PTI - Drama in the Big Apple?

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Frank Isola and Pablo Torre break down the quarterback controversy in New York, dive into the latest on Bill Belichick, and tackle everything else making headlines around the leagues.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.espn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Part of the interruption, but I'm Frank Isola. It's a Friday in late August. You know what that means.

I'm Pablo Torre. B-team Activate. Ah, hey, listen, I know you've become a big shot, but that is some place you got. Look at that house. Look at that backyard. Good for you, Bob. That's right. Second stringer, but look at the clubhouse right behind me.

I may or may not be in a certain part of eastern. I'm out east, Frank, as they say. I think I see Tony and Mike behind you out there somewhere. Pretty good. Welcome to PTI. Mike and Tony have the day off, so I'm joined by my great friend, the host of the podcast Pablo Tori finds out,

Mr. Pablo Tori. I like it, I like it. You know what? Let's go, Pablo. Let's start with another solid preseason performance from Russell, Wilson's backup. First round rookie, Jackson Dart, went six for 12 for 81 yards in last night's preseason finale against the Patriots. No, that doesn't sound special, but Dart had five passes

dropped, and Giants, Coach Brian Davel said, quote, he knows he's got a lot of things to work on, but he's made progress every day, and I'm glad we drafted him. I'm glad you're here, Pablo. How should starter Russell Wilson be feeling right about now? I like how they're starting us off with a topic about backups. This is good. All topics today will be about backups. I think Russell Wilson should be feeling like what he himself had done when he was a rookie. Russell Wilson with the Seahawks, Frank, keep in mind, right?

Third rounder, Matt Flynn is the guy that they signed to be the starter. And Russell Wilson killed it in the preseason. And he got the job. And Matt Flynn, of course, became Matt Flynn. So to me, the thing about Russell Wilson and the Giants was, always, this is a bridge quarterback. This is our version of Sam Darnold in Minnesota. We get the rookie. We get the middle class now bridge guy. And the question is just, when do we bring in the rookie? Because you know that's going to happen. That's the goal. Turns out Jackson Dart is

making Russell Wilson feel like, you know, the younger version of himself, but in the bad way. Yeah. You know, it's a good history lesson you gave. I'll give another one. If you go back to 2004 with this very Giants team, they had a rookie quarterback. Now, granted, he was drafted number one. that's Eli Manning. Kurt Warner was the starter. And the Giants started out by winning with Kurt Warner, five of the first seven games. But eventually they were going to go to Eli Manning.

Now, Eli did not have the preseason that Jackson Dart is having. And the one thing about Russell Wilson, who's had a great life, seems like a lovely guy, lovely family, the whole thing. He has spent most of the spring sitting courtside at basketball games almost as much as Pablo Tori has been doing. So he's been living it up in New York. But his life is about to become miserable from this standpoint.

The schedule is really difficult. Look at the Giants' first three games at Washington, at Dallas, and then the week three, their home opener against the Chiefs. So Russell Wilson, I think, is going to start all those games. You know how it works, Pablo. He has a couple of three-in-outs, and the crowd is going to start chanting for Jackson Dart. He's eventually going to play Jackson-Dart. He's eventually going to start maybe week four against the charges.

This is not, unless he's lights out, I don't think it's going to. going to be a very pleasant experience for Russell Wilson. No, it's funny to that point that Jackson Dart, like one of the bits of feedback Dayball had for him was like, hey, you got to slide? He doesn't really know how to protect himself yet, and I think that is part of the story with him. You don't actually want to throw him out there in week one if you're totally invested in him as the future. You want to protect him, and also you want to set him up to succeed. So the question of expectations to me is always the key one, right? If you want to get the crowd to be on your side as the front of the

office. You want Russell Wilson to go out there to start, maybe struggle in those first set of really hard games. And then week four, you let the crowd demand. They demand the rookie. They demand the agent of change. And then you're set up where Russell Wilson actually, you're not the villain. And neither is the front office. It's just the move they got to make. All right. But what about this? Jaden Daniels started right away. It came one win from going to the Super Bowl. Now, Mahomes, it took a year. So it's never one size fits all. So giant fans, the front office ownership might be thinking, well, hang on a second. Jayden Daniels did it last show. Why can't Jackson Dart do the same thing, right? Right. Well, look, that is a rhetorical question, I believe, that should make anybody who had any sense of who Jackson Dart is very happy.

Because that's not even a thought experiment anybody engaged in when they took Jackson Dart, as aforementioned. But I want to move on, Frank, to a quarterback in this case who has no doubt about his status. because Joe Burrow of the Bengals tells Albert Breer of SI, quote, I'm not sure I would say anyone is playing the position better than I am right now, end quote. So is that how you see it, Frank? You know what? I think you definitely could make the case. Look what he did last year.

First in passing yards. First in, you know, touchdown passes third in, you know, quarterback rating. It kind of has a little Dan Marino to it because Dan Marino for the longest time was the best quarterback. Let's remember. We're talking about an AFC. where you have Lamar Jackson, you have Josh Allen, and then, of course, you have the king, Patrick Mahomes. So I do agree when you look at the numbers and the stats, certainly.

The problem is the team that he placed for doesn't do enough defensively for him to get the wins. He went to a Super Bowl of his second year, but look what's happened in the last two years. He had to be lights out, and they were nine and eight. I got a stat for you. Last year, they scored 472 points. Only five teams scored more than that. They allowed 434. Only five teams allowed more than that.

So, yes, he's a terrific player, but he's kind of stuck in this damn marino thing where you're not going to outscore everybody. At some point, they have to improve defensively. Yeah, it's funny when I was listening to you talk about Russell Wilson sitting courtside, right? Every starting quarterback, when they're presented with this question, it's a psychology test. Because the right answer, the only right answer you want your starting quarterback to say is, yes, it's me. I'm the greatest. I should have this job forever until I one day decided I don't want to do this anymore. And so Joe Burrow on that level, he has the right answer.

Congratulations to him on passing the test. The reality of it, though, to go even sort of bigger picture here, is that Joe Burrow is also increasingly rare. He is a true pocket passer, Frank, among all of the great quarterbacks in the NFL. And so when you name the guys, right, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, those guys do it with their legs. Joe Burrow, who is twice the comeback player of the year, you know his legs are the thing that

basically need to be protected. And so for me, he's also saying, as a true quarterback, and you know this from basketball, right? What is a pure point guard? A true quarterback, someone who distributes and doesn't necessarily run around like that? He's saying, who does it better than me? And on that level, over 70%

completion, I believe 4,700 yards. Yeah, as a pure passer, I believe he probably is the best in the NFL. You know, so let me's test. for the Cincinnati Bengals, because you look at what, you know, the Ravens are always good, and Lamar Jackson is always great. Same thing with Josh Allen. The bills have done a terrific job building a team around them. And of course, the Chiefs, they realize our offense is lights out. We've got to get better defensively. And look at all the years, Tom Brady, who was the best

quarterback in the NFL forever. The Patriots had a full team. So yes, Burrow has all the weapons offensively. They're going to score points, but it's been proven, Pablo, time and time again. he could be the best, just like for the longest time being realized. It's the thing to your point, right? What Joe Burrow is also saying, if you're going to inject him with truth serum, is I can't do better than I'm doing. So who's going to help me out? You know, and that's defense.

That question has always been about the defense, and he needs the help. And I don't think they're going to get him the help. But in the meantime, he's not going to be the problem. No, you're 100% right about that. All right. And now to a college coach that Pablo has spent some time. I'm covering. You know what I'm talking about. North Carolina's Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick tells Ben Bolin of the Boston Globe, quote, I enjoy it. I've always wanted to be in college football. There's no owner. There's no owner's son.

Pablo, how does Belichick sound to you? Frank, you know how he sounds. He sounds like a guy who's litigating a breakup in public after decades of not touching it in public. That's what's happening here. We talked about just a second ago, truth serum. What do you what do you say when someone makes you tell the truth. Belichick is doing that with the help of the aforementioned alluded Jordan Hudson, who of course I've been reporting on on my show, in ways that are just rare and different. It's not the same Belichick. One of the reasons he's saying this is because, of course, Bob Kraft came out and said hiring Belichick when he did to coach the Patriots was, quote, a risk, a big risk. And Belichick and his camp, they object to that. And Belichick now is fighting for his honor. while he's at North Carolina getting paid more money than any public employee in the state of North Carolina,

and he's still stuck in the past. That is what's happening here in that quote specifically. Yeah, and I think what happens, too, with Bill Belichick, I think that documentary that the Patriots had, where they really made him out to be the bad guy. And these things, a lot of times they never end well. It didn't end well with Tom Brady in New England. It didn't end well with Bill Belichick. But that doesn't take away from the success that they've had. And I think Robert Kraft and his son, I think this happens with a lot of owners, a lot of people in the front of, office, everyone wants credit. We kind of saw that with, you know, Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson in Chicago, ownership, the front office, wanted some of the credit. But here's the thing. The guy was

there for nearly a quarter of a century. The success, there's, you know, no debating it. But now look what's happened the last three years, three straight losing seasons. And by the way, now you're on to your third coach in three years. So I think with Bill Belichick, I think it bothers him that on the way out, the way that he was talked about, I think that documentary bothered. Forget about what's going on now in North Carolina. He's looking back at his time at New England Patriots saying, maybe I should have been treated a little bit better on the way out. Oh, and the documentary you referenced, the Apple TV Plus documentary, part of what sticks in Belichick's craw, according to all the reporting I've done, is that he realized all too late that Bob Kraft was a key voice, not just in the documentary, but behind it. in terms of the story they were going to tell. Belichick felt blindsided by that.

But I want to now bring it to the college point because, look, what I agree with you about in total is Belichick is the greatest NFL coach of all time. In the football context, he is a genius. What he is testing now is life afterwards, life after a sport in which he was kicked out because they didn't want him to be in charge anymore, didn't trust, I am told, his ability to pick the people around him.

And now here's Belize. And he doesn't have an owner and an owner's son, but he has a chancellor. He's a board of trustees. Frank, you know Carolina is a basketball school. The whole thing about what's happening here is an experiment in which Belichick brings football. What does that mean? What does it cost them? How do they look?

And so far it looks quite petty. Yeah. Michael Jordan University. It's still a basketball school 100%. All right. Let's take a break. But coming up the Red Sox, the first to four from the Yankees. Who's got more riding on the next three?

And they play tomorrow. So are the Ravens or commanders poised for a bigger, regular season? So you are aware that Belichick is at North Carolina, right? That he got the job? I am. I told this. Source is close to the situation. Tell me.

You've been all over that story. Good job on that. Well, I've been watching some footage. I've been grinding film. It is time for the Battle of the Backups and Toss Up. What's first? Toss up which team is the rest of their series more important to? The Red Sox or the Yankees?

All right. So the Red Sox have demolished the Yankees all season long. Last night they beat them. How about the rookie Roman Anthony, two-run, home run. He had three RBIs overall. I like Ian O'Connor and the Athletic. My buddy, he had Roman Empire 1, Evil Empire Zero, except, of course, the Yankees are really no longer an empire because they don't really dominate like they once said.

How about this from the Yankees, though? That revamped pitching stapper there is nine walks, and they had four errors tossing the ball all over the field. So it was an ugly loss. And the Yankees had done well recently seven of eight, but those wins came against the twins, they came against the Cardinals and the race. So they're getting wins, but they're beating up on the also rands of Major League Baseball. It's more important for the Yankees, and tonight's going to be big. Max Fried is starting for them. That's the guy, you know, the Yankees, I think, will make the wild card.

Their first game, Max Fried is going to start. His last three starts, Pablo, 15 innings, 15 on runs, 24 hits he's given up. The Yankees need to be better. Max Fried needs to be better. Yeah, it's the Yankees to me. And I know the Red Sox are technically in more dire need of wins because they're beneath the Yankees in the standings. But to me, this is always about expectations.

Frank, I grew up a Yankee fan. I remain a Yankee fan. I am the type of Yankee fan who went on Stubhub for Game 5 of the World Series and was there for literally the worst inning, the worst offensive inning, if not the worst inning in general, of Major League Baseball history. And when I watch a game like what happened last night, it is the errors to me. Yeah. It's not just Luke Weaver who gives me PTSD because, yes, that's the guy who lost the game too.

It's the errors. It's the sloppiness. It's the fact that you could throw all of this money, all of these names. and yes, we need Max Fried to be a real ace. But it's the fact that this was a season that was supposed to make up for not merely that horrific inning, but also the fact that the Yankees are due a World Series. The Yankees are actively expecting a World Series,

and now I believe this is the sixth time I fired Aaron Boone in my brain. Like, it just, it's bad, Frank. And so, yes, the Yankees need this more because the fan base demands it more at this point. Yeah, Yankees 4 and 13, against the Red Sox and the Blue Jays this year. All right, what's next? Toss up, they play their preseason finale against each other tomorrow.

Which team are you more bullish on this season? The Ravens or the Commanders? It's interesting. ESPN's Ben Zolak. He ranked the most watchable teams. And you and I, by the way, I think we ranked 10th in this whole thing. But all 32 teams, he ranked the Commanders 1 and the Ravens 2. I'm more bullish on the Ravens just because the Ravens do it.

it every year. The commanders last season, unbelievable year, you love their quarterback. You just wonder if they might take a step back. And they did win a game with that great Hail Mary against the Bears, which destroyed their season. They had 19 scoring drives last year in the fourth quarter. Their team allowed 20. So they're always playing in close games. So I wonder about them. We might see a little bit of a drop from the commanders this year. Yeah, us stat nerds, Frank, call that drop a regression to the mean. Wow. That's what we call it.

I like that. Sports Analytics Conference where Frank Isola, there's a poster that says, do not serve this man, do not serve this caveman, only math nerds allowed. The reason I agree with you, though, about the commanders is fundamentally that, man, the expectations just changed.

Again, what's the story here? Expectations. The commanders were a shocking, a shocking success story. Yeah. Not just because of the way they won those games, maybe being the best television show. In general, as Ben Zolak put it, but like they're a team that really did overachieve. And they had in Jaden Daniels the messianic figure who enabled it.

Now, the thing about the Ravens, though, is that once you get through the regular season and it's the postseason, guess who has a giant question mark hanging over his head? Yeah. Lamar Jackson, right? So I think Lamar, by the way, give him all the MVPs. That guy might deserve them all. But the question of what happens when the pressure gets really, really high. This is the legend of why I'm a Yankee fan, honestly.

It's when the pressure gets really, really tough, you get better. Not happening in the Bronx, not happening for Lamar Jackson and Baltimore. That is a big question that makes me think the Ravens actually need that even more. And you make your bones in the NFL with those fourth quarter drives. You do it on the road. Lamar Jackson did it last year against the bills in that playoff game. And then, of course, poor Mark Andrews dropped the... two-point conversion, which could have changed everything, but everyone looks like,

oh, Lamar Jackson, look what happened. You didn't win again. Last year, I'll give you a stat, which the average person understands. 41 touchdowns, four inceptions last year for Lamar Jackson. He was amazing. All right, that's it. Let's take one last break, but still to come is the SEC. Smart did a ninth conference game. Even Frank can do that math. And Jerry Jones expresses his frustration toward Micah Parsons' agent. Jerry Jones, is there a news? Frank. You're not. Frank. You can do that math. And Jerry Jones. You're nine. You're, of course he is, because we're in the 90s, Frank.

You're 90. It's a Friday, happy time. Happy 24th birthday, La Mello Ball. The Charlotte Hornet Star averaged 25 points per game last season, but missed the end of the campaign for surgeries on his wrist and ankle. He also appeared to have some work done on his feet. Pictures purported to show his feet adorned with flaming hot Cheetos ink. I think he's trying to copy from Pablo Tori.

But Paul's tattoo artist later fessed up to trolling everything. everyone with fake photos. Look at that. Frank, you may think that I'm the young guy with weird tattoos. La Mello Ball is now a veteran. That's how old you are. You've now gotten old enough to see him become an NBA vet. Congratulations to you.

I got another birthday in a week. Happy anniversary, West Littleton. On this day, 18 years ago, the Rangers reliever, recorded what might have been the most absurd save in baseball history. That's saying something, because there's a lot of them. Littleton pitched three shutout innings and a 30-3 Texas win over Baltimore. Baltimore. The rule says that pitching the final three innings of a win earns you a save no matter the score. Littleton told the New York Times that his teammates razzed him, quote, they were calling me a vulture, saying this had to be one of the cheapest saves ever. Which is an insult to vultures. Vultures are far more dignified than just taking like a baby bird having a save regurgitated into its mouth in a 30 to three win, whatever this was. An insult to Vulture.

Look at the words he's throwing out. Happy trails to an eight game schedule. for the SEC. The conference has voted to expand to a nine-game conference schedule starting next season. Each school will play three annual opponents and the remaining six will rotate. This decision comes after the College Football Playoff Committee announced that it's increasing expectations for strength of schedule. Sub-Bit 10 coaches had recently been carping about how unfair it was that they had to play nine conference games And the leadership had floated the idea, get this, of an 18 to 2018 playoff. Come on now. Frank, to quote Tony Cornizer, quoting Don Olmeyer, the answer to all of your questions is money.

Yep. And so it is again. No errors today, believe it or not. So let's go to the big finish. Jerry Jones in the news told Michael Irvin that Micah Parsons agent told the Cowboys to stick their offer up there. Please, your thoughts. My favorite part was Jerry told Michael Irvin, who told apparently everybody else, which is to say that Jerry is still producing the television show that is his football team. Scotty Schaeffler, meanwhile, has five back of the lead through two rounds of the Tour Championship.

Is that a big deal to you? He'll be fine. They're at minus 13. He's at minus 8. He'll eventually catch up. ESPN reports that Malik Beasley is no longer the target of a federal gambling investigation. Your thoughts? My thoughts for that.

This story is not close to over. My show continues to investigate it, actually. I think there's a lot more to come. 22nd ranked Iowa State versus number 17 Kansas State in Dublin on Saturday, Frank. Who you got? I got number 17 Kansas State. I got three Guinness. Last one, four preseason games tonight.

I know you're all over this. What intrigues you? The sound that I'm going to hear from across the country, that is mean of times watching four preseason games in one night. You got that right. We're out of time. Thanks for watching. I'm Frank Isola.

And I'm Pablo Torre. Pablo Torre finds out as the podcast I keep on promoting, but for now, your sports center. You've got to keep promoting that place where you live.