After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

Even Matt talks with Matt Hardy.

There's nothing like a wrestling fan, you know, for better or for worse. How do you handle that, though? We're talking about people talking about your family, what they don't know about your family or your brother or you. How does one handle that from a day to day basis?

Something I joke about with the Young Bucks all the time. I said, if you would vanity search Matt Hardy on Twitter, I said, after you got through 100 replies, you'd want to quit the business and never never be seen again. It's just you just learn to deal with it. You know what I mean? It's the Kick Rocks Wrestling Podcast with Evan T. Mack. Subscribe now on the Odyssey app or ever you get your podcast. Welcome to another work week.

We're glad to have you. Man, if this final weekend of February is any indication, we are in for quite a march. March comes in like a lion goes out like a lamb.

Is that the phrase? I don't know. I think that has to do with weather, though, although we're waiting on snow in parts of the northeast again on Monday, and there are places all over the country that have been inundated with winter weather. In the last couple of weeks, I know far more than what I've had in my neighborhood, even in California over the weekend, seeing blizzard conditions and snow up and down the Pacific Coast, which makes me jealous. I know that my family member we have remaining in New Hampshire, some friends in New Hampshire, they've got tons of snow. So you guys, it's not fair.

Send some of that to me, please. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Yes, still winter, but March Madness is coming, and I think I'm pretty confident this year that it's not only going to apply to college basketball, it's also going to apply to the NBA, specifically in the West. Murray, head fake on the three. Back over to Jokic. Good job of killing the clock. Hook shot won't go.

Got his own board, and put it up and in. Nine-point lead for Denver. It's a 9-0 run for the Nuggets to start overtime. Jamal Murray at the mid-court circle. He goes to the right hand, throws it off to Jokic at the nail, spins on Gordon, jumper.

Got it! Denver's up by 10. They're going to come back and beat the LA Clippers in overtime.

132 to 122. Rebound has always been a Achilles heel of ours, and like you saw in that last shot, we up one. Murray shoots a half-court shot, hits the rim, and they get an offensive rebound and get a three-point shot and go up two.

So just those little things, but the biggest thing for me is just the way we started. You can't get down 15, 16 points to a good team like this, and then you've got to fight and claw back. But overall, I liked our grind and our grid. I thought Russ did a good job tonight.

Probably should have played him a little bit more, but we caught a good rhythm and a good flow, kind of took the lead, and so I kind of stuck with our guys. Final word from Ty Lue. Now this was just about an overtime loss to the Nuggets, as you hear with Jason Kosmicki on Nuggets Radio, happening in Denver just a couple hours ago, but it was a weekend that I would say had to take a lot out of the Clippers. We'll ask someone who covers the Clippers. Law Murray joins us now from Denver, covers the NBA and the clips for The Athletic. Well, you used your words for a living, Law.

Thank you so much for a couple of minutes. How would you describe this weekend that was for the Clippers? Absolutely bizarre. I mean, to have three overtimes over the course of two games and to lose them like the Clippers have to score 175 American points in one of them and 124 in the other and to lose those two games. I mean, on one hand, this offense is really good. The fact that they have all this talent, I think it's coming out on the offensive end, but it's always a concern when you're calling yourself a contender, have championship aspirations, and you can't get key stops, key rebounds, situational basketball to close games out. And it's a real shame for the Clippers. Missed opportunities.

Not just this weekend, but really the entire season has been full of these events. Missed opportunities. Gosh, it feels like that could apply to most of the teams in the West, though. Thinking about the Mavericks, we just spoke with a member of the Mavericks organization last week and he said the same exact thing.

Missed opportunities. But you can look up and down the Western Conference where it's so crowded outside of, say, the top couple teams and every team seems like they are going to circle dates on their calendar where they've missed opportunities to kind of plant their flag, if you will. How tired do you think they were after, because they're the road team in both of these situations, after the double overtime game late on Friday? Well, the Clippers are at home Friday night, and the thing is, however tired the Clippers might have been, this is two games against two teams that had to travel on the second night of the back to back. The Kings, before that double overtime game Friday night, they were at home beating the Trail Blazers Thursday night. And then the Nuggets, they got spanked in Memphis Saturday night and had to travel back home to Denver. So, I mean, the Clippers, they had, again, a weird weekend, like their frickin' plane gets hit by lightning from L.A. to Denver, and it had nothing to do with the Denver part of the travel.

Like, the weather in Southern California has been just, yeah, Earth has been Earthing, Amy, let's just put it that way. And so, you talked about this is the oldest team in the league. You know, Friday night, Sunday night, they've started five guys who are all on the other side of 30.

I think we all can respectfully acknowledge what that other side is, right? So, there's a level of, and the concern with the Clippers, Amy, is they come back in games, but do they have enough to finish? That was the Sunday night against the Denver Nuggets. Friday night, they were up 14 against this Kings team with four minutes to play. You hit another bucket after that, and the Kings might throw the towel and say, you know, good job, good effort. And what is stopping any team facing the Clippers right now from, no matter how much they're down by, no matter what the situation in the game is, just running it, running it down the Clippers' throats?

Like, just play fast and see what happens. Maybe you get a three-pointer out of it. Maybe you get a layup.

Maybe you get some free throws or some turnovers. I mean, Jamal Murray just threw a ball at half court in desperation because the shot clock was running down, and it wound up winning the game for the Denver Nuggets. Like, that's the concern with the Clippers. When you lose games like this, there's that second thought of, no matter how well you play through three and a half quarters, is a game really over? And that's a heck of a hump for the Clippers to get over.

Gosh, isn't that part of their history, though, too? You think about some of their biggest failures in the postseason, and it's happened in those dramatic moments where they can't protect a lead. You can say that, but so many, you gotta worry about the team on the floor now, and I think fans relate to that more. You know, I know the star players are in the bubble, for example, but this is a new group, a new identity of guys.

And that's why I say what happens this year matters more than what happens in previous years for a lot of them. They had successes in the playoffs, too. This is the same team that, down 0-2 against the Dallas Mavericks, found a way to force and win a game 7. Down 0-2 to the Utah Jazz, the next series, losing Kauai in the middle of that, they found a way to win that series. So, it works both ways.

This is the same, I mean, I saw it this weekend. Like, the Clippers were down 18 against a Denver team that blew them out and embarrassed them last month in Denver. They could have, I don't want to say they could have thrown a talent, I don't think that was an option, but you could see where that game was going, but they came back.

They made this a competitive game. They had a small lead, and that's the thing, it's like, they did outplay the Nuggets by 20 points over the course of this game, they just couldn't close it. And so, you know, the Clippers team is a good team. They have no reason to feel like they're done or they can't be successful. There's plenty of time to work things out. It's just that the time that they've had suggests that there's no guarantee that they're going to work it out.

So, it's in the middle, you know. It's tough to lose, but you can't worry about that too much. You got a game Tuesday night. That is life in the NBA, right, where it just keeps coming. Law Murray of The Athletic joining us to talk Clippers in Denver after their third overtime in the span of 48 hours.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You used the word identity. What is it for the Clippers, Law? I think the identity for the Clippers is a really deep team that needs to maximize the pieces better.

We kind of know what they are at this point. They're an incredibly powerful offensive team, and they have the capability of playing some of the best basketball of any team in the NBA. I saw them win 10 out of 14 games going into the All-Star break. That was the best in the West. So, their ceiling is incredibly high.

It's just that the floor is concerningly low. So, the identity of this team is honestly one where they're inconsistent from quarter to quarter. They can give you knockout punches, but they can also put lineups on the floor that are absolutely baffling. Where does Russell Westbrook fit into the mix? Well, I think that's been the lightning rod for the LA Clippers over this past week. Russell Westbrook is a comfort zone player for the head coach in the two stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. I mean, Russell and Paul played in Oklahoma City.

That worked out well for Paul. I'm not sure it worked out well for the Oklahoma City Thunder. They didn't win a playoff series there.

But, there's that comfort there. Kawhi has always, since the bubble, said he wants a point guard. And they tried. They gave this team Rajon Rondo. They gave this team Eric Bledsoe while Kawhi was rehabbing.

John Wall started the year with this team. Now, Russell is here, a former MVP. Not an MVP or even an All-Star caliber player now, but certainly an upgrade in ability compared to the previous iteration of a veteran point guard who's come into this program.

And then you've got T. Lou, a former point guard who's won a championship as a player and as a coach. He keeps saying he wants a traditional point guard. Well, now Russell Westbrook is a traditional point guard that he can feel comfortable starting, a guy who he has a good relationship with personally. And Russ gives him an opportunity to push the pace, take that ball handling pressure away from Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. The ideal is for Kawhi and Paul to be better at the end of games.

Ironically, we have not quite seen that result in wins just yet. Russell didn't play in the fourth quarter at all after he played most of the fourth quarter, most of the two overtimes Friday night. So we've seen very, very different uses of Russ. But I actually think Russ has done a nice job of staying in control.

He's made more than 50 percent of his field goals. The turnovers were a big issue Friday night. He had seven of them.

That is already improved in a matter of 48 hours. Only two turnovers to go with four assists. He had five skills. So that's a level of pressure and playmaking defensively. And T. Lou said he probably should have played Russ more.

So it's it's going to be a balance. It's it's going to take some acclimating and it's going to come against some really good teams. But I do think overall Russell can be good. It's just a matter of I don't look at Russell Westbrook as this team's savior or this team's pariah. I look at Russell Westbrook as another piece that T. Lou just has to figure out how to use. And Russell Westbrook is a support for the guys who this team needs to be judged by. This team shouldn't be judged by Russell Westbrook.

It needs to be judged by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. What has Russ had to say about being home? I mean, he played his college ball there as well at UCLA, and he's talked about in the past how much he loves that part of the country and how much he wanted to play there. Well, he got to play at home for Los Angeles Lakers.

How'd that work out? Yeah. I mean, the thing is, though, like it's a different finish. You point out it's almost ironic that he and Paul George and Kawhi end up playing together there when it originally it was Oklahoma City. But we know that the rumblings were there for them to all team up in L.A.

Right. And I think the thing with Los Angeles, the Lakers had him come in as a forty seven million dollar max contract player who was supposed to be not just the third best player next to LeBron James and Andy Davis, but with a roster that was not going to fit because the general manager had to be perfect with how he put that team together. And they very clearly weren't. The head coach had to find a way to click with all those guys when they already weren't a good offensive team.

And they and that did not happen. And then LeBron didn't didn't click with Russ anymore. Darvin Ham comes in, communicates better with Russ than Frank Vogel probably could have. But with if your star player is basically advocating for another star player to come to your team while that player is still on the team, the vibes are probably not going to be very good. So it was doomed almost from the start for the Lakers, whereas Russell Westbrook being a minimum contract player on a team that already was incredibly deep on a team where you got the buy in from the stars, the head coach, maybe not the front office, but the front office. They still opened the door for us even before the signing because they traded the previous and incumbent veteran point guards on the team. I saw Reggie Jackson tonight in Denver, like Reggie kind of saw the writing on the wall, maybe not related to Russ specifically, but knew that something had to give for the Clippers. I think the situation is better for Russell Westbrook. The question is, is the situation the best for the L.A. Clippers?

And we're going to find that out over the next six weeks. I guess I am happy for him, though, that he didn't have to leave L.A., that he gets to stay home, change locker rooms and change uniforms, obviously. But yeah, good. I'm glad to hear that, because if you think about his journey over the past five years, the stability and the rock that he was for the Thunder, the year that he averages the triple double and is an MVP. And since then, it has been crazy.

Five different franchises now in the span of just a couple of seasons. So at least he didn't have to move and gets to stay in L.A. and doesn't have to pick up his family and go somewhere else again. Right. And that is something where Russ has to be grateful for that. And at the same time, I think Russ is going to play some of his most focused ball.

And I've already seen it. He's played with a level of poise in his first two Clippers games. And I feel really bad for him that the Clippers have lost these games, because the conversation and narrative is going to remain that Russ is not an easy player to cover. He's not he's a player who either love him or hate him. There's not a lot of middle ground. I'm trying to change that, to be honest with you.

Good for you. I don't I don't have a reason to stand with Russell Westbrook. He's been in the league for 15 years. I can be critical and objective, but at the same time, that's going to sound like I'm caping for him because of how toxic the coverage around him has been. And so I'm I'm interested to see how he does, but I'm not covering him like a star player, covering him like a piece of a deep team that has bigger goals and to satiate one player or two or three players.

And that's going to be fascinating. I'm happy that Russ got to stay here. It's a great opportunity for him, one that he's never been in. Has Russell Westbrook ever been, you know, not one of the three best players on the team? You know, has he ever needed has a team ever needed his success to drive their success?

No. And the Clippers, they were a good team already without Russ. That's never been the case for any of the teams that he's been on, except maybe the Houston Rockets and the Houston Rockets literally traded him as their last chance. So this is a big opportunity for him. It's something new and hopefully people can cover it like it's something new and not something that is just going to result in previous events that have already happened. We've got Law Murray with us from Denver covering the Clippers and the NBA for the athletic.

It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. So Russ being a new piece, we know what the Clippers have done. As you point out, it's inconsistent. They can be extremely good. They also can fail to play the full 60 minutes and end up giving up or giving away a win. When you think about the Western Conference as a whole, and I feel like that kind of embodies most of the West, but what are your thoughts on the West as we get to about 19 games to go?

It's a thoroughly unserious conference. I don't trust anybody in the West except Denver. Denver doesn't have 20 losses. They're 43-19 and they still have holes. There's a reason Reggie Jackson and Thomas Bryant were brought in from the other LA teams. Their bench was unsettled.

Bruce Brown is probably their only reliable bench player. That's a team that even they have another step. No one gives Nicole Jukic the respect of a back-to-back MVP who has a very good chance to win a third. I've seen Denver lose in the first round, get to the second round lose there. They got to the conference finals by beating this Clippers team coming back from 3-1 in back-to-back series. The only thing left for Denver to do really is to get to the finals. I think this is their best chance to do it, not just because of how good they are, but the West of the West has shown that they are not trustworthy. The Memphis Grizzlies, every time you see them on national TV, what happens? Sacramento Kings like the beam, but this is going to be the first time that beam gets lit in 17 years in the playoffs. That is a big step. I'm excited to see this happen in the Kings in the playoffs, but also the Kings are on their maiden trip there.

None of those dudes are going to be experiencing this for the first time. The Phoenix Suns, they have four guys who on paper are like, wow, Kevin Durant with book 8 and CP3, but I mean, shoot, Kevin Durant is hurt right now. Chris Paul is untrustworthy as soon as his birthday hits in the playoffs, and I say that the nicest way possible.

Respectfully as possible, yes. Yeah, like CP3 is a legend, but we've seen what has happened in the playoffs with CP3. Something unfortunate always happens, and he's only getting older. Devin Booker has missed time with soft tissue injuries.

That's going to be something that makes their breath. And then DeAndre Ayton, we saw how they collapsed against the Phoenix Suns last year, and Ayton's role in that. That's their team, and then there's a severe drop off after that because of the KD trade. We saw what happened with Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic Sunday against the Lakers. They won one out of four games together.

One out of five if you count the All-Star game, and you probably should count the All-Star game at this point. Stop it! Stop it! You probably should.

You probably should. If you thought, oh man, at least they get to be on Team LeBron together. Yeah, it didn't work.

No, it did not. Like, the goal to say words are the defending champs, but they also are barely over 500. Yeah, it's insane. There's a lot of players on these Western Conference teams that can scare you in an individual playoff series, but who do you trust to keep it together on a team level right now? The West is a thoroughly unserious conference, but it's going to make for entertaining basketball, that's for sure. That is for sure. You don't want to miss it.

Alright, before I let you go, Law, I'm sure it's been a long evening for you. You just saw the Nuggets. You just saw Niko Jokic. 99th career triple-double, 14 in his last 19 games, which is just dumb.

He's become automatic. Is there another player you would hold up next to him as the NBA MVP? You know what, as of right now, I would say that Jokic is probably your MVP, but I think you've got to look at what's happening in Boston with Jason Tatum. That's the best team in the league, and Jason, when he has everything, he scores, he defends, he's available, he hasn't won it, so you can't talk about voter fatigue. I think Tatum is a really good contender for what is arguably the most prestigious award, even though people like to now crap on MVPs, called the Westbrook Effect. Honestly, if I don't have a vote, I don't know who controls those things, I'd give it to Niko Jokic today. The plus-minus doesn't lie. His impact is felt all over the floor, but I think Tatum is the number one contender.

Right. Well, he certainly is doing whatever Boston needs, which is impressive. His game has become so all-around that there's a lot of different ways that he can hurt you.

And yes, the NBA All-Star Game MVP, the Kobe Bryant Award, it's a nice thing to have on your mantle, but come on, man. It's like they're running, I don't know, through cones. It's a layup line. It's a glorified layup line. Have you seen the NBA this season?

What's the difference? No, I know. It's insane. The way the scoring is skyrocketing.

I actually said this law on my show earlier, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I actually am convincing myself. It may not be many more years before we see another player hit 100, considering the way that scoring is going and the fact that we've got two guys with 70-plus this year. I don't know. It could happen with the way that threes have changed the game. I'm thinking three years. I'll give it three years.

Shoot, it might be three weeks. I mean, Mitchell needed overtime and a blown call to score his 71. Damian Lillard did his in a blowout. Can you imagine if the Rockets were competitive and that game went to overtime?

Damian Lillard didn't even touch 40 minutes to score 71 points. It's not just the threes. It's the fact that it's fast-paced.

It's the fact that these guys are incredibly skilled. And I don't mean to disrespect defense. Defense is incredibly hard in the NBA. It's hard on bigs. It's hard on guards.

You need a bunch of switchable guys, but then you need those guys to be athletic and still be aware and keep being on the same page. If that sounds like a lot on the radio, imagine doing it at the highest level of basketball there is in the land. So I'm here for it. Honestly, it's going to be very entertaining. Anyone who's going to duck out the NBA to watch college hoops, just know that the most competitive brand of basketball is going to be played over the next five weeks. For sure.

Cannot wait until we get to that postseason, but still a lot to be settled between now and then. So follow Law Murray on Twitter at LawMurrayVNU. So that's his Twitter handle.

He covers the Clippers, covers the NBA for the athletic. I enjoy the humor. Enjoy this conversation. We hope to have you on again, Law. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Amy. Y'all take care. It's always fun when we have a guest who makes us laugh here on the show.

So we appreciate Law. First time he's appeared on the show, but will not be the last. So yes, follow him on Twitter. Great insights about Russell Westbrook. And I could tell we would have some good debates about the NBA, but I love what he called the Western Conference, an unserious conference. In other words, a conference that we can't take seriously because of how inconsistent it is. All right.

Went a little bit late there, but really good stuff with Law. And if you have a player that you would put up against Niko Jokic as your NBA MVP, otherwise he's going to win a third consecutive award. And then how long until we see a player eclipse Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points in a game? I'm thinking three years. We see it within three years. And once a player gets close, you'll see his teammates start to feed him.

Everybody would want to be part of that history. So whether you find me on Twitter, ALawRadio or on our Facebook page, we're glad to have you with us. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast.

You're listening to After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Well, make the most of our time together, aight? Pleasure to speak with you. I always have a great time. Huge fan.

So glad to have a female voice on sports radio. I love you. I love this place yourself. Girl makes the rules around here. You are absolutely right, Amy.

I listen to you every morning on my way to work, and I appreciate, as do millions of others, that you report like you do. Love it when chicks call the show. Boom! Shot through the heart and you're to blame. You give love a bad name. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

Amy's taking your calls at 855-212-4CBS. Shot through the heart and you're to blame. You give love a bad name. I play my part and you play your game.

You give love a bad name. Wow, look up and we are 90 minutes through the show. Coming up next hour, I want to talk about this pitch clock situation that's developing already in spring training, and I don't want to feign outrage, but I already hate it. I'm not mad about it.

Whatever. I barely pay attention in spring training unless there are injuries or we're talking about roster building. It's kind of fun to get to know the new faces in new places, but I've already told you reporting on spring training scores or sharing spring training scores and results is against my religion. It's a little bit like reporting a score from an exhibition game in the NFL season, the preseason. No, I don't do that either. I barely pay attention.

The fact that there are games in the NHL and the NBA in the preseason because those are dumb, too. And so we're not going to get all rah about it or ew. But I don't like it. I don't like it any more than I like the runner, the ghost runner, the guy who just materializes on second base in extra innings. I feel like Rob Manfred is selling his soul to the pace of play devil. Baseball sometimes sucks.

Yes, that is accurate. But most sports I think you could say that about every now and then. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Thoughts on the pitch clock? I suppose you can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio, our Facebook page, too. Some of you are pushing back on my idea that, you know, in the next three years, we could have a player go over 100.

I will, in fact, say that I told you so. Especially with the craziness. It's like global warming in the NBA.

Where you just never know what you're going to see from week in to week out. We're talking storms. We're talking snow in Southern California. We're talking about hurricanes and just all kinds of crazy storms that brew in the NBA.

Where, as we talked about in the West, there's very little separation. Which is another reason that I believe the Nuggets will see their center, their big man, earn a third consecutive MVP award. No, he's not the most athletic.

In fact, half the time he looks like a giraffe out there and it's very awkward. But he contributes in every phase of the game. He's a guy that in the final five minutes of close games, which is defined as a five point separation, his plus minus number, it's plus plus plus, is off the charts. Meaning he and his Nuggets close out games when he's on the court. And that's huge. Especially given the climate in the NBA that we just talked about.

It's total insanity. Where a 27 point lead is nothing for a Lakers crew that is below 500 and right now on the outside of the playoff picture. And yet they've got two 25 plus comebacks this season. We'll talk about that Mavericks loss. Well, from the Mavericks perspective later in the show. But talk about a brutal loss right after they trade for Kyrie Irving.

And I'm not blaming this on him. But the Mavericks, they can't afford to be losing games like that one. Remember, this is a team that went to the Western Conference Finals last year. But I don't even know if they have the maturity or the collective ability to be able to get back there. And honestly, who knows how the West is going to play out. There's some drama in the East, but it's not quite as juicy as the West.

Though I do love it when the Sixers and the Celtics get together. It's an undercurrent. It's just an undercurrent between those teams. So we'll do a little pitch clock and also Brock Purdy speaking out for the first time himself about his elbow injury, about the disappointment. You know, his surgery has been pushed back, which pushes back his recovery. And while we're talking about quarterbacks, might as well stick there in the NFC West where Russell Wilson used to play and where there are reports he pulled a KD and tried to get both his coach and the general manager in Seattle fired. I am careful about believing any of these types of reports unless they come directly from the principles involved.

It seems like it's pile on rust season. Russell Westbrook and Russell Wilson. Who does that? So you can find me again on Twitter, A Law Radio. Good to have you. Also on our Facebook page After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Got to tell you about my classy Saturday night. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun.

And the Twitter, no, no, not Twitter, sorry. The internet search that I did on Sunday, I got, I just, I couldn't stop. I become like this. I get this wild hair and I have to, I just have to chase it until I find a satisfactory answer.

So I did spend, this is, even before I went to church, my fourth and fifth graders, I could, I guess I could have shared this with them when I was sitting in front of them teaching on Sunday, but I didn't. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Purdy and the gun. Use check goes in motion. It's a play action. Purdy got a roll wrapped and he gets away from Bruce Irvin, throws on the run, wide open. Elijah Mitchell, touchdown San Francisco.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. I don't miss football yet. I'll just be perfectly honest. I watched a little of the St. Louis battle Hawks last weekend, but otherwise zero football. And I'm okay with it because you know what's about to start? The combine season. The run up to the NFL draft, which is still two months away. And so we're about to get inundated with 18 various mock drafts every hour. It's happening.

It'll start the closer we get to late April. So I'm okay with the break. I'm okay with the chance to breathe. I've been okay with actually not having as much news over the past couple of weeks. It's been totally fine with me. Excuse me.

I have the hiccups. I don't know why. And also not having as much of the chatter really. But that's where some of this other stuff comes in where we don't have a lot of information.

So instead people make it up or they generate stories that then lead to rumors and speculation. And so there's positive and there's negative. There's good and bad. Don't have your number. You're not going to have my number. We're still waiting on Aaron Rodgers, by the way. We're still waiting on Lamar Jackson and the decision by the Ravens.

We're still waiting to find out what happens with Daniel Jones. Producer Jay comes back from a vacation and right away wants to talk about how Daniel Jones asked for $45 million a year. Except I've seen just as much of the chatter to the contrary that he never asked for that kind of money. I think it was this agent who said there's no way he asked for that kind of money. So be careful what you believe. Be careful what you translate or convert from Twitter into actual knowledge and actual fact.

Because you know on Twitter truth is optional. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The Combine begins on Tuesday and it runs through next Monday. All these made for TV events coming from Lucas Oil Stadium.

It's dumb. I'm glad that some of the guys get a chance to shine. And for those who maybe otherwise wouldn't be introduced to NFL scouts and teams, well good for them.

But you know the best of the best don't generally work out. And more and more we're hearing grumblings and rumblings from the NFLPA about the Combine and why, like for instance De'Mora Smith saying during Super Bowl week why he thinks it'd be better to get rid of the Combine altogether. That it's not a fair evaluation process and that the athletes themselves are subjected to such ridiculous exercises like their medicals either early early in the morning or late late at night so they're not sleeping. Then interviews that are supposed to be hush hush and top secret with all the various teams. Questions that are not supposed to be asked and yet every year we hear about it. To me it just seems like it's a system that underscores how erratic the evaluation process can be. There's no such thing as a short thing.

There really isn't. And I'm not sure if you guys saw the story that came out over the weekend. But the NFL retweeted or maybe it was a TBT type of a thing where they retweeted a video from a Combine in 2015. Highlighting a particular player who then responded to that tweet with a fairly jarring evaluation of his life since then. Okay so for those of you who remember Byron Jones then maybe you don't then but you know him now as the Dolphins cornerback. He missed all of last year because of an Achilles tendon. Doesn't sound like he is going to get back into the NFL. But in response to the league highlighting his broad jump at the Combine in 2015 and this is when he was coming out of UConn.

Byron writes this, much has changed in eight years. Today I can't run or jump because of my injury sustained playing this game. In all caps do not take the pills they give you.

In all caps do not take the injections they give you. If you absolutely must consult an outside doctor to learn the long term implications. Now he goes on to say it was an honor and a privilege to play in the NFL but it came at a regrettable cost I did not foresee.

In my opinion, no amount of professional success or financial gain is worth avoidable chronic pain and disabilities. Godspeed to the draft class of 2023. Yeah so 30 years old actually I guess reading further he's not officially retired he's not retiring he's not walking away. But right now his injuries are fairly crippling. So he still trying to recover fully from the injury suffered in 21 missed all of last season never got brought off the pup list. This is a guy who was drafted in the first round again a UConn grad who goes or a UConn product who goes in the first round to the Dallas Cowboys in 2015. And then in 2020 he signed a five year 82 million dollar deal. We'll see what happens he was a pro bowler and had some really incredible highlights but now says he can't run or jump due to his injuries and takes a couple major risks here. He doesn't call out any particular team or any particular entity of the NFL only I wish I had known if I knew then what I know now. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio speaking of injuries Brock Purdy is waiting to have surgery on his UCL sustained in the championship game in the NFC obviously went horribly wrong against the Eagles once he got hurt and he spoke to Sirius XM NFL about his mindset right now.

You're on on this high rise of you know we're winning games we're one game away from the Super Bowl biggest game of all of our careers and then all of a sudden boom comes to a complete stop after one play it seems like. And for me it's like why you know but my whole life man I've trusted in God I believe that he's always had this plan you know I've drafted last and it's like man why but at the same time it's like he's going to do something special with that. Yeah and I truly believe that with this in this situation you know going through my rehab process I know it's his plan man and I trusted it and that's how I handle it. Now there's a lot of talk about how quickly he's going to be ready only time will tell six months is about the number we keep hearing but if the surgery keeps getting pushed back well then the clock on his rehab continues to be delayed so you can't hit that clock until he starts. Now he's a he's a young athlete he is he certainly got the benefit of youth on his side obviously younger players especially those who have all the benefits of technology and the best medical care that money can buy. Although according to Byron Jones Brock Purdy should stay away from the pills and the injections I hope that he does that I am rooting for him I am rooting for him because I like pretty much everything about him. He likely would have been QB one going into OTAs and going into training camp and then what preseason training camp. But he may not be ready, and he may not be ready for week one if the timetable keeps getting pushed back so that is, I mean that's a challenge it's another hurdle another bit of adversity thrown at him but I have faith in this guy. This is After Hours, CBS Sports Radio.