Pete Fiutak (Hour 2)

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Try Dove Men Plus Care Dry Spray goes on dry clean feel all day. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Goats have home lives too. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Rich Eisen. Hello Rich Eisen. Rich Eisen. Oh that's Susie Eisen's husband. The Rich Eisen Show. And now sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. Moving into hour number two of the program. Great to have you with us on a football-filled Labor Day.

We move quickly but we'll always carve out time for interaction. The phone number 1-844-204-RICH. 1-844-204-7424. Hit me up on Twitter. B.W. Weber. Weber with two B's. Just one guest per hour and we're going to kick off the second hour of the program talking college football with a good friend. It is Pete Futak from collegefootballnews.com.

Pete I appreciate you taking the time. How are you fully immersed in college football on this Labor Day weekend? Hey it's not bad.

Look we for all the bad games that litter throughout the 80s something we get the big ones are pretty good. This is about as much fun as the first weekend can possibly be so kind of hard to complain with what's happened so far. But you know I'll find a way to complain. No no I'm going to be upbeat and I wrote down a note to myself. Okay well let's start.

Where's the Brian with two whoever with two B's complaints? I wrote don't waste 10 minutes on consolidation and playoff talk with Pete but I have to start with the playoff because they made the announcement on Friday. So 12 teams as soon as 2024 if they get the logistics straight no later than 2026. Pete more football is a good thing but here's the cynic in me.

When we go to 12 and you have the six at large birds available are we looking at five teams from the SEC or three from the SEC and three from the Big Ten? Yeah maybe but not just more football. How about more meaningful football? Put it that way because as much as I love college football it's the worst postseason of all the major American sports.

In part because it's the best regular season Pete you can't have it both ways. Well but they have the exhibition season at the end instead of the pre-season coming at the beginning they do it at the finish and then they have the little mini tournament. Now you have more meaningful games where here's where I kind of disagree first of all this is not going to be like the NCAA tournament where if you can just walk and dribble you get into this thing. It's going to be harder than you think to be one of those 12 teams because first of all you're taking away six of the conference champions. So like this year and going forward some of the big takeaways from the weekend you still got to throw the group of five a cookie even though there's probably nobody there who's worthy of the top 12 but they're going to get one of those teams in and then look you know the conference the regular season is even more meaningful because if you get to the conference championship game and you win it you're in it most likely.

So like that makes like for example you know if you're any big 12 team or ACC team and you can just get there and pull it off you're probably going to get into the tournament so that just makes every conference game that much bigger and again it's hard to get in it's going to be hard to be one of those at large teams that makes it in this thing and you know how the college football playoffs committee rolls they're not going to take a seven and five SEC team even though it's probably going to be better than some 10 and 2 big 12 teams. I don't know you want you want to have a friendly wager we find a lot more Notre Dame for the TV ratings moving forward and we'll talk about Notre Dame at Ohio State coming up. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen taking you across everything going on in college football with more games going on today with Pete Futak from collegefootballnews.com. Pete one more footnote to playoff expansion to me the most interesting game in the regular season last year heading in was Ohio State Michigan because of the stakes. Well under the current format both teams would be in so doesn't that diminish doesn't that alter what we were talking about during game week heading into Ohio State and Michigan moving forward.

Come on Brian Weber you're a professional you you know you if you know anything about how this works that doesn't matter if they're playing checkers. No I get it. Ohio State's gone crazy now. Ohio State's out of its mind all off season that Michigan got them last year. I'm not I always think rivalries are sort of overrated in the grand scheme of things.

I get what you're saying. Right because they'd be playing for seeding that's all that would be on the line because both teams knew under the 12 team format they would know going into the game they're in the playoff. Well here's let me flip this a different way here is the big problem that has to be remedied and I get what you're saying and if they were to do this in a way where that you have to play away and take the college football current model of a panel of judges deciding on who gets in and apply that to any other sport. Can you picture saying hey NFL you know what a panel of 12 people are going to sit there in a room and say you know what we think this year Green Bay, Kansas City, Tampa Bay and whatever we're going to get into the the NFL 14 playoff we're going to kind of just leave out everyone else.

It wouldn't fly it just doesn't make sense there's got to be a mechanism where you can win your way into the playoff and right now as we're sitting here talking on a lovely labor day we pretty much know that about 110 teams are all but eliminated right now and they haven't even really started yet. No matter what they do they're not going to get into the college football playoff and have any shot at winning the national championship. So yes okay so maybe you're going to get a couple rematches you might get a couple teams that get in and it might diminish some of the stakes but again like right now for example if we were to you know play this out if you project it like Oregon would be out you know you're talking about a top 10 caliber team that would probably project to be out it's really going to be harder than I think people realize that you're only going to get like nine percent of the teams getting in the college football playoff where you get like you know something like 20 something percent of the NCAA tournament and pretty much half of anybody in the NBA in the NFL it's just not going to diminish the entirety of the regular season. On the flip side it's going to make it even bigger because again think about how big the Big 12 championship would have been last year had that goal line stand by Baylor then to get into the college football playoff or people would actually watch the ACC championship and actually your beloved Pac-12 would finally get a team into the college football playoff again after a long time a little bit of a drought here.

Okay I appreciate your opinion you've worn me down to a degree also nothing's going to change and we know it's going to 16 soon so I just have to accept changing times. Pfutat CollegeFootballNews.com I'm Brian Whipper Infra Rich it's the Rich Eisen show. I've managed the clock properly we just did five minutes on the playoff now let's do five minutes on actual games so it was entertaining it was weird it came down to a blocked extra point because we're talking about college football so Brian Kelly got all that money to go to LSU. Pete as we think about the twisted turns last night between LSU and Florida State did Kelly not spend any of that dough on a special teams coordinator?

What was going on last night? That was the dumbest game ever. Maybe not look I do love how Twitter the guy was like literally three quarters into his era and he was already fired by Twitter so it's it's not going to there's a reason he's taking over LSU needs a little bit of a redo here but you're right he made some big mistakes last night including kicking the extra point look in the new era of college football with the way the overtime rules work you're probably going to have to go for two at some point anyway so when you're rolling like that you got one shot to win the game on a two and you're kicking game already flubbed it earlier what are you doing go for the two go for the win get out of there so that was obviously a mistake and just the team just you look like like it wasn't ready yet this is why I've said for years and years and years and years week zero should be all FBS versus FCS team it should be treated like a preseason that looked like an LSU team that needed to kind of work the kinks out he kind of could have used a game against you know central cream puff state or something like that just to kind of get everything going and they just didn't they just did not look sharp they still almost pulled that game out the LSU is LSU it'll eventually be okay but that was a tough start for Brian Kelly and the crazy part you're looking at Notre Dame nation on social media they didn't they weren't all that sympathetic to poor Brian Kelly and his uh problems yesterday no well we discovered he had a southern accident but he lost it again last night I don't know why it drifts in drifts out I guess it depends on the press conference pfutec collegefootballnews.com is our guest here on the Rich Eisen show no moral victories but what do you think Notre Dame takes away from the fact they weren't blown out at Ohio State as 17 point underdogs oh yeah it was a good performance it could have opened it up a little bit more but the Ohio State defense came out breathing fire and they still hung around in that game the defense was great and if you look at Notre Dame I mean that was you know technically the fifth best team in the country according to the poll that's a good team they're on scholarship too they they played all right so now if you're looking ahead they showed that you're right that was a bit of a moral victory because look at what the rest of their schedule looks like they get Clemson at home and they have to deal with USC and they got BYU in Vegas right I mean that matters a little bit that's that's dangerous yeah it does that's a dangerous game too so if you look at their schedule if they can play like that it's still there they can still run the table and get into the college football playoff that was not the annihilation like in Oregon like if Oregon runs the table they're still going to be like yeah you remember that though and they couldn't even show up against Georgia Notre Dame played well enough where if they run the table they can still get in it uh it was just a good game it gets a great team it's probably going to end up in the college football playoff I'm Ryan Weber in for Rich Eisen we are chatting with pfutec from collegefootballnews.com Pete I thought it would have been phenomenal if Scott Frost had opened the game on Saturday with an onside kick right except I just well they they messed up a squib kick though against North Dakota so they have their own issues how much does Scott Frost need to hang with Oklahoma when that's coming up in a few weeks because by now we all know his buyout is reduced by 50% when we get to October they couldn't be they struggled to get by North Dakota I understand so I said hang with it make it the competitive game I didn't say beat the Sooners they yeah they've got to beat it they've got to win one of these things it's actually how about just start by winning more games that would help and that's just not they don't have the talent and that's the biggest overall issue that really stood out against Northwestern is they don't have the guys Easter all this time it was like okay well the brat you know Frost is going to bring in his his guys are going to make this offense fly like it was great at UCF and the defense will rise up from there and they just don't have the players and that's been evident they don't have the talent level to to really make a whole lot of noise in the Big Ten West and forget about what's going to happen against Oklahoma. Finally I know you are very excited to go to 12 teams but we still have the four team format for the next couple years last time I chatted with you I said give me a team beyond the usual suspects a la Cincinnati that could make it interesting to get in the college football playoff you gave me USC I'm taking that off the board give me somebody a bit more exotic who could make things interesting in November.

Does Michigan count at this point? No I need Boise State but they looked horrible against Oregon State I need a team that's a step down and that there isn't one okay there isn't one and look at what happened look at the group of five teams went one and 25 against power five programs Old Dominion beat Virginia Tech that was it Cincinnati lost East Carolina well Appalachian State made a very interesting against North Carolina and they lost so we're not going to have that narrative this year unless UCF just rips through everyone I think BYU could be that they're good enough but they're not going to go undefeated there's just not going to be that team this year because the transfer portal has made the group of five programs a lot poorer because they're not getting the same transfers that's a power five the group of five programs usually get the cast offs and the guys who were the twos and threes on the power five or the power fives based on the top are able to cherry pick and take the best of the best from other teams so all of a sudden you've got the talent disparity has changed so I know there's just it's just here's why the expanding college football playoff is necessary there's just nothing there it's Alabama it's Georgia I think we're going to see something special out of Clemson tonight it's Ohio State I'm still giving it USC I'm still a fan boy on this team that's going to rise up and Michigan looks great to start so there's just not going to be that crazy outlier this year that we normally get Pete as always I value the information as we say goodbye you threw it out rhetorically but I can't let that notion just linger you said give me another sport that relies on the judges Pete I'm a play-by-play announcer of gymnastics I believe in the judges they do a phenomenal job you're talking don't don't don't do that with me can I just let you know gymnastics gets a better rating than you can imagine gymnastics out rates some college football games I'm just gonna leave it there okay well yeah like Kennesaw State versus Sam Houston I'm just letting you know there's always the exception that proves the rule okay tough guy there's always there's always there are moments hey look I'm not dogging they're serious athletes now I'm not dogging gymnastics at all all right well I also get paid to do it so it's not just a hobby Pete thanks very much hey are you doing some radio I follow you on Twitter if you ever need a guest you've come on my show about a billion times I'm happy to return the favor be careful what you ask for I just I will be be in touch be in touch okay bothering you on this thank you Pete enjoy the rest of your Labor Day Pete Few Tech college football news.com if you're new to this program where you've been it's the Rich Eisen Show it is the best in our industry nobody combines sports and entertainment better than Rich and the good news is Rich is back tomorrow with the crew Brock Mandel two folk and TJ Jefferson I'm Ryan Weber if you've not heard me over the years I'm sure you're like oh man this guy is a blowhard but one of the good news that is connected one pieces of good news we're all looking for good news that is connected with being a veteran as you build relationships Pete and I have been doing that dance on the radio for the better part of a decade that ends the college football portion of this hour I will circle back to college football in the final hour of the program but the rest of the way it's NFL Uninterrupted coming up one hour from now we'll incorporate our third and final guest we take you across the National Football League with Eric Edom of nfl.com straight ahead back to pro football this summer has continued Aaron Rodgers magical mystery tour so will he have the proper mindset will he get in touch with his inner Chi and we're a third consecutive MVP award I think far more importantly based on legacy and that's what Rodgers is playing for now one Super Bowl ring is sufficient you get in the conversation among the all-time greats but if you want to be an immortal if you want to be on that short list I'm not doing Mount Rushmore radio because it's so tedious but if you want to be in the conversation among the best quarterbacks of all time and nobody's going to touch Brady as the goat but if you want to be on that next year you gotta win a second Super Bowl I'll give you the outlook from Green Bay coming up first when you become a member of Navy Federal Credit Union life gets better one big thing that gets better buying a car see Navy Federal Credit a fully loaded car buying experience where you can finance buy protect and enjoy your auto purchase all from one convenient place they offer great auto loan rates too and your pre-approval is good for 90 days so you know what you can afford while you shop you can even shop for new and used cars with Navy Federal's car buying service powered by TrueCar also you can get exclusive member savings with Carfax, Sirius XM and more and because it's Navy Federal they're always 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I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen on this Labor Day it's the Rich Eisen Show. I'm Brian Weber delighted to be in for Rich Eisen on this Labor Day edition of the Rich Eisen Show hop aboard at 1-844-204-rich that's 1-844-204-7424 checking out your tweets I appreciate everything positive I understand there'll be some negativity swirling throughout social media it is B.W. Weber Weber with two b's as the twitter handle straight ahead we're talking Aaron Rodgers in 20 minutes. It's my favorite exercise Labor Day every year even when I'm not on the radio I'll sit down because I have no life and I love football that much and I'll map out in my head who's going to have the biggest reversal who's going to have the most major turnaround who's going to go from worse to first to win their division I'm not going to be methodical and go to the top of the list win their division I'm not going to be methodical and go through every division nor am I going to play the schedule game and go all right we got Kansas City minus four and a half at Arizona although that's interesting for many reasons especially to get a sense of where Kyler Murray is to start the year that's a very prickly situation it would appear in the valley of the sun we still don't know who leaked the existence of the so-called homework clause in the contract we don't know why Arizona was motivated to do it other than they have real concerns about the preparation of Kyler Murray isn't it kind of funky the Cliff Kinsbury has allowed Murray in the preseason in fact not allowed asked him to I won't say demanded you don't demand anything of a franchise quarterback but had Murray calling plays in scrimmages and being on the headset in preseason games quote-unquote just so he would know what it's like and effectively saying so he would know what I'm going through we're talking Aaron Rodgers coming up brief footnote because we're here on a Monday and we can reach back all the way to Friday with a long holiday weekend on the US Open I realize many of you do not care about tennis I'm very fortunate to work for tennis channel for 19 years normally I'm in New York not this year prefer to be here always great to be in for rich in the guys but the Serena Williams conversation I don't think it's been framed accurately you heard a lot and this is going to get bogged down and minutia so let me do it quickly Serena needed one more grand slam to tie Margaret Korda 24 for the record folks if you don't follow tennis you cannot compare what was going on in the mid-1960s to what Serena has done in the quote-unquote modern era and if you just want to go through the particulars of tennis history the open era came around in 1968 when there was no longer the fake distinction between pros and amateurs with the money being paid under the table Serena already had the record of 23 slams we should be talking more about the tenacity of her opponent Nyla Tomjanovic come back from that four love deficit to win in the second set overcoming 24,000 passionate fans in the biggest tennis stadium in the world Serena already has the modern record beyond that you can make the argument she's one of a handful of athletes that belong on that list of the most important figures in sports over the last 50 years that's how much she transformed the sport I love if you're watching right now you really have to care about men's tennis because it's Andre Rublev trying to complete a sweep of Cam Norrie although if you know anything about British tennis Norrie's now the British number one and women's tennis in the United States is in good shape even with Serena walking away it would appear if you listen closely she left a little bit of wiggle room if she wants to change her mind but for example right now you got Jessica Pegula and I'll tie it to the NFL her parents own the Buffalo Bills she's the eight seed in the round of 16 and how about Coco Gauff just plays with so much poise as a teenager already getting to the finals of the French Open Roland Garros as we say in the tennis world earlier this year nice win yesterday and she'll have that crowd on her side the rest of the way in New York City I did two minutes of tennis hinging on Serena so I don't think I'm going to have my key card revoked prior to the last hour of the program let me make sure we restore order by getting back to the NFL so as Aaron Rodgers has moved forward in his career with this disclaimer prior to the way he framed his perspective on COVID vaccination I'm not getting into politics nor am I getting into your views on vaccination status this is a sports show I understand my job especially as a fill-in host but as somebody who respected and admired Rodgers as a football player as much as anybody in our industry going back to my time at NFL Network I've made the argument this way yes Tom Brady is the most accomplished quarterback of all time you can't parse all those rings so we're all those rings we're going to talk about where Brady is getting ready to take on the Cowboys coming up in that marquee matchup on Sunday to kick off the final hour of the program we'll line up Brady heading into this year versus Belichick heading into this season with all of the strange decisions that Belichick has made on his coaching staff most notably the offensive side of the football coming up in 30 minutes to start the last hour of the program but if Brady is the goat clearly with all those rings I made the consistent argument that Aaron Rodgers was the most skilled quarterback I had seen and I'm old enough to remember John Elway with his unique skill set where Rodgers lost me was the semantics game with the vaccination versus immunized just trying to be too clever and I would have appreciated transparency well now apparently after deciding that he was going to use Pat McAfee as his mouthpiece and that's a great decision I admire what Pat has done tremendously from a business perspective as a recovering wrestling fam but I stopped watching in 1992 but given all the nostalgia of professional wrestling podcast I can tell you who won the great American bash for the old NWA in 1985 McAfee is working extremely hard he's doing wrestling on Friday nights but remember last year when Rodgers finally decided to put aside the notion that he wanted out of Green Bay and then became especially in the wake of the COVID situation very guarded very selective with his choice of words in general press settings and then would go on the McAfee show and be expansive like he was some storyteller like Ken Kesey back in 1968 jumping on the electric Kool-Aid bus well I think it's been a real difference Aaron Rodgers this year and I don't know if he's having a midlife crisis at the age of 38 or he's more in touch with himself but something seems different about Rodgers at least at least from a standpoint of the media perspective because he's been open and showing up with that tattoo and I'm old enough to remember as my grandfather told me when he had the tattoo from his time in the navy in World War II that he'd show me his shoulder and said you want to look like this when you're my age don't get a tattoo now everyone has tattoos I realize I'm fully out of touch and being judgmental here but for Rodgers I don't think the tattoo was a non-story because it speaks to this apparently journey of self-exploration he's been going on so we spent time especially during the lean weeks prior to the start of NFL training camps and I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen happy to have you with us on this Labor Day we're live I can prove that by taking a phone call 1-8-4-4-2-0-4 Rich you can keep it going on Twitter B.W. Weber Weber with two B's final hour of the program we take you across the NFL with Eric Edom of NFL.com but when Rodgers had the tattoo unveiled and we're breaking down what the symbols mean with lions on the prowl and that lurking eye and is he trying to tell us that he knows who the zodiac killer is or he solved the da Vinci code there was a lot going on and that got even weirder when he was talking about that magic T he was taking psychedelic man he's been talking a lot about love as well well let me be a cynic you know what Aaron Rodgers loves how about money because I remember last summer prior to the start of the regular season and all of the hand wringing and all of the histrionics about what does the future hold for Aaron Rodgers you know what that turned out to be a shakedown to get more dough because magically all of those questions were solved by cutting him a giant check now clearly he's worth it because the pay scale for quarterbacks always goes up that's going to be fascinating to see what happens between Lamar Jackson and the Ravens remember Jackson and his mother have not hired an agent going back to his college days coming out of Louisville and that was fair because we have a effective rookie pay scale but as Jason Cole NFL insider joined us wrapping up the last hour the program pointed out the nuances of an NFL frontline quarterbacks contract are so intricate at this stage Jackson might be well served to have somebody come in there finish up the deal also get the emotions removed from the negotiation that's why you never want to negotiate with your boss because even if you get what you want don't you think they're going to remember that you have to do business with that person moving forward but for Rodgers last year well he went from the projection of making 26 million to 46 million this year mystery solved so what about the immediate future because every season that's played and I'll say it because it's relevant although Tom Brady has changed everything with his amazing longevity Aaron Rodgers is 38 he has said I'm not going to be Tom Brady 2.0 I'm not going to be hanging around in my early 40s now you throw him another 46 million every year that mindset may change but has it crossed your mind beyond all the brilliance and winning back-to-back MVPs deservedly so Aaron Rodgers hasn't played in the Super Bowl since 2011 his only appearance and back to my central point I'm a big Rodgers fan but I can't make a legacy argument because that's where he is right now it's about shaping how history remembers him as a player the COVID drama will be a minor if at all reported but a very minor line on that football synopsis but for Rodgers to validate his standing especially now in this era of outstanding young quarterbacks with Mahomes and we'll see Josh Allen when the Bills take on the Rams in the season opener on Thursday and Justin Herbert here in Southern California already getting MVP buzz I could continue but given where he is in the career arc and how long it's been since Aaron Rodgers even played in the Super Bowl doesn't he need a breakthrough season from the Packers to solidify his standing all time and again I'm not doing Mount Rushmore's but if your goal having achieved everything individually and having won a single Super Bowl is to enhance how you remembered moving forward I think this is a monumentally important season for Rodgers and it becomes all the more complicated because as I'm sure you know Devante Adams took his talents to Las Vegas and now he's talking about his good friend going back to college when they played together at Fresno State and Derek Carr also being a Hall of Famer and I'm in a good mood I'll just let that one lay there and keep on moving but if you buy what the Packers are selling and it's football 101 there's no way we can somehow come up with one person to fill the void created by the absence of Devante Adams okay we've heard that for years I don't buy this collection at all because the math doesn't add up so and let's not overlook the fact in addition to Devante Adams won the top three wide receivers in all of football the pack also lost Marcus Valdes-Scandling to the Chiefs so you have their best playmaker and their number three receiver gone still having Aaron Rodgers but since we're going to talk a little bit about Gisela Bündchen and Tom Brady to start the final hour of the program remember when Brady lost to Eli Manning and the Giants the second time that video that went viral of Bündchen in the hallways leaving the Super Bowl and I won't do a bad Brazilian accent because I'm not Danny Terrio I'm not Danny Terrio who do I want to be there I want to be Rich Little I'm going old school impressionist what happened to impressionist Danny Terrio hosted Solid Gold of course Fred Travolina was the name I was thinking of another contemporary reference what happened to impersonators we don't have people Danny Gans in Vegas there was a Danny I was groping for it's a short list the answer is because we don't have truly famous people anymore undeniably Tom Brady is reminding us that star power is all the more impressive now in a world in which everybody thinks they're famous because they get on tiktok just considered the evolution of movies Tom Cruise is the last movie star is anyone doing a Tom Cruise impression but I've got a little lost here in my Danny Gans reference used to be on every cab in every cab in Vegas but if you come up with the blueprint for the Packers this year can I sell you on the great Sammy Watkins because he's on your depth chart Sammy Watkins as you know if you play fantasy football or just pay attention is made of glass playing for his fifth team under the age of 32 speaking of 32 that's how old Randall Cobb is now Packers let him go a few years ago he bounced around the league playing for the Cowboys and the Texans he's back in Green Bay because Aaron Rogers says so how about the future Hall of Famer Alan Lazard he caught 40s 40 passes last year 4-0 I'll reiterate it so I'm not here bashing Rogers just to be a provocative fill-in host but I think there are real reasons to wonder about just how productive that offense is going to be knowing they can hand it off to Aaron Jones and I think we're going to learn a lot more about the Packers on Sunday in Minnesota how much is new head coach Kevin O'Connell part of the Sean McVay coaching tree really going to matter in the progression if it happens at all for Kirk Cousins and more to the point as we wrap it up remember last year the Packers got abused by Jamis Winston and the Saints and that game was played in Jacksonville because of a hurricane situation even if the Packers lose I think they'll be just fine but it certainly will not do anything to diminish all the speculation about does Rogers have enough weapons around them but I think he's going anywhere based on how that contract was structured I'm Brian Weber I'm not going anywhere for the next hour and 20 minutes unless I try to talk more impersonators from day gone by 1-844-204 rich the number to call hit me up on twitter bw weber weber with 2b straight ahead more nfl it's a tradition unlike any other who's going to go from worst to first to win their division that's coming up on this Labor Day edition of the Rich Eisen Show I'm Brian Weber it's always an honor and a delight to be in the chair normally occupied by Rich Eisen on the Rich Eisen Show phone number is 1-844-204 rich that's 1-844-204-7424 even if you don't want to lob me a call today keep the number handy because rich is highly interactive he'll take your phone call when he is back tomorrow with the crew one of the reasons I enjoy listening to the program so much and watching it as it makes its move now to roku of course you can always catch it on youtube as well is the camaraderie we talk fellowship with the fellows rockman del tufo and tj jefferson as we close in on the final hour of the program just one more guest along the way coming up at 220 eastern time we take you across the nfl in addition everything i've been doing my best to be comprehensive about when we're joined by eric edom of nfl.com i'm also going to get to just a little bit of baseball just a smidge tiny with more nfl coming up in 30 seconds do not feel like you're going through withdrawals but it is labor day a significant day throughout baseball history you got aaron judge now sitting on 53 home runs after going deep again yesterday does anybody outside the new york tri-state area care and maybe this is my bias having grown up 25 minutes away from yankee stadium having gone to high school 15 minutes away from the big ball orchard in the south bronx as the great arthur george russ jr used to say on w abc not wnbc our judge is paul bunion he's literally bigger than life and he plays for the freaking yankees all due respect this is not somebody with 53 home runs on the kansas city royals and nobody cares and i understand why it's because baseball has been crowded out by football and i'm going to follow that logic by heading back to the nfl so it happens just about every year and i open the program with the notion of hope hope is a good thing as i quote shawshank redemption i bet shawshank is on somewhere right now there is a shawshank i just love saying shawshank as someone who over enunciates shawshank rule in my one-bedroom apartment i don't care where the movie's at if i come across it i watch it the rest of the way get busy living or get busy dying but the nfl is king not only because of gambling because of hope and that's backed up by the fact that since 2002 when i've been doing radio since 2002 longer than that there have only been two seasons in which a team has not gone from worst to first so as mentioned i'm trying to keep things moving rapidly i'm trying to be interactive i don't want to be more repetitive as a solo host droning on and on i'm not going division by division but we can quickly rapidly eliminate some teams so if you think about the afc east i know that rich talks about the jets it's his program he'll be back tomorrow i'm not wasting your time on gang green joe flaco is going to start that game on sunday against the ravens zack wilson apparently a hit with members of the opposite sex who collect social security but he just can't stay healthy how about your jacksonville jaguars nobody has spent more dough over the last eight years in the nfl and free agency than the jags and what do you have to show for it rock bottom rock bottom they can't be worse than last year because irvin mayer has left the facility presumably spending quality time with co-heads well that was just something i read on the old twitter machine but doug peterson will certainly be an upgrade and if we get serious for a second it does feel like this is a significant year for trevor lawrence because as i'm going to talk more college football in the last hour of the program just go back to the early stages of what he was doing at a remarkable rate in college we had him going to the hall of fame well last year he looked like a shot himself but i'm going to give that whole franchise a mulligan because of what herb did to that entire team never should have gotten the job how about baker mayfield's reinvention panthers finished last in the fc south they're going to go all the way from the bomb to the top no because tom brady's still winning that division although it's tremendous funny how this always works out well for the nfl now when the schedule was released jets versus ravens that was not supposed to be joe flaco but because of the injuries there's flaco against his old team and caroline against cleveland has baker mayfield highly motivated against his old team nfc west seattle led by gino smith nuff said nfc north i know you're out there because you're watching hard knocks and you are blowing up social media you believe in the lions i get the persuasive leadership of dad campbell who should be a professional wrestler brother but jared goff is just a guy it's a testament to shawn mcveigh that the rams made a super bowl with goff and i'll just do it because i enjoy rattling through this exercise lions haven't won a championship since 1957 haven't won the division since 1993 haven't won a playoff game since 1991 aaron rogers is going to win that division again nfc east if i was a hack i could spend the last hour of the program going through all of the negativity we have seen in that division over the years i probably should talk more cowboys if i want to come back because we know that america's team quote unquote always moves the needle no team has won the wretched nfc east in consecutive years since 2004 nobody wants to win that division it's not going to be daniel jones i don't care how much of a quarterback whisperer brian dable is if i hear one more time that brian dable coached up josh allen he'll do likewise to daniel jones i'm going to throw my remote control through my tv i know every show is looking for content and fodder but that's one of the weakest takes i've ever seen i could sell you russell wilson because clearly it's going to be an upgrade over drew lock and every other issue denver has had under center since payton manning i go back to jake plumber if you want me to but i said worse the first to win the division as much as russ is going to upgrade denver in a variety of ways kansas city still winning the division so before i make this even more tedious let me just give you the payoff and i'm cheating a bit because the ravens only finished two games out of first place in that division afc north but to keep this tradition going because i'm fascinated by it every year it's baltimore gonna rise up and win that division and just think about the injuries that lamar jackson sustained last year with all the ambiguity surrounding his contract situation with his own self-imposed deadline saying he wants this deal done prior to the start of week one well it's week one i guess if you want to get into semantics they can push it all the way to sunday but lamar jackson is fully immersed presumably in game prep that situation has gotten more convoluted than need be and it's not just lamar jackson obviously you think about how good that defense is and what mark andrews does as a playmaker they have to make sure that the running back position doesn't get as beat up as last year but since i'm going with baltimore i will give you some pushback on cincinnati and i just want to see more and joe burrow was phenomenal but we see this as often as a team emerging from essentially nowhere to go from worst to first to win the division the team that loses the super bowl historically takes a major step back and i think that's going to be the issue for cincinnati this year this year you put that together with baltimore not having the same level of injuries as last year because statistically that would be virtually impossible but it's going to be very interesting to see what happens between lamar and the ravens on the contract front in the next 72 hours more nfl coming up to kick off the final hour of the program who's going to have a more memorable year and who seems more miserable right now tom brady or bill belicheck that's on the way i'm brian weber live we're doing it live on this labor day great to have you with us much more to get to plenty of nfl on the docket on the rich eisen show for the real story behind some of wrestling's biggest moments it's something to wrestle with bruce prichard and conrad thompson too all-time hogan opponents macho man's got to be in the conversation where's andre for you i've always said andre was number one wow because even going back before you know hulk hogan was a baby face hulk and andre were able to go in and headline at the new orleans super dome at shay stadium in japan wherever they went that was an attraction something to wrestle with bruce 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