Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #304: Who could still play their way on to the World Cup roster?

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Greg and Belz talk through the 16 locks, the 5 or 6 probables, and the handful of players who could play their way onto the roster for Qatar by winning the four or five remaining spots for a field player. Nearly three-quarters of the episode is a striker discussion.Please consider supporting Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the award-winning scuffed podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. We are here to talk about the roster for the World Cup in November and specifically who can play their way onto it. So we're talking about players who aren't locks or even necessarily have the inside track who are in positions this fall to work their way in. We've got a juicy controversy simmering at the striker position. Let's get right into it, Greg. I'm ready to. I'm ready for actual regular season striker action. The chat boards are lighting up these days on Brandon Vasquez and Jesus Ferreira, Ricardo Pepey, Jordan Pfeffock.

I think there's still, there's some Daryl D'Rodil Dicay partisans out there still. Maybe not very many of them. But I want to, I feel like this is what everybody's talking about right now. and it's really one of very few positions up for grabs on the roster. How are you looking at the situation? I'm looking at it as a lot of unfinished assessments that we need to make and pretty limited time to do it between... 60 days?

The 180 minutes left in the September camp, and then we are at the World Cup. So Ferreira is a lock, right? I mean, we'll try to go through and say who all the locks are in a second, but I wanted to do the striker thing first. Ferreira's a lock. I think that's right. I don't think there's any way that he'll get played out.

I don't think he's a lock to succeed by any stretch. It's one of these things where, you know, our running bit has been that we've been able to just put all of the striker pool in a hat and you can just pick any of them. I've always been partial to Ferreira. I was an early Ferreira adopter just because of his aesthetic mostly. I definitely had some concerns about him. He's assuaged some of those concerns. but not necessarily all of them.

So it's entirely possible that we go in with Ferrer as our lock and 60 minutes into the Wales game, we're like, this is not working and we're going to need to, you know, like make a change for the remainder of the tournament. I'll tell you what my scenario for it not looking like it's not working is going to be, and it's really simple. It's that he just keeps getting body off the ball.

He's too small and won't be able to deal with centerbacks at that level. Is that one of your concerns or what, are your concerns? So it'd either be that, it'd be like a combination of that or like his, while he's being even semi-bodied off the ball, he literally just can't bring the ball under his control. Yeah. Because that's, that's his value, right? I mean, he presses well enough. I mean, he presses well. Don't get me wrong. But his, the real way he's adding here, if he's going to add relative to the rest of the pool, is what we expect him to be able to do when the ball comes into him. And that is to be able to play with the tidiness of, of an attacking midfielder, um, while

a lot of very good attacking pieces are moving around him. And if he's not doing that, uh, and, you know, and it's bad. Like, if he's drowning,

then that's it. He's probably going to be out and he probably, orderline falls off the chart for the rest of the tournament. For the rest of his life. So we just, we just need to be like prepared for that. Like there's no way we should be like, oh,

well, this is, this piece, uh, will definitely work for a 21 year old who's never, um, you know, had to try to do it at that level before.

I noticed he had a little bit of a, uh, second striker role in the Dallas's game over the weekend. He and Franco Haro were both on the field at the same time. So I think those concerns are legitimate is basically what I'm saying. Yeah, and that's happened a lot of Dallas with just because Ferrer plays 90 minutes and I think they consider him, you know, probably their best attacking midfielder as well. So when Hara comes on, Frere doesn't come off because they want him still on the field.

So he just drops a little bit. Haro leads the line and he, Ferrer has even more freedom to come back. So, yeah, so I doubt we would use him in that role. It seems unlikely if we're going to take him off. It's not going to be like, oh, well, we'll actually take Pulisic off and add Pepe on so that Frere can remain in an attacking role. If he's not doing it, he's coming off the field. Right.

I think that's about where we are right now for the national team and where Ferrer stands. I do think he will be a lock to be in the roster because I don't think there's enough room essentially for him to fail his way off of the team before then. Like he could fail his way off of the team in guitar, but not before then. So I think it's safe to call him a lock. But that's why I consider it so wide open is because he's so unproven at that level that even, even as he's the prohibitive starter, if he even is, do we even know he is? I don't know. I don't know.

I suspect Barraltar doesn't even really know yet. Like we still talk about him like he is, in part maybe because he, you know, started the, you know, started the ultimate. important Panama game in the final qualifying window. And then he was the only sort of holdover from the striker pool into the June camp. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Berhalter has him as the first choice. Pappy started two out of the three final games. And at least one of those games was going to also be important. It turned out to be the Mexico game.

So that was a big deal. And then, you know, in the past, there have been past times where, you know, the fan base has kind of worked its way into a narrative. Reggie Cannon was a good example where everyone kind of just assumed Canon was ahead of Yedlin in Burrhalter's mind and on all their spreadsheets. And it turned out that maybe that was never really the case. Maybe Burralter always still had Yedlin ahead of canon and still does to this day. The other thing is Ferreira was one of the holdovers in the June camp, the only holdover in the June camp. And then the other strike who came in, Haji Wright, say what you will about the circumstances he was thrown into.

He did not look that great. And then Berthelter made a point to sort of criticize him after, or like, like after the last game or something, which indicated, you know, probably we're not going to see right again. So, so that's, I guess that adds to the reasons to think that Ferreira

is the, is the prohibitive starter, but yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure either. So what it comes down to again is, I'm totally comfortable calling Ferreira a lock for the roster.

He's going to be on there. So who, who's next? Is Pepe? Pepe's probably not a lock. I mean, he's barely even playing in preseason in Augsburg, but he's probably going to be on the roster, right?

This is where it gets super dicey, right? It's going to depend on Burhalter's willingness to take chances with players he's not as familiar with because Pepey played the lion's share of number nine minutes through World Cup qualifying, which is ironic because his entry into the team, his integration kind of echoes what would need to happen if he's not a lock after all.

Right, like if Pepe's not a lock, it means we're probably going to introduce somebody new at the 11th hour, which is exactly how Pepe made his way into the national team in World Cup qualifying, where he hadn't played a single minute for the senior national team leading up to the qualifying campaign. We are in desperate times away to Honduras, and we decide to turn to the 19-year-old, totally unproven player. And so Berhalter was willing to take that risk, and that's a similar risk he would need to take if we introduce, for example, Brandon Vosquez into the team for the World Cup.

Yeah. Just to refresh everyone's memory, Ricardo Pepey scored the game winner in that game. And yeah, it's kind of like a tale of two halves for the whole team, but he had a pretty poor first half and an excellent second half. And then he played, I thought, you know, he scored two goals against Jamaica, and then what, he didn't score again after that.

He scored those three goals and then he never scored another goal. But I thought, you know, we were discussing this earlier offline. I thought he was pretty good against Mexico at home and also against Mexico away. He was pretty good. Not fantastic, but allows some connectivity in the attacking path. So I'm not going to be sad, even if he's not playing much for Augsburg, which he's probably not going to be. It's the way it looks right now. I'm still going to be satisfied with his presence in the...

in the roster if he's there. I'm kind of a peppy partisan though. I'm totally fine with it. I think I said maybe even a couple months ago, if you told me right now, or if you told me back then in June, that the three for the World Cup were already decided and it was going to be Ferreira, Pepey, and Pfeck.

I'd be like, cool, let's run with it. I'm not convinced that any of the three of them will really like take the tournament in their hands. But I think they are, they get a comment. competent passing grade, and I'm good with it. I do think that there is at least a chance we could find some improvements over the next two months. And this is kind of what this whole episode is about, is which players are in a position to play their way into it.

Who could play their way above some guys who have the inside track? And this is where I just think that while Pepe sets a decent floor, those Mexico performances were solid. There definitely are some guys who could impress just a little bit more, just enough. that they get into camp in September, and then who knows from there? Yeah. So I totally agree with you. Like,

Peppy has not been bad. I'm not trying to trash Pepey. I don't think he's been bad. Nothing he has done for the national team in the qualifiers has in any way been disqualifying. It's just going to be a matter of like there might be some, there might be a few cases out there that just become too difficult to ignore, just to test out.

And I know we don't have a ton of testing time, but we do have a little. I don't think it's as like imminent of a situation where that final September camp is so precious that we literally can't bring in another extra striker to kick some tires. Should we talk about PFOC or Vasquez first? Let's talk about Vasquez first just because it follows on the heels of that potential like MLS extended camp following their regular season.

Okay, Brandon Vasquez, if you've been living under a rock, is the striker for FC Cincinnati sort of came out of nowhere in the last 18 months or so came up in the Atlanta United system for at least part of his youth born in California played for Atlanta United too

I watched some of those games back then when I was trying to figure out whether Andrew Carlton was going to be the next great 10 on the global soccer stage he was not And actually, Vasquez looked pretty bad back in those days. It was not fun to watch him or that team, really. But he's definitely turned it around.

He has the look of a striker. He's got the frame of a striker. He's been fearless in the box, 13 goals this season for Cincinnati. And maybe tell us what the underlying numbers say, because that's the more important thing. So the underlying numbers say that Brandon Vasquez is, clearly ahead of the rest of the domestic hat. And this, again, the running bit from last year

was that all of our domestic striker pool was interchangeable, including Ricardo Pepe. We were all super excited about him, but even as he was breaking out for the U.S., in those early qualifiers in his debut, and then the Jamaica game right after, you know, we were still saying, hey, his underlying numbers aren't that good.

So it could just be a matter of like a couple of hot moments. He's on this heater. and, you know, the other thing, obviously, weighing into that, I think at the time he was 17. So it's like, okay, he could make a jump up. But the numbers we have to work with are basically his MLS Dallas numbers because he doesn't really have Augsburg numbers. And I'm not even trying to ding him for that, but you also can't, like, reward him for that. We don't know if any of these other guys would be able to jump into the Bundesliga and do anything,

but we do know Pepe isn't doing it. So we're not going to say he's, you know, an excellent Bundesliga striker because he's not yet, which is fine. We have his numbers from when he was an 18-year-old at Dallas. us and they were like they were actually kind of run of the mill that's that was the whole that was the whole bit right like all of our ML strikers are in the exact same numbers bracket well brandon vasquez is not in that bracket this year he's like a full 10th of a goal or assist better per game uh than everyone else in the hat was last year and that basically everyone in the hat is this

year so that's that's a lot like that's worth investigating because if that's real if you can add a tenth of a goal in one position per game. Like that's a huge, that's a huge step up in a game where you're trying to create every edge you can. Now, I know you can go see

what Matt Doyle is saying about Brandon Vasquez. There's a lot, there's a lot of people talking about what he's doing well. But like, what do you see as his, like how is he getting that extra tenth of goal a game, goal or assist? So there is a lot of, there is a lot of like a fox in the box.

I mean, you guys have been talking about that on the Monday reviews. He does have, he does have a tremendous element of like a box foxiness, I think, to put it, to put it as the way Waki does. Like he does that very well. Like, it's little things. It's nuanced, but he does control the pitch very well in those last few yards of the field, which are vital for maximizing your chances of the ball falling correctly to you, right? It's not just luck. It's if you control more of the field, the likelihood that the ball falls in that zone that you're controlling increases. So you see him sealing defenders off his body as the balls wide.

You see him, you know, floating into the right pocket in those pockets. Again, tiny. But if you can double the size of a thing, go from two yards to four yards, that will pay off to the tune of about a tenth of a goal per game. And I'm kind of with Vince on here. I think his feet are a little bit nicer than you are maybe giving him credit for, Bels. Okay, yeah, I feel like I'm on an island here now But I did go back I did go back and watch like six

No, I'm not gonna exaggerate I watched four of his games last night Four of his all of his received passes in four games Last night Because I've been getting pushed back on many fronts On this point And I totally stand by my point Like he's, I'm not saying he's terrible

But he's receiving the ball to feet or receiving the ball in any way, about 12 times a game. So it varies a little bit, it varies with everybody. I mean, even Ferreira varies. He'll get 37, he'll receive 37 passes one game and then like nine the next. It varies in the game of soccer.

With Vasquez, it varies much less. He's almost always under 20 received passes a game. And often, much less, thus you get an average of 12 over the last 15 games. He's making a loose pass. Like, I'd call it an unforced air. you know, conservatively to

four times a game. And that's kind of a lot when you're only touching the ball 12 times. And I just think, so he's really strong and I think that's a big difference between him and Ferreira.

You know, that big six foot three frame, his shoulders are broad as the Mississippi River and he's... And he's... You couldn't have used an Ohio River. Bells, there are so many Ohio rivers and you had to stick with the Mississippi. I had to stick with the big one.

And like that's, I, I recognize the value of that. I recognize the value of his fearlessness in the penalty area and his ability to get on the end of chances. And put him, and he's missing, he's missing chances too. Everybody, every striker does. I think that's even a positive, you know, there, there, there are more goals that he could have scored in, in this season. But that's, I'm just going to, I have to jump in.

I'm obligated to point out the insanity of that when he's at, like, I mean, he's actually way overperforming his underlying numbers to the tune of like a quarter of a goal game. So he's he's on a heater for finishing. So we shouldn't actually expect his finishing to maintain. Right. I'm not trying to get into the conversion thing. I'm saying I'm saying he got into it. You're deep into it.

I'm not just going to side step it. Let me back away and just say when you watch his games, you can see that he's getting in good spots a lot, not just on the times where he scores goals. That's fair. But I do think his technical ability in tight space is, is not on, it's not on Ferreira's level. It's not on, it's, I don't think it's on Pepe's level either. It's, it's probably pretty similar to PFOC, you know? Like that's a, that's a pretty, I think a fair comparison.

Why do you think I'm wrong about how nice his feet are? Well, I think that's going to be the, the determining factor for how well he could fit into a group of 23 is whether or not he would force us to change the way that Erhalter intends on playing because I think when you, if you consider Hesu's a starter, if you think of Pepe as his direct backup, if Hesuz gets hurt or if he's just not getting the job done, if you throw in Pfok, all the times Pfok has played for us, we have completely changed the way we play or the way we use our striker. And I don't know, again, I don't know if that's like explicit direction in the, you know, in the pregame or if it's just working around players' tendencies once

they're on the field. But we don't do that with Pepey, obviously. When Pepe comes in for Ferreira, we still look more or less the same. There will be some differences in, you know, the way the depth and Ferreira will tend to get even deeper than Pepey to drop back and receive the ball. But overall, I would say the plan doesn't change much. So that would be the big question for me for Vasquez, if he's going to try to actually take Pepe's spot or Ferreira's even to be the starting striker, is whether he could do those

things well enough that we wouldn't have to change the rest of our game plan and it would just be a if you would consider him close enough to be a like for like and he would just step up and be a slightly better version of what we already have and I don't know if he is I don't know if he is but again I think it was I think it was a miss to not have had him in camp in June in part just because there were so much room for him we brought two strikers to that extended window right and he wasn't he wouldn't have been taking anyone's spot because Because D.K. was hurt. Pfok was hurt. Even Josh Sargent, if you're still holding out hope there, he was hurt. We chose to give Pepe a break. There was just this giant hole for Vasquez to be the obvious guy to step into. And even if the minutes were already allotted to Ferreira and Haji for Haji's audition, I mean, 15 days in camp would have been good, I think. If he's now going to come into September camp, it will actually, like you will, there's no way around it. It was a miss not to have had. 15 of those days in camp to bring him into the September camp.

Yeah. I agree with that. I guess I do think he's going to look more like Pfok than he is like Pepey when he comes on. And maybe that's okay because he's so, he's been so effective in the penalty area. And when I say effective in the penalty area, I'm not talking about conversion. I'm just talking about his ability to get like good shooting opportunities. but people who haven't watched Brandon Vasquez, if they see him for the first time run out there in the World Cup,

and don't be surprised if his first three touches are five feet away from him. All right. I'm not backing down. And again, we're still in this, even with Bosquez. Five yards away from him, I mean, yeah. Even with Vasquez being way ahead of where the rest of the hat was, statistically, the domestic pool at least, the pool playing domestically last year.

Yeah, there's certain that that's not enough that he's a, he's guaranteed to be an upgrade. So I don't think that that's absolutely the case. I just think he's far enough ahead statistically that it would be almost like negligent not to see if he is that real upgrade. Because if he is at either the starting striker spot potentially, the backup, or for that third, you know, situational big man striker, like I think there's enough there that we got to test it out.

Yeah. I'm for it. I'm for testing it out. I think, so Pfok played in the DFB Pocall yesterday, scored a really nice goal. I mean, are we calling it an overhead goal? It's close. I'm okay going on an overhead. He was not facing the goal when he struck the ball.

No. So I'm okay calling it an overhead goal. Yeah, it was a cross that was sort of- It's acrobatic. Yeah, it was very acrobatic. Deflected off the crosser's feet from the left, and Pivok's making a near-post run. The ball kind of floats into the air towards him. He adjusts his body and then, I mean, overhead kicks it from like three yards out,

totally takes the goalkeeper by surprise, puts some top spin on it so it stays down. And that's the equalizer that Union Berlin needed to stay alive and then beat Kemnitzer in extra time. Right. So I think Pfeck already has a good leg to stand on for at worst being that situational striker for the World Cup. again, he gets into good spots, man. He just, he knows where to be. He was doing it for two seasons in Switzerland. He's done it for the national team.

And for whatever, you know, happened in the Azteca, he was in the right spot. He was right there on the goal mouth, right at the gate. So that's the important thing for me. He wasn't a worse finisher in that game than he was yesterday when he has a super improvisational acrobatic, spectacular goal. Um, he's that guy. So, uh, I do think that he would, if we tried to start him, it would change, it would change a lot of things we do that I don't think burrhalter is, is really willing to do.

I'm not super up for it right now, uh, based on what we've seen from some other guys who and what they can do in the starting role. Uh, but I, right now, I assume PFock is, I don't know, where do you, where do you think Burrhalter has him? I don't. I have no idea, honestly. I don't. Uh, I think, I, um, I think. I think it's a really confusing situation and probably is confusing for Burrhalter too.

I guess the question on Vasquez, I want to ask you directly, do you think Vasquez, on a scale of 1 to 10, if one is he's a like-for-like replacement with PFOck and 10 is he's a like-for-like replacement for like sort of the best version of Jesus Ferreira, what is he? He's closer to PFAC. I don't think there's any question. I don't have any I don't have too much doubt The issue becomes like if Ferreira just can't do the Ferreira stuff at all Right

And it doesn't matter right so then it's like okay well he's he's not Fasquez isn't gonna like totally fall over the ball hopefully So he can just come in and be more of like the traditional hold up player You know but I don't know where do you land on it I mean like put him out of three probably three three three for Ferreira No, no I mean This is not a rating scale

It's just how close are you to the type of player that Pfok is And how close are you to the type of player that Ferreira is I would say if five means you're like a perfect blend of the two You're halfway between him I would put him at a three So he's like you know Seven tenths of the way Okay we're going to continue exactly like Pfok

Yeah Gotcha In terms of the way he allows the team to play with his ability in the buildup and in tight space. Okay, okay, that's fair. So then the question becomes like, or one of the many questions is, for PFAC to like solidify a spot on the plane,

what is he needed to do? Do you think he can get there just by attrition? Like if everyone else just sort of stands pat and doesn't have huge breakout seasons, can PFAC just hold on to that third spot if he even has it? If Pepe gets completely railroaded this fall and really isn't playing hardly at all, that's probably the best news for Pfok.

I don't know what he needs to do. It does feel a little bit mystical, like what did Greg Brawter have for breakfast the day he decides the roster. So I actually think it's less about Pepey. I feel like Pfeck's role won't depend on Pepey. I feel like I think Vasquez could nudge Pfok out of the pool or out of the roster. if he gets a September look and actually does really well. Because Vosquez can be that big striker option, right?

Yeah. I don't think Pepe can really be that in a way that makes sense, you know, on a 26-man roster for the entire World Cup. So I feel like Pepey is almost less influential here than some of the other guys on this list we're about to talk about, which would be like a Daryl D.K., Hajie Wright, some of those players who are, you know, definitely not on the,

Hesu's Ferrer end of the spectrum, but who could come in and be late-game targets. I mean, should we talk about some of them and what we saw them do over the weekend? I didn't really watch what Haji did. I mean, I know he had a pretty unremarkable performance against Dortmund and a friendly. DK did make some impact off the bench for West Brom. That'd be the one, right? And the impact he made was like exactly the kind of thing you'd be looking for for, you know, we're chasing the goal. Our possession, you know, deliberate stuff isn't working that well.

D.K. Ragdolls the centerback and is in on running at Zach Steffin's near post, right? Like that kind of thing plays. Like that's something you can throw your last hope in and be like, I don't know, maybe D.K. can make something happen and smash it in. I mean, that's, you know, Greg Burrhalter's done a lot of interviews in the last month or so. And so, but that's one question I think would be worth asking him is like getting him to really get in the weeds on what is he looking, what is he really looking at when he's watching these strikers play on the weekend? Like, what is he looking for? And because I, I'm not sure I fully know. You'd have to almost tie it to roster construction. Like when you see D.K. do that.

Does it matter? Or is it like, now he has to. to be able to do X, Y, and Z, even though, you know, this could be a situational thing. I'm just not interested unless he can do, like, I don't have a spot on the roster for just that trait. That's what I'm curious about. Because we're all talking about as though that spot exists and people are fighting for it, but it might not.

I mean, logic would dictate it exists. You would want a striker who can come in and be physical and sort of get something done in a bit of a sloppy game or late in a game. So you think Pepe's more safe because really all these other guys are fighting for one spot? Yeah, to be honest, I do. I think if we consider Ferreira as Berhalter's guy right now. If it's not Ferreira, I think Pepe might be Burrhalter's guy right now. They both let him play in the way in his mind he's ready to start playing.

And the experiments he's tried with P.Fox starting, with Haji Wright starting where he wasn't thrilled, none of them resulted in us playing that same style. So I think if he wants to play the style he wants, those are his two front runners. And it just comes down to whether or not, you know, there are other real long shots that would need huge, like, changes in their club setup, whether it's Josh Sargent or like a Matthew Hoppy. But those guys just seem even farther off because they're not actually doing it right now, right? Vasquez is doing it right now. Pfokk is doing it. Wright is kind of doing it, or he was on a heater in the spring.

but then when he got his shot, he kind of got taken down a level or two by Burrhalter postgame. So it does feel like it's, yeah, Pepi and Ferreira for that primary role. And then if it exists, a separate tryout for the late game role. Let's have a way to think about it. It's important to remember that we haven't had a fully informed and prolific number nine in Europe, which is an important qualifier going into the World Cup, basically ever. credit to Jeremiah O'Shan for pointing this out. Jeremiah is the Supreme Commander of Sondrette Hart and SB Nation Soccer, I think.

And also you, Greg, you sort of pointed this out over the years, specifically with regard to Josie Altador. But let's start with 2002. Brian McBride had only scored two goals for his club in the previous 12 months before that World Cup. And then he was a hero. Yeah, like three goals in the World Cup. and McBride's situation was kind of interesting.

We'll dive into a rabbit hole because that's what we do here. But he had, you know, he was at Columbus crew in 2001. And then at the end of that, he went on loan to England, I think like a first division team, Preston,

North End, David Moyes, I think coach at the time. And he got hurt. Like he got hurt in the very first game in a typical McBride way, like a huge collision. I think he had to have a river moved. Like he's a hard man.

So, son he didn't play basically the rest of the season he got in at the very end of the season back with Preston. And then what happened was, this is crazy for the U.S. team. When he got back, he came back from his loan in January. But instead of like going back to Columbus, he basically just was a full-time U.S. men's national team player because 2002 was an insane, like, lead up to the World Cup. They played nine friendlies before that June World Cup from February through May.

And in January, they played the entire 2002 Gold Cup, which took place in January. So they had 14 national team matches in 2002 prior to a June World Cup. So he basically wasn't a club player for the 12 months prior to the World Cup. So it was kind of impossible for him to be in form in that sense. Okay, well, I retract that because he scored a lot of goals for the national team in those friendlies and in the in the Gold Cup too. I don't know exactly how many, but he was scoring at a pretty decent clip. yeah I mean so he was so it was just a matter of like he was he wasn't informed because he couldn't ever he wasn't fully healthy for a lot of it

and then when he came back it was just start and stop national team Columbus national every week he just switched switch zip code so so that was kind of our but that was our striker situation going into the tournament it may have been settled but it wasn't like he was riding on a goal scoring high by any stretch okay all right so maybe 2002 is a little bit At least there's some caveats there. 2006 is McBride had scored nine goals the previous season for Fulham. So that's pretty good.

There's a little bit of an outlier. I mean, when you say pretty good, like, that's basically the best big five league season that U.S. strikers almost ever had in the U.S. or it's in the top two or three. So, you know, that's why we're talking about FIFAC and what he might do it in the Bundesliga. It's like if he has a 10-goal season, if he has four goals before the World Cup, he's on his way, he's on pace. Do like the best season ever for a U.S. striker.

Yeah. Yeah, nine. I shouldn't have downplayed that. Nine goals in the Premier League is good. 2010, we had Josie Altador coming in as our starter, and he had scored one goal in the previous season for Whole City. 2014, he had scored two goals in the previous season for Sunderland. that year we had Wando too go ahead well I was just saying in 2010 was when you know we lost Charlie Davies ahead of the World Cup oh yeah and then the replacements we brought on we did go

the hot hand route right like we brought in Robbie Finley and we brought in Hurt Gomez Edson bottle because those guys were hot at the time in the lead-up and that's who we rode with and it's easy to say with those guys didn't accomplish anything but you know Josie also didn't do as much during that World Cup as we maybe needed. I mean, he played his role and helped open things up for Dempsey and Donovan. But anyway, it's just another way of sort of showing how we try to solve these problems and how we try to paper over our lack of striker depth. Yeah, so I guess if we end up with, you know, any combination of these six or seven options,

it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be that much different from what we've been doing historically. In fact, you know, Ferreira and Vasquez together have 25 goals in MLS so far this season. So it's a lot of goal scoring. But that's still the worry. I think that's still the worry that people have

is that, you know, Robbie Finley was tearing up MLS and he came in and just wasn't able to be a factor. Wando was kind of tearing up MLS in 2014. obviously in the XG era we know that we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from his lone shot that he took in his like 50 minutes of World Cup action about whether he's at the right level or not

to finish in these games but that is definitely I think the worry people have is that these guys just won't get it done which again I share that worry it's just because I don't think we have a we don't have a proven top league striker we just don't have that in our in our pool How much do you, I mean, we've spent 40 minutes on the striker.

So how concerned are you about pressing ability? Like, Pfok, you know, that's been, people are always saying, well, Pfok's pressing a little more for Union Berlin than he was at young boys. I'm not sure that's 100% true, but maybe it is a little bit. Is that going to? Well, we don't, I'm skeptical just of any conclusions that people draw from preseason whatsoever. I mean, that's long been my thing. is just sort of ignore those games almost completely. So even though we enjoyed Brennan-Earon since three assists for Leeds United,

we have to know that preseason just doesn't mean very much. And that will all go out the door after 45 minutes of regular season play where we'll all make actual conclusions and set them in stone. But I do think pressing is very important for the way the U.S. plays. Like I do think that at the moment, that effectively sets the floor of what we're going to get out of our striker. And Frere does it really well. Pepe, I think, has gotten the cues down.

Pfok, we haven't seen really do it that much because he's played in limited situations and very few of them required a lot of pressing in the games he's played in. So I'm not sure. I think he would be willing to. It's really just going to come down to whether or not whoever we bring along,

if we're bringing new players, have time to sort of learn the cues and triggers and cover shadows that they need to be responsible for, to be honest. Okay. All right, we should move on to a different position. Okay. Did we leave anyone out? Who did we leave out that's going to be?

I mean, we left out, Sergeant. He got name checked by, I mean, you did mention him briefly. He got named checked by Berthor in one of those interviews in the last few weeks. But I don't know. We talked about him a lot on the Monday review. Sign up for the Patreon if you want to hear that. I don't want to brag, but in all seriousness, I do think Waki and Vince and I have figured out a pretty good formula for that episode every week,

and it's worth the $5 a month most people pay to get it every week. You can get them for $2 a month also by joining our Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Oh, it's fantastically entertaining, and it brings you up to speed on pretty much the entire pool every week. It's a huge boost for my, for my, like, ability to follow the players. Thank you, Greg. We should just go through and do the locks and then, you know, talk about,

I mean, Stryker is, I think, the one the position with the most to talk about. So it's fair that we spent three quarters of the episode on that. But there's, there are other positions. Goalkeeper, who do you think are the locks? And does the third goalkeeper even really matter that much? it only does it it only does if if stephen's considered a lock is that is that a right right way to put it um i think turner and stephen are locks i don't know if stephen should be um but with burhalter as a coach i think stephen's in so uh if if if turner's going to play and if stephen would play if turner

doesn't play if turner gets hurt or you know red carded somehow then the third keeper does not matter So I think we'll probably pick a guy that just is good with the team. So my guess would be that's Sean Johnson. Okay. All right. But we should all be watching Ethan Horvath very carefully because I think he is an excellent goalkeeper who could easily be in our top two of actual best goalkeepers. I just am not sure that will matter for his ability to get onto the roster. Yeah.

Somebody who's watching Stefan very carefully is Vince, who has posted some videos. from Stefan's performance over the weekend. There's a notchalance there that is kind of strange to see. Did you want to say anything about that? Well, we, with, I mean, again, I don't want to make too many conclusions off of the first game of the season. The good thing is, over the many games that the championship plays before, before November, if anyone, if Stefan or Horvath are actual, like, liabilities,

we should find that out in no uncertain terms. So that's actually what I'm thankful for. I'm glad both those guys are in positions to play a lot because you can't hide. If you can't do it, if you can't really do it, you're going to be caught out. So that's the good news. Yep.

Yeah, looks like Stefan's going to play every week. Fullback, Deluxe Sergenio Dest at Barcelona and Jedi Robinson at Fulham. Yeah, and I think Gedlin, I think you guys are right, the Monday Review crew, I believe. I think Gedlin's got the inside track. one of the only

he would be probably the only World Cup veteran to make this roster for the U.S. And I think his bond with Wayas enough to put him on the plane. Mountain boys. Yeah, I don't know if I agree that Yedlinch. I mean, I agree with what you just said.

I don't know if I think he should be a lock. I mean, he did look kind of rough over the weekend. But I don't know that any, it's kind of like the. hat analogy. All the right backs are kind of hard to distinguish for me. Shack Moore is the one that I would like to see more of, but I don't know. I don't know if that's possible, and I'm not going to start a riot about it if he isn't, if he isn't given another chance, you know? I guess it'll work like this. We'll get two months of decent comparable data

between Yedlin and Shacks since they're playing in the same league now. Yeah. But we're just running through the locks right now, right? So I got us off track even talking about Yedlin. We've got two goalkeeper locks, two fullback locks. We're up to four, centerbacks. Who do we got? Well, we're going, and then we're talking about who's fighting for those spots, too, as we go. Okay.

Do you think we should? I got you. Yeah. Yeah. So fighting for those one, so you're saying they're one to two slots at fullback. I think so. I think, because I think there's ways to construct a roster, and this is where the, you know, Burrhalter can shuffle some openings around to be like, how does he,

want to fill it. But if he doesn't love any of his left backs, then it sure seems like we're not going to bring five fullbacks just to do it. Yeah. I guess one question is, are we going to bring a backup left back and like a pure backup left back? There's part of me that says, well, we should just, it's fine to just say we bring Shaq Moore.

He can play left back in a pinch. He has done it in the last 12 months for his club. not a lot, but he has done it. Or, you know, Kell and Acosta could deputize it left back if need be. This is if Anthony Robinson gets injured because I think Anthony Robinson should be probably playing 270 minutes in the group stage

unless he does get hurt or, you know, unless we're up 3-0 or something and just want to see out of game. Yeah, no, that's totally fair. And this is where we can kind of talk about floor versus ceiling as well for getting roster construction. purposes. We're not trying to improve our ceiling at fullback, right? We're not going to take a high, high ceiling risk player here because the only way they're going to play, if we're chasing a goal and we need that, like, who's at least capable of something, it's just going to be Jedi. We're just

leaving Jedi in. We're not bringing in George Bellow to be like, we really need a goal so we'll bring in specialist attacking fullback, George Bellow. We're only using a fullback if Jedi goes down, at which point we do just want the highest floor possible. Who's not going to hurt us? Uh, so for fullback the floor ceiling question is very much who's the floor and if we don't find a suitable one then we just probably won't bring a backup left back I mean Sam vines is in consideration I guess uh starting to seems like he's starting to play well for royal entwarp in Belgium there's a whole raft of younger guys yeah we still have Joe scally uh playing and and you just have to be willing to give him another shot after a shaky debut but uh shaky debuts are kind of a

common thing. So you could weigh that in and say if he's still looking dependable in the Bundesliga, no reason not to give him another examination in September. Yeah. Yeah, I guess Scali and Vines are probably the closest to, like, being able to set a floor. I don't think the, I don't think Bello sets that high of a floor. there, you know, some names that are bandied about, Joe Jonathan Gomez and Kevin Perettis, not really even full-fledged first-team players yet.

It's so hard to know what kind of floor they set. Yeah, it would take a huge shift in their standing with their clubs, I think, for them to have a shot here. Okay. Which would be wildly exciting if it happened. Yeah, yeah. I think future is bright for both of those guys, but, um, but yeah just a little a little early on on the right side it's uh it's canon and jackmore right who are might yeah i don't think i don't think there's anyone else really even in contention

it would again it would have to be like uh joe scally just being a depth piece because he could also be a left back depth piece yeah i mean that that is something that that works in scally's favor I still feel like I'd almost rather see Acosta left back than any of those guys Even though he's not You know he's not a perfect left back of course But you know he's not going to get totally rinsed out there

Famous last words I don't know that I think it does come down to For some reason Acosta just feels like You will meet the moment Yeah Yes that's exactly it That's exactly it

Anything else to say about the full back No, just that that's still the wild card, but it's also the one that hopefully we won't actually ever have to see the level of the player who's going to be backing up. Serenio Das or Jedi Robinson. Yeah, I'm really rooting for for Shackmore to have a strong couple of months and get on to that roster because he can, like I said, can play a little left back. Centerback. Who are the locks? All right. So we've got Zimmerman and Richards going.

I'm comfortable putting both those in the lot category. Burralter himself kind of teared out our centerbacks, and he included Long and CCV with that first group, which I think probably scans for me based on, you know, what we're dealing with with the injury situation. And this just is not a position that I feel like we'll be rotating at all,

barring injury. So it's like Zimmerman and Richards, in my mind, will hopefully play the entire World Cup. Now, that doesn't always happen. In 2014, I think we used all four of our centerbacks because of various guys cramping up. But it's not, plan A isn't to rotate your centerbacks, I don't think. So it's pretty important that Richards get some minutes at Crystal Palace, I think,

some significant minutes over the next few months. It would be a little bit scary to have him coming in really cold. But I don't know. Is it any scarier than Aaron Long starting at centerback? I mean, I don't think so. So, you know, Long's value is, or what is perceived value is going to be is just being reliable defensively, right? We almost go in knowing Aaron Long is not going to help us in our ability to attack with the

soccer ball. Is that fair? Yes. But the part that I'm not sure is fair is he actually reliable defensively. Yeah, that's definitely an open question. and or at least is he any more reliable than other candidates. I don't know if we have we just might not possess like a full on World Cup level shutdown defender. But the distribution one is definitely a real thing and it's one that I really do think hurts us quite a bit because the way we're going to be trying to play against some of the teams that probably will sit back a little bit.

We are going to, I think, need a little bit higher of a level of, of, incisive passing than we're going to get from Aaron Long. So CCV, CCV is, I think, a little bit better passer than Long, but, I mean, if it's, if it's Zimmerman Richards Long and CCV,

that's fine with me. I don't know. Who else is fighting for a spot here? Is there anybody? Well, roster construction-wise, I mean, there might even be a fifth centerback regardless.

And I think one of the guys who could be playing his way into that would be James Sands, who's starting as we speak, for Rangers. but it's it doesn't seem like there's that much right like uh like you have mark mackenzie i think is your fallback because he's got a ton of time with the group and um outside of that uh mexico gold cup fine or a nation's league final um he's been sort of neutral right he's been a neutral defender he hasn't he hasn't been totally exposed at any point so i think he can

become that floor setting piece uh where we probably don't go any any lower than that um And then it just becomes like an Eric Palmer Brown, if he can play above that level. If John Brooks just goes to San Jose earthquakes and lights up the league, I don't think you could ignore that. Tim Ream, does he have a chance? I don't think so. I guess I'm not super optimistic that he's going to see a lot of minutes. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe they've come around on his Premier League level and we'll actually leave him in. And last time they were up after three games, their owner was like sending out apologies to the fans saying, we'll bring in new players, we promised, because they'd given up nine goals in 180 minutes. And Ream didn't see the field again until like the last week of the season. So I don't know. I don't know if they've changed their evaluation

and think that he's now capable of it or not. But I'm not optimistic. Okay. All right. Central midfield, defensive midfield, this can be a quick one because really, nobody can play their way into this spot, right? I don't think so. I think it's Adams and Acosta, and, you know, if James Sands is like

working in at centerback, it's because he can also be this player in a pinch. Or, you know, as we saw in the last window, we just shift to more of a double pivot and bring on Giorina or Brendan Aronson as more of an attacking midfielder and solve it that way. Yeah. I think that's going to be the solution. Because we have such a crowd of attacking players who probably deserve to see minutes in a World Cup, well, you know, they could credibly see minutes. If Adams-Racosta gets injured before the World Cup, you know, like a long-term injury,

I think we're, you know, it's sort of just back to the drawing board. I don't know. I don't know if anybody is sort of even close to knocking on the door there. I don't think so. I think if we lose either of those guys, the backup plan to the other one, I think, you know, you just would, if Adams gets hurt, you'd probably just run with Acosta and see if you can keep everything else the same. But if that's not working, then the backup plan, I think, would be to move more into that double pivot.

And you just fill in the center mid, sent the empty, the now vacant center midfield spot with a Brendan Arensen. And there are worse things to do than try to solve it that way. Yeah. It's also almost kind of exciting to think about that with, you know, with Wayam-Pulisic or Raina, you know, even Raina in the midfield. So we're up to eight locks so far for the record, for where we're at. Yeah, those are Turner, Stefan, Dest, Jedi, Zimmerman Richards, Adams, and Acosta, with Yedlin and Long as what, Probables? Yeah, we'll call them Probables.

So Center Mid, we've got three more, right? West and Musa and Luca. I'm calling all of them locks. Even if Luca can't really crack into Seltavigo, I think he's done enough with the national team relative to what other people have done with that chance, with their chances, that he's in the squad in some role or other. Yeah.

There's a small voice of doubt in the back of my head that maybe he's not a lock, but yeah, I think I agree. So there's two, you think there's one or two slots up for grabs there? Probably just one, right? I mean, especially with the way Burhalter's been treating that center midfield spot where he hasn't been terribly excited about

auditioning anyone else for it. I think we've got to say that, you know, he considers a Costa a solution there. He considers, again, Aronson and most likely Raina as guys who could deputize there if we have to change up a little bit. I know Eric Williamson was in the picture

for the summer friendlies in Nations League, but didn't end up called up. So you wonder if he might have the outside chance at that last spot. After that, I don't know. I just don't see Burrhalter rating anyone else, and I don't see anyone else doing something

that's going to force him to do it. And that includes, that includes Pomacall. That includes even Busio, who's gotten his runouts for the national team. He would need to really take over the double Bundes League to stand a chance, I think. Wait, the Siri B, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, my apologies.

So what about Malik Tillman? Is he... still in the picture. I thought he did get a chance for the national team. I thought he was okay. Yeah, I don't know that it really, like you said, I don't know if it really matters, especially given the likelihood that Raina and Aronson

are going to play in the midfield. Now, Tillman's a good shout, though, just as a guy who could sneak in as a flex player, as kind of a wildcard, high-sealing type, because that is where we might look for higher ceiling. I still think it's tough because, you know, he'd be behind some of the other high-ceiling guys we have in Raina and, uh, Aronson, in sort of that kind of center midfielder, kind of attacking winger 10, number 10 role. Um, but if he's, if he's doing it for Rangers and he looked, he looked crisp in his,

in his Rangers came in him. I don't know how he's doing today. Um, but that he could sneak into the midfield loophole kind of as a, as a flex player. Uh, Rangers are losing one to zero on the 65th minute. And James Sands has a yellow card. That's all I know. All right. What about Richie Ledesma? What about Richie? If we're looking for a high ceiling player in the midfield

and he manages to do well for the next month and a half, which is the big if, just want to say that. For Ledesma? Yeah. Yeah, it's a big if. He'd probably, I mean, it doesn't seem like he's featuring too much for PSV at the moment. I know there's talk of maybe shipping him out on Lusma. loan and it's just going to be tough, right, for him to

basically impossible. Establish like, yeah, the bona fides. Because again, he's an in-betweener, so he doesn't have a great spot on the roster. And the spot that he's probably best at is our deepest, most talented spot. If he's going to be one of those players that's nominally out wide, like that's, he's got to really be doing things for PSV, not just like the occasional 10-minute cameo. like he's got to be, he's got to start being the guy for PSV

and I don't think he's the guy for PSV. Yeah, just to be clear, I mentioned that mostly just to stay on brand, you know. Stay true to our roots. One slot, maybe two there, but. Maybe zero. Maybe zero and maybe it doesn't matter that much. Let's go to the half-space merchants, the winners.

We're up to 11 locks and I think we've got four right here. And that's Pulisacraina-Aa and Aronson, kind of the big four. and then this is where it kind of gets really interesting and really discoursey. And that's the three sort of probable guys where it's Morris, Ariola, and Rolled on. It feels like they're all going to go, be on the plane. I honestly just do not know. I think it's totally possible that all three could go.

They aren't, they certainly aren't all needed, right? Like if you're just trying to game out where they would all play, this is our strongest spot, so it seems strange that we bring the most backup players to the spot that we have the most talent and depth in. Right. I guess the argument would be with, actually with both Morris and Ariola,

that they are, you know, they can stretch the lines in the way that, you know, Pulisic, Raina, and Aronson don't really do. The way it definitely stretches the lines, but Morris and Ariola do do that. Morris's, you know, you could argue has a little more pop in him when it comes to gold dangerousness than, than Aronson. I don't know.

I don't know. It's like a different, you could give a different look if you brought Morris on. I rolled on, I don't understand, but, you know, we all know he's there for eyes and vibes. And that's been the message for a long time. So this kind of goes back to the floor of her ceiling. And in the attacking sense, in the attacking like a sense, getting a high ceiling guy is worth it for me. Or is at least defensible to add a high ceiling guy to the roster. So like if you're chasing a goal and you just don't think ariola has the chops to do it,

that's where you would take a chance on sort of those, if they're having good club seasons. Some of those sort of more fringy types, like a Conrad de la Fuente or a Georgie Mahalovich or like a Nico Giochini if he's doing well. or Malich Tillman, if he's really doing it for Rangers. But they would need to show something, a lot of things, this fall, to even qualify as, like, high-ceiling guys. Like, what we know about them now wouldn't be enough to justify any of them is, like, oh, but they could do this. It'd be, like, too much of a flyer, I think.

Like, right now, if you were going to just chase a goal, you'd be like, oh, well, just, I think the, and you don't have Tim Way out of do it, or Brendan Erdson, you'd be like, okay, well, I guess Jordan Morris is going to be the gold chaser. And while it's not maybe everyone's favorite thing to do, like it's sort of the defensible choice, right? Yeah, but you're not sure Ariel is as defensible of a choice as a gold chaser? Probably not. I know he came in and was dangerous in that Canada game.

But I feel like for Burrhalter, the guy's going to be Morris first and foremost. The thing is, Ariel might be more defensible. is like if you are in a pinch injury-wise and need a winger to start, he might prefer to start Ariola over Morris and Morris might be more situational. Yeah. Again, getting into Roldon,

that's where like Roldon feels totally superfluous. Yeah. But I mean, I honestly think, like, he's, there's sort of a player coach thing going on. Like, he's there for squad cohesion and probably won't play at the World Cup, but I'd be surprised if he's not there. Yeah, no, I just feel like at that point, if you want Roldon there is that guy,

okay, fine. But then it seems double superfluous for Tav Morris and Ariola as like extra backups unless one of them is also that guy. And I don't think you need two of those guys, the Roldon, the Roldon vibes guy. I can see defending one guy who you don't plan on using, but being like, well, he's just, he's just good for the group. Like, I can kind of see that with a 26-man roster. Yeah. Well, I guess where's the sense of urgency?

Who's being left off this roster that is, that needs to be there, whose spot is being taken by a Roldon or an ariola? Right. You're just choosing to be a little bit thin, depth-wise, injury-wise, right, in other positions to bring seven nominal winger. But you can get around that, I guess, by like saying, yeah, but a couple of these wingers would be our, you know, our emergency center mids. And again, I think that's actually defensible. Like, whoever the 26th man is for this team, for our player pool, they're not going to play.

Like, they just won't. If they would play, they'd be the 25th man. Like whoever the 20, we won't get to the 26 guy. And that's why I think that right now that's Christian Raldon. And that's not even me like trying to hate on Christian Raldon. Like that's U.S. men's national team head coach, Greg Burr. Burrhalter talking because Roldan doesn't play, right?

Like even with 23-man rosters, Burhalter doesn't use Christian Roldan. Right. He got five minutes of sort of charity time at the end of a 3-0 game against Honduras. So, you know, in any actual soccer situation, Burrhalter's going to use Morris or he's going to use Ariola

before he uses Roldan. So Roldan just will not play, whether he's there or not. Right. And you could, you could definitely foresee a situation in which, like, Morris and Ariola don't play. either. Even when it's just a 23-man World Cup roster, you know, some guys don't play.

It's hard for me to get worked up about it. Not saying you are worked up about it. You don't seem very worked up. But I just don't, you know, don't really care. Unless, unless, you know, one of these youngsters has like an incredible opening two months of the season. And I'm thinking of, I am thinking of Ledesma. I know everybody thinks I'm a madman, but like Ledesma or like if he goes on loan and starts playing well. Or, you know, one of these young left backs, like Scali really locks it down. And if it becomes like a Scali versus one of these three guys that we were just talking about, then I might start to get a little frustrated about it.

But I think it's okay. And that's what it would have to be, right? It would have to be like somebody has played their way, played well enough to at least give us more depth in a spot that we're thin right now or we consider ourselves thin like left back, or even as like that James Sands type center back utility player who could really be an emergency injury option. Yeah.

And we sort of forego that to add a seventh attacking winger who, we just like them because they're good locker room guys. Like that's the only way it kind of gets into, for me, like, that's an unnecessary roster liability. Let me take that. Let me take that back. Yeah, I do agree with that. And I feel like Eric Williamson,

Eric Williamson is a player that could, I haven't watched a lot of him lately, but just my general sense of him is he's a player who could help us in a World Cup game, especially if we're, if we're dealing with some injuries, like some calamitous situation on injuries.

I mean, I 100% would rather see Williamson in the midfield than rolled on, you know? So I'd take that back. I would, I might be, a little frustrated about that. Well, and we already talked about the strikers, so that's the, that's the roster. How many locks do we have now? So we're in 16 locks, and we've got, a lot of the remaining eight spots, 10 spots,

like spoken for also. Because we got, but. Because we got as Probables, Yedlin, Long, Peppy, Roldon, Aureola, and Morris. those are the problem. Yeah, I'm still quibbling that all three of those guys are probable in the sense that I still think out of those three probably only two get in. Because I do think one of these other guys is going to, I mean, out of the other pool of players who are going to be more useful for actual roster

construction, I think one of the other ones sort of makes themselves valuable enough that we bring them and leave one of the superfluous wingers off. Okay. Well, even if we do that, even if we do that, that's 21 players on the roster leaving five spots. One of those goes to the third goalkeeper. That leaves four spots for a striker, maybe a midfielder. Third striker, fifth centerback.

Yeah. We got some play with the fullbacks. Yeah. I mean, one fullback we didn't mention, just for the sake of comprehensiveness, we should mention John Tolkien, I think you've said he's looked pretty good, maybe better than some of the other young left backs? Yeah, I mean, he's looked competent enough that he'd be in the discussion with any of them, and Berlter specifically put him in the discussion in the last window when he said, when he mentioned him by name ahead of like a DeWan Jones or any of the other domestic options. I mean, he said it just compared to all left backs. He said Tolkien was close.

So that felt like another missed opportunity that we only brought two fullbacks into the June camp and one of them being Bellow, who we already had a lot of information on, probably enough to say we should test out a third one here. Yeah. I wonder what happened to DeWan Jones, too. Like why was he never? I guess he was in January camp, just didn't do enough to impress there. All right.

Well, you know, I assume we'll be doing several more. episodes like this. Well, several more would be overkill, but maybe one or two more before the actual roster drops. And anything else, Greg? Well, in all of the future ones, we won't have to rehash the locks

because they're locks, and we'll just get into who's played themselves up, who's played themselves down. Okay. All right. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.