After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams, pause or rewind your local sports and news, and add shows to your queue to catch up later.

There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. What's the strangest thing you're afraid of? Tails without fur on them, such as rats or possums. I'm Larry Mullins, host of the podcast, Your Weirdest Fears, where we dig into the crazy things you're afraid of. Everything from animal people hybrids, you know, people who get surgeries to look like an animal to giant statues.

If I ever saw one of those giant statues, I probably would poop my pants. Listen and subscribe on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast from. Oh, it's the hump show. And for those of you who are just now getting back to your full regular weekly routine following the holidays. So if you were like my niece, for instance, or my mom or a lot of other people who had January 2 off the Monday following New Year's Day, which was a Sunday, well, then this is your first week of being back into the regular standard routine.

Whatever that looks like for you now. I know I'm glad that I was able to, I guess, try to shake the rust off. I didn't do a great job of it last week.

Oh, my goodness. Working and getting back into this overnight schedule and the routine with the dog and with the sleeping during the daytime and with the eating and trying to work and exercise. And last week kicked my rear end.

My wagon was sagging, I'll just tell you. But this week, it started out on a better note. I feel like I have more energy. I'm getting more accomplished. I even cleaned my kitchen floor on Monday night and was able to do yoga for the first time in the new year earlier on Tuesday evening. And so I feel like I'm in a little better space now. But if you're like me, then it might take you a week or more to get back into that typical rhythm.

Again, whatever that is for you. For us, that means this is our middle show of the work week. This is the hump show as we call it. And yes, sometimes it can be painful.

Sometimes you can do a face plant right into the hump, which a lot of times is exactly how I manage these shows. But we do have plenty of material. We are armed and dangerous on this edition of the show.

We got a lot to talk about. Your boy, Steph Curry is back. He actually was slated to return on the 13th, but they felt like he was ready to go tonight.

He felt like he was ready to go tonight. And so he returned in a home game against the Phoenix Suns. You would think that'd be a safe place to return, and yet the Warriors did not play well. The defensive intensity was lacking for a good portion of it, but they gave up 39 points to the Suns in the third quarter.

This is in the Bay Area. So we'll hear from Steve Kerr and I think ultimately we'll hear from Steph as well. And then Donovan Mitchell back in Utah for the first time since he was traded away. So Spida has 25 points in the first half against the Jazz. The Jazz were fighting hard. The fans, while they were pleased to welcome him back and remind him how much they loved and appreciated him when he was a member of the Jazz, they were definitely pulling for the home team when it came down to the crunch time, and the game did go down to the wire.

So we'll give you the latest there, but a really nice individual night for Donovan Mitchell. And by all accounts, what we've seen, what we've heard, he's fitting in with Cleveland. And so I'm happy for him in that respect. I'm glad that he's found a place where he feels like it's a good fit. He can be comfortable. He can be who he is. He definitely raised some eyebrows and I think captured some attention, no doubt, in Salt Lake City with his comments about his time in Utah when the Jazz visited Cleveland.

Right. So it was a couple of weeks ago, I think, and he indicated that it probably would be a lot more emotional when he, it would be a lot more emotional when he was in Salt Lake City. Even now he's got a smile on his face as I see him in his postgame press conference, kind of talking about his return to Salt Lake. So yeah, some of his pointed comments were about the way that African Americans were treated in Salt Lake. And how it was exhausting to him. He felt like he always had to be on edge and it wasn't just him. He looked around in the community. But he did say that when he returned to Salt Lake, that would be the more emotional half of this Home & Home series.

And so he had a lot of smiles and there were a lot of hugs and there were some emotional greetings, certainly a tribute video. So we'll hear from Spida, from Donovan Mitchell. And this is the way of professional sports, right? Even when we're very attached and loyal as fans, often we see our favorite players, guys that we think fit perfectly. And it's not what we think. It's not the way that it looked to us on the outside. But that's life. It's life and it's business. And as much as we are fans and we get emotionally attached and we are loyal very often, though we definitely believe our loyalty allows us to criticize to the hilt, right?

You're welcome, social media. And so even as we believe that our loyalty gives us the chance to go all in, these players very often, they have to make tough business decisions, which means they don't stick around or they feel like there's a better opportunity. Now, I believe that's fair and that a lot of times we're too hard on players who go elsewhere. Now, in the case of trades, it's not always their choice, right?

Sometimes they are moved unceremoniously. But there are definitely times where players want out. They're looking for a change. And you know what? I've been in that space.

There are many times over the course of my 25 years in this business where I have desperately needed out. I've desperately needed a change. So we're just launching in. We've got a couple of big NBA headlines, some odd and yet I think interesting history. It's history I would be proud of if I was a member of the Miami Heat.

And I hesitate to say it, but do we finally have an end to one of the more dramatic months in a Major League Baseball free agent story, a Major League Baseball free agent decision? This was hot stove with some Frank's Red Hot added to it. My niece loves Red Hot. In fact, we'll sit down for a dinner regardless of what the dinner is. I swear we could be having pancakes and my niece will have a bottle of Tabasco and a bottle of Red Hot in front of her.

And we ask her about which one for which meal and she's got a very scientific approach to it. So yeah, all that to say that I do believe if I'm a member of Miami Heat, well, I'm psyched with this piece of history. So we'll hear from Steph.

We'll hear from Donovan. We'll give you a peek into this new history for the Miami Heat. It's still mid January, but they are actually getting close to the midway point here. The All-Star break is not actually the halfway point of the NBA season.

They're well past the halfway point by then. I was actually talking to a friend of mine a couple hours ago and we were talking about plans to get together in April. And it'll be here before we know it. I said to her, well, I got to make sure that I know when the NBA playoffs start and the NHL playoffs start because that happens in April.

The Masters takes place in April. That's coming. It's coming quickly. It's only three months from now. So as we launch forward into the NFL postseason, that will make the time go rapidly. It'll fly by because we've got so much anticipation from week to week. And then, of course, by the time the Super Bowl is over in mid February, we're then just a few weeks away from the end of the NBA and the NHL. We've got March Madness then on tap.

Certainly the Daytona for those of us who are huge NASCAR fans or huge racing fans. And it won't be long before we're talking about spring. I got to tell you, it feels like spring in my neighborhood half the time. We've got no snow on the ground. A little snow on Sunday night into Monday.

So when I got home on Monday morning, the cars were covered and there was a dusting on the ground. But it's weird. I don't like it. I don't like the fact that we've got temps some days that are in the 50s in January. Either we're getting set up for an Arctic blast in February, which would be okay because I love the cold and I love snow, or something is horribly wrong.

It's just odd. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. We're going to do our hump show here, kind of typical of what we normally would with your opportunity to ask Amy anything. And we are going to look ahead a little bit to what's to come Saturday when we launch into Super Size Wild Card Weekend. But we're going to delve away from football a little bit too. Now there's plenty of football reaction. We've got already talked about the overall number one pick. Thankfully there were no more head coaches fired on Tuesday.

I had a little bit of trepidation when I picked up my phone thinking, okay, am I going to see some more news, some more pink slips? Instead, while there are a lot of changes and there's plenty of posturing and the coaching carousel is now fully spinning, and there could still be some changes based on what happens in Super Size Wild Card Weekend or based on what happens over the next month or so, teams may decide they actually do want to make a change. There are a handful of jobs, ones that we've talked about, asked you on our last show, which coaching job is the most popular, not popular, sorry, the most attractive at this point. We've got a variety of answers and so that coaching carousel is well underway. I'm hoping it doesn't feature nearly as many new hires as this time last year, but there is still the potential for that. So football, of course, we're going to mix in some basketball, also some baseball, and believe it or not, soccer, but there's a reason for it.

We're not going to be talking about the start of the MLS season or previewing that or there's a reason for it, just as kind of a reaction to what happened last week and the story that broke last week about Greg Berhalter. So we'll get into that coming up so much on our plates. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

It's kind of fun on a night like this to decide where do we start and what do we do first. So the first thing I want to tell you is that if you want to send your questions for Ask Amy Anything, you can do that on our show Twitter, After Hours CBS. You want to send them to Producer J or you can post them on our Facebook page. We'll have a spot there very soon. Just look for the bright orange block.

So that's what you're looking for because orange is my favorite color. So again, Twitter, After Hours CBS or our Facebook page and the middle of the show, you'll have a chance to hear your questions answered. By the way, if you are new to the show or it's been a while and you forgot about our YouTube channel, we have multiple versions of Ask Amy Anything on video on our YouTube channel.

So you can check those out. And James and I are getting ready actually to do some brainstorming for some 2023 videos, some new ideas. So we'll be doing that in the coming days because we're getting a ton of traffic and a lot of reaction from you on our social media. Still the congratulations coming in for 10 years. Guess what I found out today? Oh, this is so cool.

I didn't know, but I asked just in case. That is, it turns out when you celebrate 10 years with a company, they don't give you a Rolex. Yeah, right. They don't give you a gift card for a nice dinner.

There's no pomp and circumstance, but they give you something even more valuable. At least in my opinion, an extra week of vacation. I found that out.

I've confirmed it with two different people. I found out that I have an extra week of vacation in 2023 and moving forward. So when nothing else, there is something to be said for 10 year with a company. But this is the longest I've been with any company. And I've already told you when this contract is done, I don't know what happens. I feel like there might be some changes on the horizon only because it's been a long time in one place. And change is good. It's good for me as a broadcaster and as a radio host, but also I have some other goals and dreams.

So I don't know. I never know where I'll go at the end of a particular contract. Not to mention it'll be 10 years on this time slot, 10 years on this particular show. It's a long time to rock the overnights. But having an extra week of vacation, well, there's a little more refreshing there. And this is a big year.

I'm not going to tell you why, but there are reasons why this is a very big year for me. I'm very delinquent right now in writing. Not because I don't want to. For those of you who know about my blog posts, if you don't know what I'm talking about, the link is on my Twitter page. But I have a blog and I'm a writer. I'm a very emotional writer. I also am a writer who frequently gets writer's block. I'll have great ideas and I sit down to write and I stress over it and I labor over it. So it's a labor of love for me to write.

It's not like talking where I can talk until the cows come home with no problem whatsoever. Writing is something that I, again, I labor over, but I love it. It's a part of my soul to be able to express myself in writing.

I know it's such a dramatic thing for a chick to say, right? Well, I haven't written a blog post since my grandmother passed away. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Part of it is that I just, I didn't want to. There's a part of me that wasn't feeling so creative and I just, it was a tough second half of 2022 for a lot of reasons.

And so even when I had ideas, I just didn't feel the creative urge and I don't know, I didn't have the energy, the creative energy to go and write. Well, now here we are and going back to the holidays, I had, all of a sudden was feeling like, okay, I can do this. I want to get back to writing. And I got sick. I drove 2000 miles in two weeks.

Then I come back and as I say, trying to get back into this routine just kicked my ass last week. And so, and now I'm trying to catch up, but it feels like I don't have time. But I promise you before the end of January, I've got a couple of different blog posts that I will share with you. And they've got some big news in them, some big news that I'm really excited to share. Speaking of dreams, speaking of goals, speaking of trying something new.

Yeah, 2023 is going to be leaps of faith and getting me out of my comfort zone. That is to be sure. That's just a little tease though. It's not something that you're going to hear about tonight, but a little tease.

Otherwise you can ask Amy anything else. So again, send your questions to Twitter or Facebook and producer Jay will be on the lookout for those. All right, we're going to run full court. Donovan Mitchell is back in Salt Lake. Steph Curry is back, period.

And the Miami Heat with a new piece of history, which I personally think is amazing. We're just getting started on the hump show, middle show of the work week. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. BG tosses it to Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell backs up 39 points tonight. Donovan with eight on the shot clock.

Works top of the three-point arc. Spittins in the lane, up and under, and he finger rolled it in over Kessler. Alexander Walker needs to get it in right here as he gets the basketball from Crewtree. Sean Wright got it into Clarkson.

Clarkson had it knocked away. Mitchell with the steal and he'll lay it in. Donovan Mitchell with 43.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Welcome back, Donovan Mitchell. Oh, yes. His first trip to Salt Lake City since he was traded to Cleveland, and I still don't get it. I know this is Danny Ainge's M.O. It's what he does. He wanted to clean house. And maybe if you look at what the Jazz have done to this point, you think, okay, it wasn't as bad as it could be.

It could be a lot worse. Ultimately, though, regardless of what the Utah Jazz are doing, this game was about welcoming back Donovan, a piece that had been critical, aside from the injuries, for what the Jazz had done the last few years, and I think attracting more attention, giving them a place in the Western Conference, and also giving people a reason to watch. And I know there was a lot of buzz around him and Rudy Gobert, but I loved watching that tandem play, and I don't think you always need to be best friends with the people you play with.

I definitely was not best friends with all of my basketball teammates in college, and yet if you respect them and you recognize that a team comes together for common goals, well, then your personal feelings need to go by the wayside. And the two of them made it work, and they were a great combo, one of the best in the NBA for several years. But Donovan now with the Cavaliers, and so the Jazz fans had a chance to see him up close and personal again. Forty-six points in his return to Utah, as well as six assists and three steals, and you hear some of the highlights on the Cavaliers radio network. This one actually went down to the wire in Salt Lake. Kessler comes to set the pick.

He goes away from it. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience.

Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams, pause or rewind your local sports and news, and add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. What's the strangest thing you're afraid of? Tails without fur on them, such as rats or opossums. I'm Larry Mullins, host of the podcast Your Weirdest Fears, where we dig into the crazy things you're afraid of. Everything from animal-people hybrids, you know, people who get surgeries to look like an animal, to giant statues.

If I ever saw one of those giant statues, I probably would poop my pants. Listen and subscribe on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts from. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams, pause or rewind your local sports and news, and add shows to your queue to catch up later.

There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Yeah, you can hear that crowd going bananas. Jordan Clarkson with 32 points, including five triples, and nine straight points down the stretch when the Jazz were rallying and scored 13 points in a row. So, Jordan Clarkson and the Utah Jazz have the last laugh for their fans. Again, crazy fans there in Salt Lake. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

First, Donovan Mitchell on returning to his old stomping grounds. I was really comfortable. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't weird. It wasn't anything. It was just like I'm playing at home like I have been for the past five years, and the reception was phenomenal. I'm appreciative of it from everybody. The tribute video was great, but it felt like just a typical Jazz night, back and forth, screaming, yelling. It was awesome. It was good to be back. Unfortunately, we didn't get the dub, but I got to give them credit.

They fought hard and competed to the end, but it was great to be back. The Cavaliers with Mitchell are 10 games above.500, and right now sitting firmly in the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff standings. Meanwhile, the Jazz are 10th place in the West. There are a couple of games below.500 even with this win, but that to me is significant because it feels like Danny H turned over just about their entire roster in putting his stamp on the franchise and yanking out a lot of the roots from the very base level. It's After Hours on Facebook as well as on Twitter.

After Hours CBS, producer Jay has put up a spot where you can send your questions for Ask Amy Anything as part of our hump show, middle show of the work week. Thankfully, we're not talking about Steph Curry returning to his old stomping grounds, returning to the Bay Area as a member of another team. That would be jarring, I think, not just for Warriors fans, but for any casual NBA fan, anyone who's really enjoyed watching Steph play.

Maybe it's different there. I hope that it is. We certainly have seen Bob Myers, the general manager, and Steve Kerr, who's part of a lot of those decisions, be committed to keeping that core group together, which right now is Andre Iguodala still. He's returned. Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry.

That's your core. Everything else around them has changed for years, but that core continues to be the reason why this team is must-see TV, why they're so popular at home and on the road, and yes, Steph Curry is the centerpiece of that. And so after that partially dislocated shoulder, I think he missed about 11 games, 10, 11 games. He was back on the court on Tuesday night. Curry to Draymond. Now over to Thompson. Thompson takes a three.

That's no good. Long rebound. Curry hustles to it. Steals it, fires the three, and hit it. Mikel Bridges never saw him, and Curry snuck in from behind and nailed the three.

That was impressive. Pool off a screen. Throws over to Curry. Quick release and splash for Steph and Curry. Curry with a dribble, splits traffic, lost the ball, gets it back, spins away from a defender, and takes a three. Why not? Here's Steph Curry.

You can do those things. So for Steph Curry, it was not one of his typical fluid shooting nights. You hear a couple of the great highlights there with Tim Roy on Warriors Radio, and he did have 24 points in 31 minutes, but he was eight of 22 from the floor, hit five triples, five of his 15, and there's always that attempt to shake the rust off and find your rhythm again, not to mention this was a night in which they were chasing a lot of the time, especially the second half once they gave up the near 40 points in the third quarter. The defense intensity was not there. I was actually listening to this game with Tim Roy and Tom Tolbert on my drive into work, and they were talking about how with Andre Iguodala on the court when he was out there, the defense was a lot better, but then he picked up a couple of technicals and got ejected.

And then old man Andre. That kind of derailed the run that they were making in the fourth quarter. So yeah, for Steph, it's about just getting out there and testing out that shoulder and seeing how it feels and trying to find your rhythm again.

The four weeks is obviously just kind of hit or miss on how much rust you'll have and how quickly you can get up to the speed of the game. And obviously with the flow, the way that they were playing, the first quarter felt good just to be back out there and running with my guys and feeling the energy in the building again. And then kind of hit a little low in the second and third quarter. I felt like I got stronger as the game went on, which is exciting knowing, you know, body will respond. Steph looked really good in the second half. He found his legs underneath him and had to feel the game out for a while.

And obviously, you know, coming off that kind of absence, it's going to take some time. But I thought he found something in the second half. With Steph and Wiggs coming back, we probably relaxed a little bit more than we should because we thought, you know, just showing up, maybe we get the dub. But I love the intensity you play with towards the end.

And you know what? Sometimes you need a loss like this to remind yourself how hard it is to win in this league. And I think we can turn it into a positive.

I actually told the coaches, I think this could be a good thing for us, honestly. You need to get a wake-up call. You need to be reminded how hard it is to win. And you need to understand the level of commitment to each other, to the game that it takes to win a title. Our vets know that. Our young guys are still learning all that. But hopefully this is the jolt that we need to get ourselves going because it's been, this first half of the season's been full of stops and starts.

That is so true. As Steve Kerr points that out, here are the Warriors who've lost another three in a row. Right? So they're back below.500. It's been five wins in a row and then a bunch of losses in a row and then a couple of wins that they put together and they find some momentum and then they get knocked back again. And so they're right now sitting at eighth place in the Western Conference standings.

No big thing. But the fact that they were able to almost keep their heads above water without Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins is huge. Now, though, they want to find a good rhythm and they want to get some momentum moving forward toward the All-Star break. Still a few weeks to go before the All-Star break. But if they can string some wins together, it makes that break a whole lot easier. And you can actually let yourself breathe a little bit and find some peace and maybe get away if you aren't an All-Star. Although I'm pretty sure that Steph, the last I knew, even though he was injured, was one of the top vote getters for the All-Star game. So I don't know that he's going to be getting a whole lot of rest.

But maybe he's had plenty of rest the last month and is good to go now moving forward. Alright, one more before we turn it over to Marco Boletti. I mean, I'm a total nerd when it comes to basketball and some of the more nuanced elements of the sport. And it drives me bananas when I see players who don't understand the value of the free throw. It's called a free throw.

It should be free, as in free money, baby, free money. Well, the Miami Heat, they valued their trips to the free throw on Tuesday night. Ball got deflected. Game's over. Both guys touched the tip.

It deflected off Moose's fingertips. And this one belongs to the Heat. Forty made free throws for the Miami Heat without a miss. The most in Miami Heat history, career high 23 for 23 for Jimmy Butler, part of his 35-point performance. And the Heat moved to 22 and 20 thanks to number 22 carrying the load tonight.

As I was walking into the room, somebody mentioned it. I didn't realize we had not missed a free throw. But we've been a good free throw shooting team, actually a very good free throw shooting team all year. That's crazy. So Eric Spolstra looks at this record and says, hey, that's crazy.

Well, I think there's a lot to it. First of all, they go 40 for 40. That's a lot of free throws, not necessarily a game with a lot of hard-hitting action, but good for the Heat because they win by one. Think about how critical those free throws, if they win by one. And so they go 40 for 40. They make history. And Jimmy Butler, impressive.

He's been practicing. 23 for 23 on the charity stripe. So yeah, you never know, especially in today's NBA, you tip off a game, how many times you're going to head to the free throw line or how close the game might be down the stretch. Like I said, it drives me berserk sometimes when I see a team miss eight, nine, ten free throws and they lose by four or five. Hell no.

Hell no, exactly. So good for Jimmy Butler, good for the Miami Heat, and that's the call on the Heat Radio Network. Also earlier, I failed to mention David Locke on the Jazz Radio Network. So that's the big stuff, stuff is the technical term, from the NBA. Now, just to let you know, top of the hour, we're going to talk about the Tennessee Titans and how they fell off a cliff at the end of the season's second half, even though they were still alive for the AFC South title and the latest from the NFL when it comes to movement and jobs that are open and interview requests and we'll try to keep you updated on the news though. There's a lot, so it could take a while. Just buckle up or settle in.

I mean, I guess you could buckle up too, but settle in. Send your questions for Ask Amy Anything. That's our show, Twitter After Hours, CBS, our Facebook page too. By the way, some of you like to repost questions. Here's the thing.

If you post a question one week and you don't know if it's asked, maybe go to the podcast and check it out before you post the same exact question the following week. I mean, do you think we just don't read this stuff or what? Anyway, it's crazy to me, Marco Belletti's here in studio, how often people either criticize me or ask me why I haven't talked about something, literally minutes after I talk about it. I mean, it seems to happen all the time. That makes sense. Come on, bro.

Pretty much every conversation that you have, it seems like nobody's listening. Didn't I just do this? That's true. Didn't we just do this? It seems to happen all the time. Some guy yelled at me last week for not talking about the AFC. I was doing the NFC, well, kind of the preview of the NFC through the eyes of our quarterbacks. We call that QB news. And I even referenced last hour, we talked about the AFC. Some guy sends me a tweet. Oh, you must be an NFC girl.

I hear that NFC bias, no mention of the AFC. You can't win. You literally can't win. I don't know how people expect me to put everything in the same segment all the time, but it is a four-hour show. You can't do four hours in five minutes? Spread out.

It doesn't work out? There was a time in my career when I tried that. I would talk super fast, and I tried to cram in all my opinions to the 10 minutes segment that I was in. But now I recognize you got to take the scenic route. Just take a breath.

Driving Miss Daisy. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but let's be fair. Most people don't make a lot of sense. That's true. And certainly on social media. He's an idiot. We don't call people names around here, KD. I apologize for Kevin Durant.

It's after us. So get started and download the free Odyssey app today. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand.

Best of all? You can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams. Pause or rewind your local sports and news, and add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to. So get started and download the free Odyssey app today. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand.

Best of all? You can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams. Pause or rewind your local sports and news, and add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to.

So get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Hours with Amy Lawrence. Who cares?

Are you being fresh? You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. First and goal, the Cowboys' 9-yard line. Offset formation with Curtis Samuel deep behind Sam Howell. Snap, play action.

Howell keeps. Runs back to the center of the field. At the 5, into the end zone. Touchdown, Washington Commanders.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. A lot of rumblings about how the Cowboys finished up the regular season. A lot of unhappy Dallas Cowboys fans, and already a lot of predictions about how they're going to crash and burn, flame out in the postseason as the 5 seed, the top wild card, and still alive, actually, for the division title, after hours. Still alive, actually, for the division title and the 1 seed. Last weekend against Washington.

Though they did not control their own fate. They did not look good. Dak Prescott specifically did not look good, but the defense didn't either. Sam Howell, a rookie quarterback, seeing his first start or seeing his first significant action, and he does have some success against them. So a lot of conversation about these Cowboys and what happens if they don't make any noise in the playoffs this season, if they lose to the Buccaneers, on what is a Monday night football edition of Super Size Wild Card Weekend. That's the call on Commander's radio.

Oh, they've got their own issues to deal with. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. Jerry Jones, the owner and GM of the Cowboys, does his weekly appearance on our Dallas affiliate every Tuesday, 105.3 The Fan with Sean and RJ, and they asked him the very pointed question of whether or not the game against Tampa, so if the Cowboys lose to Tampa, does that affect Mike McCarthy's job status for 2023? No, I don't even want to, no.

That's it. I don't need to go into all the pluses or minuses, but we're not seeing any. We're not basing. I've got a lot more to evaluate Mike McCarthy on than this playoff game. So he doesn't say no as in his job is safe. He doesn't say no. I won't be making a change at any point. What he says is a loss to Tampa wouldn't impact Mike McCarthy's job status.

So again, the question specifically is what if the Cowboys lose to Tampa? Does that impact what happens with Mike McCarthy moving forward? And his answer is emphatically no.

No, I don't even want to know. But then he goes on to say, I've got many more areas and many more chapters in the resume, a whole lot of other ways and other areas in which I need to evaluate Mike McCarthy. So you kind of have to hear the question or know the question and then hear his answer to understand he's not saying definitively that McCarthy is safe. Now, I don't think he's saying that McCarthy's job status is tenuous.

I don't believe that's the case. I know that there are a lot of Cowboys fans who want to put everything at the feet of Mike McCarthy. They just won 12 games. There aren't very many teams in the NFL that won 12 games.

And so I don't think that that, to me, I don't think that that is a reason to be fired because you finish up the season on a down note. If they flame out against the Buccaneers, there's only so much that you can change. And Jerry Jones is not in the business of being patient necessarily, though he doesn't fire coaches with a knee-jerk reaction. He's shown us that over and over, Jason Garrett being a classic example. But if you think about the standings in the NFC and the fact that the Cowboys were still alive for that top seed, the bye, the NFC beast title, they were without Dak Prescott for a month earlier in the season. The defense is one of the best. There's a lot to like about what the Cowboys have done this season. They finished up strong until week 18.

But yeah, they've got, especially defensively, and I know a lot of that goes back to Dan Quinn, which is why he is yet again a hot coaching candidate. But they also had a really strong rebound in their run game this year. They were fourth in the NFL in points scored, so nearly 28 points per game. And they were fifth in the NFL in points surrendered. And there's about a seven-and-a-half point difference there. So they were generally on the positive end.

They were dealing from a position of strength. And I would be stunned if Mike McCarthy was fired. Again, I know that Jerry Jones has talked about him getting old.

I need to have a shot at a Super Bowl. It can be frustrating when they feel like they have a good team and yet it doesn't work. And there's only so much that you can change when you have players under contract.

But I would be stunned if you're evaluating him on the body of work. The body of work this year was pretty damn good for the Dallas Cowboys. Now, of course, for Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, their body of work was spotty.

It was sketchy, especially offensively. Their O-line was a disaster for a good portion of the year. The run game then suffered because of that. And not just the run game, but Tom Brady having to get rid of the football more quickly than he ever has before. And that's saying something because he's made a living in the NFL. He's played until he's 45 because he doesn't get hit as much. He gets rid of that ball as quickly as he possibly can.

But this year, it was a lightning-fast release. And so here we go into this playoff game that the Bucs are hosting because they're the four seed as a division champion. But they're at eight and nine. And while I haven't seen the line, I dare say that the Cowboys are favored. And so Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, they have an opportunity to start off this playoff on a positive note because they're at home.

It sucks being eight and nine. You know, you're playing against teams that have way better records, 12 and five, whatever it is. But you know what? The only thing that matters is who wins that day. That's the best part about NFL football playoffs.

It doesn't matter what you did 10 weeks ago. And I'm not saying you're going to win because you played terrible 10 weeks ago. I'm saying, though, the person who wins and the team that wins is the one that prepares the best and ultimately executes the best for those three hours on that playoff game. And sometimes I feel like we've been the better team and lost. Sometimes we haven't been the better team and won. It doesn't matter.

How did you perform on that stage in the biggest moment of the season? And we'll see if we can go out there and get it done. Tom Brady has got a lot of rumors attached to him about 2023. That's how the world works. It's how social works. It's how sports media works.

It's definitely how society works that we can't even let the paint dry. In fact, we haven't even gotten to the playoff game yet. And we're already worried and talking about what comes next. But yes, there are a lot of conversations around Brady heading west.

This could be, maybe, should be, is, I have no idea, his last run with the Buccaneers. So we'll see how it plays out Monday night. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. There's a lot to listen to. So get started and download the free Odyssey app today. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app. Your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown, and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams.

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