The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Solutions Not Cynicism, Belichick Rebuild, Jimmy G Tier 3

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

In this full show edition of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Colin doesn't think members of the sports media wake up necessarily rooting for sports to fail under the weight of the pandemic, but there is currently too much cynicism in the industry. Also, don't expect a 2020 tank job from the Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick. And is 49ers' quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo really a Tier 3 quarterback according to a survey conducted by The Athletic's Mike Sando?Guests include: Ryen Russillo, Cliff Avril, Mike Sando and Charles Barkley. 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. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard 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 was 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 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 Hardway 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're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that doesn't. 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 Sports Radio.com or stream us live every day on the IHart Radio app by searching Herd. Fox Sports Radio. Here we go on a Tuesday that'll include Charles. Sparkley, among others, live in Los Angeles, this is The Hurt. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, we're on Fox Sports Radio and right here on FS1. Many questions asked yesterday. Another one to ask Joy Taylor later today about DMing or not.

I got a lot of things. And Joy Taylor, who gets her haircut once every seven years, got it cut. Ironically, yesterday, it looks fantastic. by the way. Thanks. We're going on a natural journey, Colin. I know you don't know what that means, but we're going on a while. We're going on a natural journey together. I'm trying to get my curls back. So, you know, I've been straightening it for a long time. Makes you look young. Thank you. We're very young today. Thank you. So we're talking, we're opening the show with, with the M's. Did you have the best skin in America, you and your brother? Thank you. You're the family that never had a pimple.

Honest to God. It's just, it's discouraging to hang out with you. Yeah, you have terrible skinned calling. Yeah, just awful. It's great to be in today. So I want to talk about something. We're in the media. Yes. I think if you've listened to me long enough, you know that I like business.

And to be in business and to be successful in business, you cannot be cynical. You have to be optimistic because business is hard. And yesterday there was this thing on the media where a young sportscaster came out and said, it's like the media is rooting against sports. They want it to fail. Now, I don't believe that to be true. I don't think the media is rooting against their jobs, their income, their viability. I don't believe that to be true.

But I do think I don't have a lot of friends in the media. I mean, I work with people, but not a lot of them because they're just cynical and they're negative. And when I wake up in the morning, I like people who are seeking solutions, problem solvers. It's a turn on for me. I don't like people who bitch about problems. The media lives to write stories about problems. Yesterday, the Marlins have a handful of players, a bunch of them, that get COVID. And literally the first story is season over?

Season's over. Why do you think they expanded rosters? Why do you think, folks, why do you think baseball expanded the rosters and the NBA expanded the rosters? Because they knew guys were going to get COVID. And if one gets it, two get it, three get it, four get it. Why do you think the NBA is playing in a bubble? Why do you think they're so mad at Lou Williams?

Because nobody was seeking perfection. These leagues, these commissioners, all they are is business leaders. Rob Manfred is dealing with advertisers. He's dealing with regional cable networks. He's talking to Fox and ESPN in negotiating deals. He's dealing with billionaires. He's a business leader in America. And the great business leaders seek solutions to inevitable roadblocks.

You don't have perfect seasons. It's never existed. Stars get hurt, players grumble, Roger Goodell, somebody takes a knee, and now the media's covering it. If you can't handle that, don't be a commissioner. Rob Madfran went on MLB last night talking about the Marlins and, you know, the heat-seeking misery missile. I don't think the media is rooting against sports, but they wake up cynical and negative. They don't appear to have any interest in solving issues, and that's really a commissioner's job.

Here's Rob Manfred. I don't put this in the nightmare category. We built protocols anticipating that we would have positive tests at some point during the season. I remain optimistic that the protocols are strong enough, that it will allow us to continue to play even through an outbreak like this and complete our season. You know, the companies in the country right now, we have four or five companies in America. Right now, actually, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are worth double, those four companies, double the Canadian economy, those four companies. If you start looking at Amazon, I'll give you another one, Netflix.

Netflix has changed television. I watched some Netflix last night. If you go look at the story of Netflix, it's basically a story how to pivot out of crap. Everything went wrong initially. It was DVDs. It was going to be Blockbuster. And then they created a Quickstar. And the investor said, no, and that tanked.

Netflix was literally pivoting out of problems. And Reed Hastings, a brilliant guy. And Jeff Bezos, these are brilliant Americans. But their whole story is problem solving. Their whole story is pivoting out of potential disasters. Business is not linear. And commissioners are business leaders. I mean, listen, man, basketball, they all know.

Adam Silver's knows. Some of these guys want sex. They're 22. They're going to sneak out of the bubble. They've had these conversations. Joey and I have had these conversations. They're 24-year-old men. They're professional athletes.

They're all amped up. They lift weights all day. They're good-looking. They're rich. They have to have discussions about they're going to sneak out and want sex. That's a real discussion. The leagues have had that. That MLS has had that conversation.

These are grown-ups. This is how you talk. But this idea yesterday that Marlins story comes out, I thought of good news. This morning, all I cared about was let's see the Phillies test because they fell out, right? So the Phillies played the Marlins and a bunch of Marlins players got it. This morning, the Phillies, no positive tests. So to me, it was like, ooh, that's good news. So you can play a team with 15.

guys with it and you may not have more than two or three positive tests. That's very positive. If I'm, if I'm the commissioner, I'm like, all right, we sideline them for a while. MLS, Nashville, Dallas out. I'm not going to stop the season. Football may, I had a discussion yesterday with a very smart person. And this person said, you know, my guess is the NFL is going to have eight to 12 games. They've already canceled the preseason.

And I said, all right, Joy and I got three months out of Tom Brady plan for the Buccaneers. We'll figure it out. If you gave me four NFL games a weekend, that's enough content. I got an Eagles game. I got a Niners game. I got a Ravens game. I got a Packers game. I'm good.

I don't feel guilty about not talking about the Jags and Bengals. I'm fine. Give me Baker Mayfield six times. I've got Sam Darnold four. I don't think the media is rooting against sport. But I think the media is negative and cynical to a fault. These commissioners, they've, all got expanded

rosters, emergency plans. They knew this stuff was coming. All we're doing in America right now is managing this pandemic. We don't solve health crises. 47,000 Americans commit suicide a year. We don't solve it. We never have. It's awful. You manage

that. It'll probably double this year because of COVID. It's awful. You're never going to solve it? We don't solve heart attacks. I saw something the other day. 700,000 Americans die every year because of heart disease. We don't solve it. You manage it. So, again, I don't, I just like people who are solution seekers, not problem complainers. And if you're in business, if you can't pivot,

if you're not prepared, you can't succeed. And I think these sports will figure out ways to make it work. Maybe one won't. But right now what I see from the MLS has been great. I'm crossing my fingers on the NBA. baseball will probably struggle more than any sport, but they'll figure it out too. All right, let me shift to this. So if I said Bill Belichick to you, give me his two best qualities. I think the first thing we'd say, prepared, nobody out prepares New England. I've had buddies that play for the Patriots. They're like, we do stuff in practice for three years.

We never use it in games. They're the most prepared team. Literally, they beat the Seahawks in a Super Bowl. Remember the Malcolm Butler interception? Malcolm Butler says, we practiced that play over and over, and as soon as Russell Wilson planted his foot, I knew what the play was. I don't think all 32 teams coached like that. So the first thing with Belichick, I'd say, is they're the most prepared team in the league.

Not always the most talented. The second thing with Belichick, I think we'd all admit, he's pretty smart. I mean, Wesleyan, mom spoke seven languages. He's a smart guy. Dad was in his scouting before anybody else was in America. So prepared and smart. Let me tell you what I think prepared and smart people would do if Tom Brady left my organization.

I'd reboot the franchise and try to get one of the three great quarterbacks coming out of the college draft. That seems like really good preparation. I wouldn't worry about this year. What do you know? Patrick Chung has opted out of the season. Oh, what do you know, Dante Hightower just opted out of the season? Multiple players opting out of the season.

I don't think Bill Belichick is announcing it. I've worked at a lot of companies. You've worked at a lot of companies. Companies don't have to announce things for it to be understood. New England's rebooting. The media freaks out because they all say, it's tanking. Nobody's tanking. The Miami Dolphins last year were building a culture, a step back, or two steps forward.

Belichick is just taking a step back. if Tom Brady was still there, do you think everybody opts out? But New England has sent a message to its troops. A, they weren't aggressive in free agency. I mean, guys were moving all over the league, even in their own division. They weren't aggressive. Number two, they let marginally expensive players go, not even guys like a Jamal Adams contract potentially.

And number three is, didn't appear to have a big rush to replace the greatest quarterback of all time. And when they did acquire Cam, it was on a day that really bad news was going to be released by the NFL about the Patriots kind of, you know, cheating and stuff. Belichick wants one of the three great college quarterbacks. My scouts say all three of the quarterbacks

coming out next year are A prospects. Two of them, Trevor Lawrence and Trey Lance, may be a high A prospects. And if New England goes 5 and 11 or 6 and 10, there's only about four teams left that need a quarterback, they'll be there. Indianapolis will need one in a year. They're just going to be too darn good to get a top 10 pick. Jacksonville's going to be bad. They'll get a quarterback.

New England's going to be average. But don't be naive on this. Bill is prepared and smart. What would be the smartest thing to do for the Patriots to prepare for the next decade? Reboot the franchise. let some players go that are good players, but they're marginally expensive. Let them go. Don't be aggressive in free agency.

They don't have to announce it. It's not tanking. Miami didn't. Last year, Miami literally took a step back to take two steps forward. We're going to let some players go, some good players go. They wanted to accumulate draft picks. Brian Flores knew I'm not going to get fired if I'm one in 15. I just got the job here.

I'm not going to get fired. It was a step back for two steps forward. And I also think there's a little luck involved. Only the Golden State Warriors in New England would be rebooting for the first time in forever in a year of a pandemic. In a year where you're going to have all sorts of starts and stops and difficulties. Just so happened the warrior season got canceled in a year where they had a new arena and no good players. They were all hurt or left. So I think smart in preparation, I don't think this is just.

totally random. I think everybody in the building gets it. Step back, two forward, get one of the three great quarterbacks. All right, slander. I don't like slander. I saw slander with Jimmy Garoppolo. And I can explain some of the slander. But slander with Jimmy Garapolo.

A new list is out. It's like Christmas in July from Mike Sando. And who's on our show later from The Athletic. He does that. He talks to 50 executives in the league, and they do the quarterback tier. That's seriously. That is, I'm like a starving man and you're putting a big old turkey sandwich in front of me. It's an NFL Christmas present in July.

He does his annual four tiers for NFL quarterbacks and more Garoppolo slander. And I think I can explain it. That's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeart Radio app. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Jek. 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 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, 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 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 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, is we have real conversations about healing,

growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the hard way 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, A, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Brett, my mama want you to weigh better.

What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Good to have you back. I get a big question today. I'm going to have solved by Joy Taylor. Don't give the answer yet. But do you DM somebody, direct message somebody, or do you go to Twitter to compliment their work?

I'm not saying I do it all the time. month I want to compliment somebody's work in the media. I never go to Twitter because it looks like, hey, look at me. I'm so nice. It's so transparent and cheesy. So I DM. I'm like, hey, I think you're doing some really good work. Keep doing it.

Kick butt. But there are people who have insinuated that's creepy. So Joy Taylor's not going to answer it next. That's going to lead the next hour. Going to have a conversation on that. But I've already had two people reach out to me this morning who I complimented and they think it's nice or that way. But I'm just saying for guys, you have to be careful.

I think a woman can go DM and it's fine. But if a guy goes DM, you know, oh, boy, what are you doing? She's a woman and you're DMing. And it's a big problem in my life right now because I'm a complimenter. And it's a big problem in my life and we'll solve the solution in 30 minutes. Maybe 25. I'll do it at the end of the hour. Whenever you want.

Okay. But if I start going, then we're doing it here. Okay. So this is a crack for me. So Mike Sandow at the Athletic does this every year. He interviews 50 NFL coaches and they rate three. 35 quarterbacks in the NFL, starters and top backups. And they put them in tiers, tier 1, 2, 3, 4.

And every year I overwhelmingly agree with it. There's a couple of moves here. The tier one is Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Rogers, Breeze, Deshawn Watson. I don't disagree. I think it's missing Carson Wentz. But Carson Wentz is in Tier 2. Bottom of it, so I think it's Carson Wentz slander. Tier 2 is, I mostly agree with it.

Brady, Lamar Jackson, Big Ben, Stafford, Matt Ryan, Wentz, Dak and Philip Rivers, I'd put DAC in three, but two, it doesn't bother me. Philip Rivers, I'd absolutely put right now in Tier 3, not 2. But again, I'm not losing sleep. But Tier 3. Jimmy Garoppolo's in Tier 3, along with Ryan Tannehill, Nick Foles, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Kyleor Mayfield, Kyle, Murray. Now, come on.

Kirk Cousins, come on. Come on now. So I'm going to give you stats for Jimmy Garoppolo last year. A, first year he started. And B, toughest division in football. And three, coming off an ACL injury, which generally screws up guys mentally. When you come off a big injury, Tom Brady, remember off the injury? He didn't want anybody hitting his feet for a year.

It kind of screws with guys when you come off a big injury. This is Garoppolo, toughest division, first year starting off an ACL injury. Wins tied for first. Completion percentage tied for fourth. Passing touchdowns tied for fifth. Fourth quarter comebacks tied for first. Game winning drives tied for fourth. Passer rating tied for eight.

Well, he's got Kyle Shanahan. Okay, timeout. Breeze has Sean Payton. Brady had Belichick. Marino had Don Shula. Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman. Dan Fouts was great. He had Eric Correel.

Joe Montana had Bill Walsh. Find me the single Hall of Fame-level quarterback who had lousy coaches. Warren Moon didn't have, like, elite Hall of Fame-level coaches, but not tire fires. That's about it. Yes, he's got a good coach. All right. So's Lamar. Patrick Mahomes has Andy Reid.

Russell Wilson's coach is going to be a Hall of Famer. Why do people not get Jimmy Garoppel? My guess is two things. Number one, the Niners defense gets the headlines. This is very much Russell Wilson's first four years in the NFL. Seattle's defense got all the headlines, and therefore there's a sense that Garapolo, Russell Wilson, are being carried. The second thing, and I do think what I finally got Russell Wilson the love he deserves,

you could not watch Russell Wilson play. He is the greatest playmaker in league history at the position. He's like Steve Young on steroids. You just watch Russell Wilson. You're like, nobody can get a shot at him. And you see great play after great playing after a while. Even his critics are like, all right, this dude just doesn't look like everybody else. Garopolo's problem is there's nothing to grab onto.

He's not as big and strong as Cam or Big Ben. He doesn't have Mahalm's arm or Aaron Rogers' release or the escapability of Lamar Jackson or Russell Wilson or Carson Wentz. There's nothing to grab onto. There's nothing to say, look at that. And yes, Shanahan creates a great system. And yes, the Niners defense is fantastic. But when you break it down and you look at Garoppolo's numbers,

folks, you got to give him a break on missing Emmanuel Sanders of whoever the receiver was in the fourth quarter. Mahomes did not play well in the first three quarters of the Super Bowl. Garoppolo outplayed Patrick Mahomes in the first three quarters of the Super Bowl. Garopolo may not be a tier one, but he's mid to upper tier two, and there's no way he's middle of tier three. Joy Taylor with the news. No, no, no, no, no.

Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Well, some good news for Garoppolo's team. Earlier this month, 49ers running back, Rahim Moster, requested a trade. After talks of a new deal broke down, we discussed whether that was a good idea or not, whether he was a product of Shanahan's offense. Well, the two sides have come to an agreement, and Mostert will remain in San Francisco. His new deal reportedly has no additional years, but with a $250,000 signing bonus and incentives,

he could make over $5 million in 2020. That's actually surprising for me. I mean, you know, Shanahan's history is, give me a running back, I'll make him successful. You know what? They probably like him. They probably like his toughness. They like his story. And they were very successful in the running game last year. So why not do what you can to keep that in place, at least for another year? This isn't a year where you want to start making big dramatic changes. And they didn't give him, it's not breaking the bank. They give him a little bonus here. No, and incentives like that's on him. If you want to earn $5 million this year, then you go out and you reach the incentives that you need.

NFL contracts are obviously very, very complicated. The guaranteed money is what you really want to pay attention to. But I think this is good for both sides. To me, this would not be a year that I want to necessarily bet on myself. Like, it's just because there are a lot of extenuating circumstances for everyone. Also, it's a year where we don't have preseason. So let's just keep the guys we have. Let's make it work.

Let's go into this season, cross our fingers and bring back as many people familiar with our offense, which is complicated as we possibly can. And they were just absolutely dominant in the running game last year. So to be able to keep that in place, help Garoppolo is the best case scenario for everyone. So glad that got done. The Seahawks gave up a haul to trade for Jamal Adams. Seattle sent two first round picks, a third rounder, and safety Bradley McDougal to the Jets in exchange for Adams. And according to Diana Rusini, many around the league believe the Seahawks got fleeced by the Jets in the deal.

Fleeced is strong. It's a little dramatic. Yeah, it's a little dramatic. Not Diane, but I think it's a little dramatic. No, no, no. I mean, she's saying that that's what people are in the league are saying. I talked to two NFL executives and their bold takeaway was the Jets, everybody knew in the league the Jets were going to move him. And to get two first rounders, a third and a starter was a darn good haul. Well, yeah.

When someone says they want out and it's very clear that the relationship is deteriorated, you lose the leverage because you have to make this move. I picked the phone up from the Jets before this trade. And I'm like, of course you want to move him. I'll give you first and that's it. That's how, you know. Right. But if, you know, if, you know, it comes down to this. Seattle wanted him.

Seattle wanted him. And if you want something in life, you rationalize what you pay. It doesn't matter for it's a car or not. If you want something in life, let's say you find something. You go shopping and you find something. Right. And then you're like, well, I could go out to dinner one less time a month. And I'm not going to get the new tires on my car quite yet.

We all do this. We rationalize stuff. If you want Seattle's like, okay, I'll have the best. second best quarterback in the league Russell Wilson, the best linebacker and Bobby Wackner and the best safety, and we don't have much of a pass rush, we want it. And when you want something, you make it happen. Also,

I don't believe in hoarding up draft picks. Yeah. They're really nice, the great to have, but they're mostly, when you have that many trade pieces, which is exactly what they did. You don't know, the draft, that's fine. It's great. We love the draft. We love the draft this year.

It was a wonderful time, right? We all enjoyed it. Yeah. But the end of the day, we don't know what anyone in the draft this year or any other year is going to become until they get on the field. There's busts all the time. What the Jets did was draft an incredible player and then

inexplicably decided to not pay him. So this is actually a great deal for both sides. Yeah, generally, the NFL scouts I've talked to through the years always say there's about 17 players a draft that everybody in the league is like, those are going to be great players. By the mid-first

round, you're kind of like, there's a hole, we think he fits and could be great. So the reality, is Seattle got a great player guaranteed. And they wanted him and they've got some holes in the team and they're like, he's a playmaker and we need playmakers on defense. If you are in a situation like Seattle is, which the Jets are not, where you have the potential, you're in that, you know,

maybe they're not a Super Bowl contender this year, but who knows? They're pretty close. You're close. Then you need to make moves that put you over the edge and this is that move. Horting up traffic is not that move. Finally, Cam Newton decided to make a big change and go vegan in early. 2019 and one anonymous NFL coach thinks that lifestyle change could hurt him on the field. The coach said, I don't think he's Superman anymore. Remember when Kaepernick became vegan,

changed his body and he just wasn't as dynamic of an athlete anymore? Cam was 265 and bigger than everybody. He looks skinny now. He's like 235 and wants to have ripped abs. And that's his choice. Is he going to have that power running elements? I don't know. There's a lot of people that say being a vegan is better for you athletically. I don't know the answer to that. My wife's vegan, kind of. And so, listen, I like burgers and fish, so it's not going to happen to me. I don't know if you're better or worse as a vegan. I think you live longer, potentially. I think that none of us are doctors, right? And if you are a doctor... I'm an epidemiologist. I know everything about COVID. Everything. The biggest tremendous. If you're not a doctor, I don't care what your opinion is about going

vegan. Because some people, it is extremely beneficial for their particular body to be vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian, and some people actually need to eat red meat, which everyone is very against, right? Because they need whatever is in red meat for their body. No. You're not a doctor. So I literally don't care what you think about going vegan. You mean a regional scout for the Titans isn't a doctor?

I mean, this is an NFL coach, okay? But yes, that's my point. Like, I get it, you know, it's not very macho to go vegan. But you don't know what his dietitian is telling him. You know when the NFL coach was quoted saying that? over a bowl of chili and some cornbread at lunch to a sports reporter. She's right. I'll never go vegan.

And to be clear, I eat meat three meals a day. Okay? I will not go vegan unless a doctor tells me, joy, in order for you to be healthy and live a long life, you, for your particular body, you need to go vegan. My solution, everything in life is a big burger at lunch. It literally solves everything. Backache, headaches, getting fired. And a shake, throw some eggs in the shake.

There you go. Lamar Jackson is 212 pounds. He has a pretty strong running elements. He's not vegan. He's not vegan, but also how much you weigh can actually benefit you in the running game. Cam has had all these injuries. Why wouldn't he? We were just talking about this with Nick Swisher yesterday.

Why wouldn't he want to take some weight off? By the way, I'm pretty sure Cam had abs before he went vegan, but... No, what abs? All right, Joy with the News. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Herd Line News. So I had a couple of takes in the last week that may be regrettable.

We'll figure it out. My buddy Ryan Rosillo, who's part of the great the Ryan Rosillo podcast, part of the ringer and Bill Simmons, who never called. calls me back. All right, let's talk to Ryan Rissile, my buddy. Brought to you my Mercedes, Ben's the best or nothing. Okay, here's my first take. It's not even a take. I just want you to give me a solution. So I've said, in two months, three months, Kauai Leonard's holding a trophy. Third team MVP. Third system. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Is he not a top 10 player?

All you tell me is Jordan's the best six for six. You don't tell me all-star games matter. You don't tell me MVP's matter. If points mattered, I talk. about Elvin Hayes and Carl Malone. So I just want to, what am I supposed to say with Kauai Leonard in three months of he's holding his third trophy and is the MVP? What do we call him all time? You know, it's funny. The notes on this, I was prepped up to believe that you were going to say he was top five, so I was ready to just crush you because when it comes to top five, like top five is so lofty. And then that turns it into I have to do this anti-Kauai argument that I don't want to do because I love Kauai. And what you're about to explain here if you were to get that third

title of the third team is incredible. But if we have to be difficult about this, top five or top 10, he wasn't an all-star until his fifth year. He wasn't even a 20 points of game until his fifth year. He's one of the great development stories that we've ever seen in the history of sports. And the irony with him leaving is that most guys leave because they don't think they can win. Kauai's like, yeah, I won. I don't care. I want to go somewhere else. We knew he didn't want to go to Toronto. It was more about getting out of San Antonio and then he wins there. And then he's on the cusp and maybe doing some great things here with the Clippers. So I think it's unique and I think it's different. But when you start talking top five, top 10 ever, there's just too many other

resumes, guys with multiple rings, multiple championships that didn't do it at other places because they were already winning with their current team. That's pretty good. He's the greatest development basketball story ever. I knew Rosillo would give me a, that's actually a great way to put it. Okay, here's my other thing. So you and I, whenever we talk, we talk about kind of what's going to happen, not rearview mirror, but what's going to happen going forward. So if the Clippers win, you know, Landry Schmetz Smith's a bunch of games. Paul George missed 20. games. Kowis missed 15 games. You start looking at all their players, and this is very

Doc Rivers. He did this in Boston. He gives guys days off. If the Clippers, and I think they're going to win, and I think they're going to roll through this if healthy, and the NBA is going to have a team that won that rested, that that's why this Lou Williams, I mean, they're going to have a team. They've rested like four of their top seven players constantly.

Does it send a message to the best players in league? What hell are you doing playing 78, 82 games in the regular season? I don't think the Clippers winning is necessarily great for the league, and I think they're going to win going away because they're deeper and fresher. Your thoughts on that? That's part of it, okay?

And you're right about Doc Rivers. You go back to those Celtics years. It's like, hey, KG, that 40 minute of night stuff in Minnesota, it's not happening here. You know, he's like 38, 39. He goes to 30. He cut down Pierce's minutes and made it more efficient. Doc Rivers, I think, is the best NBA coach when it comes to how he handles stars. He's just incredible at it.

And anybody that's like anti-Doc, I go, you know, you just, there's other parts of this that Doc is so good at. And so I just have a hard time of the criticism. However, I know the clippers themselves at times, even with these different, you know, lineups and all that. I think they got frustrated at times. So I'm not saying that this was even, I don't think I agree that it was all by design. I think at times the lack of starts were necessity because of Paul George's injuries or some of the stuff that they've had to do to maintain Kauai and in Beverly missing time. So I don't think their preference would have been to have this unit not really be all that cohesive.

And then I think the whole thing gets blown out because we have this unprecedented four plus month break. So anybody that's been pro rest, like, here you go. You got four months off and then a handful of games before the playoffs start up. So really, it's going to be about their depth and their, I think, adaptability with the different lineups. I mean, the other thing that the Clippers did is I think they just gobbled everybody up there at the end to make sure nobody else could grab them. So I'm with you. I'm starting to lean more and more clippers, but I don't think it's just because of the sporadic starts they had with their guys. So Ryan is from Martha's Vineyard, which is a real tony area out east, which where rich people grow on.

so he doesn't relate necessarily the common man like I do. But the point being, I've got a patriot take on this. I love that the richest guys in the industry are always trying to act like I'm a Rockefeller. So you can shoot holes through this. The two things we know about Belichick, he's prepared as hell and he's smart. Listen, when you are as good as he is forever, he's got so much equity in the market. Now all of a sudden, they weren't aggressive in free agency, no big hurry to report. place, Tom, let go of some marginally expensive players.

And now everybody's just opting out. Patrick, and I'm not saying they shouldn't. They either had a baby or it's on the way. There we go. Okay. I'm not saying, but now it's like six. I already know what it is. So I'm not saying tanking, but sometimes a company has a company has a priority and they

don't have to release a press release to tell everybody. They're rebooting. They're going five and 11, getting a top 10 pick and getting one of these three superstar quarterbacks. Is that nuts? Yeah. I think it's totally nuts. Belichick's not telling all of these guys, hey, you know what? Patrick Chung, Hightower,

just shut it down. We're going for Lawrence out of Clemson. Have you seen his tape? Yeah, all right. You take a year off, not make any money. I'm going to just tank. I just don't think Belichick is wired that way. I don't think football guys are wired that way.

I think the only people that have ever really suggesting tanking or for an office people that have come from, like, non-traditional football backgrounds. When I mentioned tanking to Bill Polion, I thought he was going to punch me. Now, granted, I thought Bill Pullen was going to punch me like four or five times. We had him in studio. I love a guy. But he was just like,

the concept, he was gagging at the thought as a football guy of giving up an entire season, especially when it's that division. I think Bill is still wired to want to win every single game, win this division without Brady. And yeah, of course they're going to need a long-term solution to quarterback, but to tank for a high quarterback draft pick, when 50% of these guys flame out anyway, no matter who's evaluating these guys, I think it's to just punt on an entire year in the NFL is so foreign to these guys and certainly somebody like Belichick. I know you've been on this for a while. Yeah. I respect the marriage to this take, but I just

don't think Belichick is somebody that's going to go, cool, 214, mission accomplished. Yeah, listen, after years of brilliance, I get a bad take, okay? That's just the way the show works. Okay, another one. So they come, uh, Mike Sandho comes out every year. He interviews like 50

coaches and they do the tier quarterback thing. It's mostly right. I think Carson Wentz is a bottom end tier one guy. But I laughed at the, the Jimmy Garoppolo's tier three. But let's go to Wentz. So Wentz, they have middle tier two. The NFL top 100 list is coming out. And the Eagles announced yesterday, Wence is not a top 100 player. I'm like, okay, is it still the Nick Foles thing? Is this what it is? So I want your takeaway. What am I not seeing? What am I seeing with Wence?

Nobody is. What am I not seeing everybody else is? Let's start with this. The NFL Top 100 list is the worst list of the lists that come out. Okay. You go back to that thing historically. They had Cam Newton as the best player in the NFL the year after you won the MVP. And it was like, all right, recency bias through the roof. Then Ezekiel Elliott top 10 after like one year. Here's my biggest, I could do this all day, but I don't want to bore you to death. They had Case Keenum 51. They had Case Keenum as the 51st best player in the NFL. He had never thrown for more than nine touchdowns in his season in his entire career. And he has a nice little season. And then he's better than everybody,

except for 50 players in the league. So this league, this list is historically like one where you go, all right, let's just tear this thing apart. The Wents argument itself, Colin, it's always felt like the people that have done this professionally, meaning playing quarterback, are so enamored with the throws. Because anybody that you trust that really has that scouting eye

or has played this game at a high level, they'll tell you that Wence has a handful of throws that nobody else in the league has, except for maybe Prime Rogers. Okay, I think you're agreeing with me here, because I know we've talked about this. we've heard it all. So I think the guys that are on TV that play the position are super defensive of him because they see this ability that they probably never had. But the injury

part of it is real, even though last year he had nobody to throw to. I mean, that was all like undrafted street guys that he's throwing to and they're still competing. So I'm with you on the talent. He's certainly a top 100 guy. But I had Sando on our podcast and we went through this and some of the knocks on him are still about Nick Foles, which is really weird. It's an odd unique thing that happened with Foles. They beat the Pats and he puts up all these numbers, but I don't know how that actually gets in the way the evaluation for Wentz. So it does feel like kind of a make or break year for the perception of Wants

and where he is in the standings of quarterbacks. Yeah, I got about four more questions, but I only have a minute and a half. So I'm going to give you Jamal Adams. I'll be quick. You don't have to be that quick. Jamal Adams. I'm not even going to preface it or qualify it. Your take on the move.

He's unbelievable watching him. I mean, a safety that stands out like that, the stats, all that stuff through the roof, okay? I don't mind Seattle. I don't mind any teams. Like, this is the lesser degree. Pittsburgh going, wait a minute, you guys are giving away Mick of Fitzpatrick? Okay, done. He's awesome.

Okay. And Adams is even better. So if you're going to invest in the right guy that's this special, that this young, that's great. But if Jamal Adams is going to go to Seattle and after like a few months decide he's going to comment on everything, you know, like after a while, I kind of feel like the Jets is like, we don't even, it's not that we don't want to pay him. We're just sick of this every single week. I mean, this has gone on forever where he's clearly a guy that wants to be heard. And now that he's in a better situation, I'm worried if I'm Seattle and be like, well, which version are we getting? The guy that's now happy or the guy that was miserable the entire time of the Jets?

That was pretty good. All right, Rosillo, it's good seeing you. You're tan. It's the summer. This guy's got a life. I'll tell you something. It's got quite a life. I'm not even going to get into the kind of life, but it is nothing but sitting out in the sun and lifting weights.

Oh, look there. Yeah. Yeah. You're a riot. All right, buddy. I grabbed this. It was on the free pile before I left. Yeah, I bet it was.

Yeah, great. Thanks, buddy. Ryan Rissillo, listen to his podcast, the Ryan Rissillo podcast. That's funny. I'm going to take a break, The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped 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. but you gotta do a little kill. 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 on day, but yeah, yeah, literally. 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 middle 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. 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, Keer 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 Hardway and listen now.

What's up, guys? This is Clever 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 walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What?

Quarterback on office blue 42. Hey, ref, my mama 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. Good to have you in. hold on a second here

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LED light and everything I'll get to the whole thing about the DM thing in a second so I think the clippers are going to roll through the bubble as long as they don't get hurt I don't think the Lou Williams thing. I'll talk about that top of the hour is that big of a deal. I don't love him going to a strip club to get wings, but it's the team all year is missed multiple

guys. They go 10 deep. I think the Lakers, and I've said this, is this is not going to work. Avery Bradley's out, Rondo is out. That's going to put more pressure on Alex Caruso, who I don't know what Alex Caruso is in a big spot. You don't either. Lakers don't. But I think the loser in all this for the Lakers is actually Kyle Kuzma. because the minute Avery Bradley is out, Kyle Kuzma has to become the third best player. And there are nights in a season 15, he is. And there's nights 35, he's not close to it.

And then there's another 40 nights in the average season. You don't know what you get. All I know is LeBron doesn't trust Kyle Kuzma. And Kuzma, I'll make a prediction, will not be a Laker in one year. And I like him, but he needs a restart. he is bizarrely inconsistent. Yesterday he was on Twitter sort of making fun of people

because the Lakers announced before their scrimmage with the Wizards they were not going to play a bunch of veterans and one of the reporters, Mike Trudell, put Kyle Kuzma among Dwight Howard and all their veteran players and he's like, bro, I'm a kid, I'm 25 years old. No, you're a guy that played lots of years of college,

three years of the NBA, and LeBron demands one thing from his teammates. You do not have to be great. LeBron's played with a lot of guys who aren't great. And he likes him a lot. He loves Shane Badiye, Eudanus Haslam. A lot of that Miami team was not D-Waid and Bosch. It wasn't.

LeBron's never demanded Matthew Delvedova isn't great. But LeBron consistently liked how tough he was. Kuzma's problem, he is the most inconsistent Laker I've seen in half a decade. Earlier this year, there was a night in which he had 26 points and played great. The next night he had zero. Two best games this year. He had 26 against Dallas and 36 against Oklahoma City. Pretty good teams.

He followed that with 11 against the awful calves and four against awful Orlando. LeBron struggles with teammates that are inconsistent. He doesn't demand perfection. He doesn't even demand you're great. He liked Tristan Thompson. Not a great player. You got a consistent effort. Tristan bangs on the boards.

He plays hard. He's a tough guy. So I think the minute Avery Bradley left the Lakers, it put enormous strain on Kuzma, and he's a guy that just loses his confidence like that. He just, this is just what he is, and it drives LeBron crazy. And if you watch the Lakers play and I do, you can tell LeBron never quite knows what he's getting with Kyle Kuzma. So that is my concern. All right. So I've got to solve this problem.

So I think Twitter too often is people looking for validation. It's projecting. It's psychology 101. It's look at me how wonderful I am. So I like to DM people. Hey, good job. Keep kicking butt. I'd like to bring Joy in an expert on social media.

IDM, is it creepy if I DM a 28-year-old reporter, male or female, and go, hey, you are kicking butt. Keep going. No. So you wouldn't, if we didn't work together and I was like, hey, you're sideline stuff today, you look great, you're great, you're a hustler, I love it. If that's all you said, yeah, that's fine.

But I said you look great. It's so complicated. Is it? It kind of is, yes. So when giving like a compliment to a woman and you're not trying to be creepy and like just compliment her work, generally leaving any kind of appearance comment out is the way to go.

So I could say I like your, I think your synapses are firing. I think your grammar was exceptional. No, you could just say like you're doing a great job. Keep it up. No, talk about appearance. If you don't, if you want zero perception of creepiness, yes. If you don't care about the perception of creepiness and you are still giving a genuine compliment.

Yeah, but I told you today, I think your hair makes you look younger and you said, thank you. Yeah, but I mean, we work together and I know you're not being creepy. It's really complicated. That was not enough time to break that down at all. Okay, we'll do more on top of the hour. I'm telling you something. It used to just be a good job, Bob, and that was you went home and slept well.

Now? No, it's not that simple. Hour to next. 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal,

but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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 So Thank you finishing that sentence

And 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 podcast 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 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, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. 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 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. A rep, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Where's he at? Hey, Miss Parker.

Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Here we go. Hour number two. Charles Barkley, next hour. Live in Los Angeles. This is the hurt. Wherever you may be, however you may be listening.

Fox Sports Radio and right here. FS1. Think I've decided not to DM. anymore. It's too complicated. You don't have to be so dramatic. I just don't think I'm going to do it. It doesn't be that dramatic.

I don't think I'm only DMing men and mostly old, unattractive men. Because then I can say anything and I'm fine. I just don't want to get in trouble. I don't think you're going to get in trouble. I think it's weird. So that little bit of time I've convinced you that it's weird. Yeah, because I said if Bob Costas, I'm not saying I'm Bob Costas, if Bob Costas when I was 29 years old. Yes.

Would have said, hey, DM me back in the day, if we would have had Twitter and said, hey, loved your live shot. You look great, you sound great. Congrats, kid. I literally wouldn't have slept for a week. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, that's what I do. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Nah, the way you describe, it's not great.

What do you mean? I don't know. The way I can't, you can't talk about appearance. I didn't say you can't talk about appearance. You said I'd be creepy. I'm not talking about it. I did not say that. I don't think I'm creepy, but I could be.

I did not say that. You got a pointy nose. Maybe people think I'm weird. I can speak for myself, right? I'm a woman in the business. Yeah. We say we didn't work together. If you had DM me and said that, I would have been thrilled.

It's the follow-up that is the problem. When I sent you my number and said, call me. Like that simple drop it, keep it pushing is fine. Like anything further than that is when it becomes weird because, you know, it goes down on the DM. So you just drop your compliment and then keep it moving. Yeah. You know what? A lot of young sportscasters, no more compliments from me.

It's not my fault. I thought I explained that very clearly. All right. So I have a, not a theory, but I think what I'm about to say is obvious. I don't think commissioners root for teams to win championships. But I do think if I was running a league, if we were running a league, you'd look to, you see potential problems coming up. You try to get ahead of problems.

I don't think the NBA loved. Adam Silver said he didn't love Kevin Durant going to the Warriors because the problem was, oh, hell, they're going to run through the league. And now everybody's just going to join great. teams, and that hurts the competitive balance. So I think actually, the league kind of liked Toronto winning last year.

I think they kind of liked it. It was like new, fresh, and it caught everybody off guard. I don't think the league wants Toronto to become the next dynasty for 20 years, a Canadian team, but I do think the league liked that LeBron lost to Dallas initially. They didn't roll off four straight. They struggled.

Lost first, lost left. I think the league loved when LeBron won in Ohio. I think it was such great story. Maybe my favorite game seven ever. Cleveland beating the Warriors, and I like the Warriors. If you have a heart, you had to root for LeBron and Cleveland. If you have a heart and don't live in the Bay Area. So I do think there are times, you know, there are endings that are better for the league, but I think what the league is always looking at, a commissioner is looking at Roger Goodell, Rob Manfred, Adam Silver is, wow, this could be a potential problem. We got to find a solution for

something potentially. And that's why Durant to Golden State was a little off-putting. What if they What if they crush everybody for the next two years? And they kind of did. That's why Toronto winning was good. It's very interesting. So Lou Williams leaves the bubble. The Clippers have had like four guys leave the bubble for different reasons. And I don't think it's a big deal.

I don't love him getting chicken wings at a strip club or whatever he did. I don't love it. But in the end, it's what the Clippers are. The regular season, they're literally built it looks like for the Western Conference and the finals. And they've not had a big deal with urgency. So this year, Kauai has missed 13 games, Paul George 22, Patrick Beverly 16, Landry Schemett, 17. So if they win the championship, I don't think it's great messaging for the NBA. It's for the star players.

I'm playing 80 games. Why? Do you see how fresh Paul George was? Do you see how fresh Kauai is? Listen, we know sports or copycat leagues. NFL, NBA, baseball, hockey. You can see it's like analytics. If somebody wins a certain way, everybody's like,

oh, yeah, that's it! Confirmation bias or recency bias. But, I mean, if you start looking at the NBA, the Raptors won last year and Kauai missed 22 games. The year before, Golden State won, Steph missed 31, KD 14, Clayton, Thompson, 9, and Draymond 12. Boston, San Antonio, you start looking at this,

and you wonder, Wright had a tweet the other day, and he said, true respect to the Clippers for treating every single step of the regular season, including the restart as a totally meaningless theater in a preamble to the postseason. I remain highly skeptical. I do think

if the Clippers win, I do think Adam Silver is sitting there thinking, you know, they just roll through this thing. I got a load management issue we're going to have to address, by the way. And I think Adam Silver is really smart. This is why

Adam Silver, I think, has already thought of this. Of course he has. He wants to reduce the number of games. You've noticed that? He wants to pull the games down to 68. Because 68 feels like it's pro player. 82. I mean, I'll be honest with you.

NBA travel sucks. Literally leave a game, get on a plane, fly to Cleveland, get off the plane, 9 degrees, van to the airport. It's a man. I've known coaches and buddies. It's a slog. It's the worst. It's really baseball.

Leasias to stay there for four days. And in football, you only travel eight road games. NBA, and the NBA's in the winter, turbulent land, freezing, van, freezing hotel, three in the morning. It's no good. That's why LeBron's like, can we stop this back-to-back thing? It's like, I got some power. It's terrible. So I do think if you add, if you say, can we go play 68 games, it's much easier to talk a guy into playing 65 and go, listen, take a couple of, take a couple of roadies off, play it for the home fans. So I think Adam Silver is ahead of this. But I do think it's interesting.

If you have, look at how many games the Clippers have missed. And Nick Wright is right. It's just a preamble. It's just theater. Kauai 13, Paul George 22, Beverly 16, Landry Shemette 17. That is Doc Rivers saying, take the night off.

Could be a little problem. So, Charles Barkley next hour, Cliff Averill and Mike Sando this hour. Mike Sando does this every year. He does the four tiers of quarterback, Tier 1, superstars, tier 2, really good. Tier 3, better than average, tier 4, not much. And Mike Sandel will join us in about 30 minutes. So he asks 50 NFL coaches, head coaches, coordinators, and evaluators, they rate 35 quarterbacks.

And so I don't disagree with a lot of it, but it's really funny. Carson Wentz is behind Matt Stafford, behind Matt Ryan, and just ahead of Philip Rivers and Dak Prescott. And it gets worse. in the NFL top 100 list, NFL.com, Carson Wentz does not make the top 100. Josh Allen makes it. Tyler Murray makes it. Some guys on this. Ryan Tannihill makes it.

Dak makes it. Kirk Cousins makes it. Carson Wentz doesn't make it. And I think a lot of this comes down to the Nick Foles thing. Now, let me just give you some numbers. If you take out Carson Wentz's rookie year and Joy as my witness, I always think about rookie year. Just take the rookie year out.

Lamar didn't play much. Mahomes didn't take. Carson Wentz. Take out the rookie year. What is he? Folks, 81 touchdowns, 21 picks. 98 passer rating. He's a really elite quarterback.

He's a tier one guy to me. Lower tier one, but tier one. But I think a lot of this, they asked executives what they thought of Carson Wentz. And they kept saying, well, they won the Super Bowl without him and Nick Foles. They won the Super Bowl. Nick Foles did. How do you want to?

Super Bowl without it. This is something that I have talked a great deal about to people in the league, executives. The difference between a starting quarterback and a backup is consistency. You get the same game mostly with Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson,

14 of the 16 weeks. Ryan Tannahill, all over the map. The elite quarterback, Patrick Mohomes can have an off game, but 14 of the 16 weeks, Rogers, Russell, Breeze, Brady, they kind of look like the same quarterback. And I'll give you an example of this.

Nick Foles is Ryan Fitzpatrick. Ryan Fitzpatrick is Nick Foles. Nick Foles gets home field advantage because of Carson Wentz, and then Carson gets hurt, and Nick Foles goes out. And the first game without Carson Wentz, Nick Foles was great. Then he was awful for two weeks. Then he was good again. Then he was okay.

Then he was great in the Super Bowl. But here's funny thing about Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you go, I'll just take Ryan Fitzpatrick, who's going to start for the Dolphins. If you take Ryan Fitzpatrick's five best games ever, look at the numbers. 20 touchdowns, one pick, 147 passer rating,

75% completion percentage doesn't lose. Ryan Fitzpatrick, when he is on, is filthy. He's better than Mahomes. He's filthy when he's on. But then every third game, it is a football tragedy. That is Nick Foles. So this idea that, you know, Nick Foles won, The Super Bowl.

No, actually go to when Nick Foles took over for Wence. It was classic backup. He was terrific the first week. Not much. Very good. Not much against Atlanta. Great against New England without Malcolm Butler in a wild shootout.

But it is amazing that Carson Wins doesn't make the top 100 players in the league. Josh Allen does. I mean, come on. Players, come on. You got to get over this. Nick Full stuff. It happens. It happens all the time. Mark Sanchez

got to AFC championship games. If you have the right cast, you have momentum, your O-line is healthy, you've got a good running game, the defense is making stops. Tim Tebow won seven straight football games. Won a playoff game against Pittsburgh. Dick LeBoe, legendary defensive coordinator.

If you don't think Carson Wentz is a top 100 player in the league, I can't even help you. It's like your TV didn't work last December. Your television didn't work. Cliff Avril, Seahawks traded for Jamal Adams. Why give away the farm? That is coming up.

Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays at noon eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeard Radio app. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast, Superhuman, documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped 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? Do a little kill. 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 on day, but yeah, yeah, literally. 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 IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast,

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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 walks up to me.

He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Quarterback on office blue with 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. If you haven't checked it out, the brand new Fox Sports,

Sports app and website debut this week and fans are loving it. Modern and sleek, the ultimate app for today's sports fans is here. Download it now. It's really great. It's really, really good. I was on it this weekend. It's fantastic. Not everything we do is fantastic.

This show is, and the app is, but not everything we do is fantastic. Everything we do is great. All right. Are you okay with feeling older? Neither am I. If you're ready to give up, want to feel more energized and lean, check it out, MDrivefermen.com. Went for a jog yesterday.

It was 75 degrees, cloudy, windy. It was a perfect jogging weather. I wear a mask, but I put it around my neck because I don't like to, it's hard to breathe, you know? When you're running. And if I see like an old person that looks feeble, I pull it up so they don't think I'm a jerk. But I'm okay to do that, right? Like, I don't want to run with a mask, but I have the mask around me. And if I see old feeble people that are wobbling on the trail, I put it out.

Like the purpose of the mask is when you're around other people. So I can jog and not wear it. When you're not around other people, yeah. Yeah. All right. I do the same thing. Yeah. It's not ideal.

If I'm walking, I just wear masks because it doesn't matter. But if I'm running. I will. All right. There you go. Cliff Averill, 10 years in the NFL, a couple of Super Bowls, one of them.

And now he is joining us in Seattle. By the way, he doesn't lift weights anymore because he no longer plays. But you do work out. By the way, when you run or jog, what's the mask protocol up in Seattle? What is the protocol? I'm not wearing a mask.

It makes it too hard. Running is hard enough, right? Then you put a mask over your face and trying to, it's too much. So, yeah, I run without one. All right, that's good. I'm okay. I'm not offended by that at all.

Let me start with this. A lot of people are saying, oh, my God, the Cowboys, the Seahawks got fleeced. I mean, Mika Fitzpatrick was one first rounder. Jamal Adams was two and a third rounder and a starting safety. What would you say as somebody who covers and talks about the Seahawks in Seattle media about they kind of got taken to the cleaners on this? I wouldn't say they got taken to the cleaners. I mean, did they get rid of a lot of, you know, draft picks?

Yes. But Jamar is an exceptional player. I mean, he's elite. He does a lot of great things. But not only that, the Seahawks need that. type of player in the middle of the field, right? And he reminds me of a camp chancellor. They need an enforcer. They need that guy to get active in the middle of the field. Make these slot receivers a little timid of coming across the field and different things like that.

So he's definitely a dynamic player. He changes up the outcome of games. So you got to give up. You got to give some things up for those types of players. So you know Pete Carroll's schemes. What does he do with DBs? Is Pete kind of a, because Jamal Adams lines up at linebacker more than he lines up at safety? So is Pete willing to let a guy add lib to be more aggressive? You've had him before as a coach? Most definitely. I mean, you look at Earl Thomas.

You look at Camp Chancel. Camp Chancel was more of a box safety. He was one of those guys that would line up, you know, at the linebacker position and hit the C gap, hit the B gap, read, you know, guards pulling and different things like that. So it's not surprising that they went after a Jamar Adams, a guy that does play in the box, that can play big like that in the box in the running game because that wasn't, issue last year. That was a problem for the team or the defense last year is they couldn't really slow down offenses. And in order to do that, you got to have those guys in the middle that

can stuff those gaps. And again, I'm talking about those crossing routes with the slot receivers and different things like that. Putting fear in those guys' eyes, I think is huge. And I think that's what Jamal brings to the game. Seattle, I would argue, feels a tad top heavy. They have the second best quarterback in the league, the best linebacker and Bobby Wagner, and I think the best safety in Jamal Adams. But when you get to their fifth, eighth, eighth, 10, 12th best player. I don't see a Kansas City or a Baltimore depth where the ninth best player is a borderline pro bowler.

Am I wrong on that? Oh, I don't know about that now. I don't know about that. I mean, you look at the offensive side of the ball. You look at Tyler Lockett. He's an elite, a dynamic player. I mean, he just made the top 100, right? You talk about D.K. Medcaf.

Chris Carson, who's one of the top yards last year as a running back. Then, okay, yes, you talk about Bobby Wagner, but KJ. Wright, it's not a bad player. He's a veteran player that has done. some great things and very underrated his whole career. You add Jamal Adams and then possibly, possibly be able to get clowny, I think they're a little bit better than what you're getting credit for. So we were talking about New England.

It's interesting with the Patriots. I don't think tanking exists in the NFL. It's too physical. But I do think there are organizations that can see, they can take two steps, a step back to take two steps forward. I thought Miami last year got rid of some good players in Congress. contract said, you know what, we'd probably be better keeping those players. We're going to step back, accumulate draft picks, have some space with salary, we're going to come back a little,

and then a year from now take two steps up. And they did. They went and got free agents this off season. I look at all these New England players opting out, and I look at how they were not aggressive in free agency. They let some really good guys go, didn't even bid on them. And I think to myself, listen, they had Brady, they have equity with fans. It's sort of a, if we go five and 11 and get a top 10 pick, it's not the worst thing in the world. And now this morning, I hear six, seven guys have opted out of the season. Would they do it if Brady was there?

What is your takeaway? And suddenly all these patriots opting out? Well, let's talk about the Miami situation, right? With how you say they took a step back to get more players. But we don't know what that looks like yet. We don't know, you know, we don't know. It's still a big question mark with those guys. So I don't, it's too hard to win in the NFL.

It's too hard to, to think you're going to be able to sit out, you know, or lose some games to get draft picks and whatnot, then think you're going to win the following year. I think that's pretty hard to do. So I see the new Patriots going out there and competing. I think picking up Cam was huge for these guys. I do think if Cam doesn't play well, they try to draft another person.

But again, we all understand and know that it's extremely hard to draft really good quarterbacks. You found a diamond in the rough with Tom Brady, right? Sixth round draft pick. He becomes the most elite quarterback ever. That doesn't happen too often. You can't just find those guys. So I've seen me going out there to compete. I don't see them trying to lose games to get draft picks and whatnot because

the draft is a crapshoot. You don't know what you're going to get. You just don't know what you're going to get. So why depend on that? So the NFL players vote on the top 100. Players tend to be a little bit prisoner of the moment. They once had Case Keenham as a top 50 player.

Carson Wentz, by the way, is not in their top 100, according to stories out today, which I think is absurd. They have Jimmy Garapolo, you know, is in it somewhere. But it's interesting because the athletic did a piece, Mike Sando did, that he talked to 50 NFL coaches. And they were not high on Wentz. And then you look at the tier three NFL coaches with Mike Sando. They're not high on Garoppolo.

So when you look at Wentz and Garoppel, Let's start with Garapolo. Is he an elite quarterback to you? I think he's a good quarterback. I wouldn't put him in the elite category just yet. But the only reason I say that is because he hasn't had to be elite for his team. Yes, they went to the Super Bowl. But you look at his team, I mean, it kind of reminds me of Russell Wilson early on, right?

Russell didn't have to necessarily be elite when he first came into the league. The years we went to the Super Bowl and he didn't have to do that because he was surrounded by a lot of great players. Talk about Marshaun. You talk about Doug Ball and you look on the defensive side of the ball. There were so many elite athletes on that defense. It's no different with this situation with Jimmy G. You know, he has a really good running game and his defense is superb. His defense is one of the most elite defenses out there that played last year.

So he didn't have to be elite. So as far as for being elite right now, I don't see it, but he doesn't have to be that because they're still winning ball games and he has a lot of great players around him. All right. Let's go to Carson Went, who I thought Carried the Eagles. Do you think he's elite? I think he's on the verge of being elite. The thing about Carson that's going to always plague him, unless he wins a Super Bowl by himself,

he will never really be considered an elite quarterback because his team, although he led his team majority of that season, he didn't finish it off. So they need to see a finished product. That's why when you talk about Aaron Rogers, you talk about Russell Wilson, you talk about all these elite players, they were playing in the Super Bowl.

They led their team to Super Bowls. So as of right now, I think he's a really, really good quarterback, but he's not elite. just yet. By the way, the players opting out for New England. It's interesting about opting out because football, it's a badge of honor in football to play hurt. It just is.

I mean, like in baseball, there's another game tomorrow. If your hands bothering you in baseball, you can check out. In football, by week five, everybody's got an issue. Do you, when guys, would you consider opting out? I mean, what do you make of the opting

out opportunity for NFL players? Would you worry about resentment or bitterness because you weren't there for the journey. See, I think there's a difference in the situation. Yes, what you just spoke on as far as for injuries, you know, you bust your hand up, can you go out there and play, tape it up and go, right? I think the difference here is that players don't know what the long-term effects of this virus is, right?

You can avoid some of those injuries that you get on the football field. You know when you go out there, you might roll an ankle. You might break an ankle or a leg or something like that, but you also know how to kind to get out of it. You know how to avoid those type of situations. but this virus, you don't know what the long-term effects it is. You don't know how this affects you five years from now when you're not in the NFL.

You know what the hits and different things like that do to you five years from now. You just don't know what that is. So for me, depending on where you're at your career, I can see why guys are opting out. I'm actually kind of happy that guys are opting out and they're making a decision based on what they truly believe and not necessarily letting the money dictate

if they're going to play or not or how they're going to go about this. So I'm happy to see some. the guys do it. You know, I don't think any of the guys in their locker room will feel any kind of way about them because, again, the injuries on the football field, you know how to avoid those, but you don't know what COVID's going to do to you later on in life. Cliff Averill, good talking to you again, buddy. As always, good stuff.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You bet Cliff Averill, a couple of Super Bowls, a pro bowl as well. First player in NFL history win a Super Bowl after having been on a winless team. He was on the 116 Lions, and then they went and he went to Seattle and won a Super Bowl. Boy, that is a outhouse to the penthouse situation there.

All right, somebody who DMs regularly, Joy Taylor with the news. Do you, do you DM? Turn on the news. This is the heard-line news. What are you doing? Do you DM? Do I use DMs, yes. But that's, don't, that is, I don't even know.

I can't. I was not prepared for that. I don't have a comeback. But untrue. You seem much more pro DM than I am. I'm concerned about. Okay, so you. There's just a lot.

There's a lot of implications there. So you have DM'd other reporters before? Yeah. I mean, I talk to people in the business all the time. Male female. Yeah. Seems like you have... You can have conversations with people of the opposite sex without being creepy.

It's not difficult, actually. You know, just don't talk about things that are creepy. So just talk business. Yes. How is your portfolio, Bob? I mean, unless you know somebody on a personal level, then you can not talk business the whole. whole time. Yeah, I think I should stop the whole DMing strangers. That's probably a problem.

I don't think that that's a problem. Let's talk about your P-E ratio. It would validate me as a professional to have Colin Cowhert tell me that I'm doing a good job. That's what I do. That's it. To all the young, aspiring fledgling stars in our business. Male and female. I had until today. Now it's over. It's just men. Hey, your dockers look great. Good luck. Going forward, that's the new me. Kind of boring. Patrick Mahomes continues to show his commitment to the city of Kansas City. He is now a part owner of the Kansas City Royals.

Patrick Mahomes is? Patrick Mahomes is. Well, Aaron Rogers owns a little bit of the bucks, like half of one percent or something like that. Yeah, I don't know what the percentage is. But the team made the announcement today with Mahom saying he is honored to be a part of the organization and he is excited to deepen his roots in the community. Obviously, Mahomes' dad was a major league pitcher for 11 seasons. A lot of outlets are saying he's the youngest owner in sports. He's actually not Serena Williams made her two-year-old daughter, Alexis Olympia,

the owner of the new National Women's Soccer League expansion team that's coming to L.A. in 2022. But regardless, it's still an amazing accomplishment. And he's really, he's played the situation in Kansas City perfectly. Because Kansas City is one of those places that is incredibly loyal. Oh, they love their. And incredibly loyal to their stars in a huge sport city. So for him to not only be a superstar quarterback that loves and completely is embracing the city, just sign a 10-year contract, he's going to be there forever, just bought them a Super Bowl after 50 years, MVP,

and now he's part owner of the Royals. I mean, he's going to be a legend forever. It's done. Not that the Super Bowl didn't cement that, but. No, he's like Zion. Some kids just have, they understand the temperature of the room. Right. They have a very unique self-awareness.

Yes. Like Zion gets how important he is for the NBA. He gets it. Like Patrick gets that this is a big deal for Kansas City beyond, hey, we've got a good player. Having self-awareness is a sign of maturity. But it's a very valuable thing to have. Because like you said, you can read the room and make decisions that are macro decisions

that will affect you for years to come. And generally, you know, young people in any business don't have that. So Keenan Allen was not happy about being ranked 77th on the end. NFL top 100 list. We've been talking about that all day. And he got into it on Twitter with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. He called him out and said he was a better receiver than them. He's good. He ranked six in the NFL last season with 1,199 yards, which puts him ahead of Evans at 13th, but not Godwin, who was third in the league. And he was also behind both bucks receivers in receiving touchdowns last year. Yeah, he's banged up a little bit, but when he's healthy,

he's great. He was great at Cal. He's been great. He's a really, really high-end player who gets banged up a little bit. Well, they're actually kind of uniquely comparable as far as who's throwing to them because obviously he was catching from Phillip Rivers and they were their quarterback was James Winston. So his pro football focus ranking, or average run blocking grade, I'm sorry, is 68.6 over seven seasons. Mike Evans is a little higher. Chris

Godwin is 70.1. So, you know, they're right around there. But I think this is fun. Like this is, I don't really take it as being mean-spirited. Like, it's They're all great. They're all great. Yeah. Keenan Allen, if you take away his injuries, he has a real legit argument. He also said he was better than Tyreek Hill.

He has a different skill set, but he's really good. Tyreek is not the route runner Keenan Allen is. Tyreek's fastest guy in the world. Yeah, I would take Tyreek for his speed. I get it, especially if I have Mahomes as a quarterback and Tyreek, when you have a world-class arm, like a Brett Farr, speed receivers change the whole dynamic of everything. Absolutely. So everything is not equal for all of the NBA players in the bubble. JJ Reddick talked about the rooms there staying in and confirmed that the superstars are getting some special treatment.

Oh, I like to hear this. I've been in a couple of my teammates' rooms, and I've seen some video, a couple of superstars room at other hotels. And let me just tell you, the bubble experience is not the same for every player. Some guys basically have two and three bedroom apartments. I don't have that. No kitchen for me, but there are some guys who are kitchen. I've been in the 14 years, and I can't get a nice room. Whatever.

I can't tell if he's being serious or not. Well, listen, I'm going to give LeBron a better room. I'm sorry. But here's the thing. This bubble wasn't built for the NBA, the league to come there and finish their season. It's a resort where families go with their families to go to Disney World. So every suite, every room is not a presidential suite. They might only have two presidential suites in the whole hotel.

Skit Bayless gets a parking spot. I don't. Yeah. Listen. We're all in the same. team together here at FS1. We're all treated fairly. I don't get the same treatment as Colin Cowherd. That's okay.

I do not. Mostly. Because you're calling Cowher. I'm not better. And that's Skip Bayliff. But Skip gets a parking spot. I'm not bitter. We all make it work, right? Everyone gets treated fairly, not the same. CJ McCullen shared a picture of decorations. He put on Damon Willard's door for his birthday.

And the NBA posted one as well, but they took the presidential sweet sign off of the door. Which is kind of funny. Like, Noah's going to notice that. Damien Litter's going to get a better room than a guy off the bench for the Pelicans. Of course he is. Okay, but also there are not

that's not how hotels are built. If it was built for NBA League, the league to go there, then of course everyone would be a presidential suite. It's not built for that. It's built for people to go on vacation. So there's one or two presidential suites in the whole hotel. That's right. Joy with the news. That's the right. Well, that's

the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurd line news. I have spent a lot of time at Disney because I was at the other place that was owned by Disney. Right. My kids did Disney for five years. I've seen every giraffe. I've stayed in every...

I love Disney World. It's great. My kids love it. I, well, when things were open, usually do a yearly trip with my girlfriends and do drink around the world in Orlando. Yeah, there's an African-themed one. Like, what's that one called? That's the best one.

Well, no, there's like, there's different countries. So there's Africa, there's, like, Iceland, there's England. I like Germany because I get a brought up. worst in that grapefruit beer and then they have like this honey whiskey shot i've done this too much yeah it's fun it's fun it's fun it's a blast you get your cute little ears it's so much bigger than disney disney lands like uh it's like a oh yeah Orlando is a whole but i mean there's more space there oh my god it's you can get lost in orlando yeah you can't get lost the disney in california is tiny yeah it's very different yeah oh oh mike sando the athletic charles barclay last hour

mike sando's the guy that interviewed all these NFL guys on the quarterback tears very interested that he's coming up next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. Weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. So Mike Sandow works for the Athletic. He just told me it's his favorite project of the year. He talks to 50 NFL coaches and evaluators. They rate 35 veteran quarterbacks.

You know, they take out the rookies and they do four tiers. So let's go to Mike up in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle. Mike Sandel, senior writer for the Athletic. He's a selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So I pretty much agree with everything. I found Carson Wentz shockingly low. So Carson Wentz, 35 Tier 2 votes. Overwhelmingly, he's at Tier 2.

I think if you gave him a high Tier 2, I'm fine. Double-digit Tier 3 votes. Mostly coaches don't see a difference between Carson, Wentz, Philip Rivers, and Dak. I do. Were you shocked with that? No, I thought he could be punished more for, you know, moderate team success, except for when they had a top five defense. in 2017 and only really one full season as a starter since his rookie year.

So people see the traits. They see exactly what you're seeing, Colin. And they sort of would like to put him in a one. But I think they would like to see a little bit more consistency of him. Being able to pick his spots. I think there's a feeling that he plays like it's desperation time all the time and takes some risks. And then, you know, the team concept separating out the quarterback, he's got one great

record on a year they were lights out on defense. The other years, they've been 7, 9, 9, and 7, and he hasn't been able to elevate. So I clearly have a blind spot for Jimmy Garapolo. Your voters, 50 coaches, 37 had him tier 3, which is slightly above Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones and Josh Allen and Baker Mayfield and Ryan Tannahill. I thought coming off an ACL injury, which can screw with the guy's heads, it's kind of psychologically daunting. I thought he had a hell of a year. Were you surprised most people think of them as slightly better than average? No, because the context that the players play in is so huge for the coaches and evaluators.

They look at Kirk Cousins or Jimmy Garoppolo playing in these heavy play action offenses with great defenses where you're not really putting it on their back and asking them to do it. It's a little bit early in Russell Wilson's. career. You know, he had the great defense, Marshawn Lynch. The quarterback isn't getting as much credit. So there are people who think that Jimmy is better than those guys you mentioned, but he's got one full season as a starter. The quarterback, the coach took the ball out of his hands in key moments, and he hasn't been asked to really put it on his shoulders and do it for a whole year. So Lamar is exquisite. He is, uh, jumps off a television set. He ends up being just behind Tom Brady in tier two. Did that surprise you? I wasn't really sure what,

was going to happen with him because everybody would agree tier one football player maybe the best football player in the league the tiers are set up so that there is a pure pass component right so when you're down 28 to 3 in the super bowl or you're trailing 24 to nothing in the playoffs like mahomes was the tier one quarterback is able to put it on his arm without the context of the running game and do it so for Lamar, he's so much better in other areas. Does that overcome it? I think he moved up more than anybody by far. But, you know, if he had maybe had some playoff success,

been able to lead them back, I think he would have vaulted cleanly into Tier 1, and maybe he still will this coming season. I have said repeatedly, and not just because I'm from the Pacific Northwest, that Aaron Rogers was better than Russell Wilson to me until two years ago. And then I think Russell Wilson has the ability, like perhaps no quarterback I've seen since Montana,

Everybody works with Russell Wilson. Will Disley was a blocking tight end at Washington. He was a defensive end initially for Washington. Now he's a valuable asset. So the votes here are close, but Russell's slightly ahead of Aaron, which I think is exactly where he is.

He's slightly better than Aaron today. Did that surprise you? Wasn't sure where it was going to go. I thought Rogers could follow a little more. He got four tier two votes out of 50, and Mahomes and Wilson became the only unanimous guys. So I think it came out just right. And I find that most years that I do this, Colin,

I look at it and I go, yeah, that's about right. There's a couple guys I might tweak, but I think it's right. I think Wilson has taken that step and, you know, has shown he gets that team to the playoffs without much support, offense, or defense sometimes. So was there a quarterback you looked at? And you thought, I mean, I, I, I, it's funny, we're all out, everybody's now out on Jared Goff. He finished above Garoppolo. I like him, but I do think when the interior offensive line got hurt, there are limitations on what he can do running for his life. Is there somebody for you that's a little high, a little low, you think?

Yeah, to me, Dak Prescott, and it's funny, you thought Carson Wentz should be way higher, but I feel like Dak Prescott's maybe done more than Wentz in some ways. And I get the evaluations that are, you know, just from a peer skill set evaluation where I would, that you might like Wentz. But I feel like Dak Prescott has outplayed him the last couple of years, and certainly been on the field more.

So if he would have been a notch above Wentz, I would have understood that. How about you? I'm a Wentz guy. I think Wentz is the only guy in the league, Mike. There's two guys in this league that make throws with arm angles that I don't think anybody else can do. Mahomes and Wentz will make throws and I'll be like,

okay, Russell Wilson can't do that. And I, so in terms of talent, I may be one of these people that falls in love with talent, and I may be, I have a little hype balloon here with Carson Wentz. I like him more than others, but I think the criticism is fair. when you talk to coaches about this and you what matters to coaches about quarterbacks what what to you what to you when you build this tier system up what matters to them do we have to do anything special on our game plan for this guy or is just a guy just another guy this week you know there was a hilarious quote in there about you know on cousins hey he's a legitimate tier three but we never go to the game saying we got to have a plan for this effing guy you know that was sort of the quote and i think that's part of it you know they're not going like what are we going to do you We got cousins this week.

You know, it's not like that, but it is like that with Rogers still. It is that way with Wilson. You know, you're worried about that guy with Lamar Jackson, too. So I think, are you different that way? And then clearly the peer pass element is a big part of us. The game's changed. Look at the top tier. All the guys but Breeves can beat you with their legs, too.

Their threats are two-way threat. But I think to really be the consistent one, when we're behind and we can't do play action and we can't do the running game component, can you carry it? It's still a big thing for everybody in the league. So I think that always comes through every year. So Mahomes and Russell, they got 50 Tier 1 votes. Everybody went Tier 1.

Rogers got 46, Breeze 33, Deshaun got 28. I don't recall previous years. Is about two guys per year that everybody agrees are Tier 1? Is that about the average? Well, before this year, only Rogers and Brady had been unanimous. and they did it four straight years from 2015 to 18. Those are the only guys you've done unanimous. Wow.

Let me see if there's anybody else. Kyler Murray almost snuck into Tier 2. Now, I watched a bizarre number of Arizona games. Joy makes fun of me. Outside of Arizona, I watch more Cardinal games than anybody in America. I find him to be, I think he throws the nicest, most catchable football in the entire NFL. I honestly do. Your thoughts on Kyler?

Okay, yes. I am distracted watching them because he seems so small. I mean, it distracts me, but then you watch more and more, and you're like, I'm with you. I think he makes great throws. I think he is accurate with the football. I love the way he throws the ball down the field. He's got a great sense. You don't see him taking those car crash hits like Josh Allen does or even Lamar Jackson does sometimes.

And thank goodness, because he's not big enough to weather him. So I love the first season. And for him to be that high after one year of starting is really good. Now, by our view, caution here, Mayfield was high too after one year. But I just feel like there's more to it athletically and talent-wise for Carter Murray. What a pleasure. Mike Sando, The Athletic, go subscribe today. The survey does exclude rookies, but it's Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4.

50 NFL coaches. What a pleasure. He's a Seattle guy. That's fun, too. They got Jamal Adams, so the Seahawks are rolling. I thought they got a little fleece, but blah, blah, blah. Did you like the trade, by the way, quickly? Did you like the trade?

I did. I think he's a potential Hall of Fame player. Fits greatly in their defense. We'll transform their defense. We'll see the single high safety defense that Pete Carroll loves to play, and they'll be a lot better for it. Yeah, he lined up more at linebacker for the Jets than safety. I just found that out yesterday.

That's incredible. Yeah, I agree. He's a different type of football. I bristle when people say, you gave up such and touch for his safety. Look, he's not just a safety. He's a football player who adds something to your team. Look what team. So he's a sixth pick in the draft.

He's 24 years old. Look what Atlanta gave up to move up from the late 20s to number six to take Julio Jones. It's more than Seattle gave up. And this is a sure thing. So I like the move for them. I think they wouldn't have drafted Hall of Fame players in the late 20s. And is Joe Douglas going to draft anyone ever during his tenure that's better than this guy? I don't know.

Mike Sandow, the athletic. Good senior, bud. Thank you so much. Thank you. Folks, Charles Barkley last hour, cocktail in the evening. Do you like it? Go to Lowe's. Build a little bar in your house.

That's what I'm doing now. A lot of styles to choose from. The glasses are beautiful. Little sanctuary at home. Stay tuned over the next few weeks. I'll update you. Get inspired. Do it yourself.

Loz.com. Show us your transformations with the hashtag Lose Goals. Sir Charles Charles Barkley final hour. Expectations. NBA bubble. I like the Clippers. It's 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. Ah, here we go. We're live in Los Angeles, and this is The Heard. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, we're on Fox Sports Radio, right here in FS1.

I'm wearing kind of a denim shirt today. It gives me kind of a cowboy look, very masculine. Didn't you say? Very masculine. Yellowstone. I thought it was like kind of yellowstoneish. I thought it was very casual. Is it?

Yeah. Sorry about that. Is it casual kind of? Too casual for you? No. You have blue on today too. Look at that. I do.

I'll tell you something right now. And I mean, it's in no way. Look at that right there. Those are good-looking people. Oh, wait. I'm one of them. Well, we're calm was right. Yeah. Just the hair.

The summer is doing us just well. We're making it through. We're making it more than making it through. Listen, I know, you would say that, I think, like, at the end of every week, like, we made it. But it didn't really ever feel like that. Like, I know there were some days where we were, like, struggling for topics. And obviously, sports are back now. NBA starting in two days and baseball back.

We got lucky. We do a lot of football. Yeah. And we had Tom Brady get traded. And we had great stories, yes. And we had the draft. So that gave us about two months. We got about eight weeks out of that.

And then we both like the NBA. And they kind of- Yeah, I mean, we, oh, that was huge for us. That was huge for us. So if you're an NBA NFL show, and we do a lot of that, that's probably 75% of our show, it's been fine. And I think the bubble, my fingers are crossed on it, but I think the NBA, I think it looks good. I got my fingers crossed. I don't think it's an asterisk.

I think if you win it, it may be attrition. A team gets COVID, but Charles Barkley is going to join us in 15 minutes. We love that. And best for last, NFL. The NFL.com's got its top 100 players. I'm going to take a bunch of them too high, too lower, just right. But first, two major league baseball games were postponed last night. There was a COVID outbreak with the Miami Marlins inside their organization.

And last night, Commissioner Rob Manfred talked about the effect it will have moving forward. I don't put this in the nightmare category. We built protocols anticipating that we would have positive tests at some point during the season. I remain optimistic that the protocols are strong enough, that it will allow us to continue to play even through an outbreak like this and complete our season. You know, the companies in the country right now, we have four or five companies in America. Right now, actually, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google are worth double, those four companies,

double the Canadian economy, those four companies. If you start looking at Amazon, I'll give you another one. Netflix. Netflix has changed television. I watched some Netflix last night. If you go look at the story of Netflix, it's basically a story how to pivot out of crap. Everything went wrong initially. It was DVDs.

It was going to be Blockbuster. And then they created a Quickstar. And the investor said, no, and that tanked. Netflix was literally pivoting out of problems. and Reed Hastings, a brilliant guy, and Jeff Bezos, these are brilliant Americans. But their whole story is problem-solving. Their whole story is pivoting out of potential disasters. Business is not linear.

And commissioners are business leaders. I mean, listen, man, basketball, they all know, Adam Silver's knows. Some of these guys want sex. They're 22. They're going to sneak out of the bubble. They've had these conversations. Joey and I have had these conversations. They're 24-year-old men.

They're professional athletes. They're all amped up. They lift weights all day. They're good-looking. They're rich. They have to have discussions about they're going to sneak out and want sex. That's a real discussion. The leagues have had that.

MLS has had that conversation. These are grown-ups. This is how you talk. But this idea yesterday that Marlon's story comes out, I thought of good news. This morning, all I cared about was, let's see the Phillies test because they fell you, right? So the Phillies play. the Marlins and a bunch of Marlins players got it. This morning, the Phillies, no positive tests.

So to me, it was like, ooh, that's good news. So you can play a team with 15 guys with it and you may not have more than two or three positive tests. That's very positive. If I'm the commissioner, I'm like, all right, we sideline them for a while. MLS, Nashville, Dallas, out. I'm going to stop the season. I just like people who are solution seekers,

not problem complainers. And if you're in business, if you can't pivot, it. If you're not prepared, you can't succeed. And I think these sports will figure out ways to make it work. Maybe one won't. But right now what I see from the MLS has been great. I'm crossing my fingers on the NBA. And I think baseball will probably struggle more than any sport, but they'll figure it out too. All right, let me shift to this. So if I said Bill Belichick to you, give me his two best qualities. I think the first thing we'd say prepared.

Nobody out prepares New England. I've had buddies that play for the Patriots. They're like, we do stuff in practice. For three years, we never use it in games. They're the most prepared team. Literally, they beat the Seahawks in a Super Bowl. Remember the Malcolm Butler interception? Malcolm Butler says, we practiced that play over and over.

And as soon as Russell Wilson planted his foot, I knew what the play was. I don't think all 32 teams coached like that. So the first thing with Belichick, I'd say, is they're the most prepared team in the league. Not always the most talented. The second thing with Belichick, I think we'd all admit, he's pretty smart. I mean, Wesleyan, mom spoke seven languages.

He's a smart guy. Dad was in his scouting before anybody else was in America. So prepared and smart. Let me tell you what I think prepared and smart people would do if Tom Brady left my organization. I'd reboot the franchise and try to get one of the three great quarter of back's coming out of the college draft. That seems like really good preparation.

I wouldn't worry about this year. What do you know? Patrick Chung has opted out of the season. Oh, what do you know, Dante Hightower just opted out of the season? Multiple players opting out of the season. I don't think Bill Belichick is announcing it. I've worked at a lot of companies. You've worked at a lot of companies.

Companies don't have to announce things for it to be understood. New England's rebooting. The media freaks out because they all say, it's tanking. Nobody's tanking. The Miami Dolphins last year were building a culture, a step back for two steps forward. Belitech is just taking a step back. If Tom Brady was still there, do you think everybody opts out? But New England has sent a message to its troops.

A, they weren't aggressive in free agency. I mean, guys were moving all over the league, even in their own division. they weren't aggressive. Number two, they let marginally expensive players go, not even guys like a Jamal Adams contract potentially. And number three is, didn't appear to have a big rush to replace the greatest quarterback of all time. And when they did acquire Cam,

it was on a day that really bad news was going to be released by the NFL about the Patriots kind of, you know, cheating and stuff. Belichick wants one of the three great college quarterbacks. My scouts say all three of the quarterbacks coming out next year are A prospects. Two of them, Trevor Lawrence and Trey Lance, may be a high A prospects. And if New England goes five and 11 or six and ten, there's only about four teams left that need a quarterback, they'll be there. Indianapolis will need one in a year.

They're just going to be too darn good to get a top 10 pick. Jacksonville's going to be bad. They'll get a quarterback. New England's going to be average. But don't be naive on this. Bill is prepared and smart. What would be the smartest thing to do for the Patriots to prepare for the next decade?

Reboot the franchise. Let some players go. That are good players, but they're marginally expensive. Let them go. Don't be aggressive in free agency. They don't have to announce it. It's not tanking. Miami didn't.

Last year, Miami literally took a step back to take two steps forward. We're going to let some players go, some good players go. They wanted to accumulate draft picks. Brian Flores knew I'm not going to get fired if I'm 1 in 15. I just got the job here. I'm not going to get fired. It was a step back for two steps forward. And I also think there's a little luck involved.

Only the Golden State Warriors in New England would be rebooting for the first time in forever. in a year of a pandemic. In a year where you're going to have all sorts of starts and stops and difficulties. Just so happened the warrior season got canceled in a year where they had a new arena and no good players. They were all hurt or left. So I think smart in preparation. I don't think this is just totally random. I think everybody in the building gets it.

Step back, two forward, get one of the three great quarterbacks. By the way, Adam Schaefter tweeting today. with an NFL executive, and the NFL executive said to Adam Schaefter bills up to something. Schefter responded, what? And the executive said, I don't know.

That's why he's Belichick. Just too many occurrences. Just what a year to be rebooting is. Three great prospects. I know Rosillo called me out, said I was wrong. Whatever. I've earned the right to a really bad take, right? Charles Barkley is around the corner.

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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all. embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

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What's up, guys? This is Clever 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. This referee. We're in the middle of a game. 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 42. Hey, rep, 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. Hey, if you like a cocktail at night, go to Lowe's, create a cocktail bar. It's what I'm doing right now. A lot of styles. You think Lowe's? I get a refrigerator at Lowe's. You can make cocktail bar at Lowe's.

Get inspired, do-yourself, Lowe's.com. Show us your transformations with a hashtag Lowe's goals. Just spent 10 minutes talking to Charles Barkley. He's down in Arizona. And by the way, he is going to go tomorrow, TNT, Studio in Atlanta. It'll be the first time these guys have been together in months. It's the best studio show in the world. Charles Barclay's a Hall of Famer, 11-time All-Star,

and is the rare athlete that became a Hall of Fame broadcaster as well. And he is joining us right now, down in Arizona. So, first of all, you're a guy that's good with people. You light a room up. If you go to a bar, you buy the drinks, and you've been stuck in your house for five months. This has been brutal for you, right? Brutal?

No. We play a golf. every day and we did cigars and tequila. We didn't drink during the week. We did cigars and tequila every weekend, every Friday and Saturday, and we played golf the rest of the days. So, no, it's been, I've been sad for all these people who lost their jobs and things like that.

But for me personally, a lot of golf, a lot of bad golf, but a lot of tequila and cigars. All right. I stand corrected. That sounds like a good life to me. So it's interesting, Charles. if I was a commissioner, I would always be worried about an oncoming problem. And I'll just throw this out to you. The Clippers had four of their best players missed 10 games, 15, 20, 25.

If the Clippers win and Kauai wins, Paul George, Patrick Beverly, Landry, Shammat, miss all these games. If I'm Adam Silver, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That basically signifies rest up. You get judged on the playoffs. Don't worry about the regular season. I wonder if Adam Silver worries about that. This Clipper team has taken the regular season. It's theater.

They've taken it off. Do you think he worries about that? Oh, yeah. I heard you talking about that earlier. I think low management could be a big problem in the NBA in the future. First of all, we got a lot of issues going on right now. Sports will never be the same again with this pandemic. You know, we got to worry about the fans.

because all these fans, they don't lost their jobs. They're never going to get their job back. So I think we got to start kind of being a lot nicer to the fans going forward. By the way, no fans for games. Would you struggle? You are always somebody that you are a showman. Would it be harder for you to play with nobody in the arena? No question is going to be hard.

That's why I think the coaching and the leadership, it's going to be really important. You've got to have a great leader. Because, you know, it's going to be weird for these guys, too, Colin. Because if you looked at this sketch, some of these guys are going to be playing at 2 o'clock or 12 o'clock during the day. So, you know, these guys all played their games at 7.30 at night. And now, unless they've got a coach who can get them going or a great leader,

it's going to be some very interesting time to the next couple months. You know, it's interesting. Yannis is a great player. Chris Middleton's a good player, but he's not a special player. And I've always, I've been in my life, I've moved around for jobs and money. I got no problem with it. Okay, you moved around. If Yonis goes this year and he's great, but Middleton doesn't deliver,

and Yonis is looking at everybody else playing the finals, would you stay in Milwaukee? Would you, knowing that it's not a free agent market, Charles, you can't get, most guys are not going to go to Milwaukee. Would you stay there? Well, listen, I'm biased. I want Janice to stay in Milwaukee. I think it just be great for the league. It'd be great if a small market team won.

We saw what was devastating when Kevin went to the Warriors, and it ruined a couple franchises and made them irrelevant. So I just hope he stays there. Listen, they got a really good chance this year. But also, listen, he's a young kid. Why? It always makes me laugh when guys have been in the league X amount of years.

Like, well, if he don't win this year, he should leave. Listen, they're going to be a contender for the next three or four years. But I don't like super teams. I think it just ruins the balance of the NBA. Yeah. Now, I mean, talk about when you left. You had a good experience in Phoenix, not as good in Houston. In Phoenix, you were a perfect fit.

So take me back. You were in Philadelphia. I remember those were the years they used to call you the round mound to rebound, and you were exciting and you take it one end of the floor to the other. Then you go to Houston, didn't fit as well. to Phoenix. Why did you leave? Was it money, opportunity titles? Why'd you go? Well, the Houston thing was they just, the Phoenix just got rid of me. I had nothing to do with that one. But, you know, it was kind of weird to be in the, in a situation with Janus,

and comparing to myself, I probably stayed in Philadelphia three years too long, to be honest with you, because we didn't have good teams. We had the number one pick in the draft, and they gave it away for nothing, which was stupid, because I was all excited to prolet with Brad Dardy because I thought we would have been perfect together. They gave it away for Jeff Ruhlin who never played. And so they were making bad basketball decisions. But in fairness to Milwaukee, they're doing a really good job.

They got the best defense in the NBA. The Lopez brothers been fantastic. They bought in Bledsoe. They're really trying. Now, if a player is wasting his career, I think that's totally deep. different. But the Bucks, they got the best record in the NBA. Yeah. Okay, I got two questions, and I'm going to sound really dumb.

But Joy and I have talked about this. When I was 27 years old, you know, listen, if I was a pro athlete, I'm 27. And you're telling me for eight weeks, I'm going to be in a bubble. Let's have a grown-up conversation. Sex. I mean, Charles, these are pro athletes. This is an issue. somebody's going to mess this up, right? Some player. Oh, some players going to get busted.

Probably a month in, some food is going to try to sneak somebody in. And you know security is so tight. You know, you really can't sneak anybody in. But somebody's going to get busted. And they're going to be embarrassed. But listen, I guarantee you the good teams are not going to do. It's going to be somebody on a bad team

who got no chance of winning. I don't think it'll be the bucks, the Lakers or the clippers, because they're the three favorites. They can win this thing. But I guarantee you on a couple of those bottom feeders, they might try to do something stupid. Yeah.

So Lou Williams said he just went to a magic city for chicken wings. Did you buy that? Yeah, yeah, I did. I'm not going to go crazy because I don't think they got dancers in there right now. But, you know, he's going to lose, like $150,000. Those are some good damn wings.

Hey, he got to eat the bones and everything. But, hey, I tell you what, the first thing I'm going to do when I get to Atlanta is go and get those wings because those wings got to be really damn good. Yeah, of course. I don't think the Lakers, once Avery Bradley checked out, I thought to myself, listen, it's going to be LeBron Anthony Davis and, you know, I don't think Kyle Kuzma, as a star player. He's inconsistent.

I don't think the Lakers are a championship team in this bubble. I don't. Do you? Well, I do. In the time you got LeBron and Anthony Davis,

I mean, they only got to realistically, the Clippers and the Bucks are probably the only two teams in this conversation. To me, I've always said this. I love LeBron, everything about him,

but it's going to come down to Anthony Davis. Because you think about this, LeBron is going to have his hands full with Paul George and Kauai offensively and defensively. So at his age, that's a lot to ask to handle those two guys. Nobody in the NBA can match up with Anthony Davis. To me, he's going to be the guy who's going to dictate whether the Lakers win the championship or not. That's just my personal opinion.

Like I say, LeBron's an older guy. He's going to play defense. He ain't going to get no nice off if they play the Clippers. They got a two-headed monster that can guard him. But nobody on the clippers teams can have Anthony Davis. I said this before, and I'll tell you right now, if the Lakers win the championship, it's going to be because of Anthony Davis. Yeah.

Are you surprised? I love Zion. I think he has a natural charisma. I don't think you can teach it. You had it. Dr. Jay had it. Michael had it. There's not a lot of guys.

Magic had it. A lot of guys are great players. They don't have it. Are you surprised how popular he is and how effective he's been? Well, I think a couple reasons why. Number one, he seems like a great kid. I mean, when you, he's getting some great, well, he got David Griffin and Alvin Gentry. He says the right things.

He does the right things. And, man, he got a ton of talent. I've been really impressed by how mature he is. You know, he don't make mistakes with the media. He understands that's part of the job. Like every time you interview him, he's got a smile on his face. You know, kind of a lot of these guys don't realize we're in business with you guys. We are in business with you guys.

And y'all job, I mean, clearly, if you don't play great, we have to say bad things about you. But we really want you to be successful because if you, if everybody's successful, everybody makes a lot of money. But I just love his personality. And man, he can really, he's really explosive. I just hope he can stay healthy. That's the biggest question. Yeah, you know, it's an interesting time in the NBA. I got into a discussion the other day with a friend,

and I grew up as an NBA fan, and so did my friend. And we were talking about the NBA. And I said, 99% of the guys I've ever covered in the league, no bad guys, good guys. I mean, I don't even think, I can't even think of a guy at the top of my head. I think baseball and football got some guys that may not be the greatest guys. I can't think of a, I mean, There's some quirky guys, but it's an interesting time for the NBA.

LeBron tends to be more politically active, whereas Patrick Mahomes isn't, whereas Russell Wilson isn't. And we got into a discussion with a friend. I said it'll be interesting to see because the NBA has kind of really embraced a lot of social things. And in your generation, I don't remember that many players being as politically or socially active. Am I wrong?

Or were you guys? No, I think this is a different time. Obviously, with the Internet and things like that, a lot of things have changed. But I will tell you this, Colin, these guys got to be very, very careful not to piss the fans off. If you have to think about something, all these people have lost their jobs, they're not going to get their jobs back. You know, they got to worry about what's going to have with their kids. So these parents out here and these fans, they're on a tremendous amount of, stress. I mean, we don't have zero idea when this pandemic is going to end. And I'm really concerned

if we just keep beating them across the head with all the social justice stuff, there's a chance they could turn us off. And that does concern me a little bit. I think we got to be very selective and pick and choose. Because like I say, man, the public is hurting right now. If you don't have simply for these people who are lost their job, you know, jobs and don't have any money, you need to open your eyes as a player who's making millions of dollars. And I think it's going to be a very slippery slope for these players going forward. Yeah. So are you going to play golf today? I am not going to play golf today. I'm going to take the day off. I got to get ready.

You know, Thursday's going to come here really, really quickly. So I'm going to hit some balls, though, I promise you that. I'm not going to play today, but I'm going to hit some balls. You look good, Charles. You're aging very, very well. You really are. Well, listen, you know what they said,

Colin? Black don't crack. Hey, the only thing I got to do is not get too fat. If I don't get too fat, I'm going to be good. I love having you on the show, Charles. Tell everybody hi.

Thank you. TNT Thursday night. All right. Thursday night. Zion Williams and the Lakers and the Clippers are game too. You know, you don't have to come on the show. You always do. You're very kind to us.

It's very nice. Hey, Colin, I don't blow smoke. You know, I've been a big fan of yours for a long time. And any time you need me, brother, just reach out. All right. Joy, let's say bye to Charles. Very, very. Bye, Charles.

Bye, Charles. Hey, hey, Colin, I spent the whole show looking at your face. Now, that's the face I want to see right there. Hey, next time I'm on the show, hey, next time I'm on the show, I want a dough. I want all three. real, I don't want to look at your face the whole time, Colin. Look, she got a haircut.

Joy got a haircut today. It looks really good, don't you think? Well, I think you should be looking at her face, not a hair, Colin, just for the record. All right. Thanks, Charles. See, Charles. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me. All right.

Thanks for being on our show. The great Charles Barkley. What a pleasure. Say hello to Casper Sleep Company. Outrageously comfortable, not expensive, though not outrageously expensive. I've been sleeping on it for years. Caspber.com. Here is Joy Taylor with the news.

No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So, Jamal Adams was very open about his unhappiness with the Jets organization before he was traded. Yes, he was, not subtle. Yes, he said one big issue was the team didn't follow through with a contract proposal when they told him that he was going to be paid. But GM Joe Douglas firmly denies that there were any broken promises between the Jets and Jamal Adams. Wow, so the Seattle stuff was several weeks ago.

I didn't know that. That's interesting. That's interesting. It's also, I mean, I wonder who, because I have a hard time believing that Jamal Adams is just lying about the organization promising him something. I mean, there are several levels to an organization. So maybe specifically Joe Douglas didn't promise him or tell him that they were working towards that. If you're the GM and Jamal Adams says what he says about your coach, I wonder if you feel as a GM you have to protect your coach. Like you think to yourself, okay, this is, it's July.

We're in camp in nine days. Do I have to protect Adam G. And move this player? I wonder if I was a GM, would I think that? I mean, I've felt like this was over for a long time. Yeah. I mean, when he first started complaining, it was kind of over. I just, I have a hard time wrapping my arms around the Jets in general.

Yeah, I think everybody does. Like, I want to believe that they're taking steps in the right direction. I like Sam Darnold. I like the Levy on Bell move, even though I thought he should have stayed with the Steelers. obviously Jamal Adams is an incredible player. I just don't think that you are, it's hard for me to look at you as a functioning organization if the best player in your team doesn't want to be there.

There is a problem there. Like respected coaches that have control over the organization and a strong culture that doesn't generally happen. Of course you have outliers and things that happen here and there. Obviously, Kauai left the Spurs, which is a great organization. So you have outliers. But in general, you know, mean good players to be a winning organization.

So, like, that's, Jamal Amson's one of the best in the league. It's not the best in the league in his position. You would think you would want him there and just trying to make him happy. Now, maybe it's just, it was a situation where he just wasn't going to be happy. But, again, the Jets to me are just, they're just the Jets. They continue to do the same thing. Yeah, there's seven, eight teams in the league. No chance at a Super Bowl.

They're clearly now in that group. Yes, absolutely. So Bill Belichick has been pretty quiet since the Patriots signed Cam Noon, but In some of his first comments about his new quarterback, he made an interesting comparison to a professional lacrosse star. Cam Newton looks like Miles Jones to me. He's fast. He's big. He'd be a tough guy to match up against.

He could run by him. He could run through those stick checks with the stick work. He'd have a tough overhand shot. So I think those tall, long guys really have a big advantage and being able to change the angle of their shots and still be able to run through some guys. Belichick, by the way, is a huge lacrosse guy. It's huge in Connecticut. Yes. So my stepson's a college lacrosse player.

And this kid that he's talking about is an abnormally 6-5. He's an abnormally large lacrosse player. He was the number one overall pick in the 2016. And unlike Russell Wilson, Cam was a power runner. Cam ran over guys. Yes. So, I mean, I do think Cam and Big Ben, I do think their size and their ability. And I remember talking to Eric Allen, the former NFL TV about Big Ben.

And he said, Big Ben was the first guy that pumped faked and held the ball like a great fruit. He goes, when a guy faked, I could always tell he wasn't going to throw it. Ben would do this and hold the ball. Like a Nerf ball. And he goes, I bit on that thing. He goes, it's just an incredible way to play it. So I do think Cam's size was a dimension that was totally, I mean, Russell's small. Lamar's not as thick.

Steve Young wasn't huge. Well, I mean, we are, I mean, him being very tall as well as an advantage. We're very skeptical of this kind of new wave of quarterbacks who are on the shorter side because traditionally Cam Newton or Big Ben is what you're looking for. You're looking for a tall, strong quarterback. The game's changed a lot now. If you could be more mobile, you don't necessarily have to be 6'5. But the question with Cam is, of course, his health.

He weighs a lot less now. So will he be similar to Gronk? Like, Gronk was one of those guys, obviously different position, but he would just run people over. It wasn't necessarily the fastest, even though he was fast. it was his power that would just dragging three or four guys down the field. So we'll Cam have that or we'll Cam be changing how he runs and avoiding those

hits as well, which is the biggest question with Cam. So finally, Kyrie Irving is committed to helping the WMBA players who have decided to opt out this season. He's pledged $1.5 million to support the income of players who choose not to play in 2020. The donation will be a part of the Kai Empowerment Initiative, which

he created that will also provide WMBA players with a comprehensive financial literacy program. Most notably, Elena Deladon was denied a medical opt-out request. She has Lyme disease and it was a controversial situation there. Maya Moore announced in January that she would opt out to focus on criminal justice reform. There's several other players opting out as well, but he obviously took some initiative to put this together for some of the players who have decided to opt out of this season,

which we're seeing in lots of different leagues. I was surprised the league did not allow a. player with Lyme disease to opt out. If you look at the history, this is so random. I was reading about ALS about a month ago because I have known somebody, you know, it's just an incredibly daunting disease. A lot of people think Lyme disease is part of the creator of ALS. And it was like, so I remember when I was in Connecticut, you know, nobody out West, do you think of Lyme disease? Well, there's Lyme, Connecticut. So when I was in, you know, I was in Connecticut. So when I was in, In Connecticut, there were ticks.

I'd never even heard of it. And so my daughter got a tick one time. I saw it. I'm not joking when I say this. I had to pop it out of it. No, no. It's a memorable moment. And so I was shocked at that story.

To me, Lyme disease is serious. It leads to a lot, potentially a lot of medical problems. It is. And especially if a player shouldn't necessarily have to fight for that. Like if they're not comfortable coming back for any reason, but especially if you have a preexisting condition like Lyme disease, that should be taken care of. But I did watch a little WMBA this weekend.

You did? Yeah, Sabrina's debut. What were the hoodie thing they were doing all over the week? So a lot of the NBA players were wearing WMBA hoodies to promote because their actual games started this weekend Saturday. So they don't have their, they're past their scrimmage. Scrimmage points of the games, the league started on Saturday. So a lot of the guys were wearing WMBA hoodies to support.

Where to go, Kyrie? Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Herd Ler, Line news. NFL 100. NFL 100.

The players voted in it. Some of the voting is horrible. I'm just going to say it. It's terrible. Players have recency bias. And we're going to give you a list of players. I'll tell you too high, too low right on. That's coming up.

Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. Weekdays at noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. I like to have a cocktail after work. How about setting up a bar in my house? Little outdoor bar. That's what I'm doing. Lowe's was the unexpected. choice. Do it yourself. Get inspired. Go to loz.com. Show us your transformations with a hashtag

Lowe's goals. I'll keep you updated on mine. NFL players every year vote in the top 100 players. Thank God they don't run teams. They rarely get it right and joy in our best for last. You give me the current rankings. I'll go too high, too low or just about right. All right. Let's start with Ryan Santa Hill, number 68. Give me a break. It's way too high. Okay, he's not a top 100 player in the NFL. He hasn't started in all 16 games in four years.

The team took the ball out of his hands in the playoffs. In fact, he's only one of two quarterbacks in the entire Super Bowl era that's thrown to win consecutive playoff games with one plus TD and fewer than 100 passing yards. He's not a top 100 player. Jarvis Landry is at 61. Slander way too low. I think he's probably the most underrated football player in the NFL. Jarvis Landry is a volume machine.

And only player to reach these numbers in each of the last six years, 80 catches, 750 yards, and four receiving touchdowns every year of his career. He's got almost 600 career catches. He is a great, dependable, reliable, efficient volume receiver. I think he's maybe the most underrated player in the league. O'Dowell Beckham Jr. is at number 59. Well, right now, I'd say that's overrated. First of all, he and Baker Mayfield didn't work.

He and Baker Mayfield on pass attempts, had the lowest completion percentage and lowest pass-rating the league. And he was banged up. So right now, if you're telling me I've got to choose one of the other, I'm into efficiency. I'm into what I know what I'm getting. I am going to get eight catches a game

and 60 yards and a touchdown potentially from Jarvis Landry. right now, Odell Beckham is not today the 59th best player in the NFL. How about Kirk Cousins at number 58? Oh, give me a break. Way too high. I can like a guy. He's over nine on Monday night football.

Quarterback in this league is not about stats. It's about doubles. Do you win? Do you beat good teams? So we know Minnesota's got a good defense. We know they have a good coach. We know they have a good front office. We know they have a good roster against playoff teams in his career.

He's 5 and 24. So come on. You got it. The bottom line is he is surrounded. He had Stefan Viggs, Adam Thielen, two good tight ends. Darwin, Delvin Cook. You've got to win games against. Of course you can beat Detroit.

You've got to beat good teams with that roster and that coach. Devante Adams, number 57. A little too low, not quite as consistent as Jarvis Landry, but a much bigger player receiver. So I'd probably have him in the top 45 players in the league. You know, since he broke into the league in 2016, he's got 40 touch. time catches, that's the most in the NFL. So he's a star. Now, it helps that he has Aaron Rogers. In fairness, Aaron's had a lot of receivers. They're not this good. So he's a top 40, 35, top 40 player

in the NFL. No question. All right. I'm going to see how you go with this one. Todd Gurley, number 51. No, he's not a top 100 player today. Each of the last three years, his touches and yards have gone down. So, again, this is not three years ago. Three years ago, he's probably top 15. But right now, he didn't have a 100-yard rushing game last year. He's not the same player. It's the reality of the running back and he's aged poorly. Amari Cooper at 49. That's too high. Amari Cooper's a good player. I would say again, Amari would to me be in the 90 to 100. He's not a game breaker. He runs good routes. He shrinks occasionally against better corners. That's a little bit too high.

Jack Prescott, 46. That's too high. Again, last year, DAC struggled one in six against playoff teams, eight and eight quarterback in a bad division with two tanking teams and a Philadelphia team that fell apart. Really, last year, Dallas should have won the division.

They had more good players that were healthy. And he didn't have a game-winning drive last year. And again, it was down. The Redskins were a mess. Washington was a mess. New York was a mess. And Philadelphia, frankly, physically, was a mess for much of the year.

Yeah. J.J. Watt at 45. People think I hate J.J. This is way too high. In the NFL, I like him. But good God, folks. A lot of it's just, he's a star. But in the last four years, he has 21 sacks.

That's 50th. That's 50th in the NFL. I like him. He's hurt a lot. Again, he plays really hard. He's very dynamic. I'd love to have him on my roster. But he's been on the IR three of the last four years.

Now, again, he is this handsome. He's almost seriously, he reminds us. me of the rock. Like he honestly, he's bigger than the room. Like the rock walks into a room and you're like, whoa, the rock's here. JJ walks into a room. He sucks the oxygen out of it. He's this good looking dynamic.

Just a, he's a star. He is a disruptor, though. I think he was. But he's now out of the peak years. So I'd probably put him in my top 100, but he gets banged up a lot. And he hasn't been as productive or consistent. Jimmy Garoppolo, 43. I think it's just right.

I think he's 21 and 5 as a starter. Well, Kyle Shanahan. Kyle Shanahan was not winning any games with all those defensive linemen except Bosa. I think he's really good. I think he's got, I don't think he has a style that leads him to being wildly popular. And I do think his decision making can be a little hit and miss. But I think he's really good. I think when you grow up that good looking, you're confident.

I think he's confident. He's a gamer. He outplayed Mahomes. again, for three quarters of the Super Bowl, the story was Mahomes isn't playing well. It can't just be about how you finish in the final game of a year against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid.

I thought he had a great year. I thought he had a good Super Bowl until the fourth quarter. DeVian Clowny, 41. Oh, good hell. Come on. He's done even playing right now. That's way too high. You know, it's funny about Jadavian.

He's a highlight guy. Right. It's very NBA. There are guys in the NBA that you watch highlights and you're like, oh, my God. And then you watch their game and you're like, you know, I always say Alex English gave you 25 a night, never made the highlights. Kiki Van DeWay, never a highlight.

Clowny's all highlights. But if you look at it, he's missed 21 games to injury in his career. He had three sacks and 13 games last year, and he's currently a free agent. So he's on the market and there's not a lot of takers. So I did think, I will say this, he had, was it may have been the Philadelphia game. He had one really big game. He's an explosion player. He'll make a play.

Like he'll once or twice a game. He will blow stuff up. He's also a very disruptive player. Yes. But again, like JJ Watt, if you want to be a top 100 player, you know, they got him rated at 41. Top 40 guys in the NFL, like Devante Adams is good every game. Yeah, I think you need to be more consistent and more available.

And not her, yes, yeah. I mean, so to be a top 40 player, that's Aaron Donald. That's Russell Wilson. That's Mahalms. That's Travis Kelsey. You know, I mean, you can look around the league. That is Ronnie Stanley, the left tackle for Baltimore. You know, that's guys every week that are just money.

You just put it down. Great player. All right. That's it. Todd Gurley, the players put him 51. That's a lot of respect. That's one of those. The resume's good.

Players respect him. I'm interested to see how he does this year. Yeah. He's not shot. He can play. Yeah. He's a good pass receiver. He's not shot.

But you could tell. last year in LA, it was just uncomfortable for everybody. They paid him a lot. He was just very weird. Is he hurt? Is he not hurt? Everybody was protecting him. And listen, once they paid him and he's not there, everybody's a little tense. It's a tight

salary cap league. So good stuff. We had Ryan Rosillo called me out. Charles Barkley was great. Once more of joy on the show. Mike Sando from Seattle. Cliff Averill stopped by as well. We were loaded. Today was a good show. Tell your friends. We'll see you tomorrow.

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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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

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On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. 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. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

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