After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

Alright, we gotta clear something up, okay?

I don't wanna call you gullible, but beware of what you see and read and believe from the internet, especially social media. Did you guys see the photo of Dodger Stadium that was making its way around social? Now, I only saw it on Twitter.

I don't know if it was on other platforms, though I suspect that it would have made its way to other platforms as well. It portrayed Dodger Stadium or it was purportedly Dodger Stadium with a flooded parking lot because of Hurricane Hillary or Tropical Storm Hillary. The photo's all over Twitter.

All you have to do is search for it, Google it, and you'll see it. But it's actually not a flood at Dodger Stadium. Dodger Stadium did not flood. Dodger Stadium Twitter itself posted a photo of how beautiful it was on Monday morning with no water anywhere. Apparently it was just rain and wet concrete that from the aerial view made it look like the whole parking lot was flooded when actually it was just wet concrete.

And yet that photo made the rounds and was played off as though Dodger Stadium was nearly underwater or the grounds around Dodger Stadium were underwater. Goodness, it's unfortunate that we run with some of these incorrect, inaccurate, misleading photos and information on social. It's good advice. As I was driving into work on this Monday night, happy Monday to you.

I hope you survived. I heard a news report. It was part of a business report that Elon Musk has admitted a Twitter may not survive, though he calls it X now, Twitter may not survive. And the platform has lost half of its advertising since he took over. Now, remember, there have been massive layoffs at Twitter. There's all kinds of changes, attempts to make more money from the platform.

But he admits that because of the drastic cut in advertising revenue since he took over, Twitter has lost half of its advertising. The platform may not survive, which would be crazy. Now, I'm not telling you that a world without Twitter is one. That's bleak and sad and lonely and uninteresting.

No, none of those things are true. If there was no Twitter, another platform would would pop up or we would find another way to communicate. There's lots of ways to communicate. We have found, though, that sports fans flock to social and specifically Twitter because they like to keep up with analysts, experts, insiders, the athletes themselves, though many of them also have Insta accounts. It would be weird, but it would not be an unwelcome change. So, yeah, the jury's still out on Twitter X. X marks the spot for Twitter.

X could mark the grave of Twitter. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio. The reason I say that, oh, my goodness, Mike Tomlin is on my TV. I'm so happy. I love Mike Tomlin. Mike Tomlin, Dan Campbell, Mike McDaniel. We decided Dennis Allen needs to be part of our group, our elite tier of coaching quotes. You know. You know, do we get to listen to Mike Tomlin tonight? He was talking about the AFC North producer, Jay. Man, I'm just appreciative. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's old. I want some new Mike Tomlin.

Anyway, I was distracted by the bright, shiny black and gold object that was Mike Tomlin in his Steelers practice gear. Many of you have found me on social in the last couple of days to offer your congratulations. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I really appreciate it. At last count, and I haven't actually checked the latest on Twitter because it's a little overwhelming to try to keep up with. We had 700 comments. Most of them, congratulations. As I said to you last night, many of them also include wedding, marriage and relationship advice. I should have known that social media would also feature experts in those areas.

Teasing. I mean, you can send your advice. I hope you don't mind if I don't necessarily heed it.

Everyone has to do what's best for their own relationships and their own families, and it's not one size fits all. And so I'm grateful that so many of you are invested in my life to the point where now you care about Bob. That's good. He finds it highly amusing, but also he's, I would say a little bit shell shocked by the number of people who are commenting on our bending nuptials. Poor guy. I'm not sure he knows what he's getting into.

Between my Star Wars nerdiness and the number of people who are invested in my personal life. Poor guy. He's going to get it from all sides.

It's all right. I'll run interference for him. I will be a barrier and a buffer so it never quite gets to him. Some of you have asked me when he's going to be on the radio. I don't know how I feel about that. He would be open to that. I don't know how I feel about that. He actually asked me once, would I be putting pictures of us on social?

And I haven't yet. Not sure I'm going to, but thank you for asking lots of questions. I'm going to have to do, if not a wedding version of Ask Amy anything. And I actually thought it would be fun to put on our YouTube channel since it can't be a one time thing. You all will have these questions for months. So I thought I might wrote producer J into doing a wedding version of Ask Amy anything.

A wedding future misses version of Ask Amy anything. And then we'll put that on our YouTube channel. Maybe sometime in early September. Maybe right about the three month mark.

Three months out. Maybe that's when we could do it producer J. That would be fun.

We always look for fun ideas to do on our YouTube channel. You have so many questions though I might have to write a blog post which features FAQs. Your frequently asked questions about my upcoming marriage.

It's so goofy to me. But I'm glad you care. Thank you for caring.

That ultimately is my takeaway from this. You all care about me. You're invested in more than just what I say about sports. So it matters to me that you care about what happens away from this microphone.

Which now by proxy means that you also care about Bob. In your own special way. So you can find me on Twitter X. Twitter X. Twitter X.

A Law Radio and then also on our Facebook page. I'm doing my best to keep up with the comments. I apologize that I cannot respond to them all.

I would never get anything else done. And it's a busy time. As you can imagine there's a lot happening right now.

We're juggling a lot. And I'm excited because coming up in a week and a half I get to head back to Houston. Got some wedding appointments.

Taste testings for caterers. That'll be a lot of fun. Got to get some ties in our color. By our color I really mean my color because that was one thing I did myself was pick the color. The color that goes along with the ivory of my wedding dress.

It's actually a really faint ivory. Anyway so the colors are coming together. We got to pick a caterer. We've got a few other appointments to take care of. And so looking forward to that last break before the NFL kickoff. And that's the rub.

All this stuff. Well as much as possible has to be done before NFL kickoff. I have not yet heard from the commissioner of my fantasy football league. Or maybe she is disinviting me because I won last year. That seems wrong.

If you're the defending champion don't you get to be automatically part of the next season. But she is notorious for waiting until the last second. This is Cynthia Freeland of NFL Network. She is notorious for waiting until the last second.

And so for that reason I'm not going to panic yet. I might have to reach out to her. But since many of you are already holding one, two, three fantasy football drafts we are really excited to welcome back our friend Lindsay Rhodes to the show. So she'll join us from LA coming up top of the hour.

And I guess I have to ask her about the impact of Hurricane Hillary. Not to mention there was an earthquake. Remember we talked about it with Ross Jackson who covers the Saints. Saints and Chargers playing football. And right before they kick off in a preseason game at SoFi there's an earthquake in addition to severe weather warnings and everything else going on. So we'll get Lindsay's reaction.

See what happened at her house in LA. That's coming up about 50, 50, 5-0 minutes from now. Final game of the NFL's second preseason weekend taking place on Monday night. And it was actually a game, I told you this a couple weeks ago, we would start to get the broadcast teams on the national level as opposed to just the local broadcasters and those games getting thrown up on NFL Network.

Not thrown up as an eh, but like thrown up as in projected onto NFL Network. But now as we wrap up week 2 of the preseason and head into week 3, you've got some of these national networks like ESPN, like CBS, like NBC. Oh, Amazon Prime is actually carrying a game next week. They're going to try to shake off the rust and get back to the broadcasting. So yeah, you're getting the games now where the broadcasters get to practice as well.

Cause you know, sometimes we gotta shake off the rust too. So next week, Prime will have a game on Thursday night. I shouldn't say next week, I should say this week, but meaning third week of the preseason. CBS will have a game on Friday night, which is interesting.

Your first chance to see Bryce Young if in fact he plays for the Carolina Panthers. And then on Sunday, last game of the preseason on Fox. It's a Sunday night football game on Fox, which is weird.

And yet that's how it's being done. And so more of the preparations, everything continues as we head closer and closer. Cause Thursday is exactly one week until kickoff. OMG, until kickoff. Is Bill Belichick a Swiftie? Is that what's happening right now? Is Bill Belichick a Swiftie? Oh my goodness.

I think there are a lot of people in the NFL space who are Swifties. I really can't control that. So we'll get to that. Also, I have to tell you, I'm sorry about the technical difficulties that we had during our show 24 hours ago. It was not on our end. So our programming continued even when your local affiliate dropped out and went completely silent.

We call that dead air in the business or going dark. Your signal went dark. Even when that happened, it was not on our end.

In fact, we didn't even realize it until you all called our attention to it. This was about the distribution, not about the programming, right? So the programming went on as we typically do. We had no interruptions, no problems, no interns accidentally hitting a button they shouldn't hit and knocking us off the air. No, it wasn't us.

We went for our entire four hour show like we always do. But there were some distribution issues. Not sure what was going on, if it was the signal that gets sent to our local affiliates, if it was at the Westwood One level. I don't know that for sure.

So don't feel like I'm throwing them under the bus or kicking them under the bus or whatever you do with the bus. We don't know. It wasn't on our end. But I did hear from a lot of you. In fact, I saw your tweets, your Facebook posts all over the country, some of our biggest markets and we know that you had some dead air in Chicago and Houston and Dallas and Nashville and other places around the country, Seattle.

I heard from a lot of different markets, Massachusetts. So we're sorry about that. It wasn't our fault. But we recognize that your listening, your routine, all of that was interrupted by some inconvenient distribution issues. I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

Some distribution challenges. That's my new buzzword now. Sometimes you don't want to say problem or issues just because those words come with connotations. And so in order not to offend people, very often I use the word challenges. Seems very benign, but also you could take it as, hey, I'm going to kick this challenge in the rear end type of a thing. So when I, when it comes to physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, whatever, mountains that we are staring at, my go-to word now is challenges.

So these were distribution challenges. Sometimes radio is hard. Now in this case, we were on point, but our partners were having some challenges, but we apologize if you missed anything. I think it's gone.

I think it's out into the broadcasting black hole somewhere. I can't recreate, but I know there were a few stories that some of you missed, uh, like the one about the scary moment over the weekend. And actually, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't tell the story because we were having technical difficulties and I was nervous about telling it and it getting cut off in the middle.

So yeah, I will share that story tonight. We've got Monday in the rear view mirror. Most of it, we're moving forward, cruising into a Tuesday. We've got the end of the NFL preseason weekend. We've got some major league baseball, though a lighter schedule, man, some pretty incredible moments away from the four major pro sports.

Uh, so we want to make sure we highlight those as well. US open got underway in New York. So the final major of the Tennessee season, the final grand slam of the Tennessee season, we've got the tour championship coming up in golf.

Did you all see what happened to Brooks Koepcke? Oh, goodness. So yeah, there's a lot happening. We're glad to connect with you. Find us on Twitter after our CBS on our Facebook page as well. Our phone number 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4CBS. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Jerry Sandusky on the Ravens radio network, even though we're highlighting a little bit of the commanders because Sam Howell and that first team offense, they accrued a fair number of snaps and series out there on the field Monday night.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I'm not going to give you stats because they don't matter as much in the preseason and they're certainly not important in terms of evaluating, I think, as much as how Sam looks in terms of comfortability behind the offensive line, making decisions. And we talked about how one of his big assets is that he's quick through his progressions.

Is he efficient? Can he keep the offense moving? And all of those got major thumbs up with this game on Monday night against the Ravens.

It really doesn't mean anything. We did some good things on offense tonight, but there's a lot of stuff we can clean up. So as long as we go back and focus on the negative things and just try to keep getting better and don't worry about any success. Yeah, we had some good drives. We scored a couple of touchdowns, but at the end of the day, it's all about what can we do better? How can we get better as an offense? And I think if we keep that mindset, we'll be all right. I thought he handled that extremely well.

I did. There was a lot of pressure, obviously, and we know how important the quarterback position is in the league and how important it is in this area. We've been looking for one and I think we have an opportunity to have a guy that has a chance to be a really good football player for us. Every year is a new team.

You got to find little things to come together. I don't think we've done a good job of that so far, but tonight was just so much fun to be a part of. Guys were excited.

Guys were cheering for each other no matter what group was out there. The third group came in and had a two-minute drill to win the game and Joe made the kick and it was just so much fun to be a part of and guys are really starting to bond, you know what I'm saying? You can just kind of feel the team growing. I know what you're saying.

That's good. All of that is good and let's see whether or not the commanders can be a revelation this season. One of those teams that will inject itself into the playoffs after not making them a year ago, right? So every year roughly half of the NFL playoff field turns over and if that's the case and they'll be battle-tested theoretically from the NFC beast if we're going on last season.

It's really hard to imagine a scenario, excuse me, where all four teams from a division get in but the NFC is... it's not the ugly red-headed stepchild of the NFL but it's definitely not as strong, it's not as stacked top to bottom as is the AFC so there are opportunities for the field to turn over. As for the Ravens preseason history, the streak has finally come to an end. We were randomly talking about this last night because I couldn't remember whether or not the preseason win streak was still intact. To me this is a joke. I do not even think scores need to be kept during the preseason.

If they are, I don't pay attention to them. I don't know who wins, I don't know who loses. That's not what I'm taking away from the preseason and John Harbaugh may not care about the streak but boy did he get fired up about the preseason in general. I just told our guys you know you're proud of it of course you know you appreciate it but the thing that you're proud of is all those games are mostly just like that. You know preseason games that people want to write about, some of you in here want to write about and say they don't mean anything because you never played the game. You never were out there in a preseason game. You never were fighting for a spot on the team and yet you have the audacity to say that the effort that somebody puts into that to win and fight and win a game like that is meaningless. Tell me I was meaningless out there what you just saw.

If you like football, is that a meaningless football game? You know I can't respect anybody that says that because of the effort these guys put into it. That's what you're proud of. That's why I'm so proud of these guys for the way they fought. It doesn't matter win or loss.

It matters the way they went about their business tonight and I'm proud of them for that always will be. I'm not sure I've ever used the term meaningless because there is meaning in the NFL preseason but not with the scores and not with the stats. That's not where the meaning is found. It's about getting guys comfortable. It's about finding a rhythm.

It's about finding a groove. It's about them learning teammates and new systems and new voices in some cases new coordinators and we've seen a lot of transition. We do every year at the quarterback position but not just that running back and offensive line and wide receivers and then talking about defense same thing. So it's really about getting acclimated and if you are on a team that is fortunate enough to not see a ton of turnover well then maybe you don't need these preseason reps as much but if nothing else it's just a chance to get out there and stretch those same muscles again. But yeah John Harbaugh a little salty.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. I'll be ready for the games to actually count. Meaningless? No.

But I need them to count. I'm ready to start keeping score and to start building our standings. As if the Colts weren't already attempting to dig out of a hole and start fresh brand new coach, new quarterback themselves, excuse me with Anthony Richardson the rookie who was drafted number four overall. Now a new development in the impasse with Jonathan Taylor in that the Colts are allowing he and his agent to seek a trade.

Now this reminds me of Austin Eckler with the Los Angeles Chargers. They said go ahead find a trade partner if that's what you want to do and ultimately it turned out that he stayed with the Chargers and reworked his deal. But Tom Pelissero has the latest on this development for NFL Network. Fundamentally this doesn't change a whole lot at this point except that the other teams now can speak to Taylor's agent without fear of a potential tampering charge. The question remains who is willing to pay Jonathan Taylor on the type of contract that he has been seeking which is toward the top of the running back market could be anywhere 12 to 15 million dollars depending how you slice it and then also be willing to give up significant draft compensation in order to lend him. Go back to last year at the trade deadline the 49ers were willing to give up a package of picks to the Panthers for Christian McCaffrey that included a 2023 second rounder plus three additional picks. My understanding is the Colts would want even more than that for Jonathan Taylor and it's easy to understand why he's 24 years old he was the rushing champ back in 2021 averages five point yards per attempt for his career. Well that's true right that's true that he did have a huge season in 21 but the issue and I keep coming back to this if you truly still need to rehab your ankle months after surgery seven months after the surgery then why would a team be giving up a first round pick for you or why would the Colts be willing to give you a long-term deal if you are still hurt over an ankle injury that should have should have been four weeks at most plus you had surgery early in the offseason why are you still hampered or if you're sending a message then just admit that just say I'm not playing until I get a new deal or until I trade okay that's your prerogative but don't pretend like it's an ankle issue because then you're just hampering your own ability to get what you want you're hampering the potential progress and so I don't really understand the ploy there with Jonathan Taylor if in fact he's perfectly healthy well then other teams need to know that so maybe we start to see him practicing the market itself has been tepid for running backs finally Dalvin Cook and Ezekiel Elliott found Holmes unless I miss something over the weekend I do not think Kareem Hunt has a new deal Josh Jacob's situation still in flux at best and now Jonathan Taylor it's a tough year to gamble on yourself or to bet on yourself if you are an NFL running back so we'll see how this plays out no deal as of Monday night and I wonder if it's because the asking price is too high all right on Twitter a law radio on our Facebook page after hours with Amy Lawrence Joe Mixon speaking of running backs he's talking for the first time with his court case now resolved Bill Belichick gives us the latest on Isaiah Bolden and is it true that he's a Swiftie you are listening to the after hours podcast Burrow will line up in the shotgun even though it's third and less than a yard he'll hand it to Mixon Mixon bursting to the middle to the ten the five touchdown Joe Mixon in the Bengals his third of the day bam bam bam this is after hours with Amy Lawrence it's almost that time can't wait to hear the play-by-play in games that count on Bengals radio Dan Horton Dave Lapham they are one of the most entertaining tandems no no no you are you are and the Bengals are expected to once again continue knocking on that door and challenge the Chiefs in the AFC it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio coming up top of the hour excited to welcome my friend Lindsay Rhodes back to the show you know her from NFL Network long time not just anchor but reporter a personality on NFL Network and she's in LA of course so we'll have to ask about Hurricane Hillary first but she's also big and I mean big deep steeped into fantasy football I've lost count of how many different leagues and different variations of fantasy that she participates in so a couple of things I've heard this crazy theory lately that fantasy football is not nearly as popular anymore that it's peaked because of the advent and the advance of legal sports betting that people are not nearly as excited about fantasy football anymore because now you can actually wager money now there are a lot of people who do wager money on their fantasy football and maybe play daily fantasy as well but because she is so entrenched in the world of fantasy in fact Lindsay's show is daily one to three eastern ten to noon pacific time and she's in LA on Sirius XM fantasy sports radio that's where you can catch her on a daily basis she's so into it and so immersed that I want to get her reaction to that theory second thing I have to ask her and with everything that's happening surrounding the running back position in the NFL this fall or this summer now heading into the fall we're not full yet let's not get crazy Amy I need to know who are the running backs that she's most comfortable drafting that's my question to you right now no we won't open it up or we won't I'm sorry limit it to just running backs we will open it up who right now if you haven't done your fantasy draft or maybe you have and you want to share your strategy who would you draft number one overall maybe give us five players that if you are baking in the top five you will draft number one and just as a side note if you feel like sharing your philosophy is there a running back out there that you would feel comfortable taking in the top five or the top ten I have no clue when I'm drafting if I'm even drafting because I have not heard from the commissioner but Lindsay will give all kinds of great insight about fantasy and drafting and this is a huge weekend for fantasy coming up if you haven't held your draft yet producer Jay when is your draft Friday September 1st Friday September 1st so we're getting down to the nitty-gritty lots of mock drafts out there or if you're practicing with one of the other various leagues leading up to your actual fantasy draft well let's get it Lindsay will be great for that she is a fantasy nerd and proud of it it's after hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio speaking of running backs and yes that was the segue Bengals running back Joe Mixon finally speaking out at training camp on Monday and this was actually his first official press conference since the end of last season now you may remember he had a court case that was hanging over his head a judge has officially ruled that he's not guilty of what was called aggravated menacing so the criminal case is behind him the contract situation is behind him Mixon has made plenty of headlines for incidents accusations all kinds of situations off the field challenges I was telling you that was my word earlier in the show Joe has decided also that he's not going to be speaking as freely as he has in the past he's boycotting that that's his word boycotting certain reporters this year the ones that he thinks are disrespectful the ones that he feels like have not given him a fair shake so now as he gets set to go full speed ahead with the Bengals he has the restructure deal and while it did lower the salary cap charge for the Bengals I think most importantly it didn't put Mixon out on the street and from his perspective considering the number of running backs that were available he might still be a man without a country if that were the case and so when he met with select reporters on Monday he was asked why it was important for him to stay put even if it meant taking more money even if it meant that he wouldn't be financially respected in the same way pretty much because we see all the pieces that we have together we trying to keep everybody here in this here locker room we see the Super Bowl window and as long as we keep everybody together I mean we're right there so hopefully these guys get their deals done and I hope I wish the best one so the Super Bowl window is open we see the Super Bowl window as long as we keep everybody together we're right there and I think that's a general consensus about the Cincinnati Bengals and of course they've got a bunch of guys who will be looking for contract extensions free agent deals obviously Joe burrow has been a major topic of this offseason once the Lamar Jackson domino dropped well and even going back to the Kyler Murray domino last year right so Kyler Murray Lamar Jackson Jalen Hurts these are guys who Justin Herbert these are guys who were getting their extensions setting the market resetting the market if you will where does that leave Joe burrow well he has been not only tight-lipped about his contract extension all that he'll say really is that my team is working on it and I like that he does not want to negotiate in the public eye he doesn't want to take the we'll call it the Kyler Murray route where his agent is out there publicly accusing the team of bad faith negotiations instead he wants it to be private he wants it to be undercover of night until it's finally done but certainly the Justin Herbert deal being the most recent one with two hundred and eighteen million dollars in guaranteed money an average annual salary of fifty two and a half million which is just higher than Lamar Jackson and slightly higher than Jalen Hurts will you know that burrow as the next domino to drop will probably reset the market himself so yeah they've got guys to pay what have we heard from Mike Brown of the Bengals that is we can't pay everyone right T Higgins another piece of that offense who's been in discussions with the team so maybe seeing the writing on the wall a about running backs in general right now in the NFL but be understanding that something's got to give with the Bengals I will respect any athlete who takes less money and we we do have some high-profile examples Tom Brady did this over and over again in his career for the sake of winning and it worked the formula worked he's not hurting for money the man's got plenty as the seven-time Super Bowl champion he's got more money than he'll ever be able to spend theoretically plus he's got endorsement deals and he's got money coming from his his next big career moves so for that reason he believed that I'll take the money that maybe isn't a sign of respect for the fact that I'm one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game but I'd rather win and add to my legacy and Joe Mixon is saying something similar about keeping this group together I didn't made money and you know I'm comfortable where I'm at I mean it's a blessing to be able to receive and try to get more obviously and to help for generations for head start for generations but I mean for me I feel good I'm comfortable I'm just glad we were able to you know get something done and for you know like I said for them guys I just hope they you know able to make things happen and get their deals done so he's under contract through the end of next season and has already indicated that he wants to finish his career in Cincinnati and when it comes to being a running back there's a shelf life one that very often is shorter than most other positions on the offensive side of the ball with that in mind he didn't want to have to go somewhere and start over he didn't want to make a break he didn't want to see the end of his contract come more quickly than what he's already signed up for which is through 24 incidentally that's me too through 24 and so I will respect this move by him but I also think it was very business savvy because of everything else that's happening around the league and then there's the matter of his court case and finally getting back on the field with that resolved it's a great thing you know just to be able to come in like I say it's year seven for me and that's a big deal at the end of the day is seven with all this with the same organization and it's a blessing and I you know I plan on being here for the rest of my career and hopefully just can extend it as long as possible as long as I'm doing what I should be doing and like I said it's a blessing to be here and very thankful Bengals are happy to have him obviously and in this world where it's all about chasing the Chiefs I love that that's my moniker for the 2023 NFL season chasing the Chiefs do you guys remember the old TV show chasing Amy I never watched it but obviously loved the title no one's chasing Amy but it was a catchy title chasing the Chiefs what do you think for 2023 chasing the Chiefs I like that chasing Amy that's a movie right oh was it I'm sorry Kevin Smith okay I'll take your word for it it's a good movie all right so Joe Mixon back with the Bengals Dalvin Cook's got a home Zeke has a home we've seen some of the other running backs on the franchise tags decide okay I'll play and then I'll make some more noise when the season is done Saquon Barkley obviously Tony Pollard still no Josh Jacobs or Jonathan Taylor resolutions we'll talk about that with Lindsay Rhodes also we're asking you who do you take right now if a top five pick comes your way in your fantasy drafts on Twitter after hours CBS it's after hours on CBS Sports Radio