The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Best of The Herd: 12/26/2018

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

Doug Gottlieb filling in for Colin today shines light on LeBron James’ recent groin injury suffered in last night’s game against the Warriors, stating this is the biggest fear for older players. Aaron Rodgers finally showing us something you never hear from athletes, talking about ownership of management decisions regarding his active coach Joe Philbin. Kyrie Irving displayed yet again that he is truly one of the best players on the floor and Kevin Durant is just like every other guy chasing more money.  Presented by Perky Jerky. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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 Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the Fourth. 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, 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, Rhett, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on the only score at the chip. Score! I'm Tab Ramos. I'm Tom Boke. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals.

Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening to The Best of Heard Podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday. from 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Find your local station for the herd at Fox Sports Radio.com or stream us live every day on the iHeart Radio 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 listening or watching the show,

thanks so much for making this part of your day. I'm Doug Gottlie, filling in for Colin Cowherd, who at this very moment is probably going down a mountain somewhere in the state of Utah. Jamie Maggio, who we spent many a weekend in some of the garden spots of the NCAA tournament together, places like Spokane. Spokane, we were together. Salt Lake City. Yes.

A couple others, I believe, as well. Yeah. You can see her on the sidelines of Clipper games. Of course, Gaucho Nation. Yes, thanks from remembering that Jamie is back with us here in the herd. Do you have a Merry Christmas? Yeah, it was good. It was a nice day.

I think people are weird about saying Merry Christmas. Like the day after Christmas, you can't wish people Merry Christmas. I don't really say it's over. Happy holidays? You can still say Merry Christmas. It's cool. It's the spirit of what you're saying.

You're saying like, hey, hope you're having a good time. Right. Like, I'm Jewish. My wife is Christian. Like, I've never understood the offense over like, happy holidays, marry everything. Like, look, you can just be Merry Christmas. I understand. It's coming from a spirit of like, hey, hope you're having a good time this time.

Do you celebrate both, by the way? We do. I don't celebrate both. like my kids. The kids benefit. Yeah, they do quite well. They do quite well. We had a great holiday.

Glad you did too. Thanks so much for joining us. We have an outstanding show for you. Chris Broussardle, join us. We'll talk about yesterday's NBA action where the Celtics dominate the Sixers in overtime. My thoughts on Kyrie Irving on how his superstardom has gotten buried, partially because of who he played with previously, maybe more than who he's playing with now. We also want to talk about LeBron.

I'll get to that in a moment. the sudden struggles of Russell Westbrook to simply make a free throw, what's going on in Oklahoma City. Michael Rappaport will join us. I'm sure we'll argue about something pertaining to sports, maybe non-sports, and T.J. Hushman Zada will join us, and we'll talk about upcoming Week 17 football games like Vikings, Bears, where Kirk Cousins has to prove in prime time that he can lead his team to the playoffs.

You win and you're in if you're the Vikings. It really is that simple. But let's start with something we saw from LeBron yesterday, which we've never seen before. Look, people who are pro LeBron, like the guy who usually occupies this chair, like to use smart arguments that show you the greatness of LeBron James, right? The statistical dominance, the 15 years of excellence. Part of that is helped by the fact that he didn't go to college, so he's been playing consecutively. He didn't retire for a year and a half the way that Michael Jordan did. Like we create arguments of, hey, we've never seen this sort of, like, look, when Jordan had a full season with a team, six consecutive years, he won an NBA title.

There was the year and a half off. He did come back. They did lose the Orlando Magic. That all did happen. But we can create this, hey, level of dominance we've never seen before, which is true because of the longevity of it. But also because he was really the second or third incarnation of guys that came. straight at a high school and have played consecutively in the NBA and played in the same conference dominated that same conference. But what I've always said, I'm in the middle. Like, I think

LeBron's incredible. I'm still not willing to say he's the greatest player I've ever seen. You can use the stats to help you. I would point out that every stat for NBA players is up because of more three point shots, more possessions, and empty your lane. We've created a more offensive game. Just like in the NFL, heck, we're going to have a 5,000 yard passer and 10, 11, or 12 other 4,000 yard passers. Why? Because people who run sports leagues have figured out that we as Americans want to see more scoring. So stats are up. So if you want to use stats to help your argument, that's great.

But those of us who understand, if there was a control group, everyone's stats are going up. But what we've seen from LeBron, I've said this sitting on this couch, I've said it back when Colin first was launching shows here, even back to his old shows, is the amazing part about LeBron is he's never been hurt. He's never been hurt. He's taken games off, but he's never really been hurt. Like Kobe five knee surgeries. Kobe had to go and get the cells spun in Europe. Kobe had the Achilles tendon. Kobe got banged up. Michael Jordan in the second year had the foot injury. right so even though he came back and dropped 63 on the Celtics in the playoffs taking a below 500 team into boston guard one of the most heroic performances we've ever seen the fact is he did miss most of a season because of injury the brunt's never been hurt and yesterday he by his own words felt a pop said it's not that big a deal and and pulled his groin and in the litany of possible bad injuries this one is at the very bottom in terms of scare factor on the scale, right?

It's not a knee, it's not a back, it's not a hip, it's not an Achilles. Though it is soft tissue, it doesn't seem to be one of those. It's not like he tore the groin off the bone, right? This is not something that's going to be a debilitating injury. But if you've ever owned a really well-made car, and I've owned several, my wife had a luxury brand SUV, and I'm telling you, we've owned a lot of lot of automobiles. I mean, a lot. I go through them a lot. I chew them out. I drive a lot and I don't do the greatest job of taking care of them. But it was one of those deals where we bought it. We knew it

was well made. We got the extended warranty on everything and the extended warranty on the drive train. And the extended warranty went to 80,000 miles. You know, they say like bumper to bumper with a couple exceptions. Those exceptions were covered up to 80,000 miles. And once you know it, once we got to 82,000 miles. Remarkably, something happened with a hose. Well, the hose gets fixed. And then it was the transmission. And then something with the drive train. And it began the, wait a second, we went from having the best made car where all the door seals were perfect. The entertainment, there was no, there's no rattles. Like, isn't anything? There's nothing worse than you buy a car and all of a sudden you hear a rattle. It's like a rattle in a car is like a cricket in a house. You can't find it.

You can't fix it. You can't kill it. And once it's there, it just feels like it's there. there's no rattles. It was, the fit and finish of this car was perfect, but it got to 82,000 miles and now a sudden there's something wrong. 85,000 miles the transmission, 92,000 miles and the drive train had problems. And look, the car company was nice enough to fix it, and it was still fine. But this is the car that lugs around my three kids and my wife. And the last thing you want to do is she's driving to go ski or driving to go to soccer or basketball.

basketball game and stuck on the side of the road. Like, mm, on to the next. Well, you can't do that obviously with human beings. We're not going to throw LeBron James onto the next. We're not going to trade him in. But when you sign a guy in his mid-30s that has played more minutes, more games than anybody in the sport since his rookie year, this is the biggest fear that anyone who signs a more than one-year contract with any superstar in his mid-30s could ever have. Forget the fact that he's already taking more plays off.

Forget the fact that he doesn't move nearly the way he used to move. LeBron James has become a different version of himself. He still essentially plays point card, but he's shooting a lot more jump shots. He has that kind of weird dribble right step back to his left shot. He's developed a little bit more of a post game. He still is explosive going, you know, going downhill. but he's not the lith that he was earlier in his career.

But now all of a sudden you pop a groin, all right, you're out a week, you're out two weeks. The fear is not the groin. The fear is the groin leads to the hamstring, leads to the calf, leads to the back, leads to the knee. This is the, this is what happens when you get older. It just is. You wake up and you're like, what hurts? It all hurts. and I don't know why. I didn't do anything. All he did was eat Christmas dinner last night and throw the football with my nephew.

And now my shoulders killing me like I got a rotator cuff. I got to call Dr. James Andrews. We've never seen this before. This dude never gets hurt. It's crazy. Now, is it helped by the fact that he's bigger and stronger? Sure. But it could be hurt by that. because instead of delivering the punishment, because he's 6'8, 6 foot 9, 260 pounds, now the sudden he's delivering the punishment to his own body. It's why he wanted to be lighter this year because he knows you put all that stress.

I tell people all the time who are former basketball players like, man, I got to get back in shape. I want to get back to playing. I was like, look, before you get back to playing, you need to get at or below your playing weight because five pounds more on your. your body when you're five years or 10 years older than when you were playing and your body does not respond the same. I think the Lakers plan is clearly working. Are they going to shoot as well

as they shot last night? No. Are the warriors screwed up and as their bench, as their bench aged right before our eyes? Like people haven't paid attention that Sean Livingston is essentially washed and Andre Godala doesn't move nearly the way he used to. And they're playing with, you know, Kavon Luni, who's a backup center as their starter because they're waiting for DeMarcus cousins. And oh yeah, by the way, no one's mentioning that Draymond Green, no one's guarding him. It's four on five on offense, and he's not nearly as effective defensively as used to be. And Clay Thompson went Casper, the friendly ghost and disappeared. Like, these are all, look, the Lakers plan is working.

They wanted competitive veteran dudes who weren't scared of going in to Golden State. And using Zubach, using a true big guy against the Warriors late last night was genius, brilliant. But as much as this plan of the younger, players shooting at a higher percentage because of age and experience in the league and the emergence of Kyle Kuzma is right before our eyes. As much as the plan of let's get some competitive dudes that aren't scared of any situation, you play them five, you play them 45 minutes, they're going to be fine. That's where it only comes together if LeBron's on the floor when it matters. And the biggest fear that anyone who's reasonable has is by the time the

Lakers get to where they can compete for a title, he's too banged up to do it. It's what happens to all of them. It's what happens to all of them. Like Jason Kidd went from an All-Star to he couldn't make a layup in the playoffs. Couldn't make a lay-up, couldn't make a shot. Now, I'm not saying that's where we are with LeBron. Not close. There's a different scale.

LeBron's an all-time great, and this is the first, but you pop a groin and you'll hold your breath because you wonder whether or not this is just a leaky hose that can be fixed and the drive train and transmission's all good or this is hey once he had 80,000 miles on any car, they're going to start to break down. A lot of tread off those tires. A lot of tread off those tires. What are the wise guys where? I get asked that from time to time.

The answer is the new gear from theherdnow.com merchandise store. We are now officially open for business. We have all the apparel, diehard herd fans need to represent. present the show. Go to theherdnow.com. If you don't, that's a you problem. And that's a you problem is one of our shirts. Check it out. Theherdnow.com. Theherdnow.com store is open for business today. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. You know, something we don't ever hear from athletes is ownership of management. And here's what I mean. Or ownership of management decisions.

I just tire of players saying, that's out of my hands. You know, I don't make, well, we've heard from LeBron with the coaching changes. He has nothing to do with it, nothing at all to do with it. Now, this wasn't a, this wasn't Jimmy Chitwood from Hoosier's moment, right? If you remember, Jimmy Chitwood wasn't playing. Gene Hackman was the coach. He was under duress. They have a town hall meeting.

They take a vote whether or not they want to keep the coach, not keep the coach. not keep the coach. And then Jimmy Chitwood walks in and says, I think it's time for me to start playing ball. And everybody goes crazy and he goes, there's just one thing. Coach, coach stays, I play.

Coach goes, I go. And all of a sudden they're like, ah, we want a new vote. Right? Like, that's the ultimate Jimmy Chitwood moment. This was not Jimmy Chitwood. This is not he stays, I play. He goes, I go.

But take a listen to what Aaron Rogers said at a press conference yesterday in regards to, excuse me, Sunday, in regards to his acting head coach and whether or not he wants to play this Sunday. We have matters for pride and matters for Joe. You know, we love Joe. We want to play for Joe and give him the best opportunity possible. So he didn't say, I want to play for Joe, I only play for Joe, hire Joe. He didn't say that.

On the other hand, at least saying we all love Joe, we want to give him the best opportunity possible. Like if you're Aaron Rogers, and we've all tried to read the tea leaves on Aaron Rogers, and he's not exactly a poker player in terms of having a poker face as to whether or not he enjoyed playing for Mike McCarthy at the end, right? There was a lot of eye rolling. There was a lot of, it was like, look, I have a 12-year-old daughter and a nine, two 12-year-old daughters, a nine-year-old son, and none of them are good at hiding their

emotions. Like, they over-roll their eyes. like, whoa, like roll their eyes and head. And honestly, that's been Aaron Rogers recently in regards to he and Mike McCarthy's relationship. But at least saying like, hey, I like this dude. I want to give this guy an opportunity. Like at some point, we'll be able to read the tea leaves.

This wasn't, again, this was not a Jimmy Chitwood hire this guy moment or keep him and I stay happy moment. But if Aaron Rogers wants to truly control his own destiny, He can. Now, you can do it behind the scenes, but you can also do it in the public. Put a tremendous amount of pressure on Goudicund, who's their new general manager. This is the guy I want. This is the guy who will fix things. This is the guy who will hold me accountable. So I think it's going to be fascinating to see how much Aaron Rogers plays this weekend is he said he's wanted to play.

He said some of it. He mentioned Brett Favre. Now he mentions his acting head coach Joe Phil. who has been a head coach before, it stands to reason that Green Bay is going to hire a Green Bay guy. You're like, well, no. Hey, look, president, general manager, they hired a general manager who has only been in Green Bay. Green Bay does not feel like we're going to hire outside the family. And so Joe Filbitt does seem to check that box,

and he has been a head coach before, albeit not a successful one in Miami. But I'd be fascinated to hear Aaron Rogers' comments post-game Sunday. If you want Joe Philbin, he can be your coach. All you have to say is, I want Joe Philbin. Say it into an open microphone, it likely happens. And if you don't, or you kind of do the, well, you know, we just want to give him a good opportunity to show what he could do. We get it.

We can read the tea leaves. But the whole LeBron thing, which so many guys do, look, I don't control the coaching stuff. That's above my pay grade. That's not true. You're the quarterback. You just signed the biggest contract to anybody had ever gotten. near the face of that franchise. If you want Joe Philbin, say you want Joe Philbin,

and it's likely to be done. 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. It started out with the game in New York with the Knicks, and like, look, the Knicks are just not good. Got a chance to see Janice and Tenacompo and the Milwaukee Bucks go in and get a win. But then you saw an overtime game

where Kyrie Irving and the Celtics just boat-raced the Sixers in overtime. He was the best player on the floor and there were several other all-stars including Joel M. Bede Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons, even his own teammate Jason Tatum who many

thought, I don't know how that's going to work between the two of them. Now it hasn't been perfect for the Celtics this season. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they have had a dream season. They've had injuries. They've had a little bit of dysfunction. Kyrie Irving did not get off to a great shooting start himself this season. But when you watch

last night, you're like, holy hell, I forgot how good Kyrie Irving is. On a team loaded with talent, he drops 40. 40. He had another one of these games against the wizard just going back about a week and a half ago where he and John Wall went at it. And you're

like, that guy is the best guard I've seen on the floor this year. But there's this weird thing. And Jamie, you asked about somebody coming to L.A. and playing with LeBron. I think there's a little of that with Kyrie where LeBron has this incredible he's he like sucks up all the energy in the room like does he provide the room with more energy yes but he also like all the attention

through no fault of his own belongs to him right it's it's the same way he plays where even if you're going to score like he wants to be the guy that passes to you so then you can score or you know he does this thing where he'll, when he first saw Kyrie, when Cairo was playing for the Celtics, where he rubs you on the head as if, like, you're his little brother. You're never going to be his equal. Even after you leave, there's still the kind of residual effect of playing with LeBron. It reminds me of Paul Rudd. How so? So Paul Rudd, when was the first time you saw Paul Rudd in a movie? Was it? Clueless.

Clueless? Which is a great movie. Okay. Don't judge me. when you, no, no, I'm not judging you. You do have a little silverstone to you. A little share thing going on today, Alicia Silverstone. You do have a little bit of Alicia Silverstone to you. Like, talk about somebody I've never mentioned before. But when you think of that movie, he's like, he's not mentioned in the, when you think of that movie, that's what? Her and Stacey Dasper was in that movie, too, right?

Yeah, she was. Right? Like, that's who you think of in that movie. There are, um, four-year-old virgin. Yes, so good. But that, that movie wasn't about him. Steve Crowe. Anchorman.

He's in that, like he's Brian Fantana, right? He's in that movie, but, and I understand that part of that is the role in which he plays. But then all of a sudden you saw him in like, I love you, man. You're like, wow, that guy can carry a movie. You see him in Ant Man. You're like, he can carry a movie. He's been these kind of bit players with Jason Siegel, as overshadowed him in the past. And who else has he been in movies with?

What's the one? Seth Rogan, right? like he's part of that crew where he's been, he's been with a couple of different crews where he's one of those guys like, I like that guy. He's really good. But you don't know whether or not on his own.

He's almost the opposite of Draymond Green. Like, Draymond Green with the Warriors, people think he's a Hall of Famer. But if you put Draymond Green on his own team, like that dude can't go and get you points. Like he's a superstar role player, perfect role with that team. But he can't go and carry a team.

team. Kyrie Irving was some sort of subsidiary role to LeBron James, whether or not, and people don't even mention, like, he hit the big shot in game seven. Yes, LeBron had arguably the greatest and most important block in NBA finals history when he tracked down Andreo Godal. Let's not undersell that. And there's only one field goal scored in, I think, the last two and a half minutes of that game, that was scored by Kyrie Irving.

But we don't mention it. Some of it's LeBron. Some of it is the media. and how we cover LeBron, how we focus on one superstar. Then you watch him last night, you're like, damn, that guy is, I mean, I would think if you pulled the average American, you'd say like top five point guards in the NBA, you'd start with Russell Westbrook, in addition to Chris Paul,

and of course you got Steph Curry, you know, you got James Hardin. And you're like, what about Kyrie? Like, well, you know, he was the other guy with LeBron, and he's always hurt. And he's, he wasn't that. like good before LeBron. Remember they couldn't win? Like, no one actually wants to report the fact that David Griffin has said, he said it on my radio show.

The reason we were bad was not just that we were young and we didn't have LeBron. We were trying to be bad. We were tanking. We were trying to get the number one overall pick. And you know what? It worked. That's why we had Wiggins that we could trade in order to get Kevin Love. But nobody wants to hear that. They're just like, hey, you know, he couldn't win before LeBron. And the Celtics won last year without him. And so, So he's fine. He's really, really good. But he's not, if you watched him play yesterday on the same floor with Ben Simmons,

Joel Embed, Jimmy Butler, and Jason Tatum, those guys are all really good players. Kyrie Irving was the best player on the floor. It wasn't really all that close. And it's just, it's interesting, the LeBron effect, and this is going to affect people in the offseason where there's enough guys. They're like, dude, I get it. I got a chance at a ring. Seems to be working in L.A. but I'm watching Kyrie Irving

still have to like have to re-prove himself to the world and even that might not be enough. Dwayne Wade. Dwayne Wade was an NBA finals MVP. But because he played with the Bronn and won two titles and lost two others, he was seen as well, Dwayne Wade's more role player,

somehow a massive notch below LeBron James. That's kind of the LeBron effect. And I feel like Kyrie Irving's the Paul Rudd of the NBA. I do like Paul Rudd. Want 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. So I don't think that KD is the exception. I think he's the norm.

Like I think he's 95% of males in America where it doesn't matter where you have money, you don't have money. He's 30 years old. He's a two-time NBA Finals MVP, one-time NBA MVP. he's a gold medalist and he's a two-time NBA champion that has probably $100 million in the bank. He's got a Nike deal, other deals. He does stuff in Silicon Valley.

He does stuff in New York City. He's got everything and he's going to be a free agent so he can get a huge contract and pick his next destination this upcoming off season after likely or possibly after watching last night

winning another NBA title. He should have it all figured out but he doesn't. because like most guys he's still kind of searching. Still trying to figure it out. Take a listen. This is,

he sat down with Chris Haynes on Chris Haynes podcast, and he had this to say about what he's now looking for in upcoming free agency. I just want to make sure I get as much money as I can, my next deal, so I can stack up my money and figure it out. That's just a plan,

play basketball and stack money. They are giving us money to play ball. Yeah. So why can't I? I work as hard as I can to get the most that I can out of myself for myself. Nothing wrong with that. You can get, and by the way, if that's a sign, you know, the Golden State Warriors can pay him far more money than anybody else based upon how

the collective bargaining agreement works. So if you're looking for a sign of whether or not he'll stay, it's I want to make the most money. You can make the most money in Golden State. Do you stay there? He also in the same podcast said he doesn't want fanfare. He wants somewhere where he wants to go to work. Well, it's like, okay, well, if you're not enjoying playing for the Warriors, but you

want the most money, those two ideals kind of conflict, right? It's because he's searching for, he's just looking for something. He's looking for, he strikes me as a guy who's not all that happy. And this is not abnormal, right? Like, what do they say about guys with a Porsche? It's midlife crisis time. You start losing a little bit of hair. You might lose your wife. You're like, you know what? I'm going to go buy a Porsche because that shows that I've made it. I got a little bit of money. and guys think that women are into a guy at a Porsche, where most women are like, he bought a Porsche because he's hiding something, right?

Most women think at a younger age it's not because of hair loss or the midlife crisis. It's overcompensating for lacking in other areas. There you go, okay? So, but that's what, KD is telling you that he's, wants to overcompensate for something else that's missing in his life, whether it's a family or feeling respect or admiration at work or whatever it is. like look he's just like you know what

I've tried the respect thing I've tried the location thing I've tried this thing I've tried that thing you know what I want now I just want all the money and then I'll figure it out and you know what you can figure out a lot of things with money right you can

you can have a house here have a jet there like you can have FU money and that will they'll be some short term and even some long term happiness and everybody maybe he thinks then everybody will leave him alone but whatever it is, he strikes me as 95% of males in America where ridiculously successful,

intelligent, financially successful and stable, respected on many levels at his job. And yet, still searching for something because he's obviously not happy. It's sad, but it's also a snapshot of kind of who we are. And look, some of that does make you better at your job. Make you better at your job. Makes me better. Like, I'm going to always want more guy. Well, what do you work at the holiday season?

Because I want more. Because this is a bigger seat. This is a bigger show. This is more attention, potentially more in the future of other things. I'm not a content guy. But there's a gray area between content and really searching for happiness. And it feels like that's where KD is. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific.

on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the I-Hard Radio app. Did we not watch Drew Brees go four straight games with interception? That did happen in this lifetime. Against the Atlanta Falcons, in this a win, a defense which has been just decimated by injury. They're going to fire everybody in Atlanta. He had 171 yards passing. He backed that up in Dallas, where they had 10 points. 10 points, and they lost the game, 13 to 10 to the Dallas Cowboys.

Again, one game is not a Cesar. season or MVP Definer. One game is not. Pat Mahomes had five turnovers against the Rams. He did have six touchdowns. They did score 51 points. But like, look, if we're going to hold Mahomes accountable for wins and losses, like, that's just

his defense stinks. Now, his defense being stinky does help some statistical dominance. Like, I don't know, he's going to throw 50 touchdown pass. He's going to throw for 5,000 yards. He's going to have 115 or 16 or something crazy passer rating. He's throwing the ball downfield, something that Alex Smith didn't do until

last year, and they're winning games. They're going to have the number one seed in the AFC, barring a collapse and loss to the Raiders who are on a short week. So, I'm not saying Drew Brees hasn't had a great year, but he's got the best rush defense, the best scoring

defense in the National Football League. He plays in a dome and the team set up for a dome. He plays for an incredible play caller, and he's had a really good year. But the MVP is not really the most But most valuable is Andrew Luck. It's the best player, best quarterback on the best team who's had the best season.

That's Pat Mahomes. With that, let's bring in T.J. Husman Zata, former star wide receiver in the National Football League. Now a star here on Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports One. Who should you have yourself on Merry Christmas? It was pretty good. How about yourself? It's really, really good. Really good. It's pretty good. Merry Christmas to you. Happy New Year.

The MVP debate, I watch Mahomes. I'm like, what am I missing that we don't get? give it to him. Are you, if you had a vote, who would you vote for? I'm with you. It's Patrick Wilhelms. It's his first year as a starter.

He's going to throw up for 5,000 yards. You don't see that. And you can say the rules or whatever. Travis Kelsey, Tyreek Hill, Kareem Hunt. Patrick, what he's doing, you just don't see a quarterback

in his first year as a starter have this type of year now. If Aaron Donald breaks Michael Straighthand's record, I believe he deserves consideration. In order for a defensive player to deserve consideration, you have to do things that haven't been done. If he does that, he deserves consideration.

Outside of that, it's Patrick Mahomes. Now, if you give it to Drew Brees, to me, it's a Lifetime Achievement Award. And that's the only way Brees can win it if the voters feel sorry for him that he hasn't won an MVP. You'd give it to Aaron? You'd really give it to Aaron. You'd really give it to Aaron.

Yes. If he breaks Michael Strayhan's record, I don't know if I would give it to him. but he deserves great consideration. I think he'll get consideration. The problem is that, you know, what you're saying is even if he affected, say he ends up with something crazy,

like 22 sacks, right? 23 sacks. The amount of effect he has in a game as compared to a quarterback. You know, it's the old J.J. Watt. You picked the best season J.J. Watt ever had. His team didn't win more games because of it because you don't affect the game as greatly

as when you're quarterback. It's not fair, but that's the reaction. of the position. Positional dependence has to go to the MVP. All right, let's, I want to, speaking of quarterbacks, I want to ask you about Baker Mayfield's act. Now, Baker Mayfield did tweet at Colin Cowher. Did you see this?

Yeah. Okay, so on Christmas Eve, Majjo, did you see this? What's that? Okay. On Christmas Eve, Baker Mayfield said, Merry Christmas to everybody, including that Grinch, Colin Calhurt, right? Like, dude has, he has

a bag of chips on his shoulder, not a chip on his shoulder. This comes off of winning a game against Hoosha's Cincinnati Bengals where he stares down his former head coach, Hugh Jackson, after completing a long pass. Baker Mayfield is walking it like he's talking it, but he's talking a lot for a quarterback. What's your reaction to him?

He needs to chill out. It's by him tweeting at Colin, all it does is reinforce the fact that everything Colin has said is correct. Like, dude, Colin thinks you're a good player. Everybody thinks you're a good player. You just need to chill. It's okay.

You were the first pick. I understand you're a walk-on in college and you've always had to fight uphill. You're fighting uphill battle. But dude, you were the first pick of the draft. You're no longer considered a walk-on. You were considered the best player

coming out of college and you were drafted one. Relax. If I was a defensive player on any team, I would take a fine. I would hit him so late on purpose. Like, shut up. I would take a fine. Like, you would not play and act like that if I was playing.

And I was offensive players, so it would never happen. But if I'm on the opposing team, it would annoy me. Yeah, listen, I think it works in Cleveland because Cleveland has, you know, Cleveland has the same kind of syndrome, right? They've always, people have made fun of the lake when it caught on fire. Heck, the old Browns left town. Everybody leaves Cleveland, right? Cleveland Indians, when they want to get paid, they leave town. LeBron James left town twice.

Came back, one championship, then I'm out. I ain't finished my career here, right? So there's a little bit of, hey, we've always felt like we're the walk-on in the NFL, and now a guy who was a former walk-on comes in, and he's kind of like a WWE wrestler, right? He's talking trash. He's acting crazy. He's waking up, dangerous, and we love it. But it does, I don't know if it's befitting of a franchise quarterback if you want to be

taken seriously in the real, maybe it doesn't matter, right? Quarterbacks don't act like this. And this is why it's different is, if he was on my team, I probably would like it. I think guys love it. That was always my point. When I sat in that and talked to Colin, Colin's like, you know people in Oklahoma, and he said, is he like Mansell? I was like, no, because Manzell, not everybody loved Manzell because Manzell was in it for Manzell, right? Whereas Baker, guys love him. Like, they love playing with him. Yeah, if he's on your team. entire league of and coaches and front office people and I mean like look even the thing he did with the chargers where they were interested in potentially drafting him and then they sent him his playbook

and he's like yeah I didn't even pay attention to it now now we can't draft you because it looks bad now we look like yeah we don't care if you don't think highly of us or but we'll take you anyway like we're not going to draft we don't even consider it so I think it's a fascinating thing um Lamar jackson long term will he work I like Lamar Jackson, man. It will work. To me, it's similar to Russell Wilson, meaning Lamar Jackson has a great defense.

Russell Wilson's first four years in the NFL, he had the number one defense, and then his fifth year they took a drop and went to three. As long as he's playing with a great defense, he's going to be all right because they'll mask his deficiency is throwing a ball. The ball he threw to Mark Andrews, great throw. It's only one throw, and you need to make more of those throws

over the course of a game, but that was a great throw. As long as you can play great defense and run the ball, he'll be fine. I understand, but he's run the ball more than anybody who's ever played the position. He's run it more than he's thrown it. And though he's taller than you think, and he's an unbelievable day. He might be the most athletic to do. Like he and Vic are the most athletic dudes to play the position in the NFL.

Like if Cam Newton's going to get beat up by the wear and tear of playing that style of football, what's going to happen to him? Well, see, he's a different runner. Cam is trying to run through you at times. Lamar is trying to make you miss. History has shown a quarterback can't run the ball like this. Now, if he's, if you can give them. He also, he doesn't just miss.

He misses badly, right? Like, he misses underneath throws, what should be easy throws, and he misses badly at times, which will lead to turnovers. But, yeah, like, I just don't. I wouldn't want to play Baltimore in the playoffs. If I'm a team,

I'm afraid to play the Baltimore Ravens. in the playoffs. Defensively, they're going to shut you down. They're going to limit your possessions. Yes. They've got a great field goal kickers. They're going to run the ball and they limit your possessions. They limit the amount of time you possess the ball.

It's you have to be perfect when you play Baltimore because of that run game and that defense. And so as long as he's had, he has the surrounding cast around him, I'm a fan of them. Are we willing to at least consider that Tom Brady's over the hill? Man, you know what? I've been, the game was. on. I watched the game out here.

The Bill's game? Yes. And I was upset that it was on, actually. So I was on the NFL pass ticket. If you watch the Patriots, Julian Edelman is the only guy that can beat man coverage. Yes. And so,

defenses know this. These coaches watching football, they watch the Patriots and say Julian Elderman is the only guy can beat us in a passing game. That's his problem. So does it look like Thomas slowed down? Yes. But when Tom doesn't have anybody that can get open, how is he going to look? How is he going to look? You take Julian Edelman away who you throw on the ball to. But he's also looked more inaccurate and

if possible less that. Like he's looked very uncomfortable the past couple weeks in that pocket. He has not played well, but the guys around him haven't played well either. Right. And now, New England, this is just me. They're there. And I said, this last week, you can never really go against New England, but I don't think they're going to win a playoff game this year. I don't, I don't need a rapboard said I'm crazy because it's Brady because it's Belichick. Like, tell me the game breakers they have on defense. Pittsburgh is probably the best team that could win a Super Bowl and they won't even make the playoffs.

New England won't win a playoff game and they're going to get a first round by. Tom Brady is not playing great, but when you don't have a receiver that can get open consistently and man-to-man, outside of Elderman and a kid, defense of coordinator is going to take that away. It's going to be tough on any quarterback. All right. Last thing. Cousins has a chance to kind of redeem himself in the eyes of most NFL fans. They got the Bears coming in nasty defense, but playing at home should help.

Can the Vikings beat the Bears and get in the playoffs? The Vikings will win the game. And my reasoning is the Bears really don't have anything to play for. They play at the same time as the Rams. And so once they see the Rams are going to blow the 49ers out, they're going to pull guys out. They'll pull some guys out of the game. and that will enable Minnesota to win the game because more than likely, they're going to play each other in first round of playoffs.

And so Kirk Cousins will win the game because of circumstances. I said that was the last one I lied. Golf. How do you fix golf? Like he has not, even go back to the Lions game, he didn't look good. How do they reconfigure that thing? That offensive line, number one, they need to give the ball to Todd Gurley more. But the offensive line, if you think about, they've been getting manhandled up front.

Yep. Man handled up front. And so he's seeing ghosts when they're not there. And when they are there, he just hasn't, he hasn't been as accurate because the pressure has been getting to him. The offensive line hasn't played well in the last four to five games. That's the same thing that happened to the Chargers where, you know, against the Ravens who you talked about.

Like he had, he had throwals at his feet the entire night. You can't step into a throw. You're worried about, you know, your legs or whatever. And so you end up, you're short on passes, you're inaccurate on passes. And golf is a guy who can, you hit him once. He lacks a little bit of confidence as well. And the Rams miss Cooper Cup. Brandon Cook's is a good receiver, but he needs to be great with the contract that he has.

And I don't know what his size, can he be great? He's good. And they miss Cooper Cup. I completely agree with all of your analysis. That's not why we had you on. But of course, he was a pro bowler. You can see him on Speak for yourself. You always see him here on the herd.

He's T.J. Hushmanzada. Hush, thanks so much. Thank you guys. One more Hird. The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app. Search her to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. 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 Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help 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 Clivert Taylor the Fourth. 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, this linebacker walks up to me. He goes, A, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Rhett, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker.

Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on the Army. I'm Tav Ramos. I'm Tom Boke. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer,

you'll get the real storylines. the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tabramos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.