After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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That's BetterHelpHELP.com slash positive. I'm joined by Hall of Famer John Smoltz. Smoltz, tell me this. What's harder, winning a Cy Young or an Emmy Award? Oh man, winning a Cy Young takes a lot longer to happen. You know, it's funny when you mention something like that, I just go back to all those years of being predicted to win and just feeling like a failure.

But in 96, fortunately, I was able to at least get that off my back because that was starting to bother me. Download the Brett Boone Podcast available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. I don't want to jump the gun or anything, but happy almost weekend. Happy almost Friday. That makes me happy.

It just makes me happy to say it. And since producer Jay is not here, he's on vacation, so Friday doesn't mean anything to him because he already started his time off. I did hear from him. He made it safely to Chicago. And even though he and his dad sat in the airplane on the tarmac for an hour, which is the worst, it's the worst. I'd rather sit in the airport, I suppose. I mean, sitting when you're trying to catch a flight is not optimal in any form, really.

But if you're going to sit, I'd rather sit in the airport because I get claustrophobic when we're stuck in that airplane and you're on the tarmac and nothing's happening, especially when you're not getting any information. But man, I keep hearing about the summer travel season that it's relatively chaotic and insane and isn't going to get better anytime soon. So I'm glad that Jay and his dad made it to Chicago.

But when he said happy almost Friday to me in a text, I thought, you jerk, you're already on vacation. Knock it off. So instead of producer Jay, we do not have a cast and crew of thousands like we did last night. We just have one guy. His name is Ryan. So the other two that were working with us last night, Andrew and David Shepherd, of course, who has his own show and poor guy did a double last night to the detriment of his dog. It's just Ryan now. And I asked Ryan, Ryan, you're allowed to turn on your microphone. Hi.

Hello. I asked Ryan on Thursday morning, do we need someone else? Do we need to have someone else alongside? Do we need to have somebody else with us? And your answer was no, thank you.

No, thank you. Ryan's good. Now I understand that Ryan actually runs the board, runs the equipment for the show that I used to do when I first started my first two years here, which was at the time it was after hours, Friday overnight, Saturday overnight. So those are the shows you do now. Yeah, I get thrown kind of everywhere now. So you're a utility infielder. Yeah, basically. Gotcha.

Or you're like Mookie Betts and you play eight positions on the field. More of a Chris Owings. Chris got it. Okay.

No name. Right. Well, happy almost weekend to you. Thank you again for stepping in and helping out where we had another plan that got thrown completely to the wolves.

You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, because I did sort of look ahead and give you the happy almost weekend. Woo. And then one of my favorite emojis. Now it's mostly reserved for Bob, though it's reserved for baby animals at times too. I'm not sure how Bob's going to feel about that. But it's the emoji with the big smile and the hearts where the eyeballs normally go.

I know I got it. It's really cute that I send it to Bob. Oh my gosh, you guys. I got a text from Bob's mom this week because we do communicate via text. I haven't met her in person yet, but we've done FaceTime and all that jazz. And she actually called him Bob in the text. Just for those of you who don't know, my significant other's name is not Bob, but I'm not going to use his actual name on the radio for privacy purposes.

And because Bob is funny, my family calls him Bob now, but I wasn't anticipating his mother calling him that to me. So I guess she finds it highly amusing after he told her. I'm pretty sure she doesn't. Well, she may know what I do for a living, but I'm not sure she has listened and nor would I expect her to. Anyway, so maybe she kind of gets what I do, but not really. It's fine if she doesn't. But the fact that he told her I call him Bob and now she's calling him Bob, I would never marry a Bob.

That would not happen. So it's a good thing that's not his name. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Bob does get most of my emojis with the hearts for eyeballs. But yes, I also share that for baby animals and actually for people who send me their photos of pets. I mean, baby animals and people's pets are certainly worthy of hearts for eyeballs. And also the fact that it's almost the weekend. So I guess I'm not all that exclusive with my hearts for eyeballs emoji.

So you can find me on Twitter and then our Facebook page too, after hours with Amy Lawrence. I have mentioned this multiple times, but lest you think that this is a slow week in sports, I would disagree with you. Now, it's not as frenetic as say the April and May spring playoff blitz, but there's plenty going on. But lest you think it's slow and quiet, dare I say boring. Oh my goodness.

Don't bring that negativity in here. But lest you think that training camps, the very first training camps begin in mere days as in actually starting up next week, days from now, because the hall of fame game is just a couple of weekends away. Oh my gosh. That actually does make me, that does make me feel something.

Tension, I guess, in my gut because I'm not ready in any way, shape or form for the summer to be over again. But yeah, the New York Jets, they report next week, the Giants rookies, actually a lot of teams rookies report next week, the Saints. Oh, the Niners.

Trying to see some of the others that are the earliest. The Chiefs have their rookies report on July 18th. The Chargers as well. And then the Lions and the Broncos and the Browns on the 19th with their rookies. Ravens rookies on the 18th.

See if I leave anybody out, you won't get mad at me. And the Falcons rookies on the 18th. So you do have a bunch of rookies that report next week. But also because of the teams that are in the hall of fame game, they actually start super early.

They get a little extra time. So yeah, it's coming. It's coming as in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it's all happening. So then you're going to get inundated with football and you're going to be upset because you prefer that we not talk so much football because the summer is nearly over.

It's actually not. There's still a long way to go in summertime, but these guys do get started in summer. And college football, they'll be into their two a days if that's even still legal anymore.

They'll be into their two a days coming up as well. So it's still summer. In fact, it's the dead of summer.

It's legit. The dog days and the boys of summer. So baseball, we're not trying to steal your thunder as baseball gets back from its all-star game. As baseball gets back from its all-star game on Friday, but the big bad, the NFL is looming. And honestly, what I really hope is that we don't have to report on any crazy injuries during training camp.

I know that's not realistic and it likely is to happen, but it always is. The big pitfall, the landmine, if you will, of training camp. So to that end, coming at the top of next hour, we're going to check in with, actually haven't had him on the show in quite a while, but he's one of my favorites. He's a former NFL wide receiver and a top 15 draft pick.

So you may remember the name Mike Pritchard. He was drafted in Atlanta, then spent some time in Denver and then moved on to Seattle. He's now with Visa Network as their lead NFL analyst.

And it was funny because I was thinking about what do I want to ask him now? And of course I want to ask about camp and about getting ready for camp and how much camp is different from when he played. But also I was thinking about how Aaron Rodgers is not thrilled that the Jets are on hard knocks.

And I don't know why that would be a negative. I feel like instead what happens is you get guys who mug for the camera, their personalities come out and the coaches want to nip that in the bud, of course. Maybe coaches don't want it to be a distraction or be a thing.

But I think a lot of players actually like the opportunity to expand their platform and their reach. Do you guys remember Aiden Hutchinson last year on hard knocks? Was it last year? It was last year, right? On hard knocks.

Gosh, they all blend together. Where he was doing the Billie Jean dance in front of the Lions meeting room. Oh my gosh, that was amazing. I'm not joking. When I tell you I watched him and the Lions meeting room, like the other players, not only were they clapping but they were laughing at him. And then when he really busted out into the chorus, they all started singing too at the top of their lungs.

I'm not joking. I watched that at least 30 times. It was amazing. I couldn't stop watching it. He was so good, but I couldn't stop watching it. So those types of moments I really enjoy. So I'm hoping we're gonna get some more of that. Yeah, that was the Lions debut of hard knocks and it goes back to last August. It was, he crushed it.

It was amazing. One of the chances that, say, Saws Gardner gives us some type of a moment to remember early on. And now what would be a far bigger story for the Jets, Quinn and Williams potentially not getting a deal or holding out.

That's not going to be an issue. Four years, 96 million dollars. So the defensive lineman that the Jets desperately wanted to take care of before the season started. Yeah, well that's done. Come on, Aaron. No complaining. You don't, you may have a cantankerous relationship with the media, but you know you also enjoy yanking the media chain, just putting little nuggets and easter eggs out there for people to react to.

You know that you do. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Even before we dive into some of the sporty stuff, and actually more extensive comments from Kyler Murray, even as we're talking about quarterbacks, more extensive emotion and reaction from Kyler to his injury and trying to move forward.

Trying to move forward. He wants to be back week number one for the Cardinals, though it may not be the case. Remember, he just had his surgery in early January. This is the torn ACL that he suffered against the Patriots mid-December, and so he just had the surgery in January. Not impossible. We've seen guys return from torn ACLs. I think Adrian Peterson, what was it, eight, nine months that Adrian came back from his torn ACL. So it is possible.

Guys can't do it. When you're talking about a quarterback with the investment that you've got in Kyler, you'd prefer that he maybe take a couple weeks at the beginning of the season if that's what you need from him. But to hear him talk about the struggle, to hear him talk about how the fourth season of his NFL career was really difficult, and even the moment that he got hurt. Haven't heard this much, this extensive detail from Kyler at all, and so I'm looking forward to sharing that with you.

Maybe getting your reaction. Dalvin Cook, he is not going to settle. Man, what an addition he's going to be to some roster.

I'm assuming at some point during training camp though, you know what happens when you assume. Rory McElroy is not giving up on his hatred of Liv. He refuses to forgive. He refuses to forget. He definitely is going to go down in history as the most vocal opponent of Liv. And see, you can't even count Jay Monahan as that guy anymore, right? Because Jay Monahan backpedaled and decided that it was better to have a merger with Liv and and do a money grab.

So yeah, Rory McElroy takes every last opportunity that he can to poke the Liv bear. But even before we get to some of the sports, did you guys hear what happened with SAG-AFTRA? And if you don't know what that is, that's actually my union. So I wouldn't have chosen to be a union. I know many of you are union people. It's not a knock on unions.

It's just it wasn't my experience. I was never part of a union until I took this job at CBS Sports Radio. And because we are located in New York City, we are required by law to be part of SAG-AFTRA. Well, it's SAG-AFTRA now. I was part of AFTRA initially. And then SAG, which is the Screen Actors Guild, merged with AFTRA I think three years into my tenure here at CBS Sports Radio. So this is a union. It's a labor union. And it represents more than 160,000 we're called performers.

That's what we're called. So it's radio, it's TV, it's screen actors, right? So I'm in the same union as Tom Cruise.

I actually did impress my nieces once when I was listing off a bunch of actors and told them that I was in the same union as these actors. Anyway, I knew this was coming. Those of us who were in the union knew this was coming and unless there was some 11th hour negotiation that was successful. But for the most part, our union has been keeping us informed and letting us know that we were headed for a strike. No, it does not affect me. It doesn't affect radio peeps. But it does affect those actors and actresses, those performers that work in TV and in motion pictures. Because the strike is over a dispute. It's over essentially a stalemate with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Okay, so that doesn't involve me. Though this is my union. They actually asked us to pre-vote on a strike. So we got an email a couple weeks ago asking us if we would go ahead and, almost a preemptive strike if you will, go ahead and vote to strike because they didn't want to wait till the last second. And then if they couldn't come up with a deal, they already wanted to have the authorization of the union to strike. So the contract negotiations with the producers, I'm gonna say the whole thing again. And even actually, even the acronym is awkward.

The AMP. So it's not, it's just the producers. We're just gonna call them producers. So the negotiations began in early June and apparently they are nowhere close. So they extended their negotiations through June into July, but we're now past midnight on the east coast. And so you've got maybe another 45 minutes because the strike starts at midnight Pacific time.

So about 45 minutes before all actors, and you do really, you actually do have to belong to SAG-AFTRA if you are working in the business and you're legit licensed to work in the business, you have to belong to SAG-AFTRA. Actors, performers getting set to strike in 45 minutes. Now this is on top of the writers, and if you're not following any of this, okay, that's totally on you if you don't care. But writers are already on strike. So if you haven't noticed any changes yet, it's only because of how your favorite TV shows fell. So a lot of shows are written months in advance and recorded, taped at months in advance so they can be produced in time for when they will air on TV. But the schedules for the fall with the major networks, all of them, all of your favorite serials and periodicals, whether it's comedies, whether it's your late night shows, whether it's crime dramas, which is my favorite genre, they're all hitting the skids. A lot of them will not be ready to start up fresh in the fall because the writers have been on strike now for a couple months, I think going back to early May, and now the performers are going to be on strike too.

So even if you had scripts for all your favorite shows, the performers aren't available to work them. So you're starting to see the ripple effects all over the TV industry. And I'm wondering, because the 2023 fall TV season is in jeopardy, because now for the first time since 1960, you have both the writers union and the actors union on strike. It's not happened since 1960 that both bodies are on strike at the same time. I was actually a little worried when they sent us the email that they were going to require us to strike too, as in radio people.

And I thought, no, I can't pay my bills if I go on strike. Now, not all these actors, you've heard the term struggling actor. So not all the actors are A-list, like Jennifer Lawrence, you know, she was on the letter to SAG-AFTRA urging strikes. And if you're wondering what the strike is about, if you haven't seen, just Google Fran Drescher's, I guess it was a speech. It was really about announcing the strike, but boy was she fired up like she was in the nanny.

But her voice didn't sound like that though. It's about the shift in the industry and the fact that, for instance, actors get paid far less for streaming. They do not get paid the same amount of money that they do when the shows are on the small screen or the big screen. And in addition to that, and this is a major piece of what actors and actresses are upset about, what performers are upset about, when you have shows on streaming, there are no residuals, meaning they don't air later on down the road in syndication.

So think about Friends, right? You can find Friends on other TV networks now. You can find Seinfeld.

You can find some of your favorite crime dramas. A lot of shows, even after the original series wraps up and is done, they have the finales, they will air in syndication. Actors and actresses get money from that. So they're called residuals. Or when a show or a movie, something like that, either re-airs or is picked up for a particular commercial project, anything like that.

If you're part of a project, even if it was years and years ago, you get what are called residual checks. And so residuals is part of the issue because they don't get them for streaming, because streaming doesn't use syndication. It's just, it's there.

It's on the internet all the time. Just a lot of frustration among performers. And so now there are no writers working in Hollywood and there are no performers or very few performers working in Hollywood. Because if you're part of the union, you can't perform. And I hope no one comes to me and says, you need to to zip it and you can't work your show either. I would have to cross the picket line. I cannot, I cannot go without eating. Does that make me a terrible person if I have to cross the picket line so that I could pay, well, not just my food, but my dog's food?

Anyway, radio's not included in this right now. Let's hope I don't have to make a show of solidarity and walk off the job. Ryan, don't laugh because it could happen during the show. What would you do if that's, if that's what I decided?

Maybe, maybe it was a stunt. I start here on my show and then in a display of solidarity with my fellow union members, I walk off the job in hour number two. What would you do? We have like a couple interviews in the back pocket. Do we?

A couple. So put that in there and then call someone. Call someone. I might just walk out. Yeah, you should in a show of solidarity, but maybe have a plan.

Have a plan. I'm just saying, I'm not the only host that works on this network. What if the, what if your weekend host, they decide they're going to be all snippety about it and they walk off in the middle of their show this weekend? Oh, I would have nothing to do because I'm not here. So, oh, you're off this weekend.

No, I'm not off. It's just that it would be like Zoom. So it's just like a, like a hang up basically. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Well, I'm not going to walk off the, the job even though I don't think I would get fired, but I don't want to give the company any reason to do that because it's all too easy to get fired in our business these days.

So yeah. I'm here. I'm hoping that I'm not going to get an email. In fact, I might ignore my work email for the next, I don't know, six weeks or something.

Don't tell the bosses. Just because I can't afford to walk off, I'd have to cross the picket line. Oh no, I'd be hated. I'd be hated. Actually, nobody would even notice. Probably my boss has barely noticed I'm here. So I wonder if, if there's a TV show that you cannot live without, will that really start to affect you then?

Or do you miss your late night TV? Where, when will this affect you? That's what I want to know. Maybe you have no clue that there's even a strike going on, but if you do, or this is your first year hearing of it, when will it start to affect you? Cause it will affect me. Oh gosh. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to wait and share my answer.

It'll affect me if they make me walk off the job. That's, that's for sure. All right. On Twitter, A Law Radio, happy almost weekend. On our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence, strike, strike, strike, strike.

There are actually demonstrations and picket lines that are taking place all over the country. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. As I say, coming up very quickly is the start of NFL training camps. And if that's a little bit too early for you to get excited about the hut huts and the NFL and of course college football. Oh my goodness, Bob is all about college football.

I'm all about the NFL and I do love college. And even if I didn't still have to cover it for work, but we have not yet gone through a football season together. I'm a little bit nervous that he is going to wonder what he got himself into because of the extensive prep and the football watching that I must do, I must do during the fall. And so, yeah, I think he's in for quite the awakening, especially when it comes to the Sundays into the Mondays. But we are pretty excited about setting up some football, some football watching areas.

We're looking forward to it in his house, my house so that we can have fun watching football together. But yeah, it's right around the corner, though maybe it's too early for you to get excited. So instead, how about Boys of Summer and the trade deadline?

That comes up now in, what is it, 17 days. So we're talking about under three weeks, the Major League Baseball trade deadline. And I really like what Kim Ng of the Marlins had to say about how this market could unfold this year. We probably have about a handful of sellers at this point.

I think they're all just taking down names and figuring out what the best deal for them is going to be. For all we know, you might see a market that just doesn't unfold very quickly or much at all. We're thinking that the next couple weeks, maybe someone pulls away in one of the central divisions, but you never know. I mean, they could all stay the same and everyone just decides to ride it out.

So it's really, I've not seen a market like this before. I think that a lot of it has to do with the playoff format as well as those central divisions. No one's really stepped out big time in either of them. Rick, great insight there from Kim Ng of the Marlins on Sirius XM MLB radio. Because it's true, with the new playoff format and the fact that there are three wildcards in both the AL and the NL, you check the standings and baseball games are underway again on Friday. In the American League, there are only four teams of the 15, only four teams that are farther out than five games of the last wildcard.

If that makes sense, let me say that again. Only four teams in the American League are outside of, say, the bubble of five games back. So the Twins, the Angels, even though they've both fallen below 500, remember the Twins were leading the AL Central for a while, the Twins, the Angels, the Mariners, the Red Sox, the Yankees. Right now, those five teams are all within five games of the last AL wildcard. Right now, it's Orioles, Blue Jays, Astros, who are in possessions of the wildcards.

So that leaves just the Tigers, White Sox, Royals and A's as possible trade partners, or at least teams that would be selling and would be looking to move different guys to maybe get draft capital back or younger players that they could add to their farm system. In the National League, there are a few more players that are out, out as in farther back than, say, six games. Cubs are six and a half out. The Mets are seven out, and yet you hear Pete Alonso talking about how they've got hope in the second half of the season.

Why? Because of the way their schedule shapes out. Now remember, the Mets had won, what was it, five, six games in a row right before the, the dead, not the deadline, sorry, the Major League Baseball All-Star break. They didn't make up a lot of ground, but they did put themselves a little closer, pull themselves a little closer in the wildcard race. So now Pete Alonso's talking about hope for the second half. We played really good ball this past week going four and two against two high quality teams, and I think that'll give us a really nice springboard going into the second half, especially getting some, getting some much-needed rest for us. And we're going to have a, I think we played three more weeks on the road than we did at home, so we're going to have a lot less travel in the second half, and it's going to be nice playing more games in front of the city field faithful. Does that sound like a guy who thinks his team is about to become a seller at the trade deadline?

No, no it does not. So taking into account what we heard from Kim, let's just put the, the Mets still in the equation. Maybe Steve Cohen doesn't want to start selling pieces. Well that leaves just the Pirates, the Cardinals, the Nationals, and the Rockies as teams that would not be part of that jostling for wildcards in the second half. So that's eight teams, eight teams that might potentially be willing to sell and not buy. Otherwise, if it's a bunch of teams that are interested in buying or a bunch of teams that are interested in retooling their roster or adding a piece here or there, well the year's talking about contenders swapping, swapping players.

That's why there's this uncertainty about how the trade deadline may play out. Does every team stand pat? Do the best teams in the league stand pat because they think, ah we don't want to help anybody else out. We kind of like our position.

We're dealing from a position of strength, if you will, and she focuses on the central divisions where it's much tighter, right? So even if you have a team like the Tigers who are not part of the wildcard necessarily and are 11 games below 500, they're actually only five and a half back in their own division race and that's kind of the idea. So you might have to take the Tigers out of it because as much as the Tigers are stinky, five and a half games out is no big thing with still with still two and a half months to go in the regular season, right? The Mariners are six games back in their own division, still very much part of the equation.

The Angels are seven games out and then in the NL central you've got the Reds and Brewers on top there, but hey the Cubs are only seven games back. So those division races mean that you have even fewer teams that are willing to sell and maybe more teams that are looking for a leg up at the deadline with a purchase of sorts, with a trade to improve their team. So yeah, it's maybe one of those where teams and not really agents, but teams would put out there, hey we're interested in this or that, maybe some false info, some false intel to run or to throw other teams off the scent. I mean there could be a bunch of that kind of gamesmanship right before the trade deadline and maybe it and maybe it is a slow burn and then all of a sudden boom right before the deadline hits.

So I think that's pretty interesting too. It makes for great drama and certainly makes for a great second half which is what baseball wants. Baseball wants as many teams as possible to be involved so that many fan bases as possible are involved and still showing up at the ballparks for their games, but I got nothing for you A's or you Royals or you Colorado Rockies. Although other teams come through those stadiums and then they'll put butts in the seats. I honestly don't know why hard knocks is a negative.

I think it's kind of fun and I would think the players would think it was kind of fun. Coaches, I understand. Aaron Rodgers, well you know he's old and he complains about a lot of stuff, but you'll hear what he has to say about being selected for hard knocks.

One of the only things I like about hard knocks is the voice of God who narrates it. Right. Liev, I hope I get to meet him. That's it. You know I understand the appeal with us. Obviously there's a lot of eyes on me, a lot of eyes on our team, my expectations for our squad, so they force it down our throats. Oh for heaven's sakes, always something with Aaron Rodgers. All right, well despite that you're still going to be on hard knocks because the NFL thinks you are attractive TV commodity.

Go figure. Top of the hour, we'll ask our former NFL wide receiver, why is hard knocks a negative? Between now and then, Kyler Murray, and we're going to sprinkle this throughout the show, talking about that moment when he tore his ACL and what it was like around the surgery. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, and also on our Facebook page. Page, plage, plagiarism. No, we don't plagiarize on our Facebook page.

Oh my gosh, our Facebook page. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Murray back to throw, flushed out, rolling left in trouble, slips a tackle, got to launch it.

He does. Left side, into the end zone, jump ball, and it is. Is it caught? Is it caught? Oh my goodness, it's caught. DeAndre Hopkins caught it. He caught it for a touchdown.

Here's Amy Lawrence. We have seen some fairly dynamic moments in Kyler Murray's career now. DeAndre Hopkins, he's moving on, but Kyler Murray is still a Cardinal and we should see him on the field sooner rather than later, though that's likely up in the air at this point as well. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio from Cardinals Radio, the brighter days for Arizona.

Man, it feels like forever ago, but didn't they start the 22, no, 21 season 8 no or 7 no, something like that, and they were on top. They were the last team that had not had a loss and also they were on top of that vaunted NFC West for quite a while that season, but then injuries to Kyler Murray and this is not referring to the ACL, but going back to the season before that injuries to Kyler Murray and they really fell off the map, just spiraled toward the end of that season and while they did make the playoffs, it was an early exit, and at that point the posturing began by Kyler and his agent. If you recall, he scrubbed the Cardinals from his social media, then his agent put out a cryptic and critical letter accusing the Cardinals of not negotiating in good faith and not giving his client what he deserved, but also not being authentic or honest with him. Now, ultimately he did get his deal. He got what he wanted and then lo and behold, this past season, his fourth with the Cardinals, his fourth in the NFL, it went horribly off the rails and even before he tore his ACL, it was still a rough go. It was tough sledding. So the Kyler Murray contract, five years, $230 million, $160 million guaranteed, but it guaranteed a whole lot of nothing for the Cardinals because on December 12th, and they weren't going to make the playoffs anyway more than likely, but on December 12th, against the Patriots, he tore his ACL and he just did a long conversation, long, I would say almost an expose, with Cardinals Flight Plan, which is the Cardinals website itself, about that moment he got hurt and everything that happened after that.

So yeah, taking us back to December 12th. You know, when you see somebody get hurt on TV and like, you see everybody come dab them up and like get their love and like, it was like all that happened in a blur, but it was all like, the trainers came up to me, I'm on the ground. I wasn't in shock. I was just more so like, I've been hurt before, but not like this. And I knew something was wrong. You know what I'm saying?

I knew something had to be up. I can imagine that for most, we're talking football here, for most football players, for most athletes, you watch that happening to a teammate or an opponent. And initially, you feel terrible, right? Because you know it could happen to you. That could be you. And then maybe there's some of that gratitude like, oh my goodness, thank heavens that's not me. But in that moment, Kyler Murray says, yeah, it all happened so fast. It's not like it plays out slowly, as though you're in a movie.

Nah, it's just a blur. Ultimately, he knew something had gone wrong. He did tear his A.C. Elliott surgery in early January, and it was tough right after the fact. After the injury happened, I rehabbed for like two weeks or whatever, and that wasn't that bad.

But after the surgery, that first like two weeks was terrible. You know, moving was tough, and then you're just kind of helpless. Like, you're depending on everybody.

But luckily, I have, you know, people around me that help me out. From Cardinals' flight plan, you have the prehab, as he calls it, which is what they do a lot of times for ACLs. They wait for the swelling to go down. They do a little strengthening, if they possibly can. And then you have the surgery, and oh, if anybody, well, you played sports. I played sports, played college basketball. I had multiple teammates tear ACLs. I had one, actually two teammates who tore the same ACL two years in a row.

Oh, just brutal. And no matter what, whether you have the surgery or don't, there's some pretty extensive rehab that's involved, and you know you're going to miss some time. When you look, I look further down the line, it seems like we got a long way to go. Ideally, you know, I want to be back by week one, but that's the goal. At the end of the day, that's the goal, but it's not the goal. It's the goal. It's not the goal.

It's not the goal. At the end of the day, that's the goal, but I can't really look that far ahead because I've got to take it one day at a time. So week one is actually post-labor day, and it feels like a long time, right?

It feels like, okay, if you're moving well and everything's going the way that it's supposed to, well then, all right, week one is a possibility. Still, that would be pretty quick. It would be nine months.

Week one, the Cardinals are at the commanders Sunday, September 10th. Think about it. It will be post-labor day. Oh my gosh. From now, we're talking two months.

I almost didn't want to speak it. No, I love football. I'm excited about football, but ow.

That would be the end of summer. So from now, it's actually not even two months, but from when he had his surgery, it would be just over nine months, all right, because he had the surgery in early January. That'd be pretty quick, but he is obviously a world-class athlete, and he has got all the medical attention, the training staff, the equipment that money can buy. That's all available to him. That is the positive, and the coaches in the league certainly owe this to the athletes.

When you're injured on the job, when it's workman's comp, if you will, it's important that they give them the best medical care and rehab and personnel and equipment. Why? Well, because these guys have got limited careers, really do. The average NFL career is not even four months, four months. Oh my gosh, don't know why I said that. I was counting months before, not even four years, all right? So they need to take advantage of that time and get back out there healthy. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.