After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

Good morning to you. Happy Thursday. How are you?

Shaking out the cobwebs. If I can survive the Travis Kelsey, Jason Kelsey, New Heights rabbit hole, well then you got this on a Thursday morning. I think I'm okay now. I'm good listening to podcasts from NFL players. It's the offseason. So for now, I feel like I can take a little bit of a break.

But Tom Brady on Monday, Aaron Rodgers with Pat McAfee on Tuesday. That was an hour of my life. I'll never get back. And then nearly two hours with Travis and Jason Kelsey keeping me company. See, here's what I love about them.

They take the scenic route. Like me, it's stream of consciousness. They talk about whatever pops into their brains.

So we have to filter it out. But in order to understand the flow of the conversation, to kind of find the meat that I wanted, which was their reflections. And their notes about the Super Bowl pregame, certainly.

The game, yes. But also about postgame and how they were feeling postgame. I needed to listen to the whole thing to kind of understand it. Still, they really don't even talk football until about 30 minutes into their podcast.

I told Jay where to pick it up. Like probably about 28, 29 minutes in is when they start talking about football. And so it was just really interesting.

About each other, about their families, about the emotions postgame. That wasn't until 90 minutes in. And so I listened to the whole thing.

I first was, I exercised. I biked 13 miles while listening to the Kelseys. And texting Jay nonstop. Like, oh, I found this. I found this.

Oh, this, this. And then also while I was making dinner and finally turned it off for a little bit while I ate dinner. But then as I'm getting ready for work, getting ready to leave the house, listening to more Kelseys. So I think now I got my life back after a football podcast in the wake of the Super Bowl.

Unless maybe David Carr and Derek Carr are going to start one once Derek finds a new home in the NFL. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Thanks so much for tuning in this morning on a Thursday. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, if you need a smile. Well, I try to get relatively goofy on my Twitter anyway.

Just my own stream of consciousness. But there was a little spot outside my front window, my bay window that gave me a jolt of joy on Thursday. Oh, today's Thursday. On Tuesday, on Wednesday, I've started snapping photos. And so I shared a couple with you on Twitter. And they're up on Facebook now, too, if you need some joy this morning. Because even though it feels like the wrong timing, it feels like we're all off here. Something's, something's amiss. I mean, I still can't help it. The joy was there. I do love these beauties.

So check them out on Twitter or on Facebook and our YouTube channel as well. If you two would like to see. Well, I don't know if anyone wants to see Jay eat broccoli. But he has promised to eat a regular standard size bowl of broccoli.

Green, not burnt, not fried, not anything like that. He's going to eat the actual broccoli, which will be so good for him when we get to 4000 subscribers on our YouTube channel. And honestly, he's getting old now.

He's got a birthday coming up in 11 days. He really needs to be eating more veggies. I'm not his mom, but his mom is apparently not making him eat veggies.

Does your mom try to get you to eat veggies? No, not really anymore. She's just given up? Yeah.

You're a lost cause? Yeah, you can say that. Oh, okay. Well, I don't give up that easily. Of course, it's only been a year and a half.

Well, is it? No, it's not quite two years yet that we've worked together. It's about a year and a half. So I guess once we get to two years, maybe I'll give up. But he does have to eat the broccoli. So at least we've agreed on that. And he seems to be relatively eager about it.

That's because we still have a ways to go before we get to 4000 subscribers. But I'm telling you, that would be the freaking best birthday present ever for me. Best birthday present for me to give Jay a bowl of broccoli. Are you kidding me?

That would be amazing. Exactly. It's the gift you never saw coming. And yet it would be the best gift that anyone could give you. It shows you I really care. Like what I said to you recently, if you really care about me, you'll stop bringing candy to work for me to eat. And?

And you have not. And so that's great. I appreciate it. Well, I really care about you.

So you're getting broccoli for your birthday. I do appreciate it, I guess, if you think about it. But we need the 4000 subscribers first because that's what makes Jay happy. He loves YouTube videos and he loves to watch our analytics. It makes him all nerdy. It's the one area where he's nerdy.

I'm Star Wars nerdy and stats nerdy and he is YouTube nerdy. So 11 days we can do this. You can find our show page on the YouTube channel. It's easy to find or we've got a couple links on Twitter and Facebook too.

All right, so we're diving in. Even as we go post football, it's still football, of course, the Chiefs with their victory parade on Wednesday, and you may have seen photos, maybe videos of Patrick Mahomes enjoying being out of training, at least for now. He's not training. He could eat whatever he likes, I guess, for a little bit, but he can definitely drink what he likes. And that would be Coors Light. I guess that is his drink of choice. Fewer calories in Coors Light. Maybe it's more like water.

Not really sure. But he had a ginormous wrestling belt that really protected most of his midsection. Then he has a set of goggles that are sideways. They're a skew on his head.

He's wearing them like a visor to the side. And he's got either the trophy and a Coors Light in his hands, or he's got the microphone and a Coors Light in his hands. A little bit like Tom Brady, although Patrick Mahomes did not nearly drown the Vince Lombardi trophy, so at least there's that.

But yes, he was fired up and he was ready to address the fans that were there at, I think it was Union Station. Before we started this season, the AFC West said we were rebuilding. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what rebuilding means. In our rebuilding year, we're world champs. We're world champs.

I'll be honest with you, I don't know what rebuilding means. It's funny to see these guys out of their rigid, kind of media savvy, media friendly zones. It's actually the game is once again airing on NFL Network, and man they are amazing at their craft.

They're the best in the business, but they're also humans, and it's just fun and funny to see them let their guard down just a little bit. I don't know if this is what Nick Bolton had in mind when we talk about letting loose and living a little. Nick Bolton's a little shy, so we're going to have to get him up here. There you go! Oh my god!

How we doing C-Skater? What? What was that? That sounded like an animal in heat. Wait, so he gets the microphone from Patrick Mahomes because he's shy, and this is what comes out of his mouth? There you go! Oh my god!

How we doing C-Skater? I mean, you know what, if you have a fumble return for a touchdown at a Super Bowl, I suppose that if you want to sound like an animal in heat or a girl saying oh my god, then I guess that you can. Yeah, everybody in rare form in front of their fans are on the stage. Let me take you back to 2022 in the month of maybe April.

Maybe. Guys were getting signed left and right. The haters were saying that the Chiefs would never make the playoffs. The haters were saying the Chiefs were done. If you knew the Chiefs were going to win the division, let me hear you say hell yeah!

All right now. If you knew the Chiefs were going to get the number one seed, let me hear you say hell yeah! I knew it, you knew it, but they ain't know it. If y'all knew that Patrick Mahomes was going to win the MVP, let me hear the hell yeah! If you knew the Kansas City Chiefs were going to have the best offense in the National Football League, let me hear you say oh no! That's a good one right there.

I like that one right there. I just want to let y'all know that this is just the beginning. We ain't done yet. So I'll make sure to hit y'all back next year and I hope the crowd's the same. Appreciate y'all, let's go baby! You are the kingdom and let's give it one for the world.

How about those two? Oh my gosh. Goofy, funny, just letting it all hang out.

That is what we mean when we say to the victor, go the spoils. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. Okay so I want to just kind of dovetail off of that with a little more from the Kelsey brothers. Jason had a really hard time with this podcast. He actually said I'm grieving. It's like a grieving process. I've barely slept, I've cried, I'm so happy for my brother, but it's really painful. And you have to go through it almost as though there's been a death. A death to your dreams, a death to your Super Bowl hopes. And I'm going to skip ahead here.

Maybe we'll double back if we can. But the brothers, they got together right after Travis was on the NFL and CBS. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. After Fox, Fox was carrying the Super Bowl, please forgive me for that. After he did that like piggyback interview with Patrick in which he kind of jumped in and talked about the disrespect, he turns around and his brother is right there. And so that's the moment that's captured on camera. And for some reason there was a false narrative.

Oh no, imagine that. There was false reporting about what happened between the two brothers. We're going to get to what we said to each other because I was misquoted by saying that I said, **** you, congratulations after the game when we saw each other. Which is not what I said. I was like, I don't remember that one. I was a loss of words. And you didn't really say much, but I know you didn't say **** you. I mean, I didn't say much because I wanted you to go celebrate with your team. You know, I knew that you were going to feel bad for me and I didn't want that.

I didn't want that to be how you remembered that. So I just kind of made an emphasis to go hug you, tell you I love you, congratulations, and go be with your teammates because I didn't want to be the guy that was going to bring down that moment for you. There wasn't much you could do about me feeling like that. You could have told me **** you and I would have still felt the exact same way that I felt with you just telling me to go celebrate with your teammates.

That wasn't an easy feeling and I was definitely lost at words, but I did say one thing. And I told you it was the funnest year of my life. Yeah, it was a great time. I agree.

It was an awesome year. They went on to say they've never spoken more during a football season than they have this year. And that's in large part due to the podcast, which is now top five on Apple and Spotify. And I don't mean sports podcasts, I mean all podcasts.

They are all the rage right now. Sorry, Aaron Rodgers. And so you hear them kind of get more emotional about each other and also blow to smithereens this report that Jason said the F word to his brother when he first got to him. Travis went on to say, now Jason tried to interrupt him here, but Travis went on to say after describing this as the most fun they've ever had in a football season. Travis gets very emotional and he says, the crazy part is that I would never be playing this damn game if it wasn't for you. And so Jason cuts it and he's like, nah, nah, nah, come on.

And Travis just keeps on going. It's the truth, man. I followed your footsteps into it. And then like a little brother, he goes on to say, you played hockey, so I played hockey. You played soccer, so I played soccer. You played football, so I played football.

You played lacrosse, so I played lacrosse. Just a really nice tribute to his brother. I would never be playing this damn game if it wasn't for you, so really sweet. But the moment that got me, and I think the moment that you will probably hear, maybe even see, because they do this on YouTube, is where they start to talk about the hug after the two of them embraced him. Travis was all kinds of crazy on the field. But right after Travis and Jason had their moment, well then, Jason has his hug with his mom. The moment I saw mom is when I got really emotional because, man, it was so awesome. It was... Alright, now.

Yeah. It was awesome for, you know, she was on top of the world for a week. She was the heavyweight champ, man. She was on top of it, and she shined the whole time, man. That was the coolest part. Mom, you absolutely killed it.

Dad, you've been killing it. Yep. It was just so cool, man, to see her get to celebrate in that with us.

Yeah. I'm with you, brother. It was an awesome moment. Just so happy for her and so happy that, you know, she got her moment.

Dad got his. So, yeah, I was the only... ironically, you know, you lose the Super Bowl. And you're crying after the game. And they're not tears of sadness. They're tears of joy. You may be tired of the Kelsey brothers.

You may think that you've heard too much of them. But they're brothers, they're sons, and they are proud of their parents. And that exchange got me because the second Jason starts crying, Travis starts crying. And they can't get through talking about their mom and their dad. And Jason talks about that moment.

I mean, I retweeted it. Everybody saw it where he's crying on his mom's shoulder. And yet he says these are tears of joy.

They're not tears of sadness. In that moment, I was just so happy for her that she had her moment because mom was on top of the world all week. So, yeah, it got me. I don't know if it got you on this Thursday morning, but, man, could they be more human? They're family members, and we can all relate to that. There was another moment that was really cool, too. This is before they devolved into tears, where they were both giving shout-outs to Donna, that's their mom's name, for being a superstar with all the attention during Super Bowl week and the game itself and how she crushed it.

So I love that, though. It just makes it so real. They're so real. And this is why I listen to Athlete Podcast because a lot of times you're not going to get this stuff in an interview with a host or on a radio show or even where there's bright lights in big city, right? The cameras are on them.

Nah, this is as real as it gets. Brothers, sons, yes, they play football, but ultimately that's where it started. So, gosh, I love that. But I also did not make it through without tearing up myself because that would be me.

If my brother starts crying, I start crying. That's just how it goes. All right. Coming up, we had a conversation with Jonathan Jones, the lead insider for the NFL on CBS, which is why I said that earlier. Apologize.

Sorry, box. And we wanted to bring back part of the conversation about the offseason. So there's a lot more. There's Chiefs. There's Brian Flores. There's all kinds of good stuff. But we talked to him about the quarterbacks, the two big names, and then also a little bit about Calvin Ridley, because Ridley is now eligible for reinstatement after a year's suspension. Find me on Twitter, A Law Radio, also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. I'm thankful for my time here in Las Vegas and in Oakland. And I'll always be thankful and grateful. But come the time, it's just it's time to move on. And that's this time. And so I'm excited. Can't wait to see where God takes us next. I mean, I'm gonna give that city everything that I have.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. If you know anything about Derek Carr, you know that is true. For the first time since 2014, when Carr won the Raiders starting job as a rookie, that organization is looking for a new quarterback and Carr is a free agent. And actually because of his contract and how it was written and because of when the Raiders released him and they did it so they wouldn't take the major hit and the guaranteed money would kick in, he can now negotiate with teams even before we get to official free agency and the start of the league year. So he's the quarterback who's available.

Have at it. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Had a chance to catch up with Jonathan Jones from CBS Sports, CBS Sports HQ, and also the lead insider for the NFL on CBS. And I asked him where he sees a good fit for Derek Carr. I mean, a good fit would be a New Orleans Saints if they can figure out the money. Right. I mean, you talk about a Saints team that it's the same songs that we've played with the Saints at this time of the year, the last decade.

Right. Of course, the Saints are going to get under the cap and they'll probably have enough money to sign someone like Derek Carr, who will have a market and will command a fair market contract. You'll get the jet to let's say they're going to strike out on Aaron Rodgers for whatever reason.

Maybe he goes to the Raiders, maybe he stays with the Packers, maybe he retires. That maybe the Jets would be a landing spot where we're not concerned about their cap space. And we know that they are average to slightly above average quarterback play away from making it to the playoffs.

So those are the top two. I've seen the Carolina Panthers thrown about. I just think that their focus is not on the veteran quarterback market as QB one like it has been the last couple of years. I think they know that that's been a mistake. And so they're not going to go after somebody like Derek Carr.

I don't believe, you know, the Washington commanders, they're rolling with Sam Howell and they're going to use their capital elsewhere. Look at Duran Payne, for example, in his upcoming contract. And so when you start looking at it, when you know that clearly is not going back to the Raiders, if the Packers get rid of Rodgers, you have to assume they're going to elevate Jordan Love to that role.

You start narrowing it down just a little bit. Maybe the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But the Saints and the Jets to me seem like the obvious top two options. With which one of those teams would you think an addition of Derek Carr would make the team a contender immediately? Oh, I absolutely think that it's the Jets. I think that you have, you know, just like we didn't want to talk about the dynasty word with the Chiefs just yet.

I don't want to talk about an elite defense with the Jets just yet, but a very good defense, a potentially great defense. Right. And so when you have when you have Derek Carr, who's going to you just hope that he is 2021 Derek Carr and not 2022 Derek Carr. And I don't think there's anything to indicate that he can't go back to that 21 Carr who carried that team, who at least that offense.

Right. Who with all the things that were going on with that Raiders squad, he was able to have those fourth quarter comebacks in the game winning drive. So if you can have that 65% passer that he can take care of the football that he can be great or at least above average and crunch time.

That's suggesting that why can't they win 10 games and then 10 and 7 should get them in the wild card. You bring up Aaron Rodgers. Maybe you are in his inner circle, Jonathan.

It's very tight as we found out. I'm not sure. But if you're the Packers, so let's look at this from the Packers perspective, which way are you leaning?

Well, I don't know. Aaron Rodgers, because of his contract, you're leaning whichever way he's leaning. You know, I mean, he does.

He really does have control, right? I mean, if he wants to retire, I guess you're retiring Aaron Rodgers. If he wants to be traded, you're trading Aaron Rodgers. And if he wants to stay, well, you're not trading him. Because if you were to trade him against his wishes, well, he would have no incentive to rework his contract. And you were really dealt with a massive dead cap situation on your hands.

And so it really does. It's going to take three to tango here. It's going to take the Packers. It's going to take Rodgers. And if, of course, he wants to be traded, it's going to take that third team. Everyone is going to have to work together in a kumbaya sort of trade. So we'll see whenever he emerges from wherever he is, whether it's a darkness retreat or whatever. You know, when it kind of comes to Aaron Rodgers, I just let him do the thing where he's going to make a lot of noise around Super Bowl and around this time and then just wait for the real stuff to start happening.

And that real stuff should start to happen around the combine here in a week and a half. I think people have told me this about Aaron, that he should probably realize that they're each other's best opportunity to get another Super Bowl. I think that's a fair way to think. But we also understand that sometimes you just want something new.

Sometimes you need to start fresh. I mean, you know, look at Eric the enemy, for example. I don't think the enemy is under any illusion that if he returns to Kansas City, that's his best opportunity at another Super Bowl championship. He's going to go out and spread his wings under not Andy Reid and thinks that that's going to be his best opportunity as a head coach.

Well, potential head coach. Well, that's what he's decided he has to do. And so Aaron Rodgers could also look over and see that the grass is greener. He says the grass is greener where you water it.

I say sometimes the grass is greener over the septic tank. But ultimately, he's going to have to realize if he wants to start fresh and start anew somewhere, does he want to come to the New York Jets? Is it going to be the Raiders and in that division where there's no guarantee that he's even going to make the playoffs coming out of the AFC West? So plenty of decisions that he has to make.

But I think that both can be true, Andy. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. I want to get back to Eric. I'm glad you brought him up because I do want to ask you about him. But before we leave the quarterback arena, what's another QB storyline that intrigues you as we head into the offseason?

The other QB storyline, you know, I'll give you to be Jimmy Garoppolo and what he's ultimately going to fetch out there on the market as an unrestricted free agent, as a guy who when he's out there, he normally wins. Of course, he's played under Bill Belichick and Kyle Shanahan. So that really helps your winning percentage. But it's always when he's out there.

Right. Three of the past five seasons, he's been really banged up. And so is he going to be able to command anything more than a two year contract? What will a team be willing to commit? Where is that team going to be positioned in terms of potential playoff success?

So that's going to be interesting. And then I think the other one, Jim Irsay and the Colts, I think that they're really sort of the key to the draft right here at number four, because they clearly want a young quarterback. I don't know if it's Bryce Young that they want. I'll just say, keep an eye on C.J. Stroud. But do you have to trade up to one with the Chicago Bears to get C.J.

Stroud? Are you worried about two in the Houston Texans? Can you just go up one to three with the Arizona Cardinals or are you concerned about the Carolina Panthers at nine moving up? So if there's a fulcrum of the draft, obviously what Chicago does at one is very important. But I could see a lot teetering on what the Colts and GM Chris Ballard decide to do there at four. Calvin Ridley, all the rage because he's eligible for reinstatement. Going back to his one year suspension and now, Jonathan, in light of what we know about all of these sports leagues who are embracing the gambling. Is this a cautionary tale to the rest of the league, to other athletes? Does it work that way?

I hope it works that way. I kind of struggled with how folks didn't. I'll just say this. He touched the stove and the stove was hot, right?

Now, should the stove have been hot? Should there have been rules that if you place a bet on a seven game parlay on your phone while you're bored one day that you should lose your livelihood for a year? Of course not. But are all of these guys told, hey, don't bet.

I have to go through these seminars myself. I don't place bets. I don't do it.

I don't pay attention to any of that stuff. And so I don't want to necessarily say shame on Calvin Ridley, but there is a much larger conversation to be had about where the NFL, where a number of institutions are going with sports gambling and how quickly it's moving, how ubiquitous it all is. And the potential perils of that in the future. I think those are fascinating conversations. I hate, ultimately, personally, that Calvin Ridley had to sit out a year.

I don't think that it's necessarily fair. You know, I look forward to him shining for the Jacksonville Jaguars and I'll say this. The Jags made the move, a very unconventional move, to trade for him because Trent Balke, the general manager, realized how poor this free agency class was going to be at wide receiver.

And he said, listen, I'll go ahead and send what I need to send for a guy who can be and can return to that number one form. Because when you look at this upcoming free agent class, there is no receiver that is close to Calvin Ridley and the Jags have him and they only had to let him sit for half the season. So Calvin Ridley could be a big story if we hear that he's been reinstated. And yeah, probably was the sacrificial lamb, but the NFL made a point, has made a point to tell these guys you cannot gamble. It doesn't matter what anybody else is doing.

You cannot. And so I hope that no one else falls into that trap because it is a very steep price to pay, to be sure. More with Jonathan Jones on the coaching hires. So which one he believes could make an immediate impact in a powerful way. But also the Eric B enemy question, Brian Flores in Minnesota now and that fit with the Vikings and why Kevin O'Connell wanted Brian or Flo as they called him to be the new defensive coordinator. So if you missed the conversation, it's part of our podcast posted every weekday morning on both Twitter after our CBS and our Facebook page.

Glad to hear from you. I do want you to hear from Brian Flores actually, because he still has a lawsuit pending against the NFL and Tom Izzo, not a basketball game. That's not why we heard from him last night. Instead, his love for Michigan State and his grief over what happened on the campus on Monday.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. We didn't have to file a lawsuit for for the world to know that there's a problem from a from a hiring standpoint in regards to minority coaches in the National Football League. The numbers speak for themselves. Right. We filed the lawsuit so that we could create some change.

And that's important to me. I think we're at a fork in the road right now. You know, we're either going to keep it the way it is or we're going to go in another direction and actually make some real change where we're actually changing the hearts and minds of those who make decisions to hire head coaches, executives, et cetera. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Brian Flores, in his own words about why he filed a lawsuit against the NFL, and that goes back now more than a year ago. It was filed early, early in 2022. That was a conversation he had on CBS This Morning.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. He was still in the running, theoretically, for head coaching jobs last year. So in 2022. And he ended up not getting one. And he wasn't going to drop the lawsuit anyway against the Dolphins and multiple other franchises for what he felt were discriminatory hiring practices and really for the league as a whole, as he alludes to there. And he's right.

The numbers have not changed a whole lot. It's part of the conversation that I had with Jonathan Jones about Eric B. Enemy, who's been passed over yet again and why. Brian spent last year with Mike Tomlin on his staff as a defensive assistant, and I believe he was the linebackers coach.

But he now is the D.C. with the Minnesota Vikings. And of course, he was asked about the lawsuit that's still pending against the league. I understand the question. I do.

Specific to the lawsuit, I'm not going to dive too deep into it. It's ongoing professionally. I'm a coach. I'm a teacher.

This is what I love to do. And I was talking to Tatum earlier about, you know, my wife's a teacher as well. So we go back and forth about teaching methods. And, you know, she told she's the one who told me about IEPs, individual education programs. And basically every player we have has their own individual program. So, you know, that's what I was put here to do, to coach and to teach and, you know, make an impact. And that's where my focus always is. So it is still ongoing. He's not going to talk about it, as you can understand.

And for the Vikings, they've decided that it doesn't matter. Kevin O'Connell definitely wanted Brian Flores. He's somebody that I targeted immediately. One of the first people that I reached out to in hopes of getting the opportunity to speak with him and knowing just the possibilities he had, not only here, but around the league. I knew it would be very competitive to get Brian here. And so when we were able to do that, you know, once again, just how excited I am to be able to add this kind of individual to our organization. And he's already had a positive impact here in the short term, short time. I can't wait to get him around our players. And then ultimately, nobody better to bring here as we continue to chase that championship standard that we talked about previously.

And, you know, having been a coordinator for a championship defense before and been around some of the coaches he's been around, and also what he's been able to do as a head coach was not lost on me throughout the whole process. Diversity is important to me as well. I'm not going to run away from that. But when I walk in this building, you see diversity really across the board in every department. And, you know, that's exciting, too. So those are things that are ongoing. Obviously, the lawsuit's ongoing, but I'm where my feet are right now.

My feet are right here in Eagan. It's rare. I wouldn't say it's never happened before. But it is rare that you have a press conference or a media availability like this to introduce a new coordinator. Again, sometimes it happens because people want to hear from him.

And in this case, Brian Flores, because of the circumstances surrounding him, it definitely is a guy that you want to hear from. And also, as much as it matters that they wanted him to come in and try to fix the defense, and the Minnesota defense was a – it was a sieve most of the year. It's – they managed to overcome it. But remember, they weren't blowing teams out, right? They were beating teams by a field goal or by, you know, a couple of points here or there.

And so they really needed to upgrade the defense with the toughness and certainly the credibility that he brings instantly. But also, Brian says his sons, they weren't letting him go anywhere else. Through this entire process, my boys, it was Minnesota and Minnesota only.

They didn't care about any of the other opportunities. They're big Justin Jefferson fans, so when the – when we accepted the position, there was a lot of gridding going on in my house. And I have my own version of the gritty that, you know, nobody probably wants to see here. Me and you both. That's cool. It's neat. Again, as we talked about with the Kelsey brothers, their sons, they're brothers first before anything else. And here is Brian Flores.

I've got boys and all they cared about was me going to be a coach with the same organization as their favorite player, Justin Jefferson. I mean, it doesn't get any more familial than that. A lot of grittying. I didn't know you could add an ING to it, make it a progressive verb, grittying.

I was kind of stuck in between a breakdance and a gritty. Oh, no. No one wants to see that either. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Thanks for finding us on Facebook. It's also on our Twitter, After Hours, CBS, or on my Twitter, ALawRadio.

And please don't forget our YouTube channel so that Jay has to eat broccoli. One of the sporting events that was supposed to take place last night was a basketball game for the Michigan State Spartans. We know the campus had put all activities and classes and sports on hold for 48 hours after the campus shooting. And instead of basketball on Wednesday night, there was a vigil. And that's where we found Tom Izzo. And he's always been a really emotional guy. He wears his heart on his sleeve, whether he's yelling at his team, whether he's embracing him, whether he's in a player's face and trying to get his attention, or whether he's crying tears of joy because of what his guys have accomplished.

There were certainly tears at this vigil in East Lansing on Monday. And after the governor, the lieutenant governor, the president of the university, Tom Izzo spoke to a group and tried to encourage them. I normally speak more off the cuff, but you're following the governor and the president and doctors.

And you're just a basketball coach. I decided to put a little more into it. So I'd like to start by offering my condolences on behalf of my family, Lupe and Steven, Raquel.

And Steven was at one of the buildings two nights ago, about 10 minutes after things happened. So sometimes we don't understand because we haven't been through it. That little moment brought me a little closer to understanding. But as well as our entire university community who was impacted by the horrific actions Monday night, I'm representing our athletic department and I feel like Michigan State, my 40th year here. I don't like the place.

I don't love the place. I live the place. To the families of those who were senselessly taken from us, word seems so hollow right now. To the individuals currently fighting for their lives in a hospital and their families, we're praying for you. And I know that my wife and I got a chance to go to the hospital.

I know Governor Whitmer was there and I know our president was there. Unbelievable people. There are so many good people in the world, the doctors, the nurses. Although for me, I'm also a father of two Spartans of my own. I can't begin to imagine what all of you are going through.

Tom is so very emotional, spoke for about seven minutes and I love when he told them to look around, look next to you, shake somebody's hand, introduce yourself to somebody you don't know. Because that's who we are. We're a community. This is what we need to be at this time. And he's been there 40 years, so he's the most recognizable person at Michigan State.

And yet last night in East Lansing, he was one of them. Whatever you're feeling, it's all valid. Emotions are different for each and every person. I cry in front of my team. I cry on national TV.

Don't be afraid to show your emotions. We all process trauma in a very different way. I'm just glad we're all here together tonight.

So let me close with the challenge. Let's all do a better job taking care of one another. Through no fault of our own. But COVID has led us to all feel a little more separated from one another.

It drives me crazy. We need each other. For 40 years, I've always believed that at Michigan State, we are at our own strongest when we're together. In athletics, the best teams are always greater than the sum of their individual parts. The same is true for our community.

He was very emotional. And yet, isn't that what leadership is all about? It's not, hey, look at me, follow me, do what I do, set yourself apart. No, the kind of leadership that Tom Izzo always shows is this is my home. 40 years, this is a part of me. And I'm feeling the same pain that you are feeling. The three students that died on Monday, Brian Frazier, Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner, all honored at this vigil. And there are still five who are in the hospital. And lest I knew, all five were still in critical condition. So thinking of them and appreciating Tom Izzo. And no doubt that meant a lot to the people who were gathered for the vigil. It's after our CBS Sports Radio.