Halford & Brough in the Morning - Will The Seahawks Get A New QB This Off-Season?

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason look at Week 18 highlights as well as the upcoming playoff picture with Too Deep Zone NFL insider Mike Tanier (1:11), plus they set up tonight's Canucks Habs matchup on Prime with Amazon Prime NHL host Adnan Virk (26:09).  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.

Music 701 on a Monday. Happy Monday everybody. Halford Brough Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in our two of the program. Mike Tannier, our NFL insider from the Too Deep Zone, is going to join us in just a moment here. Our two of this program is brought to you by Jason Homonuk from Jason.mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you.

Just kidding. Let him do exactly that. Visit him on the internet at Jason.mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five star Google reviews. Sorfi, what are you waiting for? Kintec, our next guest comes courtesy of the Clayton Public House. Pre-game to post-game, the Clayton Public House is your home of football. Mike Tanier joins us now on the Haliford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Michael. How are you? I'm doing great. Greetings from snowy greater Philadelphia, home of the number two seed, Philadelphia Eagles. We'll be taking on the Green Bay Packers.

It's gonna be different weather when those two meet, because the last time they met it was in Brazil, if I'm not mistaken. That was in the first week of the season, am I correct? That is correct, they were in Brazil, it was hot, it was very humid there. It will not be hot and humid, the snow will be gone,

but it will not be a a balmy day in Philly. That's one of the best matchups for next weekend isn't it? Yeah you know when you look at it in terms of the interest level, the star power, etc. there's a reason they put what that went on you know at the 430 window on Sunday and it's pretty even. You can look at some of them. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about the bills against the Broncos and you feel like you can kind of chalk those one eight Those in you can't really chalk in the Eagles versus of the Packers. Okay, so before we get to all of the matchups coming this Next week anyway, I do want to look back on everything that happened yesterday and Saturday real quick because I went I got into work

This morning. I forgot I'm like, oh, it's Black Monday This is when coaches get fired and lo and behold woke up to the news that Doug Peterson was out in Jacksonville. That follows the news that Draud Mayo is out in new England. So you've got a couple of noteworthy coaching changes, a couple of noteworthy coaching retainers, like there's guys that are going to be held that I didn't

Brian Dable. That was a shocker to me. You also had obviously yesterday in the national football league, Broncos clinched their playoff spot first time in eight years that the Broncos are going to the postseason. Tampa Bay gets the job done for the NFC South. And then of course, in the night game, the Lions beat the Vikings to get the first overall seat in the NFC.

So of all the stuff I just said, Mike, what was your big story from Sunday? Our big stories, I suppose your big takeaways from Sunday, the final week of the NFL regular season. Well, one was the surprise of how the second half of the game played out on sunday night that you know when it's all the marbles and you have the lions against the vikings and frankly in the first half of that game

the vikings were out playing the lions and just coughing up opportunity after at opportunity like at the five yard line not punching it in not enough failing on fourth down settling for a field goal, et cetera. And I felt like, Oh, we're in for a second half for the ages where these two teams are really going to battle it out. And you know, the lions just said, no, no, this is our year. And the Vikings had this opportunity in their grasp and in a very Viking

tunnel, they said, no, no, I think, I think we're fine as a wild card. It really felt that way in the fourth quarter. It's just like, yeah, you know what? You're better than us. We're, we're, we're gonna go on the road to Los Angeles. That was stunning. Um, and you know, and I think it really reminds you not so, I don't want to be negative about the Vikings,

be positive about the Lions. This is a team that really does the things it claims it does. It really is going to outplay you. It's going to out muscle you. They really will bite your kneecaps. And I think the Vikings it claims it does. It really is going to outplay you. It's going to out muscle you. They really will bite your kneecaps. And I think a Viking saw that last night. I'm glad you brought up the Vikings

because it's hard to poke holes in a 14 win team because that's the biggest sample size that you can get. But, and I know I'm talking with my buddies and reading everything that I could last night. It sure seems as though everyone's lined up to proclaim this 14th win season as being a bit of fugazi And a lot of people like the Rams in that game because it's in LA Should we be dismissing the Vikings based on what I'm gonna be more Vikings fans at that game though. Yeah, that's true as well Should there is it fair to dismiss them at all based on that second half yesterday?

Which I did admit was kind of alarming in Detroit. Yeah, don't dismiss them and keep in mind also that the Rams did beat the Vikings earlier in the season. So there's a little bit of a precedent there. You're right by the way, those Vikings fans travel and those Rams fans don't even travel, you know, down the 101 or whatever you do in LA. But yeah, you know, the Vikings are not this fraud two years ago, the Vikings were that fraud and they went out and they

lost the giants in the playoffs. That's not this team. They're like, they're like a 12 win team that won 14 games. That's what I think of them as like, yeah, there was some goofy stuff that happens, some penalties and some field goals and things like that where it went their way, they're still a very strong team. I think they're a stronger team than the Rams. If you start looking at the things that went the Rams way this year, it's like,

holy cow, every time they faced a team, it was right after that team was eliminated from the playoffs. Or we found out that the owner's 16 year old son was basing decisions on that. So the Rams have that going for them. I think the Vikings get past the Rams. The question is, can you trust the Vikings in a rematch against the Lions now? That's hard. Can you really trust the Vikings going into Philly, for example? That's really hard based on what we saw on Sunday

night. Speaking of the Vikings, what are they going to do at the quarterback position and could J.J. McCarthy be available in a trade? No. I know Seahawks fans want J.J. McCarthy to be available in a trade? No. Okay, I know Seahawks fans want JJ McCarthy to be available in the trade. I'm sure if Schneider picks up the phone and does something really goofy,

you could probably get Quessy, Adolfo Mensa, the GM of the Vikings to listen to something involving all kinds of number one picks or whatever. Here's the thing, it's a very simple, we're gonna be talking about this for weeks, but it's a simple non-decision. The Vikings are going to franchise Sam Darnold. They're going to franchise him. They're going to get one more year at a very high salary out of it. Darnold will accept it because the new money in that is so high and they're going

to keep him in the lineup and they're going to see what they have in McCarthy and they'll wait a year. So then, you know, in 2026, it was like, Hey, Donald had another great year. Then you talk about trading McCarthy. If Donald fell apart, you're like, haha, well, we got the lightning in the bottle year from him. Bye bye. We've got the kid waiting in the wings. It's an easy decision to make because there's no urgency. If you franchise a Donald and why would you create urgency for yourself when you don't have to. So let's skip ahead a little bit here to the draft.

We've got draft position figured out now, at least at the top of the draft. How do you see it shaking out? New England kind of blew it. The chance at getting the first overall pick by winning that game. I think that was the final straw for me. I was like, I can't win this game. Come on. That's it. How is it going to shake out in terms of guys drafting quarterbacks? It's not the deepest

quarterback class ever. It's not the deepest quarterback class ever. And you've got some interesting scenarios. And it's not, it seems like the giants, the giants need a quarterback. Who knows how the jets proceed. We're going to know more in the next week or so. They should be drafting a quarterback. Who knows how the Jets proceed. We're going to know more in the next week or so. They should be drafting a quarterback. There's a 16 year old playing Madden running the team right now. We have no idea. Rogers might just say, hey, I dare you. So that's a question. We can talk about the Patriots. I think you don't put the third string quarterback out there playing for his life if you want to lose that game. Because what, what's that kid going to do everything to win that game? Uh, they're not in the quarterback market.

The Patriots are not in the quarterback market at all. They're probably the Travis Hunter team. And, uh, you know, I look at some of these teams and the quarterbacks it's thin. There's no clear cut. Number one, Cam Ward, sugar Sanders, they're flawed choices. Uh, you look at the defensive tackles from Michigan, some of the other guys at the top. It's hard to, yeah, it's hard to predict. I don't know the idea of something will drop to the

Seahawks, that's the tricky one because if someone drops to the Seahawks, they're probably dropping for a reason. Yeah. I think Gino is going to be back next year. Yeah. I think that just, that seems to be the way it's going to go. And the Seahawks will probably do something like address their offensive line with their first pick. I haven't even really considered another

quarterback for the Seahawks, the way things are shaking out. Um, the, uh, the Cleveland Browns, what, what are they going to do in their situation? I don't know if you'd want to draft a quarterback into that situation. See, this is, it's so tricky. They can't cut Deshaun Watson. The Jets can actually cut Aaron Rodgers and it's a huge amount of money, but it's amount of money

similar to the Russell Wilson cut by the Broncos. So it can be done and you can be competitive. If you cut Deshaun Watson, you can't field a team. So you have to keep him around the Broncos. So it can be done and you can be competitive. If you cut Deshaun Watson, you can't field a team. So you have to keep him around. So whoever you draft has to come in. You also can't tell Deshaun Watson to stay home. You can't really do that. You can hope he chooses on his own to do that, but you can't order him. That's kind of like a league policy. So you could have this young quarterback coming into a situation where, Hey, there's no money. There's this other guy around. He's around all the time. He's kind of a, he's kind of creepy dude. I am like, he's going to be like in the room

all the time and follow you around in an Albatross. You're right. That's a tough situation. There are some things that are so far beyond my pay grade that I don't even like, I don't even want to speculate on the Vikings. That one's easy. I cannot speculate how the Browns are going to untangle this knot. Um, what are the chances that we're going to get a Bill's Lions Superbowl?

Because that's the one I want. Now that the Seahawks are officially out of the playoffs, I want to see a matchup in New Orleans of two of the most hard luck franchises in NFL history, and there is only one title to go between the two of them. Everybody wants that. I mean, not obviously, you know, like Ravens fans or whatever, they don't want that, but like your neutral fan wants that matchup. I, I'm hoping, I'm hoping I get to the Super Bowl this year.

I want to be down there and I want to see, uh, Bill's mafia people and lion's fans going insane on Bourbon street. I really want that, but I have an answer for you. You said, what are the odds? I pulled up the odds on FTM network. The odds of a lions versus bill's Superbowl, according to the analysis of an FTM network is 8.3%. That's an 8.3%.

That's an 8.3% chance of that matchup. That is the fifth most likely matchup, headlined by Lions versus Chiefs, that's the most likely matchup. We're speaking to Mike Tan here, our NFL insider from the Too Deep Zone here on the Haliford and Bruff Show on Sportsnet 650. You know, Jason's talking about quarterbacks

in this year's draft class. I'm looking back to the draft class of this year's rookie crop and man is it impressive. You got two of them going to the playoffs, Jaden Daniels with the commanders. I do want to spend a minute asking you about Bo Nix and what he did with the Denver Broncos snapping an eight year playoff drought in Denver.

Doing it in fine fashion yesterday against Kansas City's second and third stringers, 38 to nothing. I don't give them much of a shot going into Buffalo and beating Josh Allen, the Bills. But I remember we watched them early in the season and we saw Bo Nicks play and against the Seattle Seahawks. I was not all that impressed to where he began to where he is now.

There might not have been a quarterback in the NFL that had more growth in his game from week one to week 18. No, I would have to go back to Peyton Manning who threw like five or six interceptions with his debut as a rookie. You have to go back there. And Nick's wasn't like that. You watched him.

It was like, here's the screen. Here's another screen. Let's throw a screen. That's all he was doing. And you know, Sean Peyton is crazy like a fox because what he was doing is saying, well, whatever happens here, it's not gonna be a lot of negativity.

You know, he'll get some completions. Maybe we break some tackles, we'll punt and we'll let our defense play the game and we'll play within himself. And Nick's grew in that environment. You know, he would open it up a little at a time. It's still not this fully opened up, wide open offense by any means, but he was able to, now he can scramble a little bit, fine guys on the run, fine Courtland Sutton over the middle of the field. And you can see the growth week to week. You're right, he's not going to do anything against the Bills. But this is the first time the Broncos had a young quarterback to be excited about since John Elway. So let's give them that and let's see how this develops next year.

We're jumping around all over the place here because there's a lot of things I want to get to. But we mentioned that the New England Patriots made a coaching change job Mayo's out after a 4 and 13 season But importantly his first and only season on the job I know Rob Gronkowski kind of went off on the intermission panel yesterday talking about how he didn't think it was fair didn't think it Was right. Yeah, do you agree with that sentiment? Because while they weren't very good They were 4 and 13 it was his one and only year on the job before he was dismissed. It was his only one and year on the job and Gronk of course is a former teammate so you want him out there you know supporting former teammates like that. I would be real

skeptical and down on the decision if Mayo week in and week out when he went up and faced the press didn't sort of cause his own problems. Didn't go out there and call his players soft when he had a bunch of third stringers out there. That coach, they aren't soft, they're third stringers. They're not as good. They're getting beaten up by first stringers when they're out there.

You know, taking shots publicly at his offensive coordinator. These are the kind of mistakes that indicate if that's how you're communicating to the media during these six minute press conferences, what are you saying to people behind the scenes? Are you rubbing people the wrong way? Are you sending the wrong message to the players? That's the indication that I got and the reason why craft made the change. The other thing I'll say is they need a real GM there.

They've been going with Elliot Wolf, who is one of Bella checks guys, and you know, as the son of Ron Wolf, that's their GM there. Look at the last couple draft classes. Look at some of the decisions they made in free agency over the last few years. They need a clean sweep. I'm not upset by Mayo going. I'm curious as to why Wolf isn't going as well,

because his team really needs a different identity and personality. In an absolute dud of a finale in Miami, there was some really interesting developments after the game when Tyreek Hill came out and essentially said that he felt like he was probably done in Miami. I say interesting because one,

he's one of the team's captains, two, he's still under contract, and three, it kind of sounds like he just didn't go out there at the end of the fourth quarter. Mike McDaniel was asked about his absence and he said it was non-injury related. So what do you make of what it could be? A potential mess with Tyreek Hill in Miami. I think it's a potential mess. I think you've got it

You know Tyreek Hill is a top receiver of top receivers. Don't do this once in a while They get kicked out of the club. They have to stomp their feet and you know, I'll say this about the Dolphins They have the most explosive offense in the universe I'll say this about the Dolphins. They have the most explosive offense in the universe, unless Tua Tua Tua Tua Viola is hurt, or one of their stars is hurt, or it's cold, or it's raining, or they're on the road and there's a lot of crowd noise. There's a lot of reasons to be frustrated and say, why isn't this team in the playoffs reaching their potential? And every time they go and lose to a team like the Packers, it's like, oh, you know, it's snow flurries. What do you expect? You expect to win.

You're a fourth year team with a veteran quarterback and superstars. I, you know, Tyree kill might be a contributor to that, but he's got to look around and say, you know, I, what was their record? Two and seven or two and six without to it. There has to be a smarter move. There has to be a better mentality around that team when they're facing a little bit of adversity. He'll sick of it. He'll notice he could probably stomp his feet and facing a little bit of adversity. Hill's sick of it. Hill knows he could probably stomp his feet and get a trade out of town. I'm interested to see how the Dolphins and McDaniel play this in the weeks to come.

What chance would you give the Steelers going into Baltimore this weekend? Well, I'm stunned by the spread. I think, I don't think the Steelers are going to beat Baltimore, but nine and a half points? Yeah, it's a lot of points. Take the Steelers, take the Steelers are going to beat Baltimore, but nine and a half points? Yeah, a lot of points. Take the Steelers plus nine and a half. They're like three and seven, I think, against the spread, against the Ravens in the last couple of weeks. But you know, the thing about the Ravens, I believe the Ravens are the best team in

the NFL when they're not letting themselves get dragged down to their opponent's level. And the Steelers are great at dragging the Ravens particularly down to their level so that's one where it's a shaky game where the Ravens should steamroll unless they commit a dozen penalties, miss a field goal, drop an interception, do a fourth down stupid play etc and the Ravens have a habit of doing that so I'm leaning Ravens but I am NOT touching that nine and a half point spread. Do you think there's any chance we see Justin Fields in this game? I've been watching the Steelers for the last month and their fans aren't exactly impressed

with Russ right now. It's amazing how I think Mike Cromwell played it perfectly. He played Fields until the Fields were starting to wobble. He put Russ out there and now Russ is starting to wobble. He kind of knew that he had to kind of shift gears. I think we'll see him in a package at the very least. We'll see him out there. Oh, it's third and one or some, you know, some little bit of trickeration to kind of throw things off. Cause it's not,

they can't just go with status quo at this point. They need to try anything to win that game and fields qualifies as trying anything. Mike, before we let you go, it's a 14 team field obviously So you've got all the way down to the seven seats Is there a dark horse or an underdog candidate you could say chargers chargers? Ah, how was he stolen chargers are gonna beat Houston then they're gonna be Casey. Could you see it? I Could see the Chargers beating Houston. They're not beating Casey there

Justin Herbert's record as the starter against Casey Baltimore and the Bills is something like 20. It's not when he faces those teams that charges team tends to stay in their lane. So I don't see a super duper dark horse. The Bengals would have been the dark horse. Everybody says that the Bengals would have been the dark horse. And I think the chiefs knew it too. And that's why you saw that sparkling effort against the Broncos. Mike, this was awesome as always. I'm very excited for the playoffs. When we talk to you next Monday, we'll have all of the Saturday and Sunday games to talk about, and a Monday night game to preview when the Vikings take on the Rams in LA.

Thanks for doing this today. We really appreciate it. You got it. Take care. Enjoy your week. Yeah, you too. That's Mike Taney, our NFL insider from the Too Deep Zone here on the Haliford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Quietly, now that he's off the air, I like where you're going with that. If there's one team that I think has upset potential. I'm sticking with it. I'm sticking with it. I think it's the Chargers against the Chiefs. In the Houston, Texas, we'll be playing the Texans will be playing their annual Saturday

morning wild card game. Actually Saturday afternoon. Whatever. Yeah. Saturday wild card game. The second tradition. The Texans are always the first the first playoff game. They're the appetizer of the playoffs every time that they get in. I don't know why. I think I got a reason why. But yeah.

So anyway, this is the schedule. I'm glad you brought this up. So the Saturday games are both AFC. It's Chargers, Texans, 130 our time. So the Saturday games are both AFC. It's Chargers Texans, 1 30 hour time. Then the Saturday night game, you've got the Steelers going to Baltimore to take on the Ravens. Sunday is the triple header Broncos Bills. It goes 10 o'clock our time, followed by the Packers and Eagles.

And then the commanders in the Bucks, which is going to be the Sunday nighter, which I thought was interesting. I don't know why they put that one on Sunday night. Then the Monday night game, of course, um, I think is the most intriguing storyline wise. I'm not sure if it'll play out this way on the field, but Vikings, the 14 win wild card, Minnesota Vikings going to Los Angeles to take on the Rams. I think there are two teams right now that have amazing records that people are like,

eh, I don't know about these guys. One is the Vikings and one is the Chiefs. Right. Which is crazy in some ways because the Chiefs have proven that on the big stage they know how to get wins. But I think you just look at their point differential this year and you go, look how many close games they won Now some people will say they've got the refs on their side

so that's gonna help them in the big moments, but I don't know they just you know, there's some teams that go through an entire season and They come out on the other side of games, you know regular season games always on the right side and the Chiefs Look, you gotta give them credit They know how to win games and Patrick Holmes if you give them the ball and you're like okay this is drive us to win the game like he's gonna do it a lot but I just think their people look at the Chiefs right now and go they are ripe to get upset it would be the Chiefs and the Vikings are the two teams that people are kind of like despite their records. You also have to go into Arrowhead and beat them in the playoffs too, right?

Yep. That's a thing. No, for sure. Okay, let's do this hypothetical. What would a line look like if it's the Chargers there, right? What does that line look like? I don't think it's that big. I bet it's a touchdown. Yeah, but I don't think it's nine and a half.

Also, I'm glad that you brought up the line in that Steelers-Ravens game. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It does to me. Did you watch the Steelers yesterday? But they don't get blown out. Yeah, no, I get it. You know? They got a good defense.

Yeah, and they, I mean, they can play Baltimore tight. They can keep guys out of the way. And again, we're talking about a Baltimore team. Like, I don't know if everyone's watched Baltimore in the playoffs the last couple of years, but not exactly overwhelmingly positive, like responses from, especially when Lamar Jackson, what's the big, what did I talk about from week one of the season this year?

Fast forward to the playoffs so I can see Lamar Jackson actually get over the hump and play the same caliber of football that he does in the regular season where he's an MVP. There's some great storylines in the playoffs. Let's face it. The Lions and the Bills, the potential for that to be the Super Bowl matchup is

extremely enticing. Did you watch, I didn't watch any of the Seahawks game. Nope. Not a second. Not a second. One minute. I had absolutely no interest in that game. Gino got his bank.

It was a meaningless game. Gino got his bank though, did you see that? Yeah, you got some bonuses. Yeah, $6 million in bonuses yesterday. He's going to be back next season. Have you come to that conclusion? Oh yeah. Like got some bonuses. Yeah, $6 million in bonuses yesterday. He's going to be back next season. Have you come to that conclusion? Oh yeah. That's what you're working with?

Talking to Brady on Friday, he didn't even really entertain the idea of them doing anything else. I know the Gigi McCarthy thing is a nice narrative. Just be so expensive. But it just doesn't seem like it's going to play out in reality. And then the draft, every time I go and look at this

QB class, and it's every time I go and look at this QB class. And it's probably as I'm stacking it up against this year's active QB class, right? Yeah. It's like Cam Ward, Shadoura Sanders. Yeah. And you look at this. Curtis Park. Well, he's part of it, right? Consider this year's playoff class, right? Like imagine if JJ McCarthy had played like he was supposed to, because you've got Bo Nicks going to the playoffs.

You've got Jayden Daniels going to the playoffs. I thought Panics looked pretty good after taking over from Kirk Cousins in Atlanta. I know that that was, they felt- He's gonna make mistakes though. Right. He's got a, I mean- He's got a cannon. He's got a cannon of an arm.

It also looks like he's got the world's longest, slowest windup when he throws the ball. But I guess you need to, to generate that much power on the ball. So yeah, it was, you know, it's interesting. He is the definition of slinging it. Yeah. Caleb Williams threw for 4,000 yards, which is, I don't think it's ever been done by a bears quarterback before. So, you know,

I mean, I know it was a disappointing year in Chicago, but I would chalk that up more to the surrounding parts and Caleb Williams. Okay. We are way up against it for time. I gotta take care of a little bit of business before we go to break. I need to tell you about Roger's Xfinity, if I can find the read here anywhere. Give me a second.

There it is. Are you looking for your favorite culinary content? Well, if you are, look no longer. Food Network has all new seasons of your favorite food shows on Channel 410 on Rogers Xfinity TV We're gonna duck out real quick go to break when we come back Adnan Burke is gonna join us He will be working tonight's game for Amazon. It's the Canucks and the Habs from Montreal You're listening to the Halford and Bref show on sportsnet 650

Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650 or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. It's time to chat with Adnan. It's Adnan Berkey's on the show. We're gonna talk some hockey and take a trip to the silver screen That's right. It's time for Ed and Yes, Ed and Fergie joins us now. We'll head out to the ice rink And talk about all the filthy scene

to the ice rink and talk about all the filthy scene 732 on a Monday. Happy Monday everybody Halford rough Sportsnet 650 It's nice being back in the routine, you know Kids are going back to school today, but they're all excited about that Sounds like lots of our usual listeners are back in their rut as they call it. Right, yeah. When is the kids first professional day? It's probably like this Friday. Tomorrow? Those are when I always hit hard.

It's like, oh we got a professional day? Come on! At least once a week now. Oh man, nothing better than Pro-D days. Well the kids are up to one Pro-D day a week now I feel. You're into your 40s now, OK? You're not going to get any. I still think about them. Yeah.

You still get excited about the potential snow days, don't you? Oh, dude. Yes. Absolutely. OK, Adnan Virg is waiting patiently on the line here. Before we get to Adnan, I need to tell you that we are in hour two of the program.

And hour two is brought to you by Jason Homonuck from jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him on the internet at jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him on the internet at Jason.mortgage. For the phone lines we go, Adnan Burke joins us now on the Haliford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Adnan. How are you? I'm doing great, Mike. Jay, I hope you guys had a great holiday. I have to read you this text from our friend Andy Kolod, producer. This was the 7th. This is Friday afternoon. He said, hey, Adnan, just a heads up. The boys want to take a break from hits until I'm going to be opening day,

March 27th. We're thinking of moving it back to Thursday. Then if that's okay, it's totally fine. How about this last sentence? But in the meantime, take 11 or so weeks off. Like that is just a savage line from Andy. Do you imagine I said, it's X, Hey Brock, you're doing great work. Love you, buddy. I'm going to talk to you soon until then take 11 weeks until I see you again. The best is sometimes I get worried. I get worried about some of the texts that adoc sends out. I love the 11th. It's very specific. 11 weeks is the best part.

He just said, listen, dude, you do a great job. It's just baseball, whatever. We don't care. It's just Santander, Bregman, no biggie. If something pops up, of course we'll have you. It's never good. But the fact you said take 11 or something, I'm like, jeez. Thanks for the exact nature of your tech. And then do we ever tell you about the time that Adog emailed, we were trying to book Curtis Rourke, the Canadian quarterback, and he played at Ohio University and Adog emailed Ohio State University and they're like, he doesn't play here. And they were probably thinking like this Canadian guy thinking that Ohio and Ohio State are the same at football.

Too many universities. He's the best. He's the best in the business and we love him. One of the biggest things people love to ask people like us is what's your biggest screw up, right? What's your biggest slump? And I wish I had a better one, but it's a long goes one. It's only because you mentioned college football. This was, I think my first, you've never feeling on ESPN radio, which was a big deal at the time, 2013, whatever it was. I hadn't done much radio when I was in Canada and I'm talking to Frank Beamer,

who is Virginia head coach. Yeah. And I said, what do you think of the play of Gino Smith? So we all know now cause the NFL and he played for West Virginia. How about Gino Smith? What about the quarterback? You know, uh, guess who's fine. He's not Virginia, dad.

Oh crap, there's one on one Virginia? What the hell kind of country you have here? See, Adog, you're not the only one, buddy. Hey. He's okay. He's a little hurt. Thank you. Adnet, speaking of speaking to coaches, what a good segue.

Have you spoken with Canucks head coach Rick Takiator? Is that still to come? No, we're're gonna do it. It's pending. How about this, the first thing we've had this where one of the teams isn't gonna be at the morning skate. Normally we're there at this time, and we're milling about while they do their thing,

and we're waiting at our desperate five minutes, but the Habs apparently flew in yesterday, so we're now no Habs this morning. See if the Canucks will skate, and apparently an hour from now, and then we're gonna get Rick Tockey out of that. So I don't know if you guys know, but I grew up in huge flyers, man,

because I'd loved this 85, 87 team. So Rick Tauke is one of my favorite players of all time. I'm not sure if we're gonna discuss the 80 Cent home Tigers today, but I look forward to meeting, talking, asking about what the hell is going on with this team, because it's been crazy, fellas. Again, you're doing this for hours and hours on end,

but the amount of people have said to me, when I just casually might mention, I'm on with you, they're like, hey, how about this rift? Who's that Oveon? Everyone's taking odds on JT Miller, so not sure if it'll come up with talk, but you know what, if I have any guts, maybe I will. Maybe I'll say something along the lines of,

you know, Rick, there's been some chatter about some stuff on the team, how is the chemistry bubble going? Maybe he'll give me a non-political answer, we'll find out. No, I think you should go with your first question and your first answer, Rick, how about this rift?

Right, and give it that look, Jay, like how crazy is that? Crazy, right? He's just non-Canadian, he just thinks I'm some devil American showing up, how about this rift? What can you tell me about that? Two of your stars,

two members of your leadership group can't stand each other. How do you deal with that as a coach? What's that combo like with Patrick Alveen? Man, that's going to be tough to trade these guys. How's that going? Hey, Adnan, I've thought about this before, but you brought it up and some people make

fun of me because they call me old. Was 1987 the best year in hockey ever? Like you had an amazing Stanley Cup final between the Oilers and the Flyers. You had the Canada Cup in 87. And if you like fights, that was the punch up between the Canadian junior team and the Russian. Am I missing anything else? No, you're right.

As soon as you said fighting, I said, where's he going with this? Is there a Bob Probert, Dave Brown fight? I forgot, but you're right. I soon as you said fighting I said, what are you going with this? Is there a Bob Probert Dave Brown fight? I forgot, but you're right. I immediately pictured brush. Oh, yeah That's all was an all-cyber that cup final specifically again not to tell you shameless bug for Amazon But they have this documentary series called game 7 which mark last year's Executive Bruce and I'm not allowed to mention that day's name on Vancouver radio But anyway, um, they focus specifically on game 7 and oilers flyers and there's a clip in there. And again, I, I became a hockey thing. So I go to X all just to see if that series and he said to this day,

people come up to him and go, I became a hockey fan because of that theory. And like, yeah, absolutely. Dave Bowen said the same thing I make people in Ottawa court. He's one of the senators now, like, if you go back, and I'm sure people have better things to do, but if you went back and watched that series, the oilers were truly Goliath. And the fact that the flyers pushed them to seven, this rookie goalie who was so brazen and so crazy and X doll tap in the pose of

the sick, like it was a hell of a series. Um, so yeah. And obviously can't, I can't be that that's probably the number one obvious thing in the Larry Murphy, the trailer, let's get a little new. I mean, that is, I've seen that image in boys in our brains that as you know, Jay, all the games for high scoring, right? Six, five games, all three games. It was amazing that That atmosphere at that time. We're speaking to Adnan Virk. He is the host of the NHL on Amazon Prime.

Of course tonight's game from Montreal, Canucks Habs 430 will be on Amazon Prime for those of you that are not in the loop on that one. Uh, from this game tonight, Adnan, we spoke to Eric Engels from Montreal earlier, but while we're focused on what the Vancouver Canucks are going to do, it's hard not to notice that this Montreal Canadiens team is playing some outstanding hockey right now. They just went on a crazy winning streak

on a crazy road trip, as you mentioned, they just flew back in. So what are you expecting for the Montreal side of things tonight on Amazon? It's crazy, Mike, because Montreal, a month ago when I was here, I said, God, they're dead in the water. And I love Marty St. Louis,

because Marty auditioned with me at ESPN in 2016 when we had the World Cup of hockey. He came in and he was a lovely guy, I'll be blunt, he wasn't a great analyst. So when I saw him last, the first word I said to him was my mouth, it was 2016, ESPN personally. I said, yeah, I remember, I know you are. I was just laughing and Marty said, I have a job, but my wife said, get out of the house, go do something. But like, in talking to him, I'm like, you're laughing at Barty tonight. I have a job, but my wife is like, get out of the house, go do something. But like in talking to him, like, man, there's not much going right with the team right now. It was literally just Lane Hudson, the big young player, you know, obviously it's a rebuilding team, but this is year three.

I always get worried for coaches. And again, I'm very fond of Barty because I'm like, we've been three years and it's kind of about it. Like, you don't get seven years and eight years to turn things around. When is the process that's going to happen for Montreal? But this Patrick Lani story is an amazing, it's been the years and it's kind of about it. Like you don't get seven years in a row to turn things around. When is the process that's going to happen for Montreal? But this Patrick Lani story has been amazing. It's been the anti-riff here in Montreal. The fact that he's come back, they've embraced him like he's Maurice Richard, eight goals

scored all in the power play. Like anytime he's throwing it, it's with a man advantage. And he's really given them some juice and been beloved. Cole Cockfield, his ice time is down by a minute and a half per game, but he's still producing, he's still effective. You got your fan favorites like Jack Eye and they're now amazing, only two points out of a playoff spot. Now I know in today's NHL with so much parody, you really can't, you know, you feel you're almost in it. Like if

you're not in it, like naturally, like wow, you must be really bad to not, at least at some semblance of a five, you could go on a four or five game winning streak and be a playoff game. But Montreal's in the mix now, which is crazy. And all the places we've been so far for Amazon, you really can't beat Montreal. I always tell people, the four words that give me chills, maybe six words, madames and monsieur, ladies and gentlemen, like what's going on?

Once I hear the word out, the whole crowd starts going, let's play cold play, the Habs hit the ice still. I always tell them, figure it out tonight, we shall see. I was gonna say, it's good theater for tonight, not just because of the location, but where both teams are situated in the standings. Like they're both right in the thick of the wild card chases. The Canucks in that second wild card in the West

and the Habs looking to get into the second wild card in the East. The only issue with the Vancouver Canucks right now is they've just been kind of wobbling along. It was a tough game on Friday, although they didn't play that badly. No goals on the board. It's been a real slog. It's been tough for the Canucks to try and generate any offense. I hope that changes tonight on a, you know, a game in

Montreal where it's a big stage and teams are going pretty well right now. But I am prepared for another game where it's tough for the Canucks to generate some offense just because of the amount of guys that are missing from the lineup. Yeah, the goal screen is crazy, Mike. I looked at the stats in December 16th and cooler is averaging 3.2 goals per game. I believe in the eight games since it's at 2.38. I mean that's that's an abysmal number which stands up because we just did the national predators game and their offense is 32nd in the NHL for the entire season and it's right around that 2.3 number. So you're not going to win many games. There's two goals a a game I don't know if Dempsey was playing tonight

obviously that's been a recurring storyline as well I haven't seen you know how close he is with Axe Peasants and all the rest and of course Lincoln has done a good job of having him in the issue but yeah I'm waiting man I hope Vancouver's offense steps up and I hope it is whether it's still we get a good hockey and then before we let you go I want to ask you a movie question. The movie The Brutalist hasn't actually opened in Vancouver yet. I think it opens in a few days. I want to go see it. I've booked off pretty much the entire day to do it because it is three and a half hours

long. I think there's an intermission. I haven't been to a movie with an intermission in a long, long time. What was this movie? What's the movie about really quickly? And is it worth sitting there for almost, I guess, four hours with the intermission? I'm so glad you're bringing it up because I've been talking about it. I don't know what you're talking about. No one knows what this movie is. And then last night, the Golden Globes were on,

and it won best picture and best director and best actor for agent both. People are going to start hearing about it. You absolutely should go see it. It's three hours and 15 minutes if you want to be specific. I'm not sure what the intermission is. I got sent the screen. So I was watching my laptop and let's just say it will be a much more immersive experience watching a gigantic theater rather than on a laptop. So I, I loved it and that was with only a whatever 14 inch screen.

You're going to watch it with popcorn and milk. Doesn't love it. It's a powering ethic. The best thing I can say about it is has shades of their will be blood, which to me is the best film of the last 25 years. It's not as good as the way blood, let's be clear, but it's got shades of it. It's about capitalism and the rise and fall

of the American dream and real quick, Laszlo Toth is Adrian Boody's character. He's an architect who's escaping Nazi Germany. Jewish guy comes to america and the pro in the upper-grain guide here so i love everything but mentally incredible the film i think i got some deals for you and away we go so it's um... it's a hell of a movie i loved it now it is polarizing day like you might walk out of it i have a friend of the oh my god that was so long so drawn out and ridiculous but most people are

really enjoying it and it it looks incredible looks incredible. Again, I can't represent enough. Hopefully you'll see it on the Ibex scene in Vancouver. If they made it for $10 million and it looks like a hundred million dollar movie, I don't know how these directors can pull it up. It's a hell of a movie. I love it. And this was great, man. Thanks as always for taking the time to do it. Enjoy the game tonight. It should be a lot of fun. It should be a good one. And enjoy your 11 week vacation on the nose.

I'll talk to you in 11 or so weeks. And one thing only cause Jake gave me an audible, when I should know what blood I'm hoping that was off. Like what a great movie. Right? Oh yeah. But, but I don't think I've ever been more exhausted after a movie than I was the end of that movie. Like that's fair. Right. It was like emotionally, emotionally. I felt like I got beaten down by Daniel Day-Lewis. But that's why I'm a little...

This game went into six over times. I'm a little fearful of watching, like three hours and 35 minute runtime. That's a lot. That is brutalist. Yeah, that's longer than our show and you definitely don't have the attention span for our show. See, he's right. One of the all time by the last one, they all have great lines by Daniel Day-Lewis in

that movie and everything he says is great. He says, I looked at people and I see nothing worth liking. That sounds like Jason. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of why it resonated with me. I liked it. I thought he was a sympathetic character actually. He's a monster, but he's my monster. All right, Adnan. Thanks buddy. Thanks. It was, Adnan. Thanks, buddy.

It was Adnan Virk. We lost him at the end there. What happened? Anyway, 11 weeks. 11 weeks. See you in 11 weeks, buddy. God, you're adorable. Hey, dog, you're the best, buddy. You are the best.

But sometimes I worry about some of the text messages you send out. I'm very professional. No one, here's the thing. With your one thumb texting. Everybody loves me. No one ever gets upset. As long as you don't play for an American university.

They don't like you so much. Your next email was actually going to the physical state of Ohio. Yeah. That was the next one, yeah. Do you remember when you didn't know who John McEnroe was? He's the tennis player, right?

You got it, buddy. Every day is what we learn for a dog. All right. Okay, quick reset here. If you want to weigh in to the show and I highly recommend you do because we're light on submissions. Dunbar number text line is six 50, six 50. What did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports? Not only is it your chance to tell us what you learned when we read it,

it then becomes your opportunity to be live on the radio. Six 50, six 50 Dunbar number text line, hashtag it WWL. There should be no shortage of things. The entire NFL regular season wrapped up over the weekend. There were countless stories from the National Hockey League. There was a World Junior Tournament that came to fruition and concluded on Sunday. There was a lot that was going on. We got a question here from Jdogg the Car Hog.

He said, I have a question for you two and the dogs if they're both there. If the Canucks are going to trade Petey or Miller, do you guys think Alveen and Rutherford would consult with Quinn Hughes before executing the trade or would they not talk to him about it? What do you think? I think they would consult with him, yeah.

100%, he's the captain of the team. He's the captain. Yeah. For sure they would consult. And sometimes I feel badly for Quinn Hughes having to be the captain of this team, because you often look to the captain to bring the group together and you know, sometimes there's

nothing you can do with other personalities. You can't control the way that other people act. You can try and it's very stressful, but you can't do it. I don't know if he feels any responsibility for this situation, but I know he is thinking about this team a lot and it must be frustrating for him to have to deal with it as well. You have to remember that the Canucks last season, a lot of the praise that the team earned, it wasn't unearned, it wasn't, um, you know, false praise was because the Canucks as an organization, and you heard this phrase,

empowered the leadership group. And the leadership group involves Hughes, obviously as the captain, but JT Miller and Elias Pedersen are a big part of the leadership group. Yeah. And right now you've got this situation. We're going to play another Elliott Friedman

clip from the latest 32 Thoughts podcast, which might not be tenable. And all of a sudden you've got this leadership group that frankly is, you know, outside of Quinn Hughes, isn't doing a very good job of leading. They're making it about themselves. It's not fun to watch.

And as a fan, you're sitting there going, work it out guys, figure it out. We've got, we've got so much potential. Are you guys just going to piss it away? Here's Elliot Freeman, latest on the 32 thoughts about the situation. And, uh, you know, I recognize there's some people here who've really tried to make it work.

And right now it doesn't look like it's going to work, um, and it's really stressed everybody out there, but all I know is, as I've said many times, I can only judge others as I judge myself, but I believe that if it was me and I was involved in the middle of this, I would look at a team that was capable of winning the Stanley Cup. And if it had to be split up, I would say I have failed.

Yeah. And you also got to think about management in this situation because they were the ones that signed these guys. They were the ones who identified JT Miller and said, you know, a lot of people are sitting here and saying we should trade this guy because of his age or maybe a little bit, some people talking about his personality.

No, we traded away our captain, Bo Horvat, and we committed to JT Miller. And then when you come to Elias Pedersen, they gave him, is it the biggest contract in Canucks franchise history? Was it bigger than Longos? Longos was so long though. At any rate, they gave him almost a hundred

million dollar commitment. And right now it seems like it's going pear shaped with that decision. Yeah. Um, and honestly, I, I, I, I keep coming back to, I know some people will bring up tendonitis and say it's all tendonitis related with Pedersen's play.

I can't help, but think that the contract negotiation had something to do with Pedersen's play. He went to the All-Star game last February, so almost a year ago, and it was in Toronto. And I remember that we're like, they're going to try and get together with his reps in Toronto, right? Like that just makes sense that they're going to do that. You got the break, everything's going well. Let's try and get this thing done. And then things got weird.

Pedersen's play really fell off. I remember, you know, on this show, it got pretty intense at times. I'm sitting here going like, you know, because people were saying, remember what was happening at the time? People were yelling at the media saying, Pedersen says he doesn't wanna talk about this until the off season.

And I sat here and saying, hey, fine, that's fine. But what I'm telling you and what I'm hearing behind the scenes is that the Canucks want Pedersen to talk right now. And they are very frustrated with him because he won't talk and they have decisions to make. They want to get this thing done. They want to get him locked up. They want to give him lots of money, right? They want to get him signed so they can plan the rest of their offseason so they can plan not only the

rest of the offseason but you know the rest of their offseason so they can plan not only the rest of the offseason But you know the rest of the Canucks era because Pederson is such an important piece Yeah, there's a hierarchy to these things so they want to get this out of the way. They want to get them locked up and They pressured him and you all heard the stories They're gonna threaten them trade them to Carolina say listen if you you're not gonna sign here and we need you to do it soon, if you're gonna keep dragging your feet on this we're gonna have to make a move. So he signed his contract and you might say he signed it under duress. So the question is still out there in my mind does he want to be here really and truly. Why did he want to wait until the off season? Why? Right. So you're... what are we what are we suggesting here? I just said it. That he

might not want to be here. Okay. So that's what I'm suggesting. Even though he signed it, he was given a choice. Sign or get traded to Carolina. And maybe he didn't want to go there. Okay. And maybe his agents just told him, listen, man, sign the contract, get the guaranteed money. It's a lot of money they're giving you. Take this opportunity now because you don't know

if it's going to be there in the off season or another time. You don't know. Okay. You've got it right in front of you. So sign it and then look, we can deal with it later if it doesn't work out. And he said, okay, I'll sign it. I don't want to sign anything right now. I want to wait until the off season, which made me wonder,

why is he so intent on waiting until the off season? And they're kind of actually like, well, we want to avoid a Matthew Kachuck situation. And I'm thinking maybe Petey wants to have a Matthew Kachuck situation. So I got time for the theory, by the way, uh, Ian McIntyre has an article up now on sportsnet.ca. A brief one-on-one interview with Elias Pedersen from Sunday, uh, in which Pedersen says,

I know I can do better. I will be the first one to say it. And I never think things will get easier. This article obviously was in part, Ian McIntyre asking Petey about the remarks that Patrick Alveen made in an interview with Ian McIntyre just prior to new years. Um, there's, there's a lot to unpack in this

particular, um, facet of the conversation. The theory that you're putting out there is interesting. I definitely have time for it. It would seem to make sense on a lot of fronts. The interesting part for me is what the decision makers do now, because it's kind of in their hands. It's not really, I think at this point- Like you can poke holes in my theory if you want. No, but I- One of the holes you can poke is like, well, he could have just accepted a trade to Carolina and then forced his way out of Carolina.

Sure. Which is true. The decision makers now though, and that's Alvin and Rutherford, this is where their decision making is really going to be tested because they made a pretty clear and conscious effort to push and poke and prod. I'd say both players, but clearly more Pedersen than Miller publicly.

Is the Canucks situation pretty similar to the Rangers situation in that both management groups have sent a pretty strong shot across the bow of the group? The only difference I think is that the rift is Rangers almost versus Drury. But don't you think there might be some like... This one is more within the room. Right, but don't you think there's some frustration player management?

Yeah, I think there is. I think, I put it this way. Both teams are similar because there's something that is created a chasm and an issue with the chemistry of the team that wasn't there last year. And that is dramatically altered the course of each team this year. Now I would say that the Rangers have been far more dramatically altered than the

Canucks. The Rangers, the bottom has fallen out of their season. The Canucks are still in a playoff spot, but there is definitely something. And interestingly enough from the Canucks side of thing, a team that prided itself on the staples of their game and the culture that they built last year, a big talking point for a lot of last year. You talked about empowering the leadership and emboldening the guys that were wearing letters on their shirts. And to have it all sort of be flipped on its head in the span of months is kind of shocking. It really makes you wonder how stable the bedrock of the franchise was, or how do you get so far away from the things

that made you successful last year? Is it partly because of the health of particular guys? Yes. Right? Hughes missing time, Demko missing time, Pedersen missing time, Miller missing time, unquestionably. But to have what you thought was such a solid foundation be upended to this degree in the span of months, it's hard to wrap your head around, which is why you have so many different theories, so many different conversations, so many different people asking what the hell's going on, and you don't have a lot of answers for it. We'll try and get more in the final hour of this program.

Satyar Shah is gonna join us at eight o'clock, and then at 8.30 we're gonna do what we learned. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about Jan Pro, the leaders in commercial cleaning and janitorial. If your workplace demands a clean environment, contact Jan Pro for a free no obligation quote. Visit them online at JanPro.ca. Two hours in the books, one more to come.

You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.