After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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That's betterhelp.com slash positive. We are quickly approaching Labor Day weekend and then what we term the stretch run in Major League Baseball, the final month of the regular season. Man, it is a marathon, a marathon, a marathon, and then boom, it's a sprint to the finish line. And we've got some great division races, including what is developed into a dogfight in the AL West. It is the hottest team in baseball on offense.

Their numbers are off the charts, even as they've won 12 of their last 13, and this time against the Oakland A's for whom they allow zero runs. Get to know the Seattle Mariners, first place in the AL West. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio.

You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio. If you haven't seen the strange situation, Ronald Acuna confronted by two fans as he's in right field in Denver, Coors Field, just a few hours ago. Scary, just getting bear hugged and then knocked over by fans.

That's on my Twitter and we're always glad to connect with you on our social media or on our YouTube channel. Right now to talk some Mariners, we're pleased to welcome Daniel Kramer, who covers the team and the sport for MLB.com. And this game at home yet again, Daniel, the players have talked about the electricity in their own ballpark. So what's it like to attend a Seattle Mariners home game right now?

Yeah, it's wild, Amy. The crowds have just really started to come out really over the course of the second half. I mean, it's always been a really strong baseball city here, especially when the team's winning.

It's beautiful at this time of year, but we had 37,434 in the house tonight, which is the largest Monday crowd at T-Mobile Park since April 10th, 2017, which was Seattle's home opener that season. And it was against the last place Oakland club tonight, which kind of tells you about where things are at here in the Pacific Northwest and all the excitement around this team. They're showing really no signs of stopping either. Just kind of steamrolling their way offensively through everybody they're playing right now and playing with all the confidence in the world. You're not just hearing it in the clubhouse and how they're talking about it, but you're seeing it out on the field too. So definitely an exciting time in Seattle with everything that's going on. They are right now the hottest offensive team in the game.

Why? What has gotten into the Mariners, Daniel? Yeah, I think a big part of it is just that they've made better swing decisions. Early in the year, it was just really challenging because they would create a lot of traffic and they lacked that big clutch hit. Scott Service has talked about this a lot, but not really seizing the moment and understanding that the pressure is on the pitcher in those sequences. And you've just kind of seen an overhauled approach to where now they recognize that it's their time to strike.

So I think that's been the key of it. You've started to see primary run producers like Teosco Hernandez, Eugenio Suarez, Cal Raleigh heat up. But I mean, the biggest name is obviously Julio Rodriguez and what he's doing right now. If you look at his numbers, they just go as he goes. In wins, he has a 996 OPS.

In losses, he has a 574. I mean, it's just night and day, the production when they're winning versus when they're losing. And I think it's just kind of rubbed off on his teammates too. There's a pass the baton mentality when they all go out there and they know that Julio is performing. He just sets the tone near the top of the order. So guys just kind of all clicking at once right now. Is that a little bit precarious though? A position to be in where so much of what the Mariners do and their success is tied to one guy?

It could be, I guess. But as he started to heat up, he's been arguably the best player in baseball, at least in the American League over the course of August. And he's able to put it together for an extended stretch. Early in the year, you kind of saw him pulling ground balls into the dirt so often.

The strikeout numbers were really high, but he made a mechanical adjustment not too long ago, about a month ago, which is coincidentally when some of this stuff started to turn. Getting crouched a little bit more into his lower body more, stance is a little bit wider and it gets him into the hitting position much more seamlessly. And it's allowed him to get the ball in the air more and just his raw athletic talents. When he makes contact, he hits the ball as hard as anybody in the league and it's no longer going into the ground, it's going into the air.

And more often than not, it's clearing the fence. So to answer your question, I think it's also correlated, like I was saying, to the rest of his teammates. JP Crawford has stepped up into the lead off role and really thrived in that spot. He's got the fourth highest on base percentage since the second half at 440. He hit another homer tonight. He's starting to sow some slug in his game that we just haven't really seen from him before. So having him as a tone setter to set up Julio. And then like I said, just the mentality from the other guys, the supporting cast, and a lot of them have some elite power too.

It's just kind of all clicking right now. And one thing they say in baseball is hitting can be contagious. And you're certainly seeing it with the Seattle Mariners. Red hot August for the Mariners who are now in first place in the AOS. Latest in the season that they have held solo possession of first place in 20 years.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. We're spending a few minutes with Daniel Kramer who covers the team for MLB.com. You know, as you look at this recent hot streak of theirs, the majority of the wins have come against teams with losing records. The Royals, the A's tonight, also the White Sox. However, what stands out is a sweep of the Astros in Houston. How significant that series for this team, Daniel?

I think it was very significant because that venue has been really their house of horrors over the past four or five years. A big part of that was related to they were going through a rebuild at the time that the Astros were an absolute juggernaut in the American League. So, you know, that definitely correlated to their wins lost record in Houston.

But even when they started to turn things around in recent years, I don't really know if it was a mentality thing or just it would get in their heads. But anytime they would go to Houston, they would struggle. I mean, even last year in the postseason, they played the Astros very tensely in both those games. They were right there in it leading late, but they kind of stumbled into losses and that led to a three-game sweep. Very close, very competitive, but ultimately a sweep at the end of their season. So I think going into Minute Maid Park, completing a sweep, they're 8-2 against the Astros this year.

Not just proving to the rest of the league that they can beat, you know, the defending champs, the juggernauts of the division over the past five, six, seven years, but also proving it to themselves. You know, they still have three games against the Astros here in Seattle to finish the season in the final week, which should be interesting, but they've already clinched the season series, so they will hold head-to-head. That sweep in Houston was huge and a big part of what's gone right for them this month.

We know that the offense is leading the way right now for Seattle as they've erased, what, a seven and a half game deficit in the span of the last two weeks. But how does their pitching stack up when you think about maybe a playoff series? Pitching is so important come October, so how does their pitching line up?

Well that's the thing, Amy, is like they flirted with 500 pretty much through the first four months of the season. They were in 500 23 days out of the year, which remains an MLB high, all the way up to when they were 50 and 50. But the conviction and how they were going to turn things around was that they believed so much in their pitching that if their bats could finally pick them up, they would get on the run that we're seeing now. So their staff, though, is statistically one of the best in the majors. And it starts at the top with Luis Castillo, who is really putting together an outside, maybe not even an outside, like a full force bid for the American League.

Cy Young, he's right up there in innings, strikeouts, ERA at the top of the league. And then you have these young guys like George Kirby, Logan Gilbert. The way that they can roll out their rotation in a best of five series would be really favorable. And behind those three, you're seeing guys like Bryce Miller and Brian Wu, rookies who have come in as injury replacements for veterans Marco Gonzalez and Robbie Ray.

And they've just picked up the baton and really run with it. They're going to have some workload limitations down the stretch. Wu pitched tonight, six innings, but on an abbreviated outing, given that he was so efficient with his pitch count. But if you have to move some of those guys into the bullpen for shorter stint roles, that's something that they would be more than capable of doing and more than comfortable doing. You saw them do it with George Kirby last year. But yeah, to answer your question, one of the most formidable starting rotations in the league that I think makes them really built for October if they were to get into the dance. And then you supplement it with a bullpen that's still finding its footing a little bit after the trade of Paul Siewald. They've got some leverage guys that have just really pure raw stuff, Andres Munoz and Matt Brash, but are also experiencing a little bit of some hiccups in terms of taking on the ninth inning role.

That said, they've each racked up a few saves here and some high leverage moments. And they've got another month to work with to kind of work out those kinks and keep getting used to those opportunities. So it's one of the best pitching staffs in the majors and a group that it's kind of built their blueprint around as they've gone through the past three or four years of this rebuild has really been around their arms and strike throwing.

So if they were to get into the dance, they really like their odds based on the personnel that they have lined up. We know that they ended the playoff drought. There was so much made of the fact that they finally got into the postseason last fall, but it was as a wild card. How much does it matter to them that they're in position to win a division title? I think they're very cognizant of it.

And the one thing that stood out to me in talking to these guys over the past few days is they're just so determined to keep their focus ahead and keep the task at hand on their mind and not let up. I was talking to Julio Rodriguez yesterday and asked him about the significance of it. They haven't won a division title since he was still in diapers, literally a year old, if that.

So the significance and what stood out to me, what he said was just like, we're going to control what we can control. They understand that this is going to be a really close division race down to the wire. I mean, Houston and Texas are only back one game.

They only pass them this past weekend. They play those two teams each of their final 10 games of the year. I mean, it's all going to come down to that final week and a half. And they're cognizant of it. But what he was telling me was just like staying in control of what you can and going out and continuing to win games because we don't want to be scoreboard watching.

We want to seize the moment rather than surveil. So they're cognizant of it for sure. And that kind of confidence has been really contagious within the clubhouse over the past month. Daniel Kramer is with us from Seattle after another Mariners win, this time a shutout of the Oakland A's.

That's 12 victories in their last 13 tries. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio in early July. Seattle had a chance to host the All-Star festivities. What was that like, Daniel, with all the buzz in baseball and all the superstars there in Seattle?

Yeah, I think they did a really good job with it. I mean, at this time of year out here, it's absolutely beautiful. Sun-soaked skies. You got the water.

It stays light out so late. It was my first All-Star game. I've been covering baseball for nine seasons and it was my first one and it happened to be in my backyard. So it's a really exciting time. But just seeing the way that the Mariners and the organization made it a truly Seattle event and really showed off the allure of the Pacific Northwest and this beautiful ballpark that they have here.

It was special, for sure, and I think they were really proud of it and, you know, one of the Midsummer Classics to remember, for sure. And the team itself had started to put things together, had started to get above 500 and kind of leave that record in the rearview mirror. So the last two months, how much fun are they having as a group? I think they're having fun, for sure, but the way that they're talking about it is that they feel that they're playing to the capabilities that they've always thought they had just with all the preparation that they put in. Like I said, the pitching staff that had carried them in the first half. So you're starting to see just this growing conviction in what they're doing and believing in themselves to what got them to this point and, you know, having the faith that if they keep doing, if they keep following their processes and keep staying in tune with what got them here, even during those tough four months to start the year, that there will be a strong finish here over the final month, potentially beyond into October. Is that the expectation then, that they're starting a playoff streak?

I would think so. I mean, the talent that's here, it's someone's young talent, too. You know, it starts with Julio Rodriguez. He's 22 years old.

He's locked up to the mega contract extension. You know, he's going to be here for at least another decade plus. And then just like all those young pitchers that I was mentioning, Kirby, Gilbert, Miller, Wu. And then just the nucleus that they've kind of built around here of young foundational homegrown talent that, you know, they've operated on a draft developed and trade model with this rebuild over the past few years. And you're starting to see the fruits of it for sure when they ended the drought and potentially contending to this division title.

But they also think that it's sustainable, something that they want to keep here and keep long term. So nice when a plan works out the way that it's intended, even if it does take a couple decades to end a playoff streak. All right, you can find Daniel on Twitter at dkramer, K-R-A-M-E-R, with an underscore after the fact. Covers the Mariners and baseball for mlu.com. Really good to connect with you. The best story in baseball right now, Daniel. Thank you so much for a few minutes.

Yep, thanks so much for having me. The Mariners are a team to watch and as Daniel points out, they languished and kind of lazed around at.500 for months until they finally got their act together. Now, if Julio Rodriguez is the only guy that you feel like can power you to the playoffs, it reminds me a little bit of the Aaron Judge situation in New York. What happens when pitchers opposing teams stop throwing to him and he doesn't have the option of hitting a home run? It's kind of what we saw with Otani when he was on a hot streak, when the Angels were dangerous earlier in the summer. So there's got to be more offense than just one guy. But yes, what Julio Rodriguez is doing right now is historic and the megawatt smile and the excitement, the adrenaline that goes with it. 37,000 there at T-Mobile Park.

That's incredible. So do not, do not overlook the Mariners or do it at your own peril because last year's postseason trip certainly gave them some experience and a knowledge of what to expect and knowledge of what to expect and how to prepare for October. On Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page. Excited to be connecting with you on this Monday night. Oh, mostly excited to get Monday night in the rearview mirror and move forward, sail forward into our Tuesday. A little bit of college football. If you haven't heard Jim Harbaugh rail against the system that is right now, we're going to get to that coming up and then we'll have some QB news a little bit later on in Arizona.

A bit of a surprise. Also Kelly Stafford talking about her husband Matthew as he tries to get back into the flow of things and make the Rams relevant again in 2023. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Couldn't be more proud. Just came, I knew the team was focused and determined and they have been all season and this is a locker room of heroes.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Jim Harbaugh is always a headline. He's always a lightning rod and this season, start of this season is no different because he opened his Monday news conference with six minutes. Six minutes talking about how student athletes should be getting a piece of the pie when it comes to the revenue in college football. Now I have no idea why we, why Producer J, do we not have this on mic if it was a news conference? This is from the Wolverines football page so. Maybe there's somebody else out there who has him actually on mic.

So it's a, it's a tougher listen but if you crank up your radio dial or you turn up the volume on your phone you'll be able to hear him a little bit better. So this is something that he has advocated for recently. So Jim Harbaugh gets on a soapbox whenever he has the chance to talk about the athletes getting paid and he says primarily it's because he looks at what the tv networks and the conferences are negotiating and the deals. The millions and millions and millions of dollars that are being paid in rights fees from the networks to be able to carry games. Big 10, SEC, not so much Pac-12 but even ACC and now Big 12 and so he is trying to take this chance again to push through and to make it more prominent this idea that athletes are not getting compensated enough and you got to kind of take NIL out of it but they are some of them are receiving money that way but you know the majority of athletes are not making money on their name, image and likeness. What Jim Harbaugh is advocating for is them to be paid for playing.

So NIL is technically not pay for play though many times it come across comes across that way. What he wants is for the conferences to share the wealth. He doesn't think the conferences should be keeping all of this money instead the athletes who are the ones that are on the fields should be accessing. This is Matt Spiegel of 670 The Score in Chicago and my podcast The PBP Voices of Baseball is all about the art and craft of play-by-play. Catch up on episodes with Joe Davis, Joe Buck and many more.

Then something crazy happened along the way. I did a weekend of Cubs Cardinals on the radio so now conversations are enriched with feedback and advice from Jason Benetti, Boog Shambi and others to come. The PBP Voices of Baseball. I bring you the people who bring you the game.

Listen on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Some of the money too. I want them to be treated with the respect and the dignity that they deserve. What I don't understand is how the NCAA, television networks, conferences, universities and coaches can continue to pull in millions and in some cases billions of dollars in revenue of the efforts of college student athletes across the country without providing enough opportunity to share in the ever-increasing revenues. When student athletes call it a game, corporate types call it a business. When the student athletes call it a business, corporate types call it a game. So his point is this is a business, right? If it's a business then the athletes should be allowed a share of the profits. And he also goes on to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion.

These are obviously very big buzzwords. Diversity, equity, inclusion. How come that doesn't apply to the student athletes? Why can't diversity, equity, inclusion be applied to revenue sharing?

Which gosh is a big phrase. It's a buzzword and phrase in pro sports where the leagues divvy up the money they get and they spread it out among their member teams. Think about Major League Baseball. They've got luxury taxes. They've got revenue sharing. All that's spread among the 30 member clubs.

But you have to be willing to open it up so that it's a completely different system. It's no longer amateur athletics. And again NIL, it's a perk for the players but it does not apply to the majority of student athletes out there.

A question that I would love to pose to Harbaugh in his pay for play plan. Does this include the non-revenue sports? Are we talking about every athlete, every student athlete sharing in the wealth and getting a piece of the pie? Or are we just talking about football?

Are we just talking about baseball? Because those are the sports that have the conferences negotiating tv packages, right? So it's men's college basketball, some for women's college basketball but not the same rights fees. It's men's college hoops and it's football. Those are the two revenue producing sports at the college level.

Every now and then you'll get a sport because it's so good like say Oklahoma State in golf. There are a few that might be paying their own way, right? They might be paying for themselves because of the advertising, the sponsors and the fact that they're continually winning. And maybe some of those athletes get NIL deals as well. But primarily it's football and men's college hoops. Though that's where the big tv money is.

So I'd like to know are we talking about just football and basketball players or are we talking about spreading it out among all college athletes? It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio and Harbaugh kind of goes on to talk about how paying players off these these humongous tv contracts would just be it would just be another wrinkle or another change another tweak to what has become a system that we never could have envisioned say 10 years ago. And that is Amazon, Apple. Remember it was Apple that last made the bid to carry Pac-12 football games this year.

Amazon, Apple TV, Peacock, Paramount Plus, ESPN Plus, these are all streaming services. So Harbaugh's point is, hey you've got major corporations that are lined up to pay big money to streaming outlets, to internet, to websites. So if you can adopt revenue sharing models to accommodate streaming, why can't you adopt different revenue sharing models that would then include the athletes? In my opinion not it's still not what I want to see in college sports.

I like the NIL because these athletes now can make money if they are superstars or if they become household names. I still am leery because it does feel like it's pay for play. When you've got a high profile high school quarterback who is promised, and I'm just spitballing here, a hundred thousand dollars for his name image and likeness before he ever steps on campus and maybe it's a hundred thousand dollars at one school or in one in one city one college town and then it's only fifty thousand in another place, that's a big perk. It may not technically be pay for play but in a high school athlete's mind what are you weighing? You're weighing the money.

All other things being equal you're considering the money. And so the boosters or the corporate sponsors, the partners of these universities who are willing to front the money are essentially telling the athletes we'll pay you. We guarantee you this money if you come here and play. Like I said it it all washes out to pay for play.

And so Harbaugh is on his soapbox. I don't think it can be done equitably. Again if you're only going to pay college and or football and college basketball players, it creates a major disparity and there already is one but at least the money is available, the NIL money is available to any college athlete, though the majority would go to men's college hoop and football. I guess that the one thing that I would say is a possible deterrent to having such like disparity between the haves and the have-nots. And this is something that Nick Saban talks about a lot where there are schools that can make sure they've got partners who are paying the athletes as they come in under the guise of NIL. But the one thing I could say is if you do make it equitable across the board where you take some of that tv revenue money and it goes to athletes then maybe it levels the playing field because in the conference every athlete would have a certain sum of money. If you could work it out that way where every athlete in football, in men's college basketball, if that's how they do it, is paid a certain amount of money then maybe you don't have the the same pitch, the same recruiting pitch, where you don't have the same pitch, where schools can offer more money to athletes than say their rival school who doesn't have access to the same corporate sponsors or business partners or boosters if you will.

They're called boosters. Yeah there's a if you make it equitable the problem is as long as there's NIL there's always an advantage for those schools that have rich boosters or very active boosters. It's wading into muddy water and since they opened up transfer portals which I actually appreciate for the college athletes and they added NIL it feels like the wild wild west but if Harbaugh has his way well they'll be paying athletes even more. We are actually getting set to go into week one of college football so last weekend week zero with USC winning with Notre Dame getting its first victory so now we start week one in college football and pretty soon the defense of back-to-back national titles is the challenge for Kirby Smart or potentially a three-peat that's never happened before in college football. We'll get to that coming up a little bit later on but we had some surprising news in Arizona so if not Colt McCoy then who for the Cardinals? It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence you can find me on Twitter A Law Radio our Facebook page too always good to connect with you it's our Monday night into a Tuesday morning.

Always good to get the first one under well under your feet and in your rearview mirror. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. When you look I look further down the line 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 I can't really look that far ahead because I gotta take it one day at a time.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Definitely unlikely and now we know not even remotely close Kyler Murray will not be available for the season opener and in fact he will be on the pup list for the first month of the NFL regular season and pup does not refer to the cute animal that we love so much oh like the cute animal that pooped on my floor when he first got into my house on Sunday afternoon. My friend Chris heard me talking about the fact that his dog Jax decided that he would make my upstairs landing his personal potty and he was mortified even more mortified he said I'm even more embarrassed now than I was when it actually happened because you told the world oh come on first of all it's a dog it's not you it's not like you pooped on my floor the dog pooped on my floor and also whatever it's just poop everybody poops it's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio back to Kyler Murray I'm sure he poops too he will not be activated if he doesn't he's he's not going to be effective on the football field he will not be activated off the physically unable to perform list by tomorrow or Tuesday I guess depending upon where you are 12 hours from now is the deadline for any player to be activated off the pup list meaning that you are eligible to play week number one if you do not get off the pup list before the deadline 12 hours from now you have to miss at least four games so Kyler Murray it doesn't sound like he's coming off the list uh Kyler Murray barring some last second move will miss at least the first month of the regular season and then the way that it goes and these are kind of new rules for the NFL once you're activated off that list you have three weeks to practice and get on the 53-man roster otherwise you're back to the pup list and you don't come off of it again you're banished to the pup list for the rest of the season so it's critical right and teams recognize coming out of the gate they need 53 guys they can count on now you're not going to see 53 guys from week to week on the field but you need access to the healthiest and the best options you don't want to come out of the gate and go old for four although it's a distinct possibility for the Arizona Cardinals the thing is by keeping Kyler Murray on the publicist they can use that roster spot for someone else that way he's completely healthy because chances are if he's not healthy he might stay on the sidelines he might not be active the entire time so in that first month keep him on the publicist give him a little more time to heal and that way and that way you can use the roster spot for someone else that might be able to help you and it could be a different position right d-line linebacker quarterback nickelback kicker who knows whatever you need it for special teams but then when he's active he's got three weeks three weeks to be ready to go so that gives him essentially almost two months to be full speed for them to be able to use him at quarterback i can imagine even if he's not ready let's just say eight weeks isn't enough eight weeks of the season is not enough for him to be ready to start they'll probably keep him on the 53-man roster because at some point he will be ready now here's the kicker oh not like kicker as an actual kicker but here's the kicker the hmm here's the quirky wrinkle to the story everyone's talking about colt mccoy being the starter for the cardinals and yet he got released on monday and this is as teams are making their cuts down to 53 maybe the writing on the wall because josh dobbs was brought into arizona jonathan gannon making these moves late to try to figure out what to do with that qb spot mine and i aren't going to bring anyone in here that's that the character doesn't check out first um he's extremely intelligent character is through the roof um he's actually a guy that we looked at signing in the off season so we kind of did a lot of work on him back then and uh when it became available the transaction became available we started out with josh dobbs and then we got decided to make a move so josh dobbs now part of the arizona cardinals and colt mccoy gets bumped uh colt is one of those guys who while he has started a handful of games it's generally for guys who get injured he's been oh gosh four teams now in the league maybe more than that so i have to look it up he's a journeyman but i respect him because a he's always ready when he's called on he's always ready he understands the role and the responsibilities of a backup quarterback and he goes out there he's he's got a lower ceiling of course he's lower risk but he's lower reward but he is a leader and he's a veteran and he certainly understands the fight to stay on a roster but the cardinals have cut him loose he's got to find the new home just like with every decision we look at uh you know the full body of work um evaluate our guys um production goes into that and uh felt like it was the best decision for the team to move forward with the guys that we have in the room um to help us win a football game in other words i'm not telling you anything only that we evaluated his full body of work and decided we'd rather go with josh dobbs and it's the cryptic comments from gainin i try not to read between the lines when it comes to football coaches and player moves or really any coaches and player moves because he talked about having the character that fit the locker room and fit what they want for their locker room but colt mccoy has character colt mccoy is widely respected around the nfl no one's going to say a bad word about colt mccoy you might diss the way he plays football or the fact that he's not super dynamic whatever it is but no one is going to talk about his character and whether or not he fits in a locker room so he was in arizona for 21 and 22. you know he started some games for kyler murray when murray was unavailable he spent 20 with the new york giants before that he was in washington one season in san francisco which i completely forgot and started his career with the cleveland browns what are you ryan fits patrick he's working on taking that record away from ryan fits patrick the one where ryan has started for started for nine different nfl teams i don't think he threw a touchdown for washington but the record was starting for nine different nfl franchises at the quarterback position he had thrown touchdowns for eight of them but if i remember correctly did not throw a touchdown last year for the the commanders when he started week one and remember and remember he got hurt right away and only played in week one what do you got jay so get this he's actually the first nfl player to have both a passing and a rushing touchdown with eight different teams all right but nine teams overall right because washington counts but he didn't score for washington gosh colt mccoy he's in he's encroaching on ryan fits patrick's territory it's after hours here on cbs sports radio yeah for jonathan gannon and the arizona cardinals i think it could be a tough row to hoe this season and it's not so much because the nfc west is overwhelming i wouldn't say that but you're starting the season with josh dobbs and you're talking about a nfc west that does include two playoff teams from last year so the niners who've got brought purty healthy and then the seahawks who were above 500 and were a wild card team ah i don't know about the rams although maybe it bodes well for them that they lost all three preseason games wait until you hear what matthew stafford's wife kelly had to say on her podcast about matt's struggle with a young rams roster that looks almost nothing like what it did when he got hurt last year other than cooper cup it's great when you've got cooper cup as your safety net and as your number one target but yeah so much has changed so much has changed we're halfway through thanks for hanging out with us after hours with amy lawrence on cbs sports radio