Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 8/25/25

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, they chat Thomas Müller's first as a Cap as well as the important upcoming dates for the Vancouver Canucks, plus they discuss the latest football news ahead of the start of the NFL season with super agent Leigh Steinberg.     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. High drama for Thomas Mueller. Can he do it from the spot? At the death, yes. Muler. deep to left field for his three. Goodbye baseball.

Cal Raleigh with his historic 49th home run of the year. We're ready. We're all down. I'm pissed off. Why do you get so pissed off? I don't like hitters. Great win. You're scaring me.

Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody's Halford. It is Brough. It is SportsNet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. How do we do that?

Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brought for the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com.

We are coming to you live from the Kintech studio, Kintech, footwear, and orthotics. We're together with you in Stapp. We are back. The band is back together. Laddy's here. Adog's here. Halford and Brough are back as well. We have a big show ahead.

on our return to the airwaves on a Monday. Our guest list today begins at 7 o'clock. Our Monday morning quarterback, an NFL insider from the two deep zone substack. Mike Tanier is going to join the program. The NFL season is officially and some say mercifully over. Now we wait 11 days. Yes, 11 days until the Eagles and the Cowboys kick off the season

on Thursday, not this Thursday, the following Thursday. So we'll talk to Mike about everything he learned this preseason and look ahead to this highly anticipated regular season. That's all going to happen at 7 o'clock this morning. 7.30, it's a football-heavy show today. A lot of football, a lot of pigskin we're going to talk today. 7.30 J.C. Abbott is going to join the program. Our regular BC Lions reporter from Three Down Nation.

Defense. Defense. The Lions. None of it. We'd rather not clap. It took a pass. It's really hard. It was.

529 yards of net offense 8 scoring drives That's what the Lions allowed In Toronto on Saturday 52 to 34 The loss for the Lions Heading into their second by week of the season It's tough to contain Nick Arbuckle

I keep calling him John Arbuckle Who was Garfield to owner Is a relation between them Yeah he's out there like throwing football John's brother I want to imagine he also has a cat That likes lasagna

Yeah, has a dog. So anyway, John Nick Arbuckle. Yeah, just had it. We went off on the Lions on Saturday. Really tough loss for them. So we'll talk to J.C. About another awful defensive performance from this team as they go into the buy.

And what needs to change for the Lions during the buy? What else we got? 7.30 is J.C. Abbott, as I mentioned, 8 o'clock. This is very cool. One of the most famous and recognizable sports agents ever. The inspiration behind the Jerry McGuart. movie, Lee Steinberg's going to join the program at 8 o'clock this morning.

We'll talk to Lee about all the big stories, again, from the NFL preseason and looking ahead to the regular season, get into the Shedur Sanders story, because that's obviously got a very agent tie and feel to it, Micah Parsons, another one where the agent is prominently involved, Anthony Richardson, no longer the starter in Indianapolis. We can look ahead, get his Super Bowl picks, who he likes going into the regular season. Lee Steinberg is going to join the program at 8 o'clock this morning. So working in reverse on that guest list, Steinberg at 8, J.C. Abbott at 730, Mike Tanier at 7 o'clock. That's what's happening on the program today.

Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened?

Missed it? You missed that? What happened? What happened is Bratziwana, the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction construction. companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at B-C-C-S-A.C-S-A. Okay, so we're going to flip what happened on its head today.

What? Because, and the listeners need to just need to bear with us on this. With all due respect to Brooke Henderson, we'll talk about her win eventually, and the Lions against the Argos and the White Caps game against St. Louis and all the things that that actually did happen we have been off for like we've we've been off four of the last past five weeks right like we're glorious we need to we need to find our legs a little bit recalibrate the kids we need the listeners to help us out a little bit uh through the text line dumb bar limber text line 650 650 try and get a rhythm back a little bit we got to find our legs

because frankly, we have been, I don't want to say checked out, but we have been checked out. That's how you know he's checked out. For the last month or so. So instead of what happened in this segment, and you got the whole hour with us. And this is for those of you who might just be returning to sports radio in the morning. Maybe you took some time off. Let's go with what is going to happen over these next few weeks, because we are getting prepared for one of the best times in sports,

and that is the fall. A lot of stuff returns. And of course, like baseball is going into the postseason. So let's start with the Canucks, because I am kind of curious to learn what has been talked about with the Canucks. And maybe we'll just start with some key dates. Sure. Canucks training camp is in Penticton this year.

It is August 25th today, and that goes September 18th to 21st. As we know, the players are going to start trickling into town before camp is scheduled to start. Usually those informal skates start a couple of weeks before camp, and we always get to judge things then. Like, how early did they come? And if they didn't come early, it means they're not committed. No, it means they don't have a practice facility. And then we get back into our groove, right? We talk about like, who is the leadership group?

Should have them out here early. Well, if they had a practice facility, they would be out here early. It all comes back to ownership. You know, we need to get back into that sort of groove. It's nice that we've already been able to mention the practice facility because I feel like I'm back now. He mentioned it twice. Nobody's return to town will be more closely watched than Elias Pedersons.

Folks, it's 607 on a Monday, August 25th, Brough is back. He did it. He's already mentioned Petey. The Canucks don't start the preseason until September 21st in Seattle. And that's when we'll really get to see some players and see what they're about. But you know that every move that PD makes, even if he's just skating informally out at, like, UBC or whatever they do, is going to be like, people are going to like, he looks bigger. Yep.

He looks like he's got a hop in his stuff. He gets super jacked. Yeah, just like, I don't know. I chose him on steroids. I think his shoulders look wider. It's huge. How do you eat a foot? Looks pretty big.

The Connect's roster is not as different as a lot of us expected it to be after last season. That goes for a lot of teams in the NHL, though. Down the middle is where most of the questions remain. Someone texted it into the Dunbar. by Lumbertex line and said, welcome back, boys, back to talking about center depth. Yep. That's where a lot of the questions are.

Can Pedersen return to form? Is Heidel good enough for a top six role and can he stay healthy? Which of the young guys like Ratu, Sasson, or Ty Mueller? So now we've got two Moolers. Right. But Ty Muler is different than Thomas Muler. Does he have an umulat?

He does not have an umulat. Okay, that's why. Like, is a Marco, how much, this is a sad thing to ask, but how much did you guys talk about the wild signing Marco Rossi? I've been off for two weeks, man. Okay, you've been off too. A lot of Rossi talk. A lot of Rossi talk.

Oh, we missed it. Was Richio just choked? Well, I was just like every day, it was like an update. Well, nothing's changed. Status quo. Come back at 7 o'clock. Things made me different. So glad I was off during those weeks.

We missed the crafts off signing. You did. I can't believe it. Crab sauce is back, baby. They wouldn't hold it for us. They did it on August 5th, right? When they knew we'd be on vacation, they're like, we're going to bring this guy back. We can't deal with us on the air.

So we'll wait for these guys to go on vacation, then we'll bring him back. So what are my favorites? Was that just a favor for Milstein? I don't know. It was really weird. Yeah, because like Milstein is kind of back too, right? Because he's Cain's agent. Yeah.

We thought we thought we got not rid of it, but all his guys. Sure. And now he's back. It's, uh, Barney, uh, Mo throwing out Barney meme. Crabt saws back in the background. He's still here. And, uh, just a few more things on the connects. There's a new head coach in Adam Foot with three new assistants in Kevin Dean, Brett McLean, and Scott Young.

So what will an Adam Foot training camp look like? And, uh, you know, this is for Randiap. What will the power play look like under Brett McLean? and, you know, with a Vander Cain in the mix as well. What kind of is, is he going to be part of that Canucks powerplay? Because he wasn't really in Edmonton. Wasn't part of the power play much there. But I think they're going to try and find him a spot.

If you want to talk about, like, looking ahead and what's going to happen. We've always tried to come up with a narrative or coin the phrase that's going to dominate the early stages of the season. Remember hashtag the start? I think this year it's going to be hashtag the questions. and how many need to be answered because there's the roster construction questions, which feels incomplete, although as you astutely pointed out,

incomplete across the league. There's a lot of teams that didn't answer the questions that they had with their roster makeup. But this is also a team that, as you also astutely pointed out, doesn't just have a new head coach, but it's almost an entirely new staff. Like everything is going to be different there, and we don't know a lot about what, like you said,

what Adam Foote is going to be like as a head coach as opposed to an assistant coach and what the rest of the staff is going to implement in terms of changes from last year to this year. And then there's all these questions about where guys are going to fit, who's going to make the roster? There's a lot of questions that are up in the air.

I'd say more so than other years where we kind of knew what we were going to get at least at the start of the season. We knew what it was going to look like. The key was the execution part of it. With this, I feel like there's a lot that goes into the equation that answers to get to that kind of end solution.

We just don't really know a whole heck of a lot about the team right now Despite the fact there's a lot of familiar faces coming back Okay, so the BC Lions And this is where we get into a bit of actually what did happen They got to figure themselves out during their buy week They're ahead of back-to-back games against Loli Ottawa Of course they're coming off a pretty bad loss to Loli Toronto Also the defending league champion

It's weird how that works I'd bless the CFL The Argos moved to 3 and 8 in their title defense with a win over the Lions on Saturday. I mentioned it in the intro, but again, Nick Arbuckle, 430 yards and three touchdowns. So a lot of people pointed out, like, it wasn't that you just got singed for 52 points.

It was by a really pedestrian quarterback in front of what many have regarded as the worst offensive line in the CFL that Toronto has. There's a reason that there were 2 and 8 going into that game. Argo's top receiver was... He was on the side. sidelines in civvies yeah so it was another really tough outing for a defensive unit that i've lost the amount of times i mean i forget what we did prior to going on vacation but the amount of

times that we bemoaned the lack of defense across the board secondary not good pass rush not good i know they i think they had three sacks of barbuckle but two of them came in garbage time uh i know we'll talk to j c abbott about this later in the show but like matthew betts with the contract that he has and the status that he has, not being a difference maker in terms of being able to get after the quarterback, that's a problem. Everything defensively for this team feels like a problem. And as you mentioned,

they do get the Ottawa games back to back. They've got the by week to figure it out. But it's hard to have a lot of optimism that they're going to figure it out because you're already well into the season. You're almost a double digits games played. And the same issues that you thought you solved keep coming back.

And then Saturday in Toronto came back in a really ugly way. 52 points in football games, And it doesn't feel like they're going to be able to host a playoff game. I know there's still time and it's the CFL. They can go on a run and they do have these back-to-back games against Ottawa, but it's just the inconsistency of the team. There are some results they've had that have been like, yeah, that looks good and whether it's promising.

And then they go and have one like they did against Toronto. I mean, their best hope might be third, you know, getting the crossover into the east, although I've always wanted to see them make the Grey Cup and play a Western team. would be amazing in the Grey Cup. And they've got the potential to do that because they do have the talent on offense, well, especially at quarterback. They scored 34 points on the road on the weekend. That's enough to win a football game, except they lost by 18.

But hey, it's not great. At least it was a lot of points in the CFL. It's true. Can't win it all, right? The white caps are racing down the stretch. Just seven MLS games left in the regular season plus the Canadian Championship. The caps should be able to get past. Lattie's FC Forge.

I don't know. I don't know. Forge. They are the class in CPL. Out of the hammer. And then possibly a Vancouver Derby. Yeah, it looks pretty good right now. In the Canadian Championship.

Halford, how are you feeling about the Caps right now? We were at BC Place for Thomas Muller's debut. I thought he looked, I thought he looked good. Like, I'm going to say a real soccer thing now. Okay. like you could really see his quality. Oh, there it is. Oh, total quality.

Yeah, you could, you know, people that know soccer that I know, like I know soccer, you can just see the quality in his touches. Quality player. Yeah. Good toucher. What?

Touches. Pardon? It was a lot of fun on the weekend. Not only did Mueller get his first start for the Vancouver Whitecaps in the three-two win over visiting St. Louis. city. He also got to wear the captain's arm band, a nod to how much of a leadership role he's

already got with this squad. He said he felt a bit sheepish about it, but he said I was already kind of being a leader. Did you not just take the captain's, strip it from who's the captain? It's been road to, because Gald's the captain. Oh, yeah. Gald's been hurt. So there's been a bunch of different guys that have served Ranko. He should have stripped it from him. Just give that to me. Ripped it off his arm. Can we, by the way, can we hear the call yet again? This is the Apple TV call of the match winning penalty. Ten minutes of. added time in injury a lot in the circumstances and then I got to say it one of the most dubious and dodgiest penalty calls I've seen and this is an MLS didn't the white caps guy just

trip kind of look like it dubious means bad right right just straight up well white caps we're let's be honest we were owed one yeah and and that's fine right you say with officiating if you don't want to complain about it the the cosmic whatever will one day sort everything out and if you get a bad call one day you'll get a call going in your favor the other day. I guess if you subscribe to that theory, then what happened on Saturday made sense. But here's Mueller scoring. His first MLS goal and a match-winning goal for the White Caps,

three-two victors at B.C. place over St. Louis City. High drama for Thomas Mueller. Can he do it from the spot? At the death, yes. Mueller puts Vancouver on top. It's three to two. Against all bonds here this evening. Okay, so you asked how I'm...

Hey, Blake. I asked how am I feeling about the White Caps? I want to play audio from Mueller after the match. Because there's one... Since he's come aboard, I don't know how much he paid attention to it, but his level of enthusiasm for being in Vancouver and playing in MLS for the White Caps is like comically high. Like to the point where I'm like, is he putting it on for show?

Like, what's... No one can be... So many good sound bites, too. He's so funny. He's a really funny guy. This is him talking about what it felt like to. And look, this is a guy that is played in World Cups and has played at the highest level.

He's played in some of these most intense matches you can have in the sport, right? This is him talking about taking a penalty in an MLS regular season game against St. Louis. And just listen to what he had to say. Here's Thomas Mueller after the match, 3-2 win over St. Louis. It was an amazing moment for me.

On one side to have this pressure. Because with a pen you have a good chance to score, but what happens if you miss? You're already writing your news. Thomas Miller missed the pen. I like to have this pressure and my teammates were cheering for me and that was a very nice feeling to score this goal in front of our fans. it's hilarious that he's talking about the pressure of the media like oh no

Daily Hive is going to write a negative article about me missing a penalty I have never received such scrutiny those jackals have whitecaps media he was honestly probably talking about like what the media back in your yeah I know but he was it was to the question that the reporter had asked

and I just thought it was hilarious because he's trying to bring some people have a positive attitude you know that's it that's exactly what this is does it just rub you the wrong way no I love it I'm trying to learn yeah how does it work

I'm shocked by it. What a loser. So friendly and happy. Ernest caring about things. I don't, I'm just surprised because there's two reasons. Like one, this is a guy, again, that's gone in far more pressure pack situations than trying to convert a penalty against St. Louis in like September in BC, right? The other one is that we've seen countless high level star European players come to MLS and sort of kick back.

and relax, kick their feet up and have a good time. Go through the motions a little bit. And I'm not talking about the older guys, like Frank Lampard or Stephen Gerard or Wayne Rooney. I mean, it happened this year. Like Olivier Giroux came and played for L.A.F. And it was a disaster. It almost seemed like they didn't respect the league.

I think that's a part of it. Yeah. They thought it might have been beneath them. You know, there's this report coming in. Yeah. It's so endearing that Mueller's doing this because I think he genuinely cares about winning to the point where it doesn't matter where it is.

Like it could be in a five-a-side match in Dusseldorf with a bunch of retired players or it could be this. He just really wants to win trophies and win titles because that's what he's been through his career, he's been a serial winner, right? He's won at every level, tons of trophies, and he wants to keep doing that.

So that really gives me hope and optimism for a Whitecaps team that is dealing with a lot of, like, health issues and everything right now. I do wonder how much of a catalyst he can be. Could it also be that this is just all really new for him in his life? I mean, he was a Byron guy right from when he was a kid. Yes. Like he went through their, did they call it an academy there?

He spent 25 years with Byron Munich. 25 years old. With Byron, right? And so this is, you know, when we were at his debut at BC Place, we were sitting right behind him and I was thinking like, man, what's he, what's he thinking right now? Like this is the first time he's ever played for another team. Yep. And like, I hope he's happy with his decision.

Because, because honestly, having conversations with you and some of your buddies around your seats and you guys are all like big white caps fans and you're in the know, nobody could still really give a solid answer on why Vancouver? Why did he choose? And I've asked around. And I've asked around and I've asked around. And there's a bunch of sort of reasons why. I do wonder if there was a cumulative effect of enough good reasons.

Yeah. And there wasn't one that outshone the rest. But whatever the case, it's been almost better than you could have imagined because of his personality and his attitude. That's what's going to win people over at the end of the day. Now, unfortunately for the white caps, MLS is MLSing. and they now don't play for three weeks. Because their next opponent, Orlando, qualified for the next round of the league's cup,

their next match got punted into October. So now, with all of this momentum, and, you know, if you look at Apple's social channels and MLS's social channels, the White Caps and Mueller are front and center. They're prominently displayed. Like they want them on prime time, on Apple, and they want them to be a prevalent market. and now they don't play for three weeks and that's unfortunate. When they come back, then they play three matches in seven days, but that's still a ways

away. But overall, there's got to be a lot of optimism for what they're doing right now. Okay. So, we're starting to get our feet under us a little bit. Texting to the Dunbar Lumber Text line at 650, 650 Metro Vancouver's trusted choice for contractors

and renter warriors for over 50 years, visit them at one of their three locations to serve you or online at Dunbarlumber.com. We've got another open segment on the other side where we can get into the Blue Jays and the Mariners. Two teams that are on track to make the postseason. The Jays at last glance over at fan graphs have a 99.8% chance of making the postseason. And it's really not about making the postseason right now for them.

It's about getting a buy into the division series, which is great considering their recent history in the Wildcard series. What a season for Cal Raleigh? Not looking forward to saying his name again, just because it's tough. He's his nickname. Just call him the big number. Yeah, a big number. He loves it.

I think he legally changed it to that, actually. Okay. Call me Mr. Dumber. Well, the Mariners are at 86.4% chance of making the playoffs. So it'll be interesting to see where all the dust settles in both leagues ahead of the playoffs. the NFL preseason and over. Now we wait until next Thursday for the opener.

And I do want to talk a little bit of golf. I am back. So there is going to be some golf talk. But what a Sunday in golf with Brooke Henderson winning the Canadian Open on home soil, obviously, because it's the Canadian Open. But most of the golf world's eyes were on Tommy Fleetwood, winning the Tour Championship. and setting up like this this Rider Cup

this Rider Cup in New York is going to be incredible and I am actually wondering is it going to be out of control in New York with the fans there and some of the personalities on both teams I'm really looking forward to that where in New York is it is Bethpage Black yeah which is basically Long Island

so you get all these guys like hit the ball come on You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. I want to fire back up the Connor Bredard to Vancouver narrative that I've been pushing for. What? I'm going to keep doing it.

I'm going to keep doing it. Have you got something to run on here? Sure do. Got some audio from Frank Sarah Valley here. A couple of clips over the weekend. So this is after the Frank Nizard deal went down in Chicago, a lot of people kind of looked at the roster construction. They're like, hey, Connor Bardard was. eligible to sign an extension. That hasn't happened yet. What's going on there? Let's get some

further intel from NHL inside a current free agent, Frank Saravale, on what's going on. We've got two clips here. Let's play the first. This is from Bleacher Report over the weekend. Frank Saravalli on Connor Bedard as it relates to the Frank Nazar contract. He was eligible to sign an extension as of July 1st. That hasn't happened yet. I think both sides seem pretty content in sitting back and waiting to see how this all-important third year plays out after a bit of a disappointing sophomore season. Does this 6.6 number for Frank Nazar, given that he kind of outplayed Connor Bedard, does that suppress Badard's next contract? If he was thinking in the $9 to $10 million range, if he's going long term, does this push that number down? Hard to say because, again,

there's a real likelihood that Badard is going to play this out and see how year three goes before signing that deal and there's no rush to do it from either end it's going to be a really interesting conversation because Nazar has now put a number on the table

So let's just be clear here Nazar got his deal after 56 games in the NHL, grand total of 56 with the Chicago Blackhawks. Connor Bardard is currently at 150 games played and yet both parties are more than happy to wait for a third year to play out

before they enter contract negotiations on whatever the deal will be. I'm not really so sure that the number that Nazar signed at is going to suppress a future deal. I'm more intrigued by the fact that after 56 games, both parties were ready to make that commitment there,

yet after 150 for Bardard, they're not. Let's continue on. Here's more audio from Frank on the Connor Bardard situation. Putting those two guys side by side last season, again, not a hot. take. I think Frank Nazar was the better player down the stretch. Conor Bardard

had a lot that was weighing on him. Attitude, frustration, a lot of things that were packed into last season and carrying a significant weight on his shoulders. But moving forward, I think what it does is sets the table for a really interesting season number three for Bardard. Look, if we're going to live in a world

where every day now we wait about the future of Quinn Hughes in Vancouver, right? We may as well start doing the exact same thing about Connor Bardard in Chicago. That's ridiculous. The Hawks still have years of club control over Connor Bedard. The Canucks do not with Quinn Hughes. And Quinn Hughes is also a much, much better player than Connor Bedard is. I would not disagree with that.

What I would say is that I will be monitoring. It's fun to start rumors. Well, one, it's very fun to start rumors. I think that there is something in Chicago where and I don't know I don't know exactly what it is but between the body language

and how last year went and why they decided to commit to Nazar that quickly and why both sides Well the Nazar bet was probably a really good bet from the Blackhawks sure he's a good young player and they got him on a good cap hit

okay but the question would be Badard expectations are going to be way higher than Frank Nazar. Yeah, because you not make the argument that after what is considered possibly a down year or a year where, as Frank put it, that, you know, he might have been outplayed by Nasar of the second half of the season. Now would be the time to pounce on the opportunity to sign that extension.

Sarah Valley also said he has a toad. He's out of attitude. Yeah, well, yeah, but if you're Bardard, Baddard's not going to want any part of that. Why would Bard come to the negotiating table now after that down season when he doesn't have to? Right. Why would he go at all? Why would he just say, wait until that.

This third year is done, he explodes, and then the ass gets even bigger. I would say Bedard, to be perfectly honest with you, is probably the guy that I am most curious about this season. It's a huge year for him. Because the first year, you know, the expectations were high, and he won the rookie of the year. But I think some people were like, I thought it'd be better. And then the second year, honestly, man,

I went to the game. I said, had good seats for that game. And when was it? I think it was, I want to say November in Vancouver? in Vancouver Maybe it was I could be wrong It's okay

Don't get cut up in the details There was a game in Vancouver Oh it was it was It was the one where he gave it away to Miller No no no That was the first one It was in March And

In the Blackhawks lost 6 to 2 And Bedard was minus 2 And then remember he got like Game of Misconduct in the Or 10 minute misconduct He was awful in that game But what are we doing here

What do you mean? What are we doing here? He's a teenager with almost a point per game and his first two seasons of the NHL. That's really... And they're a terrible team. Here's what I'm doing here. I think it's a kid...

That's why I'm curious. I think it's a kid with infinite talent. I think he's a kid that is a diehard Canucks fan who went... In the spring, he's a... Calder Cup final games, right? He's in attendance for a Calder Cup final game in Abbotsford. Born and raised in North Vancouver.

Loves the Canucks. And we are entering an era where we've got prime, local, BC-bred talent who grew up, because we're old, we didn't grow up on the 2011 team. I mean, and I know some people will find out like Badar was very young, but his favorite player is Tyler Mott, right? Like we joke about that. But the point being is like the Canucks to the younger generation are far different thing than they were to our generation, right?

I think that's fair. You growing up, remember them as being lovable losers for a lot. large part. That's not what a group of 20-somethings and early 30-somethings have. Like, the connects were actually quite good. And a lot of people whose formative years were based around 2011 and beyond saw some pretty good hockey. Anyway, whatever the point may be there. The situation in Chicago, I also want to point out Chicago has been rotten since he's got there. Now, yeah, the reason you get the number one overall pick is because you're a bad team. But, I mean, I don't know how much better they're going to be this year. I don't either. I don't have a

A ton of faith in anything that they've done around Bedard. I don't. And here's the thing. When you're in that rarefied air of talent and you see other guys in your peer group having the good times and excelling. Like I think this year with the Olympic selection thing, I think it's a massive, massive young benchmark moment in his career where he's going to find out where he stacks up among the elites.

Yeah. Right? because if he's surpassed and some people already think that he has been by Celebrini like those things matter to elite athletes is that's who they gauge himself with as their peers. One of the most famous sports agents ever. Inspiration behind the

Jerry Maguire movie, Lee Steinberg joins us here now on the Halford and Breff Show on SportsNet 650. Good morning, Lee. How are you? Good morning. Doing great. You know, I sent my kids up to Alaska for a cruise and on the way back

they stopped their bed. And when they came home, all they talked about was Vancouver. And I thought, oh, they're going to love the polar bear or something. No, they love the city of Vancouver. It is a beautiful city. We actually just had one of the more bigger, higher profile signings in our sporting history here in Thomas Mueller. And in his first week, as a Vancouver white cap, having come over from Germany, he did a bike tour around the lower mainland and kind of said the same things that your kids said. He said, gorgeous sitting, loves it.

And he is right, of course. I do want to pivot to the National Football League. We've spoken a lot about it today. We're now 11 days away from kickoff. There's still a lot of questions and a lot of things and needs to be solved. I wanted to ask you, Lee, about the Shadur Sanders story. You probably got the perfect insight for this giving you time as an agent and also working with players through the draft process to get to the National Football League.

Big picture question to start. What do you make of how this has gone from Shadur from leaving Colorado? and all the NIL money that he had there, playing with his dad, going through a very tumultuous draft process. And now he thinks on the way to becoming an NFL player, but he still needs to make that 53-man cut-down roster for the Browns, which is tomorrow, of course. In some ways, I don't think it could have gone better for Chardur.

You know, I've represented probably 120 quarterbacks, and my chief concern for them is not how high they get drafted. it. But when you take someone like Patrick Mahomes, well, gee, it was a 10th six, the nine players went before him. But the key was he went to a franchise that had great ownership, a great front office, supporting cast and all the rest of it. So from that standpoint, if you're looking long term, even though it was a rough draft night, Shadur Sanders couldn't land in a better place. He's got an aging veteran and Joe Flack. in front of him, Kenny Pickett, who hasn't been successful, another Rookie Dillon, Gabriel.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Lacko goes out, Shadur learns underneath him, and eventually becomes the starting quarterback there. And that concept is sitting behind an aging veteran certainly helped Patrick Mahomes with Alex Smith where he didn't play the whole first year until one game. It helped Philip Rivers, who sat behind Drew Brees, and helped Jordan Love, who sat behind Aaron Rogers.

So if you can get over the fact that they had built the expectation so high that when he didn't go in the top five in the first round, people looked at it like it was a tragedy, where he may come out with last, laugh. How much is name, image, likeness, changed the collegiate football and collegiate sporting landscape? Stunning change. Nothing is the same as it was before. When you imagine a system where the top college quarterback goes to LSU and they offer him allegedly $4 million. And a couple months passed and a big Michigan alum comes along and offers him $14 million. And he decomm

commits and goes there, it's become the money has become the method of recruiting in a college like Ohio State that had plenty of NIL money. Oh, coincidentally, had the top roster. And so it changed everything. From my perspective, I don't want to go, you know, I've done 64 first-round draft picks and the first pick in the draft overall. You're probably not going to find them with the requisite maturity when that young man is 15 and he wants a marketing director. Now, we'll see whether the Trump executive order actually stops those collectives who have pooled their money and now use it high school, the college, and then transfer portal. We'll see if that ends up wiping that part out, but if it continues the way it is, it's just

any chaos. Lee, what's in it for these alums? Is it just ego? Like they get to say like, yeah, my money, my pocket book got this guy to the school. I mean, there's just such a relationship between, we don't have that as much in Canada

where, you know, people have license plates with their colleges and universities and they just remind so tied to the colleges and universities. But is there anything beyond ego that is in it for these alums that put up millions of dollars?

Passionate fandom and allegiance to their alma mater. And, you know, right behind pro football in this country, the next most popular sport is college football. And these alums have bragging rights and liver die with what happened to Notre Dame or the University of Michigan or University of Southern California. And some of it, they can write off as a tax write-off

because they're paying for a advertising expense. But it's the hyper-competitiveness of American males. We're speaking to one of the most famous sports agents of all time and one of the inspirations behind the Jerry McGuire movie, Lee Steinberg. here on the Half and Abrupt Show on Sportsnet 650. It's an interesting time to talk to you, Lee, because there's a lot of deals and, you know,

pending deals going on around the National Football League where I'd love to get the agent's perspective on things. The Mike and Parsons situation in Dallas, to say it's gotten toxic would probably be an understatement. There's a lot of sniping back and forth between the Parsons camp and the Cowboys Camp. How do you see this situation playing out now that we're just 11 days away from kickoff Thursday,

which of course features the Dallas Cowboys who are going to be taking on the Philadelphia Eagles on NFL kickoff that night? These issues should be settled early in an off season and not made public. I mean, the minute a player says he wants to be traded, it destroys his value to his incumbent team. And other teams won't really trade

because they think the incumbent team has damage good. So anytime this happens, especially in a cap system and very heavy rules about sitting on a contract. Jerry's perspective is Michael Parsons has a contract, and he's not going to turn down playing for whatever he's getting, and they can always franchise him for the next two years. But that's hardball, and that's the process rarely play with a franchise-type player. In other words, if it's an edge rusher or can put the question,

quarterback on his back or quarterback, you don't see this very often. And there's a market out there now where T.J. Watt got $41 million, which is what Miles Garrett got. And I don't think Jerry wants to pay that. I've been predicting it would be settled sometime this week, but they're dating it to the very end. It's just counterintuitive. They're never going to trade Michael Parker. They can't play defensive football without him with him. They have one of the best defenses in the league.

Without him, they have a mediocre defense. So he's not going anywhere. And so see if something happens this week. If not, and it extends into the season, he actually refusing to play. You know, they can find him a big amount of. money every day. What's it like dealing with Jerry Jones?

What, excuse me? What's it like dealing with Jerry Jones? I'm sure you've had some negotiations with him. Well, I had him from the very beginning in 1989 when I represented Troy Aikman, and then two years later, I had the first pick and a draft overall, and it was Dallas's, and it was Russell, Maryland. I always found him to be great to deal with. because he's very smart, and if you make a very logical argument with him

and you support it and buttress it about how the status of your player and where that should put him in the market, he can make a quick decision. And so I had a unique relationship with him because the very first thing he did after firing Tom Landry, TechSram, and Gil Brandt, and he was hated in the city was to have the Shrakeman and I fly down there and deal with him. And I ended up with a whole bunch of cowboys,

Daryl Johnson, Wade Wilson, Darren Woodson. So I had a very positive relationship with him. Lee, this was great. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this this morning. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the next few days as we get closer to the start of the NFL season. Thank you. Thanks.

That's Lee Steinberg, former NFL agent and one of the inspirations behind the Jared McGuire movie here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. There's a bunch of stuff backed up here that we haven't had a chance to speak about yet, and we had kind of some cool, interesting new news on the horizon. So it was a big weekend

for Canadian soccer. In case you missed it, Tejohn Buchanan, for Villarreal on the weekend scored a hat trick first ever Canadian player to score a hat trick in La Liga. Keeper needed to have that third one. And the first one. But aside from that, it wasn't great.

Also, from the Canadian perspective, Jonathan David, and his setia a debut for Juventus scored. So great vibes going forward for the senior men's national team as we get closer and closer to the World Cup. We've got two of our best players in form, scoring goals over the weekend. Check

this out. Canada the soccer this morning announced the roster for the men's U18 national squad that's going to be playing a pair of friendlies in September.

Now you might be saying Halford, even for you, this is a lot. Why are you telling us about the Canadian men's under 18 national soccer team? Well, there are some very interesting names on the roster,

but none of them more interesting then, Walter Sedeen. That's Hank's son Yeah He is currently playing In Sweden having previously gone through the White Caps Academy Eligible obviously to play for both Sweden And Canada internationally

He had been invited to a camp To the Sweden U17 team But it seems like Canada has now jumped back out in front By naming him to their under 18 roster For these pair of friendlies So what have you heard about his ability very very good player he rose through the academy ranks

pretty quickly was always playing like a year or two up and then made the jump to go play in Sweden I mean with all due respect to the white caps academy if you have an opportunity to go train and play professionally overseas I believe he's with the U-19 team for the Swedish club and I don't have the Swedish club off the top of head top of mind

but to be included into this squad is obviously like another pretty significant feather in the cap Do you think he's in pretty good shape? I bet he's in pretty good shape. I bet he can be awesome if he wasn't. He was like, yeah, that's more of my dad's thing. That's so much of a fitness guy. But a very cool move by Canada soccer here.

I know that they have been very aggressive in pursuing dual nationals at an early stage rather than let it get to a stage where maybe another country has made stronger overtures to join their program. So this is a pretty big deal Because one, the matches are being played in Europe So it makes the travel a lot easier for him, right? Like they're going to be played in Finland And he's going to be playing in Sweden

And also it means something at these younger levels Now, none of this cap ties anybody to anything It's not until you're a senior international Do you have to make the decision? But very cool, the Volter Siddine Son of Hendrik Sadeen has been named to the Canadian U-18 men's soccer team And that just came out this morning

Okay, so we're going to bring We're going to count that as the start of our What We Learned, so give us a Mu-Kow on that. First Mu-Kow. Yeah, you missed that? Volter Sedeen's career. Many more to follow, Walter. Many more.

So I wanted to, I guess my what we learned is that the Little League World Series is over. And Chinese Taipei, which they are known as in the tournament, other people will call them Taiwan. Juan. They are back. They've won it for the first time in a while. 19 years? When I was growing up, they would just dominate that tournament. And every year, except like there was one year when Trumbull, Connecticut won it with Chris Drury. Yeah,

with Chris Drury being the pitcher. 1989, Little League World Series. Yeah. But they would, they would often win and they are back but so congratulations to them they beat a team out of Las Vegas Nevada but I did want to offer my congratulations to Little Mountain for getting to the Little League World Series I'm a little mountain guy now

I grew up I was a Carousel guy now like everyone else that grew up on the west side I've moved to the east side I'm a little mountain guy and it's funny because I actually had I have two buddies whose sons were on that, that Little Mountain team, yeah. Misha Lee and Felix Hoyano.

Yeah, watch some pitch. And Felix's dad is a Gary. Gary. He's a Gary. In the wild, just out there. Every day. Felix is only 11, I think. So he's got one more year of eligibility.

So just congratulations to the kids from Little Mountain. They put a good whipping on Australia. Take that, Australia. Yeah. Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy. Watch out for a Little Mountain. Yeah. We had Jimmy Dodd also is a Little Mountain guy.

Yeah. So we've got two Little Mountain. He was wearing his hat all week last week. He was. Yeah, yeah. What a cool experience that would have been. I mean, Little Mounds racking up trips now. I think this is the third and I can't remember how many years.

But if you look at the borders of the Little League, it's crazy. It's a bit of advantage for Little Mountain. They split Dunbar and Carostale. Like you should mash those two together somehow. and Carisdell should get together. Yes, they should. It's because they were just heated rivals for so long. I'm not doing that.

It's a long time ago, let me tell you, because the rivalry is simmered down. Could they put together Dunbar, Carersdell, and Jericho maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they should. Well, that's, I mean, if you look at the other regions and. Little League talk here on Alvin and Brough.

Langley gets its own. Quitlam gets its own, right? It isn't divvied up into like neighborhoods like Vancouver is, right? Right. And when you go, but when you go to the, uh, Williamsport, you can kind of see the difference in terms of where the Little League Associations are pulling from and how much, I mean, the Chinese Taipei pitcher was clocking

80 plus on the gun. And that's not. And he's closer than a major league picture. It's not recalibrated for speed. Like he was throwing that speed from 46 feet away. So that comes in at approximately 193 miles an hour. There's a reason that they blanked Nevada in the final. Like, they're throwing way too hard. They got a lot of pitches to choose some. Anyway, uh, Muco, all that. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.