The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Best of The Herd: 08/14/2018

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

Doug Gottlieb fills in for Colin and talks about how we keep track of things now in preseason and training camp that we never used to care about and that's why we overreact so much. He talks with 3x Super Bowl Champion Ty Law about why the Brady/Belichick relationship is fine because they are on the same page. Plus, Doug explains the real reason why Ezekiel Elliott wants to be more of a pass catcher this season. Presented by Perky Jerky. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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From 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1, Find your local station for The Herd at Fox SportsRadio.com or stream us live every day on the IHeartRadio app by searching Herd. This is the best of the herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is The Herd wherever you may be. And however you may be making us part of your day. I'm Doug Gottlie, along with the lovely, talented, well-prepared, Joy Taylor. coming to you live on FS1, Fox Sports Radio, I Heart Radio app. We have, I think, a great show for you. Ice Cube is going to join us in studio.

So too will tie law. Of course, the Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots. He's been awesome on all of our shows. And we'll talk about the Pats, the relationship between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, especially with some comments today and yesterday from the two heads of state, if you will, with New England Patriots. man we got and Bucky Brooks will join us. We'll get his thoughts on what we've seen on tape so far from all the teams in the National Football League. But I want to start with Brady and it does relate in many ways to Aaron Rogers. If you remember back last week,

Aaron Rogers chastised his wide receiving group, especially the younger wide receivers for having a bad practice. Tom Brady yesterday got mad and punted a ball. Now for the record, I'm a big punter of the basketball back in my days playing basketball. Frustrating practice and you see a ball and it's just sitting there and it's looking at you, emotionless, expressionless, how dare you basketball you punt it up into the stands? So some of this comes from understanding you're having a bad day. Apparently, Brady's frustrations boiled over because wide receivers combined in 11-on-11 drills for 10 drops, including three, three by Eric Decker, who of course was just signed.

Now look, could I hypothesize that this is Brady's frustration over the fact that they haven't figured out this wide receiving group? Hogan was hurt last year. Edelman was hurt last year and he suspended the first four games. And while Gronk is awesome, he's not always healthy and they don't have anybody out wide.

You know, no Brandon Cooks, he's gone. Philip Dorset has never been what they thought he would be. Cordelia Patterson's more of a return guy or a jet sweep guy. I mean, Danny Amandola's gone. Heck, you look at, you know, you have two wide receivers that they sign in the offseason that are already gone, already cut.

Could I hypothesize that it's Tom Brady's frustration over how could I play with incompetent people? Maybe, maybe. could I say it's training camp frustration too many days with the same guys too many days in the humidity probably

by the way I like Braxton Berrios I think he's going to be dynamic third down weapon he just seems like that guy who the Patriots are going to find and find a way to use him and then they have two really good running backs especially adding Sony and Michelle to already have any good past catching threat

back there but I think the big part we're missing in all of this discussion is, nobody used to care. No one used to care about your numbers what you threw on 11 on 11 drills. Right? Like Pat Mahomes, what was he threw four picks in drills going back yesterday with the Kansas City Chiefs?

Go back 10 years ago. Did anybody track how many interceptions Brett Farve had in training camp? And Peyton Manning's first training camp as a starter or a second training camp? No, no. We didn't, the whole idea of analytics, okay, the idea of analytics is tracking everything. But what started as tracking everything in the regular season

now tracks everything in practice in the preseason. I remember my first year at Notre Dame, played for a guy named John McLeod, long-time legendary NBA coach, coach the Phoenix Suns in the four-overtime game against the Boston Celtics. And he used to track everything even to the detriment of how many shots you get up.

You could not take a shot in that gym without somebody statting how many shots and how many you made from what spot. And the idea was a good one because it was, hey, how are you going to know where you shoot the ball best from or if you're improving if you don't have the stats? The problem with it then was if you have one manager,

he would have to stat you. He couldn't just feed you. He'd be far less productive. Nowadays, they actually have technology to which you don't have to do anything. they have tracking devices within the arena that track every shot that you take in every gym that you practice in. Regardless of, there's somebody in there, not in there with you.

The point is that not only do we have information, we have information overload. This is the era in which we live, where we actually know too much. The fact that we know that Tom Brady threw a hissie fit and punted the ball into the stands, that he had 10 drops yesterday, three from Eric Decker. never would have heard that 10 years ago. But that's because we track everything now. You go up to order at Chipotle and you know how many calories there are in any possible combination of a meal. Heck, I remember when I got my first cell phone, 2000, or 99, 2000, senior year in college, got one of those Nokia jobs, you know, like little handheld Nokia things. And I remember it was like,

I don't know, $2,99 for 500 minutes a month. And you're like, 500 minutes, no problem. I'll never go over 500 minutes. Then you get your first bill and you had like 1,500 minutes. Because you had no real concept of, well, one second becomes a minute, right? And how many times you actually use the phone? You just didn't. Like, I thought this is really cool.

I'll never use it. I'll accept incoming calls and I'll play that snake game on it. Remember the snake game? Turns out you start tracking your cell phone. calls and you can't believe how many calls you make. This is before you even texted. We track everything. We even track how many, thanks to the Fitbit, how many steps? And the problem with tracking how many steps, you're like, man, I took 10,000 steps. Is that good or bad? I have no idea. I took 10,000 steps. Well, five years ago, how many steps do you take? No idea. I didn't track

them then. How about likes and retweets? Imagine yourself 20 years ago. And you think of a really funny line, right? Right? You think of a really, really funny line. And the only way in which you would know if it was funny is if you're around your buddies and you'd like, hey, for example, we used something we saw on Twitter yesterday in regards to Tiger Woods, right? Congratulations, Tiger Woods wins the PGA championship shooting 14 under. and Brooks Kepka finished his second shooting 16 under, right? That sounds funny. And the way in which you know it's funny now is we track the likes and the retweets.

Whereas 20 years ago, you would have had to walk around to people and go, hey, Tiger Woods, won the PGA, Brooks Kepka second, huh? And if somebody would laugh, you're like, we track everything nowadays. everything we possibly have. And so I would love to freak out and say Tom Brady's not happy. He's still bitter about Malcolm Butler. He doesn't have good wide receivers. Eric Decker stinks.

He's not going to be good enough. He punts the ball in the stands. That means that Decker's out. The problem is I have no control group. I don't know if Brady has punted the ball and thrown a fit for any of the last 18 years in which he's been in camp with the New England Patriots. Because we didn't track it then.

We didn't care then. We didn't have how many interceptions, how many touchdowns? What were his 11 on 11 numbers in shells in training camp? And so instead of freaking out over Aaron Rogers laying into his wide receivers or Tom Brady punning the football, we have to realize that we are in a completely different era of information overload in that we cover spring football games. We covered training camps.

We also, like Hard Nox's tonight, we're going to talk about that later. We cover, we have shows that show us the insides of training camps. We never had that. I mean, imagine going, imagine going to see Hamilton being constructed, right? Who's got the third lead and watching them butcher lines early on before they're ready to be on Broadway? Before it was an award, multi-tony award-winning musical. Before that, imagine going and seeing them watch, first select who's on the cast, and then go through rehearsals.

It would have been brutal. That's what we're doing. That's what we're evaluating. We have too much information. We have too many shows that focus too much on the details of how the sausage is made, and we shouldn't really care. Let me know on the first Sunday, if Tom Brady throws a hissy fit because his wide receivers keep throwing the foot,

football. Now I can draw back on, hey, you know what? He wasn't all that happy with that wide receiving corps going back to training camp. In fact, it reached ahead on August, what was it, 13th, 2018. He got really mad and that's when they got rid of Eric Decker. We just track everything nowadays, from calories to steps, to likes and retweets, you know, to mentions. Do you even track how many friends we have. You can go on your Facebook and I get this many friends. Or how many followers you have. Track that. Well, I tweeted something stupid today. I lost a thousand followers. I lost a thousand people who care about what I'm saying about what I'm tweeting. I'm not saying to not pay attention to Tom Brady or to training camp or to any of these

training camp fights. But without context, without a control group, it kind of becomes, useless information or information to which we can't really decipher because we don't actually know what we're looking at. You know, I wonder whether Joe Montana ever got upset at the wide receivers not named Jerry Rice. We don't know. We'll never know. And frankly, we didn't care then. Somehow we care now. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. From, um, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. That's for Randy Fitchner, who's the new offensive coordinator, former quarterbacks coach,

former quarterback's coach for Ben Rothsburger, new OC says that, quote, I would say it's the best camp he's had. The only reason I say this is because he's in the best shape since I've had him. Now, obviously, when you're younger, you can probably move a little bit better, maybe your arm a tad livelier. If nothing else, there's a pitch count. You do that with all the pitchers. Rothesberger's got a great gig.

He basically has the Howard Stern of gigs, right? Howard Stern does three days a week for his show, 20 weeks out of the year. How does that work? That's amazing. How do I get that gig? I guess 25 years on the radio and you'll get that. Rathusberger only is going to play one preseason game. Does a full day of practice, then a half day of practice, then a day off?

Like, how do you get that? That's amazing. Meanwhile, he's got like three backup quarterbacks that are all fighting for that backup position. Mason Rudolph, Landry Jones, and Josh Dobbs, the Tennessee kid actually looks really good so far in the preseason. Now, some of this is a little confirmation bias. Remember, Randy Fitchner was the quarterbacks coach. Todd Haley was the offensive coordinator. Todd Haley's now in Cleveland, you're like, well, I'll tell you what, Ben Rossburger looks great.

Well, what's different from last year? you know, he's in better shape. This is, or maybe it's me. Actually, he likes playing for me better. And we all realize that there was always a rift. There was always something to which those two did not truly get along. It did not feel like a marriage. It felt more like they were dating, but ultimately they would break up.

And that's exactly what happened. Maybe this is, you know, Rothersberger not coming in shape the past couple years. But I think a lot of it is on Haley. And I think the juxtaposition of the happiness that you're seeing in Pittsburgh without Todd Haley, the addition by subtraction, if you will. And then you read the Todd Haley story to which he and Greg Williams, another fiery personality, get into it at practice over one of Greg Williams guys blitzing and actually hitting Baker Mayfield, the quarterback,

which we all know to be a no-no. There's a reason they wear the red jerseys. They are, in fact, more important than you. you keep your hands off the quarterback, period, stop, end of story. But you go back to last week's hard knocks where you got the egos of Hugh Jackson, the egos of Greg Williams, the ego of Todd Haley. You go to this week and the arguments in practice between Greg Williams and Todd Haley, the fact that they have TV cameras on them, the expectations on Baker Mayfield,

the number one overall pick. And oh yeah, by the way, you got Tyrod Taylor, who's a more than competent plug-ins starter quasi backup who led the bills to the playoffs and you look at the happiness that's in Pittsburgh and you're like dude this Cleveland thing joy I'm beginning I'm I'm thinking about doing a 180 on something you said I disagreed with yesterday in that man is Cleveland interesting they because this thing if it goes bad wow could it go bad I mean wow could it go bad it can't be worse than last year um yes I do think it It couldn't be worse in terms of the number of wins or losses, right?

They were trying to be bad. This year they're clearly trying to be good. The only difference between this year and last year is they have expectations this year. That's a huge part of it. And you have the personalities of your coordinators. You have a head coach where you have a new GM that wasn't hired, that didn't hire the head coach. You got two coordinators, one who's been a head coach that obviously wants to be a head coach again. Like you've got a lot of stuff.

You have the number one pick who, we can say a first round pick as a quarterback needs to play, but a number one pick always plays in the last 15 years in the NFL. And the expectations are real because they have added some real players, you know, a Jarvis Landry, for example. I mean, hard knocks. Yes. There really shouldn't be any expectations on the Browns in reality. Because even though they have added pieces like Jarvis Landry and they did draft Baker Mayfield, they still won zero games last year.

So there should be really no expectations in the Browns this year. There should be, but Hope Springs Eternal. I think Pittsburgh's different without Shazir. I think, you know, people think that whatever they think of, whatever the reality of Baltimore is, Baltimore should have been in the playoffs last year as poorly as Flacco performed. Baltimore feels like they're better, but I don't think anybody thinks that Baltimore is like they were a couple of years ago, right?

And Cincinnati has been kind of a smoldering dumpster fire to which is like, yeah, we'll keep throwing Marvin Lewis out there because it was injuries. It was this. It was that, you know, that went wrong. The division, which used to be the best division in football, with exception to the Browns, is now a division of, hey, they all used to be really good and they're trying to figure out what they are now. I think that's part of it. But think if they add Des Bryant, right? I know. I told you this yesterday. You pushed back on me.

He said the Rams were more interesting. It's because the Rams are better and their Super Bowl aspiration. and because they're in L.A. I think Seattle's super interesting with, you know, the Earl Thomas thing, Russell Wilson, does he have anybody to block for him? Seattle's been a dominant team in this league for the past six, seven years or so. Like, I think those teams are better and have a better reputation, but there are big expectations, and then you bring in the fire personalities,

and then you're seeing Pittsburgh going like, man, things are so much better around here. What did you change? One thing, Greg Williams. Todd Haley's not here. I think it's fascinating. I'm not willing to say they're the most interesting, but it's potentially, like there's Tinder all around. Tinder all around.

And all it takes is a Des Bryant, a fight over who should be the quarterback, to suddenly put that thing up in smoke and it becomes really interesting. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd, weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. All right, let's bring in Thai law, of course, played with the Patriots,

part of three Super Bowl winning teams. He likes to forget his years with the Jets, the Chiefs, and the Broncos. Speaker Patriots first. Well, just only former patriot, Ty Laude joins us here. On set, on the herd. Thanks so much for joining us. You heard what Joy said.

I know this story came down right as you were coming off of undisputed in that yesterday it was Bill Belichick. Today it was Tom Brady. And suddenly they love each other again. Suddenly it's, hey, our visions are aligned. is this a marriage of convenience? Do they legitimately like each other? Give me your real sense for Brady and Belichick

18 years in to their partnership, the status. I will look at it as a marriage. You're not going to get along all the time in a marriage. I mean, even though you love each other, you respect each other, every day is not going to be a good day. So I think a lot of their relationship has been taken out of context

over this Jimmy Garapolo thing and all the stuff that people just come up with that have no exact details about what's really going on. But their relationship is intact. They respect each other. They want a lot of football games with each other. They're going to go down without a doubt as the best quarterback coach combo and the history of team sports, period.

I think that the marriage thing is great, okay, because I think everyone wants to be 18 years marriage in the couple that's making out in the corner that's all over each other, right? But there's like, like the reality of it is, is like, look, how much can you make out? How much love? Okay, so tell me what you're going back to the Super Bowl, so you're doing something right. Even though you came up short, you're doing something right. They had the ball.

Tom Brady had the ball down five. Like as much as the defense couldn't get a stop, like even without Brandon Cooks, they had the ball down five a chance to win the Super Bowl yet again. So yes, they're doing a lot of things right. Okay, so if we don't all know what's going on, give me the real, what really went down from your perspective, all the people you know with the Garoppolo situation. Well, from what I understand, because I'm not, I'm no longer in the locker room, but I am still around the area. I'm still a part of the team in the sense that I live in the area. But it was blown out of proportion. I mean, of course, Jimmy Garoppolo, he wants to get another contract.

He's sitting behind Tom Brady. So think about it from Garoppolo's standpoint, regardless of what Coach Belichick may have wanted, regardless of if Tom still wanted to play, was debating on if he was going to retire or whatnot. Jimmy Garoppolo wanted a new contract. And when it comes down to it, he wants to play. How am I going to get on the field sitting behind Tom Brady? So people forget about his feelings and what he wanted. How do you know that he didn't go and say, guys, I'm ready to go because I want to play. And I think, and from my opinion, from what I understand, that's what really went down. Of course, Coach Belichick, you have to have a backup when you're looking for the future. But Jimmy Garapolo wanted to play and he wanted a new contract. Are you going to pay him the type of money that he wants being a back? back up. Absolutely not. When Tom Brady says he wants to play, you give that man the respect that he deserves and you let him play as long as he wants to play because he is the face of the organization. He brought championships and he can still play football at a high level. And he proved it time and time again. After they let Jimmy Garapolo go, he still was the MVP of the National Football League. The Malcolm Butler thing, how much carryover do you think they'll be into this season?

Not much at all. That was a decision that was made, which I don't agree with. I don't know exactly what happened and why he didn't play, but I know Eric Roe becoming a player that they expect him to be. It was already in the making that he was going to be the guy to replace Malcolm Butler throughout the season. So you don't think it'll be like Seattle still can't get over for a long time, the Legion of Boom couldn't get over that Marciaun didn't get the ball, right? And that's, and that led to some sort of rift between it and maybe kept them from winning more soup bowls or at least getting to more soup balls. That's the common narrative. Do you think you don't think there'll be any carryover to this year?

The Malcolm Butler thing? No, not at all. I mean, Malcolm Butler is $65 million, Richard in Tennessee. I think he's moved past it. Obviously, someone was willing to give him that type of money, and they didn't think much of it. Coach Belichick is going to move on regardless.

I mean, you're going to keep trying to get it out of him, but he's not going to give it to you. I mean, the team, you know, we've all been through situations with the Patriots, and the train keeps rolling, and they continue to win, and they continue to have success. And as long as you have number 12 back there under center, you have an opportunity to win.

And I don't think when it comes to the AFC East, the other teams didn't get any stronger. Right. Even though the Patriots teams is not as strong as it was in the past, they still are going to win the division because the other teams didn't advance. Yeah. I mean, Miami got rid of the big name players and they got Ryan Tanhill back. The Jets are going to start a rookie quarterback. The bills are going to start a rookie quarterback. And the Patriots have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

I'm with you. You can put them in pen into the playoffs barring some unforeseen thing like Brady actually getting hurt. Ty Law, three times Thruple champion, continues to join us

along with Joy Taylor. Ty, I want you to listen to Ezekiel Elliott. He was talking about his goals for this coming season. Take a listen. I think it's just an opportunity

to elevate my game. It's an opportunity to show that I can do more. And I'm excited. You know, I'm just here to do with the coaches and ask me. It's just kind of, you know, developing myself more as a route runner. And I think in the past I wasn't really asked to run as many complex routes. But, you know, now I have, you know, a couple more routes to add to my route tree.

Zeke Yeh, who apparently was lost on a deserted island until they did that, right? He looks like Castaway. Yeah, how far is the barbershop from training camp? So, Zeke apparently is studying Marshall Falls. And he wants to be a better route runner. He wants to be able to catch the ball more out of the back to develop the all-around game. What's your take on that as his kind of game plan for his evolution as a running back? I think that is awesome because what better running back to model your game after than Marshall Falk?

You know, Hall of Famer, he done so many great things. He was one of the most complete backs that we ever seen, along with him, Ladania Tomlinson, Roger Craig, you know, back in the day was a great receiver coming out of the backfield. So I think he took somebody that he looked up to someone that was in his era, you know, as far as when he was a young guy who he tried to emulate his game after. So I think that is awesome. If he can do half of what Marshall Falk did on the receiving end, he might find himself in the Hall of Fame one day as well.

It also feels, though, like he's paid attention. Like he's pretty smart guy, right? He's paid attention to like, hey, Todd Gurley's getting paid in after his third year because he can catch it out of the back. backfield. The more you can do. El Bell can catch it out of the backfield. The way to get paid is to not just try and get 2,000 yards, you know, that's a way to

get beat up. You get beat up that way, whereas when you get out, when you get out in the flat, you can get out into a route, now also one, you can get a mismatch. I mean, that's the real thing with Mike March's offense with Marshall Falk is you you get a linebacker and running back. We'll take that every single day. But also it's a way to get paid, isn't it? Oh, it's absolutely a way to get paid.

The more you can do and the more touches you can get. And like you said, you're out there in open space. Ezekiel Elliott, we all know what we can do behind the line of scrimmage, but he's going to take a lot of pounding. I think what makes Leveon Bell so special is what he can do out in the open field, and you can put him out there on mismatches against linebackers in one-on-one situations.

He's going to win that every time. The jury's out, see if Ezekiel can do that same thing and get out there in space and beat people as far as route running, because we know what he can do when he's running the ball, but I think that is going to be great for him and it's great for his pockets at the end of the day. What's your feelings about Kille Mack at this point in time? They seem to be far apart.

He's under club control. I mean, like, it's great to say, like, you can sit out of year, but nobody's actually sat out of year. Cam Chance was like four games was the most to anybody's sat out. What's your thoughts on Kille Mack in this holdout? I think that he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing right now. I mean, he's one of the top two, three guys, the defenders in the National Football League,

and he's seeing all this big money being thrown out there. He's wondering what about me? I mean, this is a short shelf life in this game. So take advantage when you're hot. And I think he shouldn't come back until he's ready or until he gets a new deal. Because if he gets hurt, all bets are off. You know, the type of money that you're looking at is not going to be available to you. And I think he can sell it out of year.

Was he franchised already? Not yet. Not yet? Not yet. Well, if he wasn't franchisers. This is $13 million to be this year. okay, it's $13 million this year. So if he can make $13 million this year, that's nothing to sneeze that.

Don't get me wrong. That's a year of wages you never get back. You never get it back. But guess what? If he signs a contract extension, he's going to get that $13 plus another $40 on top of that guaranteed. So, I mean, is it worth the risk? Absolutely.

So what if he goes out there right now for the 13 and get hurt? He can come back at any time to get some of that 13. The problem with the hardballing the Raiders is they just don't have the money. Like they spent poorly in the offseason. And that's not his fault. Like they didn't understand the marketplace and how valuable he would be. But they just don't have, you know, Donald Penn took a pay cut yesterday. And I'm sure some of that is to free up money so that they can sign Khal.

But some of it is like, hey, look, we're in salary cap hell. And there's only so much we can actually do. Well, from Khalil Mack's standpoint, shame on them. That has nothing to do with Khalil Mack. That has nothing to do with me if you guys didn't handle your. your business and your finances right at the end of the day because I'm a football player. I have a short shelf life. I'm one of the top two, three guys in the league, period.

I want to get paid. So, I mean, he's doing what he has to do. Okay. What about Gruden? Out of the league for a decade. Comes back in and he's clearly trying to do things his own way. He has a 10-year deal. So he's going to be there as their head coach.

What's your assessment of how he'll do? in year one trying to get back up to speed. You know what? I love John Gruden. I mean, he's one of, even though I never played for him, he's one of my favorite, you know, coaches to watch. I mean, I hear he's a player's coach for the guys I do know that played up under him. And I think it's going to be an adjustment.

Even though he did his thing on TV, he's bringing the quarterbacks into room. He's a great quarterback guru. But I'm not expecting him to go to the Super Bowl, you know, right now. But I expect him to be competitive. I expect him with his big contract to find a way to get Khalil Mack, you know, his money because that is going to help you and your success by putting the best player on your team and pay him and get him out there on the field. But I give him a couple years.

I give him two or three years. I think that he'll be in the mix and we'll be talking about these guys, you know, in a playoffs or contending for a Super Bowl. I don't want to pinch you on too much time, but we only got about a minute left. Eagle's trying to repeat as Super Bowl champions. You've been a Super Bowl champion three times over. How hard is it to come back that second year, winning? It's very hard, and I think this is going to be the test to the Philadelphia Eagles,

and they finally got a Super Bowl in Philadelphia. What type of character do they have on their team? Because right now, you hear a lot of talking coming out of Philly, which is great. You won Fair and Square, awesome, Super Bowl champions. But now everyone is gunning for you. You can't play the underdog. You can't play any more of these masks on,

with the dogs out and being the underdogs. Right now, you're the team to beat, and everybody's gunning for you. So we're going to see what your team is made of. We're going to see what type of character, what type of coaches, what type of players that you guys are now that everyone's chasing you. So I'm looking forward to it and seeing what they got. Yeah, and this is, Joy, kind of what we were talking about. I'm not disputing your argument about Cleveland is made stronger by the day as far as them being interesting.

I just don't know it's as interesting as Philadelphia who won the Super Bowl, widely seen as maybe the most talented team in the NFL, and yet Carson Wentz didn't play. When do you play him? You know, all the barking that's coming out of there. Like, because they're a better team, it may make them more interesting. Is that fair, Joy?

I mean, I think there's a lot of good teams that are interesting, and I agree with everything that you're saying. Cleveland's interesting because they have all these cast of characters and storylines within their team. Like Carson Wentz, you know, is going to be the quarterback at the end of the day. But the question is healthy. Right. The question is when.

But you know it's going to happen. It's very hard to repeat, though. No, it's, it's very hard. It's really hard, really hard. And harder or maybe to repeat than to win it in the first place. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like.

I saw this story from the Dallas Morning News. Doug Gottlie been for Colin, this is the herd. Zeke Elliott told the Dallas Morning News he'd been studying film of Marshall Falk. Huh. Here's, here's Zeke. Okay, we got video to match and the sound. Here's Zizuio Elliott talking about why he decided to study the great martial fall. I think it's just an opportunity to elevate my game.

It's an opportunity to show that I can do more. And, you know, I'm excited. You know, I'm just here to do with the coaches to ask me. It's just kind of, you know, developing myself more as a rock runner. And I think in the past I wasn't really asked to run as many, complex routes, but, you know, now I have, you know, a couple more routes to add to my route tree. Do you remember in Jerry McGuire why, you know, why Rod Tidwell started dancing in the end zone? Remember, Joy? Because that's how you got attention and that's how you got paid.

That was the whole idea about it, right? He was, show me the money. Remember? And all of a sudden, Rod Tidwell, who refused to be to be a guy who would let the crime. crowd in. He showed no emotion. It was a, he was, he just, he was a professional, wide receiver. All he wanted to, he didn't want to, he didn't want to, he didn't want to blow kisses. He didn't want to dance. He scored touchdowns and he wanted to get paid for what he did. And in his mind, and it became a reality, once he let people in, once he celebrated, once he had that one scene where he dances in the end zone and starts crying and going crazy and doing all those different moves.

He went on to Roy Firestone show. It was up close. Remember, no, I'm not going to cry, Roy. I'm not going to cry, Roy. And then he gets handed the paper and he does, in fact, get the contract and he gets paid. That's all Zeke's doing here. Do I think it's great to diversify your portfolio as a running back that you want to be a dual threat? Sure. And one of the things that Zeke probably won't get recognized enough for that people in the NFL will tell you is he's one of the few guys that he's one of the few guys they came out of college ready to block.

Pass protection is huge, right? Like, don't believe me, asked Tony Romo. Gronk's little brother is the reason that he broke his collarbone the first time because he missed a block on pass pro. And who was it who kicked somebody out of the huddle going back this past weekend? There's Ryan Taneyhill kicked a rookie running back out of the huddle because he missed a block on past protection because you missed a block. You can get me killed.

Look, I just missed a season with a knee. I don't need him to miss another season because you miss a block. So Zika is great on pass pro. He's a tremendous running back, but this is all about getting paid. Don't get me wrong. Don't believe me. Here's the top five running backs in terms of salaries. Right?

In 2017, Levyon Bell, 85 catches. Jerich McKinnon, 51 catches. LaShawn McCoy, 59 catches. Todd Gurley, 64. And Zeke Elliott, only 26. Now, granted, he missed six games. But his rookie season, he only had 32 catches. One of the things it strikes me is Levyon Bell saying like, hey man, I need to get paid as I'm not just a running back, I'm a wide receiver, I'm this, I'm that, like all that's accurate.

But the truth is that the best running backs in the league, Ledaian Thomas had led to league in receptions. We've seen that before. You know, you go back through, Marshall Falk was a great receiving running back. In order to get paid, you used to have to dance in the end zone to draw attention to yourself so that people knew that separated you from other wide receivers. that's one of the key kind of points and side stories to Jerry Maguire. In order to get paid as a running back, you've got to be a three-down running back. You got to run it? Pass protect, but catch it out the backfield.

Create those mismatches. Split you out wide. Find a use for you. Otherwise, they got to find another running back to put in on third down. Zeke Elliott's smart. Football smart. And he spent time off thinking, all right, I'm coming in my third year. Todd Gurley got paid after his third year.

What's the difference between me and Todd Gurley? Well, in addition to the off-to-field nonsense, that got you suspended for six games, it's that Todd Gurley had 64 catches last year. And he'll probably have 70 this year. And Zeke looks at it and goes like, I got to be that guy. That's the way to get paid.

Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeart Radio app. Mike Dan Tony and Carmelo Anthony back in relationship. And it is going to be fascinating to watch. Now, to people who say this will never work, it has worked at least once in the past. Bob McAdoo led the NBA in scoring for a couple of years when he was in Buffalo in the 70s. In the early to mid-80s, he came to the LA Lakers. He was a bench player, average about 10 a game. It was a star-studded roster. And it did, in fact, for a short

period of time work on a championship team. Bringing a bucket getter off the bench is not a new idea. It is not. But I look at some of the other kind of things that are going on, and I feel like, kind of like we discussed with the Cleveland Browns, there's a potential Tinderbox there. This was, it wasn't even nine months ago. But you remember when Carmelo Anthony was a member of the Thunder and he was asked about coming off the bench, he said this.

How do you feel about, you know, starting at the four or the concept of starting at the four or even coming off the bench? And the second question is... Well, me? I guess that answers that part. I mean, I don't know where that started when I came from.

Hey, P, they said I got to come off the bench. Yeah, you're probably going to have to come off the bench here, Melo. Now, look, it's different when you're making $2 million. I know he's making 29 or so or 28 or so, depending on what the buyout was. He took in Atlanta. He's making plenty of money, but the actual salary from the Houston Rockets doesn't even creep up on $3 million, which makes him a movable asset or a releasable asset. But the fact is they're going to try and make it work. Here's Mike Dan Tony after Carmelo officially became a member of the Rockets. We had long talks about how we want to play.

And what would mean what kind of role he would have. He's been one of the best players in the league. He's a gifted offensive player without a doubt. It's going to add to an already potent team. I'm getting excited. I think that, you know, we have to work some things out. There might be some bumps along the way. And I'm sure there will be a lot of naysayers that say they can't coexist.

But if three guys like that can coexist with James and Chris, you've got a heck of a good chance. So I think that, like I said, I'm excited, and I think Houston should be excited. He also said, take a look at this quote, we've just got to make sure we don't get too far away from taking threes and layups and foul shots. It'll be a little bit of a learning process. But then again, if everybody is committed, we have no doubt it can work. I used to tell people all the time Carmel Anthony was the best score in the league because he could score at three levels. Score three.

Not great, but he could score three. It's a great mid-range player and a tremendous. post player. They don't post up in Houston. They don't want anybody in the post in Houston. Matter of fact, read his quote and none of it is, hey, we can't wait to throw it in the post and play through the post. It's just not how they play. The weakest part of his game is shooting threes and or driving and getting to playing downhill to get to the free-to-line. You're trying to make him into what a better version offensively and a weaker version of what Trevor oriza is. Compound that with the fact that you're

depending on James Harden, who TMZ has a story that he took a woman's cell phone and, you know, tried to throw it away because there was some sort of kerfuffle, if you will, or a scuffle between somebody in the crew he was rolling with and somebody else at a club. Like, look, James Hardin's a lot of things. Again, great offensive player, has to have the basketball, doesn't care much about defense, fakes a little bit, and then funnels you. to Clint Capella. It kind of works when you have four guys defensively

and James Hardin. It kind of works. But Hardin's still a go-out and hangout guy. He's a league MVP making nearly $50 million under contract per year. And he's still a go-out hangout club guy at 29 years old. That's the kind of stuff you do when you're 23 years old. Carmelo Anthony, as much as he says,

I want to fit in and I want to make this work and it's all smiles and he wants to win a championship, he wanted to make the triangle work. It didn't. He wanted to make it work with Mike Dan Tony last time. It didn't. The only time Carmelo Anthony has seen great success in the NBA by his own accounts would be when he was playing for Mike Woodson

and they went ISO Joe. Give me the ball and let everybody else play off of me. If you think a lead singer can become a backup singer, you look around the music industry and you just don't see very many of them. even in what I do. You're a solo host and all of a sudden you're going to be a producer or you're going to have just be a role player. It's really, really hard adjustment.

And when for 15 years you've played the exact same way every year and somebody's asking you to play a different way, it becomes challenging. And then there's the ego part to it. Look, if I'm advising Carmelo Anthony, I tell him, hey, you're going to go against inferior players as a six-man. those guys aren't as good as you. You can elongate your career.

Unlike Alan Iverson, who refused to come off the bench and understand what Jamal Crawford figured out a long time ago. I'm really a starter. I'm playing as a bench player, and all I have to do is come in and generate offense, and I don't have to do all those little things. I don't have to play the role of a two-way player nearly as much.

But the downside to that is, there's going to be a lot of games, especially the important ones, when you got to sit there with a towel in your hand and wave that sucker for PJ Tucker, who hasn't had nearly the career you have had, but fits better into what they want to do and how they want to do it to win a championship in Houston. And then you go down to the fact that he and Dan Tony end up having a beef that led to a divorce last time around.

And oh yeah, by the way, you got James Hardin, a go-out hangout guy at 29 years old as a league MVP who doesn't care about defense. You got Clint Capella. Will he play like the guy who's trying to earn the contract that he got? or live up to the contract that he already received. You don't have Trevor Reza to be the Swiss Army knife. And you have Chris Paul who plays the way I dreamed I could play in the NBA, but he's never healthy at the most important time.

And it's going to be a year later, which means he's more likely to get hurt yet again. Look, in a dream scenario on paper, in a vacuum, could it work? Hell yeah. It could work. And it could be really, really fun. I mean, you had a great offensive team. You had a great offensive player to a great offensive team that won more games than anybody else in the NBA.

It sounds great. But that's not the way sports work. That's not the way life works. More is not more. Less is more. And I get that Houston thinks we can control him. Chris Paul's his boy. He's only making $2 million and a half dollars.

It's not that big a deal. But many have tried to change and have Carmelo Anthony evolved. And he had beef at the start of the Oklahoma City season being suggested to come off the bench. And the reason that Oklahoma City wanted to get as far away from as possible was, even when they were in salary cap hell, they would have found a way to try and work it out. He wanted no part of it. Everybody says, I just want to be part of a championship team. But I can't find anybody since Bob McAdoo, who's led the league in scoring.

You know? Adrian Dantley led the league in scoring came over the Pistons. They got rid of him as a starter and brought in Mark Aguire. But neither came off the bench. There's something to having your name called. There's something to be one of those first five that your ego just really struggles with. And I understand, if not for that ego,

he wouldn't be the score that he's been. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. And every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports

and giving you the real story behind the headline. and we're going straight to the source the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests

from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Cliver Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game.

This linebacker... You know these kids. This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, rep, my mama want you to wave at her.

What? Where's she at? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano.

It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast. point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was hungry. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow.

Then after that game seven, Marquis come in to you, he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.