Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - How Misinformation Affects Players' Stock and Bezos Buying the Chargers

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Geoff talks about some rumors flying around about a certain draft prospect and how certain accusations can affect your reputation and your draft stock. Plus he discusses the possibility of Jeff Bezos buying the Chargers, potential rrule changes next year, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Friday, April 2nd, and this is a wild sports weekend. MLB is back. The Final Four is going down. And of course, NFL news. Chargers might be sold. Some comments made by a friend of mine that kicked up a firestorm. The NFLPA wants no offseason program. We'll talk about it all.

It's me, Jeff Schwartz, by myself today. Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you. Glad to come talk to you about football as it's never ending. And it's a gift that keeps on giving. And now we have the draft on top of that. And kind of the news and story of the last couple of days has been the comments by a good buddy of mine, Dan Orlovsky, who went on Pat McAfee's show and talked about Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. And we've discussed that his kind of drop down, at least the media consensus draft boards

has been kind of odd in my opinion, considering the work he did at Ohio State, the upside that he has. And just when you watch him play, you think to yourself, hey man, this could be a really good kid in the NFL. And to see him kind of going down while Matt Jones is going up,

I just didn't really get that. So Dan Arlofsky went on Pat McAfee's show, and this is how misinformation, at all times really in the NFL, but especially during draft time, we hear the anonymous scouts, right? Anonymous coaches talking, whatever it is, and how the misinformation can get very far with one person saying it. I'll give you an example from my playing career. Not a draft thing, but from my playing career, I know one person who talks shit about me and how it kind of spread throughout the

NFL. So Dan Arlovsky went on Pat McAfee's show, and they're talking about Justin Fields, a quarterback from Ohio State. And he said, Dan said, look look this is what I'm hearing about why Justin Fields is quote-unquote dropping down the draft boards and he said these are not my opinions and you know he kind of gave the you know the the the work ethic and the desire and look we know that if you watch Justin Fields play none of that is true right from his desire to play through injuries in the final game last season or his desire to play football and get the Big Ten back on the field last year or his work ethic I mean it's hard to be a quarterback who is at that level and and not have a work ethic that is appropriate to playing the NFL so Dan made these comments

shouldn't have made the comments but he did and And then he created a firestorm. He then went on later to Twitter and basically said, hey, I'm sorry, guys. This is what I got when I called Ohio State coaches. So look, we obviously know that it's better not to spread it. And if you follow me on Twitter or listen to me talk about college athletes, I try my best and I do a daily Pac-12 radio show. So I'm talking about college kids all the time. I try my best not to talk about character and kind of the sensitive topics because, A, these kids are still kind of kids in my mind, even though they're in college and they're not getting paid at the moment.

And there's a chance it could be. But we just don't know, right? Unless I physically talk to a coach or someone very close to that player and I feel more comfortable sharing it it's really difficult for me to say hey this guy doesn't work hard enough because I don't know right and I've had one person say something about me that kind of got around the NFL so look Dan said it he semi-apologized he corrected himself and now is on the record as having talked to someone in ohio state specifically who worked with him and i obviously don't know who his first

source is and he's corrected that but the point of all this was talking about what happened with me and i'm explaining how this can spread okay so i was in minnesota in 2012 i had a bad time in minnesota yeah i was coming off two hip surgeries in Carolina in 2011. I got both hips had to be fixed. I had hip impingements. When your femur that attaches up in your hip socket has a bone spur on it. So when you move your bone spur, it rips up the cartilage inside of your hip. So it's just kind of a natural thing that big guys have.

So whatever. I got them both fixed in Carolina. I go to Minnesota in 2012. And, you know, things kind of didn't feel right. I sort of didn't do much in the spring, obviously, as I'm recovering from my surgery. I remember we worked out in the summer with my brother as he was heading into the NFL with the Browns.

And, you know, something didn't certainly feel right about a week into camp I get hurt again I have a sports hernia and I'm out for the rest of training camp and I have to have surgery and I came back and I was there I played a little bit that season I didn't start I was told I had a chance to start they just kind of you know it just didn't treat me like I thought I should be treated. They lied to my face, all those things. Okay. And my wife, my current wife, my only wife, we were planning our wedding at the time and she was in Charlotte still in, in school. So I barely saw her at all. We ended up actually calling the wedding off after that year. Just, she called it off. It just was a lot like, it just wasn't, I was, was not having a good time in Minnesota. I was most assuredly depressed living by myself, you know, in an apartment, not playing as much as I wanted to, the weather and the no sunlight,

all those things. Well, and there was some offensive linemen in that offensive line room that I just couldn't stand. And I didn't really make it known to them, and I worked my butt off. I did the things I always did. And when season was over, it was over. And, look look we had adrian peterson at 2 000 yards that year i did some great things in minnesota which i played more but i mean i didn't leave on like a a bad note i didn't think i did um so we get to free agency and it's 2013 and look i'm not a top free agent i'm not someone that you people are beating down the doors for so my agent's just trying to find me deals to go play one year deal

i ended up signing kansas city that year so he's talking to a friend of his who's a general manager of a team that's not in kansas city and i had a decent deal well there's like a one and a half million dollars for one year it's pretty good i mean i ended up getting i think 700 grand from the chiefs and we're about to close on the deal, and the general manager said, oh, we heard Jeff's a bad locker room guy. We just can't do it. And I said, I told my general manager, excuse me? What is bad locker room guy?

What does that even mean? He goes, that's what he heard. I knew exactly where this came from. The offensive lineman, who I did not like, went upstairs, and he was a leader on that offensive line. He went upstairs, told the offensive line coach he didn't like me for whatever reason, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The offensive line coach went upstairs, told the general manager, told the head coach. General managers talked. General manager told the other general manager, and boom. One comment from one offensive lineman who I was not friendly with. And again, I didn't do anything to make him not like me. He just didn't really like me.

And boom, now I'm labeled as a bad locker room guy. And it cost me a deal. And obviously, I'm happy with where I ended up in Kansas City. But that is how one person's comment. So one person talks to Dan Orlovsky and says, hey, Justin Fields is this, this, and this. And that's how one comment can spread around. And we don't have people out there advocating for you.

And Justin Fields obviously did. And Dan did some more research on that and figured out that wasn't really who he is. That one comment can be what people think about you. You know, this general manager, by the way, after 2013 apologized to my agent, said, sorry, we got bad information because he accused me of a lot of things.

And you could say that, you know, that I was hurt too much or that, you know, I know that people feel I wasn't, I got paid too much in New York and blah, blah, blah. But you can't question whether or not I was good in the locker room, right? I have, I have friends from every team. I still talk to plenty of people that I played with and coaches that I played with. And there was nothing, I was never a bad locker room guy. So that coming out was, was a bunch of BS. And that's how one thing can start an entire conversation. And this is a low-profile offensive lineman, right?

We're talking about Justin Fields now, who, you know, potential top five draft pick. And that's how one thing someone says. Someone told Dan, hey, you know, bad locker room guy. Not bad locker room guy, but poor work ethic, right? Was it last guy in, first guy out type of thing? And one person can spread that out. And if you don't do your research on that,

that can really harm that person's value and can really hurt them. And I think that's where, and there's obviously some other aspects to what Dan said that I think people accurately are upset about. But that's how one comment can change everything for you. And it ended up working out for me.

I went to Kansas City, played really well. If I had gone to the other team, I'm not sure I would have played as well. I definitely would have had the coaching that I had in Kansas City. So it's kind of a blessing in disguise in the end. But that's how quickly it can change, right? I know exactly who it was. I know exactly who it was. I know how it went up the chain.

I know how it got to general manager. But yeah, bad locker room guy. I've never been told that. I'll never be told that. It's not who I was. So that's how it can happen. It can kind of be that quick. So again, when you see these anonymous quotes, and there's a lot of them this time of

year, just be careful with how you view them. I take them with a grain of salt because again, we don't really know unless a coach specifically has told someone that. And look, I've talked to coaches before. And so most coaches obviously want their guys to be successful in the NFL. So they go maybe out of their way to praise them. But I will say, you know, in private, if they think a guy's a douchebag, they don't want that stain on them, right? They'll be honest about that with analysts. They'll say, hey, this guy is not who you think he is.

His work ethic's not as good, all that things. But again, in this instance, when it was one person saying this and no one else saying it, and again, Dan was the messenger here, but he should have known better not to do this, that just take everything with a grain of salt this time of year, right?

It's a misinformation time. It's a time where teams are trying to leak stuff out to get guys to drop off draft boards and whatnot. So just be careful what you believe out there in the Twitter streets when it becomes draft time. So the draft signals springtime, which signals the NFL offseason program coming back very soon. And there's talk about the NFL offseason program changing forever. We know last year that because of COVID, there was no NFL offseason program changing forever. We know last year that because of COVID, there was no NFL offseason program.

For those who, I don't know, the offseason program, quite simply, is 10 weeks of activity broken up into a couple different parts, right? Different sections. It's four hours a day for the first five weeks, basically, then six hours a day for the next three or four weeks, and then you have a minicamp and maybe a rookie maybe rookie mini camp it's not a lot of work okay

and last year we saw it not happen because of COVID it was all done virtually and the players got to training camp at acclimation period it went off without a hitch some injuries were down some were up but overall not the catastrophe a lot of us, like me, thought that it would be with injuries. So now there's talk about altering the NFL off-season program forever and making it something different. And we're seeing the owners push back on that. And as we get closer in today's April 2nd, obviously, until we get closer to the middle of April when things normally start, we'll probably have more of a resolution. until we get closer to the middle of April when things normally start,

we'll probably have more of a resolution. And here's what I would say is the NFLPA has a great president, J.C. Tretter of the Browns. I think he does a great job. And you go to his Twitter, he put out a lot of research on last year and how things for players like injuries were better. The gameplay did not suffer as much as we thought possibly. There's no really stat for that, but just in general, what we saw with our own eyes and how a lot of that had to do with no off-season program. And my pushback is two things on this.

One is that, look, veterans don't need the off-season program. You don't need it. Guys go train. They don't need it at all. The older guys don't need it. But two things that I would be, that I question about getting rid of offseason programs forever. One is that when you have a negotiation for something between the players and the owners, when something happens one direction, someone has to get something in the other direction, right? So if we say as players, hey, owners, we want no more offseason program. They're not going to just say, okay, fine, just no more off-season program they're not gonna just say okay fine just no more right because

the coach should be pissed um they're not making much money off offseason program but coaches will be upset they can't have their guys in there and they're gonna want something in return to that and every time that we've asked you know for less practice time less pads they've said yes because they don't care they just want to get to Sundays and collect the money on game day. So they're willing to trade less practice time for something else, typically a monetary value. And I've made this argument for years now.

The NFL players should not trade a single cent for less off-season program. So if they determine this year, hey, we're going to say, cool, no offseason program, in which the NFL, by the way, has said they're going to have some offseason program. It might not be the full 10 weeks. It might just be three weeks in a minicamp, whatever it is. The NFL wants to come in this year.

But in the case that they say, hey, we're out, we're healthy, we can come in. Facilities are open up everywhere. We've gotten the vaccines. Not everyone has to get the vaccine, of course. You're not going to force someone to get the vaccine, even though I think personally you should get the vaccine.

But not everyone's going to get the vaccine. But we have enough players that have gotten it. The numbers are down. We're going back. If the players trade anything to get rid of the offseason program, they are foolish. They're foolish.

It's not worth it. It's too easy to trade. We should not trade a single cent for less offseason program. So again, the owners, I think, will be fine saying, hey, most of it's gone, but what are we getting in return for making you work less? And look, we get paid for the regular season. We get barely any money in the offseason. So financially, it's not that big of a hit for all of us. But there's offseason workout bonuses included in players' contracts that obviously will not be there anymore because of this.

So look, again, I'm fine with it from an older player perspective, and we don't have to trade anything away for this, but do not trade a single cent for less obviously than the program. It's too easy to really give up. Now, the other part of this is young guys, and the young guys, again, it's not the first and second round and third round draft picks. Those guys we saw last year, you know, Tampa Bay, for example, Tristan Wirfs at right tackle,

Winfield Jr. I played with his dad, so it's weird saying that. Winfield Jr. for the Bucs, second round draft pick. Like, you come in and play well as a rookie when you're a top level draft pick. But a guy like me, seventh round draft pick. The offensive program was very important for me to grow and develop. So the offensive program is multiple weeks in a row of just weightlifting, which is not for the development part.

And there's meetings, two hours weightlifting, two hours meetings. It's the OTAs when you're on the field working on technique. It's the mini camp when you're on the field working on your play. All those things are important for guys like me, a seventh-round draft pick who needs every single opportunity to prove to the coaches that I belong in the NFL yes it's not without pads it is uh it is without pads and it's not practice it's not games but but every opportunity a young player can get to be on the

field is an opportunity they can make the team and And if we take away the offensive program, we're going to see less young players get an opportunity to better themselves in the offensive program. And this is why, by the way, I think the older players are like, well, screw it. We don't need the offensive program. Now, they don't may be consciously doing it to spite the younger players, but they know that the younger players are the ones that are hurt the most from this, right? From the opportunity to learn, the opportunity to see the playbook multiple times,

talk to the coaches, be in the facility, make good impressions. If you're a guy who's been in the NFL 11 years in the same team, even if you've been on four teams, you know everything. You don't need the off-season program. You have your trainer. You have everyone set up. But some of these young guys, man, they can't afford trainers yet. They can't afford to feed themselves in a way that you can't.

So they can't afford to be away from the team for seven months in the offseason. And so I wonder if there's a compromise here. You have a program where young guys, maybe you say three years and younger, or you do it by how many games you play or snaps you play, percent of of snaps you played you don't have to come to the office program till this date and therefore you know we kind of cut that off for you uh and then you know vice versa if you're a younger player you have to come for for 10 weeks whatever it is and that used to look way back in the old old cba now when i first got in the nfl that's the way it was um you know the younger players stayed longer in the summer we had to way it was um you know younger players stayed longer

in the summer we had to stay an extra two weeks I believe before the rookie symposium where the older guys got to leave earlier so maybe that's the compromise the compromise is younger players get to do the offensive program older players get the option to do it or just don't have to show up at all uh that feels like the best groove to be in right you have a ability to do football help yourself prevent injuries if you're if you're a younger player get in the building like the best groove to be in, right? You have the ability to do football, help yourself prevent injuries. If you're a younger player, get in the building, learn a little bit, impress your coaches,

feel more comfortable playing football. And the older players who are established say, hey, man, I'll do my thing on my own. I don't need it. I'll just show up for training camp or really try to help for maybe two weeks or three weeks or mini camp, whatever it is. It feels like the happy medium. Boom. And there it is. Wireless feels like the happy medium. Boom.

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Results vary. Non-endorsement. Normally, we already have NFL rule changes that have happened. But this year, we're still debating it because of COVID kind of everything got got pushed back and so there's seven rule changes that are being considered right now um seven or eight they're being considered by the NFL competition committee um and we'll uh we'll uh we'll talk about them because they're they're they're interesting um and the one that's getting the most attention by the way is uh from is from the Chiefs, who want to make everyone change the eligible numbers, basically.

So, you know, defensive linemen can wear one. You know, the NFL, if you also know this, the numbers are set. You can only have a certain number if you play a certain position. So everyone's talking about that. That would be interesting. All right. The elimination, overtime,

and preseason games should easily pass. Boom. Done, should easily pass. No, no question about it. It should pass.

Like, there's no reason to even do that. On side kick, there's two proposals. There's one where nine players in a setup zone. I don't really care about that. But the one I do care about with this is the Eagles propose a more radical change,

giving teams an option for one play to gain 15 yards to keep possession after a score. And this is pretty interesting. Fourth and 15 will be the onside kick now. And I think that converts at a higher rate than an onside kick now. And I think that converts at a higher rate than an onside kick does. So, you know, people might not feel it's fair, but how awesome would this be? 4th and 15, I'd sign up for 4th and 15

anytime over onside kick. It's a fantastic idea. This is one that I hope they pass. There's some block in the back stuff, whatever, no one really cares about that. I hope they pass. There's some block in the back stuff, whatever. No one really cares about that. There's another proposal here with replay that I feel like, and this is one that they consider less likely to even happen,

but a proposal from the Ravens to add an eighth official that would have access to television replay and be positioned somewhere other than the field. This is kind of the idea of the uh the sky judge we saw in the af and xfl um my my whole thing um with this is um you know the the issue of how quickly this can happen i know that we want to get everything right. And I'm kind of a weirdo maybe because I'm just, sports is played by humans and not everything's going to be right. I know people don't like this take, but like if it's not right, sometimes it's just not going to be right.

I've been on both ends of it. I've been on ends. I was on Oregon in 2006 and we won a game because the referees botched an onside kick recovery. Oklahoma recovered the ball. First of all, we touched it nine and a half yards, and Oklahoma recovered it. And we got the ball back and scored and won the game.

I've been on the other end where we've been screwed by officials, by calls. It goes both ways, but human error is part of it now. The onside kick stuff is egregious. That should have been fixed. I'm not advocating for that to never be fixed, but that was bad. That should be fixed. But there's some human element so sky judge to me um it's just got to be quick you can't have a play that's 40 hours down the field and the sky judge comes back

and reviews it and takes takes forever we've seen college basketball right now how painful some of these reviews have been and so the sky judge can do this quickly i'm i'm all for that in my opinion um that it says here that um this year's proposal adds to the list if video available in the press box shows clear and obvious evidence the replay official can can kind of you know just buzz down and do it so um it seems like this is unlikely to happen but i think it should be trying the preseason that's where you can try everything the preseason is where you try everything so i'd go ahead and try this i'd try this make it happen and um it would be something that is worth

the trying the in preseason it's worth it so i I hope they do it. It would be a good try. But again, I just don't want to take away from kind of the flow of the game. You know, things are going to be wrong every now and then. Also, one thing with replay is like, where do you stop with replay, right? So to me, and I'm watching a baseball game right now as I'm recording this,

and baseball, I think, kind of violates the spirit of replay all the time. You know, replays to fix egregious errors on the field. I think that basketball and baseball do the worst job of just taking time to review things that just seem not what replay is for. You know, if a ball gets tipped away, we saw this in the national championship game a couple years ago with Virginia and Tech, right? Or when the ball gets tipped away. You know, Virginia hits it out of Tech's hand. The ball, like, literally just, like, grazes the fingertip of the Tech player.

For 100 years now, that has been an off-the-team-to-hit-it-out. But we super slow-mowed it, and we just, like, looked at it so close, and boom, it was just ever so – like, that's not what replay is. Super slow-mo is not what replay was intended for. I'm watching baseball now. Guy slides home. He beats a throw home, and his foot just ever so slightly, like, doesn't touch the top of home plate for, like, a split second,

and he's tagged. He's out. Like, I don't like it like i don't like it i don't like it it's not what the rule is for it's not what the rule is for clear and egregious problems that's what it's for you know the nfl and really this college football issue targeting right super slow-mo no context of what's happening around you and guys is that what that what replay is for guys i don't think so so if we do sky judge i hope they keep the replay kind of as is and just don't tweak it too much again

procedural calls have to get those correct 100 cannot screw those up um you know if guys in bounds out of bounds whatever it is but some of the other stuff just don't get too ticky tacky with it if we go to a sky judge uh please don't do that that would be you know that'd be no bueno last little bit of nfl news pretty interesting here um the chargers ownership dean spanos owns the chargers and this was i think maybe viewed as april fool's joke and it wasn't. So Dean Spano's sister asked LA court to force sale of Chargers saying that her brother that their trust

is $353 million in debt. Woo! They're valued at $2.6 billion and we've known for a long time that Spanos is one of the cheapest owners in the NFL.

They share a stadium with the Rams. And I'm curious, obviously, how this ends up happening. But nonetheless, the part that caught my attention, because do we care in fighting between ownership? No, they'll figure it out and someone will own the team eventually. But the petition also says Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

is interested in becoming an NFL owner and said the Chargers could be a perfect opportunity. So what does a stadium look like with Jeff Bezos running a team? I'm going to bring producer Nick in here because Nick is very tech savvy. What, Nick, what are they going to do at a high-tech NFL stadium? SoFi Stadium, they're going to turn it into, or maybe he are they going to do at a high tech NFL stadium?

So if I stay in there and turn it into, or maybe he just goes back to San Diego and builds a new stadium there, wherever he takes his team. What is the most high tech thing? My suggestion is they're going to have drones delivering food. Never have to leave your seat. I don't know if you're going to like the direction I'm going to go with this. Did you see that Mark Cuban is selling tickets as NFTs?

Oh, is he really? What it okay and nft okay explain it so nft is like a it's like a picture it's like a picture of a picture you're buying it's digital art it's essentially it's a mix no what is it why do i want digital art i just want an art i can look at what do i need digital art for they're buying new fortnite skins it's it's a similar idea people want to show off their digital art in the new digital world can i just take a picture of it on my phone you could but it's not protected on the blockchain i'm like i the funny part is i'm like i'm pretty technologically sound i think you'd agree with me, right? Like you do a bunch of podcasts.

I'm like, I'm good with technology. I have no idea about blockchain and cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and NFTs. I just see people dunking on the Winklevoss twins on Twitter with their NFT takes. dunking on the Winklevoss twins on Twitter with their NFT takes? The idea is the team would be able to participate in the secondary market. So when the Mavericks sell a ticket to someone for $200, LeBron is in town, and that ticket resells for $300 through the blockchain, a portion of that increase kicks back to the Mavericks so bezos is going to do an nft scheme for the chargers and i'm gonna i'm gonna be the idiot who's like i'm gonna go to a chargers game i have no idea what i'm doing and i'm gonna nft it and i have no idea what okay so

that's wow i went down the road anything i go to um so drones delivering food obviously um if you go there do you get like a with a purchase of ticket you get a free like amazon prime subscription possibly as well i mean that's a that'd be great what happens to sunday ticket does it go on prime if he owns a team um i have so many things that so many you know technological things he could do so look jeff bezos i hope he buys a team whatever he's got a lot of money it'd be good for the nfl to have more billionaires involved i need more progressive billionaires um and more ways to make the game fun for everyone else so i you know we'll see nft tickets whatever uh last couple things uh baseball has begun guys i'm a baseball fan i

grew up playing baseball if you guys didn didn't know this, I coached baseball for six years when I was in the NFL. So I was bored my first off season. So you play all season and it was like January. I was like, I don't know what to do myself. And so I told my dad, my dad's like, hey, why don't you call a local high school and ask if they need to help coach? I'd done a little bit of coaching growing up. I did some umpiring. I did some umpiring in college. I was like, ha!

My favorite one, by the way, was, and this is, I think just we're doing an audio podcast today, but I would point. So I'd be the base umpire, right? Guy would steal second base. I'd point at the second baseman with my left hand. Boom, point. Be like, show me the ball. And they'd hold the ball.

I'd be like, oh, yeah. And I'd punch the guy out. And I was like, that's my favorite calls umpire. So I like baseball. So I started coaching high school baseball at Fort Mill High School in South Carolina. And I started the first year. I didn't have baseball pants. I just wore like gray sweatpants.

I think I was sort of the pitching coach the first year, but not really. And then from then on, I was varsity pitching coach. And I did it for, I was in Carolina four years. Maybe I did it for five years. My fourth year there, we were upper state champions. And we had three kids division, three pitches go division one to go division one. One is,

I still think in the minor leagues, one didn't, you know, he just kind of fizzed out. The other one was just, he's never going to be in the big leagues. Who wouldn't a kid hit her draft the third round as well. Like we were pretty good.

It was a lot of fun. And I call pitches. I was calling pitches and everything. So love baseball. So I'm glad baseball's back. Full season this year. Unfortunately, already had one COVID cancellation. And I gamble on baseball too.

It's absolutely brutal, the daily gamble on baseball. I won today though. So first day starting out. You gotta take those divisional home dogs, a little reverse line movement. But glad baseball's back. It just feels like, and I know numbers are, I guess, spiking a little bit in our country,

but it does feel like we're getting a little bit back to normal, right? Augusta, I believe the Masters is coming up pretty soon again, just when it's supposed to on time. Baseball's back. Basketball got their full tournament in this year. We'll talk about that in just a second. The NBA is getting in. They're getting fans back in the stands.

Obviously, football and spring practice. We've had some spring games so far. Suppose we're getting just back to normal as soon as we can. And baseball signifies that to me. Lastly, Final Four. I've had a good run. I'm 19-14 in the tournament so far.

Gambling, that's a spread. I have Gonzaga. I assume I have UCLA plus 14 and a half and Houston plus five. Gonzaga's probably going to run UCLA, but Bruins keep sticking close. I grew up a Bruin family. My parents went to UCLA, so I'm very happy UCLA is in the final four. I was at the gym today, and I was on the treadmill, and I was just doing a little incline walk,

and I was watching 1995 UCLA-Arkansas championship highlights. Like, I love the Bruins. So I'm really glad that the Bruins are in it. So those are my picks. I'm going to finish at the worst, 19 and 16. I'll take it. It's winning. March Madness is tough.

It can be hard to gamble on, but I'm just so glad it's back. And, yeah, give me the – I think Gonzaga wins the whole thing. Undefeated. Great to have a mid-major, which feels weird calling them a mid-major because they're better than some majors. But mid-major, what a championship. They're fun to watch, man. Oh, they're fun to watch.

Up and down the court. They score fast. They play fast. They pass the ball quickly. They're just fun to watch. So I hope they... I mean, I'm rooting for the Bruins, but I think Gonzaga wins, doesn't cover. Baylor wins, doesn't

cover. I think he has a chance to win that game, too. And then we'll see Gonzaga in the final on Monday. Alright, everyone. Thank you for joining along. Be back next week. Matt Miller, formerly Butcher Report, now with ESPN, will join us next week for an interview the latter half of that week. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Talk to everyone later. Peace.