Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - OTAs Are Here, NFL Rule Changes, and Brady Owns the Raiders

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Geoff and Gabe are live on Twitter to give you responsible takes from the start of OTAs and break down the potential effects of the NFL rule changes, plus Gabe has some conspiracy theories to share about Tom Brady's new role in Las Vegas.Be sure to rate, comment, and follow the pod for a new episode every other week during the offseason.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to Jeff Schwartz's Smart On You. I am Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Goodwin. It's been a couple of weeks. We're back. We're glad to talk about football. If you're listening on Twitter, welcome into our Twitter show. This is going to be what we do moving forward.

Also, if you're listening to the podcast, welcome back again. Please rate, review, subscribe. We love hearing back from you guys. Gabe, before we get going, the last time we left off, we were both as parents of little leaguers in heated playoff races to get to the end of the season. How is your son doing? Is he enjoying his baseball season still? Son and daughter are finishing the season this weekend.

Okay. Nice hitting streak going. The field, I think we've got one 5-2 player, another one who's kind of all stick. Not a lot of glow. My son has his first playoff game tonight. They were 12 and 0 this year in regular season. So first playoff game tonight. Looking forward to it. I've enjoyed like watching my kids play sports.

I've mentioned like so many times. So it's fun when I post videos, when you post videos. How do you get the update from Coach Gabe on the how's the coaching going? You made your full season. Are you OK? Yeah. Yeah. I've suffered some injuries uh in the process yeah you know when you don't wear spikes on the loose dirt field and you're old you know you reach for a ball the footing's not great suddenly a groin pull is in play you know it's you got to be careful out there you

pulled your you like do mini triathlons not mini they're full length triathlons and yeah that makes everything a little bit tender and then with bad footing hip flexors wow okay well thoughts and prayers to your body as you coach little league baseball and north venice literally there in uh west la um all right lots to get into with the football side. OTAs are happening right now. We have some NFL rule changes that I don't really understand why. And some more moving the line of whatnot. So let's get into some football now. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, who's even softer than me coaching in little league NFL players when it comes to OTAs, Jeff, it is apparent that star players do not care about OTAs. So why do we every year pretend we have to care about OTAs? Because we're thirsty for anything NFL, right?

Like we're thirsty for anything. Now, it's funny. I used to care a lot more about watching OTAs just even when I retired just to like see clips of players. But as players have cared less about, I've cared less about it, right? And they're enforcing parts of OTAs that were never enforced before. Like, you're not supposed to make contact. You're not supposed to have much physical contact in OTAs, whether it's 7-on-7, 11-on-11, and they used to never enforce that.

It just was something that happened. Very rarely, you would get caught and you miss a couple of days of practice. But again, there were some physical parts to OTAs now they're enforcing it and I think also two teams are really trying to emphasize taking the contact out of practice right and we're seeing teams that just kind of skip even the early part of the of the OTAs the Chiefs have done it now the Bengals have done it you know teams that play long in the postseason end up even skipping the first part of the season. But it is because we love football. It's the first time post-draft to see a lot of players that have been drafted on the field.

And then for a team like, call them your Jets, your former team, you see Aaron Rodgers out on the field, right? And so I think that's why this is so much fun, is you just get to see your favorite players back on the field. It does feel like NFL will be here. Look, it's almost the end of May, June, July, and then training camps in August. So it's close. It feels like we're going to be here soon.

Yeah, that is so sad that you just said it's end of May, then just June, July, then it's August and almost here. That's like half the year, dude. No, training camp will be the college. So your Trojans have play like week one, like week zero, August 26th. Yeah, they're going to be in training camp at the end of July.

You're going to have USC football updates end of July, Gabe. It's happening soon. It is. And I will say, I'm not just trying to be wise-ass. It is cool to see guys in their New Jersey's rookies, guys who've been recently moved teams. If you have to look quickly with Aaron Rogers, he's off the field as soon as he steps on it. I'm guessing he was always going to come

up with some tweak that kept him off the field for OTAs, right? That's all that is. Is this a problem? Because the rest of the NFL quarterbacks, for the most part, are at OTAs every year. Tom Brady part, are at OTAs every year. Tom Brady used to go to OTAs every year. Pat Mahomes, Joe Rose, why can't Rodgers do OTAs? What is the problem with being there? I've always found the NFL players pushing back on OTAs so odd to me. In the CBA, for the most part, in the collective bargaining agreement,

they fought for less time in the offseason in the facility. And to me, that's like the easiest money we're ever going to make. You go to the facility, you're there four hours a day. You're with your buddies. You're there three or four days a week. You do it for nine weeks and you go home. And in the back end, you don't lose as much money because you haven't negotiated this time out of the CBA. I used to like the offseason program, man.

I hang out with my buddies all day. We talk and play football. There's no stress because you're not in training camp. And it's just around your teammates. It's when the bonding and growth of your team starts. And for some reason, Aaron Rodgers just is too busy to participate in OTAs over the years. Yeah. I mean, you're a normal dude, nice person. And probably, Jeff, I mean this respectfully, you probably don't see like a day in May as an opportunity to monetize blah, blah, blah, blah. Fair, I don't.

Correct, yes, I do not, yes. That time is valuable to him in a way that it might not have been to 90% of NFL players. But he's never there because he learned from Brett Favre, who was never there. Okay. Well, fair enough. Yes. But OTAs, by the way, used to be different. We used to have to come in March 15th, and you were there March 15th, all the way until the end of June, the full off-season program. It's now like April 20th. They cut five weeks out of the program and one week off the back end.

And again, it's nine weeks you're there. And to me, it's something the player should have never fought to get rid of. You should never fought to make any offseason program less. The March to April thing was fine. I mean, March 15th was super early, but also it's the way it changes the way you train, right? Because now players show up in OTAs expected to be in shape. So if you hear reports about your favorite player not being in shape, that's not good because you should come into camp in shape now.

You have all this offseason to prepare. When you came in March 15th game, it was understood you'd probably be a little out of shape. And then you worked your way back into shape in the facility. Now, if you hear a guy's out of shape or a guy's injured or someone gets hurt at OTAs, those are not good signs. That's really what you take away from this time. To me, it's the injuries, right? It's like, are we healthy?

Are we ready to go? You're going to hear reports about players playing great and whatnot. There's no pads on. There's no pads on. There's no stress. So I kind of take those reports with a grain of salt. You'd rather, by the way, have them be good than bad, but I will tell you, the report about Jamar Chase early in his career

was like, yeah, he couldn't catch a football. And then all of a sudden, he caught every football for the last three years. Right? Like, that's not always – just with a grain of salt in OTS, if you're off a defensive line, you're not in pads. It doesn't matter. If your left hand gets beat, so what? You're not in pads.

It doesn't matter very much right now. Well, you mentioned Jamar Chase, and so let's talk about the Bengals. They have chosen, it seems, to practice less than anyone else. The optional is very optional in Cincinnati, apparently, as opposed to some other teams who maybe are a little harder on their teams or expect a little bit more at this time of year. So what is the strategy there of keep it loose or try to instill some sort of mindset?

Yeah, I think that you can have, but see, you can't be that physical, right? So instilling a mindset is kind of hard to do. But I think being able to meet and be with your teammates is a good thing. And if you can do that more often than not, it's probably good. It's probably good. So I would be more in favor of just kind of having your OTA days, just have your team come in. Now, I think they're having their players come in

but just not go as hard in practice, right, which I guess is fine. That's the way it's going now. Again, I grew up in a different era of football, but the health and safety of players now is being looked at far differently. They're preparing their players. And they're not going to go as hard. Then you have the Patriots who got two OTAs suspended for meeting 15 minutes longer than they should have.

And the person who was in charge of the, especially in these meetings was Joe judge. So Joe judge was the one who cost the team to OTS. Most of the time when OTS get taken away, it's because you're too physical on the field. The NFL PA monitors it. They have cameras there. I've never seen this meeting thing go too long, but that means that somebody on the team reported them to the NFLPA that they're meeting too

long. And Joe Judge, congratulations. You're off to a great start back as Bushing's coordinator for the New England Patriots. I like that some player on the Patriots basically said the meme, coach, this meeting could have been an email. Like we didn't need all this. Yes. But two OTAs for that feels harsh.

But again, the NFLPA and NFL players are trying to crack down on offensive program. I never understood that, man. I never understood taking a cent away from what we can make as players to lessen a program where you don't do anything. You're there four or six hours a day at the most, and you're hanging out with your buddies. It's nice weather for the most part. I never understood why we would ever take away a single cent

of what we make during the season for less OTA practices. Yeah, that's good perspective from a guy who was there to earn a living and had not amassed $200 million as some starting quarterback. And you are a representative of almost every guy in the league would have your mindset not aaron rogers speaking of aaron rogers one last question on otas um i i put zero into this i hate that i'm even saying this but i want the people to hear it from you does it matter at all that in his absence in some sort of ota workout zach wilson apparently went 12 of 14 and impressed his coaches. Does that matter at all?

Look, I'll tell you this. It's better than – More important than the time he threw a good ball at – BYU Pro Day? I'll tell you what. It's more – it's better than being 5 for 14. All right. That's the positive. It's better than being terrible but doesn't

matter no because he's not going to play this season if zach wilson is playing that means rogers is hurt and your season is done so good for zach wilson it's an offense that in theory should help him a little bit more you know right it's the shanahan offense right run the ball plaque should pass move the pocket a little concepts. So it should be easier for him. But no, better than being terrible, but that doesn't mean anything. You can't hit the passer. And certain days too, just like in training camp, certain days have certain themes.

So you might not get like that heavy defensive blitz day on the day he goes 12 for 14. You might just have like we're doing base down and distance're, we don't know yet how complicated things are. I don't really take much again, better than being terrible, but to me, not like that big of a deal. Yeah. Well, we've established that Zach Wilson is one of the league's best quarterbacks when you're not wearing pads. So good for him. Here's Here's a question, though, to be a cynic. And, you know, my role is to sort of look behind the scenes of the how the media sort of interpret things. You're always thinking about this as a player.

Is it possible that these stories about how great he looked are being leaked by the team itself to try to sort of shift the narrative back to remember this guy's a first rounder in the right situation? He could be a good starter. Do you think it could be that so they could trade no no i don't think so um okay i think that when we have these practices and the media is allowed to watch them you're not going to report very much on the offensive defensive line play and the play the linebackers and running backs like it's very simple to see okay zach wilson completed this pass or he did not without pads on that's what you're reporting on this time of year you're reporting on what the backs like it's very simple to see okay zach wilson completed this pass or he did not without

pads on that's what you're reporting on this time of year you're reporting on what the quarterback does and that to me just makes it's the easiest common denominator oh i see zach wilson throwing let me charter his throws okay one completion one completion i complete welcome it just it's easy for reporters to get that information out and then me and you and the rest of nfl fandom eats that up right like we would much rather read about that than what's happening the center position for the new york jets right like that's just what it is and so that's why these reports come out it's not zach wilson's camp zach wilson has to play one the preseason to be traded and even then i don't think the jets would consider that okay um all right let Um, all right, let's move on. What if Rogers retires after this year?

Yeah. Well, some might have to play. No, no, stop. No. Okay.

Zach Wilson is never going to be plan a for the jets. We've, we've already, that's guaranteed. Okay. Uh, he's going the way of Sam Darnold. Um,

so he'll, I'm done. It might be the Niners, the Niners week one starter. Stop. We don't, I, I started doing this. I started doing an article for Fox sports, So he'll be the Niners. The Niners week one starter. Stop. We don't. I started doing this.

I started doing article for Fox Sports. My favorite week one NFL lines. Pittsburgh plus three hosting the Niners. Check. Or already in. Like I'm already. We're already getting there. We're already getting there.

Remember, June, July, August, September game. Be here soon. Yeah, we're basically there. It's next week is the way I'm doing that. All right. One thing that got people, I guess, to to your point everyone just wants to talk football so everyone today has all worked up about some rule changes or suggested rule changes and so let's dig into a few of these rule changes the one that got everyone's attention was the fact that and this

seems very obvious to me but if a player calls fair catch inside the 25 it goes to the 25 either way so basically like no one's going to return anything ever so this is the rule in college football right if you fair catch a ball to the 25 the ball goes to the 25 um so what it's trying to prevent is the short pooch kick and everyone colliding, right, at the return. They're trying to avoid for player safety. It's not going to change the ball being returned deep. It's really going to change a couple instances throughout a game when the coffin corner kick, right?

We're trying to get the ball. We don't want Cordell Patterson to return the ball. We want the other man to return the ball. And obviously those guys typically aren't the best at returning. And again, it's a way to pin a team inside the 25-yard line. That's going away. They're going to a fair catch now. And they might as well just stop with kickoffs.

I feel like they're getting in that direction where they're just getting rid of kickoffs. Because this doesn't really do anything. So if you're going to block, if you're a returner, if you're going to block a kickoff return, you're running back to a point, you get to block and kickoff return, you're running back to a point, you get your point, you turn and you block. If you're a returner, if you're on the kickoff team, you're running down the field. If there's a fair catch, right? The blocker doesn't see that. So they're going to block you. Okay. And now you can, if you see a fair catch as a guy, you might avoid the contact a little bit more

out of your your running lane but you also just can't stop because what if they muff the they they muff the block you have to be down there covering so the contact's still going to happen maybe not as violently or as often but you're still getting that you're you're you're you're still getting that contact and also you're taking're taking away a strategic part of the game. You just seem to slowly remove special teams as part of the game, right? Like you're taking a strategic part where you say, okay, look, we're going to push kick the ball. It's going to help our team with field position.

We're going to keep the ball out of someone's hands. You're removing that strategy out of the game. And it feels like they are going to a point where they're getting rid of kickoffs. I will say Sam Schwartstein, a good buddy of mine who worked at the XFL, now works for Amazon Prime, he created the XFL rulebook, not the Rocks XFL, the one that was the Vince McMahon XFL a couple years ago. And he created a kickoff where you basically line up like 10 yards apart. Kickoff team, kickoff return team, you kick the ball,

and a ton of returns, average field position like 31 31 yard line and barely in injuries, right? Because the injuries happen when you run 30 yards and collide with each other. That might be the solution for the NFL. It's a funky looking kickoff game, but it still happens. And what also this does, in my opinion, is it makes it easier for the good teams to win, right? Because the good teams are the ones that can drive the ball 75 yards down the field, and more importantly, can hold you to a field goal or no points. The bad teams are the ones that kind of get lucky with special teams in a game. Oh my God, we bust kickoff return. Now we've got seven points that we weren't expecting to have. And so it makes games to me tougher for

teams that aren't as good because you can't you're not going to return so many kicks you're not going to try to get some field position advantage by pooching the ball short it just makes it easier for the better teams yeah what i'm hearing is more support for the notion that we should just cancel kickers and all kicking in the game of football. Let's take the feet out of football enough already, but fine. It also has the effect. I think this segues to the rule that people also freaked out about. And I think you need to just simply clarify that now the teams can carry a third quarterback on game day and getting rid of a extra special teams player in favor of a guy who might need to play quarterback seems logical getting rid of kickoffs so you don't even need those players at all

seems logical what's wrong why are what are people missing about this third quarterback rule okay so the nfl after the niners played the eagles in the hensley championship game and we're without a quarterback essentially for the second half of that game because Brock Purdy got hurt, Josh Johnson got hurt, and Brock Purdy came back in and couldn't throw. I don't know, 10 years ago-ish, around 10, 12 years ago, the NFL game day roster was 45 players, okay?

45 players. And then they added a third spot for a quarterback to make 46 players. If you didn't dress the third quarterback, you only dressed 45. And after a couple of years, NFL teams were like, yeah, we don't want to use that spot anymore for quarterback. We just have that spot for another player. And that felt like, sure, go ahead. So 46 guys can dress. The Niners could have dressed a third quarterback in that Eagles game. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. Plenty of teams last season dressed three

quarterbacks in an NFL game. So this rule doesn't really, in my opinion, it's going to lead to 47 players being active in two years, which is fine. But the fact is this rule doesn't really, to me, doesn't change the NFL at all, right? How many teams are playing a third quarterback in a game and I hate doing three like this. This is dumb.

Three like this. Let me do three. Three. Huh? Wait, wait, wait. Timeout. We're doing a live video. We can get into this. This is dumb. Three like this. Let me do three. Three. Huh? Wait, wait, wait. I don't like doing three. Timeout. We're doing a live video. We can get into this.

Three should be. Three like that? Yeah, it's a three. It's a sports three. No, it's a sports three. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I got the sneezes.

I'm going to keep muted. Like an umpire or like a referee, you know, you're doing three. Yeah. So it doesn't change anything in my opinion. If you have a third quarterback playing a game you're losing anyways like if the Niners entered a fifth string quarterback that's our fifth quarterback right Trey Lance Jimmy Garoppolo by the way as we're talking Raiders announced Jimmy Garoppolo had a surgery after they signed him to his foot so congratulations on that Oakland Raiders Vegas Raiders um not great right that uh be the third stringer behind

Tom Brady somebody and then him? Is that what you mean? Oh, we'll get to Tom in a second, I would imagine, in our over-under. The fifth quarterback, it would have been nobody. It's a rule that didn't need changing. It's overreaction to what happened to the Niners game. It just kind of feels like a rule that didn't really have to happen, but it's not going to change the NFL at all.

I think I believe you because I tend to believe you on these kinds of points, but with respect to the guys who work their butts off to make the league and then earn a great living, mostly being special teams players or depth players on offense and defense with respect to those guys. Like I would rather my team have a third or fourth quarterback with a buried skill set. No, not trying to trigger you. A Taysom Hill, a Tim Tebow. I would rather that guy be walking the sidelines than another guy who could be a good backup linebacker on fourth down.

So this rule, like the rule I mentioned like 10, 12 years ago, both quarterbacks have to be out for the game to put in a third quarterback. So you're not really going to carry, in my opinion, a Tim Tebow. You're going to carry, or like a Taysom Hill, you're not going to carry a gadget quarterback at that position to be the third guy. You're going to carry whoever is your third quarterback. And maybe it is Taysom Hill that week, but you're not going to carry a gadget quarterback at that position to be the third guy. You're going to carry whoever is your third quarterback. And maybe it is Taysom Hill that week, but you're not going to carry. And again, I want to go back to what I said months ago on this subject, is you're not going to carry a Wildcat guy because you're not going to spend any time in practice doing Wildcat stuff.

Right. So, like, you're not going to carry Taysom Hill as a third quarterback because you're not going to practice that stuff in practice that week. So to me, this doesn't change the NFL at all. It just makes it so that teams can stop whining about dressing three quarterbacks, which the Niners, by the way, could have done in Philly if they wanted to. No one was stopping them. Yeah.

I mean, I don't think they had any reason to assume they had to. But all right, fine. Thursday night, there's like a new flex. They're going to do it on a trial basis. Look, I don't have a strong reaction to this because I haven't thought about all the implications of it. Why are people freaking out about the idea of flexing the final Thursday night games of the year? So it's weeks 13 through 17, 28 day notice. it's weeks 13 through 17, 28-day notice.

Let's say, Gabe, that you and your young children have scheduled a Thursday night game to attend, and all of a sudden they change it to a Sunday. Or I think what's even worse is you have tickets to see the Chargers play, the Chiefs, on Sunday night football. You're pumped. You're taking your kids to SoFi, and they're like, actually, it'ss on Sunday night football. You're pumped. You're taking your kids to SoFi. And they're like, actually, it's now Thursday night. Yeah.

To me, this is a fan thing. The NFL players will survive. It's a fan. To me, you're screwing the fans, which Giants owner John Morrow said, you're screwing the fans. You're absolutely screwing the fans in this instance. The Sunday to Thursday thing is even worse, I think, right? People kick off every Thursday night and your kids later at night,

right, to see them play. So I think that's the worst part about this. It's the fans who get screwed, who plan to go to Thursday night football games and get moved to Sunday or vice versa. You plan to go Sunday. Even with a month notice, like it's not easy to just change your plans in a month like that,

especially when you look at the schedule now, it's out. You pick the days that you want to see games. And yeah, the player safety thing, sure, yeah. It's not great to play on more shorter weeks. I'm with the player safety issue there. Even though my brother has always said, I disagree with him on this, that he liked the shorter week because you get basically no practice, which is true.

And then you get to have the weekend off. Also true. But the older I got, the less I wanted to play Thursday night after week four, because my body felt like shit most weeks till Friday. And when I had a little rest on Friday afternoon and Saturday before playing again on Sunday, and so playing Thursday night, especially the later in the season gets really tough. And you're going to flex in the same, you're going to flex in the same teams every week, right? Like you're going to move in those teams, uh, the top, you know, the Cowboys,

Packers, Chiefs, Bills, Bengals, like we know who's going to get those slots. Um, why don't you just schedule better Thursday night football games too? Uh, and the last part of this too is, yeah, things change very quickly in a month in the NFL. So you might flex a team in and then they lose three or four and all of a sudden that game doesn't matter again. Yeah. Okay. That's it being mostly about fan and viewing experience is reassuring because I thought

somebody was making a football player argument here, but they're not. Okay. I'm not really, no. All right. Last one here on rules. The launching rule. Used to be just leaving both feet during a tackle. This is a little bit different now.

Can you help me understand why? I hate all these targeting rules. I really do. It's much worse in college than they enforce in the NFL. I think that we have gone so overboard on some of these rules, we don't take into account how fast the game is played and what the defender is trying to do, right? How many times do we see a defender who is very clearly trying to target the midsection of a wide receiver,

and that wide receiver ducks down as he catches the ball to contact her? There's so many other examples of that. And we just take into account none of that and throw the defensive player out of the game or flag him 15 yards. There's always the people in the internet that say, well, tackle with your head up. What does it even mean, tackle with your head up? Your head like you're looking at the guy? Like what is head up?

As you go to tackle across someone's body, your head is going to go across their body. It's not going to look up with their body like this. Like what are we doing with that comment? Sometimes contact happens in a game that's not intentional. It's not intentional. They're not. And I feel like when you change this rule from two feet to one feet, you're going to have way more roughing penalties, right? You're going to have way more because it used to be very obvious to me, two feet off the ground, I'm trying to hit that guy in the head. Like I'm out of control. Those plays, I'm all for penalty, suspension, fine,

ejection in the college game. But there's all these other plays where it's very clear the defender is not trying to hit someone in the head, and we still flagged them and we still flagged them and I think that has to be I get player safety I'm for that idea but I think this is very tough on the defender I've been very clear about this for many years now I think defenders have a really tough time being able to tackle because of of some of the way these rules are enforced. Yeah.

Yeah. No, no disagreement. I think, I think you're asking too much of people. It's like when you're, when you're parenting, you make rules that like cover everything you're worried about. Like for instance, like my kids cannot play at all ever on the stairs because we have sort of like steep stairs. I'm not like, Hey, all ever on the stairs because we have sort of like steep stairs. I'm not like, hey, no running on the stairs.

It's just stairs are just off limits. Don't be on the stairs, guys. Play at the top of the stairs, the bottom of the stairs. Nothing in between. Then I don't have to be like, you're going a little too fast on the stairs. Like, put your hands on the rail on the stairs. Just get the hell off the stairs. That's how that works.

I think it should be that way. Note, if I ever go to Gabe's house, do not go on the stairs. You can go on the stairs. Just get the hell off the stairs. That's how that works. I think it should be that way. If I ever go to Gabe's house, do not go on the stairs. You can go on the stairs, but you know, five year olds get the hell away from the, all right. Are we ready to move the line, Jeff? I think we are. We don't even need to take a break. We're live right now. Let's just move the line with our little betting game. Bunch of made up bets for you over under under 95 chance tom brady is already starting as quarterback for the raiders when they play the pats by week six come on give it to me um high percent of chance over especially with jimmy g

being hurt now um we're trying to get this podcast to various homes for the next football season. Do you think they're going to let us talk about Tom Brady as much in our next home? I'm not even commenting on the possibility of that. You can join our podcast network, but less Tom Brady, less Tim Tebow, less the same stuff we talk about all the time. Well, one place actually why I want more Tom Brady, less Tim Tebow, less the same stuff we talked about all the time. Well, one place actually might want more Tom Brady. Yeah. They might.

They might. So Tom, I think he's – Do you think he's going to play football this year? No, I do not, no. You really don't? No, I don't think he is. You think he just wants to own a tiny piece of a random franchise in the NFL? I think players have this – they want to be on the level of ownership a lot of times, what the power owners have.

To me, owning a sports franchise seems terrible unless I have $10 billion, and it's like a write-off for me. I don't get – I guess from an investment standpoint, it's not a bad investment. If you own 1% of a franchise, you're probably going to make some money at some point, right? But I don't want – I just have never thought of myself as wanting to own an NFL franchise. I'd imagine Tom Brady thinks to himself like,

I could run a team better than someone else can. And this is like his first kind of jump into NFL ownership. But allegedly it's not that this stake does not have anything to do with football operations. It's like when Magic Johnson joins a bid for a sports franchise, he owns like a quarter of a percent of the franchise, but he just attaches

name to it because he's a great marketer. He's a great people person. He's great to be part of the organization, right? But that's not he doesn't really have a stake in what happens day to day. That feels like what Mark Davis wants from Tom Brady here. Yeah. I don't know about that. Cause I think most of the Raiders fans would hate Tom Brady. I'm not sure Tom Brady's helping, helping that franchise. Also look, we, we can't pretend we don't know what's been reported in the last couple of years. The last time he tried to get himself an ownership stake in a franchise,

he also tried to become the quarterback and bring in a head coach. And we know that. It cost us off with the draft pick. It cost us off with the first round draft pick. But it happened. We know that Dana White at least claims that Tom was like halfway to Oakland as a player at that time. Like we know that there's a lot of smoke here.

So it's not crazy to think maybe he's hopefully or hoping to play football again. It's not crazy. I just have not seen much activity. I don't follow him very much on social media, so I don't really know, but I just have not seen the, the like social media kind of like workout video push to play football.

I've seen him, you know, you said softball games. I seen with his family. I haven't seen as much like I'm still playing football right now. Okay. That's because he's claiming he's not wait till he is. Oh,

so he's doing, he's doing deep fake. Dude, I don't know. I'm just saying I, there's a lot of smoke here. Let's, let's move on.

Over under 25% chance Tyree Kill and DK Metcalf actually do race one day. I know. It's just one of those things where it's like a fight promotion where you just yell at each other for so many years back and forth to continue the promotion of your fight, but it never actually happens. And then when it eventually happens happens everyone's too old and the fight's terrible like this was gonna happen right they're gonna have they're gonna do this for seven more years and they're both in the end of their careers and run a 40 and someone's gonna blow their hamstring out and to be a terrible race yeah that might be right uh or it could be like uh you know mcgregor pro bowl event Bowl event. It could be a Pro Bowl event.

It could easily be a Pro Bowl event. You just pick the, you know, each conference elects their fastest guy, and they have to race. But the one that has the more to lose here is Tyreek Hill, who actually is a sprinter. Like, he trains in the off-season as a sprinter. I believe he ran this year in races. If DK Metcalf were to smoke him him that would be a problem for every kill yes it would that would look bad uh all right the chiefs play the bengals in kansas city on new

year's eve i would like you to give me an over under on the result the current line kansas city minus three and a half good question so i um wrote an article for fox Sports when the start of the schedule came out, right? And in that article, I did some research for the Chiefs. And it's pretty wild. Pat Mahomes has started 46 games in September, October, and he's 36 and 10 in those games. Okay. Okay. He started 44 games in November, December, and January,

and he only has six losses. He's sick. He's 38 and six in 44 games in November, December, and January. Three of those losses were his first season, and then it was two to the Bengals, right, and one to Tennessee. The Bengals continue to beat him in these spots. I picked them to lose this game in December on my article. I think the Bengals sort of have their number in the regular season,

and the Bengals are going to want revenge for what happened last year. I don't think the Bengals sort of have their number in the regular season and the Bengals are going to want revenge for what happened last year. I don't think the Bengals are really good. So I put that as one of the four Chiefs losses. I have the Chiefs at 13 and four, I believe. I had the Bengals beat the Chiefs. Wow. And that number minus three and a half mean anything to you? I would take the Bengals plus three and a half. All right. Fair enough. I mean, I figured you would if you're taking them out right. All right. Next up, Heat Celtics. Game five.

Thursday night. Tonight. I don't care. Let's talk about LeBron. I know. I feel bad. Like, I have. This series does not excite me at all.

Doesn't matter. And now Gabe Vincent's out tonight for the Heat. I just learned he was a person today. He's got my name, and I didn't even know he existed. So over under 75% chance LeBron returns to the Lakers next season. Let's talk about. Oh, no, he's coming back. Shams reported today that he's getting his tendon fixed in his foot

or has a tendon injury. His foot is being back next season. Our boy Nick Wright thinks maybe he gets the surgery late in the summer and he doesn't come back until several weeks into the year. What do you think of that? That's probably possible, right? He wants to enjoy his offseason a little bit, and then he kind of wants to just play half a season.

That's why Anthony Davis is there. He is supposed to fill in the gaps when LeBron is 20, his 21st season. I think that's perfectly normal for a player who just played his 20th season, who's 38 years old who put up 40 10 and 9 um in a game four playoff loss uh to the nuggets to say like yeah i don't really know my future's gonna hold i haven't thought about next season yet but i think it's perfectly normal thing to say we know lebron likes attention and all those things those are absolutely true and it did lead a lot of the news cycle for that day.

But I think he's certainly coming back next year. I think it was a message to the Lakers, like, you better fix this roster to make it better for me in one more year. Anthony Davis, look, LeBron scored 31 in that first half on game four. Jamal Murray scored 30 in game three, right, in the first half. And then Joker took over in the second half of that game to win game three. That's where AD is supposed to come in. That's why AD is there, right? AD is supposed to be that guy. LeBron puts you 31 in the first half. You give me 24 in the second half. That just didn't happen, obviously. And maybe it's a sign like, hey, I need someone else, whether that's, I don't know who a sign like hey i need someone else whether that's i don't know

who that would even be i know who it is but who is it it's draymond green that's who you need pal no do you know who it's gonna end up being i think who kairi no dude that doesn't help anything yeah it helps with the lack of the Lakers. Kyrie doesn't help anything. It helps exactly what the Lakers need. LeBron has wanted Kyrie in the past. He's been with Kyrie in the past. I think Denver would gladly peace with Kyrie. I think that's going to be the guy eventually,

which is not going to be the most fun as a Lakers fan to watch him play in a Lakers uniform. I'm going to bet all the dollars against it being Kyrie. LeBron made that mistake. It's not going to be Draymond. They need offense. They need consistent offense. First of all, Draymond helps the offense.

He requires no touches. He helps the offense. He helps the offense if you're running what the Warriors do with the shooters they have. Well, Austin Reeves can shoot. They're going to pay Austin Reeves. Draymond could also make Rui Hachimura a better player. You get Lonnie Walker in the rotation all year long.

I'll tell you what, that's a championship roster right there. LeBron, AD, Draymond, Rudy Hachimura, and Austin Reeves. That's a better team than they came out with. LeBron's playing the one in that situation, right? I would imagine, the point guard. I don't know, but I just traded D'Lo for Draymond Green. You're telling me that team didn't get better? Isn't Draymond a free agent?

I don't know exactly what his contract situation is. So NBA contracts are on. I'm happy with the money in Golden State. I cannot root for Draymond green i can't do it okay all right last up the uh the draymond of hbo logan roy and uh succession is coming to a close i don't know if you're all the way caught up i won't spoil anything i've watched zero minutes should i watch it okay over under more zero minutes what you should have watched by now of course so we watched uh we're watching the ted lasso and then miss mazel right now yeah all right i mean ted lasso fine success is good i bet it is but succession is very very very good.

I believe the Miss Maisel part like you would like the Jewish stuff in there. It's pretty funny. I it's really good. I okay, so suggestions next see my wife won't watch out. I have to watch it by myself. Okay, so it's that good of a show. You will really, really like it. I'm not it's not for everyone but it's a very smart funny show

is there do you think we'll ever have a show like game of thrones again where people watch it like everyone watches game of thrones at the same time it's like it's like a live sporting event you have to watch the live sport do you have a show like that ever again to the live sport of it do you have a show like that ever again i i would not be surprised if last of us became that it was that good and appeals to that wide a group of people i don't watch that either it's oh dude yeah watch that before succession oh is that is that good okay that's hbo last of us is incredible on max now they're called max sure whatever it's called so last of us i need to start last of us okay um i will do that meredith won't watch that with me Max now they're called Max? Sure. Whatever it's called. Max now. So Last of Us. I need to start Last of Us.

Okay. I will do that. Meredith won't watch that with me. She has to. No. My wife can't watch. My wife cannot watch any show at night that has any semblance of like violence or like backstabbing. It has to be only like fun show like Ted Lasso and like Miss Maisel.

It can't be like anything that has any sort of would make her not sleep well. Totally. Same situation in my household. Oh, really? Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai has put us to sleep many nights. How many minutes before your wife falls asleep during a show? She will say, I think we should watch this and within

seven minutes go I can't watch anymore and make me stop but I'm like what why did I on that I was gonna ask this the other night how many minutes on Twitter and I was thinking about this because my wife fell asleep in the middle of a part of a show I wanted miss Mays I was like watching it I wonder Ted last one or two, how many minutes can you, are you allowed to legally go before you turn off and then start again? And your wife pretends she knows what's happening. Like five more minutes of the show. And you're like,

okay, like I'll turn off now. And then when you start it in that, like, what can you, like how long do you think you can go? I think you can, you can get through the senior in and maybe one more.

You can't like loop back to the same character, but in a whole new place and expect them not to notice. It's so, like I, watching these shows like 11 minute segments is so upsetting. Yeah, it's brutal. Cause most nights.

You know what I just watched? I just watched Murder Mystery 2. Took me a couple nights to do it. Adam Sandler? Yeah. Murder Mystery 1 wasn't very good. couple nights to do it. Adam Sandler. Yeah. Yeah. Murder mystery one wasn't very good. It was murder mystery two.

Any good? It was good. Yeah, it was very good. It's very good. That's what I'm saying. If you want something to fall asleep to, there you go. There's your answer. Is Jennifer Aniston in the second one?

Yeah. Oh, okay. Your wife will love it. Uh, yeah, we, we watched that together. I think. Um, all right. I think we did it. A, we watched that together, I think. All right. I think we did it. Good tight show to you.

I know you have to bounce. We're back. We're back in a couple of weeks. We'll ramp this thing back up. This football gets a little more hot and heavy when we get to August. But I want to start thinking about lines, and Matt and I are texting about wagers all the time. So it'll be here before we know it.

Thank you to everyone for joining us today on Twitter. And if you're listening on the podcast, you can give us a rating and review. We very much appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Have a great one more weekend, everyone. Talk to you guys when we are on next. Take care. Bye.