After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 3

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There's a lot of months to go. Though the NFL has figured out a way to fill every possible hole, every potential hole, even if there's no hole, the NFL fills the hole on your schedule. Even if you don't miss the NFL, they reappear because we can't possibly go a week, two weeks, forget a month. We can't possibly go a month without the NFL injecting itself into the center ring of the circus.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Good to hear from so many of you on Twitter, ALawRadio. I love the fact that you all are not making fun of me for having a TBT up on my Twitter and Facebook today. Or I guess yesterday now, as we are officially into a Friday for all except Hawaii. I don't know what possessed me to do a TBT. It's not even a thing anymore. I don't know that it even trends anymore on Thursdays, but I was paging through some paging. I was flipping through some photos on my phone and realized that this time last year, because I missed the schedule release last year, this time last year I was on vacation and I did not care.

So that's pretty much what triggered. I remembered I wasn't working during the schedule release a year ago and thought, oh, you know what? Those were some pretty amazing days that I spent in North Carolina. You'll have to go and check out the photo. And for that reason, I just went back and looked at the pictures and found one that I took a year ago yesterday.

Clouds on fire is what I called it. So a lot of you are finding it even now, which is cool. On Twitter, ALawRadio. On our Facebook page too, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. We posted the link to our conversation with basketball hall of famer Ann Myers Drysdale. Appreciate her insight and her boldness. I always get the truth from her.

I don't always agree with everything she says, but you know what? That's par for the course with guests. I don't debate with my guests here on the show. I just told my students at Syracuse, when you have a guest who has agreed to be on your show, you give them a platform. You want to get insight and intel and information from them. Don't argue with the guest while they're talking.

Don't insert yourself into the conversation. Don't prove what you know with a guest. Let the guest say what he or she thinks, believes, feels. Let your guest share his or her perspective and then you can talk about it afterwards. And so it happens a lot that I don't necessarily agree with everything my guest says, but I am so grateful that they not only accommodate our schedule, but give us their time here on the show. That it doesn't matter to me if they think I agree or disagree or you think I agree or disagree. Mostly what matters is that we have different voices here, a variety and certainly the diversity of varying opinions and backgrounds and cultures and ages and geographies. Sports too, all of that matters. So Ann Meyers, awesome.

And she's a Hall of Famer, which is fantastic. So all of our interviews, all of our guests are podcasted separately. You can find them anytime. We post the link to our podcast quickly every weekday morning within minutes of the show being over. And then on our Facebook page or Twitter, many of you go and you find the link or you can just bookmark the link on your digital platform. We have the Odyssey app.

That's our parent company. You can go to CBS Sports Radio dot com and find us there. Really, all you have to do is Google Amy Lawrence After Hours podcast and multiple options pop up. That's how I do it on my laptop every single day when I go to find the conversation with the guest to share on social because I do it in the afternoons.

I just Google it. Amy Lawrence, Ann Meyers podcast pops up. Amy Lawrence After Hours podcast. Oh, there it is. For those of you who speak to Alexa or Tony or June or Mario on your listening device, well, they'll help you too.

So you can find us on Twitter or Facebook. We're halfway through the show. Managed to go the first two hours with no football. What do you think about that? But it's not going to stay that way because, yes, the NFL schedule release did in fact take place on Thursday for the most part. To be honest, the NFL had already strategically, using my air quotations, strategically released a good portion of its schedule.

The international games were unveiled on Wednesday. We know the Jaguars will play back to back games in London. That's never happened before. I know there'll be two games in Germany this year. That's never happened before. I mean, last year was the first time ever in Germany.

Lots of quirks. Anybody remember during the pandemic year 2020 when the NFL reserved the right to play on any day of the week if it was required to make up games. There were multiple locker rooms that went through various bouts with COVID and the virus spread. And until they could go through a couple of days without any new positive tests, they didn't want the players on the field. Gosh, that feels like a long time, eons ago, especially when it comes to the information we now have. But the NFL reserved the right to play any old day of the week during 2020.

And in fact, it worked out for the first time ever. It was the first time in the league's history that games were played Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And I told you at the time, mark my words, now that the NFL has scheduled games on every day of the week, the league is going to expect that if it worked, then it will work moving forward. The league is going to refuse to give up that real estate. I told you, it's urban sprawl. The NFL is not downsizing on the days of the week now.

Nope. Continuing to expand. And here we go. Games on Friday.

Of course, again, not even your Fridays are sacred anymore. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The New York Jets with their brand new quarterback. They've got a pretty impressive schedule. If the Jets can get through this schedule with a winning record, they will be battle tested for the postseason, if they make the postseason.

This schedule is no joke. But even before I tell you who the opponents are on the Jets schedule, and we hear from Robert Saleh, we're going to count the number of nationally televised games. Now this includes primetime. In case you were wondering, they're maxed out on primetime games. The NFL literally gave them as many primetime games as they're allowed to have.

Listen to this. They have two Sunday Night Football, two Monday Night Football, two Amazon Primes, including Black Friday against Miami. They're maxed out. They cannot have more primetime games than that.

So right there is six of them. Producer J, when we talked about how many nationally televised games the Jets would have this year, would be on the schedule for, I set the line at nine. What did we do after that? Which way did we go? I went under.

You went under. You said eight. No, I said six or seven, I said. Well, they definitely got six. I said nine was the line, but I was going over. So let's count them, shall we? We already know they have six.

This is something I've never done in my entire career, but I'm going to do it right now. They open the regular season, actually on 9-11. Monday Night Football. There's one. Week number two, they play at Dallas. It's nationally televised on CBS. Well, there's two. Week number four, they're on Sunday Night Football against the Chiefs. That's three. Oh, week number five, they're in Denver on CBS. 4-25 Eastern Time start, 2-25 Mountain Time start. But you know the 25 signifies that it's a nationally televised game. So the whole first month?

It may not be the only option. Well, I skipped one. The game against the Patriots is not nationally televised. Poor Patriots. But yeah, so I skipped the September 24th game. But yeah, week one, week two, week four, week five, keeps going. Week six, nationally televised on Fox against the Eagles.

The game against the Giants, not nationally televised. Now we're into November. Wait, I lost count. How many did I have so far? Five, right? Week one, week two, week four, week five, week six.

Okay, that's five right there. Starting November against the Chargers, Monday Night Football. That's six. Oh, hey, the following week at the Raiders, Sunday Night Football. Seriously, Jets and Raiders is the nationally televised game on NBC on Sunday Night Football. That's seven.

I'm just going to keep going if you don't mind. The week before Thanksgiving at Buffalo, nationally televised on CBS. That's eight. What was the line exactly? The line was nine.

Against the Dolphins, Black Friday, nationally televised. That's nine. Oh, we're not even done yet. We haven't even gotten to December yet. It's crazy.

Wow. At Cleveland, at Cleveland, the last weekend of 2023, nationally televised 8-15 game. All right, so then that's 10. And, and if they end up being in contention for a playoff game, week 18, they're on the road at New England. That could also end up as a nationally televised game if those two teams are battling for a playoff spot in the AFC. So we've already got 10.

We could end up with 11. When can they start flexing games? What week? Because Jets-Dolphins, I mean, on December 17th, I'm not sure if it's the last two weeks, the last three or four weeks. But at that mean, I could see that game being flexed. That's a one o'clock game Eastern now. I could see that being flexed.

So they already have 10 nationally televised games as currently constituted on the schedule. As Jay points out, there could be some flexing. You know who's flexing right now? Robert Sala. Or maybe Aaron Rodgers because he has Robert Sala. Some of them I don't get.

No, I meant that the opposite. Maybe Aaron Rodgers because he knows he's the big man on campus. Isn't that crazy? Now here's what the NFL schedule maker had to say about the Jets in primetime specifically. This is the NFL's VP of Broadcast Planning and he did an exclusive interview with Jonathan Jones. This is on CBSSports.com.

I highly encourage you to read it because Jones was able to get some really interesting tidbits from Mike North. Again, he's the NFL's VP of Broadcast Planning. He and his team, they go through hundreds of thousands. This is the process of computer simulations for the primetime games and for the broadcasts. And they get the schedule put together and then they present it to Roger Goodell. And Goodell has to approve it.

So nothing gets through the NFL league offices or released until Goodell approves it. No way, I don't know if any of you were on Twitter on Thursday morning. Do you know there were people that were posting their team's schedules on Thursday morning? Insiders who said this is, and I just happened to see it with the Packers. This is the Packers complete 2023 schedule from source in parentheses.

So you don't have to identify your source. I was seeing a ton of that. People were leaking the schedules to reporters and analysts and insiders. And they were posting them on Twitter Thursday morning.

This is before I went to bed, Jay. I was seeing that too in the morning and I got to say it actually really bothered me. It bothers me too.

Why would you do that? It's at 8 o'clock. It's supposed to be an event. Can't we just have nice things? Why do you have to ruin it for everybody? Social media can't have nice things. You know better than that.

Well, here's the deal. The NFL is probably going to crack down on it. Do you remember a couple years ago when Adrian Wojnarowski was tweeting the NBA draft picks seconds before they would happen? And he ruined the entire thing.

People weren't even watching the draft anymore. Why would you do that? That's not fair.

I'm sorry. It's not fair to say to Woj that he ruined it. He was doing his job.

Okay? So he makes a living by breaking news. He was doing his job as he believes that his job requires. And I'm sure his employer, I think at the time he was still with, he wasn't with ESPN. He was at Yahoo.

He was his previous employer. And the NBA cracked down. They got ticked. They were really angry about it.

And it doesn't happen anymore. Same thing with March Madness. A couple of years ago, there were people who were breaking the March Madness brackets and the seedings before they were being released on national TV. And the NCAA had a hissy. Not to mention CBS had a fit. Well, I guess it's not exclusive to CBS anymore. Now it's TNT sometimes too.

But they were having a fit because their thunder was stolen. It wouldn't surprise me if the NFL cracks down on this and figures out where the leaks came from. Because the leaks had to come from inside the league office. Or the other option is from the front office of a team. Because the team finds out obviously before the rest of us do. And so it stands to reason that a team insider who has a relationship inside the front office with a GM, an assistant GM, a coach, somehow got that information.

That's how this gets handed down. And so either came directly from the league or it was passed on via a team at a front office to an insider. The NFL is, because they want this to be their big reveal with all the pomp and circumstance, the league's not going to stand for that.

Yeah, I think they're going to definitely crack down because we're talking a lot, a lot of money here. They're going to set this up as their whole night, their 8 o'clock prime time event on all these different channels. But it wasn't just that. It was, remember it was CBS this morning. It was Good Morning America.

It was NBC Today or the Today Show. They had all these big reveals planned over the course of Wednesday and then Thursday morning before they got to the actual show. But if the schedules are already out there and it did seem like it was happening on Thursday a bunch, the league's going to have, they're going to figure out a way to keep a lid on it. Maybe they'll not allow the teams to know a schedule ahead of time because if the teams are the ones linking them, then the league will, they'll clamp down on it. They should just release a schedule to everybody at 8 p.m. Eastern like they had planned to do, like they said was the plan.

So anyway, this is what Mike North, who's the VP of Broadcast Planning, Mike North is his name. This is what he told Jonathan Jones about the Jets and all of their prime time games. North says, quote, the Jets have a fantastic schedule. Any AFC East game is going to be relevant. They play Kansas City and Philadelphia. So the Jets were going to be in national television windows anyway.

Do you believe that? Without Aaron Rodgers, with Zach Wilson as their starting quarterback, are they going to be in the nationally televised windows anyway? Is Chiefs-Jets an interesting game if Aaron Rodgers isn't on the Jets?

No. Well, I mean, it's an interesting game because it's an NFL game. But I agree with you. It doesn't have nearly the star power or the sizzle.

Ooh, I haven't said that word in a really long time. It doesn't have the sex appeal or the sizzle without Aaron Rodgers. Do you expect the Chiefs to go in there and win by 20 if Aaron Rodgers isn't there? So then Mike North goes on to say the fact that they signed a future hall of famer, and again, you know the fans are going to be interested, to take all those really good Jets games, whether it's Buffalo, Kansas City, Philadelphia, the Chargers, and put them in Sunday afternoon windows. If this guy can play still and he's healthy and they're healthy, fans are going to miss these games because you may only get it distributed to 15, 20% of the country on a Sunday afternoon. So that's the reasoning behind giving them a maxed out primetime schedule. Six nationally televised games in primetime.

And then four more on either CBS or FOX as it stands right now. Jay, go ahead. Say it. Go ahead. I'm just looking right now to see... No, no, no, no, no, no.

Go ahead. Oh, you were right. Thank you. You nailed it. That's it. That's all you have to say.

That's the end of the segment. We're good. You were right. I'm just looking at week 17 because that Jets-Brown game that's on primetime. What is that, a Sunday night game or a Monday night, whatever that one is? Yeah, it could be one or the other. It's an 8-15, so it's one of them. It might be a Thursday.

Could be, yeah. Let me check. What's the date? The 28th, right? The 28th.

Okay. Actually, it might be a Thursday. It is. It's December 28th, Thursday. So it's probably the second to last Thursday night game of the season. There's just got to be a better game on paper today than that one. It's got to be.

It doesn't matter. It's Aaron Rodgers. You know that the league is all about its superstar QBs. Could you imagine if this goes the way of Russell Wilson and the Broncos last year? Do you know the collective groaning we could hear all over the United States when Russell Wilson and the Broncos were on national TV after, say, week three?

I was getting text messages from family members. Not again. Are you kidding me? Even Peyton Manning and Eli Manning on the Monday night.

Manning's were making fun of it. Get out of here. Oh, my gosh. Fantastic stuff. All right. Find me on Twitter.

A law radio. And then on our Facebook page after hours with Amy Lawrence. Happy Friday to you coming up. Just sorry. It's just so funny. The NFL is so predictable.

So predictable. Apparently, Joe Namath tried to call Aaron Rodgers, but Rodgers didn't pick up. Don't have your number.

You're not going to have my number. And Bob Kraft makes a big announcement on NFL Network. See, the Patriots are still relevant to the AFC East. Is it possible that the Patriots are the least. Scintillating AFC East story or the least at this point. The least exciting AFC East story. I really can't control that.

At least the opener. They'll be all eyes on Foxborough. Just goofy. NFL's goofy. Goofy because they get jealous. Can't stand it when we're paying attention to any other sport.

Goofy because they're so predictable. Seriously, I knew there was going to be a double-figure nationally televised games. Stop it. Just stop it. I think there's going to be more at the end of the day.

But did you see the nod to the Lions, though? How about that? I like it. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I swear to God I'm not a lunatic.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Tom, it seems to me that physically you can still play. That it's emotional and your body can do it, but your heart and your mind had enough. Would that be accurate? No, that's not accurate. I think there's always going to be a part that wants to play and a part of me that feels like I can play.

I think there's just a decision to know that it's the right time. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. At least we still have Tom Brady and Jim Gray on their weekly show on Sirius XM NFL Radio called Let's Go, turned into a podcast. It'll be different, though, because Brady will need to be practicing for his jump to the broadcast booth. And without being an active member of the NFL anymore, maybe he'll be open, candid about what he sees, more so than he's been in the past.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Yeah, think about the AFC East. The Bills, they've won the division now two years in a row. They are the team to beat. The Jets are only on national television 10 times this season, scheduled anyway.

Okay, Aaron Rodgers. Though, to be fair, they did have the offensive and defensive rookies of the year last season. The Miami Dolphins have made some major moves, of course.

They've got Tua Tango Valoa returning, I hope healthy, all the way through the season. They've got a lot of star power, an up-and-coming team that, wait, remind me, they made the playoffs last year, correct? Yes, they did make the playoffs last year.

Geez, the blank look on your face is fantastic. They had such an up-and-down year. No, they did make the playoffs, right? I think so. Didn't they lose six in a row and then win six in a row? Right, right.

They're the only team that's ever done that before? Shoot, now you got me questioning. This is what happens.

We get a few weeks removed or a few months removed from the NFL playoffs, and it all goes blurry. They did it. Wait, hold on, I don't trust you.

I don't trust producer Jay. Just go to NFL standings and then you'll see it. Yeah, they did. Yes, they did.

Always go with your first answer. The Dolphins were a wild card team. They were 9-8. Patriots missed out.

They were 8-9. Anyway, point is, in the AFC East, Bills, Dolphins, Jets, all high profile. Patriots, not so much, except for on week number one. Now I actually think, just for the sake of argument, as much as the Patriots may be the gum on the bottom of the AFC East shoe, and yes, I'm being tongue in cheek, it's old.

It's old and tired, right? Bill Belichick, been there, done that. Your time has passed. You don't have a Hall of Fame quarterback anymore. Who cares? You're done. Let somebody else have a run. No one's going to feel sorry for the New England Patriots.

But, I actually think that this could be a year they surprise people, only because there is no expectation for New England. Alright, that has nothing to do with anything because it's May. May. Bye. May.

The mad scientist is already at work. But, in week number one, they will absolutely be relevant. After Bob Kraft made his big announcement on NFL Network. Since today is schedule day, I'd like to make one little announcement that I think might have some news for real football fans, and it actually relates to our schedule. The greatest player in the history of the game played right here in Foxborough. And, I'm happy to tell you and your audience that I invited him back to come here and be with us at the opening game and let the fans in New England thank him for the great service he gave us for over 20 years. And, it'll be the beginning of many celebrations to honor Tom Brady and say thank you for what he did for us those 20 years playing for the New England Patriots. I don't know if Robert, if RKK is watching right now, but I want to volunteer my services for any pregame activities in celebration of Tom Brady. After all, I'm making a pitch here, I did 102 Tom Brady games in a New England uniform. That's the last check I had of the total.

So, I saw them all. So, if anybody needs to be down on the field, I can still make it up to the booth in time. I can find CBS people saying, wait a minute, what are you talking about? We've got to rehearse the open, all that stuff.

I don't need a rehearsal. I can be there. I'd like to be on the field and be there for that moment down on the field with TB12. Jim Nance volunteering his services since the game will be on CBS, the NFL and CBS.

And, actually, I swear this is the case right now. I looked up on NFL Network. It's on in my studio. There he is talking to Rich Eisen. So, he follows up Bob Kraft's big announcement with volunteering to be on the field as part of it. 102 games with Tom Brady in a Patriots uniform. By the way, that game is a 4.25 Eastern Time start. So, 1.25 Pacific, but 4.25 for both the Patriots and Eagles fans on September 10th. It's crazy to think about September, but you know it's going to come fast. May 12th already this morning. It is not only Mother's Day weekend, it's also a big graduation weekend. And so, the middle of May flies by to flurry. Before you know it, we'll be marking Memorial Day weekend.

Stop it. The NFL will probably have some big event on Memorial Day weekend as well. Maybe another round of league meetings, owner's meetings. Every single coach will be trotted out. Do you know, as I've looked at NFL Network tonight, I've seen everyone from Pete Carroll to Robert Sala to Mike Tirico to now Jim Nance. I've seen, oh, Doug Peterson of the Jaguars.

I've seen them all. They've all been up there yapping away about the NFL schedule release. We can't miss you if you never go away.

Remember, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think I'm good. Alright, on Twitter, ALawRadio, what do you like about the NFL schedule on our Facebook page? A few more nuggets from this interview with Mike North on CBSSports.com. I encourage you to read it. It's actually really interesting. Some of the insight into how the schedule came together and what the priorities were for this VP of Broadcast Planning. Again, he did the interview with Jonathan Jones.

So, I'm stealing from it, though I am giving him credit. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. I didn't think I was going, you know, the first day or two was really, you know, day three. And for me, it was like, where am I going to be at?

I didn't really care how I got there. I just wanted to get there and have an opportunity. And so, you know, man, just waiting all day for a call. You know, the Niners had called me before the seventh round and told me I got one more pick. And so, I went on my phone, Googled it, and I saw it was the last pick. And I was like, oh, man, that would be Mr. Irrelevant.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Brock Purdy told his story on the New Heights Podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce about how he ended up Mr. Irrelevant, drafted by the San Francisco 49ers.

And that was just over a year ago. Now, he's recovering from a UCL injury. And certainly a lot of people, including me, hope that he will be able to play this upcoming season. He had mentioned, I don't remember the outlet, but he had mentioned somewhere that he might not be able to play this season.

He might not be back to full strength. And that would stink for him because of everything that he did, the way that he accomplished it was what impressed me the most with the Niners. This rookie who was unheralded, had zero expectations. He relied on the guys around him. He didn't try to win games all by himself.

He knew it wasn't him. Nah, he leaned on Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle and the others around him, the playmakers. And he listened to his coach and he went out there and he was solid.

And he was so much fun to watch, one of the great stories of last season until, of course, he got hurt in the NFC Championship. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Kyle Shanahan speaking at, we are going to need some kind of a credit for this Jay, but it's a school assembly or an assembly of some sort. So he's speaking to a crowd who wants to know about the quarterback competition in the Bay Area. So again, this is head coach Kyle Shanahan. You can hear him.

He's on the stage at the front of this large room. And he was asked about Trey Lance versus Brock Purdy and the fact that Lance was heralded as a number three overall pick. They moved up to get him. But Brock Purdy has done the job they needed. We took Trey thinking he would get an opportunity to play more because we knew where we were going to go eventually.

That didn't happen. Not because of anything against Trey. He wasn't quite ready his first year and Jimmy was still on a roster. Jimmy is a very good quarterback.

It's not easy to beat out. And then we made the move to Trey. We were able to get Jimmy as a backup at a very cheap price just luckily in case something bad happened. But we were ready to go with Trey. And Trey was going to go through a lot that year.

And I believe he would have got to a level that did some similar stuff. He missed that off. And Brock came in and did it. Now, I truly believe Trey can go do that. But Brock's already done it.

And that's a very good thing for us to have. And it's not Trey's fault that he got hurt. Nor is it Brock's that he got hurt. But the opportunity was there for Brock after both Trey and Garoppolo were injured. And he seized the day.

Carpe freaking diem. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Interesting stuff there from Kyle Shanahan. Not related to the schedule. But fascinating nonetheless as it will be one of the most watched quarterback battles of the training camp and preseason. If in fact Brock is able to play.

And that decision is so critical. Staying in that same division, we saw not only the Niners get back to an NFC Championship game. We also saw the Rams fall out. They had so many injuries to key positions.

And they were never really a factor. No Matthew Stafford through the end of the season. Cooper Cupp got hurt. Aaron Donald was hurt as well. The defending Super Bowl champions didn't even sniff the playoffs the year after. The stats show that roughly half the NFL postseason bracket turns over every year. The Super Bowl champions went from top of the world, Les Snead, the GM wearing a t-shirt that said, F them picks, meaning we do it our way. We don't care about draft picks.

To them trading pieces away, recognizing that they had to wave the white towel. There was nothing they could do. No way they could spare their season or salvage anything from their season.

And Aaron Donald, a big reason why. Frustrating for him to not be able to play. It was different obviously. It was my first time in my whole life of playing football having a serious injury. So having to sit down and really get my body back to where it needed to be.

Treat my body how I needed to do it. It just was a long process. But, you know, it comes with it. It comes with the profession.

It's a physical sport. Anything can happen. Just try to do everything I can to get myself back to where I'm at today 100%. You know, the talk about him after the Super Bowl win was whether or not he would continue to play. Now he said, he told us, when he agreed or when he announced that he would play in 2022, that a lot of it was contingent on Sean McVay and whether or not Sean would return. Sean McVay did return as the head coach of the Rams.

And actually, he's full speed ahead now, too. What about this year, though? What about following a year in which he spent a lot of it banged up and injured and unable to play? Did he consider retirement in this offseason? Not really. You know, honestly, you never want to, you know, end your career the way how it was last year. So it never really crossed my mind. So I was just trying to do everything I can to get myself healthy to be here today.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. All right. What else can we throw at you? Also in the West, the Wild Wild West in the NFC, Pete Carroll, you know, that they have resigned Geno Smith.

He was also interesting, too, right? In the NFC West, you had the Brock Purdy storyline, third quarterback for the Niners. You had the Seattle Seahawks making the playoffs as a wild card, despite the fact that they were supposed to be, and I'm using my air quotations, supposed to be in the basement of the West, right? Because the Super Bowl champs were there. The Niners had made the NFC championship. The Cardinals had just resigned. Kyler Murray, all the Gen Z-ers, they were the hot to try team.

They'd started, I think, 7-0 or 8-0 the year before. Pete Carroll's Seahawks with Geno Smith as the starting quarterback, they were the surprise of the first half, and now Geno is firmly established as the starter, and Pete Carroll points to the respect that he has gained in the league. He has handled everything so well, and he's been such a great leader. He emerged so quickly on the scene and took hold of it and had a great season. But more than all of that, it's just his outlook and his perspective that he brings to this team this year now.

Man, he is on fire. He's done everything he could possibly hope for him to do in the offseason, sending the right message and working like crazy and in great shape and really taking hold of this opportunity the way you'd like to see somebody do it. So we know that we're in good hands with G, and we're excited about it. I hope it's, again, one of the most competitive divisions in football. We'll see if the Rams and the Cardinals can pick up the slack. In the AFC West, oh gosh, what a storyline last year. They had all those big moves, the high-profile moves, not just a quarterback with Russell Wilson joining the division, but how about the various defensive moves the Chargers made and the Raiders made? It was supposed to be a wide-open division. Oh, huh, how'd that turn out?

Every time I hear him laugh, really. The Chiefs went 14-3 in the division, nearly unbeatable at Arrowhead. The Chargers did make the playoffs at 10-7. The Raiders, the Broncos, they were below.500.

Broncos haven't made the playoffs since they won Super Bowl 50. So what about this year? Well, there's at least one goal on the horizon for J.C. Jackson of the Chargers.

Yeah, they want to build on what they did last year, have more than 10 wins, maybe challenge the Chiefs for the division title, but also the Chargers get to face the Jets. I never got a chance to play Aaron Rodgers, so I'm excited to play him and see what I can do. I don't have the number in front of me, but I think you've picked off 170 passes against the Jets, though.

I don't have the official number, but I know it's a lot. Yeah, but I haven't picked off A-Rod yet, so I'm excited to do that. J.C. Jackson with the crew on NFL Network, they actually are in MetLife Stadium to take on the Jets on a Monday Night Football game in early November. One of the 10 nationally televised games on the Jets schedule. I mean, is there such a thing as overkill? Are you kidding me?

I don't think so. Robert Sala, head coach of the Jets, why is he excited, but he doesn't care who and when and how and how many televised games. We already knew what the schedule was going to look like in terms of who our opponents were going to be, and none of it matters. All the nationally televised games, all of that stuff, it's great for the fans, it's great for everybody, but at the end of the day, if we don't take care of today, then tomorrow won't matter.

All right, that's boring, but whatever. The thing is, you can't tell us that nationally televised games don't matter, because they do. Number one, the players all get up for them. And while the Thursday Night Footballs are quick turnaround, we know that then you get the mini-buy afterwards, and if you win, the teams are thrilled. They get a weekend off. They love playing under the lights. There's an extra buzz and electricity about those games. It's your chance to be on national TV, the only game in town, or national prime. National internet.

You get to be on the national internet. Seriously. Ten times. Ten times on the Jets schedule. I really hope that it works out for Robert Saleh in the Jets.

Maybe he's smart to downplay it at this point, because it could blow up horribly, like it did for Russell Wilson and the Broncos. People are coming here to play with me. Okay. Watch your hours, CBS Sports Radio. and be rewarded for your generosity.