12-6-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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Add life to cart. Terms apply. Maybe you didn't think the first full week in December could be quite so busy in the sports world, but you know sports never stop.

It's a little something for everyone. There's college hoops, of course. There is the NBA with the in-season tournament in those crazy courts.

Crazy kids with their crazy courts. That's taking place. In fact, the Bucks and the Lakers have advanced to the Vegas semi-finals, and there's money on the line. We've also got the winter meetings in Major League Baseball that are taking place in Nashville where, of course, there are two names that are all the rage in Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. And, as if that weren't enough, the NFL gearing up for week 14 and just when you thought a bunch of teams would never make the playoffs.

Well, think again because we've got some teams that are surging, and in the NFC, gosh, pretty much everyone except for the Panthers is still alive for the playoffs. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Just a short time ago in Los Angeles going down to the wire between the Lakers and the Suns. Devin Booker's got it. Here we go. Uh-oh. Durant pulls up three for the tie.

No good. Game over. Vegas, baby.

Vegas. The Lakers win it. 106-103 in a game that lived up to all of the pregame hype.

Wow, Michael. Durant was tremendous. The Suns came all the way back, and somehow the Lakers hang on. I'm out on the right side of a game like this. This game had, for it to be our 22nd game of the season, it had a ton of playoff intensity. Interesting.

It's not the playoffs, but it is the play-in as in this in-season tournament, and they've got sweatshirts to prove it and some crazy courts, too. So John Ireland on Lakers Radio, Darvin Ham after that as the Lakers survive a late airball by Kevin Durant. I mean, every now and then it happens to the best of us. We are so excited to welcome our friend Michael Duarte from NBC LA. It feels like forever since we've talked to you, Micah. How you been? Amy, it's been a while.

I know you are just less than two weeks away from your nuptials, and this flower drama is more controversial than Shohei Ohtani's free agency, so I'm excited to see how it ends as well. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Please be rooting for me. I've learned my lesson.

I'll never rely on the U.S. Postal Service to send a box when it needs to go somewhere. In fact, I think I could have driven it to Texas quicker than it's lost somewhere in the great Lone Star State, but I appreciate that. So Michael, let's talk about Lakers first. Does it seem like the intensity inside the arena against the Suns is worthy of something special as in this brand new gimmicky tournament? Yeah, it is a little bit of a gimmicky tournament. You talked about it, the kids and their new court.

But it goes beyond that. They get to wear these cool new in-season tournament jerseys, and I'm sure those are selling off the shelves like hotcakes, which the NBA loves. And what I was excited about in speaking to LeBron James after the game, as we were kind of walking out to his car and to his family area, I was like, I can't remember a time outside of the preseason where a game took place. And obviously we're talking about the trips to Europe and Mexico City exempt, but during the season where you're going to a neutral court to play for a cup, a trophy, and something that's highly competitive like this.

And he agreed. And for him, it's more about the competition and it's more about him and AD leading the rest of the Lakers and their team by example and saying, this is what we do in purple and gold. This is what we do in LA and Lakers. If there's a trophy to be won, if there's a championship to be crowned, a champion to be crowned, it's going to be us.

And so he wants to set that example throughout the franchise. And he talked about the fact that the Lakers brand getting to be on national TV for this tournament in Las Vegas, for people to get to kind of see it across the globe, see what the Lakers are about, see him in AD is more important than any cash prize. And they just gave themselves, they just got $100,000 richer by just making the semifinals and then possibly half a million richer if they were to win the whole thing.

But that's what he was saying to me after. And then for me personally, Amy, being in the building, especially when that whole drama between Devin Booker and Austin Reeves and LeBron James' timeout and wasn't in time before the ball was loose or not, the crowd was going crazy. It definitely felt like a playoff atmosphere inside.

And I've seen this throughout all these in-season tournament games, throughout the entire, you know, group play, I guess is what they've been calling it. That the intensity has been ratched up because it doesn't just mean a half million dollars for a drop in the bucket for a guy like AD or LeBron, but guys at the end of the bench, the Max Christies, the, you know, guys of that ilk who maybe are on two-way contracts. That's a lot of money for them. That's maybe more money than they're going to make all year.

And so you've got to think about that as well for some of these guys. That bag at the end, as Darvin Ham likes to say, it could be life-changing for some of these guys that may never, you know, play big minutes in the NBA. Austin Reeves gets the last laugh with a huge three that gave them the final margin. And then, as you point out, we're talking about a huge game from LeBron as he sets the tone. 31 points, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 5 steals.

My goodness. And he's in year 21 in the NBA. His son was in the arena tonight. I saw the camera was on him a couple of times. How would you describe the way he's come out of the gate in this year, this season? Yeah, you know, I saw Bronny as well as I was heading back to the locker room and kind of said it's Sunday the day he's supposed to make his collegiate debut with USC this Sunday against Long Beach.

So that would be pretty exciting. And I'm sure if LeBron can win the in-season tournament Saturday, what a great prize that would be in addition to the money and the trophy to go watch your son make his college debut the following day. But as far as LeBron James in year 21, this guy's like an Amex black card as far as his talent.

It never declines. He just dominates despite all of the miles and he just recently passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in total minutes played. So this guy has now played more minutes than anybody in NBA history and he's still playing at such an elite high level.

It's absolutely remarkable. Talking to him after the game in his postgame press conference, we asked him about that, how he's able to do that for so long. He said it's definitely more mental than physical at this point in his career having to be able to, you know, we saw this with Brett Favre back in the day. He didn't want to go through training camp. He didn't want to go through the OTAs and all of that stuff. He just wanted to go out and play, but that's not what the game is about. For LeBron, it's like mentally like what I have to do to keep my body in shape, to keep everything fresh, to get to the arena ahead of time. The mental aspect of the grind of the NBA season is what's more important at this point in his career than that. But he started to talk about those Father Time commercials that we all saw through Nike last year and beyond. He said, Father Time for so long has been undefeated.

He's just trying to be the first person to hand him his first loss. And I thought that was a very good quote by LeBron there at the end. But absolutely, if you look at the numbers of guys his age who have been in year 21 and higher, he's absolutely just tripling the amount of points per game, assists, rebounds that these guys are doing when they were at the same playing time in their career. Guys like Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, etc. So what he's doing is remarkable and it's not going to last forever even though he wants it to.

So we all need to kind of stop and appreciate greatness when we see it. Yeah, it was similar at the end of Tom Brady's career where almost every time he stepped on the field there was some type of record that he was eclipsing or extending. And you marvel at the fact that he was not just out there on the field at his age with so many years under his belt, but that he was still playing at a very high level. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio.

Michael J. Duarte is with us from NBC LA. Fresh off the Lakers game, while we're talking about old dudes because we think the old dudes in sports really rock, he's not as old as LeBron. However, Matthew Stafford is 35 and he's got a lot of years under his belt. He looks real healthy to me now starting to play at a very high level. What's changed with the Rams, Michael?

Yeah, that's a great question, Amy. Especially focusing on Matthew Stafford because this was a guy before the season. I think you even asked me this question. Is Matthew Stafford going to retire? You know, this was what the conversation was about heading into the offseason. There was a lot of people who kind of had, after the injury-prone year he had last season, had kind of scratched Matthew Stafford off, left him for dead to get picked apart by the Vultures. And I have had a lot of fellow colleagues of mine in the press box at SoFi Stadium for these Rams games week in and week out tell me they need to tank. They need to go get Caleb Williams. They need to move on and hit the rebuild button. And I said, not so fast. General Manager Les Kneade called this a remodel, not a rebuild.

And I would say if you call your contractors, the remodel is a little bit ahead of schedule at this point. I don't think anybody had the Rams fighting for a playoff spot. I think their over-under in Vegas was six and a half wins.

They've already hit six with five games to go, so it looks like the over is going to hit. And you can really point to Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford particularly because these guys, I think we thought the offense was really good, but these guys are clicking. You know, I was talking to some of these players about last season and Sean McVay really had a really bad season. He wasn't used to losing that much. He wasn't used to going from Super Bowl champion to worst record post Super Bowl champion in NFL history at five and twelve last year.

And it really kind of got on him and it got on the players just by the way he was trying to lead them. The players have told me this year, he's a lot more open this year to hear Matthew Stafford come in his office and say, I think this play is going to work and let's run this play. And you were talking right before this about that 70 yard pass to Puka Nakua, which he just, Matthew Stafford thread the needle on that particular play. Sean McVay told me after that game, that was a Matthew Stafford check call audible at the scrimmage has nothing to do with Sean McVay. That was all Matthew Stafford seeing something as far as the defense and a linebacker trying to drop back in coverage and being able to think he could hit Puka there in stride, which he did. So this is what Matthew Stafford is able to bring.

And so I think, and we're going to jump ahead of ourselves here a little bit, but I think if Matthew Stafford's willing to restructure his contract at the end of the season, cause that almost close to 50 million albatross numbers could be, you know, breaking the back of the Rams bank next year. But this year was very interesting and keep in mind, they lost Taylor rap, Nick Scott, Bobby Wagner, Leonard Floyd, Greg Gaines, Jalen Ramsey, seven starters on defense, and really went with the young guys. The draft picks the, the undrafted free agents, all these guys coming in and they're finding talent. They're finding everyday NFL starters on this team.

Ernest Jones is a guy that comes to mind, Kobe Durant. So Aaron Donald's playing at a high level. This team has held their last three opponents under 21 points.

That's very good. The offense is rolling. They've scored over 30 points, which was what they were averaging in those, that Superbowl year. They've now done that back to back games. They've hit, they've hit pay dirt with Puka Nakua, as we just mentioned, a fifth round pick. So you can kind of see that if we can kind of get Matthew Stafford's deal down and add some pieces in the off season, this team could be a wildcard team this year, but potentially take that next step and be a Superbowl contender the following year.

And so what they're doing is ahead of schedule as far as the remodel like we talked about. Is Puka healthy? Did he get hurt this past weekend? I never did hear any resolution when he walked off the field.

Yeah. So he was diagnosed with a sprained AC joint in his shoulder. My guess is during that halftime, they popped it back in and gave him a quick injection and let him come back out. Cody Ballinger, I know we'll probably be talking about the Dodgers here soon. He had sprained AC joints throughout his shoulder, pops out, they pop it back in.

It's not painful per se, but it kind of can be nagging. He's not expected to miss time. He's expected to be good to go in this matchup at Baltimore coming up this Sunday against the Ravens.

That's going to be a tough game for the Rams who are trying to stay in this playoff picture. But he is expected to play and he should be okay with that AC joint. Puka Nakua, I might say. He is always banged up, Amy. Every time I go in the locker room after games, he's got ice on all parts of his body, but he's just such a gamer. He plays through energy. He's such a tough guy and doesn't whine or complain about it or drag or limp around. He's jumping around, spiking balls. He's just always so happy. I love his energy that he spreads throughout the locker room.

Oh, very cool. Michael Duarte with us from LA. Yeah, so much to talk about. Even getting a little bit of brawny intel and the Lakers, the Rams, now the Dodgers. Right now, Brain Trust is in Nashville for the winter meetings, but Dave Roberts kind of dropped a bombshell on Tuesday. He's the first to really acknowledge that the team has met with Shohei Ohtani. Not just that, giving a few details about the fact that they talked to him just in general about the way that he does his routine and conducts his business and his comfort zone and all that jazz.

What did you take away from what we heard from the Dodgers manager? My takeaway was knowing Dave Roberts extremely well and having a very good relationship with him over the years is that Dave's not a guy that if you ask him a direct question, wants to be dishonest with you. This is kind of why Dave has been so successful as a manager. Everyone loves him. Everyone trusts him. And Dave goes the extra effort to, whether it's the superstar player on the team like Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman or the old veteran in Clayton Kershaw, or the team equipment manager cleaning uniforms in the locker room, or someone like me in the media.

He will put his arm around everybody, ask you how you are, get to know you, find out about your family and your life, and really make you feel special. Like an individual. And that's what he does. And that is just something about his personality, his temperament, and what he does with his players.

He puts his arm around every single player and makes them feel special to the point where they're going to go out there and give 110% and to not let him down. And in this case, that personality trait maybe hurt him in this case because he didn't want to lie to all these people in there. Now, yes, he could have said, you know, I don't want to talk about it, but instead he was honest when they asked if he met with Shohei Ohtani and said, yeah, we did meet with him.

And I thought it was a good meeting. And I commend Dave Roberts for having the courage to break this whole shrouded of secrecy, which has got more twists and turns in this free agency than a roller coaster right now, to actually just come out and show the courage to be honest. And I think my personal opinion that Shohei Ohtani is really fumbling an opportunity to make this free agency really about the sport of baseball, talk about the teams that he's meeting with, talk about their culture, their history, what's special about them, their players, their managers. Instead of all this secrecy to the point where he won't even tell us the name of his dog and he hasn't spoken to the media to me, the Shohei Ohtani free agency sweepstakes are getting more annoying than a fly in the kitchen at this point, because the whole world is waiting for his answer. So then the rest of the dominoes can drop and the rest of these free agents can sign and figure out where they're going to do, because every team is being held hostage right now by Shohei Ohtani. So to your question, I commend Dave Roberts for the courage to talk about it, despite the referendum from his team. Ohtani's team and his agent, Nez Vallelo, to keep everything private and everything secret and don't leak anything. So I do commend Dave for coming up and saying what we all know, right? That the Dodgers, the team with the most money to spend, the team who has been wanting Ohtani since he was in high school, actually met with him and is interested in him. God forbid we talk about that here. Why would he not share the name of his dog? Everyone loves dogs.

I 100% agree. That's something you'll have to ask Ohtani. That's what I'm talking about with his secrets. He actually says, no, I'm not telling you the name of my dog. So when he won the MVP award, everybody saw, you know, he was live on TV when he won the award with his dog. Everyone loved it.

The memes and stuff went viral. So media outlets reached out through his camp, through his agent, through his team to find out the name. And they were told he doesn't want to give the name. He wants to keep it private. And to me, that's just so, so silly.

And if you wanted it private, don't put your dog on national TV when you win the award. So that's my two cents on that. Interesting.

Okay. So before I let you go, because you're there in the market and you certainly understand, he picked the Angels the first time, right? So you point out the Dodgers have wanted him for years. For whatever reason, he picked the Angels the first time.

And there has been these type of reports. And I think more and more people are leaning toward him staying with the Angels simply because they allow him to do whatever it is that he wants to do in order to maintain his routine to both pitch and hit. Though, of course, he won't be doing that in 2024.

From what you know of the Dodgers, would the Dodgers also be willing to allow Shohei to stick to whatever routine and whatever comfort zone fits him if that means that he would sign with them instead of the Angels? Yeah, great question. And there's two things I can add to that. First of all, obviously, you remember the article I wrote about six months ago. How was a perfect fit?

I think I went on your show right after that. And so, yes, I do think they'll give him the autonomy to keep his routine. And outside of the Angels, you know, the Dodgers, just a few miles down the five freeway from the Angels Stadium in Anaheim, allow him to kind of keep all of that still routine.

Live in the same house, same routine, same people, same everything. Plus, his doctor who has now done two surgeries on his UCL and his elbow, Dr. Neil Elitrosh, is the Dodgers team doctor and team surgeon. Right. And he's here in L.A. So I think that's an important factor. But look, I knew that Shohei would want to keep everything private once the World Series ended and the official free agent sweepstakes began. So I started reaching out to people in his camp, people that he knows that are close to him from Japan that I know back in September.

And they told me kind of the same thing you're thinking. And this is why I'm leaning it to it's going to be really hard for him to leave Anaheim. First and foremost, it's everything he's known. And in my business and in my time covering players in this business, it's really difficult to leave the team that first signed you first drafted you in some players case. Everything, you know, change is scary.

People are afraid of it. Right. And they think that because of the autonomy, because of his routine and how happy he is and how everything is here and the fact that Artie Marino, the owner of the Angels, knows how valuable is. We'll write a blank check for whatever it costs to bring him back. But it's going to be very, very difficult for him to leave Anaheim. And I agree with it. There's another thing in Japanese culture that they said.

You know, he may consider and leaving one team to go to their kind of rival team or the inner city team, in this case with the Angels and Dodgers, would be equivalent to like having an affair with your neighbor's wife. No way. A betrayal. Are you serious? Wow.

That's what they told me in Japanese culture. So I really hope that someone in his camp is telling him, you know, this is business and don't worry about those things and is giving him advice to those things. And the last thing I'll kind of say about that. So I'm kind of leaning he might go back to the Angels as well for these reasons they said. But look, he's got a great poker face, as Dave Roberts mentioned today.

He really hasn't said about what's going on. But the one thing he has said consistently is he wants to win. So if you want to win Shohei and you want to talk the talk and walk the talk, then there really is only one team, in my opinion, of the four or five or six that are left in the sweepstakes. And that's the Dodgers. You know, they've gone to the playoffs 11 years in a row, winners of 10 NLS titles.

They're going to get you to the dance each and every year. And if you can elevate them to win a championship, then you're going to have many, many opportunities in the years to come. The Angels pitch I've heard from sources is if you stay, look at what the Rangers were did as far as being able to do a rebuild very quickly and win a World Series within a couple of years from losing 100 games.

We can do that here. And if you stay, then all the years you miss the playoffs and all the years everything went wrong and all the years they said we wasted you and Mike Trout's talent, you will become a legend in Angels history, arguably the greatest player in Angels history. If you can stay and win it here, that is the Angels pitch to him. And we'll see if that motivates him more than being able to play in the postseason in October each and every year.

We'll see. And, you know, I was told about this Blue Jays meeting late Monday night as well. It really feels like they're moving up in the chances of having a chance at him as well. I'm just not sure if he goes to Toronto, but it's going to be very interesting regardless. But I do think the Dodgers check all of the boxes, including wanting to win. Whereas that might be one that would be questionable with the Angels. But I still kind of feel in my gut he may end up heading back to Anaheim. We always get information and intel from Michael Duarte that we just don't get anywhere else.

So this is good stuff. Even now as I look up, I'm seeing Otani walk across my TV screen, got the MLB network on. It is the big question, as Michael points out, and really holding hostage the rest of Major League Baseball.

We didn't even really hit on Juan Soto, though we know the Padres are still trying to woo him and want him to stay. So find Michael on Twitter at MichaelJDuarte from NBC LA. I ask him this all the time, when he takes time off.

And his answer is, what Mike? When do you take time off? Never. I have to get off the call with you. I'll be packing to head to Vegas.

And I know I was actually hoping, and I wanted to talk about this with you, Amy. I was actually hoping to head to Columbus this weekend. I was actually kind of hoping maybe the Lakers would lose to the Suns so I could go watch the MLS Cup Championship. Which, by the way, LAFC is looking for their back-to-back title. First team to do it since the LA Galaxy.

The other team here in LA, I might add, in 2011 and 2012. So for all your soccer fans out there listening, that's a big game this Saturday that could be going on at the exact same time as the in-season tournament. So it never stops. I never take a break.

But get to travel sometimes for sports. I feel guilty for taking time off to get married because you're a machine. Yeah, I've been looking for the invitation in the mail, by the way. I still haven't seen it. You don't have time.

You do not have time. It's an NFL Sunday. Would you even be available to go? No.

Well, the college football championship is in Houston, so I don't know. Maybe I can make it a longer trip. Oh, see.

No, that's really sweet. This year we'll definitely see you in Vegas. Definitely.

Exactly. I'll be there. This time I'm going on Radio Row and we'll get to do this in person. I know how long you've been waiting for these nuptials. I am so, so excited and happy for you. I can't wait and I can't wait for you to post all the pictures and photos and I can't wait to see your reaction and the honeymoon.

I know Granny's going to be watching, smiling, so I'm just really excited and happy for you. Thank you. Well, you know what? Since we're friends, you don't actually have to see the photos on social.

You can get them, like, for reals yourself. I like that. I appreciate that. I appreciate it. All right. We'll talk to you soon. If I don't talk to you, though, before Christmas, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you and hey, Amy, if the flowers never arrive, get some people on the ground, go to the flower shop and just start making bouquets right there on the spot. There we go. See, I like that. That's a good backup plan.

See? Another reason we're friends. You're good under fire. Thank you, Michael. You're welcome.

Have a good show. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of information there. I'm trying to process what we just heard about Shohei Ohtani. So we'll kind of let you hear what Dave Roberts had to say and we can speculate all we want.

Also, the general manager of the Angels has indicated at least one thing's for certain. And no, it's not about Ohtani, but about... Let's face it, most people aren't making massive turkey feasts on the regular. And after 364 days of not thinking about it, it can be hard to get that bird just right. That's where Instacart, the holiday rescue app, comes in from getting all the ingredients to prep a full seasonal spread to getting last minute swaps in a turkey emergency. Instacart has everything a holiday host needs to save face and save dinner. And right now, if you download Instacart, you'll get free delivery on your first three orders and delivery in as fast as one hour. Offer valid for a limited time. Ten dollar minimum per order.

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This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. His season was cut short by injury, but he still ended up winning the American League MVP. So now he's got two of those and still no playoff appearances.

But will he go back to the Angels and give it another shot? Man, interesting stuff from Michael Duarte about Japanese culture. And I know honor is very important. In fact, it's honor before almost anything else in Japanese culture. And honor would indicate that you do not leave one team and go to a cross town rival or go to a rival franchise. Now, I wouldn't say Angels and Dodgers are rivals, but they do inhabit the same city and the fan bases are definitely distinct. And if nothing else, the Angels, at least at this stage in their franchise history, are trying to get where the Dodgers are now, where the Dodgers have been with that consistency.

And it just hasn't worked. So would honor dictate then that Shohei cannot go to the Dodgers? Well, according to Dave Roberts, they had a very healthy conversation recently. If nothing else, the Dodgers do have a World Series from 2020. They've got 10 consecutive division titles. They're always in the playoffs. They get to 100 wins.

They have a huge and extremely supportive, engaged fan base, a gorgeous stadium and a lot of money to offer. So, yeah, it was funny to hear Dave Roberts kind of beat around the bush initially about Otani and meetings with Otani. It's a good possibility. I think that, yeah, we met with him.

I don't want to I'd like to be honest. And so we met with Shohei and we talked and I think it went well. I think it went well.

But at the end of the day, he's his own man and he's going to do what's best for himself, where he feels most comfortable. I don't know if it was more of a pitch. I think it was more of just sort of getting familiar, more familiar with them. I think that he had questions for us just trying to get more of the landscape. But being in this league for six years, he's got a pretty good idea of the Dodgers, what we're about, the city itself. And so for me and speaking for our guys, it was just a pleasure to get to spend some time with them.

Get to know the man, the myth, the legend. I wonder if they're allowed to know the name of Shohei's dog. That's interesting.

Really interesting. Talk about being Uber private. I'm so proud of the fact that Penny is 14 years old. I talk about Penny all the time. I can't imagine just referring to her as my dog, my dog, my dog, my dog.

Nah, she's worthy of that personality. She's got a Penny personality. What's the first question you ask when you meet a new dog? Oh, what's his name? What's her name?

Right. Or how old or where did you get him or her? I generally ask if I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl, he or she. But I always ask how old. I guess it matters to me now because Penny is 14. And so I like to know if there are other dogs around the neighborhood that are just as old. And everyone always says, wow, she looks so good.

You would never know she was 14. So, yeah, you always want to get to know the neighborhood dogs unless they're not friendly. Penny actually is getting less amenable and less amiable when it comes to meeting other dogs. So she used to be all happy about it.

She was never aggressive. But recently, well, there's a few dogs that have kind of gotten in her face lately and she doesn't like that. But there's this one boy dog who was a little bit too aggressive with her, a little bit too intrusive, if you will.

And she I haven't heard her snarl or growl in a long time. She snarled and growled and actually like got her her jaw is kind of up around his neck. I mean, he was too big for her to it was a golden doodle. I think too way too big for her to be able to like, you know, get her jaws around his neck.

But she she kind of stood around. Yeah, she went for his neck. She wasn't having it.

He had so much fur and hair. I don't even think she got a bite. But she yeah, she made it very clear that she did not like the liberties he was taking.

Good for Penny. At 14, she's become a cranky old lady, except with me. She still wags her tail all the time. And she up and down the stairs and follows me everywhere and very happy about mealtime and going outside and taking her walks. And so I had to get to the dentist first on Tuesday afternoon before her walk. She did not understand why I was leaving the house, but she was not leaving the house in the afternoon.

Because usually in the afternoon, first time I leave the house is to take her for her walk. So we had to actually walk in the pitch black by the time I got back from the dentist. Yeah, the time I got back, it was a quarter of six and it was pitch black. So I couldn't walk around the block without a flashlight.

But that is not even winter, actually, but that is December. All right. Coming up, we have got the latest on Trevor Lawrence. It's not as bad as what was previously anticipated.

And also, wait until you hear who's a fan of Jordan Love. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Good tease. And what else? Oh, gosh, this whole issue with the Jets. It's just another indication.

Forget the information and whether or not you believe it. It's another indication that they are a mess of a franchise right now. There's a reason why they don't win. How about clean up your house? How about take care of your personnel? How about button up the process and the procedures and the loose lips and then we can talk about you being a winning franchise? That's not a winning culture.

It's not a winning culture yet. No matter how many steps they've made, they've got to take care of their business. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio.

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That's Greenlight.com slash odyssey. It's time for QB News on After Hours. If you haven't yet voted for TD of the Week, that poll is still live. Wrapping up this hour. And if you haven't sent your questions for Ask Amy anything, I don't know who's going to the Super Bowl. In fact, it's wide open, which is why we keep talking about it on a nightly basis.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Twitter, ALawRadio, and then our Facebook page is in your questions for Ask Amy. When last we were together, we were concerned about one Trevor Lawrence and his status after he limped off the field and then needed help to get to the locker room with what appeared to be an ankle sprain. Now, there were initially some reports this could be a season-ending injury, maybe an injury that required surgery.

As it turns out, it's neither. Here's Doug Peterson. It's just a right high ankle sprain. Everything's stable.

Everything looks good. And we'll see where he is here in a couple of days. It's good to get C.J.

a full week of preparation, obviously. Trevor will stay mentally sharp and obviously see where he's at. But to give C.J. the time this week with the offense, with Luke Fortner. I mean, not with Luke Fortner. Yeah, Luke Fortner. With the center quarterback stuff and working with the running backs, it'll be good.

Doug Peterson's got a lot on his mind, that's for sure. So, yeah, Trevor Lawrence will not have surgery the way that Kenny Pickett did earlier this week on his high ankle sprain. Instead, C.J. Beathard will take the reps and Trevor will stay mentally sharp. But this is not a door closed for Week 14. There's still a chance that Trevor Lawrence could be out there and that it won't be C.J.

Beathard who will have to step in and be part of their push for the playoffs. Now, the Bengals are already without their starting quarterback, Joe Burrow, and yet Jake Browning with a career day, 354 yards. He only misfired on five of his 37 passing attempts. He had a touchdown in there plus a rushing score.

And Jamar Chase actually lets us in on a little secret. They took it easy. They were more conservative in Week 12 because they wanted him to be comfortable before they unleashed the monster. Just getting him in a momentum of just getting in the rhythm, actually. That's what it was, just getting him in a rhythm from the first game to the second game.

So he just get comfortable playing and then playing his own game for real. Oh, yeah, he definitely looked much more comfortable. Definitely looked like the offense was built for him. He had the coaching of Joe Burrow on the sidelines. And, yeah, when you've got a completely healthy offensive repertoire, Joe Mixon doing a lot of the heavy lifting with a couple of touchdowns Monday night. Jamar Chase nearly 150 yards, and the big one being the 76-yard touchdown.

He's got plenty of people around him. Reminds me of a Brock Purdy situation. Just rely on the veterans and the playmakers that you've got around you.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. All right, can we not stick with all of the injuries? Oh, I feel so bad for all the quarterbacks. Instead, well, why don't we talk about how Zach Wilson is getting ripped by man, woman, cat, dog, horse, cheetah, everything.

He's the most popular target in sports right now. The latest being this report that came out of the Jets locker room that Zach doesn't want to go back on the field. He doesn't want to play because he's worried about getting hurt. Now, Rob Salah told us that is not the case, that Zach does want to play. Aaron Rodgers, he's sticking up for Zach Wilson. And not just that, but he says the Jets have got to do an internal, introspective look at what the hell is happening.

This is from the Pat McAfee show. Whoever that person is that thinks it's okay, number one, to talk to anybody like that, I don't understand what you get out of that, number one. But number two, what is your impetus?

What is your motivation to try and bury someone like that? And that's a problem with the organization. We need to get to the bottom of whatever this is coming from and put a stop to it privately because there's no place in a winning culture where, and this is not the only time, there's been a bunch of other leaks.

Big city, a lot of reporters. I get it. A lot of friends. I get it. They're not your friends.

No, yeah. They're not your friends. Yeah, friends.

They're not your friends. Even if they are, like, is that really what you want to be about? You want to be about using someone in the media to leak stuff to in order for what?

To get them to put your name out there for a job? Or if you're a player to get you a write-up something? I think it's chicken s*** at its core. And, you know, I think it has no place in a winning organization to be a source, especially not being able to assassinate somebody's character. Now, Aaron Rodgers is going to bat for Zach Wilson, but also is saying, what's your motivation for outing a player like this? Now, here's the deal. I don't think the media is supposed to be protecting Zach Wilson.

But I also don't think the media is supposed to be taking liberties. And then he also says, hey, this is on the Jets, too. Why in the world would you ever share this kind of information? Like, what do you gain by trashing a member of your own organization or leaking this kind of information?

Is it because you want the kid to get booted? You don't want him on the Jets anymore? Yeah, how did this come from inside the Jets organization? And Aaron's saying to Pat McAfee, there's no other way that it could have gotten out. If it's true, no, he doesn't say it's true or it's not true, but exactly what would be the motivation for someone inside the Jets to share this about Zach?

So that's kind of tough. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. We'll get to some Micah Parsons on quarterbacks and MVPs after the top of the hour. But Deebo Samuel is pointing to Brock Purdy as the dude who needs to be MVP. My point number one right now, I know you're up for debate.

You know, you just got to keep stacking games, stacking days, stacking weeks. So we got to go out here and the team make plays for him. And I think he'd get the job done for us, the MVP conversation. But I don't think that's his ideal goal for us. You know, something that he really, really want to accomplish right now, I think at the end of the day as a whole, as a group, as a team, we want to be standing there at the end of the year holding the laboratory trophy. I like the eye on the prize for Deebo Samuel, who was along with Kay Adams on Up and Adams on Tuesday morning. And he's saying Brock Purdy is number one in the NFL and he should be the MVP.

And his numbers are incredible for his first full season as a starter. He's gone back to steady Eddie. Micah Parsons always weighs in on his show about who should be the MVP. He actually thinks it should go to a wide receiver or to his quarterback. You'll hear from him coming up.

It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio. Tell them Big Snoop Dogg sent you. Download Instacart. Add life to cart. Terms apply. Exclusions apply. See site for details.