After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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Shop in store or visit Ashley.com today. I feel like saying to you, that's the sound. That's the sound that lets you know it's almost Friday.

Except that's also the sound that lets you know it's Sunday night and the sound that lets you know it's the hump show. So I can't really say that. I don't know if we should, in the middle of our Thursday night show open, drop some Ric Flair woos. Something like that. Maybe.

Maybe. We need to get a little creative with how we introduce our show on a Thursday night. See what I'm saying? That's what I'm talking about because it is Thursday night football and Thursday night week two. And Thursday night sprint to the baseball postseason with a couple of critical clashes and Thursday night with more Dion making noise. Do you know?

This is what I thought about on Thursday. Do you know that they tape all of these huddles with Dion yelling at his team? How organic can it be if there's a camera around all the time? It's a little bit like hard knocks when you know there's a camera there.

And I get it. The camera can be, after a while, a teammate, if you will. It can be ignored.

So you kind of forget that it's there. Except have you noticed every single one of his rants, his motivational speeches, all of his antics, they're all on camera. How?

Why? Something tells me that, yeah, it's all about putting on a show. Santa don't have time. He does love the microphone. You know how people say, oh, that girl is camera friendly or, well, I guess the opposite, camera shy or that gentleman, you know, he eats the camera.

Yeah, well, when it comes to Dion, Dion and the camera are like conjoined twins. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Do you believe in that? I'm telling you, the buzz just keeps getting louder from Boulder. He is determined to make some noise. And as much as it may not be an act or the type of leadership that appeals to some college students, there are going to be a lot of people who are seeing it, attracted by it. Potential recruiting visits could happen for Colorado simply because Dion Sanders is making a lot of noise. Don't underestimate how important this is. As Colorado is changing conferences, obviously, as he's getting all this airtime, as there's camera and video segments everywhere. Oh, yeah, it's calculated.

It may be organic. I'll give him that. I'm not saying he's faking it because this has been Dion his entire life, at least the part that we know. But and it seems like his son has a similar approach and a similar attitude, right?

He's definitely his father's son. But it's calculated. It may not be fake. Again, I don't think it's fake.

I think this is Dion, but it's definitely calculated. And here we go into another football weekend with both college and the NFL on tap, baby. We're glad to have you with us. Hello or hello. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

Please find me on Twitter. A-LOL radio. In fact, before we get too much deeper into the show, we will have our week two game of the week poll. The After Hours game of the week.

What is it? I know that some of you will point to, say, the AFC North couple clashes inside that division, and they're always spicy. Others of you may point to the Jets in Dallas.

I don't know. Without Aaron Rodgers, I'm not sure that's a game of the week. Well, it would be a game of the week if the Jets and Zach Wilson beat the Cowboys in Arlington. Oi, Jay's face.

He's like, oh. What else? Miami at New England on Sunday night. That's a doozy. Kansas City at Jacksonville for obvious reasons. Both playoff teams last year. Huh? I got one.

Late on me. Let's hear it. Bengals, Ravens. Yes, AFC North for sure. But we can't choose both games from the AFC North, can't we? Oh my gosh, the Bengals looked so bad last week. I'm not sure what's worse, Burroughs haircut or the Bengals offense.

Hey, he's engaged as long as his fiance likes it. Niners and Rams? Eh. Buzz or no buzz? I would say there's less buzz about that right now.

Monday night is New Orleans and Carolina. Can I interest anyone in some Bryce Young on national TV for the first time? This is solely producer Jay's responsibility.

It's a new thing in 2023. Jay gets to pick the four candidates for game of the week, but if I don't like them, I get to complain. That's just kind of how it goes.

It's the benefit of having your name on the show. That's fair. That's a fair trade.

I'll take that. Oh my gosh. By the way, Jay, I almost baked this week, but I just didn't have time. So sorry. Devastating. What were you going to make?

It is devastating. I was going to make cookies because my nieces and my sister-in-law are spending Friday afternoon, well, Friday evening and all day Saturday. I guess they'll stay for most of the weekend. They'll leave Sunday morning, but it's bridesmaids weekend.

It's exciting. I know we're going to look for dresses because they need dresses. And we're also, now my nieces are big into makeup. I'm not huge into makeup. I'll wear a little bit, but not only when I'm working or at church, something like that.

I don't really wear it a lot. Oh my gosh. Bob's seen me without makeup more than he's seen me with makeup actually. And he says, I don't need it. Oh, that's right. He's got Rose colored glasses. Well, he doesn't wear glasses, but you know what I'm saying? So anyway, the girls are coming up.

My nieces and my sister-in-law are standing up with me at the wedding. And so we have to find, I'm not going to give any more details about the color or I already tell you the color, you know, the color because I don't know if you have actually really, I thought I showed it to you. The theme of the color?

I don't think you've had. The theme? There's no theme. It's just a color. It's a primary color.

And since the wedding's the week before Christmas. Oh goodness. Bob tried to convince me that we should have red as the color. Nope. Red and green. There's no red. He said, what about burgundy?

Nope. No burgundy. No maroon. There'll be no reds at the wedding. Anyway, it's the opposite of red actually.

Well, no, it's not really the opposite, but it's not in the red family. So I guess that'll be part of the wedding edition of Ask Amy Anything, which we're going to do next week. You guys, next week, are you excited? Every time I reveal some wedding details, I get more and more tweets and Facebook posts.

I swear to you, people care nothing about what I have to say when it comes to anything other than the wedding and NFL right now. But what if I tell you the latest Penny story? Oh, poor thing.

My poor pens. Anyway, Penny and a really dramatic, traumatic day in my backyard. I'll explain coming up. Jay's been waiting for the story.

He just knows that there was a project in the backyard. That's all I know. That's all you know. So yes, we're going to look ahead to the football weekend. We're going to keep you updated on what's happening in the Major League Baseball playoff push. Though, to be fair, not every game matters now. We're to that point where not every game has the same implications. We will have your after hours game of the week poll fairly soon here. We're going to dive into Thursday night football. And we thought we would, just for fun, get off of the beaten path.

Not that we'll spend a ton of time on it, because we do have a lot of football preview to get to. But did you, you know how much we love the whole live thing? Did you see the two latest headlines coming out of the golf world? Kind of interesting, actually. I feel like something fishy is going on with the live PGA merger. I think it's a sham, you guys. I don't think it's real.

Hit live. I think it might have been a stunt, but now Capitol Hill is on to them. But I think Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA, agreed behind closed doors. This is why it had to be behind closed doors.

Agreed behind closed doors. I'm all about this conspiracy theory with the piff. It's just so much fun to spit it with the personal investment fund of the Saudis. The Saudis wanted more publicity for them, their money and the live tour.

I hate live. The PGA wanted a payoff. Jay Monahan needs money. He needed an infusion of cash. There's no agreement other than, oh, we're going to work together, whatever that means.

So nothing's changed at all. Capitol Hill's starting to get antsy. We need some paperwork. We want to know what's happening.

Have you even filed your papers yet? Blah, blah, blah with the SEC. See, I'm telling you, it's a shambles and it's a sham. It was a payoff. That's all it is. It was a backroom deal to get some extra money for the PGA tour.

And in order to explain it, they pretended like there was a merger. That's it. Then Jay Monahan, because he is keeping this dirty secret, this dark, dirty secret, he gets sick. He has mental health problems.

He goes through anxiety. It's just a payoff. It was a bribe. Wait, did I really just accuse the PGA commissioner of bribery? It's just my personal conspiracy theory that there's not really an agreement. There's not really a merger. Nope. They risked the wrath of the PGA golfers initially this season, knowing they were going into a bunch of majors to be able to say, oh yeah, don't worry.

There's going to be some extra cash. Have everyone get mad at Monahan. Remember this happened. It was not that long before the US Open, right? It was the week before the US Open, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong, but I feel like that rings a bell in June. It was right before the US Open. Yeah, see, right before Father's Day weekend, right before the US Open. And so I feel like Monahan strategically timed it, dropped the bomb. They went into the US Open, which then attracted the attention. He had his anxiety.

He had to get away. The money's coming in, but there's really no merger. And now, two majors later, nobody really cares anymore except Capitol Hill. Watch out. They're on to you. I'm on to you.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Okay, should we just get the first half out of the way initially? It was U-G-L-Y. You ain't got no alibi.

You're ugly. Brandon Powell is back from Minnesota. Seppas takes it in the end zone, lets it go.

It is a spiral. Coming up is Powell, who takes it. Oh, no, he's moving to his left across the 50, 45, 40, humbles the football, and the Eagles have it. Gotter motions to the backfield, 3rd and 16. Jalen Hurts fires it over the middle. Intercepted by the Minnesota Vikings at about the 35-yard line. Theo Jackson, with his first National Football League interception, has turned over the favored Eagles. And with Philadelphia leading 3-0, the Vikings have the ball. First and 10 Vikings at their own 35 following the interception. On first down, it is a handoff to Madison, and Madison fumbles the football, and the Eagles have it back. He fumbles it, I believe.

It's Evans on the ball. So much fumbling, fumbling, bumbling, stumbling, crumbling the hearts of the Vikings, and I guess initially the Eagles too, combined three turnovers in the first half. An interception, a couple of fumbles. Though the one that happened right before halftime, that was the one that attracted a lot of attention.

If you're watching on Amazon Prime, or you've heard the talk about it, you've seen it now, we'll give you the Vikings version because this may have been the turning point to Thursday Night Football. 30 yards with 33 seconds to go in the first half. Excellent catch by Jefferson, first and goal, Minnesota.

Wow, what a great job. That's a questionable thing. I don't know if they want to look at this and see if he fumbled it because if he fumbled it out of bounds in the end zone, it's a touchback and it's Philadelphia's ball. That's exactly what happened.

Pete Bursich with Paul Allen on Vikings Radio, they nailed it, and they explained it well on Amazon Prime. Initially didn't look like that, just because you're going at full speed and you don't see the slow-mo, but Justin Jefferson definitely lost possession of the football before he crossed the goal line or before he reached his arm out across the goal line. He lost possession of the football and because it went over the pylon, which if he has possession, it's a touchdown, right? Anything to do with the pylon is a touchdown. So it goes over the pylon, but because it wasn't a touchdown and he didn't have possession and because he fumbled it over the pylon, you know the rule. People hate this rule.

It's an automatic touchback. People hate that rule. People inside the NFL hate that rule.

I suppose they're, I don't want to be the, what's that? Oh, devil's advocate. I don't want to be the devil's advocate necessarily, but I can understand why. Because if you fumble it, you lose possession of it, and it goes into the end zone, well, number one, you don't, where are you going to put the football?

Number one. Number two, I understand why the league has it set up so that there would be a penalty for that. It's just, it's a stiff penalty.

It's a very stiff penalty. But don't play loosey goosey with the football near the pylon and near the end line, goal line is really the moral of the story. But yeah, that was a tough one because it was a fumble right before the half. And then, as I say, the turning point, because the Eagles scored, it was just a field goal, but it put them up by six at the break, which by the way, they won by six. And then coming back out of the locker room, it's the Vikings ball only to have them fumble again. And so on back to back possessions around halftime, the Vikings fumble two of their four turnovers, and it leads to 10 points for the Eagles.

So just like that, you've got the separation, the mistakes by the Vikings and then the Eagles capitalizing. And as I say, they end up winning by just six, but they get 10 points off those two fumbles. A lot of talk about the Jefferson fumble and of course the rule, but everyone knows the rule.

I mean, it's not as though the rule only applies to the Vikings when Cousins is trying to take some of the heat off Jefferson. When you talk about security and fundamentals, you always say, you know, hey, don't reach for the end zone unless it's fourth down. And yet players do it all the time and score a touchdown. And so we often joke that don't reach for the end zone if you're not going to score.

It's kind of the wink. So it's tough and players are instinctual in the moment. He's so aware of where he is in the field that he reaches for it.

But I'm going to be hard on myself, right? I'm going to say, look, that ball shouldn't have stopped him. The ball stops him. So he has to go up and get in and has to pull through. What if I threw a perfect ball? It's right in the bucket.

Maybe he runs in untouched. So again, going back to we don't even have to have that moment if I can throw a perfect pass and drop it in the bucket to him. You know, it's interesting on both the Amazon Prime broadcast as well as on Westwood One. And I listened to Westwood One in the fourth quarter generally because I'm getting ready for work. They've all watched the series quarterback, the Netflix series quarterback. It's interesting to hear how much more how much more positive the narrative around Kirk Cousins because people got to see him and his family and see him in the locker room with his teammates. He comes across so much more likable now, which is funny because the guest that will join us at the top of the hour. He's got the locked on Vikings podcast.

Luke Braun is our go to for the Vikings. I wouldn't say he's not a huge fan of Kirk Cousins skill. He doesn't think Kirk Cousins is a quarterback that the Vikings can win with. At least that's been what he's told us in the past.

So if that's the case, I wonder if he well, of course, he watched the series. But if his opinion about Cousins has changed at all, because I found that everyone who watched that series now thinks that he's much more likable. Not that that takes away from the fumbling because it does not.

But I do like the fact that he and Justin Jefferson, they're like an odd couple in sports and yet they have a great relationship. So that's just the turning point. We're going to get to more of the reaction because it was quite a high scoring affair in the second half. Each team putting up 21 points in the second half and twice the Vikings pulled within six. But the Eagles moved to 2-0. The Vikings fall to 0-2. Not that that's the the death knoll for playoffs by any means, because the Vikings, not the Vikings, the Bengals were 0-2 last year. Then they were 2-3. We know they made the postseason.

It's just a little more challenging, but not not quite as bad as it used to be. Now they're 17 games. All right, on Twitter, ALawRadio, very soon, and I mean very soon, right Producer J? We will have the poll up for the after hours game of the week. Straight ahead, though, you're going to hear from Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni.

Oh, and how about DeAndre Swift? It's not Fly Eagles Fly, you guys. It's Run Eagles Run. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast.

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This is after hours with Amy Lawrence. It has been fairly disjointed, and the Eagles certainly looked ugly at times in the first half of this game. It's not as though every drive is producing points or looking as in sync as we saw them at the end of last season, right, when they lost in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs. But there's still that one-two punch, and while the Eagles chose to ride DeAndre Swift, who, by the way, wouldn't have had anywhere near the opportunity that he did tonight if Kenneth Gainwell was not injured, but they choose to ride DeAndre Swift and Jalen Hurts in the run game, that offensive line, to be sure.

We know it was a strength last season, and they can also go deep. Tonight it was to Devante Smith, apparently to the chagrin of A.J. Brown, but we'll get to that coming up. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Rushing TDs, but also 63-yard bombs. Merrill Reese with the call on Eagles Radio, though the Vikings weren't done, because if there's anything the Vikings can do, it's chuck and duck. Cousins, out of the shotgun, steps up, he shoots one deep center of the field, and it's caught! Jordan Addison, 15-10, touchdown! Jordan Addison with the second touchdown he scored this season. It's a 62-yard touchdown throw from Kirk for Jordan. It is the longest reception of his career, and the Vikings have cut the margin to 27-13. It's now first and goal for the Vikings from the 10. Cousins under center, play action to Madison, great drop, looks to the end zone, throws to a man wide open, touchdown Vikings! KJ Osborn with his first touchdown this season.

It's a 10-yard touchdown, and it's 27-20, Philadelphia. Twice the Vikings were able to throw the ball and move the ball quickly and score touchdowns to pull back within six, so as I say, the turning point was really around halftime, with a pair of fumbles that led to 10 points. But we know the Vikings can throw the ball, and when you're behind, you're not running the ball as much, but they didn't have success running the ball, and Kevin O'Connell understands that's a major question mark for them right now. Clearly we've got to do something a little bit differently and really focus on how to run the football better to help our pass game and how we're going about moving it. Well you know what helps with the run game? Not having four fumbles. If you want to run the ball, then you best not fall behind. And for them to now have seven turnovers in two games is astounding. They've lost the turnover battle in both games.

And that's why they're 0-2, including against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week number one. So we'll hear more from the Vikings and about the Vikings. Top of the hour, Luke Braun will join us. He's got the Locked on Vikings podcast. Lots of good videos with him. He's always breaking down film and going deep on the inner workings of the Vikings.

A lot of times it gets really technical if you want some good stuff. But for the Eagles, they're 2-0 even though it's not been pretty most of the time. And that's probably the case for all teams. But for the Eagles to start out 2-0 when you know you're not playing your best football, that's always a positive. It's way easier to correct when you're 2-0 and no one's feelings are in it. So we can really press in this meeting tomorrow that we're going to have with the players and hold ourselves accountable as coaches and hold them accountable as players. And that's what we'll do. And so obviously we didn't play our cleanest game. I think the first week was a little bit of a more clean game for the defense and now it's clean for the offense and vice versa tonight. So we'll go back.

You're right. We're 2-0. And a lot of teams would like to be sitting at 2-0. And like I said, when you're in this position and guys don't know that we're not playing to the best of our abilities, that's where you can make a lot of growth. I think we're a work in progress. We're a work in progress.

What better way to be a work in progress than sitting in two wins out the gate in ten days or however many days it was. So look, you know, we strive for progress, not perfection. And obviously we all have a standard for ourselves. Obviously we demand the most of ourselves because of everything that we go through together, all the work that we put in together and all of those things. We're just going to continue to keep chipping away. You know, we understand that as we continue to climb this mountain and we go on, there will be different challenges that come along. But the only thing that matters is winning. Truly, the only thing that matters is winning. And so I think if we can continue to develop, grow, learn, learn from our mistakes, learn from our successes, learn from all of these different things, all of these different things.

In fact, the same things that I'm saying now I'd be saying if we lost. But the reality is, you know, winning is the only thing that matters and everything is done with winning in mind. And for us, we just want to continue to grow as a team, continue to develop and find that identity.

You know, find that identity for us and continue to grow together. Jalen Hurts, three total touchdowns. He didn't have a pick, but really efficient throwing the ball. It is funny, though, because he talks about process and progress over perfection. Nick Sirianni says, hey, we can work on this because we're not up in our feelings. And yet a lot of people want to talk about AJ Brown and the fact that he and Nick Sirianni were kind of going back and forth. And I don't read lips, but the speculation on both the broadcasts, radio and TV, is, hey, he wants the ball more. I mean, he had four catches on six targets, but wanted to be more involved in the offense. I think everybody wants to make plays and everybody wants to contribute.

I have no worry about him, you know, and he's a great player, great teammate, great friend. We'll all do anything and everything with winning in mind. We won. We won. We don't want to make it bigger than what it is. You know, we're talking about external factors here. You know, those things don't matter and what's said out there that could potentially divide this group.

It doesn't matter. We won. At the end of the day, we got really, really good players with really good guys on this team. I really – I can't tell you how much I enjoy coming into work and spending time with these guys.

If I'm spending the time away from my family with anybody, I want it to be these guys. So sometimes there's emotion within the game. And again, I know that's speculation of not getting the ball or anything like that.

I'm not going to go into any of that. But I know that – I guess what I'm saying is I've lived this. There's going to be ups and there's going to be downs through the season.

It's about stepping in tomorrow and getting better from this tape. And, you know, I do know this about this team. They genuinely like being around each other. And they genuinely, you know, one of their greatest motivations is not wanting to let each other down. And so, you know, they want to make plays for each other. They want to do the right thing for each other. And I got no doubt that, you know, we'll be in a good spot tomorrow moving forward.

As they point out, they're 2-0. And it's a lot easier to deal with frustrations. Players who don't think they're as involved as they should be or want to be. That's not a unique problem to A.J.

Brown or the Eagles. I'm not even sure it is a problem. You'd rather have a guy care more about being involved than you would apathy.

You don't want him to be apathetic. So, yeah, there's a lot of talk of, hey, we're still trying to find our identity. And that's great because that's one of those things you work on when you're winning.

When you're not winning, you're in a little more of a scramble mode. And so there's less talk about identity. Instead, there's talk now about turnovers killing the Vikings. So we will get back to Thursday Night Football.

You guys, Thursday night, it's back. Coming up, top of the hour, we'll look at the Vikings specifically. Because they start out 0-2 after winning the NFC North and making the playoffs last year. In fact, their defense has got Brian Flores as the new coordinator.

And their defense didn't have much success at all in stopping the run. DeAndre Swift ends up with 175 yards rushing. I really hope I was not playing him in fantasy. But the thing is, he wasn't even supposed to be getting that kind of action. It's because Kenneth Gainwell is hurt. So maybe someone picked him up late or had him on their bench. But 28 carries for 175 yards with one touchdown run. And total, the Eagles rush for 259 yards. If you're Brian Flores, that's keeping you up tonight.

You're seeing it in your sleep. So we will talk Vikings, a little more of the Eagles. We're going to have that poll. The poll. You know the poll.

After hours game of the week. Right, Jay? It'll be there. It's in progress?

You're still trying to find your identity? Well, I have it. It's just, yeah.

Let's exude confidence, Jay. These are fantastic matchups. Fantastic matchups.

Good problem to have if you have a hard time narrowing it. When you need to know what's happening, it's time to get in the huddle. The big question is Desmond Ritter. The problem that I think a lot of fans are having and looking at Desmond Ritter is they just haven't seen enough. They want to trust him. They want to believe. But I will tell you this, Jason.

In the training camp sessions that I had a chance to go check out, the one thing that bothered me was his aggressiveness to throw the football when he needed to. Listen and subscribe to In the Huddle, available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. It gets smoother. It's getting delivered tomorrow.

Visit Carvana.com or download the app to get prequalified today. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. We'll be right back. Off the field, on the money, and after hours, it's time to talk football with Amy Lawrence. Surely when you give up 259 yards rushing and four, four turnovers or four giveaways, then you don't deserve to win.

And yet the Vikings twice pulled within six points of the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday Night Football. We're off and running in week number two. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Excited to talk about the rest of the schedule. Love to hear from you either on Twitter, ALawRadio, or on our Facebook page.

We've got a brand new poll up. The After Hours game, oh, the week. So retweeting it right now is a tough one because there are a lot of games, obviously, that carry major intrigue.

Especially this early in the season when we're still trying to find out what these teams are capable of and who will separate itself from the pack and who will fade back. So we're choosing one of the AFC North games and Jay chose the other one. I would have chosen a different one, but I like the fact that this came directly from producer Jay. So any complaints, please send them to the After Hours CBS suggestion box addressed to producer Jay.

I'll read every one. He definitely will not. So you can find this poll on our show, Twitter After Hours CBS.

I just retweeted and also on our Facebook page. Yes, he has got one from the AFC North, another from the AFC East. Right now, those are the two divisions that most people believe will be the toughest in football. Now, does it change if we don't have a healthy Aaron Rodgers?

Well, it does. But it's still a division that could have three playoff teams. I'm not yet burying the Patriots.

I think that would be unwise. I know they, like a lot of teams in week number one, looked very disjointed on offense. But there were also stretches where you could see that Bill O'Brien is going to open things up for Mac Jones and has already had a positive influence on Mac and the passing attack. The Mac attack, if you will.

The Big Mac attack. I think the defense is still real good. Got a lot of veterans. They're missing both McCordys now, but they still have a lot of veterans. And after what the Dolphins did in week number one against the Chargers, so they were in L.A., now they're in New England.

Dolphins starting out with the first two games on the road. They put up a ton of yards. 466 passing yards for Tua alone. We know that Tyreek Hill had the majority, well, not the majority. He had about half of those receiving yards. He already has a 200-yard receiving game. And they've played exactly one game. Let's get it, Cheetah.

Let's get it, baby. So it's funny because we made, well, and by we I mean you, you made Tyreek Hill the after-hours Monday MVP, but the NFL pointed to Tua as the AFC Offensive Player of the Week. This was a shootout between Dolphins and Chargers.

It was a lot of fun to watch. Can the Patriots contain Tua and Tyreek? It's a tall order. Then there's Jalen Waddle, and there's Raheem Mostert, and there's a lot of different ways that the Dolphins can hurt you offensively. The Patriots, at least to this point, because of the inconsistency, don't give me confidence that they can win a shootout, but I do think the defense makes it a lot tougher than what the Dolphins had against the Chargers. So you have Dolphins and Patriots out of the AFC East. Then you've also got another AFC matchup because the Super Bowl champions are in danger of falling into an 0-2 hole to start the season, and we did get one from the West and from the AFC. It's like our token NFC game. Did I say AFC?

Sorry. Our token NFC game every week. Last week you all actually picked, I would say, not incorrectly, but the game that had the most drama, right, which was Jets. Jets and Bills, but Jets on Monday night with all of the twists and turns. You guys picked correctly. That by far was the after-hours game of the week.

Let's see if you can go two for two. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. As I say, we have a ton of football preview, but we don't want to forsake the fact that there is also baseball still going on this time of the year. Producer J, do we have... I know we have Rangers.

Do we have Tampa Bay, Baltimore? All right, let's squeeze that in before the top of the hour. 3-1 is hit high in the air and deep to center.

This has a chance. Mullins back at the wall, leaps, and it's gone! Luke Railey with the bomb to center field. The Rays are back on top at 4-3 on the 7th. Yeah, it was the home run in the 7th that broke a tie. So if you thought this was a tight race atop the AL East, then this is a series worth paying attention to. To see Tampa Bay prevail in Baltimore and then look at the impact on the standings.

Whoo! It's getting tight. It's getting a little hot in here, a little hot under the collar. Orioles now lead the Rays by just a single game atop that division because the O's have dropped three in a row. It wasn't that long ago the Rangers had completely fallen out of their race, too, and yet look at what they're doing.

All right, so they've dropped three in a row, but you've got to be able to stay in the moment now because this is all about October. Third-grade ball club. And our job is to, you know, we did our little team meeting postgame. We're going to, you know, take that for what it is, and we're going to get right back out there tomorrow. I don't think that we can rest on any of that.

That's a very good ball club. We know it's on the table. We know how important this four-game series is, and we're going to do everything we can to win all four.

That's all we can do. The four-game series, first one for the Rays, and I suppose if Tampa takes all four, you hear Pete Fairbanks and Luke Railey. I mean, we're looking at a change atop the division. It's been a while, though the Orioles and Gunnar Henderson, they don't think that's going to happen. Another day at the ballpark.

I mean, we're not going to sit too hard on it. I mean, we started off a series of loss before, so I mean we're just going to go out there and continue to play hard and put ourselves in a good position to win a ballgame. Yeah, the American League has got some real intrigue, some real drama to it. In the East, where, as I say, it's just one game separating Os and Rays, the Astros, they got the Rangers breathing down their necks. Only a half game now separates the two teams at the top of the division because the Rangers have won their last six games. In the NL Central, that's the other close race. I guess you could call it that. The Brewers still lead the Cubs by four and a half.

And then there's the wildcards because October's coming. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS 4 Radio.