The Herd with Colin Cowherd - NFL Safety Measures, Gronk's New Scene, NBA MVP Decision

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

In this full show edition of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Doug Gottlieb--in for Colin--shares his thoughts on recent tweets by NFL stars addressing the NFL's lack of pandemic safety protocols as the start of training camp draws near. Also, tight end Rob Gronkowski needed a change in culture with his latest NFL team, while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to change their overall culture of losing. Finally, Doug wades through the NBA's MVP candidates. Guests include: Geoff Schwartz, Albert Breer, Mario Chalmers and Mark Schlereth. 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. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down,

and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild. I mean, it was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all?

You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening to The HARD 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 Hurt at Fox SportsRoddio.com or stream us live every day on the IHeartRadio app by searching Hurd. for listening to Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is The Herd, wherever you may be in. However you may be making us part of your day, thanks so much. Live in Los Angeles, I'm Doug Gottlie, filling in for Colin Calhurt. Colin's back tomorrow.

We got an outstanding show for you today. In one hour, I will tell you the NBA's MVP should be. and the true metric for how we should come to that decision. That's upcoming in one hour. Let me tell you what we got for this show. Mario Chalmers, hero at Kansas, two-time NBA champ, a teammate of LeBron during those two NBA championship teams with the Miami Heat, will join us in the 2 o'clock East Coast, 11 o'clock on the West Coast hour.

Stank, Mark Schlaerth, will join us that hour as well. man 101. He's so good at growing his lawn in Denver. It actually grows on top of sprinklers. That will get to the upcoming NFL season. Now, Albert Breer, senior NFL reporter for the MMQB will join us next hour. And Jeff Schwartz will join us in 30 minutes, former offensive lineman. And we will get his take on how difficult it will be for offensive linemen to prepare for this upcoming season, considering all of the different challenges with COVID-19 still out there. Let's start there. Let's start there. By the way, Gronk said something which I feel like

is completely and totally accurate. And the answer is not always a positive, but it's one in which he's been searching for. Get to that. Man, we got a good show for you. Saw baseball on TV last night. Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox.

Anyone else love the White Sox's new hats? I do. I do. John Rom, who hit an incredible chip shot late in his, I mean, he was running away with it. And that was supposed to be the dagger, ends up moving the ball. We'll get to the John Rom and golf and why what I think is better, what I think is worse, watching sports without fans in attendance. We'll get to all that.

Let's start here, though. Today is supposed to be the day that two NFL teams rookies are reporting. Pat Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Michael Thomas, Richard Sherman, Drew Brees, J.J. Watt, and many other NFL superstars all took to social media using the hashtag, we want to play to voice their concerns over current guidelines the NFL has in place to handle coronavirus. Adam Schefter reported earlier today via Twitter. The NFL and owners will be conducting a league meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern as they try to finalize the safety measures, financial agreements, and reducing or eliminating preseason games per league sources. none of these answers are really, really easy to come by, right?

To this point, the only answers we've been provided is they're going to shrink the preseason rosters and shrink the preseason by at least two games. And the prevailing wisdom is, hey, we've got to have a preseason home game for each team so that we can go through the process of whatever level of fans or not having fans or what an NFL stadium looks like with limited fans or no fans to have kind of a dry run. which I think is reasonable. The biggest critique you're getting, though, is many players and some pundits saying,

how did the NFL not have a plan? Can I defend the NFL for a second? Which plan? Like the NBA got criticized, and I criticized them on this very show for having a plan which, at the time of which was implemented, felt like it was two or three months old. And now feels like it might be the smartest plan.

Right? Remember, like the bubble was a plan that came back, that came out early in April. Early in April. But it wasn't until late July, mid-July, when they showed up in Orlando. And there was a time in May and in June, we were like, why are they in the bubble when Disney World's open?

Why are they in the bubble when Florida has never closed up shop? Why are they in the bubble? And now you're like, man, don't I wish I was in the bubble? So the NFL, instead of going on dated data, they just sat there and let the world kind of figure itself out. Try to figure out, is this a second wave? Is this not a second wave? What practices actually work? They use time as a great resource.

What's that calling always says? Better to get it right than get it first? And that's kind of what the NFL's done. And to these star players, who are asking on social media, like Russell Wilson, hey, my wife is pregnant. I just need to know what's what. I just want to keep everybody safe.

Like, that's cool. But trying to embarrass the league, frankly is not. It doesn't help anybody. It doesn't motivate anybody. It doesn't start the clock. It doesn't. That's not, now look, there are only two possible reasons that the NFL would delay such talks

as to what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. The first is to get as much information as possible, which feels like at least 50% of the logic. The second part, and this is far more devious, is the longer you wait, the less leverage that NFL players have. Like if they came out with a plan a month ago knowing that today was the day the two NFL teams were supposed to report, and later this week is when everybody's supposed to report with their rookies, well, you give us a month, now a sudden we're going to get to jockey and jostle and position ourselves and stick our feet. But now the only thing the NFL players can say is, hey, look, we want to play. Just, you know, let's agree to a plan in place.

Whereas NFL teams are like, look, you guys are tired of being at home anyway. College kids are back on their campuses for the most part working out. We've seen this work with the NFL. We're seeing it work for the most part with Major League Baseball. We've allowed them to try things. to be our guinea pigs and we can figure this thing out. We can check out our revenue based upon different models if we have fans in, if we have limited fans in, if we have no fans in,

we can calculate that and come out with an answer. But whatever you do, I wouldn't listen to the noise and I would just assume there's going to be an NFL season. You can sit here and tell me there's more contact and touching in football than there isn't baseball. I'm absolutely positively not going to argue with that. But there's not nearly as much, you know, sweat being exchanged as there is in basketball. And somehow they're getting ready to have an NBA season. Right. So the fact is, the fact is, we're going to have football.

And we're going to have NFL football. Barring some sort of calamity, that's what we're going to have. And how they limit and what they limit. And the act like they haven't. been talking the whole time. I love the, I love NFL players who are like, man, I can't believe the NFL didn't

do anything. It's like, you know, this is a collectively bargained upon deal. There are two sides in any argument, in any discussion, in any negotiation, in any relationship. It's never just one side? It's a two-sided thing.

Well, I can't believe. This is the wife who says, you know, we never, we never went on a vacation. We just never did. We have not gone on a family vacation. And this is the husband. The NFL is the husband.

They're going like, you know, you can plan a vacation too. Right. Or if the wife is the one that works and the husband's like, man, all you do is work, work, work. And when you have time off, you just hang out. There's no plan like, look, you're at home. You're not working. Like get on kayak or whatever orbits and figure it out.

Book something. It always takes two to tango. I mean, and then you. Then you get all kinds of stuff. Like, I saw this from pro football talk. I mean, how about this laughable one? With daily testing and 24-hour turnaround for up to 5,800 samples, the NFL will definitely be consuming resources that could be devoted to the general public.

Okay, so you want the NFL to make sure that everybody is safe, everybody is tested, and you want to know as quickly as possible. And by the way, a 24-hour turnaround is not. not the quickest turnaround available. Some are, you can get some of these tests back in like 20 or 30 minutes. My brother is coaching a professional three-on-three, four-money pay-per-view event in Las Vegas. They tested the guys two days ago.

If you came up clean, you knew, you knew in 25 minutes. But you have this group of people like, well, we want the NFL to have a plan. We want the NFL to be safe. but whatever you do, when you execute your plan to be safe, you can't use resources that the rest of the public doesn't have. Like, what are you even talking about? How far lost are you? If that were the case, then, well, the public should be allowed to use their workout facilities.

Their rehab facilities. Heck, why don't we have the public be able to use their practice facilities? If they want to play football on a Friday evening, they can just reserve time on the practice field. It's a private business. It's a multi-billion dollar business. They're trying to protect their workforce, and they're going to throw every resource they can't have it, at it, at it.

And you better believe that if they can do it in baseball and they can do it in hoop, they'll do it in football. Forget the plover you're hearing about not knowing what's going on. All the NFL did was execute Collins' basic philosophy is it's better to be right than to be first. Now, they had time on their side, and they've used that time. They've used that time. Does that mean it's going to be perfect?

Does that mean they're not going to change? They're not going to evolve? No, but you know what else? The information the data has changed and evolved greatly from week to week, sometimes day to day, or speech to speech. Coming up next. It's a very natural thing to want to change in life. You know the expression that grass is always greener? I'll tell you why one NFL players.

about to find out it's not always greener, even when the weather should make it so. That's next time. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurt. Be sure to catch live editions of the HARD weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHard Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking Tripp Fontaine, Ron. Ryan Clark, sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase

that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro.

Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app.

Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clivert 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, 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 of 42. Hey, ref, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

By the way, my TikTok game is coming along here. I do not know all the dances. but dropped to TikTok on Saturday night hanging out with kiddos. It's pretty impressive. I don't hand out to the TikTok Awards to Ad Gottlieb show. Feel free. Doug Gottlieb and for Colin, listen up, fellas.

You can use the right tools for the job thanks to revolutionary company, Manscaped. Their lawnmower 3.0 is geared for skin safe technology, so this trimmer reduces cuts. Get 25% off. Plus free shipping with the code herd at manscape.com. That's manscape.com. Use the code heard. You know, I saw this story about Rob Grankowski.

He was on a radio station in Boston. And he said, quote, as a player, you always want to see what it's like somewhere else. I thought that before, definitely before playing nine years in the NFL. And I thought about it when I came out of retirement. This is an opportunity to go and see what it's like somewhere else, to go see what it's like in the NFL on another squad. There's so many players that balance. around to so many different teams.

I love my time in New England. There's no doubt about it, but it was another opportunity that presented. Should be that presented itself. But that's Rob Grankowski. I think we can all relate to that. Right? Like a lot of times people leave companies

just because you just, you plateau. I mean, I've told people, my career trajectory is obviously different than Collins. He had his reasons behind leaving ESPN. I had mine. I left previous to him. But a good portion of it was, and this is just kind of the reality, was I loved my time there.

When I was there, again, Colin was there. Dan Patrick was there. Like our radio lineup here at Fox Sports Radio was really their lineup there. And I enjoyed my time. I'm not one of these guys that walked away with any sort of bitter feelings at all. You know? there wasn't, you know, there's this presumption that there's a heavy-handedness. Matter of fact, even my boss now here, I worked with there.

So there's a lot of familiarity. And it made it really easy. And that's one of the things that Grunk isn't going to have outside of having Tom Brady is a boss that gets him and understands him, which is one of the things that I've learned. You know, if you go somewhere new, you better go somewhere new that gets you, understands you. Maybe they've had somebody like you previously. Because otherwise it's just kind of, kind of clunky.

You know, kind of clunky. I left ESPN, what is it? How am I been here? Three years, over three years. So eight years ago, eight years ago. And I was really, really sad and in many ways scared. Like, man, this is all kind of I've ever known. I didn't do a huge stint in the minors.

I'm one year doing radio in Oklahoma City and doing games for ESPN, then ESPN Plus. And then I was off and moved to Bristol, Connecticut after playing ball in France for a month and a half. That was it. So it was a very quick upward trajectory and I worked my way up there. And I got to a place where I felt like I was kind of bumping into a little bit of a ceiling. And I wanted to try something different. And I remember being asked a really solid question because at the time CBS was launching radio, I had a TV show there on their cable network and I was going to do college basketball.

I remember thinking like, this is the stuff that I have there. I don't have my own show, but it's a bigger platform, but I'm not on the biggest part of the place. I started talking myself into circles. And I literally called everyone I respect in the business and they all gave me great advice. they were all unbelievable Colin was great Van Pelt was great Torrico was unbelievable

unbelievable Dan Patrick was great like you call these guys and you're like man I hope they'll like listen and give me some real advice and everybody had some different advice but you still at the end of the day a friend of mine said

could you could you go through life watching the NCAA tournament looking at the big desk get the final four thinking I could have been there. Right? Now, here's the downside to it. You ready? The downside to it is, I used to be there. It's like you watch and unless you're going to go and stay forever and grow and become part of that culture, there's going to be a time when you leave that and you're not going to feel the same connection. It's not going to be

the same and that you know that that that that cup what is what is the cup from from Indiana Jones in the last crusade the ark it from the the cup cup

the holy grail right to me my final four was my holy grail holy grail it's all I wanted right you could like we talk it wasn't about money it was a little bit about where I wanted to live

but I was happy where I was, but that was my Holy Grail. And a friend of mine said, can you, will you be able to watch college basketball anymore knowing you could have had your Holy Grail? And I just like, no, I couldn't. The downside is, and now I watch,

and I love what I do and who I work for and where I live, and, you know, we have a better radio lineup, we have a great TV lineup, like things are cool, things are easy. But I'd be like, lying if I didn't say I look back at that Holy Grail and think that used to be mine. Right?

I look at Rob Gruncowski and this is the old grass is always greener. Yes, who wouldn't love to see what Tampa's like? They got a Super Bowl there. The weather's warm. You got a coach that doesn't give a flip, you know? I mean, it is cocktail hour at cocktail hour. They are not going to grind in Tampa. He's got Tom Brady who gets him, knows him, will get him.

him the football will read the mismatches and can speak his language in terms of if the lingo is different and how they call a play. Tom can translate to him. That part is easy. But you're going to a place that hasn't won a playoff game since they won a Super Bowl. They've only had two double-digit win seasons since they won a Super Bowl. You're doing in place with very little culture of winning in a division where in the last five years, all three other teams have been to a Super Bowl. You haven't won a playoff game since you beat the Raiders in the Super Bowl almost 20 years ago. And all three other teams in the division, Saints are more than five years,

but could have gone to the Super Bowl in the past couple years. So you're going to a division that has other teams with better culture, winning culture, winning consistency like Tampa. The Falcons have been up and down. And the thing that I do know is that people love love change. Who do I love change? But you know what's hard?

Transition. Change is great. Transition's hard. And you go from not playing, shortened off season, no real culture of winning, two guys from a winning franchise, one who hasn't played football in a year,

the other one who throws and plays a different style than what Bruce Ariens has always had. Change is great. Transitions hard. And I do think that this could be a grass is always greener. man, I always wanted to get out and see what it was like outside of New England. But maybe there's a reason to England always wins.

Let's get to rhyme music with the news. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Good morning, Doug. Good to be with you here today. And you talk about change. We are seeing some change in the world of sports. Some big news that could have some big ramifications, Doug.

CIF, which governs high. school sports here in California just announced they will be moving all fall sports beginning as early as December or potentially January. The big news here is obviously football, what that potentially means for college football and some of their top recruits here in California. Yeah, because a lot of the top recruits nationally, you go to college, you know, you graduate early. Right. And you go to college. And some of them get waivers. They're able to participate and even spring practices and stuff. Right.

No, you graduate early. I believe you can, and you get enrolled early, you can participate in spring ball, although we don't know if they'll have spring ball. They didn't have spring ball this year. So, look, I think a lot of it comes down to California schools just don't have the resources, right?

They just don't have the resources to test people and to protect people. And I understand that when you look at the raw data, many people point out how little kids aren't affected by it but everyone else surrounding is and this age group right the 15 to 20 year old age group that's where the highest spike how the highest rise has been in in cases recently so they're probably going to start with distance learning in California anyway it makes it harder to harder to have practices this makes it so that you're not just jamming things together they can't risk lawsuits because they just don't have the financial

resources to defend themselves. This seems like a very reasonable thing to do, but it does completely change the recruiting process, the advancement process, like everything about it is, okay, what about if they push back basketball and football running at the same time? Now you can't be a multi-sport

athlete. Right. So, or basketball and football and baseball. Can't be a multi-sport kid. There's also something in there where you're going to be allowed to play with a club team if your sports team's not playing. So If basketball is pushed back, I guess potentially AAU basketball will take over. I don't know.

It's very confusing, but there won't be multi-sport athletes in the state of California this year. Yeah. And it'll be interesting to see. I mean, each state has clearly handled this way different depending on where you are. So clearly a state like California has made this decision. Now, when you talk about Texas and Florida. I have a friend. This is a legit story.

I have a friend who called me yesterday and said, hey, you have friends that get coach in high school in Oklahoma. I said, yeah, he said, I think they're going to go in the fall. I don't think we're going to have a season. I might move my kid there because, I mean, he's not going to play in college. He wants to play high school football. My question becomes, could you go and play high school football there if they have in the fall? And then come back in the spring? Two seasons?

It would be awesome. All right. Well, we'll wrap up with this, Doug, a little bit of NBA. Early last week, we found out Russell Westbrook would not be joining his team in Orlando after he tested positive for the coronavirus. Now he has to clear several different protocols before he can enter the NBA bubble. Rocket's head coach Mike Dantony said this about Westbrook. I do hear he's in pretty good shape and has been ramping up. So hopefully it's fairly seamless.

The medical staff will determine when Russ is ready to go or when he'll be able to play 20 or 30 minutes. Well, the big unknown about COVID-19 is how your body recovers, specifically your lungs. There have been people whose lungs have just been really compromised by this. And for Russell Westbrook, a guy who plays with great energy. and it's not like he's going to have six months to repair them. It's going to be fascinating to see what he's like when he comes back. He was playing some of the best basketball of his life before the shutdown. And that's Ryan's Music with the News.

Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News. Jeff Schwartz, the former offensive lineman and a good one. He'll join us in a moment. The Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You Podcast. maybe more importantly, Jeff, if you follow him on social media, you know that he had a pool installed during quarantine,

started before quarantine, installed during quarantine, and then he had, I don't know whether they had they had torrential rains in Carolinas, in Charlotte or not, but he had some pool issues over the weekend. These are first world problems, but problems, nonetheless, especially when you got a couple little ones and it's in the heat of summer. It's in, you know, butt sweat time. That's what it is. You get to humidity and everything's sweating,

especially when you're a larger gentleman like Schwartzie is. So I look at this, the NFL stuff, and I think this is all just posturing. Everybody knows that the NFL has been preparing. They just didn't want to come down with their exact plans and details until they had all the information. It's almost better last second. You know what this reminds me of? You're almost better traveling last second nowadays.

as well. Jeff Schwartz is joining us. Are you a last second traveler or do you book months in advance? I'm like a family trip. We booked like six months in advance but most of the time when I travel for business it's booked like very short notice. But family trips like six months in advance. My wife has to get off work like we have to, those are coordinated. But I get like

just having to like go for business go quickly. Wait six months in advance? Yeah, we have, yeah. We book like a trip to this April. We're supposed to go to church and Checos with the kids, we booked it like in November. Got canceled, obviously. We booked Disneyland probably like five months in advance. I got canceled too.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm, that's way too much. I would break out in hives. I couldn't do that. More than any more than three weeks in advance, and I would almost stop. Wait, wait, so if you want to go to a family trip. Yes. Somewhere.

You wait three weeks and book it three weeks in advance. Yes. And your wife, what do you do this? She's not very happy about it. But look, she could book it. Well, my wife's the one who does it. That's probably why it gets booked so far. There you go.

There's maybe the point, right? There are two sides. Two sides of Jeff Schwartz joining us. Okay, so some of these players have taken to social media complaining about a lack of facts and knowledge. How much of this is just posturing on social media? How much of it is just they really don't know what's going to happen? Well, there's a little bit of both.

I definitely think that's social media posturing. I think one thing that happened recently is the NFL players learn, kind of figured out that they have to report no matter what. I think there was a question of whether or not, like, who had the power to compel people to report, right? Was it the players had the power? Was it the owners? I think they figured out recently that they have to show up, that per the CBA, per their contract, they have to be there or they're going to be fined. And they realize that. And they're using social media that kind of garner support for better working conditions as they get.

back to play. I think that's the number one reason why they figured out that they kind of have to start, you know, publicly pressure in the NFL, which never seems to work. So that's why I think it's the coordinate to ever do it. But I do think there are a lot of players that have no idea how this is going to work. But, look, the Vikings,

Peter Kane wrote article A, the Vikings facility, like, they're ready to go. So, like, there is some sort of plan in place. There's totally plans and played. Like, it's, it's obviously the NFLPA telling their biggest names to put something out there. And anyone with a brain and reads Peter King's thing.

Like, they have exes on where you should sit, where you should stand. They spread out the lockers. Like, what a load of crap. So I think the contention right now is a couple of things. One is the money, of course, right? There's a lot of issues with next year salary cap. And then also, you know, the players on their side, they have a little bit leverage. They realize that they play one game this year.

Their salaries are guaranteed for the season. So if they play only eight games, the NFL's got to pay them. So the NFL is worried about figuring that part out. and the preseason stuff. So look, I have a little bit of a gripe with the way the players are going about this whole preseason schedule because they had a 46, 48-day plan put in place by a joint health committee, okay? And this was months ago. So 48 days, it was 14 to 48 days, like three weeks of the OTAs kind of like the, you know, the weight room stuff, meetings,

10 days or so of non-padded kind of teamish practices, and then 14 days of practice. plenty right now. 14 days of practice is not enough time to be ready to play an NFL game. In those 14 days, you're not going to have pads on every day. You probably have pads on eight or nine times. That is 1,000 percent. Not enough time to get ready to play.

And the veterans know that. So I'm not quite sure why they're sticking to this idea of not a lot of practices. In my opinion, they should have come in two weeks early. It's easy to say that now because I'm not playing anymore and what I have wanted to come in two weeks early, probably not. I know there's some CBA procedural thing that they couldn't do. it, but they could easily have done it. They're going to start the process two weeks ago.

I get to doing it now. They're using the leverage they have to have no preseason games. It may or may not work. The new proposal, I guess, is one preseason game, which I get on the NFL side and wanting to have kind of a game day experience with new protocols and figure out how this is going to work. But that's the only great to have what the players really is that, like, I just don't think they're going to practice with them before they play.

Yeah. That, to me, just seems silly. Yeah. So the quality of play will likely be hurt. The injuries will likely be used. up, but more than anything, like the Patriots have used that first month of the season as advanced training camp. Yeah.

I mean, I mean, I guess I like Kansas City because they'll return 20 or 22 starters, right? Baltimore. Right? Baltimore as well, you know, bringing everybody back. So are those the teams that benefit the most from having the least practice time? 100%. Veteran teams with veteran players, they're going to have to be older players. I mean, Pat Mahomes is a veteran.

You know, Lamar Jackson is now a veteran. He's played a season and a half. He's in a great system. Oh, yeah, 100% of those teams, you know, the Niners return most of their starting line up from last year. That was really good. I think those teams are going to have a huge advantage. I feel bad for rookies this year,

especially, like undrafted guys, seventh-round picks who are trying to make the team like I did. You have no chance to make a team this year. No chance. Four team practices, they're going to keep veterans. They're going to keep guys that know what they're doing. It's a bad situation for young players. Young quarterbacks are in a struggle.

you know, offense alignment are going to really struggle if they have to play early on. So that's my only gripe I have with the players. I think obviously, you know, health and safety is important and they should try to do their best to get that in place. And especially the money side of this and the COVID-I-R and things like that and making sure that they're protected with their money in this situation. But it gives me a steep learning curve for a lot of these players. Zoom meetings, man. Yeah, they're great to just learn basic terminology. But a lot of players learn by seeing things and by doing walk.

in practice, and we're not having much of that before week one. Yeah, I am interested in offensive lines because, you know, with the lack of hitting, Dave's struggle with cohesion in the past, it would stand a reason that it'll only be worse this year. 100%. And I'm not even sure the veteran

part of this really matters because a Hall of Fame offensive alignment told me he needs 10 practices to get ready. And this is the problem of his career. And now they're asking for 14. Like, I mean, it's just, it's not a lot. And so I definitely think there's going to be a lot of poor offense

a line to fly more than usual, which could be the players getting hurt. I really hope not. But as we've seen since 2011, when practice time was lowered, when hitting was lowered, which I agree with in principle, yes, we should hit a little bit less, practice a little bit less maybe.

But the injuries in the NFL did not go down. The average career length did not go up. And so the owners are more than willing to give us some sessions on player safety to get money back in their pocket. And so, you know, the idea of just less and less and less practice time, I think there's going to be a disaster this year. But I get sort of why they have to do it just because this acclamation period kind of has to happen, this ramp up period, to get guys even in shape to practice. Because we know that there's no substitute for working out in a group.

We're working out with teammates, kind of a football facility than working out on your own. Jeff Schwartz has joined us former offensive lineman in the National Football League. Of course, he has the Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You podcast. You played with Cam Newton in Carolina. I guess there's a bunch of questions I have, but the one I've heard posed to me the most in regards to Cam Newton is can he still throw? Like he hurt his shoulder. He had shoulder surgery. He changed his throwing motion and the results weren't great.

Do we know if his shoulder will hold up? Well, we don't until he plays. I keep sticking to the point of, I hope, 2018, the first half is what we get from him. Yeah, I mean, look, it was tough in camp in 20. 2019 a little bit last year for his arm and obviously only played two games, so it's hard to see. But I think he's, look, he's had two years. And look, in that offense, I think people are freaking out about how much they're going to change the pictures of the offense.

I do not expect to very much change. I think they're going to put in some quarterback runs here and there, but they're going to call what they call. Look, it's a lot of shorter passes. He doesn't not airing the ball out, play action pass, not throwing the ball deep very often that offense. It's a lot of intermediate throws, short throws, which he can handle, in my opinion. drive the ball like he used to in 2015, probably not anymore.

He's older, he's more beat up. But can he be an efficient quarterback? Yes. It's just a matter of how healthy he is, his foot, his shoulder. The foot kind of never really heals that kind of Liz Frank thing. So I hope he stays healthy. I think the past can be good if he's a little above average. Yeah, but the problem is that with those short intermediate stuff, he's got to be accurate.

And that's always been one of the weakest parts of his game. except for those eight weeks in 2018 when he was in Norv Turner's office. The first time of his career, he played in a pro-style passing attack and kind of playing that hybrid Mike Shula, play action pass, kind of RPO offense that he designed for Cam, which I don't think gets enough credit for. Then he played with Norv Turner, and he was kind of checked down, short passes, timing routes. He did really good.

He completed almost 68% of passes, which was 7, 9% more than his career average. So I'm hopeful we get that Cam Newton because. I think it would be fun to watch kind of a vengeful Cam Noon, a guy who's out to kind of get the NFL, you know, no one wanted to sign him, and also Belichick who wants to prove that he's better without Tom Brady or just as good. I think that combination could be really fun to watch if Cam is healthy. There's some talk in San Francisco over lack of trust between Garoppolo and Kyle Shanahan.

Obviously, we saw eight-past in the NFC championship game, and then, you know, in the Super Bowl, with a lead up until, you know, like the third downplay, they didn't trust them to uncork it, you know, and try and throw the ball, you know, with a full boat of timeouts at the end of the first half, how hard will that trust be to be rebuilt? We've got to make some of those big throws. I mean, you know, he missed Sanders at the end of the Super Bowl. He was wide open. He split double coverage on third down.

He had a third and six to kiddle that he didn't throw him the ball. He threw to someone else. So, yeah, those, I know they're only two plays, but they're two points in the Super Bowl. And the Niners were up, what, 14 points in that game? I mean, I think it was 10 points maybe. Like, you expect 10.7 minutes left. You pay Jimmy G. all this money.

He has to take you home. He's got to take you home. And he didn't do it. And I know it's a small couple of plays here and there, but those couple plays here and there in that game stand out to coaching staff. And it's hard to ignore those. And I'm not saying the day that, you know, they can't work it out. but really until he gets back to that game

and proves in that moment that he can do it, I do think there's going to be just a little bit of like Kyle Shannon. I think can Jimmy really do it in that moment? And look, it's, I think it's fair to question that a little bit. And Jimmy's had big games. He had big games last year, but in the biggest game in those moments, he missed.

Last thing, what was the pool issue? Did you guys get that stuff? Would you have rain and then seepage? What happened now? So there's a construction. site up the road. And our neighbor is actually suing them because they have done a terrible job of water management. And it rained about an inch and a quarter and about 15 minutes.

And their runoff was too much for our drainage to handle. So got in the pool. So our pool is all looking at right now. It's just muddy and green. It's disgusting. But I mean, we're going to get it fixed obviously. But yeah, man, it sucks. We have to redo landscaping probably to make sure that there's not a problem going forward.

I got Schlaerathon later. He got Man 101. He can teach you how to do landscaping yourself. Thank you. These are first world problems for a kid from Southern California. They are. But you guys stay strong out there. Charlotte Strong, okay?

Thank you. I'll do it. All right. Jeff Schwartz, former offensive lineman and a great dude. Of course, his brother Mitchell is an absolute star with the Can City Chiefs. He joined us here in the herd. Coming up next, I watch golf and baseball over the weekend. I noticed something about sports in 2020.

You might not want to hear. It's next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to. to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From

viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slice Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're

thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we picket here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont

Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84's big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now.

Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast.

Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase

that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes a ball. wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person

while you hear on earth, or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose

on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. What's up, guys. This is Clever 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, 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, ref, my mama want you to wave at her. What?

Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Did you know that right now, GEICO is offering an extra 15% credit on car, motorcycle, and RV policies? That's 15% on top of what GEICO could already save you. So what are you waiting for? Save an extra 15% when you switch by October 7th. Visit GEICO.com to learn more. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin.

This is The Herd. Did you watch golf this weekend? I mean, like, look, Tiger didn't advance to the weekend. And that course, I mean, if you've ever wondered what a difference a week makes, they played at Mearfield Village, a place in Tiger won, I think, five times. It's Jack's tournament. But in the one week, you went from like a Muni to like a U.S. Open caliber course. Some of it is weather, but some of it is just they grew up the rough.

And they cut the fairways and the greens and then the pin placements were ridiculously hard. and I mean it became you know Parr was a joke so Rom wins and then I was watching baseball last night and granted

I have a special affinity for Wrigley you know but outside of the fact it was Wrigley Field with the Cubs and the White Sox and Yankee Stadium with the Mets and the Yankees

Maybe it was the way baseball was broadcast and it's regular season. And my man Boog Shambi, for example, on the call of the Chicago game, calling it from his couch in New York City with Chipper Jones and Rick Sutcliffe. It was a fun watch, but it felt like we were all watching a baseball. It felt no different. It almost like, all right, this is a parenting thing. you get to an age when you're a parent where you're no longer needed

they really just need you for your ATM card for your credit card for your cash right you're like man why am I even here they don't actually need me you ever been to one of those like if I left as long as I left my credit card

open no one would even know and that's kind of what's happened with baseball and golf granted playoff baseball I think crowds are and you know the masters or one of the one of the majors on a Sunday, the tiger roars, the crowds. Okay.

But there are some benefits like in golf. Like you get to, did you guys see what Phil did? Phil had a putted from 78 yards. And then he's miced up. He's like, that didn't work the way I saw it going in my head. You never would have heard that otherwise. Between the microphones picking up on everything, I just, to me, golf might actually be a better watch.

Because now it's like a regular golf match. It's still the pressure. There's just not the people there who are just in the way. And they just yell, you're the man. Baseball, like, yeah, a home run ball guy catches the ball. Kid makes a play. Okay, you miss it. But honestly, did anyone miss?

I was watching, I had baseball on, the Sunday night baseball. And it felt like any Sunday night for the last 15 years of my. life. Have it on. You watch a little bit. You talk a little bit with your boy about the teams and the players. Then you're like, all right, let's go get the meat off the grill. Felt very, very normal. Coming up next. The NBA bubble is about to have games underway. Lakers play their first scrimmage game, I think, on Thursday. Wait to you hear what LeBron James's head coach, Frank Vogel, said about his star. And what I'll tell you about the NBA, the old. ultimate metric for telling you the MVP.

That's next time. I'm Doug Gottlie. This is The Hurt. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart radio app. Search HARD 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. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying,

and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversy, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear.

The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont,

Mon Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack, so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now, so. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes.

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. to look back at it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keer Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience

in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch life becomes about wins and losses Steve Burns Dustin Ross because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth or are you a good person because you're afraid because that's two different intentions bro absolutely and that that's two different levels of trust I want you to just really be a good person

Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clifford 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, Wreck, my mama

want you to wave at her. What? Where's she at? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What up? Welcome in. This is the herd, wherever you may be. And however you may be be making it's part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gowler.

Lee. In for Colin Cowherd. Big Man's back tomorrow. And he'll be here the rest of the week. So can't wait to hear what he has to say. We've got a great show for you. Albert Breer will join us, senior NFL reporter. Why is the NFLPA posturing this way? Mario Chalmers' top of next hour, Marsh Slareth in the next hour as well. I feel like these NFL players, you know, with the stars, the Pat Mahomes is the Russell Wilson's of the world, the JJ Watts questioning, you know, coming back without answers. You ever notice this?

And this is what happens with reporters in the NBA, whether it's Woge, Windy, or Shams. And it happens in the NFL with Albert Breer and all the different NFL reporters. where it feels like they get a group text all at the same time, and then the stories break all at the same time. Like everybody has the same tweet. That's what it feels like from the NFLPA.

It's like they all sent out a little text. Hey, could you all tweet out something questioning the policies and procedures in place in the NFL and complain about it? And they did. Let's get to this. The NBA is Thursday we're going to have like a Lakers scrimmage on TV, aren't we? Is that right? Am I looking at that calendar correctly?

Yes, Thursday, meaningless basketball returns to your TV dial, which is a good thing. I mean, meaningless in the most loving and adoring way. Better meaningless basketball than no basketball. But you're going to have, like, if you don't like NBA regular season, you're really not going to like, you know, NBA fake postseason, I mean, a fake pre-season. Because that is essentially what it amounts to. But we will have eight sort of regular season games. And I would guess it's fair to say that whatever awards you have,

you probably have to give out those awards for what happened previous to quarantine. Is that fair? Can we, because look, these eight games, they're not going to play guys all out. They're going to use them. The reason those other teams were invited, I mean, I think at least partially, was to get some of the stars like a Zion, like a Damien Lillard, you get them on national TV. I think that's good for the league.

But the real reason they're there is they want to have some exhibition games. You can't just go from not playing for four months to a couple of, you know, a couple of scrimmages and then, hey, now we're playing the playoffs. You've got to ramp it up a little bit. You can't go zero to a hundred. But if the awards are decided already, Frank Vogel believes that the MVP should, be given to LeBron James. In that weekend, LeBron took the toughest assignment in both games.

He guarded Kauai in the Clippers game and did a great job with him there. He guarded Janice in the Bucks game when AD was in foul trouble, did a great job in both of those situations. Think that weekend was probably a great indicator of a measuring stick. Nobody impacts winning more than LeBron James. I do believe that he should win the MVP this year. What's interesting about that, this is, okay, because I like congruent. arguments.

If Frank Vogel wants to say nobody affects winning like LeBron James, okay, that'd be fair. Then last year he was awful. Don't tell me last year he was great and the team was bad because he came back off of injury and they lost to some of the worst teams in the league. The Memphis Grizzlies, the Phoenix Suns, the Dallas Mavericks, teams that were trying to be bad, trying to tank, trying to lose, they lost to. So if he impacts winning more than anybody else,

then he wasn't doing nearly as well last year. And I do think, though, you're not supposed to take last year into account, right? That's not how it's supposed to work. It's supposed to be about this season. It's absolutely fair to point out that the Lakers, this time last year, were a dumpster fire. Do you guys remember, do we not recall? Magic Johnson resigned before the final game. of the season so they didn't have exit interviews.

There was talk of whether or not LeBron was even all in on trying to win with the Lakers. Could they pull off the Anthony Davis move? Nobody wanted to trade with Rob Polinka. Oh, he has to hire Ty Lou. Remember that? You got to hire Ty Lou. That's the only

guy that can coach LeBron James. Not only did they not hire Ty Lou and did they hire Jason Kidd, but Jason Kidd was an assistant. No, that won't work. He'll be out for Frank Vogel's job. That'll happen by midseason. Midseason came and went. What happened? I actually agree.

Now, look, the NBA's MVP wasn't really that big a thing for a long time. I mean, even if you go back, remember Carmelone won the MVP one year, Tick Jordanov. Carmalone was not the best player in the league. Jordan was. We got this Jordan fatigue. We got tired of voting him MVP. Like, eh, he's already winning all the championships. Do we have to get MVP too?

Barkley won at one year. you kind of sprinkle it around the league. Sprinkle around. It doesn't really, it only mattered in the last five years because, honestly, ESPN had all their games and nobody is watching regular season games. And one way to get people to watch regular season games is this one could decide who wins the MVP.

So it became who had the best year. James Hardin had the best year a couple times over, but because he doesn't garner with respect, he doesn't play defense, his team doesn't ultimately win championships. He didn't get it, even though he probably should have won it. He had the best regular season. So we have all these loaded things with who wins MVP. Because Russell Westbrook got it one year because he averaged a triple double.

Well, if averaging a triple double, something that hadn't been done since Oscar Robertson is what means you can win the MVP. Well, then he should have won three years in a row. LeBron is not as good a defender as he used to be. He's just not. If anything, there are times where he's the fifth best defender in the Lakers lineup. but he leads but he leads he's not the best offensive player in the league night in

night out nor should he be at his age he doesn't have to be he lets anthony davis carry them at times early and through most of games and if needed he goes full LeBron but if you factor in where they were this time last year

the coaching change some of the personnel change and how that team was getting better because if you want to do the, well, he guarded Janus and he did a great job when Anthony Davis got in Fowler, was like, okay. But nobody could stop Janus when they played in Milwaukee earlier this year. Did that game not happen? Granted, it was at the end of a 14-day road trip. But Frank Vogel makes the smart argument. Value is who impacts winning the most. And they became the

best team in the West and got better and better and better. And at least a good portion of it, Probably not all of it. A good portion of it is LeBron James leadership. He is not the best player in the NBA, night in, night out anymore. He cannot bring that level of defensive athleticism and intensity nearly the way he used. Like he's not hardened and shut it down and not play any defense, but he talks and leads and points guys in the right direction more than does. But leadership is not really something you can measure outside of,

not just wins and losses, but wins above what are expected of you. Improvement above what anybody could have thought possible. And if you ask yourself honestly, you looked at the Lakers roster. Remember, they were supposed to have Darren Collison. The whole point was, we're going to get Darren Collison to be our point guard. He retired, and then they wooed him midseason, and he's like, nah, nah. Nah, uh-uh. Kyle Kuzman's been a shell of his former.

self. He hadn't been great. You know, Rondo is a shell of his former self. He's been injured and up and down. They don't really have a starting caliber point guard. Avery Bradley wasn't great until the last month before he decided he didn't want to play here in quarantine. And Anthony Davis has been propped up and had a great year. A lot of it is because of the leadership and the way in which LeBron has allowed him to flourish. I actually agree with Frank Vogel. I don't think two games as a snapshot is why, but they were on an upward trajectory.

They were getting better. That speaks to quality coaching and quality leadership on a team. They were cohesive. They were very good defensively. That speaks to leadership on a team. I'm okay with LeBron being the MVP if we go before the pandemic. Coming up next, NFL insider Albert Breer joins the show.

Are we going to have a full NFL season? Will there be any fans in the stands? And when we know for sure that it's a full go? We'll find out next time. Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurd. 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. Last night, a blown call changed the game.

This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending. are flying and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions

everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross

double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down,

and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now.

Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and

conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough.

Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different. bro absolutely and that that's two different levels of trust i want you to just really be a good person

join me keer gains is we have real conversations about healing growth fatherhood pressure and purpose on my new podcast learn the hard way open your free iHeart radio app search learn the hard way and listen now what's up guys this is cliver taylor the fourth and on my podcast the clivert show i'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff like being an internet famous referee 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 of 42.

Hey, rec, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is the herd on Fox Sports Radio on the IHeart. Radio app. Men, are you okay, feeling older?

Neither am I. If you're not ready to give up, if you want to feel more energized and lean, try MDrivev. Check it out at mDrive for Men.com. That's MDrive for Men.com. Doug Gollyman for Colin. Albert Breer will join us in moments

from the MMQB. A lot of questions about the readiness of NFL teams. And it's funny, I read Peter King's column today. He toured the Minnesota Vikings facility, and it appears they couldn't be more ready. So why the palaver? Why the open discussion on social media from NFL players? Let's figure it out. Albert Breer, senior NFL reporter, the MMQB joins us.

It feels weird to read Peter King's column this morning, his first one in months, where he goes and tours the Vikings facility, and they have all the these things all lined up for players to show up. But then you read on social media and the players like, whoa, there's still so much thing, so much we don't even know about. Why the, why the confusion? Well, I mean, it's not about the rating of facilities, Doug. I mean, I think that that's in place.

I think it's more kind of logistics of how a lot of this is going to work going forward. And I think it kind of traces back to some of the recommendations that the Joint Committee for Health and Safety, you know, which is appointed by both the NFL and NFLPA have put forward for the league and the union to work off of. And so, you know, they recommended a six-week ramp-up to playing your first game. And that doesn't matter for the preseason game, regular season game. Whenever you actually play your first football game, that joint committee wanted a six-week

period to get the players ready to get there. And the unfortunate thing now is that you just don't have the time to do both that and fit preseason games in before the start of the regular season. So, you know, the existence of preseason is one thing that's kind of a bullet point to all of this. And then another thing is, you know, the frequency of testing, players want to be tested every day. The owners had at one point proposed three times a week, and they proposed every other day. So that was something that needed to be worked out as well. And I don't think that you can forget the thing that's hovering over all of this.

And that's the economics. And that's how, you know, all that's going to work going forward and how you're going to account for what's going to be, you know, a pretty serious revenue shortfall in 2020 when it comes to the salary cap over the next 10 years. Yeah, the everyday testing is prohibitively more expensive, right? You're already having the expense. You already having the expense. And though you can create a PR, Doug, it create a PR problem for you, too, you know,

because obviously with the recent surge in Florida and Texas and California, you know, if there are places that are having trouble getting testing for symptomatic people in the public, then, you know, it also isn't the greatest look to be testing pro athletes every day. You know, and I just, I didn't get me cognizant of that too, but, you know, certainly this is a complicated thing. And it's become more complicated over the last few weeks as we've seen the virus surge in certain parts of the country. All right, best guess as of today, do we have preseason games? Do we have a regular season start on time? My best guess is that there will be no preseason games and that the regular season will start on time just because the league has been so incessant on time.

We're starting on time. We're starting on time. And I'm going to go back two or three months, Doug. Back in April and May, there were teams, and I'm talking about good, well-run team that were advocating for pushing the season back. because they felt like they didn't know enough and that you could collect more data by watching what happens in baseball, what happens in the NBA, what happens in the NHL,

and you'd be able to make, you know, more clear-headed decisions if you started, say, October 1st or October 14th, you know, when that idea was got up, it was summarily shot down by the league office. The league office has been striped about starting the season on time. And really you have two things here, right? So, you know, the start of camp,

the start of the regular season and the preseason. And something was going to have to change. You couldn't, with the acclamation period, make all three of those things happen. And the league certainly seems like it's been more willing to bend on preseason game than it has been on the idea of pushing the start of the regular season back. Maybe some of those teams will start to be heard right now. But I just, I would tell you the history over the last three or four months has been to the league office and Roger Goodell's office have pushed back very, very hard on the idea of moving the season back.

Okay, so the season starts on time, no preseason games. What are the chances any fans get to see any of these games early on? I don't, I mean, basically, like, here's what I would tell you. If you'd ask me a month and a half ago, what would be the most likely teams to have fans in the stands come September, right? and I'm talking about the beginning of June, I would have told you maybe the Falcons, maybe the dolphins, maybe the Cowboys, maybe the Texans. And that's just based on the way some of the decision making was going in those states. Now what you see is the places that I think probably would have been most likely to have fans in the stand at the beginning of September, those have become the hot spot. And so, you know, I remember saying this to people back.

you know in June I said there was certainly a scenario out there where the dolphins and the Cowboys could have half full stadiums in September and the Giants and the Jets and the Rams and the charges are playing an empty stadium. I think that the pendulum has sort of swung on that a little bit now. And so I certainly think that this decision making, and right now the way that they've handled it to this point is that those are going to be team by team and region by region decisions. But I'd say right now it seems pretty unlikely that we'll have fans in the stance for week one. Could that change in October, November? It certainly could because the bottom line is

the league's going to do and the teams are going to do everything they can to save every last dime of revenue because they know they're going to lose some this year. And so if that means having different rules for one place than another in October and November to try to recoup some of the money, then they'll do that. And that, by the way, is part of the reason why they want to have a single preseason game or two preseason games on the calendar. It's not just putting butts in the seat. it's also that a lot of these teams have local TV deal that basically go down the tubes if the preseason is eliminated altogether. Correct, correct.

And that's why, but they also need two games, right? So they can get two of those. But I guess one, you can get both sides, local TV could be salvaged. It's actually fast. What about the salary cap? The imminent drop in the salary cap because it's based upon league revenues, how are they going to remedy that? Well, Doug, no one wants that, right?

Like, it's not good for anybody if the cap drops by, you know, $50 or $60 million in 2020. And so, you know, I think the most likely scenario now is that you probably spread it out. But the owners have pushed back against that. And really to lay it out for people, you know, they project the revenue going forward. So, you know, this year's salary cap number was projected on what they thought the revenues would be before the virus hit. Obviously, everything has changed now. and, you know, this would cause, you know, a drop in the salary cap in 2021 now. And so, you know, if you have $140 million salary cap in 2021, after having, you know,

the $200 million cap in 2020, what's going to happen? You know, then roster is going to have to hemorrhage talent. Players are going to lose their job. Long-term extensions aren't going to be worked out. So that's good for no one. So the question is then, how do you get it where you can have a flat cap over the next few years? I think the scenario that's the most likely all along has been you spread the hit out over five years, six years, seven years, whatever it is to make up for what you lose in 2020. And so you can have a flat cap in 2021.

The problem with that is that the owners in the league did that one time before. And that happened between 2011 and 13. And a lot of the owners didn't like that. They felt like that was giving the players an interest-free loan. So they would rather have the players feel the hurt with them and take the hit right now via pay cut. Now, if you want to get a step further, the issue then for the players become, well, wait a second, I'm already taking the COVID risk. And now you're asking me to take the COVID risk and come out there and play for less? No, like, I'm not going to do that.

So that's sort of where the disconnect is. I think ultimately they'll find a way to remedy that, but it's still something that's hanging out there. and I know there are some owners that really would like to see the players feel the financial burden as they are. Albert Breer joining us, senior NFL reporter from the MMQB. It's Doug Gottlie filling in for Colin. This is The Hurt on Fox Sports Radio and the IHeart Radio app. Okay, here's some football questions for you. First, apparently there's like dueling throwing groups with Cam Newton, right?

Cam is in L.A. He's got some guys. He's filming all this stuff. He's putting it out. You know, he's putting out all kinds of stuff on his IG. Meanwhile, Hoyer and Jared Stidham are back in Massachusetts. They got their center with him and Muhammad Sunu and some of the other guys. Like the noise we're hearing is from Cam. We hear nothing from the other side.

How is this going to work out in Foxborough? It's kind of interesting, Doug, because I think that part of this is just, this happened naturally. Cam was throwing in L.A. before he signed with the Patriots. So he's just sort of kept throwing out there and he's invited some of his new teammates out there. And, you know, Jared Stim and Brian Hoyer have been throwing in Massachusetts. And so these things, and they're happening across the league, right?

It sort of naturally played out that way. The interesting part about it, though, to me is I sort of think back to some of the guys I know that have coached Cam that have been around Cam, that have talked to camp over the last six months. And one thing that became abundantly clear after, you know, we all figured out that he wasn't going to be a panther ahead of him getting cut was he had told people, I'm not going somewhere to be someone's mentor. I'm not going to go do what, say, Joe Flacco wound up doing where, you know, he's going

to sort of, you know, help Sam get Darnold out in New York. I'm not going to go be, what, say, you know, Derek Anderson was to him in Carolina. it. Like he was going to go somewhere. He was going to go somewhere to play. And so I think you can see that very much this isn't going to be a mentorship between Cam Newton and Jared Stidham. It's going to be a competition. And I think it's pretty unlikely that Jared Stim winds up winning that competition. But this has been the ethos of the Belichick program forever that they don't hand anything to anyone and they make you compete for your job. And so I think this is sort of played out in a very natural way. And part of the reason why, you know, Cam hasn't put his arm around Jared Sidham,

the young quarterback yet. And remember, those two actually have met before because they're both, you know, they both played at Auburn. They've got something in common there. Both transferred into Auburn, too, by the way. Yeah, they both transferred in. And, you know, but I think part of this is, you know, Cam didn't go to New England to put his arm around Jared Sidham and say, here, I'll show you the way. I think he'll be helpful to him when they're in the building together, but right now for both these guys, it's about winning a job. What is the, what's the relationship like between Jimmy Garoppolo and Kyle Shanahan? Like my understanding is that it's been fine. For the most part, I know John Lynch and Jimmy

and Kyle Shanahan have made an effort to be up front with, with Jimmy, about everything. And I can, I can take you back to how all this happened, you know, in March and April. The, the Niners, because there are some people on their staff that have connections to Brady, got wind to the fact that, you know, if they wanted Brady, he would be inclined to sign there. Like, there was a good likelihood if the Niners made a run at Tom Brady, Tom Brady was going to the Niners. And so, you know, that was a unique opportunity, obviously. And so Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch and a bunch of others, nineers guys said,

okay, we're going to sit down and we're going to watch tape of Tom Brady. And as part of the process, they said the other thing we're going to do is we're going to go back and we're going to watch the last three years of Jimmy Garoppolo, too. And so after they went through that process, and they were up front with Jimmy throughout, and after that process, they made the decision right now, we're better off with Jimmy Garoppolo in his late 20s than we would be with Tom Brady in his early 40s.

As enticing as it is, and if it wasn't a very unique opportunity, they wouldn't have even broached the idea of moving on from their quarterback after a Super Bowl season. and they did all the research, and they did the research on both guys. And I think in a certain way, Jimmy Garoppel probably learned two things.

One, it affirmed that the Niners really like them. And two, you know, it also affirmed the fact that the NFL, you've got to keep winning your job. And so, you know, Jimmy Garoppola goes into 2020, you know, as the firm starting quarterback of the Niners, but with the knowledge that he's got to keep earning his spot with that team. Albert Breer joining us here.

Doug Gottliebentford, to hurt Albert Wrights for the MMQB. Dak Prescott does not agree to a long-term deal. They try to get something done at the last second. Nothing happens. I've heard some speculate, oh, okay, he'll become a free agent next year. I just see this as, we'll do this exact same dance next year. Now that we've had the chance to dust to settle,

what's the general reaction around the league to DAC being franchise tagged and not agreeing to a long-term contract? Dak has a boatload of leverage, and Dak wouldn't have walked away from what he walked away from. If there wasn't something enticing on the table, Doug. I mean, they're going to have to tag him again next year at 37 million. And if they can't work out a long-term deal then, then the tag goes up to $54 million in 2022. So, you know, either way, Jack Prescott, you know, one of a couple things is going to happen now.

He's either going to collect about $70 million guaranteed over the next two years. and become a free agent at 28 years old, or he's going to collect, I think, somewhere around $123 million, and my math might be a little off there over the next three years, and become a free agent at 29 years old. So either way, if you look at this, the Cowboys are going to have to beat what Jack Prescott can do

by just sitting there and doing nothing. And so I think the likelihood is that they probably have to tag them again after the year. They, of course, can't negotiate a long-term deal again until after the season's over. my guess would be they try to get a deal done. But so long as Dak plays well and stays healthy in 2020, he's going to have the hammer again going into 2021.

Albert Breer from the MMQB joining us, Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. This is The HARD on Fox Sports Radio. Okay, so what about Dan Snyder? The other big story last week was the Washington Post's expose of treatment of women for the last 10, 15, years within that front office. All of the men who are accused of wrongdoing by the 14 unnamed and one named woman in the article have either been fired or left the franchise. How in danger is he of losing the right to own that franchise? So I tend to look at this as, you know, just sort of

on precedent, right? And so the precedent we have, and you may know more about the Donald sterling situation than I do, but that's one piece of president we have. And then obviously we've got the Jerry Richardson piece of precedent from a couple of years ago. And the one thing that the Sterling and the Richardson cases have in common is direct involvement in what was being, you know, in what was being alleged. And so in both those cases, you could point right to the owner and you could say the owner himself, not only brought shame upon himself, he brought shame upon the franchise. He brought shame upon the league, and we got to kick him out of the club, basically. And that was sort of the way that those two worked out. The difference here, of course,

is that Dan Snyder, I think you'd argue, has a lack of institutional control, certainly, and that organization is not their first rodeo with embarrassing episodes like this, but was he directly involved, or was he alleged to have been directly involved in what happened in the Washington Post story? No. So I think it's going to be a little hard, to pry the franchise away from him. And so, you know, I'm not saying it can't happen. I think we saw the way, I believe, in the Clippers situation, the players sort of organized against Donald Sterling.

What I happen with the Washington players? You might see some movement. But right now, it doesn't seem like it rises to the level of the Clippers or the Panthers situations. And I also got to wonder this to, I mean, as, and you know what these environments are like, do the other owners really want to kick another guy out for what happened in that building, knowing they may have some dirt under their fingernails too?

Yeah, no. And there may be some, there may be some. And so that's, I think, part of the equation here as well. Yeah, look, I do, I think the timing is quite curious, to be honest with you with the Washington Post. I'm not saying it's nefarious. But, you know, we spoke to one of the writers, and he was like, yeah, this is something we, we investigated a couple years ago, nothing. And then, you know, two weeks ago, we started reinvestigating it.

And now we have this piece. Well, that just so happens to coincide with this push to change the name. And, you know, like, Dan Snyder's a guy that's rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And then, of course, you have the minority owners wanting out. You have, like, oh, it's essentially a coup d'etat. And I don't think they have. They have the goods on him to make himself because, as you point out, he is not nor accused of having any sort of direct involvement.

And though you don't give him a total pass, it's not to level where you can force a guy to sell a team. Right. And I just, again, like, this is different than firing an employee. And I think sometimes people, I mean, look, like, whether it's fair or not, the fact of the matter is, like, if you're an employee, you know, you don't own anything. You know, the boss can get ready to you.

When you are the boss, it's a little hard for someone to make a move on what you own. And so, you know, I think that that, I just, again, you know, you look at the Jerry Richardson situation, look the way the temperature rolls in the Donald Sterling situation. And it's just, it's just so difficult to see where, where, where, where that, where they would come up with a case that, that, that, that he has to. sell a team. Now, has he been, has his ownership been shaky over the last 20 years without question? Have there been incidents before that have embarrassed the franchise? No doubt about it. So, you know, I think the argument you can make is that this lack of institutional control has been there for enough time, but then the question becomes, is that enough to take

something away to someone own? And I think that that's, I mean, I, I experienced in pro sports, My experience having covered pro sports has been that, you know, in those sorts of cases, owners will be punished by their peers, but, you know, it's hard to see where the other owners will want to set the precedent of somebody having their team taken away. Albert Brewer, MMQB, Albert, great stuff. Thanks so much for joining us. All right, thanks, though. Listen up, fellas, you can use the right tools for your job, thanks to the revolutionary company, Manscaped.

Their lawnmower 3.0 is geared with skin-safe technology. so this tremor reduces cuts, get 20% off. Plus, free shipping with the code herd at manscape.com. That's mansecape.com. Use the code herd. Let's get to Ryan Music with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news.

This is the herd line news. All right, Doug, some great NFL insight there between you and Albert Breer. Let's keep it going with the NFL. The Chiefs are trying to become the latest NFL team to establish a dynasty. Obviously, the Patriot of the model for how to achieve that. A couple weeks ago, Pat Mahomes signed a mega deal, despite being worth over $500 million. You could actually say it came in as a bargain.

Now, after signing that deal, Mahomes got to work to keep the dynasty alive. Chris Jones was able to skip out on the franchise tag by getting a new extension, and apparently that's thanks to Mahomes. Here's what he told reporters today. When Pat's deal got done, he texted me and said, let's get this thing done. I left some on the table. Let's go get this thing done. And that's when they had the security that me and the chiefs were going to be able to work

something out. Well, we talked about this in our show. Doug Gottlieb show follows this show on Fox Sports Radio and the IHeart Radio app. That, yeah, like, look, he gets a bunch of cash up front, but doesn't hurt the cap up front. And so it did leave space for Chris Jones. We've talked with Daniel Jeremiah, who he's like, look, if you're going to build a modern day franchise and you have a highly paid quarterback, you got to have two stud pass rushers they do with he and Frank Clark. You know, you got to spend money in the offensive line and continue to spend money. And then draft running back. They did with the Hilaire kit from LSU.

Don't give him a second contract. And, you know, then, you know, piece together the rest. Yeah, you have Tyreek Hill signed in a low-money deal considering his talent because of all his off-field nonsense. Does it make you top-heavy? Of course it does. You're always just one injury away from becoming a very average team. But it is the way in which you have to build a team

once you have that quarterback out of his rookie deal, now in the NFL. And I have an update here, Doug, as we turn our attention to the NBA. So last hour, I shared something about a potential NBA contender. This hour, we have new information. So Mike Dantonie was sharing some optimism about Russell Westbrook, the type of shape he's been in since he was diagnosed with COVID. This just in within the last 20 to 30 minutes.

Westbrook en route to Orlando, quote, ready to land in the bubble pretty soon, but unlikely to participate in Friday scrimmage. And you en route or en route? I guess either or, but I said en route. Right, but it's like root 66, right? True. En route in route? I don't know which one is the right. It's potato potato, I think they're both right.

Do you, in football, do you run a route or do you run a route? You run a route. Yeah. But you should run a route. Right. I don't know. It's very, very interesting. I'll tell you this.

This makes all the, or most of the Brooklyn Nets. excuses, just that. DeAndre Jordan, oh, I got COVID, can't go. That was like two weeks ago. You should be cleared by now. You should be cleared by now. I don't, I love this from Westbrook. I think this is most guys.

Again, there are other players who will have far more symptomatic issues. But you're some of the best athletes in the world. If you're fine, you get healthy, you get quarantine, you'll get clean, you get out there and you play basketball. Like, I don't, I think the discussion otherwise is just guys that don't love ball. And that's Ryan Music with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The herd line.

Trust is incredibly hard to earn. Even harder to get it back once it's been broken. I'll tell you why one NFL star quarterback needs to earn the trust of his head coach and vice versa. That's next in the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays at noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. Say hello to Casper, the sleep company with outrageously comfortable products such as award-winning mattresses, pillows, and bedding. Go to casper.com. Casper is everything to build the dream bedroom.

That's casper. dot com. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. Mario Chalmers top of next hour, of course, the NCAA champion and two-time NBA champion. I'll join us live from Vegas. He's playing in some three-on-three pay-per-view deal. I want to ask him about the pressure of playing with LeBron in the NBA finals. and what that was like when they finally won a championship in Miami.

Mark Slayberth will join us as well. I saw this article and I thought it was really interesting. It was actually a relay of a conversation Steve Young had with KNBR, KNBR, big blowtorch radio signal in San Francisco, talking about the relationship between Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garopolo. There's something about Kyle and him that you felt through the playoffs, a lack of trust. Whether it was true or just perception, it doesn't matter at some level.

That's the number one thing. If I were Jimmy, I would be focused. on making sure, sure both true and perceptionally that Kyle trust me and is willing to put the ball in my hands at any time, any place, in any form, and continually. I think that's fair. I think the feeling is mutual, right? Trust is very, very hard to rebuild. Very hard to rebuild.

And, you know, it's one of those things when you have, I think when people have dad issues, right, you have trust issues. Relationship issues, trust issues. And in this particular instance, you know, you can say that Steve Young's being critical of Kyle Shanahan, but you could also point out that Kyle Shanahan has a reason to not trust Jimmy G because just like the interception he threw in the Super Bowl, sometimes just like, what was that? It's the old once a half Jimmy is going to throw it to the other team, whether they catch it or not, that's up to the other team. That's up to the other team.

And for Jimmy G, he has every right to feel that way. way. Like, no, they didn't have to throw it against the Packers in the NFC championship game, but you needed to throw it because otherwise you get Terry Bradshaw going like, hey, eight passes, because that's what we're all thinking. Eight passes. And then you get to the end of the first half of the Super Bowl, and you got a full boat of timeouts, you get the ball back. And what do you do? What do you do? You know, you do the exact. You do the exact.

same thing that the Jacksonville Jaguars did when they played the Patriots in the AFC championship game. You guys remember that one? What happened in that game? They're up in the first half, 14 to 10, and they have the ball with like a minute and a half to go, Blake Bortles, who's coming off like the best game of his life, of his life against Pittsburgh Steelers, And like, nah, we'll take a knee two times and go into the half of the lead. In a not-so-shocking development, Tom Brady ends up leading the Patriots on a comeback win at home, and they go to a Super Bowl, right? Like, this all did, in fact, happen. And you treat Jimmy Garapolo like he's Blake Bortles, and he's going to look around.

These guys are super bright guys. They're perceptive. You don't even have to be bright and perceptive to go, like, yeah, he doesn't trust me. He doesn't think I can go and play add-on. You can't coach a guy like you're derewe. You guys remember Darryl Royal said? Daryl is the famous coach of the University of Texas. The stadium's named after him.

Daryl used to say that there's only three things that can happen when you throw the ball and two of them are bad. Like, okay. And by the way, do you know when you run the football, only three things can happen? And two of them are bad. You can gain yards. You can lose yards or you can fumble the football. Anyway, they treated him like they're Daryl Royal. Instead of, wait a second, this is 2020.

We got the best or second best tight end in the National Football League, right, in George Kittle. We got Debo Samuel. We got weapons all over. We got Manuel Sanders. We got running back galore. Let's throw it. Instead, they run the ball in the first two downs. Then they throw it.

But by then, it becomes problematic. It becomes too late. You chewed off too much time in the clock. scared of Tom Brady? I mean, excuse me, you're scared of Pat Mahomes? I'm just so used to Tom Brady being the Super Bowl. You're scared of Pat Mahomes. Yeah, you should be scared of Pat Mahomes, but you've got to lead. You got to know, just like the Houston Texans, they're coming back and going to score some points. You've got to keep scoring. You've got to keep playing. But I don't blame either for having trust issues. And if you're Kyle Shannon, you're like,

look, I dialed up a sure touchdown in the Super Bowl, explosive play to Manuel Sanders. And the only place you can't miss is long. And he missed so long, there's no pass. interference, no chance for a tip ball. Like, he gagged that throw. I don't blame either for having a lack of trust in each other. But you better work it out. Better figure it out. Okay, we got a great third hour of the show for you. Here's how it's going to work. Mario Chalmers is going to join us top of the hour. We'll talk to him about LeBron playing in those NBA finals. Mark Schlaher, it's going to join us, Man 101. We'll talk some grilling. We'll talk some yard work. will tell us how to fix Jeff Schwartz's lawn

and we'll ask him how hard is it to play linemen in the NFL when you're going to have no practice time and he's a former Redskin what does he think should happen with the nickname of the team what was his reaction to seeing that story in the Washington Post

so a lot to get to there plus we have the best for last which I think you're going to love that's because not sure if you're aware sports is fully coming back We had golf, we had preseason baseball, at real baseball. All right, Mario Chalmers, Rio. joins us up coming next. I'm Doug Gottlieb.

This is The Herd. 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. What up? Welcome in. This is The Herd, wherever you may be. and however you may be making us part of your day.

Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Doug Gottlieb. Filling in for Colin Cowherd. I was looking for sports this weekend. And I heard there's just like a three-on-three pay-per-view tournament in Vegas. And then, you know, some of the guys that I have watched, I've been doing basketball games on television since 2002. I'm like, mentally all these guys, all these guys.

Got him Mike Taylor. I don't know if you guys, Mike Taylor was at Iowa State. He went to the G League, was then the D League. He was the first player drafted at the D League. He's playing with the Raptors team with Julian Wright and Alan Anderson. Right. And then, you know, you got guys like Mario Chalmers playing. So it's the five tournament pro basketball.

So we reached out and we're like, you know what I'd love? I'd love to get Mario Chalmers on. Chalmers, of course, he hit the game tying shot in the national championship game. Canceles down nine, two minutes to go, come back, three, two, one, hits the three, goes to overtime. They beat Memphis, win a national championship. Goes to the NBA, and part of the first, part of LeBron James' team with the Miami Heat, they win two NBA championships.

Mark Slayrith, by the way, is going to join us in 15 minutes. We'll figure out how to fix Jeff Schwartz's lawn and get his thoughts on the Redskins, the team he played four and won a couple of Super Bowls with. But let's catch up with Mario Chalmers playing in that five tournament, which, of course, you can purchase on F-I-T-E fight pay-per-view. Mario, how are you? I'm good. What are you doing?

I'm great. In the moments of your basketball life, NBA championships or the game tying shot, which I think most people think won the game. It kind of did win the game in San Antonio. Which is bigger to you? I might have to go with the NBA championships just because that's winning at the highest level. The first time you met LeBron James as a teammate,

where was it and what do you remember? As a teammate, it was probably at the practice facility. I think I was going in there to get treatment. He was coming in, you know, getting acquainted with the place. And I think that's the first time we talked as teammates, but I had met him a couple years prior to that. Were you guys boys before that? Was it just friendly, or were you guys actually friends before that?

No, we just really. I mean, we knew each other. Different basketball world. That was all right thing. So how'd that change once you became his teammate? We just learned how each player was. You know, he learned what I like to do on the court and how I was off the court.

It's the type of person I was. and, you know, our personality's kind of clicked at first, and, you know, that's when we became friends and came, you know, very close and hung out all the time. Yeah, but everybody says you were the whipping boy. They used to yell at you the most. Why was that? Just because they know I can take it,

they expected the most for me. So, you know, they always try to get the best out of me. They know that if they got on me like that, that I wouldn't shut down. Was it immediate? Was it something that happened? Was there, like, a moment where he, you know, like, because, like, I remember in college,

when you first get there, like, the first couple months, everybody's nice to you, and then, like, you get to Christmas break or to conference play, and all of a sudden the coaches start treating you just like they treat everybody else like dirt, right? They start yelling you, and they figure out who can handle it and who can't handle it. Was it immediate that they knew you could handle it, or did it take some time?

I think that just kind of happened. You know, as it kind of went on, and she had to shut down the different things. And, you know, they said, I showed up more and I played harder. I think an underrated part of the first championship team was your play. Because if you go back, the first year, Mike Bivie was the starting point guard for the first five games of the finals, didn't play in game six. So it was almost, I mean, he really struggled to play with LeBron. You didn't have those problems.

So, okay, considering you're a guy that's always been a dominant scoring point guard, what does it take to learn to play with LeBron? Patience, pretty much. I don't know what a guy like that. he's going to take the shots, but he also won't get him open shots. And when some open shots come, you got to be ready to knock him there. What happens if he don't make him? It's not coming to you again? It depends.

It depends how he says. Mario Chalmers joining us. Obviously, you guys playing this three-on-three tournament. There's been layoffs. But what do you think this is like for pros? They were in mid-season form, and then all of a sudden, everything was shut down. Some of them, like Mike Conley, he's got a sick gym at the house. Some guys have apartments.

Like, what's that like to go from full speed ahead, getting ready to the playoffs, not doing anything, and now trying to ramp it back up? I think that's going to be tough. You know, don't fool them as off for those guys. You know, like you said, some people are able to stay in shape, some people who weren't. And, you know, to rev your body up like that again after four months and go through the grind of the NBA schedule and being in a bubble. That's going to be difficult, but I'm sure that they'll get through it. They'll figure it out. Okay, so how does it like, look, you play nine years in the league.

You're playing in Greece before the COVID shut everything down. How long they have some scrimmages starting up later this week, then they got eight games, sort of speak, then they got the playoffs. How long, like you're 34 now, how long does it take you to get going where you feel like you're right? Say about good two, three weeks, you know, good hard, two, three, or at least getting in the swing of being back into normal things. how much different do you think

or difficult do you think it'll be because they're like look they're at a resort but you can't really leave you know you can play golf you can fish but you're still same resort you know how it gets like especially now that you've been overseas like when you're kind of confined to one place sometimes you don't get you're not home

you're not able to just be yourself you don't get the best out of yourself how difficult do you think that'll be it might be kind of difficult just because like you say you're not used to have everything your way but I don't know how to bubble set up and I don't know how much access they have to every day. So, I mean,

they have access to everything like they do at home. It's no different. All right, you're playing the three-on-three tournament. We've seen the big three. It's also three-on-three is coming to the Olympics whenever the Olympics come back. How much different is ball when it's half-court three-on-three from playing five-on-five in the NBA and overseas?

That's a lot different. No, transition. You know, a lot of players excel in a transition. And some players excel in the half-court game. So it just shows like your real basketball IQ, your one-on-one game, just how you play different matches and scoring and a half-course set and a half-core offense. Super physical?

Definitely super physical. Like back in the 90s. Yeah. So how's your post game? Post game is all right. If I can get somebody my size, I'd be a right. That's a problem, though. Not a lot of guys your size.

Like, for a regular human being, you're big. For this thing, like, you're not a mouse, but you're not exactly a big dude. Yeah, that's what I said about it. but I got a couple of misdatch problems I like to take advantage of, so I'd be good. Okay, well, pick your brain a couple NBA things. The Rockets have gone basically all small. Once Russell Westbrook is supposedly en route, and he'll be there. You know, they have no bigs.

PJ Tucker plays as their center. Can they upset the Clippers or the Lakers playing small? I don't think so. All right, Clippers or Lakers. Whose roster do you like best? I like the Clippers bench better than the Lakers bench, I like the Lakers start five better than the Clipper start five. So I think it's a toss-up.

I think it's a toss-up. You've obviously been on the same floor competing the NBA finals against Kauai Leonard. What's that dude like? He's a monster. You know, somebody that plays both ends of the court, somebody who dominates both ends of the court. So a healthy Kauai is scary. It would be tough to see.

All right. Then the other side, you got the Bucks and Janus. Janice is I mean he's so long and he can you know you play off him and he just takes up the space and Euro steps or spins by you and then they space the court you know they sometimes they put Lopez out there shooting 3s they got all these dudes spacing out what are your thoughts on the bucks in terms of the posting

post season gets more physical is there anybody in the east you like to beat the bucks in the playoffs I've always been kind of a Boston fan in their roster how they play put together. If they could play out, they were playing early in the season, I think they have a chance to beat him. All right, you already played one game in the three-on-three.

Did you guys win yesterday? No, we lost by three. Who did you play? Texas. Who'd they have? David Hawkins, James White, Will McDonald, Moe Charlo, Alex Gilles. Man, Mo Charlie. I haven't thought of Mo Charlie in a while in a minute.

like these this is like this is like reunion days isn't it? Yeah pretty much. Old school basketball. How many did you have? How many, how many did you have? 26. All right. So it wasn't enough.

You need to have 30. That's, I just, you know, like 26 sounds really good. But you needed 30 because if you lost by three, my math is still good. Yeah. Something like that. You can, you can catch this tournament on F-I-T-E pay-per-view, right? $12.99 a pop or you pay $70. you see the entire tournament.

Is it fun? Is it good ball? It's definitely good ball. It's a lot of fun. You know, be able to go out there and compete, you know, just like the old days. You know, got to strap up and go out there, manned up, play one-on-one. Three in the time. Okay, as a guy who played overseas, what's going to happen there?

Like, some of these things are starting back up. How much does it change things and throw off who's going back, when you're going back, and what the rest of your career looks like? It doesn't throw it up at all right now. You know, just hit back still away from. that right offer. I've got a couple of things on the table right now. So I'm just, you know, taking the time right now,

see what this corona thing is really going on and figuring out after that. As a guy who's played at the very highest level, won two NBA champions to play with LeBron. How difficult adjustment is it to go and play overseas? For me, it's kind of difficult just because I have that NBA tag and a lot of coaches over there sprang on the NBA game and how it's played.

So that's just a little battle that I have. But, you know, once I get there, you know, all the coaches love me, they love how hard I played and my knowledge of the game. So it's a little different aspect in far as what they first think about you and when you actually get there. Yeah, because they think you're going to big-time things. They think you'll handle the ball too much, right? They think you want to go ISO too much.

Like, that's their perception of NBA American basketball, fair? Right, definitely it is. And you have to almost go the other way and really move the ball and show you're a good teammate and show you want to compete and play their way and kind of almost overdo it early on in order to make that point? Yeah, you've got to do that. Did your coach speak English? Yeah, he spoke English.

He was, like, real English or did he like all of a sudden, was he, was he Yugoslavian? Who was your coach? My coach. But yeah, he spoke English, but he also spoke Greek too. Yeah, when they start talking about you, that's when they start talking Greek, right? Like, when they start talking. Absolutely. They start talking English about me. Hey,

Hey, Rio, listen, it's good catching up. Love to do it in person real soon. And thanks so much for joining us in The Hurt. You're welcome, bad. I appreciate it. All right, it's Mario Chalmers, join us. Known as Rio to anybody who remembers him winning two NBA championships

with LeBron James. All right, that's the thing. Got to be ready. The Clippers having the better bench normally you would say, well, it's about the starting lineup, right? The best five win when you're playing in the playoffs because you get a day, two days off. But in the bubble, we don't know how conditioning affects guys. We don't know about who gets injured.

We don't know what the rotations look like. We don't know what guys' energy is like day to day when they're staying in a, staying in a really nice resort for three months. All right. Coming up next, what should we expect from NFL players with a show? shortened or almost non-existent training camp. Alas, Stank, Man 101. Mark Schlarith.

He joins us next in The Herd. 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. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo.

Every episode we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live there. them. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack, so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now, so. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah, for me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience

in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing and we're still chasing it

and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch life becomes about wins and losses Steve Burns, Dustin Ross because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth or are you a good person because you're afraid because that's two different intentions bro

absolutely and that's two different levels of trust I want you to just really be a good person Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. 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 of 42. Hey, Rhett, Mom, I want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Doug Gottliebendley, been for Colin. One thing that hasn't changed this year is how much we depend on our cars. But cars have more problems during the summer.

Get Car Shield coverage before summer break. downs happen and save thousands for covered repair. Visit carshield.com. Use the code herd to save 10% a deductible may apply. Here's Ryan Music with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news.

All right, Doug. The first hour of the show, we had talked about some big news somewhat locally, but could be the first of some larger news at play. CIF, which governs the high school sports here in California, announced they would be moving all. fall sports the beginning of December or potentially January at the earliest. And this, of course, is all centered around the coronavirus pandemic and football. What does this mean for football and the top recruits in college?

Now the latest we've seen from Jeremy Fowler, NFL reporter, is that many of the NFL personnel people do not expect any college stars to participate in a spring season if college football were to be moved. this is interesting, okay, because though I think Trevor Lawrence may not participate if they go to spring, first I think they're going to try and go in the fall and they'll be they have the resources to do it, the big boys will go. But if they moved to spring, if I was advising one of these guys, I play.

Because no matter what you think, well, you get hurt, you get beaten up, like, yeah, but this is like guys that play in bowl games. You put up numbers. That's an audition. And yeah, maybe you're playing against a lower caliber of competition. competition doesn't matter. They're not going to, like, 200 yards rushing or 400 yards passing, still 400 yards passing. Yeah, I don't know how many prospects there truly are that can get away with just not playing.

Well, look, they'll all be advised as if their first round picks. Right. There's like 60. There's 32 teams, and there'll be 100 guys that think their first round picks. Right, of course. So you'll have a substantial number guys not play. But if it was me, and I was one of those guys, I'm like, dude, let's go. Yeah.

Let's go. I mean, I'd take a kid, Tyler Wallace, kid at Oklahoma State, stud, or Chuba Hubbard. Chuba Hubbard was probably a second or third round pick. Same with Tyler Walsy towards ACL last year. Like if I'm those guys, you've got a chance to, if you're going to play, to play, put up crazy numbers and have the other guy sitting on his couch or working out, which may look good for his workout numbers, and maybe he's a little bit healthier. But it's really hard to erase that impression of a dynamic football player too in his

out's mind. Yeah, I mean, other than, as you said, Trevor Lawrence, probably Justin Fields. Yeah. I'm not really sure how many other guys are. Are can't missers? Yeah. Not even can't missers, more so that are locks to go in the top. I'll even say top 10. I understand, but you're also dealing, you're dealing from a position of reality. Right. And a lot of these guys are not, they, it's, we're not, they're not, they're not, They're not really realistic. You know, that's just the reality of it is there isn't a lot of reality to it. So it'll be interesting.

In the NFL, Doug, found this pretty interesting. Cam Newton going to continue his vegan diet lifestyle in New England. Now, I hadn't even known that he had taken on the vegan diet. He said that he went full plant-based after shoulder surgery and dealing with his latest foot injury and plans to continue that while in New England. He's doing a new campaign for PETA. He said, I've seen such a remarkable change in the way my body responds to the food I eat. I don't want people to think you can't love food being a vegan or that there's not good tasting food that's vegan. A person may ask, how do you get your protein?

Do you get it in the same way that they get it? You know what I'm saying? The more cleaner, more fresher way. I would go pescatarian if I was going to do it. Like that way I can still eat fish. Yeah. I mean, because I'd still like to vary it. And I like the, you know, Beyond Meat and the fake meat burgers.

Yeah, beyond meat's good. I saw down the street here, and by the way, we're broadcast from Shervin Oaks, California. Down the street, I saw vegan fried chicken. Really? I don't know how that happens. Yeah, I have not. That's like chicken fried chicken, which is redundant. and then, of course, chicken fried steak.

Chicken fried steak is quite good. It is, but why don't they just call it fried steak? Why do they call it chicken fried steak? And why is it chicken fried chicken? Why isn't it just fried chicken? Well, I think because... I know it's the way in which it's prepared. I understand.

I'm being kind of sarcastic, swarmy here. That's what I'm doing. Am I supposed to say like this will hurt him? No, not necessarily. I don't care what a duty. I don't know. I mean, like, look, I think... It's certainly a new trend in sports.

Because I know we've talked to several athletes, whether it's at the Super Bowl or when they do different things, a lot of guys are going mostly plant-based, which someone like Cam, he was already such a big physical freak. I've got mostly camp plant-based. I like to drink tequila. Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, Tito's vodka is gluten-free. Coffee is, yeah, that's, you know, a fruit of the earth. That's right.

I mean, these are things I do. On the other hand, I like to make some ribs and some steak as well. 100%. But it's great. He clearly is taking care of himself. Look, the thing with Cam Newton, talk to people in the NFL, and they'll tell you, like, it's going to be hard to learn new system when it's wordy, and he went through the numbers system with Norv Turner he had to learn.

But then the bigger thing is no one knows if he can throw consistently how that shoulder is, and then will his body hold up, especially his ankles and his feet? Because he's taking a pounding, pounding in his crew. And last thing, we'll wrap up here, Doug, in the end of the end of the end of the Rams head coach Sean McVeigh expressing some slight doubt as to whether or not the NFL will get started on time. He said something tells me that maybe there's a chance things get moved back. We're going to have a great plan whether we get a chance to execute that plan now or a little bit later remains to be seen. You know, obviously you had started the show talking about all of the NFL stars over the weekend,

putting out several things on social media with the hashtag we want to play, everything regarding the coronavirus pandemic. This is now at least one head coach, among others. I know John Harbaugh in the past has talked about how it's physically impossible to do social distancing football. But now Rams head coach, Sean McPay, saying he at least envisions a situation where things could be moved back a bit. It could be. Look, we've had a change of events recently, and it very well could. On the other hand, you look at some of these numbers.

I think Notre Dame tested all their student athletes and nobody tests the positive for COVID. There are a couple schools like that. Some of these NBA guys have tested positive quarantined, and now they're clear into the bubble. The issue with the NFL players is with all the social distancing, all the testing, and doing it at their own facilities, they still go home at night. Right. And are they quarantined the rest of their family and what are they bringing in? That's when it becomes difficult. Yeah, you had mentioned, you had made reference to Peter King's Football Morning in America column, where he went through his entire process of being able to see how the Vikings are doing it,

What he did mention, and that one was, you know, being in Minnesota and the fact that it's a brand new facility, they have a lot more space compared to a lot of other teams. And he did mention that at least the Vikings, and this is where I'm sure across the league, they're trying to come up with the uniform policy, how they're going to do a, for lack of a better term, a family day where they're going to call in some of the mothers and wives and kids to sort of go through a safety protocol to be like, hey, since you're going to be living with the athletes, we want to make sure everyone's been fully informed on how to be as safe as possible heading into this season.

And I guess what most teams are worried about is, are they able to do what the Vikings are able to do if they don't have the same type of space? Yeah, I mean, look, if they don't have the type of space they have at college facilities, which are built for 125 men rosters, and they can spend all that money because they're not spending the money on the salaries.

I think you can pull it off. It can be expensive, but I think you can pull it off. And that's Ryan Music with the News. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News. Yeah, I just, look, I look at these things, and I think that this is the NFLPA, making a stink about things, and slowing down a process.

I'm not saying that some of this is not reasonable, but you, as much as you want to protect players from COVID, you also have to protect them from not being prepared in terms of soft tissue injuries and getting enough hitting. Like you just can't go and, hey, let's just go play an NFL game with no preseason games and no hitting. And we'll just do a bunch of conditioning in the short term. That seems like a bad plan as well.

So, yeah, you want to protect players. And it's a different sort of limited bubble, quarantine, etc. if they can go home at night. On the other hand, you can't sacrifice general safety because it's a violent game, but it's also one where you don't have a crazy long career. And so if you don't give yourself enough lead-up time

to an NFL game, you suffer an injury, which could be worse than COVID in terms of, you know, depending on the severity of COVID, you know, if you become asymptomatic. Mark Schlerert joins us. Of course, he's a star, not just in Denver radio, but also on social media on Twitter with his man 101. We'll ask him about growing grass on top of a sprinkler.

That was a big breakthrough this weekend, as well as catching his son's 90-plus mile an hour fastball. Stink, how much time is the right amount of time for a veteran offensive lineman to get ready for a season? Oh, shoot. When I was playing as a veteran player, I could give me two weeks, give me a week of practice,

I could be ready to play in a game. You know, I mean, one, the way the guy's trained now, you're, you're kind of ready from that standpoint. Like the, just the physical nature, you know, pounding and doing those things, hitting and stuff. The way it works now, you don't get to do that very often. But, you know, I'd say a week to two weeks somewhere in there, just like college, you'd be ready to play.

The problem is the depth of knowledge, the depth of the offense, there's so much more when you start playing professional football. And that really becomes the problem, the depth of the playbook and the volume with which you have to know, the things that you have to know, is far greater. So that's part of the lead-up

and the pre-season games, obviously. But if you have a veteran offense, it certainly is going to, there's going to be an advantage of the guys who have been there, like Kansas City Chiefs that are, I think, return 10 of 11 starters on the offensive side of the ball. Mark Schlerich joining us, three-time Super Bowl champion. Former Washington Redskin.

First, what's your reaction to the name change, which they haven't announced what the new name will be, but it will no longer be Redskins? Yeah, I'm all for that. I mean, I think the nickname has never been, to me, what the franchise really is all about, regardless of what the nickname is. to me it's the great men and women that came before me and they came after me that create, you know, they create the culture of the organization. I mean, when I think of the Redskins, I think of Joe Gibbs. I think Joe Jacoby and Jeff Bostic and Russ Grimm and Mark May and George Stark and George Allen and all the names before me that really established the Sunny Jurgentsons of the world,

that really established that franchise and we're such a part of that community. So what's in a nickname is what I would ask you. And really, it's the people who have sacrificed to create that organization and to win the championships there. That to me is what that really, what really, I guess, puts them apart. And so I don't think of it from a nickname standpoint, regardless of whatever the nickname becomes. People are going to buy the merchandise and people are going to still root for that franchise that love that franchise. So I just don't put a lot of merit, Doug, into the whole nickname thing. And I think my, I think about my own career, even as a Bronco, remembering, struggling, going into the 97 playoffs, having lost a couple of games and calling a team meeting and essentially saying, hey, man, this is not, you know, Pat Bowling's.

I mean, I understand that he owns it. And it's not Mike Shanahan's team. It's our team. And, you know, I had said at one point during this meeting, if Mike Shanahan has to go out and make a play, you know, first off, you're going to need a smoke bomb to give him out of the same. the locker room and secondly he's going to be standing in a puddle of piss he's not making a tackle he's not going to hit anybody this is our team we're the ones that lay it on the line we're the ones to go out there and do it and and to me that truly is is what what the team is all about it's not about the nickname so the nickname thing like somebody's ethnicity shouldn't be a nickname we move on

that's what we are right now in the world so i'm okay with mark slavis joining us three-time super bowl champion former redskin and former bronco he joins us here in the her I'm Doug Gottlieb filling in for Colin. I feel like Ron Rivera, I mean, you want to talk about a guy hitting the jackpot. Sure, they're not great, but all you want in the NFL's head coach is, you know, the ability to, you know, the old Parcells pick the groceries. Like, it's basically his franchise. He can get to pick the nickname, you know. He hasn't picked the quarterback yet, but he will eventually.

Like, I feel like Ron Rivera has become one of the most powerful men in the sport after getting fired in Carolina. Yeah, and he's in a. He's in a situation. First off, from an integrity standpoint, Ron Rivera is one of the great people in this league. And so from an integrity standpoint, you know, he mentioned I'm going to clean up the culture here because my daughter is working for the organization. And it's important to me. And so Ron Rivera is one of those guys, like you said, you know, has been given not only

assigned to be the head coach, but has been empowered to be the head coach and empowered to change that culture and empowered to do all those things. And so when you have that, I just think that that's the perfect situation. Now, that can be a double-edged sword because if you don't have the right guy, you give that person all that power. You know, he can destroy a franchise. But Ron Rivera is one of those guys that has great integrity. And I believe he's the right man to change the culture of that organization.

So I'm really excited. I got the text with him just last week and just, you know, say, hey, man, I understand it's tough. but, you know, I believe in Ron Rivera. So I believe that that's the right man for the job. Let me pick your Denver Bronco brain a little bit. Obviously, your talented radio host, got an award-winning show in Denver. I guess you're doing great in the ratings. Drew Locke, do we know if he's good enough to be the guy?

No, we don't. I mean, five games. You look at five games. The one game that mattered, they got blown out 20, I think 23 to 3 in Kansas City in a snowstorm. Other than that, they played a bunch of teams at the end of the season that really didn't have anything to play for. And the one game that everybody hangs their hat on is a playoff team in Houston that they blew out early. And I look at that game. They had just come off of a huge franchise victory over the New England Patriots,

something that Bill O'Brien hadn't been able to do in his tenure with Houston. And when I go back and dig through the film and I dug through every play of it, they were awful. miss tackles, jumping trying to intercept balls, instead of making tackles that went for 60 yards to the offense. I mean, it was just a plethora of terrible mistakes. And then you got into the second half.

They probably went in the locker room and just got their butts framed by their head coach. They come out in the second half, and they make that game close. I think it was 38 to 24 or something, but all second half points for the most part. So I really look at, there's a lot of there's a lot more uncertainty new offensive coordinator a bunch of new players a

bunch of rookie players that you're relying on to create you know big plays and be big part of that offense i think there's going to be quite a few growing for the Denver broncos on the offensive side of the ball um so i just don't think we have enough information yet i love the intangible stuff i love the arm talent i love what i saw from him on third downs last year but i think there is there is a lot of room to grow and there's going to be a lot of mistakes coming into this season. Kind of interesting. It's not been since outside of the Patriots,

it was more of you guys with the Broncos. Like, we don't see teams get back to the Super Bowl, win or lose. Patriots are like the exception. The norm is what happened with the Eagles. The norm is what happened with the Falcons. You have two teams in the Niners. They seem to have gotten probably better, right?

Quarterback got, had his first full season starter. And then you have the Chiefs. They re-sign Mahomes 20 of 22 starters are back and they drafted well. Why don't teams get back to that level even when they return so much talent? Well, I think there's a couple of different things. One, you're always playing longer than everybody else. And it takes its toll on you, both physically and mentally.

Two, I think when you win, there are so many opportunities for you to do things outside of football. and to, you know, maybe not have the attention to detail, to be a little sated by the success. And I think that's typical of any franchise. The thing that's been the most amazing thing to me, watching this run that New England Patriots had put together over 20 years, is the fact that they are not stated by success. They are completely driven. Their head coach and their quarterback are completely driven every year. And that's the most amazing thing because human nature is to say,

hey, I've had some success. Let me go on the rubber chicken circuit, so to speak. Let me go speak. Let me make commercials. Let me do all these things. And we tend to miss a few workouts and miss a little bit of the attention to detail that you have to have. You miss a little bit of the desire and the hunger. That's the most amazing thing.

And I think that's what deters most players because human nature kicks in. And I've had some success. And let me go make some money. And maybe this off season, is with COVID is, you know, maybe this is a benefit to both the Niners and to both the Chiefs because there hasn't been those opportunities. Like, let's just face it. The world as we know it has completely changed and we're all been stuck at home.

And that includes most of the players as well from an opportunity to go out there and make a bunch of money, pitching products and doing commercials and all those things. Yeah, or fixing their lawn, right? Some guys are able to man 101. You follow Stink on Twitter. He's constantly, one, patting himself in the back for his yard work, but two, showing you just how luscious that beautiful green lawn is in Denver. Okay, how did you grow grass on top of the sprinkler?

You know what? I did some overseeding. So I did some what we call top dressing. So spreading a little soil over the top of my grass in the spring. and just top dressing it. So a little soil and seed mixture over the top of some areas, you know, as your grass gets older and your lawn gets more mature, you get some spots that don't, you know, don't receive water as well

and loose some of the soil, just a natural erosion of the grass. So I top-dress my grass a little bit, and on top of that, as I did it, I went right over the top of the sprinkler head in the middle of the lawn, and I grow some luscious grass on top of the sprinkler head. So I'm pretty, you know, say a green thumb. I guess I was in my yard this morning doing a little yard work this morning, and some lady walking her with her grandkids stopped me and said, hey, you've got the most beautiful yard in the neighborhood.

And, you know, my natural instinct was to say, I know. But I did say thank you because I'm trying to be gracious. But, you know, my natural was like, yes, I realized that. Stake, you're the best, man. Thanks for joining us. Get back out in that yard. We'll talk to you soon. All right, Doug.

Thank you, everybody. Three-time Super Bowl champion, Mark Slayer. joining us in the herd. You know, it's interesting. You know, Stink is big in the yard. Is that one of our 10 things that you have to do before sports returns this week? We'll discuss next with our best for last in the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific.

Whether you're working from home or on your fitness or working on your fitness, you want to hear your music, not your roommates. And Raycon's wireless earbuds are the way to go. Get 50% on your room. Raycon order at buyraycon.com slash heard. Doug Gottlieb in for Colin. Major League Baseball's official

season starts opening day on Thursday. That also coincides with the Lakers playing like a scrimmage game on TV also on Thursday. So we got hoop. We got football coming up.

Although Jets and Giants just announced, MetLife, no fans in the stands this fall. as of right now. That just came out. But you got three nights, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three nights before sports is back.

As Uncle Colin would do, I will do as well, which is to help you out with our best for last. It's almost the end of the show, but that doesn't mean we're phoning it in. Nope, we grind to the very last segment. It's time for best for last.

All right, you got ten things you got to do before sports returns. Sports returns. Okay. Number 10. Let's start number 10, right? Number 10. Well, let's start with you.

Okay, you. You need to fully stock your fridge. You need to prepare. You know, like a lot of these hoarder guys went out and they got toilet paper galore and canned drinks or whatever and hand sanitizer.

Right? They did this to be like, hey, we're getting locked down. Bro, you need to do the same. Hey? If you're a meat guy, not Cam Newton, nothing wrong with that. If you want to go beyond, that's fine. But the rest of us, you need to load up that freezer and that fridge with meat. You need chips as well.

You need dipping materials. You know, you want to get those Tostito scoops? And those are amazing. Who invented that, right? Like, that's really, it's just amazing. Amazing. Beer. Alcohol.

Now, look, a lot of you guys already have that. You're like, look, I'm already good. I stocked up because of quarantine. I got my new drinks. Yeah, okay, but this is different. This is, I need stuff to where I don't move from the couch for three, four, six hours on end. You forget the commitment that comes to watching live sports. Like, once hoop starts, you're going to have three games in a night plus baseball games,

and you can probably have money on them as well. So, first thing is stock up on the perishables. Number nine. Second thing is, you got to make sure all the stuff works. right okay so do you have batteries probably triple a's maybe double a's maybe both can't have enough back coming can you imagine you finally get your remote's finally useful your surround sound and you're like are you kidding me the batteries are dead go stock up because the kids have been using the batteries stock up on batteries make sure the surround sound works you got to go buy a new tv they're cheap right

now go buy a new tv get it all wired call your guy whatever make sure the surround sound, everything, that's all set up. Number eight. I would do a date night if you got a significant other, right? Because you don't want to get hit up for that Saturday or Sunday. Now, the good thing is restaurants are kind of shut down anyway, a lot of places. So you can figure out if you want to do some sort of date night, you know, picnic outside, picnic at a park, whatever.

Just that's eight. Number seven. Okay, this may be more important. You take the kids and let them go have a night or let them go for a couple nights to stay somewhere or girls' night out. Remember, girls' night, more important than date night. They don't really like you. They just tolerate you. You just occupy your existence and they do as well.

Just leave them alone for a night. Number six. Begin a new book. You want to act like you're coming out of quarantine and coming out of sports thing like you're some. educated, higher being, whatever. Like, I picked this new book. It's fabulous. It's about the Holocaust.

I really wanted to, you know. Yeah, I wanted to get in touch with some of historical data. Start to understand this or that, the Roman Empire. Yeah, okay. You're not going to finish it anyway, but at least look the part and maybe sit down and every once while. Time's almost up. Pretend like you did something. Go for a run.

right? Your gym might be closed down, but remember you were exercising early during quarantine, like just go get after it a couple days in a row because you're going to add on the caloric intake's about to pick up. Number four. Clean the garage.

Clean the garage. Yeah, I mean, like, I kind of clean the garage. Do it again. Do it again. Because you're definitely not doing it until like next spring. And I don't know, next spring. I don't know. I have no idea that.

next time you're going to have a chance to clean the garage. Clean the garage. Number three. This is a big one. Do a load of laundry. No, not for her, for you. All your watching gear has to be clean. You haven't, if you're a jersey guy, the jersey has to be clean.

Lucky shorts. Your lucky shorts, before you soil them, are they clean? Number two. Okay. I think you need to start. You need to brush up on all the new rosters. There's been a lot of player movement. There's been player movement in baseball.

Player movement in basketball. New guys are being signed. Carmill Anthony's lost like 50 pounds. You can't turn on the TV and go, wait. Who plays for the Astros and who plays the day? You got to know. Did you know they change the rules in baseball? There's a D.H. Universal.

Did you know that when you bring in a relief pitcher, he's got to face three batters unless it's at the end of an inning? You've got to know these things. Number one. And you still have time to binge watch one more show. I saw Colin is, like Bosch. That's been recommended to me. Yellowstone's been recommended to me.

You still got time, right? To lose sleep and just binge watch one more show. There's your top things to do before sports return Thursday. And that's the best for last. Colin is back tomorrow. If you missed Jeff Schwartz, Albert Breer, Mario Chalmers,

or Mark Schlerth, they were all on earlier in the show. Look, my thing with the NFL players tweeting out all their questions about the NFL and their policies. Teams been preparing for months. Read Peter King's article and the Minnesota Vikings like they're all set ready to go.

This is, it's pretty, it's very transparent even if they're not trying to be transparent. The NFLPA is trying to get a better deal done so they get their most powerful players to tweet something out. We want to play. Yeah, we know. Just remember, somebody's going to test positive, like Russell Westbrook.

They'll quarantine him and they'll be okay. It's people with immune system problems that are at risk. I'm Doug Gottlieb, this is the herd. 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. 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. on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L'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. On the Look Back at a podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me.

I'm Sam Jay and I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all?

You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host, Kyr Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to,

listen to learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed human.