After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

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That's BetterHelp H-E-L-P dot com slash positive. I'm noticing now that when you have a new notification on Twitter, the X, the corner of the X lights up red. Have you seen that? Producer J, have you seen it?

Do you have our show Twitter open? So I didn't realize it, but now that you mention it, yeah, it's not red. There's no notification, but it is red when there is one. You're absolutely right.

All kinds of bells and whistles. I'm just telling you, beware when Twitter comes calling or the site formerly known as Twitter comes calling and asking for your credit card information or asking you to store your info so you can pay people on the site. Don't say I didn't warn you. This is the brainchild of Elon Musk, who actually was part of the think tank, shall we say, behind what eventually turned into PayPal.

It all makes sense now. Elon is attempting to transform Twitter into a commercial online commercial marketplace, and he wants to take your banking information, even would like you to save money on the website. Why can't I just save money in my bank?

He wants to be a bank. Where does it go if I save it? Does it go into his pocket until I need it back?

Where does it go? Is this a Ponzi scheme? Something. It's definitely a scheme-y sounding feeling.

Now, I don't know how many older people, seniors, are on X, but it does sound like the type of scam that is meant to fool older people into giving up their money, into investing, and the money just disappears. Just leave it with us. It'll be safe. You could store it in here. It'll give you your own card. It's a cesspool.

I don't care what it's called. The only reason I stay on social media, and Twitter in particular, is because I have to have it for work, number one. Number two, animal photos and videos, and that includes those of you who send them to me when I share photos of Penny and Sugar. You all send me back your own pet photos.

I love them. But otherwise, what part of social media would convince you that it's a safe space or a safe place to save money? Again, I don't even know how you do that.

Using Twitter for about, what, a little over a decade, a little under a decade? I think that's probably the last place I would ever trust funds to be put into. I think I'd rather hide it under my mattress.

And I don't have anything to hide under my mattress. I'd rather give it to Snapchat. Snapchat? It'll disappear in ten seconds. I'd trust it more than I'd trust X.

Do you? I think so. Stop calling it that. I'm calling it by its name. No, it's still called Twitter. As long as I can go to Twitter, it is. It says on my, what is this, Google Chrome that I have opened up, notifications, Twitter. It still says Twitter.

It does not say X. On the mobile app, we still have the Bluebird of Paradise. I'm just getting mentally prepared for this. Cheeseburger in Paradise. Ooh, I could use a cheeseburger right now.

Nah, nah, nah. It's two o'clock in the morning Pacific time. It's five o'clock in the morning Eastern time. I have to go for a TSA pre-check meeting in a few hours, so probably a cheeseburger is not in order. Do you think if I'm speeding down the highway at 140 miles per hour, it would never happen? Could I tell the police officers I'm on my way to TSA pre-check and that would be the thing? I'm late for my appointment with the TSA people. It might hold up.

Hmm. Can I tell you a story that I swear is 100% true that I am not proud of? I did not do it on purpose, but the police officers were so upset that they didn't know what to do, so they just let me go. One time, it actually happened when I first moved to New Jersey, so I was already working here at CBS Sports Radio, but it goes way back to the very beginning. I was on a phone call, and it was some bad news. And so the bad news, as I'm receiving it on this phone call, I start crying.

My Bluetooth cuts out, like it dies, my Bluetooth dies while I'm in the middle of the phone call. So then I'm holding the phone, right, which is against the law in many places, including New Jersey. Holding the phone, crying about this phone call because it's bad news, and my Bluetooth doesn't work anymore, so I can't hang up.

Well, I didn't hang up because I'm in the middle of an important phone call, and it's some bad news that I need to hear. But because I'm holding the phone and I drive by a police officer, I get pulled over for not using a hands-free device. The cops come up to the car, both of them actually on the passenger side. I guess there was too much traffic on the driver's side, there wasn't enough space for me to pull off the road. Two of them? Yeah, the two of them were driving in their patrol car.

One of them comes up to the passenger's window, passenger's side window on the front. The other one's kind of looking in the backseat, which seems fairly standard behavior. Anyway, the police officer starts to talk to me, and in that moment, because I'm so emotional over the phone call and the bad news, I start bawling. I swear to you, it was not on purpose, I wasn't trying to pull a, oh, poor sad female, please don't give me a ticket. Common play. I literally could not stop crying. No, it wasn't a common play, I'm telling you. No, but you did it.

Oh, okay. No, I'm telling you, it was legit tears. I mean, I was sobbing, and it got worse because I'm like, oh no, I'm going to get a ticket. And then I kept thinking about the bad news, and then I had to hang up abruptly because the cops are at my window.

It just, it was one of those days, women will understand, the emotions overwhelmed me, and I just lofted. I'm sobbing. Can barely speak to the police officer. Officer is like, are you okay, are you okay?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was one of those almost dry heaving when all the tears ran out because it was just a confluence of all these different events and getting pulled over. And I tried to tell the police officer that I just had some bad news, I was on a phone call, are you okay, do we need to call someone for you?

No, no, I'm okay. I tried to get out the fact that I just received some bad news from this phone call. And of course the guy didn't know what to do, he really just kind of stuttered, and he was very flustered, and I felt terrible, but I really couldn't talk to try to get myself together. So yeah, they ultimately said to me, can you just put the phone down, we'll let you go, if you can just not talk without your hands-free device, of course, sir.

I mean, by this time I'm calm enough at least that I can speak. Jay, I had tears, like my face is tear-streaked, you know when your eyes get red because you've been crying? I can't breathe really because when I cry, this was a messy cry.

So my nose is stuffed up, I don't have tissues, all I can do is go, it was just awful. And I felt terrible because the four officer, he thought, not today, please lady, not today. And maybe didn't know if I was being authentic and being genuine or if I was making it up.

I swear I was not. I actually, I just started crying so hard I couldn't stop. It was a little bit embarrassing, it really was, but it was true. I wasn't telling him I had a dog emergency at home when it wasn't true. No, I'm sorry. Anyway, that's my crying so hard I can't speak story with a police officer. And at the end, you know, maybe it, I don't know, kind of worked out I guess. I, no, that's not what I, I did not do it on purpose.

I would have been fine taking the ticket, I broke the law, it's just that I couldn't, I couldn't stop crying. It was, yeah, like I said it was embarrassing, it was one of those ugly cries. Is that in the urban dictionary? You know how sometimes they add vernacular? Ugly cry? Hop culture vernacular, check and see if ugly cry is in the dictionary.

Probably is, let's see. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio, true story about me. I have many stories about getting pulled over by officers because I do at times tend to drive it like I stole it. But I haven't gotten a ticket in, oh my gosh, eight years, nine years at least.

In fact, I haven't been pulled over in eight or nine years, I'm doing really well. Is it in the urban dictionary? Oh yeah. Ugly cry, what does it say? A type of crying that you could feel really good, a type of crying that can feel really good and really bad at the same time. The ugly cry can occur after a severe tragedy in one's life or simply for no reason at all.

Oh, okay. You know you're doing the ugly cry when you lose complete control of all the muscles in your face, start heaving and making awkward sounds even though you're trying really hard to be silent. Yep, that was me. That was definitely me. I was trying to get myself under control, I was making all kinds of weird sounds and then I couldn't breathe because my nose was so stuffed up. Were you leaking fluids?

Cause that's another description here. Out of my nose, yes. Well and out of my eyes too actually, I mean I was doing all of those things.

It actually says from every opening on your face. I don't think there was anything coming out of my mouth, I really couldn't talk but yeah, I felt terrible cause I'm, well, I don't know what the officer thought. I'm sure he was slightly embarrassed himself but I swear to you it was not on purpose. I couldn't cry like that on purpose if I tried. I'm not an actress of Oscar winning proportions, I couldn't cry like that. Wanna hear another definition? Of ugly cry?

Bring it. Yeah, someone else's definition of it. A complete- Someone else's? Yeah. You just Google it? Urban dictionary, you could kind of post multiple, like anyone can write their definition of the word.

Oh it's like Wikipedia where you could just amend it on your own? Kinda. Okay. So someone goes, a complete unleash of the beast with no regard to crying. Huh.

That's how they describe it, I like the first one better. I unleashed the beast with no regard for crying. Yeah. Maybe I'm not cool enough, I don't get that. A complete unleash of the beast with regards to crying. Oh, meaning I look like a beast. Something like that. I probably sounded like a beast too.

I was one of those. I could simulate it but you all know what I'm talking about, don't try to act like you don't. Even if you've never ugly cried, someone in your life has ugly cried. The ugly cry is truly ugly. If you look in the mirror while doing the ugly cry, you're bound to stop crying. No, if you look in the mirror while you're doing the ugly cry, it's not genuine. Who's looking in the mirror when they're crying? I don't want to see myself and what I look like when I'm bawling like an idiot. Unless of course you don't like the way you look and then that can make you go into a further tortured ugly cry.

Okay. We're not posting ugly cries on social media. This is not a selfie opportunity. No, no, ugly cries are legit as in something really terrible happened. Or you're having a really rough day and it broke the dam and you can't get it under control. That's all I'm saying. Apparently Jay has never experienced ugly cry.

No. I mean I can't even count the number of times I've done ugly cries on two hands. I cry when I'm happy but I also cry when I'm sad. Ugly cries. I ugly cry over movies every now and then. I wouldn't say it's a regular occurrence but I could even do an ugly cry over a movie. Yeah, a movie would be something that would maybe get me like emotionally. That's, yeah.

Really? Like King Kong. The end of King Kong.

The newer one. Do you see my face right now? I'm just saying like you look in his eyes, it's Beauty That Killed the Beast. It's beautiful.

Oh my gosh. Okay, well X is letting me know that I do have some new notifications. We're supposed to call them exes now but I can't because I have exes and they don't look like tweets.

They're something completely different. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. A law radio on Twitter X and then also it's like Space X right? Twitter X, Space X, Twit X.

Or as someone said earlier, what was the suggestion? Oh Twix. But that's already been copyrighted probably. So Twix. Taken. Twux. Twox. No, they're all stupid.

It's just stupid. Exit. Yeah, we're going to exit from X. We'll exit.

That is the case. They're going to require us to put money down. Exeter. That's a town in New Hampshire.

Really, it's actually a street in the area I live by. If they ask us for money, I'm out. As in out immediately. I will delete my account immediately if not sooner. Are you with me? Are you walking out in protest? Oh yeah, see ya.

See ya. Do you use your Twitter account? No.

No I don't. Don't you use the show's Twitter account more than you use your own Twitter account? I use Twitter actually all the time. Like regularly every day I just don't tweet. So I'm always on it. Your Twitter or the show's Twitter? If I'm just perusing I'll go on my own so I don't accidentally click anything or something like that.

So I don't accidentally like something that would embarrass us? Alright. Our phone number as always, it's the same. 1-855-212-4227. I appreciate some of you sending me your advice about my TSA pre-check interview. They called it an interview. I think they're going to do a background check as well. Oh shoot, I wonder if they're going to show up the number of tickets that are in my pass. Probably not.

Including the one in Boston where I got a ticket for leaving my dog in the car. Oh really? Yeah. You know what I think about that?

Throw up the ex. How long was she in there? A couple hours. In the winter. It was January.

The dog was sleeping. She was fine. She'd rather be with me in the car in Boston than be home by herself for twelve hours while I do a round trip. The winter's different. Yeah, she's an Australian Shepherd for heaven's sakes.

Anyway, anyways. So, we had the distinct privilege of welcoming Sal Cappaccio to the show from western New York Buffalo as the Bills get set to open camp with all of their players, not just rookies, coming up on Wednesday. And so you're going to hear part of that conversation, good stuff from him, about DeMar Hamlin and his return to the football field, personally what it means to Sal. What else are we going to hear, Jay?

What else did you leave in the chunk that we're going to replay for the Peeps? Josh Allen, of course. Yeah, the importance of Von Miller. Oh, Von Miller's return. One of my favorite players in the NFL. In fact, the question that we asked people on the first edition of After Hours this week was about hearing from one sports figure, whether it be an athlete, a coach, a GM, for an entire week and who would it be.

And you all sent very creative answers. I went with Mike Tomlin, Jimmy Butler, Roger Federer, and then I threw in a Kevin Harlan, kind of as a flyer at the end. But then when I was talking to Sal earlier, I thought, Von Miller.

How could I leave out Von Miller? He's a candidate for the most interesting man in the world. Bill's mafia.

What's good? I mean, that's not even interesting. That's what everybody says when they get to the Bills. I don't know who the tackle is and I'm going against, but I'm going to kill him. He's so interesting. I could talk to Von Miller. Larry Fitzgerald's another one that I could talk to about pretty much anything. I miss Larry.

All right. So we'll get to that chunk with Sal and his intel about Bill's training camp, even as it gets underway. Little bit of baseball, little bit of something, something. And before the end of the hour, Cam Newton, like you've never heard him, Cam Newton.

He's one of those that I could listen to for a week to talk about comic relief. I'm not 32. I'm not 32.

I could hear it even when I'm not working. I'm not 32, but you can cook. I can cook. Let's have a cook off. Bring it. Come on, man. It's nine days until the Hall of Fame game. Nine days until the Hall of Fame game. Oh, it's on.

It's on. Good morning. I hope this scintillating radio show is enough to help you wake up and feel ready and refreshed. Tackle another day.

We're self-loving you. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Let's go. Chance coming from third.

The Booze coming from the other side. He'll want to cowzer. He'll line it down the left field line, slicing away from Shorba. Being a baseball play-by-play broadcaster demands a blend of learned mechanics, intense preparation and a calm sense of entertainment. How hard is it to do this job? Let's talk to the ones who do it.

This is Matt Spiegel. My new podcast, The PBP Voices of Baseball, will bring those conversations to you as the best working and former broadcasters tell you why and how they do it. New episodes come every Thursday all summer long. Follow The PBP Voices of Baseball on the Odyssey app or wherever you find your podcasts. Get there. Dives. It's a fair ball. He can't get to the ball.

It caroms behind him. Around second goes cowzer. He's going to pump the brakes there, and the Orioles take a 3-2 lead on the double by Colton Cowzer as waterworks go flying as the sprinkler comes from Cowzer, Shwarmer-Dove.

He was close to it and left, but he missed it, and the Orioles, as soon as they lost the lead, they have got it back. I feel like we play quite a bit of these type of games, so our guys are used to kind of craziness in the last few innings, and we don't really blow people out, and we don't get blown out very often. It's usually the games are tight, so that's why I had a bunch of guys that I'd thrown four out of the last five days that weren't pitching because we'd just been playing so many close games.

So because of that, other guys, we want to go where we want to go. We've got to have other guys step up and be able to pitch in those type of innings. We can't pitch Canone Batista every single night, and Perez got through it tonight.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. That makes 13 wins in 16 games for the Baltimore Orioles, rallying late against the Phillies on Monday. Right now, they do not want a day off because they are locked in, and you hear from Brandon Hyde that they really needed to change it up last night because of the fact that they had used their bullpen in so many close games, and it was Colton Kouser who comes through the tie-breaking double in the ninth inning. He also had a hand in a big out in the eighth inning, too, to keep the Phillies at bay and prevent any more damage, so right now it's all working for the Baltimore Orioles, who are two and a half up.

They go from six and a half back at the start of July to two and a half up now, and we still aren't quite to the end of the month. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. The Brewers, in a battle of the top teams in the NL Central, they have a walk-off to end the Reds' winning streak, and oh my goodness, couldn't have come at a more timely opportunity after they go one for 16 with runners in scoring position, or I guess it was one for 15 with runners in scoring position. They finally end up with the Christian Yelich hit, and he admits, yeah, long overdue. So that was Milwaukee, Cincinnati. Also a wild affair between the top two teams in the AO West, the World Series champion Astros hosting the Rangers, and not only did they get a Chas McCormick game-tying three-run homer in the seventh, but this one was still tied 9-9 as they went to the final frame.

The single here would do it. The outfield is short enough to prevent any bloops from falling in. Hold back. The 0-2. And that is lined into right field, a base hit. Tucker gets away from Gary Pettis around third, thrown to the plate by Jankowski, he's cut off the relay, not in time. Astros win it.

Geinert Diaz lines one to right field, and the Astros celebrate around second base, Bobbing Diaz. Rangers are going to challenge the safe call at home, but the Rangers are going to challenge the safe call. Still waiting for word.

All right, here we go. After review, the building out of the field stands, the runner in check, and there you have it. Good thing.

Good thing. Houston Astros walk off the Texas Rangers, win it by a final of 10-9, now trailed by two games in the American League West. All kinds of diamond drama there, Robert Ford on Astros radio before that, Orioles radio network. This game between the Astros and Rangers, 19 runs on 19 hits, combined 19 runs on 19 hits. McCormick with a career high 6 RBI in this one, a lot of walks too, so coming off a big weekend, the Rangers end up putting 7 different guys on base via the walk, and it did come back to bite them, they walked the first two guys in the ninth inning, but yeah, they were up 6-4, and then they were up 9-6 and could not hold the Astros at bay. And then we also had a walk off for the Minnesota Twins, who by the way are 9-2 since the All-Star break.

So while it's not quite the stretch run, you got a bunch of teams that are feeling themselves. Did you hear in the Orioles highlight, by the way, producer J, Waterworks? It's yet another way to describe ugly cry, Waterworks.

Turn on the Waterworks. So generally, that is considered more of an intentional cry when you are trying to garner sympathy. When was the last time you used the word garner? That's a good one.

And not as Jennifer's last name. Garner sympathy, or potentially change a police officer's mind about you, or maybe you're trying to get your significant other to allow you to use the credit card to make a big purchase. On X. Turning on the... No, not on X.

No, not really. Well, you might be an X if you did that. Turning on the Waterworks. That is considered to be a little more intentional, as though you can control the tears. Yeah, turning on the Waterworks has a negative connotation to it.

It does, it does, Waterworks. But ugly cry, perfectly acceptable. Yeah, that's just, ugly cry is like, this is out of my hands. This is just happening. You've lost control when you're crying, yes. Well, that's what happened to me.

Waterworks sounds forced, or imply that it's like, I'm making this happen. I couldn't do that. Can you?

Can you cry on command? Mmm, if I really tried. Really?

How? I feel like if I just really thought about it, and like focused on it, I don't know if I could like... Okay, go ahead, do it. It'll take, it'll probably take a minute, or so. I mean, we have another half hour. Yeah, I could focus, I could try to like... I'll take a video of you.

During the update, maybe I'll try to like, get nuts in. You'll cry? But I don't think it'll... I'm not gonna ask you what you're thinking about. I don't think it would be, I would be thinking about crying, I don't think it would be thinking about anything like, a moment or anything. I would just be thinking, trying to get my eyes to water. Like, just like a mental, like, my eyes, water. Not like, it wouldn't be like an emotional reaction, it would just be strictly forcing my body to cry. That make sense?

Mmm. You can't do that? No. I cry enough as it is, but no, I can't make myself cry. I don't know if I can, but... And if I did, I would have to be thinking of something extremely sad to attempt to get me to be emotional, so then I would cry. And that, again, would be a long, drawn out process, and it would be turning on the waterworks, which I think is false advertising.

I'll think about King Kong. All right, so, before we get to the update, I've been in this building, on this floor, at this network, for ten plus years. I've made what I consider to be friends over the course of the last decade, including many who work for our New York affiliate, WFAN.

Just down the hall, we see the standard characters, five days a week, unless I'm on vacation, they're on vacation. That includes Boomer Esiason, Boomer and Geo, Greg Gianotti, who now do the morning show on our New York affiliate. It also includes one of their other voices, who does, not just the updates, but also fills in, he's got a podcast, yada yada yada. Well, I thought we were friends, his name's Jerry, and, as it turns out, despite us having worked together, in the same building, on the same floor, for more than a decade, he doesn't actually know my name. All right, quick break, when we come back, as long as Al's still breathing, we'll wrap things up, we'll get you to Boomer and Geo on the fan, right now on Odyssey Sports Minute, what is Amy Johnson on the British Open, what, is that me, is that Lawrence with an Odyssey Sports Minute, the superheroes of WFAN, what is Amy Johnson on the British Open, I know, we were talking Magic Johnson, Amy Lawrence, it's what happens, kick saving a beauty, Amy Johnson, so funny enough, I didn't know this had happened, this was prior to six o'clock Eastern Time on Monday morning, I didn't know what had happened, Boomer Esiason comes out of his office, and again, I see these guys on a regular basis, Boomer and I are buddies, he says to me, hi Amy Johnson, and I have no idea what he's talking about, I thought that was a little odd, absolutely none, you didn't know either, right, no idea, so then someone else walks down the hallway and says, hey, Amy Johnson, and I said to him, I don't understand what's going on, oh, you haven't heard it, well, here it is again in all of its glory. All right, quick break, when we come back, as long as Al's still breathing, we'll wrap things up, we'll get you to Boomer and Gio on the fan, right now on Odyssey Sports Minute, it is Amy Johnson on the British Open. I'm Amy Lawrence with an Odyssey Sports Minute, the superheroes of WFAN, it is Amy Johnson on the British Open, I know, we were talking Magic Johnson, Amy Lawrence, it's what happens, what else Al? It's an honest mistake, Amy Lawrence, Amy Johnson, Magic Johnson, not even six degrees of separation, hey, in Jerry's defense, and from now on, I'll be calling him, what should we call him, Jerry Smith, Jerry Smith, I really was gonna say that same exact thing, his name is Jerry Recco, we'll be calling him Jerry Smith, that is a character from a show though, I don't care, all right, Jerry Adams, that works, is it close to geriatric, we could call him geriatric for all I care, from now on, he's got a new name, but in Jerry's defense, I last week identified Garrett Wilson as Zach Wilson, so okay, I suppose it happens, it is Amy Johnson on the British Open, great, thank you, I'm Amy Lawrence with an Odyssey Sports Minute, it was right there for him, he could have just said it's the CBS Sports Minute, boom, that's it, it's not like he gave it some incredible tease, no, he just tossed it to me, and he does that every show, right, you think people are your friends, and come to find out, they'll tarnish your good name, you just never know, you just never know what people are doing behind the scenes, except that other people tattle on you, like Boomer, hello Amy Johnson, it is Amy Johnson on the British Open, all right, nope, no reason to turn on the waterworks, but I might play it up just a little bit, okay, Sal Cappaccio, things that for Bills training camp, good stuff with Sal, one of our favorites from our Buffalo affiliate WGR, because it was a busy day for the Bills on Monday. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Temperatures around 35 degrees here this afternoon, as Folt puts his foot into the ball, it's going to be short, fielded at the 4 by Hines, coming straight up the middle to the 20, cuts it back at the 25, he's got an alley down the right sideline to the 40, 50, down to the 40, 35, 30, 20, 15, 10, 5, touchdown, Naheem Hines, 96 yards.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Hamlin Murphy on Bills radio, man, what a moment that was, early in 2023, when the Bills were back home, following DeMar Hamlin's amazing resuscitation on the field, and then as well his return from Cincinnati to Buffalo, and now of course he is about to participate in training camp with the Bills, but Naheem Hines will not be able to, did you guys hear this news, this sucks, it's hard enough to survive an actual football season on the field, but he, Hines was hit by another person driving a jet ski, so he's sitting stationary on his jet ski, someone runs into him, and he is injured badly enough, knee injury specifically, that he has already been declared out the entire season. Season ending injury to his left knee, his left ACL, no joke, it's hard enough to get through a season when you're on the field with all the hits you take.

You shouldn't, it shouldn't happen this way. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio, that was the reason we invited Sal Cappaccio to be on the show of WGR, a Buffalo affiliate, he's also Bills beat and sideline reporter with the radio network, and we did talk about that, we asked him about the absence of Hines and the running back room of course, but also a little bit about DeMar Hamlin and Von Miller and good stuff, so we want to bring back part of that conversation, and we'll pick it up where I was asking you about the offense, because of course, what do we keep hearing about Josh Allen? The Bills, as well as Josh, would prefer that he runs less with the football, that he doesn't take as many hits, so Sal, what about the running back room for the Bills right now? It doesn't really, I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, I should say, I'm going to stop myself, not to say it doesn't matter who the Bills have a running back, of course it matters, but they're not a team that's going to funnel their offense through the running back, we know that, they're going to do it with Josh Allen, they're going to throw the ball a lot, they're going to be a very heavy, pass heavy team, and Josh is going to factor into the running game, but yes, the point you make is right, which is every year we hear this, and Sean McDermott even said at the owner's meetings, he said, hey, as long as Josh Allen's the quarterback and I'm the coach, I'm always going to be telling you how we don't want him to take those unnecessary hits, this is just going to happen every year, but we all know, also, that that's just in Josh's DNA, that he's going to go out there and he's going to fight for every yard, he's going to run over a linebacker and run all round and jump over one or something like that, but in the meantime, they have James Cook and Damian Harris, who I think are clearly one-two, and there is a debate here on who will be number one, I don't think it's much of a debate, I think this is James Cook's backfield, I think that Damian Harris is a backup to him, a fine player who will get his carries, who will be a nice complement, I look at it this way, Amy, last year it was Devin Singletary, James Cook, but the Bills, even though Devin Singletary was the number one back, he still only carried the ball like 165, 170 times, 30th in the NFL, I think that's James Cook's role this year, he'll be the number one back on the Bills, but a number one back on the Bills isn't like a number one back everywhere else, a number one back on the Bills is a guy that really only gets maybe the 30th most carries in the NFL like last year, and then Damian Harris comes in as the second guy, and then they have Latavius Murray, they signed with a nice year last year, and I think that's the guy that probably benefits the most here, unfortunately, from 99's injury, that he probably has a secure roster spot now to be that back and short yardage situations, but now they have a spot for him. We're always excited to have Sal Cappaccio on the show, covers the Bills, their sideline reporter has always game day in Buffalo, which is such a cool name for the podcast, it's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio, the infusion for the defense in the form of Von Miller, how much does that matter to get this guy back into the flow of their defense?

It matters immensely. When he went out last year on Thanksgiving, the pass rush simply was, like I say, non-existent, but there was a steep, steep drop off, and the difference he made being on the field was immense for a few reasons. Number one, guys like Ed Oliver and Greg Rousseau were really having good years because teams couldn't focus on them, they had to focus on Von Miller, and number two, the Bills didn't have to blitz that much because Von Miller was so good at getting the passer and other people then benefited from that and they could get home at four, once he went out, they had to start blitzing a lot more. You saw Matt Milano blitz, you saw Jermaine Edmonds blitz, guys coming out of the secondary, the Bills don't want to do that, they don't want to be blitzing like that, they want to get home at four, so that's immense, but we don't know if Von Miller is going to be ready week one or week two. I think the signing of Leonard Floyd is a real good indication that they're protecting themselves against having to play Von Miller early, even if Von is healthy enough to play, I think the Bills have to protect him, protect him from himself, and say this is a marathon not a sprint. And I think that Leonard Floyd signing is really big, I mean this is a guy, I think he's had the fourth most sacks over the last three years in the NFL, he's had like 29 sacks I think in the last three years, which is a really good number.

I think that's a really interesting signing because he can at least help you bridge the gap to when Von Miller is actually playing whole time again, and when Von comes back, now you had Von Miller, Leonard Floyd, and Gregory Russo off the edge, and I think that's just going to be a huge, huge deal for the Bills to get back to that kind of pass rush. You remember vividly, I'm sure, what happened on January 2nd in Cincinnati, what does it mean to you that he's back out there playing football again? Well, it means a lot to me as a person not only who covers this game professionally, but I played high school football growing up, I've been a broadcaster in this game, I've coached the game at the high school level, I love this game, I love the grassroots part of this game, and I understand a lot of the risks that go along with the game, of course nobody expects anything like that to happen, but for many, many years, we've been hearing more and more about all the different kinds of things in football, like why people shouldn't play, and for someone like Tamar Hamlin to go through what he did to play because of how great the game is to him, what the game has given him in life, that speaks to someone like me. I'm a guy that believes that at the grassroots level, this is the greatest game, it's the only game where you can really throw that many people in the one locker room from all these different socioeconomic backgrounds and religious backgrounds and everything and learn to play as a team and understand what it's like to be with your brothers in that locker room from all different places and races and things like that, and I think that's a big reason why Tamar Hamlin is still playing, to advance this game. People like me, anybody else, we need to recognize the risks of this game and things that can happen, but it's also incumbent upon us to make the game as safe as possible, and I think that, number one, is truly something that speaks to me about Tamar Hamlin. But the other thing is, aside from football, Amy, I love the fact that he has become an agent of change.

Yes. This is a man that has spent the last six months, essentially, especially the last two, going around the country and promoting AEDs and CPR training for people, especially for youth sports because they are so underfunded and so underavailable around the country, and Tamar has been at the forefront of doing that. He's at the Hope Weeks for all these baseball games, he's in Pittsburgh throughout the first pitch, at the Yankee Stadium throughout the first pitch, he's at all these American Cancer Society events. This is a guy that truly, not only in his words, but also in his actions, is being an agent for change in the forefront-facing person for this that's saying, let's go do this and make this happen.

Look what it did for me in my life. All right. I'm sheepishly asking this, but I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job if I at least didn't bring it up. Anything at all, at all, that we should be concerned about with Stephon Diggs? Well, it's a good question because until we hear from Stephon Diggs, we don't fully know the answer to that. So don't worry about it.

You can ask it all you want because we're asking that here in Buffalo. Because you know, when we get to training camp on Wednesday, what typically happens is we hear from Sean McDermott and Brandon Bean on day one. And then usually Josh Allen after practice day one or before practice day two or after practice day two.

It's within the first two days. And we usually hear from Stephon Diggs, whoever the big names are. That usually happens. And we have not heard from Stephon Diggs at all during mini camp or OTAs.

And that's fine. He doesn't have to talk, but he needs to talk to the simple fact of what you just said. Once he does, we don't ask those questions anymore. Once he does, it's over.

It's not a distraction. We just need to hear him say, everything's okay. But until he does that, we really kind of don't know now he's going to be there. There's no there's no reason to believe he won't be at, you know, training camp and doing what he's expected to do and being on the field. Question is, when does he talk to the media if he does? He's got to at some point, what does he say?

Because I think just for the benefit of everyone, fans, media, the football team, Stephon Diggs, Josh Allen, just talk, get it out of the way and let's move on. Sal Cappaccio, part of our podcast. And you can find the link posted every weekday morning on both Twitter and Facebook. So ALaw Radio, After Hours, CBS on Twitter, and then our Facebook page. People frequently will say to us, where's the link?

Oh, well, it's actually this post that you're commenting on right now. Good stuff with Sal. And there is more. We asked him about Josh Allen, too, and what the standard is to be into 2023 and about the AFC East a little bit, plus Naim Hines and his loss. We, do we still have time? We promised you before the end of the hour, Cam Newton for a little comic relief.

Apparently, he was getting heckled by some fans about the fact that he has no Super Bowl rings. No, you met me. Tell me about it. Show me your picture. Show me your picture. Show me a picture. I got a question.

No, but we don't got the same bank account. Oh, please. You're too famous to be acting like that. No, no, no. Don't play the victim now.

That's my favorite part. Some fans says you're too famous to be acting like that. Please do. You're too famous to be acting like that. I actually think. No, no, no. Don't play the victim now. only famous people who act like that because you kind of feel like you're insulated since you have a lot of money in your bank account. So for Cam Newton I would say yes prenup for people like you and me if you missed it earlier in the show we were discussing the prenup conversation that was actually started by one Devante Adams so see we get our material from various assorted places Cam Newton we don't have the same bank account oh is that kind of that that's a little bit sketchy I'm not 32 you don't need to be telling people about your bank account come on man come on exactly it's a little low-class cam let's let's pick it up a bit we'll talk to you tonight it's after hours with Amy Lawrence CBS porch radio boom