Top 5 NFL On-Field Storylines

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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. This is the Rich Eisen Show. What was that? The Rich Eisen Show with guest host, Tom Pellicero. Tom, you don't put dirty drawers and melon to yourself. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

Not a gift. It was Tom Pellicero, I underlined my name, and then I rode all over it. Laundry. Today's guests. Yahoo Sports senior NBA writer, Vincent Goodwill. TBS MLS analyst, Jeff Francore.

Plus, latest news and more. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pellicero. It is a Rich Eisen-less edition once again of the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pellicero, happy to be here with you. Happy, frankly, TJ Jefferson, that I was allowed back since now that drop in the open of the show right there.

I think it's going to be hard to come back from melon dirty drawers, as you put it, to yourself. Look, I've been around this world, Tom. I've been fortunate and blessed. I've seen a lot of things. I've heard of a lot of stuff, and my imagination is pretty vivid. But I ain't never, ever heard nothing like somebody mailing dirty underwears back to themselves through the U.S.

Postal Service. That's just crazy. How many people do you know that have to hit 14 or 12 teams in 12 days?

Have to start a training camp. Now, that's also a good point, baby. I don't know a whole lot of cats like you out there in these streets. You learn to scrap. You learn to do whatever it takes. I'm just saying, don't be a snob.

Sometimes you do got to wash some socks and underwear in your hotels. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's all I'm saying. What did I miss?

So not to hustle. I just, yeah, Del Tufo laughing hysterically at this entire thing is not the reason he's not here today. He's doing some USA basketball. We'll have Vince Goodwill on the show to talk about Team USA in a little bit here. Jeff Francore is going to join us to talk some baseball.

Frankly, I'm just, no, there's no Brockman either. This is not him forgetting his luggage for a second straight day. We did confirm. He just texted and confirmed. He did make it.

He did make it to Pittsburgh. So he is not one of the hundreds of thousands of travelers that are currently stranded because somebody at a company messed up one line of code in a software update. Is that what happened? It's that is I watched and much to my detriment, an interview with the head of the company that supplies this security software to companies all over the world. It was not a heartening interview.

At one point, he lost his voice and had to take a sip of water. And the host said, you know, we know it's been a long night. Yeah. When you take out the whole world, I often think about this. You know, if I mess up in my job, right.

Most of the consequences is just boomerang on me. I say something horribly offensive. I get canceled. I tweet something and I got the wrong team, which has happened before. Yeah. You just got to stay off Twitter famously, just typed, not even like a bad source info, but just like when one time I may have told this story on the show before, but when, uh, when Kiko Alonzo got traded from the dolphins to the saints and they had made a trade a couple of days before the dolphins had with the Texans sending Laramie tonsil, that was a really big deal, right?

Yeah. So I find out early in the morning, I just woke up, Kiko Alonzo has been traded to the saints somewhere in my brain, something broke. And based on the trade that had just happened, I typed trade.

The dolphins are sending Kiko Alonzo to the Texans. The moment I see the tweet hit, I go, Oh no. And immediately delete it.

Like the moment I hit send, I'm like, no, no, no. I delete. I copy it quick, delete it, paste it in again, hit tweet again. But I cut off the T at the start of the tweets. So now it just says raid.

The dolphins are trading Kiko Alonzo to the saints. So I got to delete it again. And third time's the charm.

And every, every response was who's the Texans are saints, you know, and the screen grabs third time's the charm. People just wait for you to make those errors, right? But that's like, that's the worst of it for me, right?

I look like a jackass for a few minutes and then everybody moves on with their lives. Yeah. I mean, I say something stupid. I just can't go to YouTube for a couple hours.

You don't want to read your mentions on Instagram, right? You know, like you said, a few hours later, it's fine. Sorry folks. Sorry folks. This guy messes up or woman or whoever it was, this person messes up a line of code. Other people apparently don't see it either.

It then reacts with every PC, every Microsoft based operating system that interacts with this and has the software across the world, the world. It's like, who did I, who did I impact accidentally, you know, said this guy was doubtful to play any play. You know, there's a couple, there's some angry, I'll get a few things, gamblers, things like that. Actors and actives by the way, are one of the worst parts of the job because like things can happen. Circumstances change.

You try to lean one way or the other. This guy, this person messes up a line of code and it impacts the world. Everybody, the whole world economy is at a standstill because you put a three in place of a two or whatever it was. I don't know anything about coding, but it seems like that's a pretty high leverage type of a situation, right?

That's a pretty, that's a pretty massive, that's a pretty massive screw up. And if you're the company that did it, I don't know that I want my CEO on no sleep and losing his voice to come on live TV and explain it. Maybe just lay low. I don't want you out here.

I don't want you on the today's show. I want you back there. I want you back there figuring out what went on. Because now Tom, they're saying it could take a while.

Yeah. I got a, I got like a 6-20 flight back. Some time for this to be resolved. I got a, I got a message from, from Delta. I'm fine saying the year long because this is not their fault, but it's, I finally, I finally, you know, the apps are down, everything, everything's down.

I just got notes saying Delta has resumed some departures following an earlier vendor technology issue. That's a kind of way of saying these idiots, it's not us. It's not the airline.

For once it's not us. A vendor. It was a vendor.

An outside third party did this. Who took down everybody. So I think this is what people had feared was going to happen when Y2K hit.

If you can remember that everyone was just like, oh man, once midnight hit something. So the thing's going to hit the fan and unfortunately nothing happened. So here's a story. So that was my freshman year of college. You just leaned in like, let me tell you something.

Let me tell you a story. Y2K, right? That was the end of 1999, 2000. It was based on software that had all been written with 19 as the first two digits in the year. It was written, you know, in the seventies and eighties and no one ever contemplated, hey, it is eventually going to be a new century. So there were mass fears that banking systems were going to crash. You had to update all this Y2K software. I was part of the foundation of the movie office space as well.

That was the extent of the job. So I'm at someone's house, a high school acquaintances house. Oh yeah, Bill Day.

That's his name. I'm at Bill Day's house and everybody's, you know, a bunch of people from my high school graduate class, everyone's back for the holidays. It's new year's Eve.

So I get the brilliant idea. I'm going to figure out where in Bill Day's house his fuse box is. And at midnight I'm shutting off the fuses. I'm shutting off the power to the entire house.

So I find it, uh, go into the closet. I'm here in the countdown, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five. We get to two, one, and I zap that thing across and everybody starts screaming with people.

It's out. So it took like a couple of minutes. It took a couple of minutes for people to go look outside through the windows and go, Hey, everybody else's power still on. What actually happened? So of course, in my brilliant scheming here, as soon as I turn it off, I go back into the room with the party.

So the lights come back on. I'm in there going, what happened? Oh man, that was crazy.

Wasn't it? I never told anybody. Well, I didn't tell Bill. I told other people I did it, but I didn't see Bill again for several years, senior year of college.

This is three years later, you know, very ready. We didn't go to college together. I think he went to college somewhere in Maine or something.

I went to Boston college. I walk out the back door of my modular apartment on the campus of BC and who's standing there. It's bill day. Like, dude, what are you doing here? He's like, oh, I'm friends with the guy next door. And I'm like, wow, yeah, good to see man. How long has it been? He's like, yeah, it's been since you pulled the power at my house.

I'm like, oh yeah, we never did talk about it. Who told you? Who let you in on that secret? That's a really good joke.

You can't, you can't pull that one all the time. And now here we are. And all the software that has been designed to prevent, you know, the type of hack that might disrupt the world and now the software, ironically, I think this is correct use of ironically here too. Ironically, the software designed to prevent all the computers in the world from going down has caused all of the world's computers to go down.

That's just great. Like, do you think Tiger Woods after getting cut from the British open, does he, he can get a flight back, right? He's on base flying private or the, or do the plane computers go out to, I think Hoskins told me this morning. Yeah. Even the airlines got shut down.

It doesn't matter. You can't get up in the air, right? So I don't know the extent of this right now, but this is crazy, bro. Well, what I do know is we we're on the air, there's TV stations and various people all over the world, football still come who are, who are not able to be on TV today. You know, anchor sitting there and the, the control rooms are out. I've seen all those tweets, but we're here. We're here on Roku. Roku is never going to let you down.

I think they must be Apple base. I think they're on their own program. You think Roku, Joe would let something like, no, we ain't going to let us, we got this handled. Come on. We're live on Roku.

There is football, as you said, as long as that didn't mess up any teams arriving to camp or anything that I didn't see. So I forgive me if I'm messing up his name, but Kylock Poso, I believe is his name. You know, every player on the, the Stanley cup winning team, they get their day with the car. So Michael Russo, who's a fabulous, uh, NHL writer, long time, a wild beat writer, uh, tweeted this a short time ago, major announcement, especially if you're driving from a long distance for Kylock Poso's public Stanley cup appearance today at Pagle arena, it has to be canceled due to the Stanley cup being stuck in St. Louis because of the global it outage affecting airlines. I'm crushed a very disappointed. I post. So said they're currently trying to figure out how to get the cup here so he can still have some semblance of his day with the cup.

It's everybody doesn't matter who you are, everybody. Now, you know, the cup I'm sure has a pretty tight schedule. You know, we've had the cup here in studio, so we know it has a tough schedule. So now Kyle knows when his day, he got bumped, bro.

He's not going to get that cup maybe for another 30 days or so. I'm told it's old Poso by the way, silent, silent K, which I'm not, I'm not familiar with a lot of silent case. Oh, Poso. Okay. All right. Sorry for, sorry for butchering the name. The point stands clean right now.

That way you can get it. You know, the depth of the depth of the hockey talk I was anticipating on July 19th in studio has already, we've already exceeded that, but football football is still going. The bears, the second team to officially report as a full squad today, the Texans already full squad reported the Ravens and chiefs report tomorrow, because that will be the exact number of days will be 47 days from the season opener in September.

We're that close to real football. I'll be hitting the road one week from today, assuming the world's computers are back. And my extremely complicated sequence of flights is not disrupted. I like my chances with a week for them to figure out the McAfee system or whatever they know.

It's not the, not that antivirus software. It's about something much more global, but I like my chances that within a week. So I figured what a way to kick things off today, besides telling the story about Y2K that I wasn't planning on, by getting into a top five training camp story lines. High five, one, two, three, four, five. Toms. Top five. Sensational editing there by Jason. I'm proud of that.

Earning his paycheck. Let's play one more time just cause it's that good, Jason. Let's, let's, let's hit it one more time. High five, one, two, three, four, five. Toms. Top five.

I recorded it once. Hoskins was like, do it, do it with a little fiercer. And that's, that's where we landed. Let's take, let's take out, you know, the holdouts and the contract matters and things like that. Cause a lot of that's going to play out in the coming days here. Most NFL teams report next Tuesday. The teams that play Monday night football, they report in week one, they play report on Wednesday, the training camp. But so a lot of those things we'll know is the guy holding out or not.

Did they get a contract down? Whatever. I want to talk top five things on the field. What are we going to see on the field in training camp? Okay.

I'll start out at number five. I'm going to say it's the new kickoff rule. We talked some about this yesterday.

It is an extraordinarily complicated rule. It is something that everybody's going to be experimenting with. You're not going to see. I wouldn't think the best that special teams coordinators have to offer in terms of schemes, trick plays, reverses, any of that stuff. What you are going to see through the course of training camp is who's on that kick return and kick coverage team. In other words, is it your standard issue, the DBs and the, the six string receivers who are out there, or are you seeing maybe some starters integrate? Are you seeing bigger bodies? Because you have a lot less space and speed in the play.

Are you going to have different body tips? Are you going to have your kicker kicking off? Are they going to experiment with other people than the kicker?

I believe based on the conversations I've had included with people familiar with the competition committees, thinking that it's not going to be every team's using somebody else. Not everybody has Justin Reed as a backup kickoff guy who could really probably do it. If he focused on that full time, a lot of these are probably to kick off with their kicker, but what does the play look like?

Who is in the play? Are people going to repurpose some of their starting players and put them back on kick return? Are we going to see guys we've never seen on kick return before? I think it's a fascinating storyline. That's going to be fun to watch through the course of camp.

Number four, the Bears offense. They're on the field again, starting tomorrow as a full squad. We've talked a lot about Caleb Williams. We've talked a lot about Roma Dunsay. They got a lot of guys there. They got a lot of names. You got Keenan Allen, who's a part of that mix.

You got DJ Moore, who's a part of that mix. Caleb Williams walks in, Andre Swift as well. Caleb Williams walks in, according to just, when I've talked to coaches and scouts and executives, he might be walking into the best situation a number one pick has walked into in a long, long time. Because of what they've built on the defensive side, with Matt Eberflusen not calling the plays, because of the investment that they've made all around Caleb Williams in terms of the offense, we actually have to see it take place. As much as you get these little reports through OTAs and minicamp, that's still just a few practices here and there.

Now it's going to be the day-to-day grind. You're kidding yourself if you don't think Caleb Williams is going to be under an extreme microscope. Every incompletion, every interception, it's going to be a thing. That media in Chicago does not let those negative things go. They're going to ask a lot of questions about it.

Through the preseason, how much do they use them? Do we see them in the Hall of Fame game? I don't think it's impossible. They haven't ruled it out. So there's a lot of different things here. I think it would be fascinating to see what the Bears offense looks like.

Because I can't think of a whole lot of times that a team that won as few games prior to the second half of last year as the Bears had for several years enters with this type of expectations. It's not all about one guy, but a lot of it is about one guy. Absolutely. Number three storyline. The Falcons quarterbacks.

You got layers to this. You gave a hundred million dollars guaranteed to Kirk Cousins. Six weeks later, he's whipping it up, waving the towel, hyping up the crowd at the draft party, and he gets a call on the way home. We got the guy who's going to eventually replace you. We're taking Michael Penix at number eight. Kirk Cousins already was going to be interesting to see because he's a 36 year old quarterback coming off a torn Achilles.

So what does he actually look like? Again, you're not hitting the quarterbacks in training camp, but you're still in a position where you're wondering how mobile is he going to be. He's not a running quarterback by any stretch, but having that ability to move around in the pocket is a big part of Kirk Cousins game. Now you add on top of it at every practice at the big scrimmage they've got in the stadium, which I'll be there.

Part of our inside training camp coverage on Friday, August 2nd, I believe it is. You're going to have not just people looking at Kirk Cousins, who's working with the ones. You got the possibility that Michael Penix is going to go out there and light it up with the twos and raise the type of questions that to this point, the Falcons have not had to answer because one thing that they like about the situation they've set up. And listen, we've, we've talked at length about how unorthodox drafted a quarterback that close to signing a quarterback to that type of deal, how rarely anything like that happens in the NFL.

They haven't had to answer the questions. They're not getting daily questions of when will Mike Pennick start? Cause everyone assumes Kirk Cousins is going to start, but you know, as well as I do the moment Pennix plays well and does some fun stuff. And then if a new play caller and Zach Robinson, a new quarterback with Kirk Cousins, who's coming off a significant injury, if they don't hit on all cylinders early on, cause remember they're also the number one offense in a lot of cases, probably through the course training camp going up against the number one defense. If the defense is winning a lot of those battles with Raheem Morris over there, it just raises some different types of questions.

Now I've also, I remember going back to pre draft, talking to certain people within the league. One coach in particular telling me, Pennix is going to look terrible in the preseason because he's not mobile. Cause he does everything from the pocket. He's going to be playing behind a backup offensive line. He's gonna be playing with backup receivers. And you're going to have to explain to your owner, like this is like, this is the guy you drafted.

He's going to look better when he actually gets into the flow, gets into game settings, playing with better players. But if he does flash, it's going to be an interesting couple of months in Atlanta. Number two Steelers quarterbacks. I don't think I'm breaking any news there, but it's, it's a real, I don't think you can call it a competition because I believe that Mike Tomlin, his entire history, the Steelers entire history is being patient.

It's giving guys time. And I believe he will do that with Russell Wilson. I don't, I really don't foresee a scenario.

Anything can happen. I really don't foresee a scenario unless Russell Wilson is just horrible in camp in the preseason where he's not starting in week one of the season. I believe that Mike Tomlin wants to see Russell Wilson play in real games and see if he could elevate himself to the Russell Wilson that we've seen in the past. And if he can't, then they would make a move. But you also know Justin Fields is a human highlight reel.

He doesn't do things necessarily in rhythm. He doesn't necessarily do within the structure of the play, but when he gets going, when he gets in space, it's one of the most fun guys in the NFL to watch and Mike Tomlin will do what he does and bat away all the questions and make 15 minute opening statements talking about why this is the direction nothing has changed. This is camp. Russell's in the pole position, but let's see what it looks like through the course of camp in Latrobe and through the preseason in terms of exactly how that room might work out. We're not going to apologize for winning.

And number one, we apologize for losing because then things change when you start losing. Number one, it's all things Aaron Rodgers. We have Aaron Rodgers flew, I believe relative to last year, certainly through the course of this off season. For most of it, Aaron Rodgers was below the radar. He was not the biggest topic in the NFL.

He wasn't in the top 10 because you got so much hype last year and he played four snaps. And I think the people to a certain degree got talked out on it. Everyone's like, okay, yeah, let's just, let's get to the games this time. We don't need to, we don't need to, you know, blow everything up and talk about how great things are going to be for the jets and how good they're going to be when Aaron Rodgers didn't show up for mini camp that put a spotlight back on him.

So not just in his statements, when he speaks to the media and he's going to have to answer some questions about his whereabouts and he'll, I'm sure just sort of smirk his way through it and explain himself like he usually does. And I don't think that it's really disrupting Aaron in his head, but that just put things in a little bit different context in terms of the focus that's going to be on this jets office. If they have a bad day in practice, people are going to bring up, well, you know, well, quarterback skip mini camp. Oh, you know, bad, bad preseason appearance. If he plays in the preseason, well, you know, should've, should've been there for mini camp, even though it's unfair. And he was there for all the voluntary stuff. And if he had missed the week before when it's voluntary, not the mandatory mini camp, we're probably not talking about it as much. Aaron Rogers is going to be a storyline through the course training camp and getting into the regular season. We'll talk, we'll talk plenty of NFL throughout the course of the show, but take a quick break here. We're going to have Vincent Goodwill, senior NBA writer for Yahoo sports.

He's been tracking team USA, a lot to dive into with Vince right after this on the rich eyes and show. 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.

You could seriously injure yourself, or worse, you could hurt and even kill someone else. When you speed, you put everyone on the road in danger. One way or another speeding catches up with you.

Paid for by NHTSA. 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. We're about to play a game with Chris Brockman and Mike Del Tufo over there, where I will read out the facts. They will guess whether it's true meta or false meta, and then you will confirm. Okay, let's do it. Here we go. The Rich Eisen Show presents real meta, our test, that's a three, or fake meta.

I wore number 37 for the Lakers because Michael Jackson's album, Thriller, was number one on the Billboard charts for 37 consecutive weeks. True meta or fake? No way. No way.

Was it fake meta? That is 100% true. That's true.

That's true. I knew it was 37 weeks, but I wouldn't guess. Next one, right before his comeback with the Wizards. I broke two of Michael Jordan's ribs in a pickup game and delayed his comeback by three months.

I was so upset about it, I didn't leave my house for days. True meta or fake meta? I think that's true. I'm saying true. That's true.

I love Michael Jordan, probably my favorite player. You broke his ribs? It was on accident. It was a summertime pickup game, and it was an intense game.

In 2010, an art show honoring me was held in Toronto, Canada entitled Lovable Badass. False. True.

That's true. Yeah, we have a tie! All right, last one. Last one.

In 2010, I was cited for driving a race car with an expired registration down a city street. True meta or fake meta? Based on his reaction, I'm going to say true. I got to go true, too. That's true. That's true.

That's true. It was an Indy 500 car, it was fun. How did you fit in that thing? I didn't really fit.

I was real like this and hitting the gas with my one little pinky toe. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show radio network. I am 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. Tom Pellicero in once again today for Rich Eisen. We will get back to some NFL talk. The Bears now, full squad reported to camp. The Texans are out there. The Chiefs and the Ravens get in tomorrow. It's all happening across the NFL. We'll do some NFC South non-negotiables coming up here in just a little bit as well. Let's turn the page for now to Team USA.

A lot of focus is going to be on that through the course of the upcoming summer games in Paris. Who better to come on and tell us all about it than the senior NBA writer for Yahoo Sports, host of the Good Word podcast, Vincent Goodwill is with us. Vincent, thanks a lot for being here, man. So far, so good. It seems like at least in the win column for Team USA. What are your biggest takeaways from what we've seen so far?

Hey, Tom, thanks for having me. I think the biggest takeaways is you can see that the talent disparity between the United States and virtually every other team. I know we haven't seen them play French yet with Victor Wimbunyama and Rudy Gobert, but I feel like the talent disparity is as wide as advertised. I think you saw the game against Canada and also against who does Nicole Jokic play for? I don't know. I'm drawing a blank on Serbia. Serbia. Why am I drawing a blank on that? That's ridiculous.

He's only the most famous Serbian on the planet. It's okay. I got computer scrambled brain right now. I'm like the airlines.

I'm just screwing everything up this afternoon. But honestly, I think you're looking at the talent and you're looking at guys off the bench like Anthony Davis and Bam Anabayo who are playing markedly better than Joel Embiid and you're starting to see the Stephen Curry LeBron James connections start to happen. They're winning off of talent right now. They haven't just begun to develop the continuity. I think you're going to see a little bit more of that in the final two exhibition games before going off to Paris. There's still a lot more room to grow. There are some things that concern me, but as far as right now the talent is just wide. We always talk about some of the differences in the international game versus the NBA game. Joel Embiid seems to be a guy maybe in that category where his style of play, what he does in the post and on the outside, it just seems like right now it's an awkward fit. Is that fair?

That's more than fair. I think you can see some of the correlation between how he plays in the playoffs where his numbers drop precipitously even not necessarily this year but in previous years is because he relies so much on the officiating. You saw there was a play against Nikola Jokic where he had a clear lane to the basket on the catch and instead of turning over his left shoulder and just dunking he wanted to throw his body into Jokic and get a foul and the international refs are not going for that. They allow a lot more physicality on the post. They allow a lot more physicality on the perimeter and if you're someone who is slow and plotting and you are very deliberate in how you make decisions, he's not a quick twitch sort of guy. He doesn't make quick decisions. You can't give him the ball and have a quick movement either way.

He's got to look and evaluate and everything else. I don't think that is built for Steve Kerr's offense. That's not built for an offense where you're playing next to Stephen Curry and LeBron James and Anthony Edwards and possibly Kevin Durant. You need to be able to move quickly and when you're seeing in Bam and what you're seeing in Anthony Davis, those two players, A, defensively those two dudes are monsters and offensively they make quick decisions so they're better fit for international play.

Add to the fact that Joel Embiid looks like he is screaming for Elizabeth to come home to him. You know like every time he is out there that man is laboring and I'm just wondering if he's going to get himself in great enough shape to really be a contributor. Well, we're too late to make roster changes, right? I know that there was an early tweak with Kawhi which seemed like, you know, oh they decided mutually that he was going to go back. It was like a fair way to cut a really good dude and a good player off the team. So, you know, at this point we're talking about the rotations changing.

We still got a couple more, I believe, friendlies up here before they they open up the actual games on July 28th against Serbia. Yeah, I think here's the thing with a guy like Embiid, even though he doesn't necessarily fit in the starting lineup, if you put him on the bench unit he's even a more awkward fit because that group plays faster with Tyrese Halliburton who likes getting it up and down the floor and even, you know, Jason Tatum who I will assume it will come off the bench when Kevin Durant gets back there. Like you can only have so many players who play a deliberate style amongst your five and he's only a fit because those other guys know how to make quicker decisions. I'm talking about Joel Embiid here, but no, I don't think there's going to be any lineup changes or anything.

Remember your lineup changes, but it won't be anything as far as somebody getting sent home. Like he ain't Kawhi Leonard. Like there is a there's a level of politics that sort of goes with an MVP in his prime deciding not to play for France or anybody else and coming to play for the United States.

It would just be bad for him. They're just going to have to make do and hopefully for the United States sake they won't need him to be MVP Embiid. The officiating is a really interesting point too that I hadn't thought a lot about, but if I think back to this past NBA playoffs I was struck by how so many of the star players seem in the NBA so reliant on officiating. Whether it's Luka who seems to complain after every single play. Whether it is Jokic who is always, you know, doing that kind of flat shrug to the officials after every basket, every single one.

And then obviously you've got some of the American players as you made the point about Embiid. Is that a FIBA standard that they're simply not going to, you know, call it the same way as the NBA or why is the officiating so much disparate for in the international game? Well if you remember like the NBA changes how it's officiated. They've gone through so many changes over the past 20 years because they wanted to increase the scoring and then they started to increase the scoring even without allowing like the handshakes on the perimeter and not even being able to put an arm bar on somebody in the post. And then all of a sudden the league decided we're going to shoot all the threes.

So then the scoring exploded then and you have to start bringing it back a little bit. Whereas with FIBA there isn't a, there isn't anything necessarily trying to sell. Like they, I guess you could say a more pure universal brand of basketball. The lane, excuse me, is wider compared to in the NBA and or narrower compared to what the NBA is. So that allows teams to plant their bigs underneath the rim. The NBA doesn't want that. They want the clear lanes open so its stars can get downhill for the fantastic dunks and everything else because they're trying to sell and market the game. FIBA doesn't have that responsibility. So their officiating is going to be a lot more uniform over the course of 20, 30, 40 years and the talent in the countries will adjust to it because these are the only rules that they know in the NBA because it changes so much because of whatever objective is the league is serving at the moment.

The players are just, and I think when you're looking at the players in the NBA, they're used to consistency. You get 82 games of games being officiated a certain way. And then in the playoffs, all of a sudden those touch files aren't touch files anymore. Or, you know, you're barreling down the lane and you feel like you're getting clobbered and the officials are saying, get up and play. That's where the players get a little bit of a bad rap because they are used to muscle memory throughout the season. And then the playoffs is a different game. I like playoff basketball.

I don't need to touch files. I don't need the guys flailing and flopping away. Play ball, check up top. Like I'm from Detroit.

I have scars on my knees and all that stuff. I can't hoop no more, but I'm just saying, if you ask me what's up with basketball, I prefer to watch Tom. That is the basketball I prefer to watch. I am a child of the bad boys. So no blood, no foul. And even if it is blood, you know, take it up top.

My, my Instagram algorithm is convinced. All I want to see ever are eighties hockey and basketball fights and the stuff that was allowed to happen in the seventies and eighties, I mean, flat clubbing people, Larry Burge, punching people. I mean, it's, it's craziness. And it was like, it wasn't every single game, but it was a lot. And growing up watching that in the eighties and then seeing the style of play now, it's just amazing how the game has changed.

But to the extent that, well, the NFL, you know, excuse me, the NFL and other sports like that have also taken out some of the rougher areas of the game. I think that's just a societal trend that we've seen a little bit with LeBron James. We showed him just a little bit ago playing in that game against Australia. He's 39 years old at this point from what I've seen. And you've watched it a lot more closer.

Vincent Goodwill is our guest than I have. It seems like LeBron is in pretty good form right now. He's played on this stage before he's played well through these exhibition games. I almost wonder if perhaps you go back to the 2020, the COVID bubble playoffs, where it was much shorter amount of time. And he just had to make that push right for a month or so. I almost wonder if this is a similar type of thing where at this stage, an 82 game season and a long playoff run might not play to what LeBron can do. But if you tell him you got to go out and just win these games over the next three weeks, you maybe can dig a little bit deeper and get something more from LeBron. There's a defined finish line. I think you're pointing that you're looking at this in the Olympics is going to be what 17 days or 19 days or whatever it is. And if you're going to play every other day and you're going to be in this environment where iron sharpens iron, you've never played on a team with Stephen Curry before he's been in the Olympics with Kevin Durant before he wants to be on his team with Anthony Edwards and some of the new blood.

I think it's kind of reinvigorating for a guy like that, where it almost brings the joy back. Like, think about this. LeBron, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, those teams they're on are miserable.

You're not championship teams in Phoenix and Golden State in the Lakers. So this is not just a vacation. This is almost like an Oprah moment. You're renewing your spirit.

Your blood is flowing a little bit better. And even though the pressure is on the United States to win a gold medal, and Lord knows what would happen if they don't. But isn't the everyday pressure of playing with the Lakers and everything that goes with that and the heaviness that it's going to be, this is going to be somewhat like a freeing atmosphere for all three of those guys.

Because you can lose love for the game as you get older, as the losses pile up, the frustration, you're further away from real championship contention. Winning a gold medal could mean a lot to not just LeBron, but all three of those guys. And to your point about Larry Bird, a little aside. Larry Bird so incensed, Dr. J, the greatest gentleman the league has ever seen, that Dr. J had enough of Larry Bird's guff in a game in 1985, I want to say. He outscored Dr. J, 42 to 6, and Dr. J fired on him. He hit him in the face like three, four, five times in a row. How pissed off do you have to make the biggest gentleman in the game with your trash talking and outscoring him for 42 to 6, that you just get your face clobbered by the biggest gentleman in the game?

Don't you miss those days? Yeah, it's right behind T.J. over there. Yo, Vince, what up, man?

What's up? You know, I'm a Sixers fan. And so from the first few minutes here, I already got your thoughts on Embiid. So I'm not even going to talk about the Sixers right now. I'm just going to have to calm down from that. But as I think we talked about last time I'm here, I also love the Clippers, man, living here in L.A. for 25 years. And there's a new arena opening, maybe the greatest of all time, the 10th Wonder of the World.

What kind of product is Ballmer going to put on that court for the first time, man? Do you have a thing for toxic relationships? You're a Philadelphia 76ers fan and a Los Angeles Clippers fan. I can't explain it, Vinny. I don't know.

Yes, you can. No, I used to be I used to be a Detroit Football Lions fan. And then on July 27th, 1999, I quit. You want to know why I quit?

I would love to know. Barry walked. When Barry walked, I walked. I'm like, I've had enough of this.

I was only 15 years old. Are you back, Vince? Are you back 25, 25 years later? It would be so disingenuous of me to come back and all the fans who endured all the misery for all those years, they want to welcome me back with open arms. I just can't in good faith come back. So instead of your spending your Sundays, you go to the grocery store, the mall, you do everything because nobody else is out there from one to four Eastern Time. You got the whole city to yourself.

Tom, you're crazy. I'm watching it just like everybody else. I'm just not doing it with a rooted interest for such the Detroit Football Lions. I quit. I can't get my Russian title back. I wanted that Barry Sanders Russian record.

That was my Super Bowl. So when they took that away from me, they took it away from me, Tom. I decided, yes, it was taken away. It was personal. Take it away from me now.

That's your point about the Clippers. As a Cowboys fan and as an Emmett fan, they gave that to me. So you didn't get it, but I did get it. So I thank you for that.

I appreciate it. Did you have to say that? I mean, I think it's kind of I had to do something to make me don't know about the Clippers suck now, Vince. Yeah.

Now we can get into that. See, OK, now I hurt you because you hurt me a little bit. That's all. And you are a Cowboys fan, which also means that you've been enduring misery. The more I'm learning about you, the more that I'm saying that and you're wearing a black and red NWO shirt.

One of those dudes, the losers like it's the roast of T.J. Jefferson on The Rich Eyes, who show feature Vincent Goodwill. You better hope that Scott Steiner and Kevin Nash don't see this clip, bro, because, you know, don't turn your back. Good point. You might wind up. That's a good point. You know that. That's a good point.

That's a good point. But but no, but no to the Clippers in L.A. I think they made a decision with Paul George. And you've got to see the ramifications of the salary cap and make another sort of NFL comparison here. You're starting to see teams have quarterbacks in the NBA. The quarterbacks are making 50 million dollars and you've got a bunch of offensive linemen everywhere else.

So teams are having to make these financial decisions, even with players like Paul George, who are, you know, still stars, but maybe toward a turning towards the back end of their career. And with the Clippers, they have all the money and they have built this fantastic arena. I went and visited this last year before it was even completely built and I was astonished at what the sight lines were going to be. I do think for a short period of time, T.J., it's going to be a novelty. It's near the Forum.

It's near SoFi. People are going to want to see it in Inglewood. But after a while, they're going to go back to being the Clippers, which are the stepchildren to the Lakers. It's just that they'll have their own home and you have a short window period of time to gain the attention of people in L.A. because there's so many other entertainment options. I think they got about two years where they have to turn this thing back over because Kawhi Leonard is 34 and James Harden is 35.

And although LeBron is playing forever, I don't think them two will be. I agree with you. And plus, I'm only 15 minutes from the Forum and SoFi and into it, too. So, I mean, at least I don't have that far to go to be disappointed during basketball season. My apologies. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry you're having to endure all this, man. I'm sorry. If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.

Ain't that what they say? I'm like Mark Henry right now. The world's strongest man. Vince, Vince has been awesome, man. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate the time. Hey, Tom, you're going to be in Detroit next week.

I would advise like a barber, but your hair is magnificent. I appreciate that, man. It's what I'm most known for. Yeah, come on, Vince. Thanks a ton, man.

That's Vincent Goodwill. Read them at Yahoo. Listen to the Good Word podcast. I believe he's actually going to go on to Twitter now and continue roasting T.J. Jefferson for the next couple of hours. So keep an eye on that as well.

All right. NFL training camps are kicking off. We've been doing our non-negotiables all week, division by division.

Let's get to the NFC South coming up right after this. Jeff Rancourt talking baseball with us shortly as well on the Rich Eisen Show. It's kickoff time and Believe podcasts are here to get you ready for the season. He wanted to change the culture and he wanted me to be a part of that. With Believe, you get immediate reactions, game previews and expert analysis from all 32 teams, plus all of your favorite college teams.

He's just rare in just about everything he does. Sideline to sideline, end zone to end zone. This was good for everybody. Just search Believe. That's BLEAV podcast wherever you listen. Here's the game. Master Key is the game. This is going to take a while. OK, here we go. Oh, popcorn machine. Oh, I take that. By the way, you've got to bring in this popcorn machine if you want.

Yeah, I want this popcorn. Seven. Forty one. Forty one. Forty one dollars. It's not seventy one dollars.

Forty one. That's one key. That's one key. Grab the key. Take the middle key. Take the middle key. There's five keys.

Yes. He takes the middle key. Oh, he's not looking. He takes the second to the right key. I didn't look.

I didn't look. Right. Here's another key. Here's a basket. Five eighty four. That's that's a fifty eight dollar basket. It's not an eighty four dollar basket.

No way. What's in it? Oh, you got to get what's in it, too. Oh, it's an eighty four dollar basket. It's an eighty four dollar basket. Here's where I messed up. I listened to it. That's an eighty four dollar basket.

Listen to people. Come on, T.J. T.J. Eighty four. No. Oh, he only has one key. We need a friend. Oh, my gosh.

Come on, T.J. It's an eighty four dollar key. Oh, Master G. Does it unlock the.

Does it unlock? Oh, OK. It does not. Coffee maker. No coffee maker. Coffee maker. OK.

He's going to unlock the electric bike. No, no, no, no. OK. All right. All right. Does it unlock the car?

Oh, my gosh. Does it unlock the car? Does it unlock the car?

Does it unlock the car? Oh, he's turning the key. Oh, T.J.

Welcome back to the rich eyes and show Tom Pelissero sitting in for rich once again, we're going to get to our NFC South non-negotiables momentarily here. But first, let's grab a phone call. Terzo in Iowa, our friend. What's up, buddy? What up, Tommy P? How are you guys today?

Terzo, what up? Happy to be here. Hey, T.J., I always love seeing that tape of you guys jumping up and down for the price is right, man. I remember whenever I was watching at Carl's place, man, that was that was a fun day. That kick started our friendship.

You know, you call in it telling me that all of Des Moines, Iowa, was rooting for me. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

It was fun. So you guys had George Kittle on last week and I've been watching receivers since there hasn't been any sports on. And so I just Kittle was just a crazy man. So I was hoping Brockman would be there today because I was going to say, what would be more likely if us and my if myself and you guys were hanging out with George Kittle, what would be more likely? OK, if if Tommy P, your hair does not get messed up all night long, Brockman makes it to the end of the night or George and I just burn something down. What do you think, T.J.?

You know, I've been watching receivers to Terzo and let's see here. I think Brockman would fall asleep. I think Tom's hair would definitely come out of place just a little bit if you're going to party with Kittle. And I can see you and Kittle potentially burning something down. I think all three of those things could really happen, Tom, to be honest with you, burning something down, just burning it down, bro.

Just like not just burning something, burning it down, burning it down. OK, it's having a good time. Let's check in with that. My hair can be musters.

It is possible. You know, it's got the it's got a pretty good shine right now, you know, after T.J. gives me a ride over to NFL Network in his convertible. Not not as great. We get it. You know what I mean?

Like we put a little more lacquer in there and it's all good. Terzo, there's nothing like, you know, spying me and Tom Pelissero cruising the streets of Inglewood with the top down. I'm telling you, I would love it. I'd probably have to do a double take if I was if I was passing you guys on the road. Be like, is that T.J.? Tommy? That is.

What else is cracking, bro? Well, so so at this point, I'm so excited to have baseball coming back. But I really got to say when Vinnie comes on the show and talks basketball with you guys, he absolutely crushes it. And I love the basketball knowledge that he has.

It just he pushes the needle. And here and how much fun this U.S. team is going to be to watch. I'm going to try and stay up at times or wake up early just to watch him.

Great, man. I think it's going to be fun. You know, he like I said, I'm an MB fan and he really kind of said some stuff there that I have to kind of look at Tom and go, yeah, he's hitting the nail on the head with that. So, you know, as harsh as it sounded, he's probably right. It's hard for him to find a good fit, I feel, on that squad.

So I'm not sure how they handle the starters in the bench. It's a unique dynamic. It always is. Terzo, thank you very much. Let's get to the NFC South non-negotiables here. OK, so we do this all week in honor of the bear and its 150 Emmy nominations in, for some reason, the comedy category. The non-negotiables for every NFL team tackling the NFC South today. Non-negotiable. Start with the Panthers. I'm going to say the non-negotiable for the Panthers is run the football. A lot of it's going to be about Bryce Young. Everything they do, everything Dave Canales is doing there is all about getting Bryce Young going. The best way to keep the pressure from all being on the shoulders of a second-year quarterback who's coming off an absolute nightmare first season is get Miles Sanders going. And when Brooks is healthy, get him going. Find a way to have a balanced offense because last year, everything that they were doing in terms of the offensive approach didn't work. And you got to build some confidence early.

Don't put it all on his shoulders. For the Falcons, I'm going to say it's start fast. And I know that that's easy. Nobody ever wants to start slow. Everybody would like to start fast.

We talked about it earlier. When you are in a situation where you've made an unorthodox move or moves at the quarterback position, if you don't start fast with a 36-year-old quarterback coming off an Achilles and a first time play caller, it just is going to raise the type of questions they don't want to answer. The Falcons have spent the whole offseason telling everybody, we're never going to be bad again. We're going to be good. We're never going to be drafted up high.

You better start doing that right out of the gate. And it's the Steelers that you got to take on in week one. For the Bucks, it's Baker keeps going.

That's what it is. It's Baker's got to, I understand when he comes in, he's on a one-year deal last year. The pressure's kind of off him at that point. Yeah, his career's on the line, but he sometimes plays his best when you back him into a corner. Now he's paid. Now he's the guy.

That dynamic has shifted. Baker has to keep doing what he did a year ago. And for the Saints, there's a lot of stuff for the Saints. I would say this, Dennis Allen's expertise is on defense. That D has to do its thing because Derek Carr notoriously in new offenses has struggled historically. You may not get out of the gate fast, even though I think it was a smart move to bring in a guy like Clint Kubiak and run that style of offense. The defense has to do its part.

If you're going to stay in a division that is pretty wide open, a division in which that was part of the reason you went nine and eight a year ago, even though that wasn't good enough to get into the playoffs. Jeff Rancourt is going to join us at the top of the show. A lot more NFL talk to come throughout the course of this show as well. I'm really interested in that Saints team because for years, obviously, they've kept so many veteran players around. They've had guys like Michael Thomas who hasn't produced in several years. They finally move on from him. He's still a free agent hanging out there. They've still got a situation resolved with Alvin Kamara and it's been brewing for like four months now.

If they're able to come to an accord and get Kamara in in time, he stormed out on the last day of mini camp and left and made a show of it. So they've got some of those things going on. You still got the Cam Jordans of the world. You got the Honey Badgers of the world.

Are you going to be able to put that thing together? Again, it's a veteran team. They always have one of the most veteran teams, most guys over age 30. That's the team that's built to win right now, even though I think the narrative around the Saints is more so, you know, is Dennis Allen's job in trouble? They won games last year.

I think they probably overachieved in a lot of people's minds. But you got a quarterback like Derek Carr and you're, again, you've got all these veteran players. You are trying to win immediately here. If they're able to get out to a fast start, I got to look up the early portion of the schedule here for the Saints. You've got home against the Panthers. Then you got to go to Dallas. You got to be home against the Eagles at Atlanta at the Chiefs. It's a rough out of the gate start for the Saints.

You steal one or two of those games that no one's going to give you a chance in. Maybe you have the type of springboard forward that you need to be able to be a factor as we get into January. Jeff Frankkor coming up shortly here, longtime MLB outfielder now in the broadcast booth. What's he look for in the second half of the baseball schedule?

We'll ask him. 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.