Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Evan Drellich talks baseball's looming labor battle (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

In the second hour, Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris were joined by Evan Drellich of The Athletic to discuss the impending MLB lockout after the 2026 season. After that, Rahimi and Harris discussed the struggles of Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon and left-hander Shota Imanaga early on during spring training. Later, they conducted the Halftime segment.

This hour is brought to you by Cars for Kids. I think the important distinction is that it would be a lockout. It wouldn't be the player's choice. It would be the ownership's choice. And hopefully it doesn't come to that because I think baseball has a ton of momentum. Baseball has been in a great place. The rules changes have worked. The games are faster.

People are excited. You see attendance numbers growing. Some of the TV deals that have come in in the last couple years are really great for the game. And so hopefully we continue that momentum and don't put the sport back. That's Ian Hap, who was the Cubs player representative for years. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3 The Score. And there's been some news regarding at least the likelihood of a lockout. Bruce Meyer, who's acting as the head of the Players Association right now, had the quote.

The league has pretty much already said there's going to be a lockout. I think Rob Manfred more or less guaranteed it. That's what he said to the Detroit free press. So that said, we go to our hotline and we bring in the big guns. Evan Drellick, the reporter for the athletic who has been covering Major League Baseball and the Players Association ongoing discussions in CBA. He is at Evan Drellick on X. Evan, thanks for joining us.

Good morning. Good afternoon. Thanks for having. It is still, yeah, for us it's still morning. So you're correct. I think that's where I want to start, Evan, is just with the concept of this is. I think he's saying the loud part out loud, Bruce Meyer, because we all are under the impression that somehow this is going to get locked out next year.

What did you think of those comments and just what you know in the background that you add to it? I am not a betting man. I don't encourage anybody to become a betting person. Were I a betting person, I would be very confident that a lockout is going to happen. Now, the real question is whether there are missed games. Remember, last time we had a lockout. in December right when the CBA expired.

That's what's going to happen again. The chances of the players and the owners having a deal in place by 1159 p.m. Eastern on December 1st are incredibly low. So you're going to have a lockout. And then the question is, can they get a deal done so that they can play a full 162 game season? So it's not whether the sport gets shut down in the winter. I think that really is very likely. Can they work something out in time to avoid Mississippi?

games in 2027. I'm looking at this, and I'm with you, there's going to be a lockout. I think there will be missed games because this driving force of we need a salary cap has really, in my mind, been the deciding factor on what happens next and whether or not baseball, the owners, the players can come to any kind of agreement. Do you see a path forward without a salary cap? There probably should be, but a lot of that just depends. on what owners decide they want.

Rob Manford needs a three-quarters group to pass the CBA. So if he has eight owners standing there and saying, we need a cap, we need to take this longer, we need to wait, well, then probably everybody's going to wait. And the question of what is rational is a difficult one to parse. If the owners got a salary cap, their franchise values across the sport instantly rise. There's big money attached to it.

There's also big money attached to missing. games. And I think last time, you know, the players had been angry for 10 years. Service time, tanking. The Cubs are certainly a part of that. There was a lot of going on in baseball that had angered the players. And yet, even through all the drama and what I've come to call leverage theater, they found a way to play. And it seems to me, again, that the rational decision will be everybody's going to look around all the agents, all the players, whether they're high-income players, low-income players, small market, big market owners, are going to really feel the pain if they miss games.

And I think that's going to be the prevailing factor. But if the owners look around and go, you know what, we're tired of this, we see the NBA franchise values going up. We want fans in the smaller markets to feel a little differently than they do now, where, you know, there are the Kansas City Royals ever going to go out and go sign the truly biggest name on the free agent market, probably not. It's a different question than whether the Royals can ever come. compete, but whether they can compete for the top names and free agency.

The wild card here is what do the owners end up doing? At the end of the day, people like making money, and the way to make money is to play games. No, I think that's the best point, Evan, is, yeah, your team is somewhat useless if it's not playing a game against another team. Then it's not doing the thing it's supposed to do. but the dig-in has been pretty evident. You know, I feel like that's a good way to put it, leverage theater. They've conditioned us to believe that there is going to be a lockout next season.

How much do you think that helps either one side of this, players or ownership, to even have the discussion that we're already having about cherishing this season? We've heard multiple owners talk about that as well. It's very hard to sift through the noise because when you're going into, a labor negotiation, everybody's going to dig in. And you're going to hear a lot in the next 12 months on management side about how, you know, we're ready for Armageddon. And you're going to hear the same thing on the player's side, that everybody's going to talk

really tough. And some of them might mean it. It's not even that I'm casting doubt on everybody's fortitude here. The issues just don't become real until you are in crunch time, until you're in February and March. you're staring down the barrel of missed games and miss paychecks. And to some degree, that's the league's operating logic for a lockout, which is that you're kind of putting the pressure on the players

and forcing the issue at hand. But if you look back last time, the lockout starts, nothing even happened in December. It wasn't until January that stuff started to pick back up. And then, you know, we had kind of, there was some days down in Florida, where they were meeting in Jupiter, the players and the owners, and the thing finally got done in early March in New York. But until you're at the deadline when it comes to a negotiation like this, where literally billions are at stake,

it's not that nothing matters. It's not that the proposals don't matter, but you're not going to see real movement. It's really hard to sift through, okay, are they really going to want to miss games? Because everybody's going to project strength, and everybody can sit there and go, oh man, they're talking really tough.

But I'm telling you, just wait until you get to the actual moment of truth. Evan Drellick, the senior writer for the athletic covering baseball joining us here on Rahimi Harrison, Grody on 1043, the score. And Evan, I'm wondering who's better set up for this, because it's not like

this is one of those things where your car breaks down and you didn't have time to save up money. MLB, the owners knew it was coming, the players have known it was coming. We've heard about this $2 billion war chest that would give teams approximately $75 million each of reserve funds. And obviously the players, arguably the most powerful union on the plan,

that's what I always hear since I was a little kid. They know that this comes around every once in a while. The process of storing up money happens every go-around. Both sides build their war chest. They have to. It's not like I've seen reports to about the owners amassing about $75 million per. That's what you would expect. And the same thing on the players side.

What the players do is they start to hold on to their licensing money. The union does rather than sending out checks to everybody. The closer you get to the CBA, the more money gets held back. Now, the owners, the net worth of the owners is going to exceed anything that the players themselves are capable of, right? The owners, if they wanted to, could they survive just fine, you know, in two years in this baseball, which isn't going to happen? sure they could right they have more financial might the thing they consider also though they have debt right some of these owners you know have plenty of debt that they have to pay off and there's a big owner versus owner fight to be had here where the interests of the cubs is different

than the interest of the pirates and go on down the list and there's a lot that the commissioner wants to do with baseball TV rights you know what kind of agreement can he get amongst his owners to make major changes to baseball TV rights. The thing about a salary cap, besides the fact that the owners have always wanted it, this was a core issue in the 94-95 strike that took down the World Series and 94. Besides that, it's a way that the owners could affect big change. If you give the big market to a salary cap, well, then maybe they're more willing to share their local TV money.

then you can do bigger things to revenue sharing. And so the question kind of becomes, if you don't get a cap near the owners, what can you change about your key B. right structure? What are you willing to change in revenue sharing? What kind of agreement can you get amongst your owners internally? So there's really two fights here. It's not even just owner versus players.

It's owner versus owner. Evan, I think that's probably what makes me the most concerned about there actually being an ongoing lockout. We're talking to Evendrelik, the senior writer from The Athletic. He is the author of Winning Fixes Everything, and he is following the Major League Baseball Players Association News along with what could happen in 2027. But that's been my concern is ever since Rob Manfred came out,

and I know you remember this, it was either last year or the year before where he was criticizing the Padres for spending money on their players. And I think that was a good indication of, well, whose side are you on this? Like I thought you represented the owner, and now you're questioning teams for wanting to actually pay players to have a competitive salary with the Dodgers, for example,

or try to compete with the Dodgers at least. And then you've got guys like Artie Morano, the owner from the Angels coming out and saying, winning doesn't matter as much as having a good time at the park. It really does seem like, and I think maybe the Kyle Tucker contract deserves to be thrown in here too. It just seems like there's a lot that the owners can infight about that would lead to a pause no matter what.

Rob Manfred doesn't have an easy job. Whatever you think of a guy, managing these 30 personalities, very wealthy people of kind of, look, I would say varying competence and varying ages, right? Some of them are getting quite up there in age. It's not an easy thing to do to pull that group together. So if you have a group of hardliners saying, Rob, you've got to go get us this cap, we've had enough of this. you know, in a way, part of his job is to demonstrate to them that he tried. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if at some point the owner's back off of a cap. I don't know when that would be.

You know, is that March? Is that January? Is that after you started to miss some games in April? And then everybody says, okay, all right, that's enough. Let's try to find a way to play. But before you get to that point, don't you have to demonstrate to them? Well, hey, look, guys, I tried. I tried to give you this thing that you told me I need.

to go out and do. And the other interesting wildcard here is Robb himself. Manfred has said he intends to retire in January 2029. That's when his contract is up. We could take him on his word at that, that that is his plan. But there's also a world in which, you know, he's not going to get whatever he's making now in another job. Let's say it's $25, $30 million a year in total compensation, something like that. So maybe he wants to come back. Well, if he wants to come back, what do you have to do to come back? Do you have to deliver the cap to the owners to make them say, hey, we love having you here. Please stick around. And so the question of what does Rob Manfred himself want is a hard one to answer right now. And he says throughout his career, he's focused most

on having games played. He's very proud of the fact that since he's gone in-house at Major League Baseball, there has not been a game missed due to a work stoppage. And if there was, was. His legacy would take a huge hit. You know, if you missed the 2027 season, I don't think people are going to be saying very nice things about Rob Manfred and talk radio. And I think he knows that. Does that matter to him? You know, what matters to the lead figure at MLB is a hard question to answer right now? So secondary to the actual lockout that is coming, that we know is coming next year, is this idea that the media rights deals are not in a great place when you look at the sport as a whole. how much do those two things tie into each other when you're talking about revenue and everything else?

And is the plan to get something similar to maybe what MLS had through Apple where all the rights, or I guess most of the rights, are under one roof? Is that a reasonable plan for Rob Manfred to have? It doesn't seem likely to me that MLB is going to end up in a spot like MLS where everything is with one streaming company. For the reason being that if you look at what happened in the NBA, it seems that the end of the end. NBA was able to just make more money by breaking up the packages. Now, breaking up the packages, meaning, you know, you're selling some games to Amazon, you're selling some games to Peacock.

That's not necessarily great for the consumer, for the fan, because guess what? You've got to make sure you're paying for those various streaming services here. What Rob Manford wants to do with media rights is have all of them available to him. The teams right now, the individual teams, the Cubs, the White Sucks, they control what they do with their local rights, MLB controls the national games. MLB Manfred wants to be able to take more games national and also potentially sell a bunch of local rights in a bundle to a streaming company. So in 2029, when these new national TV deals start, the idea could be, okay, maybe Netflix is the local home for 25 teams, something like that. And that might produce more money for the owners than this current setup where each one is trying to find an individual TV.

home. But what exactly it looks like is basically going to be dependent on the marketplace. You know, the whole goal here, I don't think anybody's going to be shocked to learn, is to maximize the money. And so if MLB can make more money with three national packages and then selling all the local rights, it just depends what the marketplace is going to bear. But MLB is encouraged by what happened in the NBA. That said, there are reports that, you know, Peacock and NBC are underwater on their NBA deal. So, you know, what the TV landscape's going to look like in 28 when they're negotiating these deals is a big question. The problem is you got to collectively bargain revenue sharing with the players. So if you want to change how you share money, your TV money, you got to

go through the players now. And it's a very big jigsaw puzzle. We're talking to Evan Drellick, the senior writer for the athletic on Major League Baseball and the Players Association. What could be next. Evan, how much did that Kyle Tucker contract become a flashpoint for a lot of this discussion? Look, I had a story where I'll just paraphrase, but ownership, some ownership sources at that point, we're saying, screw this, we need a cap. You know, this is our tipping point. I think it's very fair to point out that they were going this direction anyway. It's not as though it was unlikely previously that a cap was going to be proposed. They'd been thinking about it for a while, arguably for 30 years or more, you know,

if you want to go back all the way to 94-95 here. But it's galvanizing, right? You've owners kind of roll their eyes and go, well, here we go again with the Dodgers and look at that AAB and how could we possibly keep up. And, you know, one of the things to pay attention to here are the narratives around competitive balance. MLB is positioning a cap as good for competitive balance. And the union, meanwhile, looks at and goes, actually, our competitive balance, our parity is better than any of the other major sports. There's a lot of arguments to kind of sift through within the salary cap conversation

of, okay, is baseball's competitive balance good? If you want to improve it, does a cap improve it? How much does a cap improve it? What becomes very crucial? is the band between the floor and the ceiling. You know, let's say it's $100 million. Let's say it's $150 and $250. The pirates are going to still spend $150 every year, and the Dodgers are going to still spend $250 every year. And so the sense of haves and has not is not going to be eliminated.

Will pirate fans maybe feel they have a little bit better opportunity? Yeah, I think that's a realistic thing, is that worth, you know, to the players giving up the economic value that they would in a cap system because that's the great player argument, is that caps are bad for their income. We'll see, right? That's going to be the heart of the whole thing. Now, Evan, this has been great,

and thanks for the clarification along with the information. Evandrelic, I have a feeling we'll be talking to you more as we all kind of watch and wait and see what happens. What's your actual baseball assignment you have right now? Oh, there's no other assignment besides this. I'm sure. That's not true. I'm working on a story about the,

working the store with the A's and all the extensions they were doing. So I ever once in a while I do talk about things other than labor. But happy CVA year, everybody. This is front and center for me. Oh, my goodness. Well, hopefully you get some A's baseball to cleanse your palate. I don't know that that's how that works, but thanks so much, Evan. Thanks, guys.

Evan Drellick, kind enough to join us here in Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, the score, giving us the latest. And his book is called Winning Fixes Ever. how baseball's brightest minds created sports biggest mess. When he said, I'm going from this to the A's, I was like, oh. Is he just on like the, like, what did Evan do to his editor? You get, you get labor and the A's? Those things could be interconnected in many, many ways, many ways.

I mean, good luck with that. I'm not ready for another. year of watching baseball at a minor league park, by the way. Neither am I, Leila, which is why I don't live in Sacramento. Pretty sure Luis Severino isn't either. The ERA. Hey, the home road splits are disturbing. Can we save him yet?

How are we doing on the Save Luis Severino concept? Somebody get him out of here. He's on an island. An island that, unfortunately, the home runs at the ballpark are plentiful because they don't have enough stands to flow like a normal major league stadium. save Luis Severino. Coming up next year on Rahimi Harrison Grady, we stay with baseball talk because,

yeah, there's two Cubs starting pitchers that have given up some home runs this spring, but one I am far more concerned about than another. So we'll talk about that next. Rahimi Harrison Grody, Midday's 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score. Hey, everybody.

Would you like some NFL news and notes first? because today is the deadline for the franchise and transition tags. Tag them. Wait, no, not necessarily. Who do you want to tag? Oh, I just thought you were going to tell me somebody's getting tagged. Yeah, that's happening. So according to Jordan Schultz,

uh, Brees Hall is getting tagged. He ain't never leaving. Bag him and tag him. It's so unfortunate for Breeze Hall. Uh, sources, the Jets are placing the franchise tag on running back Breeze Hall. It's for 14.

point two point two nine million both sides are motivated to get a long-term deal done but this now takes haul off of the free agent market that's why i think the franchise tag is dumb like it's like hey here's a random year of your contract that we just up and created i i just in trying to understand the decisions teams make to tag and not to tag i don't always understand it well brees hall had value i mean we talked at one point about the possibility of him coming to the bears now it's been a while that was over a year ago, but that was something that, you know, was out there, was in the ether, so to speak. So do you think Breeshaal wants to play for the New York Jets? I didn't think so. I'm kind of surprised at a long-term deal as part of the discussion here because I thought that that guy wanted out of there.

You know it's worse than playing for the Jets? Not getting paid. Being on the franchise tag? Well, that too. So Jordan Schultz speculated that Brees Hall would have done really well in the open market. Would he have done better than 14.29 is the question. Here's another one from Jordan Schultz. The commanders are not planning to tender kicker Jake Moody as an RFA. He will become a free agent.

So, you know, he had time here with the Bears, and then he also was with the commanders. And there's a couple of more that are notable before we get back into baseball talk, as we have discussed. This is from Adam Schaefter. This is the surprising one. The Seattle Seahawks are not expected to tag Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker the third, who is now poised to become an unrestricted free agent

with the new league year opens. With Kenneth Walker not expected to be tagged, there is a chance that he could become just the fourth player to win Super Bowl MVP and begin the following season with a different team. The other three are an interesting list. Give it to me.

Larry Brown, Desmond Howard, and Dexter Jackson. That is an interesting list. Yeah. It's always the usual unlikely Super Bowl MVP Right, because if you were a standard Super Bowl MVP caliber player

You would be kept, of course, by your team Unless you were dealing with some cap issues Which Seahawks have decisions to make Right, and Dexter Jackson was in 2003 So it's been a long time since anything like that has occurred But something to keep a note of So we will continue to monitor these And let you know what's happening

on this tag deadline day in the NFL. You're it. In the meantime, you didn't get to talk about this, and I know it's been something that you have very much been watching and monitoring, is the propensity for Shodi Imanaga to give up home runs, and I know you were doing girls high school basketball last night for the you, but the night before you were paying attention, and every time I texted you about the Shodimanaga home run alert,

you were on top of it. And then it didn't get exactly better the next day when we saw yesterday, James and Tyone, who had already allowed a couple of home runs in spring training play, continued that trend. So James and Tyone gives up a bevy of home runs yesterday. Two, he also struck out to, but he walked to. He gave up six earned runs total in just two and two-thirds innings against the Cincinnati Reds. and there's a discussion that's ongoing about how seriously you take pitching performances in spring training.

But I think that you shouldn't worry about James and Tyone as much as you should with Chaudi Imanaga. Some numbers mean more than others. Tyone has shown you that he will let a couple of home runs fly and he will do so at a decent clip even last season. But he's usually working on multiple pitches and he will rectify what the problem is. His home run rate went down toward the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year last season. You can't say the same for Imanaga. Unfortunately, this feels like more of the same

even though he's trying to mix in a new pitch and increase velocity. If pitchers are able or if hitters are able to turn on something with confidence like they were with Shoda where even some of the balls were outside of the zone. That gives me a little more concerned than a James and Tyone who's shown you. He will work on pitches, bring Arsenal back in that he didn't have the year before, for example,

like a sweeper and that he will ultimately lower his home run number. What was interesting is in the first half of last season, in 17 starts, he gave up 22 home runs to James and Tyone. In the second half of the season, now he only made six starts because he was hurt part of that time, but he only gave up two home runs when he came back in those six starts. So two home runs in 131 played appearances versus 22 home runs in 388 played appearances. You see the stark difference there in the percentages. And I think with Tyone, we just know him as a guy who's working with 10 pitches trying to figure out what do I want to make my main five or six pitches this year.

Correct. And despite his velocity being down a touch his last time out or really just over the course of the spring, it's only been three starts. The 19.50 ERA doesn't scare me in the same manner that Show to Amanaga's anything scares me. Because here's the honest truth. Because of the way last season ended with him not even be able to take the ball in his last availability. ability when he could have taken the ball against the Brewers, it tells you where the Cubs were with him and where he was with the Cubs.

And we don't need to get into the qualifying offer and how he's getting paid a whole lot of money this year as much as we need to understand. If the Cubs are going to be as good as we all think they are, they're probably going to need something more than what we saw in the second half when IMAGA, his last 11 games, was giving up bombs. Every time, every time, guarantee giving up bombs.

Well, and it's why Jed Hoyer and Craig Counsel focused on pitching in the off season. They said they wanted to focus on pitching. I was like, yeah, you guys need to do that, but don't ignore the offensive hole that Kyle Tucker's going to leave because when that guy was healthy, he's the one who helped you get to that really nice lead in the Central before the Brewers decided to tear it down. But at the same time, I think that you can know that James and Tyon home run numbers in the spring are usually what we said. You know, it's him bringing back a pitch that maybe didn't work for him the year before. He's going to try to bring it back in.

He does that during the season as well. He is a work in progress when it comes to that. Or, for example, in this case, you know, Shody Imanaga is working on stuff. But it's about how the hitter's seeing the ball. And if the hitter's still confident, even based on the pitch mix, which leaves me to believe that tipping pitches is still an issue for him, then that's another issue altogether. regardless, it's ended up in the same result, which is runs.

So how are you going to stop that? And how are you going to manage his outings in a rotation moving forward? I've been going back and forth on how I'm watching the World Baseball Classic. You know, James and Tyones pitching for Team Canada, that's where he's scheduled to make his next spring start, like non-regular season start. And so will I judge that a little bit differently than what I've seen in these exhibition games? I think so, just because there's more on the table.

It means more than I'm tinkering with things. You're trying to survive in advance and have Team Canada out of pull play. So I will judge what I see from him a little more harshly, but at the same time, I have so much more confidence in him regaining his form the best of what he was last year than Imanaga regaining his form and the best of what he was last year. Not saying it's not possible. I just don't think those two players are. great direct comparison because of the way they handle things and the styles of pictures that they are.

Well, and yes, spring training is for this time. Spring training is for making mistakes. Spring training is for working on stuff. And theoretically, we should judge the two of them with that lens. It's just we have proof of one using it for that purpose. And we unfortunately don't have proof of another. That doesn't mean show to Imanaga can't do it. But, when you don't get the break to break like you wanted to on a breaking ball, when you're leaving stuff up over the center of the plate, are you leaving it up too high? And the ball takes just too much time over the plate

and the right part of the strike zone for a hitter to see. It's just hard to know when does this turn. And Russ Dorsey said he's not worried, because he knows that there are pictures like Zach Granky who have used an entire spring training start to just throw fastballs just to see what's going on there. Absolutely. Like they'll use it as a way to test their stuff to that extent because they don't care.

They don't have to wear these numbers. Is it bad that I don't feel like that's what's happening with Eminaga just because of his experimenting with the pitchcom and trying to make sure the communication is good? It seems like he's experimenting with different types of things than maybe some other pitchers do at this point in the spring. I think he got a directive and it was, you need to throw harder. And so he's doing that. But it's a matter of at what cost to the accuracy and the command. Cubs have a lot riding on whether or not Eminaga can be a valuable part of their staff

and can make, I don't know, 25 plus starts. That's it. He's still an important piece of this as long as Justin Steele is out. And when Justin Steele says May or June, I tend to believe June as a possible return. I think that's realistic, understanding he was just clear to go about his business and you still got to build it up and everything else.

And there should be no rush. The premium starts for Justin Steele happened in the back half of the season and into the playoffs. So having a fresh arm like that injected, that could be really good for the Cubs. Yeah, I just don't want to be hopeful for June the entire time leading up to his return. Like I don't want to get into the framework of, well, when the Bulls get Lonso back. Oh, no, no, no, no.

We're not doing that. No, and there are two different scenarios, but you just don't want to have to rely on one person to come back to fix a lot of problems, especially one that only pitches every five days. You know, that's the hard part, too. So I factor all of that in. But I say all of this to reiterate, James and Tyrone has earned our trust when it comes to knowing what the range of how much he's going to give up a home run ball and how it matters. And he's good for a clunker or two in the regular season. There's no doubt. You just have to accept it sometimes. Most pitchers are. John Lester was always good for an August clunker.

Knowing your body, knowing your clock, and knowing where you are and when you need to be pitching your best. I think that's a real thing. So I feel like in this case, still be watchful on what Chodhitaimanaga does, especially in important games of the World Baseball Classic.

But I don't think you have to worry as much about Jamison Tyone, at least not yet. No, that's my overall message. James and Tyone, good to go. Shoda, I don't know. And I don't think they're in the same vote at all. Yeah. And in the meantime, like we said, we will keep track of all of the tag news going on in the

NFL. We'll tell you who's it, who didn't get tagged, and what might happen next. So we'll keep track of that as well. Coming up next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, it is time for half time. What you got? There has been a shot fired at our city that I don't think is fair. And I'm kind of surprised who it's by. Yep. Them's fighting words. We'll get into it next. What time is it? It's nap time. I wanted to talk about this, but first we have a little bit of news. This is from Adam Schaefter.

Are they chef bombs on a day like this where the tag deadline is 3 o'clock today? 4 p.m. Eastern? Whatever you want to make them. All right. So the Vikings are now open to trading Pro Bowl edge rusher Jonathan Grenard per sources. They would like to keep Grenard, but they also have salary cap issues they are working through that have led to these trade conversations. Now, Granard had a shoulder injury in December that caused him to miss the rest of the season after that.

He's expected to be at full strength by the start of next season. So that's notable. But this is a guy who was a pro bowler in 2024. He had a four-year $72 million contract with the Vikings. And when he had a 17-game season, he recorded 12 sacks. but that shoulder injury limited him to a total of 12 games. He managed only three sacks, but ranks fifth in the NFL in pressure rate at 13.5%.

I like that pressure rate. Yeah. Do you know who else like to pressure rate? There was Dio Dengbo pressures in Ryan Pulse. Just saying. But Dio Dengbo never had a dozen sacks. Now, here's the thing. Is this one of those where he may be available,

but at the same time he may be cut like a Tremaine Edmund situation It's interesting you ask that because according to a spot rack the out is there right now because it's a $9.9 million

dead cap hit for next season so it would appear according to over the cap that the Vikings are indeed over the cap but I don't think it's it's a I don't know how much of it

is a significant number. So total cap liabilities, 361,0.487, 66, top 51, 353. Team caps base in the red, 46,000, 485,553. So, okay, it's not like, it's not like we're dealing with, you know, lions type of money here. Because the lions are over the cap by a significant amount. The lion, and now, because,

of the, because of some money that they've moved around. According to over the cap, they are now over by 6,534,000. That seems like money that they could operate around if they wanted to, whether that's through restructure or the aforementioned cuts. But obviously, if you trade somebody with the cap hit of $22 million that Grenard has for each of the next two seasons, because he's halfway through this deal, this four-year-76 million dollar deal. Yeah, so this is an action.

This is an actual trade is what it sounds like. And he's going into his age 29 season, so still in his prime. And like you said, coming off injury, but we've seen what he was able to do the two years prior when he was not hurt with at least 12 sacks each of those two seasons. We will continue to track and keep note of all of what is going on in the NFL and who may be available and who is reportedly available. So that is the latest from Adam Schaeffer as we continue to track all the news on this cap deadline day Tag deadline day as we should say here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie. In the meantime, I believe fighting words have been issued.

Travel and leisure, the very popular travel magazine, said that the least authentic city in the world is Chicago. The least authentic city? they decided to aggregate a bunch of Google reviews so insurance and go set out to find the most and least authentic cities in the world the study examined over 1.3 million

Google reviews from 144 popular cities gathering feedback on everything from restaurants and museums to malls and markets destinations with the highest scores out of 100 had reviews filled with authentic phrases like traditional and local while those deemed inauthentic were described in terms like overpriced and tourist trap. And number one was Chicago when they did this study.

The Windy City scored just two points out of a possible 100. Oh. At the bottom of the authenticity index, I don't believe that they had the right measurement. I get what you're trying to do. Two out of 100, though? This is not an inauthentic city. And it says of its 50 million annual visitors, many head to Navy Pier, the downtown loop and the riverwalk. Areas that are known to be big draws were out of towners and therefore a mass of concentration of souvenir shops, pricey dining, another in-your-face commercialism.

An authentic experience in Chicago is certainly possible. Oh, now you say it? It just requires a bit more effort than ticking off the top three attractions on Google Maps. In fact, Chicago is known for hosting some of its more traditional. seasonal celebrations in the country from its German-inspired Christmas markets that you don't want to go to, Marshall Harris. I heard y'all talking about this yesterday, too.

An Octoberfest to its annual free blues festival, the largest in the world. I take offense to this. I take offense to it as well. Do you know what the second least authentic city was? And this is how you know that something's wrong with this? Is this a city that you would

deem to be inauthentic? No, it's just tour people, where people go for tourism. New York? Venice, Italy. Oh. Like you don't know what you're getting when you go there? I think, yeah, I think that's the issue here. You should know what you're getting when you go to these places.

Even more so than Chicago, Venice has long contended with the pressures of over tourism. Why is this a pressure? Don't we want people to come here and visit and hang out? And I don't know about you guys, but I've definitely, my friends want to go and see the be in Navy Pier. They do. They know what they're getting into. They're adults. Yeah.

off the plane. All right, where's the bean? Can you take me to the bean? How do I get to the bean? I'm like, all right, that's really what I want to do. You're in a whole city here and the bean is the first thing you want to hit. Here's third place. Las Vegas. I think Las Vegas is very authentic. You know exactly what you're getting. What is happening here with it? Maybe you shouldn't just pick words out of Google reviews and then aggregate it thinking you know what you're doing with authenticity. Well, what's funny about that? Isn't it kind of inauthentic to just like aggregate some words off of Google and think you know what's authentic and what's not? Sounds very AI to me.

Is it going to be mostly tourists who are filling out these Google reviews? Or, but you know how Google reviews are? It's usually people who are like at our text line. They're really mad about something we said. They're really, like, or they're really happy about something we said, which is rare. But you know, if you're compelled to file a review, it's usually for a good reason. Where was the place you were trying to go and you said I wouldn't go because of the Chris Kettle Market, but there was a new place that you were trying to go to yesterday.

Do you guys remember where she was trying to go and take me and thought I wouldn't go because I didn't want to go to Chris Kendall Market? I remember the conversation because it was five on it. I'm trying to remember what the place was. I don't remember what I said 10 minutes ago. I would definitely go there. I almost texted in. I almost texted in to the text line, but I decided not to. Okay.

So here's another note here. Other inauthentic cities, judge how you will. Nashville. Absolutely. Hobart, Australia. Don't know it. Austin, Massachusetts. Absolutely.

London? Absolutely. London is, I don't know that I would call London authentic or not. Do you have like the most authentic cities, just like the other end of the spectrum? Because that helps, I think, clarify what this is and what it ain't. No, I just have the inauthentic on this travel and leisure BS list. Travel and leisure only went negative on this one. Might remind you that the Condé and Ass traveler took a poll.

And the Condé and ass traveler said that, Chicago was the best big city in America and has been voted so many years running. And they actually took the poll themselves rather than just aggregate a bunch of Google reviews. Also, what is an inauthentic Navy peer experience exactly? It's a pier. It goes out over a body of water. That's what peers do. Maybe they have one too many shops for souvenirs.

One too many. I did you the restaurant you went to you didn't like is that what happened but like it's a pier you're authentically over a body of water are you not? Yes I don't what do you think you're not getting in Venice

oh is the Illinois State Fair Yes thank you 773 Was enough water in Venice Illinois State Fair would you go That's the question Oh yeah I definitely go Yes I would definitely go I would definitely go

Some big time acts guys I would definitely go. That's not Chris Kendall. That's not coupled up like over the top. Inauthentic. Yeah. What's inauthentic about what you just said? What are you referring to as inauthentic?

Waiting in line to go into the Chris Kendall market and get some smelly cheese. Although the sandwich is delicious. To your point, Marshall, you know exactly what you're getting, smelly cheese. But I don't want to go. I want to go to the state fair, though. I want to go to the state fair. That's more food on a stick. That's more of my style.

Well, how do you judge that as inauthentic? I'm not actually in Germany. So I don't think this is authentic because I went to a German market in Chicago thinking I'd be in Germany and I couldn't go. Guys, you'll never believe what happened when I went to a German market that wasn't in Germany. It's so inauthentic. Is that your Valley Girl? I'm just trying to get the...

It's like my online reviewer voice of person who read TikTok. Oh, influencer. I got you. It is. It's the online influencer voice. Yes. I got you. Guys, I went to Venice and I went to the water and I didn't expect there to be so much water.

It's so inauthentic. Like, welcome to learning what sea level rising is. Welcome. No, I'm kidding. All right. Five audit is next.