting, that the P you the fans love, that makes things happen. And you throw him out there to win a game, to save your job for any other reason, and you know you're a lame duck coach at this point, and to save your job, and you throw this kid out there and he gets hurt, he gets a concussion. And it reminds me of other times I've seen that in um RG3, remember back in the day? I mean, he was thrown out there and he got hurt and ruined his whole career.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he he wasn't 100% healthy, and they sent him out there, and he was still very young.
SPEAKER_02:He got hit, and I remember watching us saying, Are you kidding me? Yeah. So, I mean, that's part of it. And the other part is they really suck. So, I mean, the the GM is the problem to me, and I know Justin and I can see that coming already. So, you know, I'll let you go on about it because I know you're in your jester hat, you're ready to go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I um I'm not surprised that Dable got fired. I know, you know, we had talked about it even before the Broncos game, that you felt that he was the problem, that you didn't think that, you know, he was a good head coach. I was still kind of holding on there because I thought, you know, he had maybe a little bit more control. And maybe it's just his personality, because I really kind of liked his coaching style when he first got here, and he was tied to Daniel Jones because they brought him in to fix that. And I guess he never really did. I guess he tried to more play it to his strengths and rather coach the inaccura or the inefficiencies that he had. But at the same time, the GM, I think, showed his true colors in hard knocks. And it's very much a circus. You've got they divorced themselves. When I say they, uh, the general manager and the owner divorced themselves from the head coach the minute he made the decision to play Jackson Darr. Which really how does how does that give your quarterback any confidence going into that? That the owner and the GM divorced themselves from the head coach that they picked to be the guy to coach you, and then they don't want you to play. Or maybe they thought he wasn't ready to play, or they thought they could still win games with Russell Wilson. And there's so many things at play here, but we'll stick to Dable first. There's no way he could survive, you know, what happened losing a lead four times this season, and telling you now the odds of them losing all four of those games were astronomical. I don't know how the defensive coordinator survived Denver and giving up 33 points in the fourth quarter. And then yesterday, fast forward, after we talked about the last few weeks, especially after the scatterbo injury, that they had to do something to protect Jackson Dart from getting hurt. And they couldn't have him running all over the field. It had to be a last option. They had to do something to show that they were going to not just play on his strengths, but bring him along and show that they could fine-tune his game a little bit more and get him out of the comfort zone while protecting him in the pocket to throw, make throws. And I know that they have injuries. I think Malik Neighbors is out and obviously Scotabow's out. And they've got, you know, they lost receivers and, you know, they're playing two or three men down on offense, but that doesn't change the fact that you have to progress as an offense and teach your quarterback things that he has to learn to be successful in the future so that your franchise can win games. And Dable just wasn't doing that. He was just going out there and playing to Dart's strengths, which is exactly what got him in trouble. And I know it was kind of a freak thing because he came down weird and he got knee in the head. And at first, when he was laying there, I thought he landed on the ball and maybe he had got winded or, you know, at worst, you know, fractured a rib or something. And we find out that he's in concussion protocol. And that's a scary thing, right? That's the last thing you want to see your quarterback have to go through, and exactly what we talked about them trying to avoid. So him being out there and being under duress, knowing that he's going to be under duress before the game, because they really they haven't changed their philosophy offensively. I don't even think we know what their offensive philosophy is, other than to let Jackson Bart go nuts. And that's, you know, all of that coupled with everything that's happened so far. The success of Daniel Jones, I'm sure, plays a part, especially with the Maras, that they had this guy in here and they, you know, maybe they had their quarterback all along. And what did you do to help him progress? It's the same thing, right? You played three strengths.
SPEAKER_02:You think about two players. They try let Saquon Barkley go. Yeah, I was saying that he has the greatest career of any running back ever. I I mean, that's not even overstating it a little. Yeah. He he sat down in the last game, or else it would be his name at the top of the list. So we and it wasn't much. He didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01:So it wasn't, you didn't just get rid of a great player, you got rid of a selfless player, a leader on the offense, somebody that could galvanize your team, somebody your team could rally around. And I mean, that's complete asset mismanagement by Joe Shane. And he needs to answer for that. Because if you're going to protect your young quarterback or lead into the future of a new regime with a quarterback that's a rookie, or even if you got somebody off the scrap pile that you thought you could react, you need a running game. They have to have a running game. And you had the best running back, maybe of all time, in your locker room on your roster, and you let him go. So, you know, there are other questions. You know, I think for me it was hard knocks. When I saw it happen in hard knocks, and I saw his feet up on the desk after the say the Saquon phone call where he basically told him the, you know, FO, and Saquon was like, what are you talking about? Clear miscommunication. He doesn't know how to talk to players. This is not just some kid. This is a premier talent in this league, right? This is a guy who it's not just the face of the franchise, he's the NFL's face, right? One of the guys that is the face of the NFL.
SPEAKER_02:Golden Boy. He's on the Madden.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Not only, I mean, and this is not somebody who has zero off-the-field issues, right? Totally selfless human being, and you just let that walk out the door. What does that say about you as a person to not have the recognition skills or to just be flippant about whether or not you sign it over a measly amount of money? It was a million or two million dollars. So, and then the guy they gave money to, one of the receivers, was at Slayton, you know, he's where is he in this offense? He's not even targeted half the time. So I don't know if that's Dable, you know, sticking it back to them or if there's a problem in the locker room. But, you know, the mishandling of Saquon and the, you know, misallocation of resources under Joe Shane to me is egregious and shouldn't be allowed to continue. And then today we find out not only are they firing Dable, and again, there's no real saving him at this point, other than saying, you know what, he is a good offensive guy. He's good for Jackson Dart. I'm not so sure about that after this week. Maybe he should be the offensive coordinator. I don't know, but it's a clean break. But how do you not break from Joe Shane? He created this mess. These are his guys. This is his coach. This is his quarterback. This is his offense. This is these are his players that he picked on defense coming in now. So I'm I don't know how you could let him continue to mismanage this and pick the next head coach because you're you've already fractured your quarterback. He's gonna clearly have a new regime. Head coach, offense coordinator, that's going to affect his growth. And I'm not saying they shouldn't do that, but you better get it right because you're you're setting yourself back if you don't. So, you know, there's there's inconsistency in in his roster and ability to build the roster through the draft. You know, um few very few foundational pieces, in my opinion, that haven't played out. I don't know if that's because they're not coaching these kids. Or like you say, they seem they they seem they're seemingly unprepared every week. I know the practices are short, and you know, they were the same practice times available to people like Tom Coughlin, and he had them under strict orders and they got it done. And they won two Super Bowls, probably should have won three. That doesn't seem to be how there's no accountability here. And that's the GM and the head coach, they go hand in hand. How do you fire one and not the other after this last four-week stretch, five-week stretch? I just don't, I don't see any path to success with Joe Shane at the helm. And Mara, you know, I know that his health is a major concern, and I'm not trying to throw that in anybody's face, but they clearly were not together in this process from the start of the season to now. And when they divorced themselves from Dable, that was just a bad message to send to your team in the middle of the season. If you were preparing us as the fans for the breakup or the divorce, then you should have just fired them because you didn't make that decision week three. You already had your mind made up. You just announced it later in the season. So there's there's gonna be a little culture stagnation here and the whole process, comments, and and long-term rebuild and et cetera, et cetera. You know, this is three years already. And I know it's new with with Jackson Dart, but I don't know how you don't hold Joe Shane accountable at this point.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm just reading Dan Ivlasky, which everyone knows from ESPN. He's kind of like a quarter spec guy. At least that's what he purports himself to be. I think he played quarterback backup role and and new people. So he's saying that you ready for this? Is that Daybold and Dart had something going together, and it was a huge mistake by the Giants to let him go.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I agree with that to an extent. They did have something going.
SPEAKER_02:One player doesn't make a team.
SPEAKER_01:That is correct. And for the head coach to lean so heavily on this kid, you know, it's not going in the long term, it's not going to allow for his progression to get better. Because if he continues to rely on the things that make him successful, he's going to continue to rely on those things in the future and not look to progress. And you have to make these kids every week, they have to, you have to challenge them to do something that either makes them uncomfortable or something that is not part of their repertoire because they're going to need that to win in the playoffs. They're going to need that to win Super Bowls. They have to come of age. And the only way to do that is to implement new things every week. And I know it's hard. It's the NFL and you know, the time constraints on practices, et cetera. And it does, in my belief, it takes three to five years for you to grow into your role as a starting quarterback in the NFL. It's just that not everybody is Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady, where in year two they come out there or they have, you know, an offensive line like Dallas had when Dak took over. You know, that's that's not reality. You have to build that and you have to make sure that this kid can grow. Just look at Sam Darnold and and again, Daniel Jones, right? They went elsewhere, they learned under somebody else, they were allowed to mature, they they added, you know, things to their repertoire and are doing things that they didn't do before. Why? Because they were coached. They had time to practice those things. They were allowed to grow.
SPEAKER_02:And what and what three, and and you could say that about the New England quarterback, too.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, he's I mean, he's leaps and bounds, it seems, every week.
SPEAKER_02:But that's again letting them grow processing. Right. And good coaching, and that's the process, working on other parts of the thing. And now uh at least two players, and now at least one of the three we just talked about are are are said in the same words as MVP candidates. And and and it seems like the people you thought were being MVP candidates, uh whether you were in Buffalo, whether you were in Baltimore, uh, whether in in Texas, are seem to be falling away. I mean, it's it's amazing that that I I don't know if it's it's bad playing or it's parody, or they're one in the same, but I agree with you. I know that it's a different world out there. I think when I see the way the dragons were going under Davo, is that he was very one-dimensional. He wasn't building a team, he was grabbing at straws, and he was grabbing at whatever worked that week. And now it's the he had a running back. That's not his fault that that it was injured. It was definitely a freak kind of injury.
SPEAKER_01:And there would be room on this offense and this team for both Saquon and Scatabow. There would be a great compliment to all of them. Oh my God. I mean, just think about that. They had them, they had them both. They had them both. And Saquon would be, in my estimation, a great teammate for Scatabo to have because he could take him under his wing and teach him things that he's already learned how to play and what to do and how to act and all those things. You mentioned Drake May, and I I think that's a great example because they have Stefan Diggs in their offense, who is kind of taking a back seat, even though he's the number one ride receiver. He's not as prominent in their offense as you would expect him to be. And he's okay with that. And that allows their quarterback to grow. And having Saquon would have meant as much to Jackson Dart plus Scatabol if you had drafted him, which they may have not, I'm sure, probably not, but it would have allowed your quarterback to grow because you have a selfless veteran in the locker room fighting off all the distractions and teaching him the way to go about business. And the Giants just don't have that.
SPEAKER_02:Did you um by chance, you know, you think, I'm sorry, do you think about Sarah? I I have a couple of things. Um, one when you think about San Francisco, too, the backup quarterback, you know, he was cast off too, and he came in the shoes of Purdy, and he's playing pretty well as well.
SPEAKER_01:Mac Jones. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that, and I think it's the common denominator is the coaching staff in San Francisco, because that's where these guys end ended up before they went on to success, right? At least I think it was Sam Donald was in San Francisco. There's clearly something going on there. Maybe they have a quarterback whisperer in uh in their coaching staff, but I I think that that's a good example where those those coaches and that GM allow their players to grow.
SPEAKER_00:Correct.
SPEAKER_01:There's never this you know, directive where you have to win now. Yeah, everybody wants to win, but you're you're you can't you can win now, but it's gonna cost you. You want your players to grow. You want your team to all be on the same page, you want everybody to take a step forward together. That's how you win in this league. And San Francisco does that. And they're tough out, they're not an easy team to beat, and they're playing two or three men down on each side of the football. So kudos to them, their coaching staff. Um, you know, uh Mac Jones seems to be playing better than he did when he was uh in uh New England, right? And uh it's to their credit. So, you know, people thought, why would they pick up Mac Jones? He's terrible. Well, they saw something that they could use, they saw a guy with talent that they could coach, and they're allowed to progress and get better. And, you know, I mean, just look at Purdy himself. Purdy was, like you said a couple weeks ago, Mr. Irrelevant, and he took them to a Super Bowl.
SPEAKER_02:It was, and then he had a great year. I mean, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And not to take anything away from Brock Purdy, but that's what good coaching looks like. And it's it's not just the head coach, it's everybody.
SPEAKER_02:But you always see it in the same teams, and that's because of the leadership. You always see it in San Francisco, you always see it in, and I don't care who the coach is, you always see it in Denver, but I don't know who the coach is. And you don't, it doesn't matter who the coach is. And I think they hire the right people, they're not intimidated for their jobs. Um, sometimes that comes from ownership. Though you did have Mike Collin defending himself yesterday and no patience for the media, which was something I don't remember ever seeing in my life. Interesting, but I'm gonna throw this at you, and I I'm so hesitant to do it. Not really, because I'm gonna tell you, but so you wonder why he didn't fire the GM. Well, you can't fire them both and put interim players in them both, right?
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:So, so if you're not, and I would guess they're not gonna hire a coach till the end of the year. So they're gonna what they need to do if they really need now that they actually have a quarterback, and hopefully they're gonna have a running back. And you know, he's gonna come back and he's gonna be healthy. And I do believe that that's possible. They need somebody who could build the team around these guys. And I and I really believe that they at the end of the year, they're gonna fire their GM and they're gonna hire a coach that's gonna be GM and coach. And you know who I think that is, of course.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's a logical choice. I think, you know, it would probably be Shane's choice because he has to protect himself now. And what better way to do that than to use the greatest coach of all time as a shield?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but that's not what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:They're gonna end up firing him too. And then the greatest coach of all time, as they say, is gonna come in from North Carolina, and you know who we're talking about, everyone. And he's gonna come in and take over the team. And that's what needs to be done. And he needs to take and hire the people around him, which he will. He's never, you know, he'll bring in good coaches, he'll find somebody that's gonna take Jackson Dart and make him into more than he needs, more than what he is. I mean, we know in our hearts the kid's good. We also know in our hearts there's a lot of improvement there. Sure. That could take place. And you you said something to me over the weekend, and that was when you're talking about when Dart was with what's his name? Um Wayne Kiffin at Ole Miss. No, but who was he? He was at Wayne Kiffin at Ole Miss, and then who what television show was he on, the one that does the quarterback? John Gruden. John Gruden. And when he talked about running, and yeah, tell me the story in the way you told foreshadowing.
SPEAKER_01:So he's he's watching film of Jackson Dart with Jackson Dart, and Dart is taking off on running plays where the pocket collapses or the play breaks down, or he doesn't find his receiver, and he just takes off running, and he goes headfirst into the defend the defender, like on two or three plays in a row. And Gruden's like, tell me, tell me what happened here. And he's like, Well, the play broke down. He says, No, no, no, but what happened at the end here? He's like, Well, you know, well, plus two. And Gruden says, What's plus two? And and and Dart says, Well, you know, when you get hit, you got to fall forward for two more yards. And Gruden says, That's great. Don't ever effing do it again. Because he's and he said to him, We want you to last a long time in this league, and that ain't gonna happen with you making plays like that. That's right. That's right. And he you could tell at that moment that it was kind of like a father and son moment where Gruden is looking at this kid. He's so incredibly proud of him because of the effort that he puts in, the ability that he has, his attitude, right? Like he wants to win, he wants to fight for every yard. Gruden is you could just see him seething a little bit, but also you could tell, like, this is where like he gets to be a good coach and an example that by saying, You made a great play. Don't ever do it again because it's not worth it. You have the when you need to make that play is when we need a touchdown at the end of the game and time's running out. Then you go ahead first.
SPEAKER_02:Even more so, I would say, when you're about when it's the difference between you and going to or winning the Super Bowl, that's when you put your head on the line. Other than that, you know, you're not doing it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got the first down, it's the middle of October. Slide for your feet first, just take a knee, get you know, don't don't put yourself at risk. It's not being smart is the way to play. And I I know this is gonna sound incredibly cliche or even stupid, but you know, I always joke around work smart, not hard. And that's a classic example. And whenever you see a quarterback run and get a first down and see over the years, we've seen that, and how incredibly frustrating is it if you're rooting for the defense to see them have this guy pinned to the wall and escape and not even, you know, nothing spectacular. He just runs out of trouble, reaches out for the first down, goes out of bounds, and it's like you want to see him get creamed. They had him, they couldn't get him, and it's like, ah, fresh set of downs. We got to do this all over again. That's playing smart, right? You could get the first down and run into the linebacker, you might fumble, you might get hurt, you might tear your shoulder, you might get dazed and confused.
SPEAKER_02:All the above.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So, so playing smart, that you have to use that to your advantage. That will frustrate a defense. That's a weapon. You can run over that linebacker, and in the moment, that might seem really cool. That might, you know, make the sideline jump, but you have to go back in the huddle and run another play. You need to be 100% for that. I think you're right, though, about the Belichick thing. Either way, I think the Giants have to start with a clean slate here. To me, they can't wait another three years or four years to find out that a clean reset is the only logical move. They have to make that move now. That's what savvy teams and ownerships do. It's a tough decision, but you have to do it. And, you know, I know that, you know, look at the Jets, right? The Jets had a little bit of a little bit. They had a fire sale last week. They probably would have sold more if everybody was healthy, or they could have got the deal that they wanted for the for in picks. But the Jets are clearly in in reset mode, and they set themselves up pretty nicely for that. And they're gonna have a lot of cap space and they're gonna have room to make these moves. Whether or not they have the right head coach, you know, I know there's a lot of non-believers right now, but it's it's very atypical of the Jets, what they're doing right now. I'm not praising them because it's still the Jets, and I don't believe for one second they're gonna get the draft picks right, but the approach is right. So if they can hold off on the win now, you know, process or the win now attitude and just allow this coach and this team to grow together for the next three to five years. Hopefully it works out. You know, hopefully they make the right picks and it and it works out, but they're on the right track right now. Whereas the Giants, if they double down, I just don't think this is the right time to double down on a guy who's already proven that he's not the guy.
SPEAKER_02:So I don't know if you saw just flash up on there. Jose, who's watching. Thank you, Jose, for watching us and thank you for chatting with us, just said to us, Belichick said if the Giants call him, he will coach them.
SPEAKER_01:I think he said that last year before he took the Carolina job. But I I it probably rings true still. I can imagine that coaching in college is incredibly different than the NFL. And with the NIL and the recruiting and the portal, it's it's an incredible challenge for anyone. It would be easy, probably easier probably for Belichick to step into something he's more familiar with. I mean, he did it for his whole life, coaching in the NFL. So I think Giant fans would be cautious uh cautiously optimistic, right? But if they do that, yeah, he he's he can't just be the head coach. He he has to give he has to have everything he had in place in New England. I don't care if he's 170 years old. They have to give him whatever he wants and let him run the team and give him the the five-year window and just bite the bullet on that. Because if you don't, everyone's gonna be looking in the rearview mirror. Everybody's gonna be saying we should have hired him, woulda, coulda, shoulda. So make the move. That's I would do that. To me, it's it's clear as a bell. I I'm I'm shocked that they didn't, somebody else didn't scoop them up already. I know there's there's you know uh you know, speculation previously as to why NFL teams wouldn't want him because of the direction the NFL was going. But right now, considering everything else that's going on, it's not just the Giants that need Belichick. The NFL needs Belichick.
SPEAKER_02:And I think North Carolina will say, thanks a lot. We appreciate it. I'm glad you have this opportunity. See you there. He said, Jose said, This is I'll put it up there. So he said it two days ago. So it seems like he's part of the motivation to get Daibo fired. Well, if they're interested in in in in Belichick.
SPEAKER_01:I wonder who asked him the question, because it's not I don't think that's something that Belichick would have just put out there. I'm sure North Carolina's not happy about that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Uh I don't know. He this is elsewhere else. He said he said his contract is for three years, but has uh has uh opt out after the first year. Yeah. So that makes sense. And that's what I believe too. Um and I think I think that's why they didn't fire the GM. I think they're gonna fire them all at the end. Because I think um I I think Belichick would look at it like this Yes, is he hungry? Is he nowhere? Does he want to have another team building experience? But he's He's also really smart, right? When it comes to football, he's a genius, right? So he would say, I can't work with this GM. I need to be it. I cannot afford to go to another losing place. I started losing in New England. I lost in Carolina. So I gotta hit the ground running. And the only way I could do that is if I'm the GM.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I my my my my question would be if they make that move, is Jackson Dart in danger of you know losing his position on this team as the starting quarterback and the future quarterback of the franchise, which would be a real shame because I know the fan base loves this kid. I think some things would change and it would be a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. But in in my guesstimation, when a coach like that is available, you go get him. I said that about the Jets when Sean Payton became available again and they kept Saylor and he ended up getting fired anyway. I mean, the writing was on the wall, he was getting fired. I I like Robert Saylor, but I Sean Payton was available. Go get him. That's the franchise changer. That's the culture changer. That guy's a winner. Belichick is a winner. I mean, I you know, everyone, oh, you wouldn't have won without Tom Brady. Tom Brady, well, it's it's is Tom Brady assistant quarterback, or is it the other way around? We you know, we talked about that week week one or preseason. But also what else is going to build a winner?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, what else he did really well is to manage the cap. He really went, got people, you know, and guess he had Tom Brady, right? He had Tom Brady. But Tom Brady would win, you know, and then not say he win in Tampa Bay. That doesn't mean if he was in Tampa Bay, he wins for seven years. We know that's not the case. He doesn't win six times at Tampa Bay. He needs that partner, and it was more than a partner. It was the owner. It was the owner, was the coach, and was the player. And those three together knew how to manage a football team because they had control of everything. They had control of how much money they were spending, they knew what players they needed. There was no politics between the three of them. Everyone just did. Yes, I don't think Tom and Bill really liked each other's viewpoint. But you know what? They knew they weren't bigger than the game and the team. And they put it all aside and they went out there and they made it happen. And they did something no one else has done and probably won't do in this world today. In a social media world, they did it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think because they know all this ahead of time, there are no question marks, right? You're not hiring like the hot new coordinator or the hot young new coaching phenom. There's a lot of unknowns that come along with that. You're you know what you're getting by hiring Belichick. You know what you're getting if you hired Sean Payton. You know what you're getting if you hired even Mike Tomlin, who I know a lot of people want to run him out of Pittsburgh, but tell me if he was available. Right. Tell me tomorrow if you're the Giants, if you're the Jets, or how about this? If he was available tomorrow and your head coach left and you were the 49ers, you don't think they would hire Mike Tomlin? You know, you you get you know what you're getting when you bring guy guys like that in. Okay, I'm not I'm not trying to put Tomlin on the same level as Belichick. I'm just saying that there's a structure, it's a winning formula, and to have that available to you and look elsewhere is silly. He's right there. Go get him.
SPEAKER_02:I um he also said I truly believe that Dart, I truly believe he'll keep Dart and build him like Brady. Belichick. I have to say though, and I and I think that that's an interesting point Jose has, and he also said we're the best, but he must not really know us. Thank you, Jose. The the uh I have to be honest, and this is probably gonna make at least Jose unhappy, is that if Mike Tomlin and Belichick were both available, I would take Tomlin.
SPEAKER_01:Well, because he's younger.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Uh he's younger, and he's he's created a very stable environment. He's worked with, let's not forget, if there's any two owners in the world that are closer, it's certainly Mara and Rooney, right? The kids are married, they've worked together, their kids are married, um, or grandkids or cousins or whatever they are, Mara's and only.
SPEAKER_01:So it's different here in New York because things happen so rapidly and change all the time. Whereas Tomlin's only the third head coach in Pittsburgh history, right? It's never been that way for the Jets or Giants. Even with the success of the Giants, they still let coaches walk and get away and push them out the pasture or whatever you want to call it. It's it's been this changeover kind of mentality, especially in New York, because you're seemingly always on the hot seat in New York. And it's probably unfair ownership. You got something good, you keep it. I think Tomlin's one of those guys. I'm sure Pittsburgh fans are rolling their eyes right now, but there's something to be said for the stability of the franchise, and it sets the tone. When you got so like, look, you know, they get players that come in there and have talent. They don't fall in line, they ship them out.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So it's that simple.
SPEAKER_02:Jose has a question. Let me see what you think about it.
SPEAKER_00:Can you see that?
SPEAKER_02:What do you think about bringing in OBJ to just for the experience to work with the receivers?
SPEAKER_01:For the Giants?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I I don't know. He's gonna play and lead from example type type thing?
SPEAKER_02:Well, work with the work with them. I don't have a problem with lead from example, yes. You you show them what it is. But I don't think that I don't think that dynamic will help anything because his dynamic is somewhere else in the world.
SPEAKER_01:I don't I don't think it I don't think it will hurt short term. Absolutely to have one to have if you're thinking that OBJ is gonna come in here and somehow magically lead them somewhere long term. I don't see that happening. He's a me guy, but he's still very much a plausible hired gun type guy. Because it's, you know, he's would you be surprised if he ends up on the Rams before the season's over?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I mean it's to me that's more likely where he's gonna end up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look at look at the guy. Um DeAndre Hopkins is in both is in Baltimore, he's kind of hidden in that offense. Right. He doesn't really have many targets every week. So that would be the role of a of an Odell Beckham at this point. I don't think he would ever accept that role. But for him to come in late in the season, if it's to work with the Giants and kind of get their receivers on the page where they're they're, you know, to make them better, I don't have a problem with that at all.
SPEAKER_02:Don't do that, but so we spent all this time talking about the Giants, and there's probably still more to talk about. I we cannot forget that the Jets won yesterday.
SPEAKER_01:I think we all saw it coming, didn't we? When I said that it was a lock, we should bet the Jet game right now because it was clear to the parents that they were gonna screw up their draft order and give Cleveland another quarterback on a silver platter.
SPEAKER_02:And I almost did it, but I'm really uh anti-gambling for for now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Just for every everything that's happened.
SPEAKER_01:I joked at the bar uh on Friday night that the Jets are we're either gonna win this week or next week. And um I said, you should put it in now because it's definitely coming. And I think it was Drew that said to me, Well, they're not they're not beating New England next week. And I said, Well, there you go. That that tells you all you need to know. You should probably bet the Jets now to beat New England next week. Um that was before I realized that they were playing Cleveland, who was a two-win team, and the Jets only had one win. Of course, they beat Cleveland. Now Cleveland owns the tiebreaker in the draft. So I wouldn't worry about it too much if you're a Jet fan because Cleveland still sucks. And they're not, they're not getting they're not gonna get their draft pick right either. So they'll probably end up doing the Jets a favor and saving them some money now at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But kudos to the Jets. I think they had as much offense as my high school offense had in Nanuet the last time I was there. A quarterback had less than 50 yards passing, I think. Something crazy. You went to Nanuet? No, I didn't. No, no. Well, the last time we played at Nanuet, we didn't have much offense. But the last time I played it at Nanuet, we walked off the field victorious and we shut him out in their own building. But we didn't have much offense that day.
SPEAKER_02:So just as a note to everybody, please go into the uh on the live stream, watch it on YouTube, and you're watching on Facebook or X, you can go into the chat section and chat up there, and we'll, as we did with Jose and others, we'll talk about those topics. We'll bring it into the question. We're glad to have you. Um, we want to talk about what you want us to talk about. We also are gonna ramble on about whatever stupid crap we've been talking about for the whole weekend. But I mean, I got about 500 tests today, and we will we were really talking about gambling. And it's hard. There's a million other stories.
SPEAKER_01:It's impossible not to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02:The two worst quarterbacks yesterday were two of the best quarterbacks, or one of the two of the great quarterbacks that are playing today. Rogers played horribly, and Buffalo, you don't have to just single out the quarterback, the entire team played horribly. So you could probably say that about Pittsburgh, too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's funny. We mentioned last week about how teams you expect to win, losing games they they shouldn't lose to teams they shouldn't lose to, and teams that win games having no business winning these games week in and week out. And I think if you had asked everybody yesterday going into that game, that Pittsburgh had a legit shot to win and seemingly played like dogdo.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I which is I I so interesting in the NFL this year. And maybe it's the preparation, like you said. But it um this parody thing, and let's let's let's use that word where there doesn't seem to be one of those teams that are everyone's scared of. Nobody's scared of anybody out there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think you know, maybe well, the team that I would be scared of if I was anybody, obviously we talk about Kansas City every week. You just you don't you don't want to play them when it matters. You know, the Rams have gone through this progression twice now on their way to a Super Bowl. And they, you know, when they went out and got Matt Stafford, I think everybody was like, ooh, that that could work. And then they added some free agents or traded for some players, whatever, at the end of that season and won a Super Bowl. There's they're kind of in the same position right now. They're they're looking like a team that has it together. They're looking like they've got all their pieces in place, and maybe they need uh, you know, one or two more players, one on offense, one on defense, kind of thing. I thought they were a sneaky option to steal a couple of Jets offensive players or one in particular, but that didn't transpire.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm kind of shocked that they uh didn't end up with with uh the Jets defensive tackle. Uh, but they're, you know, they're very much a formidable team that is going to be in the thick in the playoffs and they're gonna be hard to beat. Is anybody scared of them? I don't think anybody's scared of them. Um but, you know, that loss to Philly on those, on those really those two special teams plays, it's kind of glaring out because Philly doesn't really look like the world beaters we thought they would be. They're still trying to figure it out, and it doesn't look like it's getting much better. So even though Philly got that victory and we'll have a tiebreaker at the end of the season, the Rams might have to go to Philly if they want to go to the Super Bowl. They very much look like a team that could write that ship and beat anybody. As far as the AFC is concerned, I think yesterday knocked Buffalo off that number one spot in terms of their vulnerability. You know, if you look at the three games this year, the game against the Ravens, I mean, they gave up, you know, 50 points. They couldn't get yesterday it was like they couldn't get anybody out versus Miami. Um, and their offense kind of fell apart a little bit. Um a lot of bit. Um so they've got they've got some some some coaching to do there and some philosophy because they're starting to look like a team you expect to lose in the playoffs and a team you can't rely on like they've been the last four or five seasons. When they get to the playoffs, they seemingly can't get over the top. And the loss like that kind of, you know, the red, the red flags. I know it's a division. We always talk about division games are tough. Yes, they are. But Miami's terrible. I'm sorry, but Miami's just not good. And Miami took clear advantage of Buffalo not being able to stop the run.
SPEAKER_02:That's their weakness. That's their killing's heel, right?
SPEAKER_01:But they also looked, they also looked like a team that couldn't get out of its own way on offense. And they've got weapons. I know they don't have, you know, the flashy big-time wide receiver, but you know, they've they've got weapons. They've got big tight ends, they've got a solid running back, they have a great quarterback, and there's a lot of question marks there still. So you have to wonder who's in the class right now. Obviously, Indianapolis is still at the top of everybody's list. They had a blip on the radar, if you will. But, you know, they're they're a very well-built football team that you would expect is going to continue rolling and have home field advantage in the AFC.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And whether it's Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Buffalo, one of those teams is going to have to go through Indianapolis if they want to get to a Super Bowl. And if not all three of those teams. And um, I'd say that, you know, I don't think anybody wants to bet on Indianapolis, but they certainly look like they're the best team in the AFC right now.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Ravens now, I know I didn't mention the Ravens, but the Ravens still have they have to win all these games, and they have to win the division, and there's still gonna be a game behind Buffalo with that loss to Buffalo, and there's still gonna be a game behind uh Indianapolis, most likely, and they still have to get over the hump if they want to win the division, which is a tall task. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02:So I think we'd be remiss if we didn't at least speak about since we're still on football, all the miss calls we see lately. I mean, what what game were we watching? Was it the Giants or wasn't the Giants? It was something else.
SPEAKER_01:The Giants and the Giants they were watching last and then the Redskins game?
SPEAKER_02:The Redskin game where at the end of the game they called on the field, whether it was a fumble or not, and all of a sudden the booth decides they're gonna review it. And I don't know, I think we both said to each other, now doesn't it seem kind of fishy that the booth is gonna review something after there was no question about it from either team on the field? Or the officials felt like they got it right and they did. Um, but you kind of felt like they were trying to, you know, they were trying to reverse it a little bit. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's it's it's I think because of what we're going through right now with the NFL, right? The gambling and the other sports, and you know what's coming with the NFL, you know, there is this seething effect. But I think also it's because you know, everybody is gambling, right? Everybody's got the app on their phones. I know we do. So it's uh there's fantasy football implications, there's real money gambling implications, and especially now with the evidence of these prop bets, there's there's there's seemingly no continuity from the NFL. It's like, well, with two minutes left or four minutes left, they changed the rules, you know, like the clock running and stopping, the clock stop. It used to be if you went out of bounds, the clock stop. Now the clock runs. Now it's only two minutes or four minutes or whatever it is. So they need to make the they need to bring that continuity, which will in turn give the game some integrity. And there'll be less questions about whether or not the officials got the calls right. If you're gonna go to the booth, then just keep going to the booth. You know, it should be one standard, or let the officials make mistakes and apologize after the game. It's human error. But because of the gambling, and because they're in bed with these gambling companies, they have to get these calls right because they have to make it look like it's legit, even though we know you're not entitled to fair play.
SPEAKER_02:So and he started young and a while, long time ago, before the beginning of the dot-com bubble. And he lived at home with his parents, like in the basement or something, and he put every dime he had on Yahoo when it was the biggest thing. And some of you might not remember that. And what happened was huge, it what was huge, and he made a fortune of money, sold when it was the highest, he knew it was gonna collapse, and then quit working. That's how much money he made. I mean, every dollar he made, he put in this thing. And Jeff, I'll I'll mention to him. Um, give me a minute, I'll mention your your uh your comments in a minute. Let me just finish our thought here. Um so he he would bet a hundred thousand dollars that the last shot of a basketball game would bounce off the ring. Ridiculous stuff. Then it would happen and he would win. And then the people he was betting with were like, how are you hitting these bets all the time? How are you hitting that bet? Who bets$100,000 on a bath of a ball? Lunatics, which he was about betting. Yep. And he bet all kinds of things like that. And and was consistently winning. Yeah, and consistently won, won more than he lost. Would double up, you know, win a hundred thousand dollars and say, all right, uh, give me double on the next game. And it's not much different than than betting on red and black on a on roulette. It's not much different better than red and black on roulette, but it's interesting. I find it interesting. And and I think about that even the mob guys who we're betting with were like questioning whether he had inside information.
SPEAKER_01:Wouldn't it be good for him if they found that out to be true?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I think he just let the money go at one point. Or he betted on something that he lost everything. Something like that.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I feel for these kids, even though it it's despicable to me that they would rig these even one pitch, let alone a game. But I blame, I blame MLB, I blame the NFL, I blame uh the NBA. It's it's no different than when they implemented the uh you know, the TVs and the live stream and the dugout for the hitters to see pitching, and they told the players, don't let us catch you sharing the information in real time, because that's gonna be a penalty. They knew they had the ability and the capacity to do this, and they they basically gave him a preemptive slap on the wrist and said, don't do that, and they did it anyway. And Houston did it and won a World Series, and you know, the Apple Watch thing.
SPEAKER_02:A couple of times. A couple of times they did it against the Yankees and they did it against Boston.
SPEAKER_01:And the Yankees and the Red Sox did it to each other when they went and played in London. Right. And and Cora was the one sitting there winking at the camera. It's like you knew you SOB what was going on, and you still got beat. So to imply somebody else is cheating while you're cheating, that's the worst of the worst, right there. But MLB led them to this, right? They allowed prop betting and basically told the players, we better not catch you prop betting with your friends. And what did you think they were gonna do? Right? What harm is it? And I I can't believe I'm taking their side because prior to this, I would have been through the roof. And I it still bothers me. But it's kind of like a parent who tells their kids, don't drink, and you go out to dinner with your kids and you drink and drive home, or you've got liquor in the liquor cabinet, and you're boozing it up and you're telling your kids not to do that. It doesn't work that way. That's not reality. So you have to lead by example. If you're the MBA, the MLB, the you don't want players making bets, and then you literally, no betting, no betting, no betting. And you you're in bed with the gambling companies. You're taking advertising money and you're making money off the gambling sites, but you're telling your players, don't bet, right? The Pete Rose thing, I mean, the timing of it is just outrageous to begin with. You know, you don't let Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame, not that I think he should have been. Did he qualify? Was he a Hall of Fame caliber player? Yes. But did he break the rules? I don't care whether or not he bet on his own team. He broke the rules. Shoe's Joe Jackson, did he did he cheat? Was he involved? Kennesaw Mountain Lannis made the decision. You're all out, right? There's there was integrity. That's all gone now. It's all gone. And they're they're allowing their own players to suffer the fate of their, you know, they it's their you couldn't possibly define greed in a better way.
SPEAKER_02:So let me just bring the two chatters here. Um Jeff, who is a Colts fan, said the Colts, he said go Colts was his first statement. And he said Colts have a tough, they get tough, the schedule gets tough after the bye week. Yeah, it does. Um and then he also said that, and this is his quote, the refs were not good yesterday um in the Colts game. I don't know if we watched that, did we?
SPEAKER_01:That was the four o'clock game. I think it was I think it was on while we were uh we had red zone on and we weren't watching that game. We were watching a different game, but we were also manning the uh the grill station at that point. Yeah. So we didn't get to watch it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so um we'll keep an eye on that for you, Jeff, and we'll we'll definitely mention it again. Um I don't uh I I'm not surprised the refs are bad periodically everywhere. Um and and you showed uh what was it, Green Bay yesterday? You showed me a video where basically the wide receiver gets punched in the face and knocked to the ground.
SPEAKER_01:He's he's more than five yards off the line of scrimmage, or downfield, I should say, and uh he gets he gets decked by the defender, and there's no a middle of the play, and the ball the ball was thrown at him. He's laying on the ground and there's no flag.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So I think we'd all agree I think that was the Pittsburgh game that the major sports information news channel everywhere is and what do we know about ESPN?
SPEAKER_02:ESPN has their own gambling site. Not only that, if you saw them today, if you watched Mike Greenberg and talking about gambling today and the indictments, the only thing he said were the facts. They were indicted, this, there weren't conversations for other people, there were only and I'll say that again, there were only facts by Greenberg and not mentioned anywhere else. And I find that questionable, and I'll read what um well, I think I'll read if I could find it. ESPN betting figures. So uh ESPN Bet it's significant activity, and this is from the internet from whatever watch group there are out there. In its first week, ESPN Bet generated$3 million in sports bet handling. However, specific figures for the total amounts of wage analysis on ESPN Bet are not publicly disclosed. And um U.S. sports betting industry as a whole reached a record$13.71 billion in revenue in 2004 based on$150 billion worth of wagering. And that's from ESPN.com.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe the government should stop taxing us and just open their own gambling website and pay all our bills that way.
SPEAKER_02:So I think it's a win-win. But much like other things, and I, you know, as everyone knows, I'm a lawyer. So um, and I remember many cases uh studying constitutional law and spending a lot of time in constitutional law where we talked about the independency of the press, the importance, the importance. Now, we know what the press is like now. There's a red channel and a blue channel. Yep. Matter of fact, there's one red channel and about five blue channels. Is there any place you want to know what really happened without any skew that you could go and turn on and watch? I don't know of any. There used to be. You used to be. And in the famous course, you know, the Pentagon Papers. If anybody's seen the movie The Post, it's about when uh there was a study about Vietnam done by the Rain Corporation at the request of the Secretary of Defense, who's one of the most fierce advocates of the Vietnam War. He would go out in line to the people and say the war's going great, we're winning, we're this, we're that. And privately they were keeping numbers and statistics on how they weren't winning at all. Yeah. So there was a gentleman who worked for Rand named Daniel Einsberg, and he made a copy, he took them, made copies of them, and distributed them to the New York Times. Um and a famous reporter published them. And at this point, you know, the um the Vietnam War was a starter by Richard Nixon, but we're in the Nixon administration. It was just prior to Watergate. So it also goes to the post. The owner of the post. Post, the son-in-law of the owner of the post who had the the owner of the post died, the son-in-law took it over, he committed suicide. The daughter of the original long bear was running the paper. Um, and they were about to go public. And they published these articles about the Pentagon Papers. And it went all the way in this listener. Jenner Jenner was rankhost at the time, and he later became Chief Justice in the United States Supreme Court, and he he sued the New York Times and anybody else with an injunction to not release this information that would uh detrimentally affect the United States of America. Of course it was, because it showed they were liars to government. So Justice Black, you go black, uh in the New York Times versus the United States in 1971, um, who was a concurring opinion, not the leading parameter, but the concurring opinion said this only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in governance. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die. And we're talking about the Vietnam War. Now we've learned that the press is not free at all because they they're all against the government or not enough to the government, hate the government, and that's gone on. But now we uh you know now we're seeing it with sports. They all have their hands in the pockets of gambling. I mean, but how do you expect how do you expect the ESPN to objectively investigate what's going on with gambling in America and our sports if they're profiting from it? They cannot. And so what does that mean? Does that mean we're gonna leave it up to Congress?
SPEAKER_01:No chance. And and what are they doing today? It's almost like they want they want to do that because they know they're gonna get favoritism from Congress for it anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So I mean, this um we have owners of teams, right? Dallas owns five percent of is it Fandall or I think it's Fandle. Uh Fandle or which one? And and and New England owns five percent. And needless to say, if there's a hundred and fifty billion being in uh five percent is a lot of money, right? So you all become pro-gambling. So whatever happens, happens.
SPEAKER_01:And you don't care as long as you're making money. It's it's really so right out of the script from the movie The Last Boy Scout. I don't care, because they're making money. So what do players do?
SPEAKER_02:If the owners are making money, shouldn't I be making money? Because it's my acts that are paying those bills.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that's kind of why I feel for these two pitches in particular, even though I'm I'm on fire about it happening. I really don't blame them for taking that chance. I mean, you have to be incredibly stupid to do it in the first place. I guess because they were allegedly doing it for their friends to make their friends a couple of bucks. Um I'm a little less heated about it than I was about the other stuff last week. But this is, you know, ultimately whose fault is it? Major League Baseball put these players in position for this to happen to them. And they don't have nobody keeping an eye on this. And if you're you know, it's it's like we said last week about the the uh the um the committee, the congressional committee, which damn it that we were talking about. The oversight committee. Who's overseeing if you're if you're the team, you've got nobody in your organization keeping an eye on whether or not your players are involved with something that doesn't look right or doesn't smell right, you don't have anybody in the organization going, hmm, that was odd. Right? Between the manager, the general manager, and any locker room guy or clubhouse guy or coach, you know, what what happens? What who's but they don't because they'll kick it back to the commissioner and the league. And then the league will say, well, you know, we didn't do this or we didn't have that, or team should do this, or we warned them not to do this. There's zero accountability, zero culpability, zero responsibility, and it's it's it's ruined what you know. We grew up watching a different era, and I'm not naive enough to think that gambling and fixing games wasn't going on when I was growing up. We know it was. This goes back to the beginning of time. So we thought we maybe we had integrity coming out of the 1818 Black Sox scandal, and that baseball was on the up, and then nothing else happened.
SPEAKER_02:So years ago, that was the exception to the rule.
SPEAKER_01:Now it's the rule. Now it's the rule. And there's zero integrity. And you can almost want like there has to be a rule or a law in place somewhere that should have prevented this from happening to begin with, right? And we talked about Bill Bradley last week and how that his the law that he championed, which I can't remember the name of now, the pro and pro and amateur sports uh bill that protected athletes from falling into this trap in the first place, was overturned in 2018 and deemed unconstitutional somehow. Clearly, and again, I keep going back to it, it's the last Boy Scout. Some politician reached out and made a deal so that the Leagues could make more money and gambling would go through the roof because it was only allowed to happen then. The movie was only allowed to happen in Vegas. There were no online sports entities when that movie was made. I don't even think there was an internet yet. So we live in a different world now. And again, money talks, BS walks, and it money is always the bottom line. And we're getting, you know, we're getting robbed. We're getting robbed. And only that, or you know, the history of the game is being robbed, right? And players are being robbed. I mean, I know they make millions of dollars. It's kind of stupid to say it, but they're if it's not on the up, then they're being robbed. It's that simple. And, you know, unless they're involved in it. Like my baseball coach once famously said, it's not one guy's fault. It's everyone's fault. When you walk into a room with a birthday cake and you drop the cake on the floor or the table and it splatters, it hits everyone. Some people might have more cake in their face than others, but it hits everyone. Everyone's affected by this. Everyone, whether they are or aren't, they're involved. They're part of this. So major sports, major pro sports, whether it's the NHL, the NBA, NFL, MLB, they've got to do some serious, you know, inventory here. And they've got to take stock and they've got to realize that they're in bed now, clear, open, openly, clearly and openly in bed with nefarious entities and putting their players at risk. And the players' union for each of these leagues has to come to the table and let their players know either we're gonna continue to turn a blind eye to it, or we have to have some structure to this to protect you, which they can't. How could they possibly protect them from that? There's no way to do that. Unless you just eliminate the gambling and go back to the way it was. Go to Vegas if you want to play a bet, place a bet. Call your bookie if you want to place a bet. That they have access to this stuff and it's readily available to them. It's it's ruined the integrity of pro sports. There's no other way around it. You know, even today when they showed the video of Volpe striking out, the first comment was maybe Volpe had money on it too. That's why he shrunk it out. But like you said before, what you don't know whether or not it's parody. You have to wonder. I mean, when you see guys that can't tackle getting run over on the field, I you know, when things don't look right, they generally aren't right. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it probably is a duck.
SPEAKER_02:My my father used to say that all the time. And we see it. Um so I I just want to make sure, uh, make sure you you go to our website. Our website is uh stephenjustin.com. Uh you can you can find us there. Please put join our mailing list, put your email address in. Uh, we'll give you updates about oncoming shows. Uh after all that, we've been thinking about doing, and we were going to do it this week, but we were busy. A fantasy show or get or or some pick shows. And it's good we didn't do it because you would have lost everything on me this week because everything was out there. Um just just just to point that out. Uh Buffalo Buffalo, I would have taken with the points. So just that's your first the first disaster I want to give you, but there were others. But we're gonna talk about fantasy football, right? We're gonna do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm gonna give a rundown of the all things, the FanDuel weekly fantasy lineups. Those are you know uh salary-based lineups. I'll just give you value picks for the week.
SPEAKER_02:And so we're gonna do that on Sunday mornings, we believe. No matter where we are, we're gonna do a uh a little bit. And like I said, go to the website, you can join our managing list, you could send us comments, ask us questions that you want, they will get back to us. And we appreciate certainly Jose and Jeff for both participating on the chat and the others out there. Please do that as well. We've had more and more, you know, a little bit every week, though it's a little bit slow. It's been growing. Some weeks are bigger than others. Um, thousands of listeners. We really appreciate that. And we appreciate all of it. And we really believe we're gonna continue to do this. We're gonna talk about what we think we need to talk about. Um, obviously, we don't make a dime from this, we're not doing anything. Uh, but if one of the gambling houses wanted to sponsor us, we'd probably stop talking about them. Not really, but I don't think we would. I don't think it would mean anything to us. We would we would tell them, yes, we'll take your money, but no, you won't control our content. I've done that my whole life. So it's kind of right there. Uh Jose, we're gonna get to your baseball questions. We didn't really get to baseball much, but we're gonna get to your baseball questions. I I put them down, and and we're definitely gonna, there's gonna be a lot of days for talking about Mensa Yankees in the future. Um, but at the moment it's not. So um I kind of think we should end it there. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:It's up to you. You want to answer a baseball question? I can't see the chat, so I would answer, but I'm good. I don't know why you can't see the chat. Is it on the it's not on the right of your it's not on the right, but when I touch the bubble, I see seven comments in the bubble. But when I oh, here he is. All right, when I when I go to it, I lose you. So I don't know if you can see me right now, but I can't see you. I see you.
SPEAKER_02:I see you're fine. Just read the comments. All right. I see. Go down to Jose at the end. He's asking about uh he goes, he thinks the Mets and um here I'll bring it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_01:I don't have that on mine. I don't know why. You don't see that screen?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. See everyone. He thinks the Mets should the Mets should keep Peter Alonso and Edwin Diaz.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, I mean if they're serious about winning a World Series and serious about being contenders, you and and not to mention you have the richest owner in all of sports, I think. That is a single owner, not a an entity of group ownership. I don't I think he's right. If Edwin Diaz is the best closer in baseball, then bring him back. And Pete Alonzo's the franchise. I mean, I know you got Soto in there, but Pete is the best Mets player possibly of all time, if he isn't already. I don't know why you wouldn't want to capitalize that on that and bring him back. And if you want to make the argument that, you know, Pete's a liability at first base for sight, I think is kind of unfair to a degree because he has gotten better, at least in my opinion, he has. He's he's certainly the best right-handed hitter in the in they've ever had. And I'm not knocking David Wright. You know, he's got as many home, he's the only other player with as many home runs as Judge in that time. Uh, you know, it would be the equivalent of the Yankees not bringing Judge back. And I think because we're in New York, uh, you know, if he goes to Boston, he's gonna, he's gonna continue to be great. And it'll be a pain in the Yankees side, which I don't want to see happen because I don't want the Red Sox to have any success whatsoever. I wish they would just fold up their stadium and go away. But uh if you're the Mets, if you're a fan of the Mets, and I know Met fans seem to be divided on Alonzo, which I, you know, is kind of an indictment on the fan base more than anything else. I would want him back. I would love to have him in pinstripes. If for nothing else, just to be like, you know, nah nah, we got him. That would drive Mets fans insane. But if you're the Mets, bring him back, pay him, make him a lifetime Met, work it out. Even if you have to give him a deal, you know, that's you know, not you're not comfortable with. I'm not saying you got to break the bank for him, but I don't think that's what he wants. I think he just wants a long-term deal that'll suit him until he's, you know, 40 years old or 38 or whatever, whatever many years it is, pay the guy. He's earned it. For certain, he's earned it. So he's proven he can hit in the postseason. He's one of your more reliable hitters. So yeah, I if I'm the Mets, I would consider, unless you tell me there's somebody out there who's better than Edwin Diaz as a closer, if you want to be a World Series contender, you gotta have a closer. So pay him.
SPEAKER_02:I agree 100%. I wouldn't think of getting rid of any of those players. Just like we said about football today, just like we said about the Giants. When you have players like that, you don't get rid of them, and they're homegrown, and that's what you want. So on that, uh on that note, I think we'll call it uh call it a night. We appreciate everybody who's been involved. It's a great experience for us, the more people that get involved. So having said that, thank you to everybody for listening. Justin, always a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for getting again for having me, Steve.
SPEAKER_02:It's you and I together till till we all of my equipment burns up into the fireball. I shouldn't even care. I shouldn't even Yeah, don't don't joke about it. Thank you, everybody. Have a good week, next. See you now.