After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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State Farm, Bloomington, Illinois. And the puppy photos keep coming. I know that we very often are catching people in different work routines, different travel routines. Of course, people studying or just up late. Maybe they're on the move. People have different schedules, right?

So some days they work from home, some days they'll commute. Which means that we're constantly catching people who maybe haven't heard us for a couple of days or maybe it's been a couple weeks. And that's great. I love that you always come back to us.

It's all coming back to me now. And even as you're listening tonight or people who will tune in Monday morning as they get set to start their work weeks, they're catching us talking about puppy photos. And so the photos have continued.

Not quite at the rate that they were during our last show to end last week, which was incredible. In the span, I told producer Jay this and he was kind of blown away. In the span of three and a half hours, we had 600 photos on Facebook. But the part that was so amazing is that I mentioned it. We get to the final hour.

I'm kind of blown away. The post has been up not even two hours asking for your puppy photos on Twitter and Facebook. And we already had hundreds of them. And so I mention it on the radio.

And before we tag out to finish up the show and finish up the work week, we already have 200 more in not even an hour. And so we can agree on dogs in this country. Maybe not the dog breed or the size or the shape or how we take care of our puppies.

Some of us, for instance, let our dogs sleep on the beds with us. That's not my experience, which took some weaning, took some training with the new puppy in the house. But she has learned it pretty quickly. She doesn't love it, but she's learned it. We allow her to we allow her to stand up because she's a mini Aussie. So when she stands up on her back legs, she can put her feet up on the furniture and look over the top. She's a runt, too, so she's little. But we don't I don't tell her to get down when she's just standing up looking at us or when she's just kind of waking up in the morning. But she's not allowed to get on the bed or on the furniture.

And I've caught her a few times. Actually, this dog had the nerve to get on a table not that long ago. So, yes, there's still some training that has to be done with Daisy, the crazy puppy. But otherwise, it's fun to have them with us in our lives, regardless of the size, the shape, the age, how we found them or how they found us. And then the way that we treat our dogs, maybe what we feed our dogs.

Penny doesn't eat people food, but I know a lot of you feed your puppies people food. Regardless, it's just so great to have these loyal companions. And in the case of rescues, this is my first dog that I ever had as an adult. And she definitely rescued me.

So, yes, rescue is accurate, but it was the other way around, not the way that we think. And so you're all still sending photos because some of you are just catching on. Some of you are just hearing about it. I had one guy post on my Twitter on Sunday afternoon, wait, what? We're sending puppy photos? Okay. And so he just found out about it on Sunday afternoon and decided he would send his as well.

You've got to see his, by the way, I did retweet it just because he was a little bit late to the party, but better late than never. And his dog is wearing antlers. Yeah, see, some of us dress up our dogs.

Some of us put our dogs in sweaters and costumes. Penny would kill me, as in the look of death from her face and from her eyes. And her eyes are very expressive. Even now, at the end of her sweet life, I can see in her eyes her communicating. And she can't hear very well. She can hear loud noises, but that's it.

She can't hear the way that I would talk to her like I'm talking to you right now, which does make me sad because we used to talk all the time. But she still does wag her tail and she's eating really well still. She just, she's definitely slowing down and her tumor has become a real huge problem.

And so this week, just trying to spoil her as much as possible, but we'll have to say goodbye to her this week, which is really hard. And I know many of you understand, and because of the number of people who responded to our posts and to us calling for puppy photos on the radio last week, many of you have shared your own stories. We just had to put down our dog. We put down our dog a couple of months ago. My dog is this age and he or she is also slowing down or we're about to do the same thing with our dog. And so I know that one thing we share in addition to our love for dogs is how hard this decision is.

It really is. It's not only hard to make the decision because it's a family member that you love so much, but you also don't want to do the wrong thing. I mean, I don't want to do the wrong thing for Penny. I don't want to to say goodbye to her when she still has a lot of life left. But how do I know? It just feels like a massive responsibility to judge the quality of life of another being, even if it is an animal, especially one that's been so loyal. And so that's what I've struggled with with cats in the past.

You know, Penny's my first dog as an adult, but with cats in the past, like, oh, could she live another six months and be OK? And many of you have said to me, you've encouraged me and said, well, they will let you know. You'll know.

They'll let you know. And I can see in Penny's eyes she's not the same. Well, she's the same dog, but she doesn't feel the same anymore. She is struggling. She's having a hard time.

And the thing about this dog and it's not just her breed, but it's also her loyalty, is that she would do anything I asked of her. She can't do it as quickly anymore. She can't go as fast.

She's, you know, she's moving a lot more slowly and there's some pain and discomfort associated with. I now see. But she would still do anything I asked of her.

She would follow me anywhere, which is. Yeah, it just breaks my heart because I. Well, it warms my heart.

It has for 12 years. But it also breaks my heart because I know she's trying so hard for me and I don't want her to have to do that anymore. So thank you all for understanding and for being so kind about it. And as I say, we we don't agree on anything but our NFL and our puppies. And so the photos, they've made me smile. Some of them made me laugh. Our dogs are kooky.

They really are, especially the way they sleep. All fours up in the air and the private parts displayed for the whole world to take photos of. Speaking of photos, poor pen. She never has liked photos. But now because she's a lot slower, she can't really get away from me when I'm trying to take photos, though she does try. She does try. I've had to corral her a couple of times over the weekend when I.

Not for photos, but for other things to to give her her medicine or to to try to wipe her off when she's had a couple accidents. And so she still tries to get away from me. Little little stubborn. But she is still after all this time, she's sweet and she's sensitive and she's sassy and she's stubborn to the end. Now, 14 years old and three months, she is stubborn to the very end and still alone. Still a big dog, which means she's still alone. So, again, thank you.

You're all very sweet. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio as a quick hour. Coming up in this hour, producer Jay tells you his travels, his travel nightmare stories. What I mean, he was gone for, what, seven days and two of them were spent traveling. Just wrong. Also, I love the pivot that his family did, though, when they were presented with lemons, they made some lemonade.

Well, actually, they made coffee because that's what they do in this country where he was visiting. So we'll we'll get a little bit of Jay's story. We're glad to have him back, though. Ryan did a great job, although, to be honest, on Ask Amy anything. He this this is a rookie mistake. It happens a lot with people filling in. They somehow decide they're supposed to be answering the questions as well. We didn't get to a whole lot of questions because he would ask them and then he would answer them. Ask Ryan anything?

Yeah. And at one point I said he starts to answer the question and. Well, thank you, Ryan.

But this is not Ask Ryan anything. And I was teasing him. And he was like, he laughed and oh, but yeah, rookie mistake.

Rookie mistake. Inserting yourself into the conversation. It's a common faux pas among young broadcasters when they're doing interviews. They and I understand it.

I understand where it comes from. They want to prove to the guests that they know what they're talking about. So their questions become like 90 seconds long or that it's older broadcasters. And it's even more attractive when older broadcasters just have huge egos.

So they decide they know more than their guests do. Anyway, so I understand. Rookie mistake. But here's what we learned about Ryan while you were gone, Jay. You and I both have worked with him in the last, what, six months or whatever.

He's in his early 20s. At the beginning, he would not speak to us. Well, maybe he spoke to you, but he would not speak to me.

OK, so I actually said that to him last week. You've turned into a chatty Kathy. What happened when I first met you? I was scared. Like you were scared. He said, yes, I was intimidated. The first thing you said to me was, would you like a muffin? And I was like, well, to be honest, I think it might have been a bar. But anyway, so he said I scared him because I offered him baked goods the first time. One of the nicest things I would think. I didn't say, hey, dude, can you get me a piece of audio?

Hey, dude, where's my highlights? You offered him baked treats. Right, I offered him.

Seriously. But I understand it was his first job. He's in his early 20s. And so he's made up for it now. He does a great job technically.

I think we only had a couple of just really quick mistakes last week that he fixed right away. And he had a good time. He laughs. Oh, I'd not heard him laugh till last week. The dude giggles like he giggles.

I don't know if I've heard it. Oh, it's great. He gets he really had fun, except you know how it is when you're filling in on overnights for the first time. When you did it, I'm sure it was the same for you. You feel like you got hit by a truck like three days into it. The poor guy look like he hadn't slept. So it took him. He worked from the end of the week before. So the last show, the week before all the way through last week and by Wednesday, he figured out his sleep schedule just in time to turn around and flip the schedule for the weekend.

So yeah, poor guy. The first couple of nights of last week, he did look like he got run over by a semi. I didn't draw attention to it much. It's an adjustment. I did ask him about his sleep and he was kind of figuring it out. But yeah, he went through multiple iterations, like when do I sleep and when do I eat and that kind of stuff. I don't think there is a right answer. I'm still learning that myself. Well, it's about keeping a pattern, except neither you nor I do that. Yeah, we try.

It's been a losing battle now for the past almost 12 years or ended year number 12. So it's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Facebook, our YouTube channel. Producer Jay came back from his vacation to realize that you all had done a lot of damage, quote unquote, to our YouTube channel. You checked out our latest video, which was a behind the scenes from Vegas, complete with music and photos from my personal collection. So Jay did the videos.

I did the photos. If you haven't seen it, it is the latest video on our YouTube channel. And then coming up, we've got some more that we're going to put together. We've been talking about, well, first of all, we're not that far away from the next annual Chubby Bunny World Championship. So we'll get to that sometime in the next couple of months.

It usually happens, I think last year we were late a little bit, but it usually happens around March Madness. And we're going to have new people in it this year because last year, Pat failed to tell us that this was one of his special talents. And so the rest of us got completely creamed because he was still going strong at like 11 marshmallows. He was a ringer. Yeah, he was definitely a ringer. We do not want ringers.

Maybe we'll get Ryan in and see what he can do. If you want to truly be part of After Hours, well, you've got to pass this initiation. This is our version of hazing.

You stuff marshmallows in your mouth, although Sean nearly died. So I suppose that we could get cold on the carpet. Right. Anyway, so we'll get the Chubby Bunny this spring. We've got March Madness coming up, the Masters, obviously.

But what else we have? Wait, where was I going with that? Oh, YouTube. Yeah, YouTube, because I guess maybe in honor of my three month wedding anniversary. So I promise pre honeymoon, like I told you, everything right now revolves around the honeymoon. The next video that we're going to do is kind of the follow up. We'll call it the epilogue.

Right. So we had three videos, three that we put together, our most popular videos ever. Ask Amy walks down the aisle. And there was even a Christmas edition that we did right before I left and really answered your wedding questions and that kind of stuff.

It was a lot of fun. You all still send questions now about the wedding or about the marriage. And so we're going to do an epilogue called Ask Amy walked down the aisle.

But it's mostly about what life has been like. I will tell you, there are times where I think to myself, you're married. It just sounds so weird. Sorry, Bob. After all this time, it just sounds so odd. And it's still a major adjustment. This weekend, Bob has been gone.

He's in Texas visiting family and doing some other things that he needs to do for his house sale. And and so I lined up a bunch of phone calls right ahead, a bunch of phone calls with family and with girlfriends that I hadn't spoken to since the wedding. And every single one of them.

Well, they put it in their own unique way. What's it like to be married? And every time I hear that, I think, oh, yeah, I am. It's weird not being married, but just the. Wrapping my brain around the fact that my my status, if you will, has changed. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday evening and I had to fill out one of those preregistration forms online and it asks you marital status.

It's so much fun to go in and change it from single to married. Oh, and Bob will be happy to hear this. Mom is no longer my emergency contact. Isn't that cute?

Yeah, I know. After all these years, it's either been my mom or my brother. Usually my mom, who's been my emergency contact.

And after all these years now, the hubs gets to be the emerge. I'm sure he's thrilled. Gets to be the emergency contact.

If something goes wrong, call him. That's kind of the idea. But it's neat. It's really neat.

So anyway, I digress. We'll do a video called Ask Amy walked down the aisle and producer Jay has been thinking about that. And I've been collecting questions on the lookout for questions. And so at some point this spring, maybe around birthdays, I don't know, maybe around, like I say, three month or four month wedding anniversary. We'll do that.

So definitely check out the YouTube channel. We we were able to give Jay a bunch of new subscribers for his birthday, which, by the way, is Tuesday. Tuesday.

Yes. You know how my dates all run together Tuesday. But here's the thing. Jay hasn't even used the Christmas gift that I've given him yet. Forget that. Going back to two birthdays ago, I gave Jay a box of my favorite things, including one of my absolute favorite jars of pasta sauce, which the grocery store no longer carries, by the way.

So now I have to get it online. And Jay still hasn't used it. Why? Because he's lost it in his closet somewhere. So I have to be really careful what I give Jay for birthdays because, yeah, I don't I don't have any idea why he says he's Italian. I don't believe him.

I think he's just borrowing the name. And so he has lost the jar of pasta sauce I gave him two years ago on his birthday. Wow.

We really this is about to be our third birthday round, isn't it? Goodness. And then for Christmas, I gave him the best gift ever.

Like as in ever. I told him I would buy his TSA pre check for five years. Now, he knows he knew at the time coming up that he had this trip. We had Vegas. He had his international trip. Jay, have you proceeded with TSA pre check?

Still on my desktop or on my in my browsers on my laptop. It's there. I mean, I want it. Jay, you just did two huge trips. What are the chances you even fly again this year? Hi, I'd say. OK, fine. You could have used it for both of those.

I know the Vegas one when I was alone, especially where I really, really should have had it for that. Does your family have TSA pre check? I think they just signed up for it. Oh, interesting.

So maybe you would like to hop on Pop there. Nice. Right. OK. Jay is. Either he really doesn't like the birthday gifts that I give him or he is. He is. I don't know what you are.

What are you when it comes to my birthday gifts? The brunch was tremendous. Right. That's because you had to eat it in front of me. No, you had no choice. Although we we told on you and your strategy and eating pancakes first. You just got it.

I wouldn't change it. Pancakes and pizza had about like 15 pieces of bacon. French toast. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, so yes, poor Jay. He's I don't know. He he's missing out on these great birthday gifts.

Pasta sauce, the best kind. TSA pre check. I that was for that was for Christmas, actually. And I thought it would be in perfect time for Vegas. And then I don't even know about your international vacation. All of a sudden, Jay says, OK, I'm going to be out for a week and a half.

Oh, OK. Good to know. We used to talk. We used to communicate these things. But ever since you lost the pasta sauce, our relationship has gone horribly off the rails on Twitter. Yeah. As if you would know on Twitter, a law radio on our Facebook page or YouTube channel.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. We're we're glad to have Jay back, even though he refuses to take advantage of the great birthday and Christmas gifts that I give him. Coming up, Russell Wilson doubles down. He is. You know what? That old song, it's my story and I'm sticking to it. Oh, yeah, that's what Russ is doing.

And I still can't believe the Broncos tried this little trick with him. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on your fever is high and the pressure to log in at work is, too. But when you finally decide to take care of you, there's instacart. Just because that one perfect coworker of yours is attending all meetings camera on while she's sneezing, coughing and aching doesn't mean you have to do the same. Take it from us. Trying to stay on top of things will only get you further behind. Instead, get everything from tissues and teas to cough suppressants and comforting soups delivered through instacart in as fast as 30 minutes.

If anyone needs anything, they can just redirect their questions to that one perfect coworker of yours. OK, picture this. It's Friday afternoon when a thought hits you. I can spend another weekend doing the same old whatever, or I can hop into my all new Hyundai Santa Fe and hit the road. With available H track all wheel drive and three row seating. My whole family can head deep into the wild, conquer the weekend in the all new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai.

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No long term commitments or contracts. That's Stamps.com code program. B.S. sports radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. That is Courtland Sutton, his eighth red zone touchdown of the year. Fifteen yard touchdown Wilson to Sutton. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

It may not have been MVP level, but it was a resurgent season for one Russell Wilson, only for him to get benched at the end of the year by the Denver Broncos. And initially, while there was some surprise, the major shockwaves came after Russell Wilson revealed what had happened behind the scenes. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. He sat down with Brandon Marshall, who has a very successful podcast called I Am Athlete. And at times there are other guys along with him, but he's the driving force behind this podcast. And he does get current athletes, former athletes to really open up to him. Brandon's actually been very vocal about his own mental health struggles and his different bouts with depression and other things that he's faced in his life. And because of that, because he's made himself vulnerable, I think there are a lot of people who feel more comfortable opening up to him because he will do the same with them. And so I'm impressed with the conversations that he has. But even by his standards, this is a doozy. Eighty four minutes.

If you don't want to do your quick math, that's an hour and a half nearly. An hour and a half with Russell Wilson. And they go deep about what happened with the Broncos this season. Again, this is on the I Am Athlete podcast. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. Russ takes us back to the point at which the Broncos found a spark this season.

So we beat Green Bay, Kansas City, we beat them. And as you mentioned, as you mentioned earlier, that's when I got that call and I was like, I'm confused what's going on. And I didn't believe it at first.

I was like, this can't be real. And I got that call that, hey, we're going to bench you for the next nine games if you don't change injury guarantee. So for me, but to be clear here, they it's it's not they don't want to bench you because of play. They're saying they're benching you because they want you to take out the injury guarantee. Yeah, they want they yeah, they want to push back my injury guarantee and remove it for that rest of the year. So that way, if I get injured, they don't have to pay it. But that's why as a player, it doesn't even make sense to do that because you think of those Alex Smith moments and then, hell, you can even go back to college. Like Willis McGahee, I believe it was at the U one of his last games going into NFL. He tears everything in or maybe it's Frank Gore, everything in their knee. I didn't want to set a precedent for players to remove their injury guarantees, too, as well. And so it was it was no way I was going to do that.

And so when they said they were going to bet you were going to bench, I said, all right, that's what you want to do. Once again, Russell Wilson telling the story that going back to the start of what was a nice little win streak for them to at least put them back in the conversation about Packers and then Chiefs, that the Broncos came to him and threatened to bench him for the next nine games if he did not change or remove the injury guarantees in his contract. Now, there's a clause in his deal.

I can understand why the Broncos gave it the old college try, although it's really dirty. But a five year, two hundred forty two point six million dollar contract. Right. That's the life of the contract. That's what he signed with the Broncos before he ever took a snap that mattered. That's on the team. And Russ, I know, did not play well the first year. It was a total bust. Some of that's on Nathaniel Hackett, some of it's on the people around him, but it's also on Russ as well.

So it was an unmitigated disaster in year number one. They changed coaches. They bring in Sean Payton. They once again have new offensive sets and voices and plays and everything else. And Russ and the Broncos actually have a fairly good offensive season. I mean, we get to the numbers, but they were already looking ahead to trying to get rid of Russ. They were already looking ahead to the ways that they could. Recoup some of the money the way that they could cut their losses and not lose all of it. Right. Somehow get out from underneath a little bit of that financial burden, which meant that it would not cost them as much to part ways.

That's where their brains were early in Sean Payton's first year in Denver. So the contract is the 242 and a half. But the clause that they're talking about would give him another 37 million dollars. So that's his his twenty five salary, but it would be guaranteed whether or not he's on the team, even if he's on the roster. If he can't pass a physical coming up this March. So they were far more concerned with whether or not they could get out from out of paying that 37 million dollars.

Should he get hurt? And so their bright idea was to tell their quarterback, we're going to bench you for the next nine games unless you remove this clause. Again, right after they beat the Packers and he plays really well and then they have the upset of the Chiefs.

Right. And so the timing is just odd where you kind of see behind the curtain with the Broncos. They weren't concerned about winning this past year, or at least they weren't only concerned about doing what was best for the team on the field and winning this past year. What they were concerned about was Russ not getting hurt so they wouldn't have to pay that 37 million dollars. So they actually threatened to bench him. I mean, it's just it's so ugly whether or not you believe the Broncos were viable or were going to take enough steps forward. Maybe you think Russ is over the hill and should be put out to pasture, whatever you think.

That's still dirty. How often do we hear? Well, teams don't say it as much publicly, but how often do we hear in the sports world? Oh, well, he signed the contract.

He should have to abide by it. I mean, the number of times I wish I had a dollar for every time a fan had said that to me. When a guy asks for a trade, when a guy wants out of his deal, when there's a holdout, blah, blah, blah. How many times?

In fact, you can be honest with yourselves right now, wherever you are. You've said it before, right? He has a contract. Why doesn't he have to abide by his contract? Well, the team signed the contract. So why shouldn't the team have to abide by its contract? I do not blame Russ one bit as much as that's probably a moment that he looks back on and thinks, what the heck?

And maybe there's a little bit of uncertainty there. Are they really going to bench me the rest of this season? Are they really going to take me off the field when I'm the best chance to win or when they're paying me, where they're going to pay me to do nothing?

I mean, that had to be disconcerting for him. My agent talked to the NFLPA. The NFLPA called me. They asked, you know, and then they talked to the NFL. The NFL was like, this can't, this is illegal.

He can't do this. And so then, you know, all the way throughout Saturday. So I was just like sitting here. I didn't know if I was going to play the following week.

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Visit Tacovas.com, that's T-E-C-O-V-A-S, dot com and point your toes west. It builds the following week, so I'm like, am I going to play, am I not? So you've got Russell Wilson in his camp and then you've got the Denver Broncos, everybody looking at each other, who's going to make the first move? You're going to sign. I wasn't going to do it. You wasn't going to blink.

No shot. I ain't taking my injury guarantee. So now I'm sitting there like, okay, well, we'll see what happens. So then the whole week, and I get back on Monday, I still don't know necessarily what's going to happen.

And on that Monday, that's when I meet with Sean and Sean's like, hey, don't forget like nothing happened. We're just, you're going to play this week against Buffalo. We've got a big game against Buffalo. You got to go win on Monday Night Football.

And I'm like, all right. Russell Wilson, along with Brandon Marshall, and that's who you hear, the other voice on the I Am Athlete podcast. So this is after the win against the Packers and the Chiefs, both of those coming in Denver. Then they're about to go on the road against the Bills on Monday night, which by the way, they won 24-22. They also beat the Vikings by a point and then beat the Browns, who pretty much, not pretty much, but almost swept the postseason award.

Those were five wins in a row. They lost to the Texans in Houston, but then came back and beat the Chargers in L.A. So they had won six of seven and they were right there in the AFC wildcard conversation. But then what happens? They lose the game to the Lions. They actually get smacked by the Lions in Detroit. And then they lose home to the Patriots. And at that point, the team comes back to Russell Wilson again and makes the same request.

This is after Christmas. We know that Sean Payton stunned the NFL world by letting us know that Wilson would be benched in favor of Jared Stidham. And what did he say at the time? It was to spark the offense.

Uh huh. Except Russ, two days later, decided he would tell his story and didn't care what the Broncos thought or whether or not it put him at odds with the team. And there are some cases where I think it's better to play your cards close to the vest.

It's not necessary to tell the world the truth. But in this case, I applaud Russell Wilson for speaking out. The team just did him dirty.

They undermined him going back to that start of the win streak. He's playing some of his best football since he got to Denver. The team is kind of hanging on wondering what the heck, who's going to be our quarterback.

They don't know either. And for the Broncos to then pretend like this was about football when they had undermined their quarterback. No doubt, then he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's waiting to get benched. He's waiting for them to pull him from the starting lineup over this contract clause. He knows the team doesn't support him. He already knows the team doesn't want him to be around next year and wants to try to recoup as much money as possible. How is that an environment in which you are focused on winning and everybody in the locker room is on the same page?

I actually lost a bunch of respect for this Broncos brain trust, the front office and the head coach. How do you do that to a player? It's one thing to ask him to change his contract. OK, no harm in asking. What's the worst he can say?

No. But they knew he wasn't going to do it willingly, so they threatened to bench him. Again, if the rest of the locker room, when the rest of the locker room finds out, what's the automatic reaction? Well, clearly the team cares far more about money than it does about winning. The team is not expecting us to win. We're not trying to win. If you're actually going to bench our starting quarterback and the best chance to win, what does that say to the rest of your locker room? We don't give a crap about W's.

That's just gross. And again, not an environment where Russell Wilson, unless he is the toughest guy on the planet, which he is pretty tough, not an environment where you're setting him up to succeed. So you're undermining your quarterback and the rest of your locker room by letting them know that winning is not the most important thing. All right, more from Russell Wilson about his future in Denver. That's coming up next on Twitter, ALawRadio, on our Facebook page and our YouTube channel, After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. This stretch that we put ourselves in early in the season that, you know, we've got to keep believing, you know, we've done it before. We believe we're going to do it again. We can't think any other well, any other way. I spent half an hour with Russ yesterday, you know, and I told him, I said, look, you know, I don't think it's going to be a long, drawn out process.

But but it hasn't been decided relative to what our plans are. And but as soon as we know something that that certainly, you know, he would be the first to know. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Better be careful what you tell Russ, though, because he's not into keeping your secrets, Sean Payton.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. So that came from the exit interviews with Payton post-Bronco season. So they were still hanging around till the late stages for a possible playoff spot. However, you undermine your quarterback, you put in Jared Stidham, you go one and one over that time, and it looks a whole lot different. And again, the message sent to the locker room is we care more about trying to recoup money and trying to protect ourselves and our bottom line than we do about winning. Right.

That's the part that I think stinks. Now, we'll do a flashback before we flash forward. But we just told you that Sean Payton tried to convince us post-Christmas. So this was right after Christmas. I remember Christmas was a Monday because it was my first time back post-wedding. So I'm doing the show from Bob's house in Houston and we do our first night Christmas into the morning of the 26th.

So it's Tuesday and then the next night. So we're kind of getting back into the groove and we're talking about the most recent NFL weekend. As I get set to do another show that week, the bombshell is that Sean Payton had benched Russell Wilson and what he told us was the following. Most of you know, we made a change at quarterback and I understand all the speculation and everything that surrounds a move like that. And I can tell you, look, we're we're desperately trying to win and sure in our in our game today, there are economics and all those other things, but the number one. Push behind this in and it's a decision I'm making is to, you know, get a spark offensively.

Obviously, it's difficult and all of us feel like, man, we didn't do well enough. I don't even know how to take him seriously. Now that we know what the Broncos are really trying to do. It seems so hollow and disingenuous and gross, not that we are naive in thinking that all decisions in pro sports are made with winning in mind, because that's certainly not the case. But they actually threatened to bench him with nine games to go coming off of two wins.

I mean, nothing says we're focused on the future more than the present than that does. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Russell Wilson continued with Brandon Marshall on the I Am Athlete podcast.

And of course, they talked about the Broncos and his future moving forward. My house ain't for sale. What are you talking about? I go on Instagram right now to say Russell Wilson's house isn't for sale. It's not for sale.

It's not on the market right now. People think that I'm out of there, but you know, maybe I am. But no matter what, like, I love to go back, you know, but, you know, I committed there. I committed to be there. I committed to win a championship. I want to win more Super Bowls there. You know, I love the city and everything else. But you know, you also want to be a place that wants you to. So the Broncos haven't made their decision yet, at least theoretically, they haven't made their decision yet.

Or I don't know, maybe that's just what they want us to believe. No doubt, if they could find a trade partner, they would. But I asked former NFL GM and front office exec Randy Mueller about Russell Wilson, wondering if there's still a market for him, considering how tumultuous the last couple of years have been. Well, that's a sticky one.

I would say there has been more failure than success there. But here's what's attractive about Russell. You're going to get him for minimum salary. He got 37 million coming from the Broncos if they cut him, and that's going to be offset by anything that you pay as a team. So let's just say the Falcons want him. They're going to pay minimum salary because they're not going to pay money that just comes off Denver's deal.

Russell's going to make the same whether he plays or his home on the couch. So he'll be targeted and he'll be sought after somewhat just because of the finances. That's Randy Mueller, who recognizes that these decisions sometimes do come down to money. I asked him as well about making the tough choices to cut players when they're up against the salary cap and trying to decide, do you keep a veteran?

Do you find a cheaper replacement? And what does that look like? And he said those are the toughest days as a GM is telling a veteran, we're parting ways with you after your investment and after partnering with you on this journey. And he said in some cases, the worst is when they've been on your roster 10 years or more. So that was Randy Mueller. That whole conversation is actually in a link on Twitter, A-LOL radio or on our Facebook page and actually just retweeted it from the network account at CBS Sports Radio. One more with Russell Wilson.

How much does the winning still drive him? I got more fire than ever, honestly, especially over the past two years or what I've gone through, whether it's in Denver or somewhere else. I hope it's in Denver. You know, I hope I get to finish there.

I committed there. I wanted to be there. You know, I want to be there. For me, it's about winning. Over the next five years, I want to win too.

I want to feel the chill of that trophy again. Just so you know, he didn't mean I want to win T.O.O. He meant I want to win T.W.O. As in I want to win two more Super Bowls and he would like to do it in Denver. Alright, so there's a little more with Russell Wilson we don't have the audio for, but he does say if it's not here, meaning in Denver, I'll be prepared to do that somewhere else. I genuinely mean that I hope it's here.

I brought my family here and everything else. And so Russell Wilson just doubling down in this. I don't want to say it's a stalemate with the Broncos because that's not true. But this narrative that it was the Broncos move that kind of created this divide and created this issue.

And it was not based on how he was playing. Now, Brandon Marshall also did this exercise with him where they went through the different odds. There's odds out there as in betting odds where you can put money on the next team that Russell Wilson plays for. And some of the talk has been about the Steelers and some of the talk has been about the Falcons.

We could go through the various options. But yeah, the quarterback's like, well, I'm going to put Denver one because I'm there right now. So I appreciate that Russell Wilson is still committed to Denver and saying the right things, despite the fact that they undermined him and tried to get him to give up some money.

I like the fact that he's being mature about it. All new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai.

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