Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 8/14/24

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Guest hosts Jamie Dodd & Josh Elliott-Wolfe look back at the previous day in sports, plus they talk the return of Nathan Rourke with BC Lions Co-GM and Director of Football Operations, Neil McEvoy. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Knowing Nathan Rourke, I think he'll be playing Sunday, so we want to make sure that he's properly ready to go with the playbook and all those things, but if those boxes are checked, then he'll be the guy on Sunday. Swing and a drive! Get up, ball! Get out of here! And this one is gone!

He is locked in in need. Number 24 for Vlade Guerrero Jr. Ken Holland, the general manager at that time, as far back as December and January, were instructed at the top levels of the owners' organizations to get Dylan Holloway and Phillipough Beer Sportsnet 650 still. Jamie Dodd and Josh Elliott will fill in for Halford and Brough. Good morning, Josh. What's going on?

Good morning. Happy to be here. Are you? Yeah, sure. Why not going on? Good morning. Happy to be here. Are you? Yeah, sure. Why not? That makes one of us. That's good. At least we have one person excited to be here. Adog, good morning. Good morning.

Basketball Ben, good morning. I'm also excited to be here. Oh, yeah. All right. Second last day. We're 50%. Yeah, he's just excited because he's running up the clock. Yeah. So you can see the finish line.

The end is a basketball game. I'm just dribbling the ball. That's right. Has it been as difficult to wake up this week as it usually is for morning shows? Or is there kind of like an excitement? There's like a, oh, I'm excited to go to the office. This is kind of crazy. I feel like it's like last week of school, you know,

and it's like, I'm just going to watch a movie this week. That's a great comparison. You've got like a kick in your step. Do a little move when you get out of bed. I would resent having to get up early on my last week. I would be mad at Cambera. I would feel like he's punishing me. It's like, oh, you're leaving?

Take a morning show shift on your way out. You actually need to get an hour earlier than usual. Yeah, exactly. You're going to do the morning shift and actually we're doing a new late night show. You're going to be doing that too. So have fun with that. You can just stay here all night. Figure it out. Halford & Brough brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers.

Experience the Dilawri difference today. Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. Coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet. What are you waiting for? Kintec.

That is what you're waiting for. He sounds like he was about to start rapping. Had a bit of a rhythm there to it. How far did he used to do that when he first started doing this? All his reads sounded like hip-hop. Like rap? Sounded like he was about to start freestyling.

It's got a beat underneath. Yeah, it was very, very funny. Have you ever rapped before, Josh? In the car. In the car, yeah. But not like your own lyrics. No, no, no. Yeah, it was very, very funny. Have you ever rapped before, Josh? In the car. In the car, yeah. But not like your own lyrics. No, no, no. No, no, no.

I've never put pen to paper. I've been like, you know what? It's time to jot down some bars. You haven't yet. Yet. One day. It's the whitest you've ever sounded. Jot down some bars.

Jot down some bars. I've got these thoughts, and I've got to get them out. That's what the kids say, right? Yeah. Classic. All right, big show coming up today. There's actually lots that happen in the world of sports, especially as it pertains to fans here in Vancouver yesterday.

So, of course, part of that was the double offer sheet from the St. Louis Blues targeting the Edmonton Oilers, and two offer sheets equals two guests. That's how we're doing it here. We're going to cover it from both St. Louis Blues targeting the Edmonton Oilers. And two offer sheets equals two guests. That's how we're doing it here. We're going to cover it from both sides. First at 7, Lou Korak covers the Blues for NHL.com. He'll join us to weigh in on the St. Louis perspective, what they're hoping to accomplish, what they see in the players.

And as we talked about a little bit yesterday, I mean, it's just still a team in a very strange position. So we'll talk about where the St. Louis Blues are going with Lou at seven. At 730, we'll cover the other major, major story from yesterday,

which is, of course, the return of Nathan Rourke to the BC Lions. Neil McEvoy, co-general manager for the BC Lions, will join us. You heard a little clip there. We'll play more in a few minutes in what happened from Rick Campbell.

But this is just such a fascinating story. Tons of different layers here. Excited to chat with Neil about that at 730 at 8 o'clock. As I mentioned, covering the offer sheet story from the other side, Jack Michaels, Oilers play-by-play voice as the Oilers find themselves in a bit of a salary cap pickle with a couple of young players either due to get maybe uncomfortable raises or depart the organization. So working in reverse, of course, you know I have to do it.

8 o'clock, Jack Michaels, Oilers play-by-play voice. 7.30, Neil McEvoy, BC Lions co-general manager. And at 7 o'clock, it is Luke Horakak who covers the blues for nhl.com that's the guest list but before we get into that let's do what happened hey did you guys see the game last night no what happened i missed all the action because i was we know how busy your life can be what happened you missed that what happened What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training.

Visit bccsa.ca. And we'll start with the biggest local story, which, as I mentioned, of course, is that 2022 most outstanding player and Canadian Nathan Rourke quarterback coming back to the BC Lions after being cut by the Atlanta Falcons this week in the NFL. And we covered this a little bit on the show yesterday as it broke around 830. More details then come out. You know, Rick Campbell has a chance to chat with the media. Nathan Rourke is going to talk to the media today, I believe, after practice. So we're starting to learn more about this. And it's a really fascinating situation that the Lions find themselves.

I think one of the key details here are the contractual terms. So two years, the remainder of this season, then two years after it, he's going to make about 250,000 for the remainder of this year, then around 800,000 in 2025 and 2026 also allows him to pursue NFL opportunities in the off seasons. And you just hear those terms and it really speaks to the overall top downdown aggressiveness of this organization, which starts with Amar Doman. You know, $800,000, that's big, big money for the CFL. That's low-end NHL player money, right?

The league minimum in the NHL is $775,000, something like that. So Nathan Rourke is poised to be making more money than some guys who play in the NHL. You have to think that played a big, big part in his willingness to say, you know what, I'm going to at least not entirely put the NFL dreams on hold, right? Because I still maybe have the chance to go pursue these things in the offseason, but I'm at least willing to go back and play for the BC Lions, compete in the CFL while I try to figure that out because they're making it worth it.

And again, I think it really just speaks to the willingness of Amar Doman to step up and give out that kind of contract and how seriously they're taking winning and especially winning this year. With the Grey Cup here, they're clearly willing to do whatever they can to maximize their chances of being in that game. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is that part of this is like, hey, the Grey Cup is in BC this year. You want to maximize their chances of being in that game. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is that part of this is like, hey, the Grey Cup is in BC this year. You want to maximize your chances this year,

but also you look at it and so many things about Nathan Rourke just fit the Lions perfectly. Yep. Like, well, he fits any team perfectly, but he's from BC, Canadian, obviously, and just has the potential and has been the best quarterback in the CFL at times already. So if you can lock him up, and again, you can pursue NFL opportunities in the off seasons.

I wonder if that's just a like, hey, we're putting this in here. Well, you almost have to put it in, right? Because you never know. It's the same for any player, really, in the CFL. if an nfl opportunity comes up your team isn't going to block you from going down there um but in terms of the money around 800k i believe some of it uh around 200,000 of it is like marketing cap like it doesn't count towards the the salary cap so that's a big part of it too. And you look at it, and Nathan Rourke is also a guy that can sell tickets. So when we talk about the aggressiveness and the willingness to get this done, it's an easy sell from both sides, I think.

And for Rourke, it's going to be really interesting to see how he fits in, how soon he fits in because we'll we'll hear from rick campbell but he seems to expect him to fit in very very quickly and be on the field very very quickly and to me like that's very surprising but also it's nathan mork and he's really good so he's probably going to figure it out and a lot of the same pieces are still in place too yeah and that point about the marketing element right and look i'm going to confess i'm not a cfl salary cap expert so i don't know all the ins and outs and all the wrinkles for cfl still on or i wish i don't know all the wrinkles of the cfl salary cap

but if you're going to break the bank to pay anybody it's going to be especially as the bc lines as you said with the local connection it it's going to be Nathan Rourke. I mean, he hasn't played in the CFL since 2022. He's still the biggest name, the biggest CFL name, certainly in this market, right? Like people know Vernon Adams Jr. and they respect what he's doing. But the biggest CFL star is Nathan Rourke, despite not having played in two years at this point. Right. And I think that tells you the higher ceiling he has in general,

but for the Lions specifically compared to any other player. I saw some people react online, right? Like, how's that going to affect their salary cap? Are they going to be able to put a good team around him? I think, look, you pay the quarterback, you pay the star local BC quarterback who's elite in the league. You do whatever it takes to get him in the fold. You figure the rest out.

This is not the time to be like, oh, is that going to be an efficient contract? Maybe he should just go to Ottawa. On our defensive line? No, no, no, no. You get him in the fold. Then you figure everything else out after that. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like not to say he's like the Patrick Mahomes of the CFL, but essentially like the Patrick Mahomes of the CF it's like not to not to say he's like the patrick mahomes

of the cfl but essentially like the patrick mahomes of the cfl but i'm gonna say it he's patrick mahomes of the cfl get the super elite quarterback that can be the best in the league and then you figure the rest out after because that's how teams assemble a football team that's the the best way to do it is to get the quarterback and figure everything else out. Ideally, you have other pieces in place, and the BC Lions do have other pieces in place. So that helps a lot. The bigger question for me, and we'll talk to Neil McAvoy about this, at 730 is what's going to happen with Vernon Adams? Because it is weird to have two elite quarterbacks on the roster at the same time.

To have the two best quarterbacks in the league? It's a bit of a strange situation. I don't know if you'd like, I get it's cool, but I don't know if you need to do that. We'll definitely get into that. We'll hear from Rick Campbell on that as well. But first, we heard a quick clip from Campbell in the intro, but I do want to play this at a little more length.

You alluded to it. The question of when can you expect to see Nathan Rourke and the Lions host the Blue Bombers on Sunday Nathan Rourke is going to arrive he might have already arrived but he's at least going well yeah he's going to practice with the team today uh talk to the media and according to Rick Hamble that if that seems like a really quick turnaround well that might not stop Nathan Rourke from playing on Sunday yeah well he's traveling traveling today. He should be on the practice field. Tomorrow's the plan.

Knowing Nathan Rourke, I think he'll be playing Sunday. So we want to make sure that he's properly ready to go with the playbook and all those things. But if those boxes are checked, then he'll be the guy on Sunday. What are your expectations and how much has the playbook changed? Do you think he'll be ready to go on Sunday? Like I said, knowing him, I would say that he will be ready to go, but like I said, this is a fast 24 hours for him too as far as he's hopping on a plane and getting up here and obviously helps that Jordan's still here, so the playbook's similar in concepts

and all those things. But we want to just make sure we take it day by day and make sure that he's properly ready to go. So that's Lions head coach Rick Campbell, certainly far from closing the door on Nathan Rourke playing on Sunday, in fact, leaving it very, very open. Doesn't guarantee it, right? Acknowledges that there's certain benchmarks he wants to see him meet.

But I also don't think you give that commentary unless you've talked to Nathan Rourke and he's indicated that he wants to play on Sunday, right? Like, I don't think you're setting him up like that unless you have a very, very good idea of that's where it's going. Now, as he says, same offensive coordinator in place is when Nathan Rourke was last here, right? So I'm sure they've added some new wrinkles over the last couple of years,

but at least the base should be very, very familiar to Rourke. I also think this is, you know, Vernon Adams, I think the last update was he's listed as day-to-day. If he was 100% healthy and good to go, maybe it's a different conversation. But with Jake Doligala, the backup, you know, he's been fine when he's played in the CFL. But I understand why you say, like, okay, even if it's not a perfect circumstance for Nathan Rourke, he's going to give us a better chance to win than Jake Doligala does.

And the other thing with playing Rourke is, I mean, I think it makes Sunday the most anticipated Lions regular season game in, I don't know, an awful long time, right? The return of Nathan Rourke with such a quick turnaround at home against the Blue Bombers, that game becomes a massive, massive deal. And I'm not going to lie, as a very casual CFL fan who generally in the summer watches more BC Lions games because I host and we have to talk about the BC Lions, this has been the game that I can't remember being this hyped for a bc lions game 100 for a regular season game like this is a big big deal and i think most casual fans like my uh my future

mother-in-law i guess was at my our our house yesterday and she's like oh is nathan vork coming back i'm gonna watch on sunday that's what i mean like this guy the name recognition the interest on nathan rourke despite not having played in the league since 2022, is off the charts. I remember when he was tearing it right when it all started with the Lions. We had tons of sports stories to talk about, and he was topping Canucks stuff. Rourke was the big story around town, even over the Canucks. That rarely happens in this market.

It was a huge deal. Everybody was on board with it i in my time in sports media i'd never seen people this this rallied for the team before it was really cool yeah and as jd and kirk whitlam text in about him playing on sunday rourke knowing half the playbook may be a better option than what else the lions have i think it's as simple as that i agree right again if it was vernon adams maybe it's a different story but over the backup you probably just have to go with the more talented option and again, just

embrace the excitement that that's going to create. Because him just freestyling is like, he's still going to be really good. Yep. On Vernon Adams, as you said, that's the other big question here. And we'll certainly talk more about that with Neil McAvoy when he joins the show at 730.

But again, instant reaction I saw from fans yesterday was kind of okay can they trade Vernon Adams like can they use this to shore up the rest of the roster early reports are that is not in the the not the plan at least for this season but here's more from Rick Campbell on what this means for Vernon Adams yeah so we're hoping he's back um I don't think he's going to make this game. I'm not ruling that out, but he literally is this week to week where we think he's going to be back sooner than later. Part of me for this to happen with Nathan, the package for me was that Vernon stays, and there's multiple reasons for that. Number one, he's an excellent quarterback.

Two, he's a huge, valuable leader on this team, and he's a big part of this team. And so we wanted to make it work where they both can be here. So, you know, when I was talking to him this morning, actually he was my first call. I actually talked to him before our coaches, if you can believe that, because I think very highly of him. And, you know, there's some mixed emotions in there but uh no question that it's like it's an exciting

day for the bc lions and to have two quarterbacks of that caliber is uh pretty remarkable that's head coach rick campbell again saying you know he's talking to vernon adams about it wants to keep him mentions his leadership. I wonder if also part of this is just injury insurance, right? If the insurance factor is more valuable than whatever you could do with kind of a midseason trade. For Vernon Adams, of course, you know, we've seen BC Lions teams with two really good quarterbacks in the past, right? You go back, you think about Casey Printers and Dave Dickinson, right? And so it's not, now that maybe didn't have the best ending that people want this time, but it's not unheard of in the CFL to have two really, really good options at quarterback.

It's going to be a difficult process. Obviously, a guy like Vernon Adams, what he's done in this league, he wants to play. So it's going to be a job for the coaching staff to kind of manage all of that. But very interesting to see how strongly they've come out to say, we want to keep Vernon Adams around and we still value what he can bring. Yeah, and that's kind of the big takeaway from what Rick Campbell said to me was that they really value his leadership. And one thing that he mentioned as well later in the press conference,

I believe, was that when Vernon Adams was initially brought in, Nathan Rourke was still here, but he was injured. So they've kind of gone through something like this before. Yep. And so maybe it's not that difficult of a thing. But, man, it's still like it's weird when you have two clearly elite quarterbacks, like two guys that at certain points you could consider the best quarterback in the league.

I don't know how long you can have that. And, like, I very much doubt they would go into next season with the same situation. And maybe it is just a thing where you look at it and you're like, hey, if one of these guys gets injured if it takes work a little bit longer to adjust we have this insurance plan in place but it's uh it's weird because you can't put two quarterbacks out there at the same time or i mean you could imagine that next add some wrinkles to the playbook next week yeah rick

campbell's like you know what first two quarterback play in history it'll be sick uh so that's uh that's the latest on uh on the nathan rourke returning to the bc lion story again he's going to talk to the media after our show uh he'll practice with the team and then talk to the media later today so we will continue to follow this and of course neil mcavoy joins us at 7 30 to weigh in on as on it as well a couple of other quick things we wanted to hit here in what we learned from the nhl yesterday another interesting story not or not from an on ice perspective but elliot friedman reporting that the tampa bay lightning have begun what he calls a multi-stage sale process that will value the team close to two billion dollars jeff vininnick, of course, the current

owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning. I believe he bought them in 2010. They've been wildly successful, obviously, under his watch. He's very, very popular. I think a lot of people look at him as kind of the gold standard for ownership in the NHL. He's going to, as part of the sale process, he's going to retain a big stake in the team but also over the next few years remain in operational control which is kind of interesting uh new percher believed to be doug ostrover who's a founder of a successful investment firm the interesting thing for me here and obviously is the price tag right and you know the senators sold for 950 million not that long ago the The Utah one was like $1.2.

That is such a weird situation. I don't even know how much stock you can put in that price tag necessarily. And you hear Tampa for close to $2 billion. So it could be $1.9, maybe even as low as $1.8 to still qualify as close to $2 billion. But close to $2 billion. And obviously, Tampa's been wildly successful. Great team. They've won Stanley Cups.

They're also not exactly a big traditional market, right? Now, you can say, well, they have got all these advantages in attracting player talent in terms of taxes and the weather and all of that. But it's still a little surprising for me to see this type of valuation. And again, I think, think one it speaks to the overall health of the league and also just the fact that sports teams are like a bulletproof investment almost unless you really really screw it up but honestly this is one of the reasons whenever cba talks roll around and like the owners are like oh we can't give it we can't give an extra two

percent of revenue to players it's like guys the revenue doesn't even matter for them. It's all about how much their investment increases, right? The growth and equity in the investment. And this is just an incredible example of it. Bought the team for $170 million in 2010. Now it's valued at close to $2 billion. And look, the play of the team and all that does play a part in that. But realistically, it's the league that has

seen such an increase in value in 14 years i guess like like i don't even know the percentage of that but it's a lot it's a lot of percentage and it's 1.8 billion dollars more than it was previously um when he bought the team before and that's that crazy. And so when we talk about the salary cap and stuff, this is why I'm like, man, why aren't we seeing... We've got to get to the point where we're seeing bigger jumps in the salary cap. Yeah, absolutely. At times, I think as a fan, you look at this and you're like, hey, this still isn't...

You can't compare this value to teams in the NBA or teams in the NFL or anything like that but you still see these huge price tags for teams and huge valuation for teams in the NHL and it's if you're a fan you look at it and I don't think it's necessarily as reflected in the players and and tangible things as you would like to well and I think it's a good point and I also think if you're looking for optimism about the salary cap, what this says and what the sales say is that there are people

with a lot, a lot of money to throw around who are at least confident that the revenues are going to keep growing, right? Because you're not paying $2 billion or close to valuing the Lightning at close to $2 billion unless you think the future of the NHL is bright, unless you think the revenue streams

are going to be there from a league wide perspective. So it's an interesting story. We'll see where it goes with with Jeff Vinnick potentially selling the Tampa Bay Lightning quickly in baseball. Mariners back on the field, man. We were talking to Mike Lefkoe yesterday about the good vibes around the Mariners. I did not carry over after the day off. They got rocked by the Tigers 15 to one.

That's not a good score. A rare bad start from a Seattle Mariners pitcher, George Kirby, giving up 11 runs in under four innings. So, look, hey, they beat the Mets 12-1 on Sunday. Now they lose 15-1. The great thing is it's only one win and one loss, right? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much you win by.

It doesn't matter how much you lose by. It doesn't matter how much you lose by. You can forget about it. You can move on to the next game, but still a tough result. On the out-of-town scoreboard, and there's now really two teams that Mariners fans are monitoring. The Astros beat the Rays 3-2. Meanwhile, Kansas City also had a tough night. They lose to Minnesota 13-3. So, playoff standings update for the mariners

they're one and a half games back of houston in the al west two games back of kansas city in the wild card so all of a sudden you're getting into this position where it might actually be more realistic for them or it's like at least about equal to be paying attention to the wild card which was not the case for a long time to me me, it just kind of feels like, and I've thought this since Houston caught up to the Mariners, is it just feels like the Astros are going to run away. Yeah, well, they're better. And that they're going to run away with it at some point. Whereas the Royals, I've just never fully bought into.

I'm like, Bobby Wood Jr. is good. He's really good. But the rest of them, I don't know if I fully buy into the Royals and them being a clear playoff team. So that's kind of the one I'm keeping an eye on but also the Mariners they gotta get their stuff in gear too and that that's part of it and they've been better lately and the vibes I think are still good 15-1 loss hopefully doesn't ruin all of that but I I do think they they if I was to pick a route to the playoffs I think the

wild card is the one I would be looking at yeah and I don't I don't know if the Astros are going to run away with it but I think they are clearly better than the Mariners and now with one and a half game lead you probably like their chances to hold on over the remainder of the season but as you said at least the wild card now potentially in play for the Mariners as well quickly uh Jays beat the Angels uh as you said in the notes uh it's like what you're not gonna root for them to tank so at least you can still enjoy a win it's like who cares about tanking yeah baseball you get first overall and it's like i don't know will that guy be good

maybe but it does make it even more irrelevant you know what i mean it's like nothing matters truly either way for the end of this season that That's great. But Vladdy hits a dinger. Will Wagner continues to be hot in his second ever MLB game. Goes two for four with a couple of doubles. The other notable one from this one, George Springer, gets hit in the foot by a pitch. He starts to go down to first base. The ump is like, no, no, no. What are you doing?

That didn't hit you. They review it. The video pretty clearly shows that it hit George Springer. But they're still like, you doing that didn't hit you they review it the video pretty clearly shows that it hit george springer but they're still like change directions they're still like no it didn't hit you he loses it goes off on the umpire gets ejected you're listening to the best of halford and brough you're listening to the best ofpern and Brough here, Sportsnet 650. It's Jamie Dodd and Josh Elliott-Wolf filling in for the guys. Halpern and Brough is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today.

Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. This hour of Halford & Brough is brought to you by Primetime Craft Beer, meticulously brewed for quality and taste. Primetime Craft Beer is full flavor without compromise. At a liquor store near you or visit the brewery to see how it's made. 650-650 is the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com.

Of course, we'll do what we learned at 830. So send your submissions in now. Hashtag WWL. What you learned in the last 24 hours in sports. But before we do that, we're really excited for our next guest. He is co-general manager of the BC Lions, and man, there's a lot to talk about with his team right now. Neil McEvoy joins the show. Neil, first of all, I mean, thanks for doing this.

I'm guessing it's been a pretty busy week for you so far, so thanks for making time for us today. Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on. It's, you know, when you're in the middle of a professional football season, there's always lots of things and things happening, and this week was no different than, you know, obviously bringing on Nathan and, you know, trying to figure out how to get this team in the right direction to start winning some more football games.

So the announcement comes out yesterday, as you mentioned, Nathan Rourke returning to the BC Lions. He's scheduled, I believe, to speak with the media later on today. Just give us a sense of how long this was in the works and how it all came together. Well, we had always remained in contact with him while he was pursuing his opportunities down south. So, you know, he always felt that this was his, you know, family, you know, his working family. And so we always have remained in contact, and we always just said,

hey, if things were, you know, going to hit a wall down there, please give us a call, and let's, you know, see if we can work something out. And so he just felt that the opportunities were drying up at this point for him. He didn't want to keep on just doing the circuit. I knew he did have some other opportunities to work out with other NFL teams, but he felt that at this time it would have been best for himself and his family to come back to Vancouver and play. So once the call was made and we had some zoom calls and some discussions

we were able to come to an agreement and get him in a BC Lions uniform again to you know finish off the 2024 season. Does this also just like him getting back into game action and stuff and maybe putting together even more of a resume in the CFL does this give him maybe a better chance in the future as well at catching on somewhere down south? Or do you kind of expect this to be maybe more of a long-term thing? I know he's got the two years after this one on the contract, but what do you kind of expect from how long he might be in the CFL? That's a good question.

I mean, I think it's going to depend on him and depend on how things go. I do know that the NFLfl is a uh it's a crazy world down there i know canadian professional football is is as wacky as it is the nfl is exactly the same way and they they don't treat players as as good as you'd want and then nathan obviously is a star up here and down there he's just the third or fourth string quarterback and so it's going to be up to him on to see what opportunities exist. But at this point, we're just excited to have him for 2024, and we'll start discussing 2025 once this season ends.

The contract details reported for Nathan Rourke, he's going to be, if not the highest paid player, one of the highest paid players in the CFL. Obviously an aggressive move to bring back a guy we know can be elite in this league uh back to the lions what does this say about first of all ownership right they're the one making the financial commitment here's ownership and just the team's commitment to winning well first of all yeah this is amar wanting to bring in a player that he feels can move the needle in this market

and other markets in the country which which is a testament to him. And then the reality is Nathan is, you know, one of the best quarterbacks in three-down football before he left. And, you know, we're all excited and hoping that he can still bring that type of resume to the field, which, you know, we expect, and he expects to be, you know, there and playing at a high level. So, yeah, it's a good indication that ownership is here for the long haul. Ownership is here for trying to move this team into a different echelon

and start bringing the football back to the fans because Vancouver is a good football market. You just have to win games like all the other teams in the city know that once you start tailing off everything else starts tailing off so winning football games is the key and Amar knows that and that's one of the reasons why we were able to make this work well it's been a difficult few weeks on the field a few losses in a row here how much of a boost do you think this will be for a team that has been struggling a bit lately yeah I, I know. We started the season off such on a high level.

I mean, losing in Toronto but winning five in a row. And, you know, professional football, there's always up and downs and, you know, valleys you have to wade through. You know, bringing Nathan on is going to be a boost to our team. It's going to be a boost to our fans, especially with Vernon being hurt. It's, you know, a right time for Nathan to come in to start helping us win games. And that's what it's all about. And that's, you know, when we spoke to Amar and Dwayne and Coach Campbell and feeling that bringing Nathan on would be a spark

and obviously put this team back into the driver's seat because we know we should be able to move the ball. And now we just have to stop the ball being moved against us but that's the name of the game that's why the games are played and we're excited about having Nathan in you know in a BC Lions uniform this Sunday. And it was interesting to hear from Rick Campbell yesterday and of course he's asked when are we going to see Nathan Rourke on the field and he didn't say he's going to start on Sunday against Winnipeg but he certainly left the door open for it. How quickly do you expect Nathan to come in and kind of get fully integrated with the team

and be able to go out there and be on the field taking snaps? Well, the one thing that Nathan, I do know that he is a very smart individual and he is all in once he puts his mind to it. And so, you know, him having to go to three different offenses over the past two months was one of the reasons i believe his decision was made to come back up to canada he just felt that he was swimming and going to a different offense every couple weeks just wasn't going to be good for his mind and his future so our offense hasn't changed a lot um obviously we still have the same offensive coordinator.

We have the same staff. We have a lot of the same players. So I expect Nathan will pick up this offense really quick, but that's why we have three full practice days starting today, and we'll see where he's at at the end of the week. One thing that's come up from Lions fans since the the the Rourke signing has been hey you also have this other very very good quarterback in Vernon Adams know he's injured right now but what are what are the future plans with Adams do you still expect him to to be on this team for the

rest of the season yeah that's one of the things that we spoke to Amar and coach Campbell about is having Vernon still a part of this team he He's a leader on this football team. He has led this team for the last two years in such a great way. So, yeah, having Vernon here is going to be an asset for all of us. So we're going to stick with what we've got. Beyond this season, is there a spot for Vernon Adams, or does that become a different conversation after the remainder of this season? Well, we'll have to see.

We'll have to see where things lie at the end of the season, where Nathan's head's at, where, you know, yeah, we're going to have to sit down at the end of the season to figure out 2025 and beyond. But right now we're just going to concentrate on 2024 and see if we can win some games and bring a championship to Vancouver. How difficult is it to manage a situation where, you know, arguably you're going to have the two best quarterbacks in the league

on the BC Lions right now. I mean, we've seen quarterback controversies throughout the years, but from time to time with this team. I mean, what goes into managing that situation, you know, starting with yourself and then down through the coaching staff and the players? Well, the key is the players, you know, both Vernon and Nathan are really great individuals

and they will certainly make this work. If it wasn't those two guys, I'm not sure you could make it work. So I have all the confidence in the world that this will be a good start, go to the finish line for 2024, and then we can figure out 2025. But, yeah, there's always issues that come up when you sign a high-priced guy like this, and that's no different than now. When you have success, it always breeds some issues coming down the line.

But as an organization, we'll deal with them. And like I said, the key is the winning football games, and that's where we start this Sunday at BC Place. Well, Neil, I can tell you the response from our listeners that we've gotten texting in. They are really, really excited, and it's very understandable. Really exciting week for the BC Lions. I know people can't wait to see what it looks like

when he does get out on the field. So congratulations, and thanks very much for joining us. Yep, thank you very much for having me, and we'll see you guys at BC Place on Sunday. Absolutely. That is Neil McEvoy, co-general manager for the BC Lions, joining us and weighing in on how everything came together. Interesting point there he made about just how difficult it is to jump around between NFL teams like that

and have a new playbook at every stop, right? And also expected to be good and make an impact. Okay, learn the playbook, go out right now and do it. That's tough. And just the familiarity for Nathan Rick being able to come back, as he said, same offensive coordinator. Not that it's exactly the same, but there's going to be that familiar base a lot of the same players interesting to hear him reference that as a draw for nathan rourke making this decision yeah and that's there's a there's a level of comfortability with that from nathan rourke and especially like let's look at it from

from a personal perspective for rourke is you you've been jumping around these NFL teams you obviously have not been able to catch and that can be frustrating especially when like hey this is your dream you want it like you want to be an NFL quarterback you want to be in the in the biggest spotlight possible and you believe in your talent and I do think there's a level of like man I think if he got more of a shot somewhere, I think he could have caught on. And so when you look at it from Rourke's perspective, I do wonder if, hey, I'll go back to BC. I'll show them that I can keep doing what I was doing before I went south of the border. And maybe that opens up more opportunities to get a real shot in the future.

Because I honestly, like, I do think that if he got a legitimate shot somewhere, hey, maybe he's not like a starter in the NFL. But I do think he could be back up, third string, no problem somewhere. And he just hasn't gotten that opportunity. Yeah, and it is such a ringer to go through, right, where you're constantly switching teams like that and looking for that opportunity. And as Neil McEvoy said, you know, he probably, he could have kept doing that.

He could have stayed on that carousel a little bit, but the opportunity to play, the opportunity to come back to the Lions ends up winning out for Nathan Rourke. And yeah, sounds like there's a very, very good chance that he will start on Sunday against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It is Halford and Brough here on Sportsnet 650. Jamie Dodd and Josh Elliott-Wolfe filling in.

We'll continue to talk hockey coming up at 8 o'clock with Jack Michaels, Euler's play-by-play voice. Before we do that, however, while we're talking football, when we've had the chance this week, we've been trying to do some quick divisional previews south of the border for the NFL. Of course, the NFL season's starting up in just a few weeks here. Let's do the East divisions right now.

We did the North because it's your Vikings. Yeah. And now they're broken. And now surprise, surprise. The Vikings still cursed. Yeah. We'll go to the East. You want to start AFC or NFC?

Let's do AFC. So, man, like a lot of every division I feel like we've looked at has been like, oh, man, there's a lot of good teams in this division. So, AFC East, starting with the Buffalo Bills, when you look at it just like an off-season recap, Stephon Diggs out. They lost a lot of pieces on defense too, and they didn't really replace Stephon Diggs.

I believe their wide receiver one right now is Khalil Shakir, which is not a great place to be in. They did take a wide receiver, Keon Coleman, at 33rd overall. I think they're going to need him to make an impact. But when you look at the Bills, I do feel like this is a statement year, maybe, for Josh Allen. It feels like they saw what Patrick Mahomes did with no good wide receivers. And they're like, you know what?

We've got the second best quarterback in the league. Let's try that. Let's see if he can do that. Now, they don't have Travis Kelsey at tight end. So that's a big difference. They do. Like Dalton Kincaid is pretty good. He's not Travis Kelsey.

In the way he can support a passing offense like Kelsey can. But you're right. He's a good tight end. But I do think you're right. This is just a bet on the talent of Josh Allen to be kind of superhuman week in, week out. My only concern is that sometimes with Josh Allen, what you see is he's obviously capable of making phenomenal plays. But I think when the pressure is on him that much, and I don't even mean pressure in close games, but just when it's so clear that he is the entire offense maybe some of the bad parts of Josh Allen then the decision making the hey I've got this cannon for an arm so I'm going to try

this incredibly difficult throw downfield and it turns into a pick are you setting yourself up to have more of those plays by kind of going cheap not replacing the receiving core around him that would be my concern but again Josh Allen's a phenomenal player so i can also see this working out at least somewhat for the buffalo bills yeah i kind of like yeah i do i do think they should have added more in the offseason but i can see i agree i can see it working out for them especially if one of their younger receivers does hit a little bit because that's going to help and i guess the thing is you look at it now you it's not rare to get really good performances from rookie wide receivers and even got you know he's a right on the border between the first and the second round but it's not like he was a top 10 pick but still you can count on at least a little bit of production from a rookie

wide receiver especially when it's josh allen or a quarterback of that caliber and that's why it's Josh Allen throwing to you or a quarterback of that caliber. And that's why it's always like the Chiefs can just find guys because it's Patrick Mahomes and he'll make sure you're open. And it'll be interesting to see who kind of emerges from that. If you're a fantasy football player or a person, drafter. Man, what's the word? Manager. Manager. There it is.

If you're a fantasy football manager, I wonder who's going to emerge from there. Anyway, so that's the Bills. There's still going to be a playoff team this year. Yeah, they're going to be a tough out. They're going to be a tough beat every week just because they have Josh Allen, right? Yes. On the Dolphins, the next team. Best player in the NFL according to the NFL Top 100.

That was a wild one. Tyree Kill. Tyree Kill. What on earth was happening there? Dude, I don't even think he's the best receiver in the nfl according to the nfl top 100 it was a wild tyree kill what on earth was happening i don't even think he's the best receiver in the league what are we doing here yeah that's bizarre anyway so they have tyree kill they're still essentially the same team i was looking at the roster a couple days ago and i was like how did they get odell beckham jr where did that come from not that he's like that good anymore but he's on their team too that's fun um a couple questions for me the main one being can you have tua and be a super bowl winning team yeah like is he is he a kirk or is he above a kirk and he can he can get you to super

bowl is the team around him good enough to be a Super Bowl winning team? It does feel like you could win a Super Bowl with Tua, but you would need the exact right circumstances around him. And I think you could look at that offensively. They have that, right? We know the way Mike McDaniel has structured that offense, the way he can scheme guys open, both as running backs and wide receivers. You could say you have that offensively. I don't know if they have the defensive component to say,

okay, yeah, you can win a Super Bowl with Tua. I think as we saw last year, right, where they had to go to KC to play in the playoffs, you have to do everything you can to avoid that. Like, home field is so vitally important for this team. You have to go out and have a good a really really good regular season record i think he's kind of right on that line for me where it's like if he was just like five percent better yeah you'd feel so so good about their chances but it's just like yeah you can't quite get on board i'll tell you the other player i'm so curious to watch this year is uh is devon hn yeah, I mean, his yards per carry number was absolutely ridiculous last year. I was lucky enough to have him on one of my fantasy teams.

Now, he was injured. But, man, the weeks that he played, it was like, this is incredible. This is the greatest thing I've ever seen. What he was doing with the amount of touches that he got. I have no idea what a bigger role looks like for him. He's 5'9". Obviously, he's not going to average 7.8 yards per attempt. Maybe.

If he's getting like 200 carries, right? But with that offense, the speed threat, the way he can fit in, I am so fascinated to see how Mike McDaniel uses him, gets him more involved, if they can significantly ramp up his usage without inevitably getting him injured. Yeah, the other thing a couple days ago that came out was Tyree Kill with Kay Adams, I believe.

And he was talking about Noah Lyles. Yes. And NBA NFL players hate Noah Lyles. Because he was like, world champion of what? When they win the Super Bowl or the NBA finals. It's like, guys, come on. Anyway, but Tyree Kill said he would beat Noah Lyles in a race. No.

Which is wild. That's a wild thing to say. Man, like a guy wins. Just a wild thing to say. He just won the 100 meter gold medal. To just be casually like, yeah, no, I would be the gold medalist in the 100 meters. Like, what? No.

Do you know how hard those guys train? You are really fast. Yeah. He is much faster. Like, come on. Get out of here it'd be fun to see though let alone like the technique on starting and all of that you know what i mean like come on tyreek's like oh i can like he's done track but you're still not you're not when you're

not full time devoting your life to track you're not beating the best and i don't even like no and i love that people are like well he, he barely won. He still won. He's still the gold medalist. What do you mean barely? Tyreek Hill barely would have like qualified for the Olympics. And he probably would not have if we're being real. Anyway, Patriots and Jets.

Patriots, they're going to be bad. Yeah. So don't really have to talk about that. They are so bad. Is Drake May going to do anything? Probably not uh and jets aaron rogers i i refuse to buy into the jets absolutely refuse yeah now i know how much of that is because of dom uh a lot i'm not gonna lie i am definitely not about i do not want to see him have joy their defense but it's just like it's the jets and i know they've got talent there,

but I'm not even convinced how good Aaron Rodgers is going to be at his age, coming off the injury he's coming off, all of that. I'm not convinced Robert Sala is a really good NFL head coach. And it's just, maybe I'm being superstitious. Maybe it's anti-Dom bias. Anti-Dom bias. Anti-Dom bias. But they're the Jets. Yeah.

I don't know. Nothing would please me more, and this isn't even anti-Dom bias, than Aaron Rodgers just being horrible. It would be funny. It would be so funny. After they waited so long to get him on the field. Yeah. Healthy for a whole season.

I want him to play the whole season. So much hype. And we'll see what happens with us on reddick as well like it doesn't sound like they're particularly interested in playing ball with him and he's just like yeah guys i'm not showing up so that's gonna be a fascinating situation too but i don't know i picked him third in the division right okay yeah so to to go through the division well here's my order okay i got the oh yeah get in there dolphins jets patriots okay i'll go dolphins bills jets pats because i do think the regular season is going to mean more to the dolphins

for sure right and i think they have like the the bills have had really good regular seasons already so there's maybe less impetus for them to go out and try to put up that big record i think the dolphins still need to put a really good regular season together uh nfc east we got cowboys eagles giants commander starting with the cowboys they're kind of in the the leafs territory where it's like this doesn't matter regular season does not matter all that matters is the playoffs and or alias petterson territory or alias petterson territory so nothing matters until the playoffs for the cowboys and realistically realistically, it is Elias Pettersson territory where I can't even put stock into what they do in the regular season because I'm just not going to care until the postseason.

But that being said, I think they're still going to have a very good regular season. They have a very good team. Yeah. Yeah, they'll be good. But then they're not going to look like true Super Bowl contenders, though. You know what I mean? They're going to be that.

They're going to be like, yeah, they're a playoff team, but they're not in the look like true Super Bowl contenders, though. You know what I mean? They're going to be that. They're going to be like, yeah, they're a playoff team, but they're not in the elite tier of Super Bowl contenders. Eagles, a much more interesting team to me. They started 10-1 last year, and then they got real bad, real fast. They added Saquon Barkley, so I wonder how he's going to fit into everything they're doing there. It's a fun addition. I think they're going to be better.

It's weird that there's so much pressure on Nick Sirianni. I don't know. I guess it ended bad last year. I think that's the thing, right? He made the Super Bowl two years ago, and people were like, this guy's amazing. And then all of a sudden, it's like, wow. But if you let your team fall off the way he did last year

it was like i think it's understandable right and this because especially because there's talent there you have jalen hurts who can has his flaws no doubt as a quarterback but can also help you win games you have aj brown and davante smith you've got pieces that should allow you to be a really really competitive team so when you have an extended stretch where you are not competitive at the level they need to be, I get why all of a sudden he's a little bit on the hot seat. I truly have no idea what to expect from the Eagles this year. You could be Super Bowl contender, miss the playoffs.

Either one, totally, totally plausible. Giants, I think they could be fun, but they will be bad. Yeah, Daniel Jones, not good. It's not happening until they get a quarterback. Could you see the Washington Commanders be a Houston Texans-type team this year? With Jaden Daniels? Jaden Daniels. They added Austin Eckler.

They kind of have some receiving options, too. Yeah, well, Austin Eckler's not doing anything for them. I think you'll be fine. Austin Eckler is cut. You think so? He was bad last year. I don't know. He's not moving the needle.

But the receiving core with Jaden Daniels is interesting. So I think from that perspective, Houston Texans type turnaround might be a little much, but interesting kind of frisky fun team. Yeah, I think I could see that for sure for Washington. Okay. So in terms of ranking those teams, I think I'm going Cowboys, Eagles, Commanders, Giants. Okay. I'm going to go. I'll giants okay i'm gonna go i'll throw

the eagles at the top and then go cowboys commanders giants all right all right there's the east division previews authoritative the most in-depth previews you're gonna get anywhere right here from myself and john you're listening to the best of halford and brough