Joe Posnanski shares his favorite baseball stories of the year

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Brought to you by NHTSA. This, this, this is the Rich Eisen Show. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pelissero. Earlier on the show, NFL network analyst Chase Daniel.

49ers cornerback D'Amadore Lenard. Coming up, best-selling author Joe Posnansky. Plus, latest news and more. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero. A lot more NFL talk to come over the course of the show.

We covered the breaking news in the past hour. Brandon Aiyuk officially requesting a trade from the 49ers who still don't sound like they really have any interest in dealing them. Four draft picks, they can't help them. This season, phone lines will be open to 844-204-rich. We will get to the NFC East non-negotiables that we had to push into a later segment.

We'll do that in a little bit. We're joined right now by one of my favorite sports writers. He is an author. He's a long-time columnist.

Joe Posnansky joining the show. Joe, you, your book, Why We Love Baseball, available now wherever you get your books, published last year. And your new book, Why We Love Football, available for pre-order, but will be available on September 17th of this year. I always associate you with baseball. I'm curious how the Why We Love Football book came about.

Yeah, it's a great question. It's weird to me in some ways that I've become so associated with baseball because, you know, I spent my whole career writing about everything. And, you know, baseball has always been a huge, huge favorite of mine. But I grew up in Cleveland, grew up a huge, enormous football fan, much bigger probably than anything else. And I love writing about football and always have. And so it's, this was really cool for me because this was a completely different kind of book than my last two, which were both obviously, you know, baseball books. And this was, this one was a lot of fun. So I'm guessing Art Modell, Moving the Browns to Baltimore, not on the list, not on the Why We Love Football list.

Not, not, no, pretty low, pretty low on the list. Also, there are plenty of actually Browns moments that are not, I mean, they're on the list, but they're not high on the list. You know, it's been a, it's been a rough time for sure. In these books that you're putting together, they kind of, you know, go through these different vignettes, right? These moments telling the story of the sport. I found this, always that this is kind of an interesting thing is that, you know, I grew up, I'm 43 years old. So I grew up watching sports in the eighties and nineties when, you know, you had four TV channels, you might have ESPN or something, but everything, there was so little on TV that everybody saw the same stuff.

Now you can flip around. I've got a buddy who's got, you know, the MLB package and he's literally inning by inning, batter by batter, like jamming around all these different things in like the, the TikTok Instagram generation. Do we still have, in your opinion, these flashbulb moments that cross all societal barriers, or is it more fragmented and regionalized just because of the nature of how people consume media now? It's, it's interesting.

Cause I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, we don't have, I don't think there's never a moment like say the, you know, the, the U S beating the Soviets in, in hockey where the entire country catches it all at the exact same time. Everybody's watching, everybody seeing the exact same time.

Like you said, there weren't that many options. So when you saw a great Super Bowl moment or a great world series, I mean, the Super Bowl is still its own thing, but when you saw a great NFL moment or a great world series moment or something, everybody consumed it at the same time. And now, because, you know, there are so many options, but also because there's so many different ways to repeat things. We live and relive and relive and relive every moment, right? So you see some incredible play made, some incredible catch made, and then the next, you know, three days it's all over social media. You watch it again and again and again on TikTok.

You watch it again and again, you know, with different music and different backgrounds and, and everybody compares them. So I think those moments are still there, but we don't experience them the same way that we used to, for sure. I think also the innocence of reliving a sports moment is something that's changed because I think as a society, we're just generally angrier now. Everybody, it's polarized on every different topic.

I'm not just talking politics, but everything. And so some of the great plays in football history, you see touchdowns in Super Bowls in years past where we're running them all the time on NFL network right now. And you're like, that's not a catch. Like he caught the ball for saying that he hits the ground, the ball comes out and they give him the touchdown. That would have been the controversy and everything at the time.

It was just, hey, scored a touchdown. Now I'll hear from like my father, Drew Pearson's push off and things like that. Some of those moments live in the ether, but it's this, it's this general anger. And I think that we're also seeing it in baseball right now where I've long been a proponent of, for the strike zone of the idea of robot ump, just because you've got, I know he's gone now, but Angel Hernandez just guessing on balls and strikes. And it somehow to me diminishes how much you, you enjoy the game, but everything now is subject to all these different angles.

And when you freeze frame it on this, that's what people consume. Now it's just weird to think like that whole idea of just these magical moments, somebody somewhere is getting ticked off and trying to get everybody else's ticked off as they are about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is something I saw again and again and again in doing this football books. I mean, this is a hundred, you know, foolish, greatest, most magical moments of football history.

And there are a whole bunch of these moments that I watched and went, well, that does not stand up. Like, there's no way that's a catch. That probably was a fumble there. I mean, you just, you see that again and again. But the other thing that was super innocent about the way it used to be is, yeah, you could argue about it all you wanted, but once it was called, it was called.

There was no, there was no replay, so there was no appeal. There was, you know, that was it. I mean, I can remember time and time again, you would see something happen and you'd be like, well, that's, they just blew it. They just missed it. And then the NFL would apologize the next day, like that mattered to anybody.

And like, who cares? Because, you know, it already happened, but that's, so everything was instant, right? So you saw a touchdown scored and you could cheer and you didn't have to worry that like five minutes later they were going to be like, yeah, that, no, that's not a touchdown. So it was just a completely different experience, I think, for fans.

Even just how you watch things on TV. I mean, the yellow line for first downs came in like 1994. I want to say, you know, score bugs.

You're watching these old Super Bowls. They didn't have a score bug on the screen until I believe Fox introduced that as well. You know, baseball, you didn't have that box. And I've heard people who are baseball purists who have argued the box makes this worse because yes, you now see if it's a ball or a strike, but then you also have this feeling that this is the final answer on this and that the box couldn't be slightly off.

The tracking device couldn't be slightly off and all that gets us to Angel Hernandez is no longer an umpire. It's fascinating how these things evolve over time and how technology shapes the way that we view, I mean, literally everything. So you're putting together all these moments in the book.

You're talking to a lot of people. What's your favorite? I don't want you to give away the whole book here, but give us a little tease. What's your favorite story that you uncovered while talking to people for this book?

Oh, there were so many. I mean, and I, you know, that was the same way it was for baseball. I mean, I kind of feel like I went into both books going, I know a lot about this sport. And then you'd suddenly find out the full story of Duke Slater who played in the 20s and was a great African American football player many years before Jackie Robinson, many years before football reintegrated in 46. And his story is just incredible.

So writing about him was amazing. There's a CFL moment in here that is known somewhat as the 100-yard play, which is awesome and so much fun to track down. There's a whole bunch of college stuff and high school stuff and really cool moments. But to me, going back to the NFL moments was, you know, this book is mostly NFL moments. And going back and some I remembered, some I remembered wrong. I mean, you know, that was really fun to go back and look. And, you know, when you talk about like the first down marker, which I think is really good, I'm not a fan of the box in baseball, but I am a fan of the first down marker on television. I mean, you go back to, you know, the greatest game ever, right? The 1958 championship game came down to what literally seems to look like a terrible mark on a Frank Gifford run that, you know, that probably should have been a first down and that whole game should have been completely different, but no markers then.

So, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, greatness came out of like mistakes also and we don't make those mistakes anymore. So you're anti-Strike Zone box on TV. Are you also anti-Robot Strike Zone?

No, I'm not. I'm not anti-Robot Strike Zone. I'm anti the box on TV because I think a lot of times it's wrong and it's misleading. I don't think the box is particularly well done.

And a lot of times when you compare what the box calls a strike with what, you know, later Statcast, you know, proves to be a strike based on what they have, it doesn't always match up. So I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of, you know, sort of, to me, it distracts a little bit from the game, but I'm not.

No, not at all. I think it's inevitable that there's going to be some form of robot umpiring, whether it's a challenge system or whether it's something. I mean, it's inevitable. You can't keep watching World Series games, playoff games, important baseball games and seeing umpires miss strike calls because it's like we have the technology that that should never happen anymore.

So, yeah, I think that's coming eventually. You know, and the NFL has just been much, much more aggressive about capturing whatever technology they have, except for the chain gang. Right. Like other than the chain gang, which is still so delightful that they still measure first downs with this ridiculous, like, you know, 18th century technology. Other than that, the NFL has been really aggressive and baseball has been very slow and reluctant to make changes.

So it could be a while, but eventually the the automatic strike zone is coming. I'm sure of it. I don't want to come off as an ageist because again, I'm not as young as I used to be either. Nobody is, but I'm on the sideline almost every week for an NFL game. And I always see the chain gang. There is nobody on the chain gang under 75 years old.

Never, never think about like the logic that you have to go through here. Like I'm sure these guys have had the job for years. Right. But you're, you're playing, you have bigger, more physical athletes than we've ever had. The game is faster. It's more violent than someone's like, well, you know, we really should put like three old men as close to the field as possible and see how long it is.

And it has happened where somebody gets rolled up and they break their leg or whatever. They're working now with the, you know, the laser, the chip and the ball, that's going to become more. They're going to experiment with it further here. So they are developing the technology.

The chain gang won't be as important. You lose though, getting a little of the innocence with the index card and things like that, trying to measure different things. I think I've seen the, the robotic strike zone. I went to a St. Paul Saints AAA game earlier this year and like watching it, how efficient it is. It's literally strike taps the head guy goes, it's being challenged. Yeah. It's a ball turns around. The game keeps going. It's five seconds. I am overall not a huge fan of the game speeding up. I do think I understand like the pitch clock.

I understand why it's there. I personally go into a game. I I'll go to more games than I'll watch on TV. Like a two hour and 10 minute baseball game in the park. That's not enough. I take two kids in the bathroom. I've missed two whole innings.

I can't go get a beer. Like I don't see most of the game. Yeah, no, I mean, look, there's, there's pluses of mind. This is the other side of it is you don't want to slog through three and a half hour games that just, you know, take forever. It seemed, I mean, speeding up baseball sort of was this inevitable thing because it just kept getting slower and the players were not either willing or able to speed it up.

So I mean like something had to happen. I get it. But I've also seen the, the challenge system in the minor league several times. I've seen it actually a whole bunch of times.

Seen it here in Charlotte, seen it in other places. It's, it's stunning how efficient it is because you're exactly right. All you have to do is tap your head, challenge the call. A pitcher just points and challenges the call and it takes five seconds. It's like tennis. It's like in tennis where the call gets challenged and you know, they just show a little, a little sort of animated video on the screen and that's it. And then it's like, okay, you know what? You were right. That was a strike or you were wrong and the game goes on and there's a limited number of challenges, which I think is really good too, because I don't think you want people challenging every single call.

So you have to be really careful about when you use your challenges. I, I like it. I, I, I hope it's, it's actually brought up to the major leagues, at least as a trial for spring training. Let's see how we like it.

But at least as a trial, I hope it's brought up pretty soon. So here we are, the All-Star games tonight, Homer and Derby was last night. This is always the, you know, the mid season classic here. As you look out, you know, from your perspective, it just, the rest of this baseball season, baseball in general at this point, what are your favorite stories right now, Joe, in all of baseball?

Wow. Well, I mean, there's obviously the Aaron Judge, you know, the story of whether or not he's going to be, you know, have the greatest season ever or whatever. I mean, he's slowed down a little bit, but he and Shohei Ohtani are obviously just an incredible story. Paul Skeans, I mean, I'm, I can't even begin to describe how exciting I think it is to have a young pitcher like Paul Skeans come up to the, to the major leagues, especially for a team like Pittsburgh that is, that has struggled obviously for a long time and just shake everything up.

I mean, he'll start tonight's All-Star game, which is really exciting. And, and he is pitching, I mean, as well as any rookie I've ever seen. I mean, he's, he's just incredible. He's, he's only made 11 starts, but he's been pretty much great in all of them.

He's taken no hitters through six innings in, in two of them. I mean, he's, he's absolutely incredible. So he's, he's a really fun story. You know, there are a few teams that are very interesting to me. I mean, Cleveland seems to be, you know, they're, they're leading the division and they're playing great. I think the Orioles are a very exciting team and, and, you know, you're going to keep watching them. The Phillies are playing, you know, better than anybody in baseball right now.

So they're fun. So yeah, I think there's a lot of cool things happening in baseball at the moment, but it's, it's, it's all different because obviously so many of these teams are going to make the playoffs now. It's not like the, the regular season is going to decide who the best teams are. It's, it's always going to be decided now in October and, and you know, that's good in some ways because it makes October very exciting and it brings more teams into the game.

But in other ways, it does make the regular season feel a little bit less important than, and you enjoy it more for the stories like you were saying, than I think you do for the, for the pennant races anymore. Why we love baseball available now, wherever you get your books. Why we love football available now for pre-order.

Book will be available on September 17th of this year. That guy right there, Joe Posnanski, one of the best. Pleasure to have you on, sir. Thank you very much for the time. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. More, why we love football. Trade requests while we're live on the air.

Let's talk more about Brandon Iok. Let's also get through. I know we got some people waiting.

They want to play the schedule game. 844-204 Rich. We'll open up the phone lines. We'll get to the NFC East non-negotiables chat as well football time on the rich eyes and show passion, drive, and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and a level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, led headlights, and more, whether you're into speed power or style eBay motors has you covered with over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die.

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See eBay motors.com. We all know about the speed of sound, but have you ever thought about the sounds of speeding? If you drive over the speed limit, there are lots of different sounds that you might hear. Drive too fast and you could hear the sound of your vehicle crashing. The sound of ambulances and first responders desperately trying to free you from the wreckage. You could hear the beeps of a heart monitor. You could hear doctors and nurses in an emergency room as you're being treated for your injuries. You could hear the sound of worried family members in the hospital waiting room hoping to hear that you're okay. You could even hear the sound of people crying at a funeral because if you drive over the speed limit, whether by a lot or by a little, you could do damage that's beyond repair.

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Paid for by NHTSA. You're a type of guy that figures if it's not going the Yankees way, it's because the way you're sitting or what you're wearing, you literally believe that. Oh yeah, I literally believe that. Like somebody can walk in the room and I'll go like, who's this guy? You got to be careful. And he's like, one time my brother-in-law was sitting in a chair against the Red Sox and the guy hit a bomb. And then he came the next night and I said, you sat there last night? And he goes, yeah. I go, no, just sit over here. He goes, I can't sit here. I said, sit over there.

You were there last night. You screwed everything up. I don't care. I don't care if that's a brother-in-law.

You know what I mean? I mean, I throw my hat sometimes when I get mad, that might turn it. And I go, all right, leave the hat. Drop the baseball. Leave the baseball. I'm telling you, like last night I brought out the broom and Chapman was starting to sweat me out. I go, get that broom out of here. Get your broom out of here right now.

Don't fool around right now with the mojo. I can do that in my house. When I'm at the stadium, at least I'm with people like me that I can relate to so I don't have to do that. It's harder to watch than to participate because you have no control. It's like on an airplane.

Your life, you could die. You go like that when you land and whatever. So you're out of control. At least when you're acting or you're doing the scene, it's you.

But I feel like I could turn things sometimes. I just feel like if I'm there, even with the Astros, I feel like if I go to H-town, I could beat those Cowboys right in that stadium. Somehow my mojo, I almost did it once in 2001 in the Diamondbacks, game seven. It was working.

It was freaking working. People were calling me when Soriano hit a homer. I said, don't change it. They go, you're doing it.

You're doing it. I said, I know, I know. And then it was that stupid bunt where Mariano threw the ball a second. Never should have did that. Changed the whole inning. I was almost in tears.

Imagine driving back in the desert five hours after a loss game seven like that. Oh yeah. Some guy goes, wow, you're a real fan.

I said, yeah, I know. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Thanks for calls here shortly.

844-204-RICH. I know we've got some people wanting to play the schedule game. First though, I've promised the NFC East non-negotiables, the biggest key, the non-negotiables for teams to be part of the playoff picture, part of the division race in 2024.

Start out with the team that's got the hardest path. I think it's fair to say the New York Giants. The non-negotiable to me is that Daniel Jones plays like a 40 million dollar quarterback, which by the way, doesn't sound like that crazy of a number based on all the contracts that have gotten done since. But when you give him that contract, which obviously there was a lot involved, we saw some of it play out on hard knocks last week. When he says, hey, we offered Saquon a whole bunch of money last year and he didn't take it, they tried to get that deal done with Saquon. It didn't happen.

They pivoted. They had to tag him. They gave Daniel Jones the contract because all of a sudden your quarterback had the leverage. It didn't work out in 2023. He's had too many injuries.

That's the bottom line. He's got to stay healthy. He's got to play up to that level. They've given him a lot of tools. The whole excuses of, well, we haven't had the weapons around to tell what he is.

Now you have. You lost Saquon. This is going to be a lot though on Daniel Jones' shoulders.

He's going to have to figure out how to move that team forward. For the Philadelphia Eagles, to me, the non-negotiable would be they get back to play in offense the way that they have when they were one of the best teams in the NFL. From the middle of the 2021 season, Nick Ceriani's first year through like last November, statistically, I believe they had the best record in the NFL.

Somebody can cross check me on that. It was one of the best records. They're one of the best teams. They obviously had the Super Bowl run, but for like two years there, they're one of the best teams in football. A lot of things got away from them down the stretch last season. You're now changing out both your coordinators again. It has to come back to how do we put Jalen Hurts in the best position to succeed?

How do we play that style of football? Kellen Moore's reputation is I want to chuck the ball all over the place. I think that in this case, they're going to be more balanced. They paid Saquon a lot of money to be a part of that balance. They're going to get them out in space.

It's got to be play offense the way that you have when you were one of the best teams to lead because down the stretch last year, that did not look like the same Eagles team. For the commanders, they are. I said this yesterday on the insiders on NFL network. If you stacked up all the teams that I don't know what they're going to be, the commanders are one of the top teams on the list. I know Dan Quinn is a hell of a culture builder.

I know Jayden Daniels was a hell of a college quarterback. Beyond that, you've got this combination of the Austin Ecklers, the Bobby Wagoners, the big names that are more toward the back end of their career. You've obviously got some of the holdovers like Terry McLaurin.

I just don't know. Maybe they get that first year boost like we see all the time from head coaches. Come in and take a team and it's a different vibe. You're frowning over there Brockman.

It's a lot to ask. I just think they're going to be back in the top five of the draft again. It just seems almost inevitable. To me, the non-negotiable of this entire thing is keep the pressure off this season.

There's going to be a lot of people who are going to be looking at this end and it's going to be the instantaneous we've got to go out and win. We got Jayden Daniels. We can right now, we can be that team. That could be this year's C.J.

Stroud. We could be the Texans from a year ago. New coach, positive energy, new quarterback. Keep those expectations off.

They're building this thing. Yes, they went out and signed a bunch of veterans, but part of that is you bring in Austin Eckler and Bobby Wagner to be culture builders. Not because you think you're getting Bobby Wagner from eight years ago. He's still a really good player. Exactly, but you know, he may not be an all-pro.

Yeah, yeah. Their win total is six and a half. I'd be shocked if that went over. Well, I'm not going to give over-under advice, but I would say I think that the expectations of Commander's fans are much higher than that.

I think that there's a belief. You got to take this into account and I'm talking to ownership too. All right, Josh Harris, Bob Myers to the extent that he's still involved with the organization. We see all the time NBA teams make mid-season changes, make postseason changes, and coaches come and go. The NFL is different here.

Having a level of patience, which I have no reason to believe Josh Harris won't, but not looking at this like an NBA season where you get to the trade deadline and you're going to make some massive trade and get seven first-round picks. It's not even possible in the NFL, but it's also a matter of you got to take this into account that this is a process to get this thing headed in the right direction. So, patience with Dan Quinn, patience with Jayden Daniels, patience with the entire operation, I think is going to be critical. And then with the Cowboys, I mean, there's a lot that still has to be sorted out here. Even over the next eight days before they go to training camp, is C.D.

Lamb going to be there? Is Dak Prescott going to get a deal? Do they even potentially do a Mike McCarthy extension prior to the start of the season?

How does that whole thing play out? There's not a lot of occasions, I can't think of one, where you had the head coach and the quarterback both going into the last year of their deals, much less on a team that's won 12 games each of the last three seasons. This is rare air that T.J., your Cowboys are in right now. To me, the non-negotiable for Dallas is that Dak has to play his absolute best. We can talk about the defense changes.

Dan Quinn's not there anymore. Different culture, different energy with Mike Zimmer. Mike Zimmer is a really good coach.

They're going to have to have buy-in on that side, too. There's no doubt about it. But this T.J., in my opinion, has to be, we see the best of Dak, the best version. And he's played really well the past couple of years here. We see the best Dak Prescott elevating everybody, including into January.

Super necessary, man. But like I said, how much better can he get regular season? I know that the comeback's going to be in the playoffs, but regular season-wise, he played almost as well as you can expect. You can easily argue that last year with Mike McCarthy, calling the plays, remember, for the first time, everybody running his office was the best that we've seen with Dak. For whatever reason, everything flopped in the playoffs. The warning signs in that game were when it's the first or second series and C.D. comes off the field and he's chucking his helmet. And Mike McCarthy's going over and talking to him.

And it's like, there's just something that's a little bit off. And the Packers, to their credit, had a fantastic approach in terms of how they were going to attack them. Tom, there were receivers who I'd never heard of, wide open down the field, catching balls with no DBs.

You don't have Dontavian wicks in fantasy like Brockman, who's decided whether to keep him the last round. That's great value. It is tremendous value. But that versus A.J.

Brown in the second is your question. Green Bay's got a lot of respect for a lot of receivers. They've got a ton of receivers. Dontavian wicks is a really fun story, though. I mean, I was watching a clip today with, you know, Mina Kimes and Kevin Clark talking about Dontavian wicks could be the wide receiver one in Green Bay by the end of the season.

That's really exciting. Better than Jaden Reed, better than Christian Watson. I mean, you hope Christian Watson could figure out the hamstring stuff. But Jaden Reed's a pretty darn good player, too.

I agree. But wicks could have that Reed breakout this year, like that Jaden Reed had last year, I think. Which a funny thing, too, somebody told me about, mentioned about Keon Coleman, because remember, he was at Michigan State with Jaden Reed. And Keon Coleman was playing basketball there and was still the first option a lot ahead of Jaden Reed. When we talk about, like, why do the Bills like Keon Coleman enough that they made the trade to go back and then took him at the top of two?

That's a big reason of it. Another guy who you're figuring, this guy's got unbelievable athletic up, so he hasn't even trained to be like a wide receiver, to play football in general. He hasn't trained that way.

He's trained to play basketball a year and a half ago. Plus he's incredibly entertaining, which is also a little, doesn't help you on the field, but it'll help endear him to all the sponsors. It'll help, yeah, it'll help him get the, what's the Tim Horton's deal? It'll help him. Who the hell is Tim Horton?

Yeah, I don't think Keon needs any coffee, but yeah, it'll help him for that. Well, he needs a Macy's deal after that whole thing with the coat. That's who should be, you know, hooking him up.

That was one of the best. Now, again, it's all fun and games until you actually go out there and play. That's why this is the best time of year.

I'm sitting there yesterday in a meeting playing on my training camp travels. It's like, you're going to go everywhere. Everybody's going to have something to be positive about, even if it's a, hey, take it easy, pump the brakes. We're the, you know, the commanders or whoever, like just, just give us, let us breathe, the Patriots, let us breathe a little bit here. But you still have reason for everybody to be optimistic.

And that's, what's fun, right? Because you know, the ball hasn't been kicked off yet. So we have all these remaining weeks to sit and speculate and, you know, and visualize your team hoisting up the Lombardi trophy.

I think that everybody, I think people within the league by and large know more or less what they have, right? You might have some, I remember going through the Texans last year and they're definitely, when I was bringing up like, man, this looks pretty good. Cause I was there on a day that Tank Dell was absolutely lightened it up, him and CJ Stroud.

This was like first week of camp. And so I was like, man, Tank Dell is like open on every play. Like you guys might have a chance here to like kind of compete. And everyone was like, oh man, like, I was like, if you win like eight, nine games after what Houston's been through, you're a hero. It's like, oh man, we got to just take it easy on us.

Well, sure enough, they went out, they played really well. That's not saying I'm like a savant watching one practice. It's just to say, I think by and large, you kind of know what your baseline is. You're hoping that you hit the upside. There are definitely teams going into this year who, because you have to tell your owners stuff like this, Hey, we're not going to be good this year.

It's not tanking. It's you have to, there's an organizational ebb and flow when you're in a salary capital. You go through periods of spending and you go through periods of cutting, unless you're the saints and you're just all gas all the time thinking, well, the cap's going to keep going up. And then you have a global pandemic and it drips dips in a year and you have to, you're still trying to adjust to that, but you have a plan.

You have to be on that. You're hoping you can compete every year, year in and year out, but that's the hardest thing to do in the NFL. Uh, so there's teams that know there's GMs and coaches that know realistically, like we're going to be bad this year. We're not trying to lose.

We're trying to win. Look at the Cardinals last year. Nobody sits back and goes, boy, the Cardinals, like they sucked last year, right? For a team that won four, what did they win five games? They were four or five games for a team that won four or five games. I don't think anybody, I haven't talked to anybody or heard anybody say, I'm like, boy, the Cardinals were awful last year.

Why? Because they were in because they were in every game. They played over their heads. They went in and beat a couple of teams. They shouldn't have beaten late in the season.

They were four and 13. They beat, they beat Philly and Pittsburgh. Were those the two games late in the season? They won one game in the state of Pennsylvania. I remember that. Or maybe I'm misremembering everything. They did win games.

They shouldn't have. Do you get the schedule there? I thought it would be on ESPN when I went to it and it wasn't.

What is he scrolling through? Is he starting in 1909? They beat the Eagles. There you go.

Thank you. And they beat the Steelers. Two for two. I'm glad we got them. And of course, they beat the Cowboys. But those are the games, right?

Those are the ones that stick out. They were there. Dan Campbell's first season in Detroit. How many teams beat us last year? Remember, remember Dan Campbell's first season in Detroit and how they were losing. They started out 0-10-1, something along those lines. Again, I'm throwing stats out and I may or may not be 100% accurate.

I just came off vacation, so give me a little bit of slack. But they had this unbelievable run. He cried. They were 3-13 that year. 3-13, but what did they start? They started 0-10-1. 0-10-1. On it.

There you go. And Dan Campbell cried after week three when Justin Tucker hits that field goal. I'm going to be careful of my phrasing on that since last time I tried to talk about that play.

I became a meme. But you had those moments. But I don't think anybody sat back and went, this team's awful. They competed every game.

They were in every game. But realistically though, nobody in Arizona was sitting there last year going, yeah, we think we can be a playoff team. If you do, now all of a sudden you got the owner, the team president, whoever it is going like, what's going wrong? So you have to temper expectations. But everybody's got something to be positive about. Even if it's not, we get a chance to win big this year, it's we've got a plan to win at some point. Some of those plans are going to work out.

A lot of them are not. But the real stuff starts 51 days from right now. Let's talk, let's actually go to the phones right now. We're just talking about Cardinals. Let's do the Cardinals win-loss game. There you go.

One loss game for the Arizona Cardinals. Let's go to Randy in Oregon. Randy. Our guy, what's up? Hey. Hi.

Hey. How are you guys? How are you guys? What up? Doing great. What up?

All right. Let's get the bills. We're going to get some bills.

We're going to get you some music, baby. Wow. Randy, just come out of the game. Keep it coming, Rams. You're the first person to do this, if I'm not mistaken for the Arizona Cardinals. That is correct. There's nothing in the, I assume this is official.

There's nothing on the page. So Randy, week two, Rams. All the good teams, you know, it's like as the Bengals, you know, you rest, you do whatever.

We're a scrappy team. So our guys are going to be full season ready to go. So we win that one and then we fall back to earth with the Rams.

All right. So loss to the Rams. Week three, Lions. Another tough one at home. We beat the Lions. Somehow we've got the number. I've watched it for years. We always beat the Lions.

All right. Washington commanders. Beat down. At San Francisco. Oh, we're going to take it. Take it in a short snare. At Green Bay, week six. We're going to take it in a short snare too.

All right. You're three and three right now. Monday night home against the Chargers. We're going to win that one. We're going to win that one.

We get a good defense. At Miami. Short week on the road at Miami. Oh, we lose that.

They got too much speed for us. Home against the Bears. We're going to win that. Home against the Jets. We're going to win that. We've always had Aaron Rogers number. Even back when Kurt Warner days, we've had his number. And somehow we always beat the Jets. The wildest, wildest game I've ever covered in the playoffs was that 2009 wild card game.

What was it? 51 to 45? Larry Fitzgerald had the big play at the end.

That was completely off the chain. At Seattle after the bye week. We're in week 12 now. Six and four right now. Not a Dino Smith fan. I think we take down.

All right. At Minnesota. They're struggling with the quarterback. We beat them. Home against Seattle. We beat down at home again. Home against the Patriots. There's a playoff push Randy's got going right here. Home against the Patriots.

I'm going to add none to your list. We beat the Patriots. At Carolina. We beat down. At the Rams. We take it in a short.

There's no in between. It's a W or a blow all loss. All right. So at this point, you've got 11 wins. You got an 11 and five Cardinals team. I mean, at this point, you might just be resting guys for the playoffs, but home against the 49ers week 18. No, we 18.

They're resting players. We might get that one. 12 and five. The call by Randy in Oregon.

Thank you very much. Randy from the Arizona Cardinals right there. Let's stay on the phone lines. How about this? Garrett in Brick, New Jersey has been waiting for, I believe the entire show to get on. Garrett, it's Tom. What's up? Good morning to the clowns, the jokers, and of course those of us stuck in the middle. How's everybody doing? Doing great, man.

What do you got? Great Steelers will quote right there. It's one of the best. Before I begin, I want to say the show has been getting incredibly excellent these past couple of weeks. Tom, you're my favorite guest host, Brock, thank you for donating to Super Bowls and also it's appreciated that you're the best foil in the game.

We have exactly the same sense of humor, so you are always making me laugh. And I missed my Jersey boy, Mike Del Tufo. I'm glad to see you, buddy. Thank you, Garrett. All right, I'm back. I'm back. Until tomorrow.

I'm on tomorrow. Working hard over there. What else you got, Garrett?

What's going on? Giants? Yeah, I'd like to talk about Saquon Barkley leaving for the Eagles because I'm not upset that he left. I mean, I am, but I'm not. I'm not upset even that he went to the Eagles. You gotta go where you're getting paid. I'm upset that he went to the Eagles and then acted shocked when everybody in our fan base started turning on him. You just have to acknowledge the fact that you just went to a rival. I don't care that you got paid.

You deserve it. Like, poor guy has been through hell. We ruined him. But come on, don't go back on the fans and be like, I can't believe this is happening. We all can believe this is happening. Let's be real. Everything get healed, Garrett.

Thank you very much for the call. Tom Brady can go back to Foxborough. Brett Favre can go back to Green Bay. And those guys, you know, you're talking Super Bowls.

You're talking a lot of wins. Saquon, great individual player. Certainly helped them make the playoffs. Wouldn't you call his Giants tenure, though, a disappointment considering where he was drafted and the expectations coming in? Well, I mean, I don't want to say that's why you don't draft a running back number two, but that's why you don't draft a running back number two. It's not that he wasn't valuable.

It's that that position has a harder time completely redefining your team. And Saquon, when he was at his best, was a defining type of player. That's why the Eagles are giving them all the money they were. That's why the Giants, you heard Joe Shane say it. That's why way back, you know, going back to March of 2023, they made Saquon a big offer. Then he didn't take it.

They ended up having to tag them. They still made him an offer last July. It wasn't the offer he got in March.

Why? Because when you get tagged for 10 million, your leverage to try to get 14, 16, 17 million goes away. And so Saquon played this out the way that he wanted to. He signed a new deal last year, the type of deal that he wanted. And you know, all the Giants people that we saw on Hard Knocks sitting around the table talking about, you know, is this a, is there, are there any difference makers? Anybody really going to pay Saquon? Either Saquon goes to Philly and he gets banged up or they're not very good, or he goes there and he goes off and then everybody loses their minds about it.

I mean, that's the, that's the hindsight type of analysis, you know, outcome based analysis that we all go through. But you heard Joe Shane talking about it. Hey, the numbers say 27 year old running backs.

You're not going to get a return on investment. They tried with Saquon a year ago. Now he's a year older, another year wear and tear on his body. He's an outstanding player to, to Garrett's point. I think any time that you swap and go to a different rival team, you're going to get some blow back here. But, you know, if you're, you've been told for whatever, five years, six years that this is the family and you're part of the Giants forever, it'll all heal itself.

And a few years down the line when Saquon, you know, moves on with his life for now. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fine being, being ticked off. I think that that's, that's totally fine.

Yeah. I'm really curious what a third episode of the Giants off season Hard Knocks is tonight. I'm curious if they get more into that during this episode that airs, you know, in a few hours.

I'm told sources say I make at least one appearance in this show. The insiders might have a central driving storyline and that perhaps, perhaps somebody with the Giants is shown laughing at something that one of my colleagues said on NFL network. So we'll see. Tune in tonight.

Laughing and like that guy's an idiot or like that's wrong. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see.

We'll see how it comes across in the live. So we'll break down a drama. Let's go. For now though, we, we say on more show, let's, let's get back to the biggest story of the day.

Brandon Niyuk officially after months of a standoff requesting a trade from the 49ers and where things go from here. That's next on the Rich Eisen show. Rich Eisen here for sleep number. They say opposites attract, and that's why the sleep number smart bed is the best bed for couples.

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That's perfect for both of you only at a sleep number store JD power ranked sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and now sleep number smart bed starting at 9 99 prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii for JD power 2023 award information visit jdpower.com awards only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com this radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding we can't use siren sound effects on the radio so we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot you can crash just the same you could hurt yourself or worse others I'm at the scene of the collision and the damage you cause will be beyond repair see we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all speeding catches up with you brought to you by NHTSA how many shirts are under there all right one yeah t-shirt two regular shirt three four this is ridiculous hold on keep going we call it brockman's hobo dude what are you doing hold on six this is crazy there's more no way seven seven this is insane have you ever eight what's this is this a shirt nine oh my god uh we've got some pull over more shirts of my own i got a hat dude a spoon that he stole a water bottle oh my god this is a lab coat oh more rowdy roddy piper this is that should be out it's a little creepy i don't know look oh the rest of it's not magic eraser this is unbelievable what i just bought some of these at home depot they're great halloween peeps that's from last halloween those are those are a year old that my mom sent i think you have to eat them on camera like right now yeah yeah yeah yeah those are like those are like nuclear holocausts that that that last by the way always gluten-free fat free great open up okay is anyone else gonna have one of these are you gonna absolutely not no come on bro are you gonna eat this oh yeah a bobble head is it empty yeah why are you keeping the box why how's the peep yeah how's the peep are you keeping the bike light pretty good yeah are you serious you didn't mean well no i'm curious what a year old peep looks like what else is under there oh it's a four-year-old halloween candy welcome back to the rich eisen show before we get to the rest of today's program let me tell you about game time i love game time we love game time around here it's the only way uh to get your tickets and we are excited because second half of the baseball season is coming back up all-star game tonight full slate of games friday and into the weekend and game time is the only place to get your baseball tickets they are an authorized ticket marketplace which makes getting baseball tickets faster and easier prices on game time the on the app actually go down the closer you get the first pitch which is great cure to last minute deals all in prices views from your seat the lowest price guarantee game time takes the guesswork out of buying tickets i used game time last weekend when i was in san diego i love it i love the flash deals i want to see where my seat is i want to see with the all-in pricing mikey you know yep all-in pricing is the spot it's game time dot co take the guesswork out of buying baseball tickets with game time download the game time app created account use the code rich let me spell it out for you that's r-i-c-h-t-j you get twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply visit game time.co for restrictions like i said create account redeem the code r-i-c-h twenty dollars off your first pitches first purchase download game time today last minute tickets the lowest price guaranteed and that's our show that's what i'm doing i was very fired up to buy tickets i was even after the first two minutes of the read it was very solid that's what i'm saying the red sox are four and a half back in the aoes do you realize what that means they were like 38 games back like a week ago and now it's four and a half i don't know if the math works out my 38 has been one of the worst teams in baseball for a month the orioles are slumping and the sox are just surging 11 games over 500 tj you feel me i don't rematch of the 86 world series coming oh that's yeah red sox let's go i know two people who would gladly sign up for that we're the only two happy people who would be the rest of the rematch of the 87 series twins cardinals great one i would say this so the all-star break is now what four days now it's the whole way you know it used to be just three monday tuesday wednesday right games back on thursday now they take an extra day games back on friday so but you have those we were talking with joe posnansky earlier about like the way that we remember sports right and great moments there's all these like little flash bulbs in my childhood because like growing up in minnesota it was a heck of a run in minnesota from like 1987 to 1992 no doubt where you had two twins world series wins you had uh the north stars went to the stanley cup final right before they moved and became the dallas stars the mighty ducks final four that was there you had the timberwolves started playing in 1989 like this way and the vikings once dennis green got there in 1992 they started making the playoffs every year although never really advancing until 98 and we all know how that ended but one of the one of the moments like the all-star game moments like i i used to love that game growing up there was no interleague play right and so this was the only time you were going to see the big nl star against the al star and there was one year i'd have to go back and look at it it was like 1988 where kent herbeck finally got the first baseman for the twins who career was kind of up and down so was his uh his physique uh fat shaming he was like that he was like the al rookie of the year in 82 and then kind of went through a slump whatever so he makes the makes the all-star team doesn't go because he wanted to go fishing that's what he does every all-star ray so he just flat out didn't show up to the gate i don't know if that's an option now but i like specifically remember in my mind's eye gary guy eddie was also in there and they're you know introducing all the players down the line and he holds up his batting glove and he's got high wrecks on it saying hi to ken herbeck who's fishing somewhere and watching the game i don't think that happens now right i love that not just totally blow it off really i mean guys do guys guys do fake injuries and stuff like this i got that oh my arm but uh you know it's a it's a celebration it's this midsummer classic it's great i still love the all-star game and i can't wait to watch tonight paul in syracuse new york's been holding with us for like over an hour here paul it's tom pillacero what's going on tommy p it's uh it's great to be here and uh shout out i don't even know if i could do this to the boys in the studio what's up paul okay well yeah i guess my question here tommy p is on the hasan reddick new york jet situation not a lot of people are talking about it what's happening is he getting a contract extension is he getting some sort of a sweetener deal what's happening with the sound relic in the new york jet it's a good question paul thanks very much for the call they've got a few more days here week or so before the jets report to training camp so we'll see how this plays out i mean there's not a lot of situations like this where a team trades for a player who for the eagles this was a salary dump they needed to get the number off their books because they were going to go out and make other moves like signing bryce off away from the the new york jets and so reddick was moving on because of where his number was the jets it sounds like believed he was going to come in and play on that deal obviously hasan reddick has other ideas and so a player who has not played a single snap for the team held out from mini camp and ate a hundred thousand dollars in fines if he starts missing days in training camp the fines increase substantially thereafter so where does this all land i don't 100 percent know at this point it's hard to imagine hasan reddick is not playing with the jets in september is he practicing with the jets around oh let's say july 24th uh maybe not we'll see you know the history of of his agent is not having players hold out there certainly have been some hold-ins uh but you know again everybody's got to make their own decisions on that and this is a definitely a different type of situation that the jets were not really anticipating uh let's get back to another potential trade situation although one that i continue to believe is not going to happen we had the news earlier today mike garafolo joined us from the golf course to discuss it the amador ladore happened to be here right when the tweet hit and we were able to ask him about it as well brandon iuk after a month's long standoff officially requesting a trade today now as i said to you brockman a while ago i i don't believe that this substantially changes the odds of a trade actually happening we know this from everything brandon iuk has done he wants to get paid someplace whether it's in san francisco or someplace else he has also said himself out of his own mouth he anticipates being on the 49ers that that's likely this season and that's because san francisco especially once the draft passed had no real intention of trading a player who can help them achieve their goal this season which is trying to win a super bowl now if they are willing to trade them they're certainly going to continue to get calls the longer this plays out the more you're going to get calls i think that everybody who was going to call already knew that maybe there was a possibility here but the 49ers when they've gotten phone calls have been told no we're not we're not trading the guy so again does that change over the course of time you had deals like nick bosa debo samuel those got done during training camp after hold-in type situations could it play out like that does brandon iuk wanted to play out like that because remember debo said recently that 2022 season when he didn't participate in camp he never really a hundred percent felt right through the course of that season because his body just wasn't in the playing shape that it is if you go through camp so is that instructive for iuk is he joined it you'll continue to show up not actually practice but then i don't know post on tick tock and instagram every night something that's going on and record more zoom calls i i don't know i do know this is a guy who anticipates and expects that he's not going to be playing for the franchise tag this year push comes to shove and it's week one is he showing up if he hasn't been there is he accepting foot on the field he's going to do it at some point this season or else the 49ers are going to trade him at some point this season right now though it doesn't sound like either side has really moved a whole lot uh thanks for listening to this episode of the rich eyes and show i'll be back tomorrow this radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding we can't use siren sound effects on the radio so we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot you can crash just the same you could hurt yourself or worse others i'm at the scene of the collision and the damage you cause will be beyond repair see we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all speeding catches up with you brought to you by nitsa