After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 3

Did you know there's other sports going on besides football or besides the NFL? College football had a crazy Saturday.

That was kind of fun. People ask me sometimes, why don't you talk more about college football and college football Saturdays? Well, it's really because by the time we get on the air this time of the year, the NFL has consumed the storylines, the headlines, and it's all I can do to get to the NFL games, the NFL action on Sundays, but also because there's something, there's something to be said for what's timely and what's new. And last night, for instance, we had breaking news coming from the NFL after Sunday Night Football and Dak having the fracture in his thumb and requiring surgery.

That didn't break until 1030 central time, 1030 Dallas time. And it was just about, no gosh, it was maybe a couple hours before we went on the air. And so we were sharing it with a lot of people who hadn't heard it, but also it's nearly by the time we get on the air, we're talking about nearly 36 hours since a lot of the college football games were over. And in some cases, um, you know, the games that played early on Saturdays, it's just, it's not the same. Also, we, we don't have the same ability to grab and, and it's because we're not here.

We don't have the same ability to get all the sound and all of the audio. Now, sometimes we go back and we dig it up and it certainly was a big weekend for, uh, you know, some mid majors and some huge upsets and Notre Dame drops out of the rankings because they start out 0-2. Like all this stuff, there's a lot going on. Um, I, I do sometimes miss working Saturdays when we were immersed in college football, but now it just so happens that I'm off Saturdays and so we don't end up doing as much college football. But the NFL definitely drives the bus regardless of what nights of the week you work. So we are now through week number one and it's officially back, the after hours TD of the week. We've got the poll up on Twitter after hours, CBS or on my Twitter, a law radio. And we've also got our Facebook page where you can, I suppose, vote for any touchdown that you would like, but we are looking for your choice among the four options that we've given you.

So that takes care of one piece of business. Another bit of business would be Survivor Island. Producer J, did you happen to check any idea how many people survived of the people that we had or how many people got eliminated by, say, the Titans losing to the Giants or the Seahawks losing to the Broncos or beating the Broncos?

Excuse me, Denver losing to Seattle. Cults were a big one too. Cults were a big one. In our, in our Survivor Island, at least there was a lot of people who went out with the Colts. Ravens where we picked was, well, I picked at least, was, was a popular one where people survived there. Titans, I did see a couple people go down with the Titans.

I saw someone survive with Washington, which I thought was very interesting choice. That's bold. Yeah. I think I saw a Dolphins in there too, which is another bold choice.

Bill Belichick hates going to Miami. Yeah. I should've known that would've been a good play, but yeah, the Seahawks tonight also knocked a couple people out who were hanging on for the Monday night help. Didn't happen for them.

Interesting. I feel like I wouldn't have touched this game with a 10-foot pole myself. Just the fact that, you know, the Seahawks wanted to beat Russ in his return with his new team and brand new coach for, for the Denver Broncos, not to mention that Pete Carroll, he can coach.

We've always known that. So I wasn't super confident in this game, in this matchup. Really, there weren't many that I, that I was confident in, but Ravens jets felt like, because of Joe Flacco not, not being Zach Wilson.

And we know that Flacco is more limited now. I, this was one that turned out to be lopsided, but there weren't many of those. They really weren't, I don't know how many people expected the chiefs to go into the desert and free and blow the doors off the Cardinals. I mean, maybe people pick Kansas city to win, but the way they did that was so convincing, the same score 20 to seven that, well, that's the score of the dolphins over the Patriots. Pretty similar for the Ravens over the Jets.

So you're looking at two AFC East teams there. I'm sure there were people who picked Buffalo, but there are probably people who picked the Rams too. I don't know how many people actually picked on Thursday. Didn't see many Thursday picks. No. Couple of people didn't pick at all. Well, of course.

You never want to see that. That happens every year where people just forget or they don't save. But yes, we went with the Ravens in our office pool. Jay told me it was a lock. I did say that. Were you joking just to make me feel better? No, I thought that was a lock. You were pretty confident in that?

That was the play of the week. Then out of curiosity, why didn't you go with the Ravens in your personal survivor pool that you do with your buds? Because I should follow my own advice sometimes. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to put all of my eggs in one basket. If that's an answer, I thought I had the basket was a lock as you told me.

Even the basket had a lock. I had the Ravens in one. I had the Ravens in another one. And I was like, well, I can't triple down on the Ravens because what if they lose? I figured, all right, the Colts are going to be another lock here. So I went with the Colts in one.

Yeah, a little too cute, which always seems to happen when you're a survivor. It sucks when a tie eliminates you. I know it's terrible.

That's the worst. And it came down to the wire. So I'm watching that entire game like sweating, waiting for it. And then he's got the chance and like, all right, we're going to pull through. The Colts came back.

Rodrigo Blankenship is going to nail this 42 yarder. And he just, well, I'm really glad that you didn't try to talk me into going somewhere different. For instance, going with the Colts because I did not feel comfortable at all. That's a division matchup.

It was in Houston. I didn't feel good about that one. You actually, I tried to convince you at first, I believe to go with this game tonight. I wanted to go with Denver. I thought Seattle was the worst even football. I thought that was a lock.

Russell Wilson going in there and having a great game. Yeah, you chose what I know. You took, you persuaded us out of that one. Well come on, we're guessing. You know we're guessing, especially in week number one.

Think about the number of, of quote unquote locks out there that turned out to be completely and utterly bogus. But as I say, when you make predictions, the NFL laughs in your face. So if you are still alive on Survivor Island, way to go. I'm proud of you. If you did well in your fantasy league, well, you're ahead of me because I have Aaron Rodgers as my starting quarterback.

Jay, I went back and looked. Not even four points, not even four effing, sorry mom, four points, not even four points. He better have seven touchdowns in week two against the Bears. It's just not going to happen, man. Yeah, probably not. But I actually could see that happening.

Here's, here's the scary thing. I have the Seahawks defense as my starting D. The Seahawks defense scored more points than any of my position players. Not a great fantasy week when that happens. You don't think so?

No. Tyreek Hill was second. He had, I think 18 or 19 points, but everything else flopped. Najee Harris was out early and they didn't use him a lot anyway. Ramondre Stevenson, really none of the Patriots performed well, but Ramondre Stevenson was my second starting running back. Jerry Judy actually, I shouldn't say that. Jerry Judy had a pretty good night, but it was too late by then. Um, Evan McPherson who had eight points, maybe six, seven or eight points. My tight end was Dallas Goddard and actually he had nine points, but he was outscored by Hurst, Hayden Hurst who was on the bench. I mean, they were pretty close, but he was outscored. It was, yeah, it was a disaster of a start. I mean disaster. Now the Steelers defense is without TJ Watts.

So I don't know if I should keep them or get rid of them. I love Minka Fitzpatrick and he crushed it. He had 14 tackles in the pick six and the block PAT and all that jazz, but I don't know without TJ Watts, they're probably not the same.

No, probably not. They still do have that pick six factor with Minka, which is always nice. I mean, you get that touchdown from the defense in any given fantasy week. Like you said, that's going to give you like 18 to 20 points.

That's a great week to get that just when that's your highest score. Yeah. Not what you're looking for. I think Rogers found smiling about it. It's not funny laughing.

I'm sorry. Does anybody else out here hear the laugh that he can't even keep it to himself? He's like in there grinning and I tell him not to grin and then he starts laughing. I want nothing but success for you. You have a zero poker face, zero poker face. Did you say you have nothing but you want nothing but success for my fantasy team? Then why are you laughing at the fact that my defense was the highest score on my entire team? I'm not, I'm not laughing with you. Not at you. I'm not laughing. I paid a hundred bucks to be this league.

I want my money back. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS sports radio. So as I said, to start the segment, there is something else in life that's happening besides the NFL. So we can take a deep breath and actually we have the very first team. Box breathing.

No, we have the, I'm not taking any advice from you about breathing. We have the very first team to clinch a playoff spot in major league baseball, but this is actually kind of funny. This is one of those wah wah wah. Did you know that major league baseball put the Dodgers in the playoffs Sunday night and it turned out that even after the Dodgers had celebrated, they had post-game champagne. They had ball caps with the playoff logo on them in their clubhouse.

They also, if you didn't see it, check out our friend Michael Duarte on Twitter. They were doing all of the crazy costumes. There are four of them that were dressed up as Chippendales.

Rock hard abs. Before them dressed up as Chippendales, they had, oh my gosh, we're going to go and look and see if I can remember some of the costumes that they had. They did all their dressing up and they got all kinds of crazy. And as it turns out, major league baseball made it sometimes an error, a math error.

And so they actually didn't make the playoffs until Monday. How does that happen? That's just wrong. Okay, wait, I'm going to go back and look.

Some of these are really funny. Oh yeah. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.

Yep. Gingerbread Man. That was Dustin May. Tony Gonsolin. He was, who was he?

He was Mermaid Man. Ew, no. Let's see. The Sandlot Kids. Oh, that was a good one.

That was a really good one. Yeah, the Sandlot Kids. Max Muncie dressed up as a beer keg.

I mean, that's got to be your favorite costume of all time. I don't mind that one. Mario and Luigi from Mario Brothers, the video game. That was Austin Barnes and Trace Thompson. Goose and Maverick. We got Goose and Maverick. I thought I saw Goose and Maverick in there. And then Tiger Woods and his caddy, Stevie.

Well, not anymore, but it was his caddy. So anyway, there were some great costumes. They're also for Chippendale dancers, but you're going to have to go identify them for yourselves. So, but I know Cody Bellinger was one of them. Joey Gallo and Cody Bellinger were two Chippendales. So these guys do the whole, we made the playoff celebration.

Then they dress up in all kinds of crazy costumes. And as it turns out, they did not make the playoffs on Sunday night. Baseball did them wrong.

That's just a pretty egregious error to make. So apparently there was some tie break in which baseball, they forgot to account for this one potential scenario. And so instead the Dodgers had to wait until Monday, but Mookie Betts had a three run home run in Phoenix on Monday night.

Cody Bellinger also chipped in two runs with a double. And as the Dodgers blanked the Diamondbacks, they did actually become the first major league team to clinch a playoff spot this season. And while you may kind of poo poo it as it's no big deal to these guys, because it's the 10th straight year, obviously there are members of this Dodgers roster who've never been to the playoffs before. I know Andrew Heaney was really excited about being in the postseason and they've only won the one world theories in 2020.

I remember before that they hadn't won a championship since 1988. And so I don't think it gets old and they still have bigger goals. It's a biggest big accomplishment. Just for me, it's just making sure guys appreciate that it's not a rite of passage to get into the postseason every year.

And there's still a lot of work to be done. By the way, Tyler Anderson picked up his 15th win on Monday night in blanking the Diamondbacks. You hear Dave Roberts talk about the accomplishment, yes. And it is 10 consecutive years for the Dodgers, which is the third longest streak in major league history. But when you have the roster that they have and you spend the money that the Dodgers have, the expectations are much higher than just getting back to the postseason, just playing in October.

Let's be honest, the popular narrative will be that this season is a failure if they do not win the world series. If I'm not mistaken, they're now sitting on 96 wins. Let me just check real quick to be sure I'm keeping up with the Dodgers and their crazy number of wins.

But think about it, we still have three weeks to go in the regular season. 97, excuse me, I jilted them out of a win. 97 wins. And right now they're at 140 games.

How about that? They still have 22 games to go. They've won three in a row, seven in their last 10. If they, let's just say for the sake of argument, they go 500 over the rest of their games, so 11 more wins. They'd be sitting on 108 wins. And again, that's if they go 500. They're not a 500 team. But if they go 500, they're at 108 victories in 2022. Far and away will be the best record in major league baseball. Not to mention it's September 12th, or it was when they clinched.

It's now September 13th in Los Angeles. But this team really hasn't been pushed in months. And that's the part that concerns me is that they've not played the type of baseball that puts pressure on you or creates a sense of urgency. And I worry, now they've got a bunch of veterans, guys who've been denied in the recent past. When they flip that switch, if they cruise to say 105 or 108 or 110 wins, they've got a 20 and a half game lead in their division.

That's insane. Remember, this division went down to the wire a year ago. It was Giants and Dodgers until the very last day of the regular season before they knew San Francisco had won the division.

They're going to have to be able to create their own sense of urgency. But yes, the expectations are so high that anything other than a World Series would seemingly be failure, or that will be the popular narrative. Now other teams are still fighting, scratching, clawing to maintain their position. The New York Mets offense runs dry on Monday night, so we'll hear a little bit from them. And Chris Bassett had kind of a blow up start.

But the Braves didn't pick up any ground. They were actually on the road in San Francisco. In the AL East, the Yankees were off, but the Blue Jays and Rays started a series.

Okay, that's going to be dynamic. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast.

This is after hours with Amy Lawrence. On Blue Jays radio, man, a dramatic moment for Bo Bichette off Jason Adams and the Tampa Bay Rays. And this game, it had all the intensity that I was just referring to with the Dodgers.

They're not going to get that. Both these teams are locked in a battle for not just wildcard spots in the American League, but also trying to catch the Yankees atop the American League East because they are now within sight. So this was an incredible moment for the Blue Jays. Obviously, the complete opposite for Jason Adams, who gave up the home run.

It was a battle of net bet there. Felt like I got ahead. I felt like I actually executed the pitch how I wanted to there. 3-2-1 to throw a strike. Obviously, in hindsight, probably not the right pitch. But yeah, he's a good hitter.

He went down and got it and got just enough to take the lead. This was a 10th game in that both the pitching staffs did well. There were only combined 12 hits between the Rays and the Blue Jays. And if you look at the standings, we still have a ways to go.

It's not like this is the end or we're in the final week, but it's been pretty tight amongst these teams. Seattle, Toronto, Tampa Bay, even Baltimore. Now Baltimore's faded to 5.5 back. The White Sox are 7 out now.

The Twins are farther back than that. And so that AL Central really is the division winner. Well, it's the division that you want to win. But division winner is really the only one at this point that is guaranteed of going to the postseason. The Mariners and the Blue Jays right now have the exact same record. 79-61. And the Rays, same number of losses, but a half game back because they only have 78 wins. I mean, that's going to be uber tight. Those three teams right now separated by just a half game atop the American League wildcard standings.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. So Rays and Blue Jays. Now here's the concern. We know that the Rays just lost two games, two of the three to the New York Yankees. And in fact, they gave up 20 runs, nearly unheard of with the Rays' pitching staff, but 20 runs to the Yankees in their Saturday Sunday matchups.

We can't call them battles. And so here are the Rays who've dropped three games in a row, and you really don't have that kind of margin for error. So the Yankees are thrilled to see the Blue Jays and Rays beating each other up, pounding the snot out of each other, right, in these pitching staffs, because they're hoping that while they're battling each other, the Yankees can put a little more distance between them and their competition in the American League East. Yankees did not play on Monday, but they start a series in Boston coming up on Tuesday. Can the Red Sox provide any resistance to the leaders of the AL East?

We shall see. A lot of times, regardless of record, you kind of have to throw that out when it comes to rivals. The Red Sox certainly, if they're not going to the playoffs, would like nothing better than to make life a little more challenging for the New York Yankees. And the Yankees' offense has been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

That's absolutely the case. And the other team in New York knows a little bit about that, because inexplicably, she said, it is a Monday night into Tuesday morning, so you're just going to have to roll with it. Sometimes I make up words coming out of football weekend specifically. But if you're talking about the New York Mets, there have been inexplicable stretches. Ooh, see, nailed it. Where their offense has also kind of sunk back into the hedge, a la Homer Simpson. Bassett's pitch. McKinstry, it's a high fly ball deep to right center. This one's going to go.

Nicklin watches it fly, and it's gone. Home run Zach McKinstry. It's a two-run homer that sails over the 370 sign in right center field.

O-two. Fastball popped toward shadow left center. Lindor goes out. That's going to fall in for a base hit. Grounding third and scoring easily is Ortega. A blue base hit has given the Cubs a 5-0 lead here in the fourth inning. Swing and a ground at a second right at McKinstry. He's got it. Throws to first in time, and the ball game is over.

The Chicago Cubs have taken the opener of this three-game series from the Mets here at Citi Field. Sorry, I'm not laughing at Howie Rose or Wayne Randazzo. I was actually laughing at producer Jay because, well, just because he's wearing a Nets hat, and it just dawned on me right now.

So as I'm listening to the Mets ineptitude offensively and the fact that their bats are silent against the Cubs, I look up and thinking that Jay might be wearing his Giants hat or even his Mets hat as he shrinks back into the hedge as a Mets fan. But I can't. Why a Nets hat? Just. I immediately regret the decision.

But can you explain it or nah? Gotta rip the Nets always. You know that.

Rip them or rep them? Well, we do that too. But we're repping that.

Plenty of that this summer. It sounded like you said rip. That's just, that's what I'm saying. So, okay.

I don't get it. Are you no longer proud to be a Mets fan or a Giants fan? Your Giants just came up with this humongous and very exciting, aggressive, extra season opening win. And you you wore the Giants hat for like three hours and then still working on molding that one in breaking it in molding it to your head. Yes, molding it to your head. Jay is anal retentive about his hats.

Don't ever let him try to convince you otherwise. But for some reason, the Nets hat is the one that makes the appearance. Okay, back to the Mets, not the Nets. We're not going to be talking about the Nets anytime soon. Just here we will. No, we will not. I'm sorry. Who makes the choices around here? Apparently, whatever next time he's negative.

Ghost rider. That's a negative. I don't care what he has to say. I don't care about his seven burner accounts on social media. Not right now. Who cares? Thank you. Exactly.

I don't for sure. Back to the Mets, the Mets. Chris Bassett with his shortest outing in three months, actually three and two thirds, so he doesn't even get through the fourth inning, allows five runs on five hits to the cubbies.

Also has a couple of walks in there, too. And it just it wasn't a night when he was locked in. What's the muck getting? I mean, not trying to make this a bigger deal than what it is. I mean, just a bad start. Obviously, this entire game's on me. It's unfortunate.

Just work my butt off and go to the next one. I wouldn't say entire game. It would be nice if you got a little bit of offense, but the Mets provided just two runs. Now, here's why this stands out and why it's notable, because the Mets had won each of his last eight starts. So even if he's not Jacob deGrom or Max Scherzer, who currently isn't pitching, at least they had won. They were providing him some offense and he'd had just a 2.24 ERA over these last eight games in which he'd won, but didn't have it tonight, as he mentioned.

And I don't know if he needs to take all of the blame. Maybe though, the offense will show up now as they they kind of move forward against the Cubs. I mean, the Cubs are right now one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball. But if you look at what the Mets were unable to do, I should say, with the bats, they were one for nine with runners in scoring position and they left 10 guys on base. So they had opportunities they just couldn't capitalize and bring them around.

So maybe a little support for Chris Bassett. Don't know if that would have changed anything, but they certainly had ducks on the pond. I love that phrase about baseball.

I look for reasons to use that phrase or ways to use that phrase. The Braves, though, the World Series champions, they actually lost. Is this the longest West Coast trip that any baseball team has ever played?

I feel like they've been on the West Coast for four weeks. What was the last time the Braves played at Drewist Park? Anyway, that's more of a rhetorical question. I could easily look it up. Google it if I wanted to. I don't actually want to, but they did not win in San Francisco on Monday night.

And so the spread there is still a game and a half in the National League East. I'm sorry, Jay, what did you say? Just open up the mic and say it. Let's go peel back the curtain for a second. I was gonna say I added a snicker cut to the Snickers snicker. I'm so hungry. Any Snickers?

So I was telling Jay earlier that unfortunately, Tuesday morning is my morning to stop. I have no food in my house because I was gone at my mom's and I really haven't gone to the grocery store since kind of been piecing it together. I ate baked beans for dinner out of a can. Well, I mean, I took them out of the can and put them in a pot, but I ate baked beans for dinner on Sunday night. Not only is there too much happening on a football Sunday to be able to really make any kind of dinner, but I had finished my leftover chili.

I didn't have that either. I was out of stuff to make my salad. And so it was baked beans for dinner on Sunday night. But anyway, I have to go to the grocery store Tuesday morning.

My stomach's already growling. And so I was saying that to Jay. And even though he was referring to Brian Snitker, the manager of the Braves, I thought he was talking about Snickers. And I got really excited there for a second, but fine. It would be pretty on brand for me to bring up Snickers.

That's true. Right in the middle of me talking about baseball, though, probably not. So what are those commercials where where someone is turned into a major diva or Snickers? Snickers. I'm hangry. Am I hangry?

I don't think so. I'm just hungry. Right.

Right. So you're not you without a Snickers. Is that the you're not you that you're hungry.

I'm just I'm merely pointing out that you said Snitker. And my my brain immediately jumped to the candy bar. Now we've got to go get one.

We do. All right. I think the last time we hit the vending machine, you didn't have any money. So we had to raid my wallet for all the change. It doesn't work. It has a credit card machine on it. It doesn't work. It doesn't take cash. Did my coin have all pennies?

It won't accept it. Okay. Did my my quarters not work in the vending machine when you wanted some chips? They worked fine.

They worked tremendously. Thank you. Okay. So are you going to be using your own finances to get the Snickers? Or will you actually be asking me for the quarters to get a Snickers? Do you have any? So that you can give it to me and be like, here, look what I got you with your quarters.

I'll go get it. I mean, I fly you by, right? Huh? Maybe. Do I get the entire Snickers then or do I have to share with you half seas?

Well, then you should half seas with the quarters to wait. I'm sorry. Did you say something about Brian Snicker?

I did actually. Huh? Snickers.

Is it worth listening to at this point? All right, fine. We have to now that we've done the Snickers detour. Hi, Brian. Like I say, we've still got, I don't know, 20 some games or whatever. And no Snickers. But you always got to fight through it and, you know, get a win tomorrow.

I don't know what was more interesting, Brian Snicker or Snickers? He was talking about being hangry. He definitely is hangry. Maybe now just I'm going to project that on everyone because I'm about to get hangry.

No, I'm not. I have like seven goldfish left. I suppose. I suppose.

Yeah, right. Snicker is on the way. I got to go record my CBS Sports Minute. But on the backside of this update, QB news, Geno, a little redemption for Geno.

I love a good redemption story. Some validation for Geno on Monday Night Football and your perfect first half. Just wait to hear what he had to say. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. The home fires for the end zone. Touchdown!

Kansas City. Murray back to throw. And it is. Is it caught? Is it caught? Oh, my goodness, it's caught. DeAndre Hopkins caught it.

He's got a man wide open. John Brown. He makes the catch.

Touchdown Buffalo! John Brown from Josh Allen. Lamar Jackson in the shotgun.

Blops to the five. It is caught. Touchdown!

Willie Snead. Play fake by Russ. Throws deep. Man wide open.

It's like it. He's in. Touchdown! Seahawks! Daniel rolling, throwing. Touchdown!

Titans! Throw back to pass. Throws into the end zone.

Yeah. Intended for Tyler. Touchdown! Bengals! It's time for QB news on After Hours. Did you know that Tom Brady's podcast is back? Let's go, baby.

Let's go. It's the one he does on Sirius XM with the host, Jim Gray, his BFF and then Larry Fitzgerald, who I don't know if he ever officially retired, but he's not coming back to play football. So Tom Brady is practicing talking about football even before he gets in the Fox booth for the tune of what is it, $375 million or some such nonsense.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. QB news following week number one. Tom Brady on Let's Go and his reaction to only one touchdown in the victory for the Buccaneers at Dallas. A great performance by our defense and our run game, our O-line.

Everyone stepped up. It feels good to win week one. It's a tough feeling to lose week one. And I think I watched so many of those early games yesterday and just couldn't believe the back and forth and the field goals and the opportunities. One team's trying to give it to the other team.

The other team's trying to give it back. There was more back and forth than I had seen in a long time. Jim Gray, I didn't hear the entire podcast. I will hear it, actually, because they air it later in the week.

So I am going to catch it. But I was busy watching Sunday Night Football or sorry, Monday Night Football, so I didn't have a chance to listen to the whole thing. But I did see a couple of quotes from him, one in which there were a lot of hard hits, he said, and he could feel those.

But you know what else he said? I'm feeling more emotions. I'm feeling my emotions more intensely now to start this season that I have in the past. And he admits, of course, that he's close to the end, though we don't know when the end will actually come. But for Brady to admit that, I feel like in your 23rd season, if you know that the end is staring you in the face, well, then, yeah, you're going to be soaking it all in as much as possible and maybe thinking about this could be the last time I got a lot of bleep going on.

This is the this is the last time for this and the last time for that. Anyway, Jim Gray asked him this interesting question about finding peace while he's on the field. Tom, so in this day and age of with everything that's going on is is perhaps the only time you can find any peace and quiet is when some three hundred twenty pound guys are chasing you on the field.

I hope that's not the only place I find it, because that's a brutal way to go after a long period of time to to to have that. But there is a simplicity to life when you're in football season because it's there's a rhythm to it. You know, we play every week. It's a pretty the schedule is pretty much set. But. Oh, but but you don't really need a three hundred twenty five pound lineman to land on you.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. Todd Bowles, by the way, loves what he's got as the new head coach of the Buccaneers, Brady and Mike Evans. There's something special there between those two vets. It's rare. I mean, he's got great hands. He does one hand that catches all the time.

You can look at it all the time. He practices those things and he's got great height. He's got a great feel for the game.

He's got great chemistry with Tom. And, you know, they make those type of plays happen. Well, that type of play is what lands them in the first TD of the week poll. So what is the after hours TD of the week?

You can find it up on Twitter, a law radio or on our Facebook page. And yeah, the only touchdown on Sunday Night Football happened to be this twisting one handed grab individual feat of strength for one Mike Evans. It was dazzling from Dallas. So the other locker room was the devastating news that Dak Prescott would need surgery on his fractured thumb. We now know he's out roughly six to eight weeks. It's emotional for the Cowboys. What about for Mike McCarthy? Dak is our quarterback. He's one of our top leaders, franchise quarterback. But, you know, it's week one, you know, and just speaking with him last night, I mean, he'll still be a part of it every day.

So, but yeah, it's part of the challenge. At this point, the Cowboys have not made a move to come up with an addition to their quarterback room. There's been speculation. We had an insider here talk about how they should make overtures immediately to the San Francisco 49ers to try to get them to part with Jimmy Garoppolo after he just signed the renegotiated deal. At this point, there's been no whispers of that, but you can imagine that the Dallas front office is doing at least some research and placing some phone calls.

It's after hours here on CBS sports radio week one wrapped up with Monday night football in Seattle. And as Russell Wilson ran out of the tunnel with his new team, the Denver Broncos, he got booed. It didn't bother me. You know, it was, you know, this is a hostile environment. It's all he has been. I didn't expect him to give, you know, give a round of applause every once in a while. You know, like I would say, you know, I gave everything I had every day here, every day.

And anybody says anything else, you know, they're completely wrong. I appreciate that Russ has nothing but positive things to say about the teammates that he had in Seattle, the coaching staff, his time in the city, the fans. He's happy in Denver.

So it's easy to be generous, but he's also taken the high road the whole time. Seattle's been, you know, amazing for me. You know, like I said, anybody who thinks any other words, they don't know who my heart and I don't know how much, you know, the city has meant to me from all the kids I've met to, you know, building our school here to all the games we won here, all the special times.

I'm forever grateful for it. What did Russ have to say about his coach calling for a 64-yard field goal instead of allowing him and the Broncos offense to go for it on fourth and five in the final minute of last night's game? You will hear that coming up after the top of the hour. Geno Smith, he certainly outperformed Russell Wilson as he takes over and starts for the first time in a season opener since 2014. First half, 17 of 18, 164 yards and two touchdowns. And he said that opening drive in which he connected with Will Disley for a long TD was so important because that set a tone. So important, so important. You know, the league, NFL, you never know when, when, you know, the momentum is going to shift, but anytime you're at home, you know, anytime, you know, you want to start out that first drive, you want to go down there and score.

And, you know, especially if you get the ball first, because, you know, statistics say that if you don't, you know, wins aren't in your favor. So just going down there and getting the crowd excited. Of all the words I could have picked, I could have said critical. I could have said crucial. I could have said impactful. Nope. I said important and Geno said important.

That sounded good. We wanted to underscore the fact that it was so important. Impeccable. After the game on the field, he quipped about the fact that people wrote him off, but he did not write them back. He elaborated post-game. I think when people say what I've been through, I think that's a stretch, man. I'm in the NFL for 10 years. So, I mean, to say what I've been through is, it's kind of funny. And then to say, you know, people wrote me off, I just been working, you know, that's what it means, but I never wrote back. I don't, I don't listen to stuff like that.

I just work. As far as worrying about naysayers, anything like that, I don't get into that type of stuff. How about Geno? I mean, Geno just 17 for 18 in the first half. I mean, who does that?

You know, this guy's just don't do that, you know? But remember, he did it against Jacksonville. You know, he had like, I don't know, 12, 13 in a row or something like that. So Geno played tonight like he's been playing the whole time we've been practicing. That's what he's been looking like. Pete Carroll has been telling us all along that Geno Smith is his quarterback and that Geno won this competition over Drew Locke. He didn't waver in that. He said Geno looks good and it's actually a tough decision, but he's really impressed.

And Geno's been in the system, so that makes sense. I don't know if he can, he keeps this up. I mean, chances are, but the odds would tell you that no quarterback is going to weaken and weak out unless you're Drew Brees.

And even then it's kind of tough. He's going to go 23 of 28 with that kind of accuracy. Now he was under 200 yards and they did not score in the second half. So I'm not telling you it was perfection, but they did enough to win. Two touchdowns, no turnovers, a couple of sacks in there as well. They were steady and the defense was really impressive. Holding the Broncos to an over performance in the red zone, over four and forcing two fumbles from the one yard line.

So the defense had just as much of a hand in it. And after the top of the hour, you'll also hear from a defensive lineman who is part of the red zone, who is part of that Russell Wilson trade, Shelby Harris. He went the other direction, right? So Russell Wilson went to Denver. Shelby got shipped to Seattle along with Drew Locke and Noah Fant, who was active in last night's game as well. Well, Shelby following the game did not hold back in an interview he did with James Palmer of NFL Network on the field.

He was animated. As you can imagine, these players were probably tired of hearing about Russell Wilson and there's a little extra edge to it for a guy who was sent out of Denver, almost as though he was going to see his career fizzle in Seattle. When you make predictions, when you're sure of what you know, what you think you know about the NFL, hang on, hang on to your butts because the NFL laughs in your face and it very rarely works out the way that anyone expects. I love that about the NFL. It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio.