It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.
I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody tuned in locked in all over North America. I hope you've had a tremendous day. Congratulations. You've made it to Friday. I'll be hanging out with you for the next four hours.
This is when the show gets started every single weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. Thank you so much to our producer in New York City, Ryan Botcher. And thank you to you for being here. You got plenty of options.
You got plenty of choices. I appreciate you. People listening on the free Odyssey app. People tuned in on their local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. Sirius XM Channel 375.
A smart speaker if you have one. We got a lot to get into. What a game last night. Game one of the NBA Finals. Indiana Pacers did not lead until the end of the game. Until the shot clock expired. That was their first lead and that's all they needed. Tonight, speaking of a lead, in the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, we got the Panthers trying to avoid being in a 2-0 hole. And meanwhile, we got Edmondson.
They're trying to take a 2-0 lead. We got so many rumors about who's going to the New York Knicks. Is it Jason Kidd?
Is it Giannis Atteracumpo? We got baseballs for sale. Somebody's selling a Derek Jeter ball.
We got a villain, a new villain in Halliburton. And what happens to Kirk Cousins? Yeah, I know everybody's talking about Aaron Rodgers.
What happens to Kirk Cousins now that, uh, well, we know Rodgers is going to Pittsburgh. It is Friday and we'll have some call to set us up and tell some jokes later on in the show. We'll talk about a few things that took place this day in sports history.
And we have some guests who are going to come through and join us as well. Zach Osterman is going to join us. Covers the Pacers. Will Graves is going to come through. He's based in Pittsburgh. He's a national writer for the Associated Press. So we'll get his thoughts on what's next in Pittsburgh, what he expects now that Aaron Rodgers is basically leading the way.
If you want to be a part of the show, you can do that. We got a phone number. Our bills have been paid. The phone works. The number here is 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. You can find me online. I exist on the Internet.
I am everywhere at JR Sport Brief. Nothing better than a Friday. Batcha, how are you today? You good?
I'm great. I got blessed by some, uh, sage coming out of the train. Like, showered over. Oh, so you feel, you feel blessed? Blessed.
Cleansed. Okay. Did it smell like anything or was it just? Uh, burning.
It smelled like burning. Okay. All right. Did you say thank you or were you accosted for a dollar? No, the guy, the guy was, step to your left and yelled at me.
I got that. Oh, you were in his way? Yeah, he was kind of just chilling in the middle of the platform. Ah, he was blessing the platform and you just got a little bit of it.
Yep. So I'm cleansed for today. Oh, that's good. Is it going to last until the weekend or just Friday? I hope the weekend, the better. I don't know.
He had like a bunch of them. So maybe like seven days. Okay. Oh, okay.
I'm happy for you. Well, send some of that down to Georgia. Okay. Yep. I'll, I'll tell the guy to take the train down. Please. Yeah. Amtrak, please.
Amtrak. Uh, speaking of being blessed, are, are the, are the Pacers blessed? They have to be. Like there has to be something going on with the Indiana Pacers. Again? For real. Again?
Like last night? Again? I want you to listen to this final call. OKC, Indiana. This is Mark Boyle from the Pacers radio network. Tyrese Halliburton did it again.
Caruso from the near side hash. Flips it toward the goal and Turner tipped it. The game ends with Indiana winning 111 to 110 on the one to 100 scale of improbability. This was what? 117. Oh my God.
Like again, one 11 to one 10. The pace. And we sat here on the air last night. We were sitting here watching the game. I'm in the studio in Atlanta. Bocher's in the studio up in New York.
And we're sitting here going, oh, what a waste of time this is. Oh, I just hope the game ends early. You know, Bocher, didn't you say you thought it was going to be a blowout the rest of the way? Or was that Marco?
No, I did. I thought it was going to be like a 20 point blowout for the Thunder just cause it followed the same script it did in the Minnesota series. But I guess you look at the Pacers side now too.
It's the same script they went through. Yeah, the Pacers and Tyrese Halliburton specifically. This man did this against Milwaukee to send them packing. Hit a big shot against Cleveland. We all remember that game one against the Knicks. Halliburton hit a shot.
It bounced off the back iron, bounced up in the air. A bunch of feet fell straight into the basket. Like Halliburton has the clutch gene. I mean, Damian Lillard, a little bit older.
Damian Lillard also, you know, not able, older and hurt. Halliburton has it. He doesn't miss. You know what? I don't know if you speak Korean. I assume you're listening to me. You probably speak English or you're learning.
I got two versions for you. Listen to the game winning shot. This is Halliburton giving the Pacers their first lead yesterday.
This is in English. Eight seconds to go. The Pacers are not going to call a time out. Halliburton has it with three, driving with two, pulling up and hitting with three-tenths of a second to go. How many more times can this team do that? I don't know.
We're going to find out. The season's almost over. At least there's not another round to do this. Damn, I'm about seven to go.
Damn, I'm about sick of it at this point in time. Mark Boyle again is probably drinking some tea today. That guy had to do a lot of yelling last night. And so that's the English version of what Halliburton did.
I do not know a word in Korean, but it sounds great. I want you to listen to the Korean call of Halliburton's shot via a spot TV, I assume in Korea. Yeah, all I understood was Indiana and Halliburton. Batra, did you understand anything else? I heard screaming. That's something I understood.
Screaming is international. Absolutely. Most certainly. Wow.
Crazy. Halliburton last night only had 14 points in 10 assists. Pascal Siakam led the way with 19 points scoring for the Indiana Pacers.
But who cares how many points Halliburton has? Like there are games where he looks just, I don't want to say irrelevant. He's not irrelevant. The guy can control a basketball game. But there's some games where it's just like, where is he? Like four points at halftime, six points at halftime. It's like, who cares what he does when he's knocking down big shots like that?
Come on, man. The Thunder led by 15 in the fourth quarter. Shay Gilgus Alexander by himself had 38 points and they still lost. And I don't think you could look at one particular thing and go, oh my God, well, the Thunder, they just, they couldn't make baskets at the end. I mean, Shay Gilgus Alexander, you missed a shot that would have put them up ahead by two and they would have lost. The Pacers would have, but then it didn't matter because Halliburton got the ball and knocked that down.
Damn it. We saw Obi Toppin out there last night. Obi Toppin was knocking down threes. He was five of eight from three. What? He had 17 points.
In what world is Obi Toppin knocking down five threes? Well, last night he did it. And the Pacers, I can't even say they steal game one. They took it. They took it right in front of them.
You steal something, you take it from somebody's back when they're not expecting it. No, they took the game from him. You got to give the Pacers credit. I mean, and this is the same Halliburton who everybody just goes overrated. This is what his contemporaries, this is what other guys in the league said, or at least the, out of the group of 150 that decided to vote. They said Halliburton is the most overrated player in the league. He's in the NBA finals.
Come on. I botcher a lot of people said that the Pacers are going to win one game. Is that the game last night?
It might be. I'm not changing my pick. I'm not changing my selection, but as it stands right now, the Pacers have to feel good about themselves. They were chasing after them all game long. It was going as to what I expected. 15 point lead in the fourth, Pacers 25 turtle turnovers.
It ain't look good for Indiana. This is what Halliburton had to say about being able to pull off this ridiculous comeback. I thought we did a great job of just walking them down, you know, when it gets to 15, you know, you can panic or you can talk about how do we get it to 10? How do we get it to five? And from there, so, you know, I think all series, that's what we've preached as a group is, you know, when we get down big, let's just find a way to incrementally get it down.
Yeah. Well they, they did it. They went on like a couple of his 16 to two point runs and it's just like, whoa, the lead just evaporated. Every time I looked up, I'm like, wait a minute, they're getting closer. And then now he's getting closer and we saw some great plays. I'm glad the referees let them go out there and play. We didn't see a lot of whistles blown, let them play. This is the NBA finals and our OKC has to bounce back. The fans in the building, they looked, they sounded shocked last night. How do they bounce back from this?
Mark Degnault, he talked about his team and he said, uh, you know what? There is no way in hell that we're going to lie down. Of course we're going to bounce back. We won 68 games. A lot more games left in the series. Um, you know, so we understand that we got to get ourselves to zero as we always do.
That's a habit that hopefully we formed. These guys have made a habit of being able to get ourselves centered and play our best game in the next game. Well, he has to watch from the sidelines and Shay Gilgus Alexander.
He was out there on the court and despite putting up 38, they still lost. This is crazy to think about. Shay Gilgus Alexander talked about what happened with that Halliburton shot. I don't know. It happened so fast. Um, I feel like we got matched. He got down, going right, pulled up from the midi and, um, knocked down the shot.
Uh, I don't know. It didn't feel like anything crazy. He just, he just made a play with the time, time winding down, um, made a good play. It didn't look like nothing crazy.
It didn't. It's like Mr. Dunktastic who can also hit threes now. Obie Toppin was just like, here, you take the ball and Halliburton.
He did the rest. Like we should expect this from Tyrese Halliburton. And God forbid the Indiana Pacers win the NBA finals. This guy is going to be insufferable. His outfits are going to be more outrageous. His WWE appearances will increase botch. Am I missing anything? If he wins the, uh, the championship, what else is Tyrese Halliburton going to be out here doing?
Finally getting State Farm commercials. Oh my God. Well, who's doing, who's the, is it still Chris Paul? It's uh, Kaitlin Clark, Mahomes, Andy Reid, Kelsey, and then, uh, it's the Thunder. It's actually the Thunder. Oh, it's all three of them.
It's Jaylin Williams, Shay and Chet. You think, so this man is not only going to steal the championship potentially. He's also going to steal State Farm commercials from the Thunder?
Steal their corny outfits too from that commercial. Yeah, he's not on commercials. This, he does not, he's, what is he, I don't even, does he, he wears Converse I think.
No, no, no. He's Puma. He wears Puma, Shay. Gilgus Alexander wears Converse, right?
Yeah. But he has no real commercials. Maybe soon cause they just dropped his new sneaker line. Wait a minute. Tyrese Halliburton has a shoe line? And I think it only released yesterday or two days ago. So he tweeted out like it must've been the shoes.
Oh, of course he did. Would you wear them? Uh, they're actually not bad. I wouldn't wear them like aesthetically, but maybe for basketball.
They're not bad. You just, you just, well, I mean, they're basketball shoes. People wear, do people wear, still wear basketball shoes for style?
I don't think so anymore now, right? Uh, it depends what they are. Like people still wear KDs and non-Kobes. For style?
Uh, sometimes. Halliburton shoes. Let me see how ugly these shoes are.
I hate all. Oh my God. I wouldn't wear these. Yeah. I don't wear none of this stuff. Puma unveils Tyrese Halliburton's first signature shoe ahead of the NBA finals. All right.
So what did they do? Hit the fast forward button because he went to the finals? Yep. We wouldn't have got his shoe until what? Next year or something like that?
Until he won more playoff games. Yeah. Tyrese Halliburton last night credits new signature shoe for game winning shot. Of course he is. Hopefully he sold a few more.
Let's listen to Tyrese Halliburton. Talk about being confident in that game weather. I'm obviously confident in, in my ability and I feel like if I can get to, you know, that spot, I feel very comfortable in there. Um, so, um, yeah, just, you know, it's a shot I've worked on a million times and I'll work on a million times more. So, um, yeah, we just have confidence in that shot.
Yeah. Well, they won. He won them the game. They didn't have a lead until he hit the game winning shot. They turned the ball over 25 times. The thunder had them by 15 points out of 15 point lead in the fourth quarter. And they still won weird things happen in basketball games every now and then something odd has to happen to somebody. Somebody has to win.
Somebody has to lose all things considered. And we've seen this from the paces. We've seen this all throughout the course of the playoffs. Teams don't just lie down and quit. They keep going and going. They're like the energizer bunny. They keep going and going and going until the game stops.
And that's what the paces have done, but that's not to say, do you have to make it a nail biter? I get it. These are the best of the best teams. These are the top teams. These are the top two teams left playing right now this minute.
Okay. Forget the injuries. These are the top two teams that are playing right now. They're going to play close. Your games are not just going to be massive blowouts.
Probably not. It looked like it for a point last night, but we saw what can take place. Paces still got some things to clean up. Championship coach Rick Carlisle, he basically said, yeah, we won the game, but we got some things to do better. We know we have a lot of work to do and we have to play a lot better. I mean, 19 turnovers and a half is, if it's not a record for the finals, it's got to be up there close to it. Yeah, you ain't going to win no basketball games, given the team, the other ball.
Now here's the worst part. The next game is Sunday night. Come on. We couldn't get the next game on Saturday night. I get it.
I understand. It's June. People want to be outside. The weather might be nice where you are. Kids might be out of school.
If they're not, they're on their way. This is a beautiful time to be outside, depending on where you look. And it's Saturday night.
People are going on dates, they're eating, they're hanging out with their friends, their families. I understand it. On Sunday night, man, that's a long time. Got to wait Friday night, Saturday night. They had the game on Thursday.
Butch, ain't that too long? They could have played tomorrow. Yeah, they could have. But at the same time, you know, extra days of rest, you know, I got yelled at a couple days ago saying they didn't need a week to get off.
Oh my God. Well, they don't need three days Thursday to Sunday to play a game. After having a week off, too. Well, they're just like, hey, everybody, well, most people are sitting at home on Sunday.
I'm just like, whatever. And God forbid that game, a basketball game can't start, you know, before eight Eastern, five Pacific. It has to start after that.
OK. Shout out to the advertisers making the money. It's the JR Sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. The Pacers did it again.
What a shock. Tonight, we're going to see if the Florida Panthers do it again. Are they going to blow another lead?
The Oilers are trying to go up 2-0 here in the Stanley Cup finals. We're going to get into that on the other side of the break. Now that Aaron Rodgers is on his way to Pittsburgh, what does this mean for Kirk Cousins? We're going to talk about some of these rumors with Jason Kidd and Giannis Attero-Cupo going to the Knicks and maybe even Kevin Durant.
I have no idea. Speaking of the Pacers, Zach Osterman is going to join us. Covers the Pacers. And we're going to have a chat with Will Graves. He covers the Steelers. The NBA might expand.
Of course, it will expand. We got a lot to get into. I'm just getting started. It's the JR Sport Brief show on the Infinity Sports Network. You are listening to the JR Sport Brief.
It is the JR Sport Brief show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We just talked about what we saw last night. The Indiana Pacers bouncing back. It took them all the way to the end of the game. It took them until there was like three tenths of a second left to have a lead and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Okay, fine. Everybody thought, I think a lot of people thought that the Pacers would win one game and maybe last night was the one game in dramatic fashion. I'm still going with the Thunder. I am not changing my mind. We'll get the thoughts next hour of Zach Osterman.
He will be here with us. Covers all things Indiana Pacers. We got Game 1 underway in the NBA. We gotta wait until Sunday to get Game 2 underway.
That's too damn long if you ask me. What am I gonna watch tomorrow? Like baseball, right? College baseball, pretty much, probably.
Major League baseball. Be watching that between now and October. But tonight, actually, there's plenty to watch.
I'll be sitting here in the studio watching it in about an hour and a half. We're gonna have Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Panthers and the Oilers. The Edmonton Oilers.
You want to talk about coming from behind. They were down 3-1 against the Panthers two nights ago. They were down 3-1.
They end up beating the Panthers in overtime. 4-3. Leondrye Seidel had the game winner. He had two goals. Thank God he had the game winner with 31 seconds left.
I was like, here we go. We're gonna move into another overtime and I'm just gonna fall asleep. They came out on top. You think about the Stanley Cup Finals last year. Well, Edmonton, damn it, they were in an 0-3 hole. They had to bounce back to tie the series and ultimately the Panthers won in seven games.
This go around a little different. We're in a situation right now with the defending champs trying to go back to back. It's kind of early, but they got their backs against the wall.
Matthew Kuchuk, he talked about just how it feels to be down 0-1 knowing you could be down 0-2. It's a hard game. It's an adversity type of game, an adversity type of atmosphere. We've said it a bunch. It's that us against the world mindset, but you really feel it, especially being down in the series. Man, forget up against the world mentality.
Their coach Paul Maurice, he has a different thought process. He says, just act like the last game doesn't exist. Forget about it completely. Nothing. It's just experience.
You go through enough tough days after losses, every one of them to the playoffs feels like a weight and you get used to handling it the next day and letting it go. Oh my goodness. How about this terrible news as I sit here in the studio?
Oh my God. Corbin Burns just showed up to the Arizona Diamondbacks. They already have to cut this guy open with Tommy John surgery.
Like, is this the world that we're living in right now? He's in the first year of a six year $210 million contract and he's going to be gone for about a year and a half. Now make it a five year deal. I mean, what is he going to be good out of two of those years? You can't make this stuff up. Why you don't pay old pitchers anymore.
Shoot, man. Look, Verlander is still trying to pitch. Max Scherzer is still trying to pitch.
Max Scherzer. What part of his body is hurting today? Do we know his thumb?
Yep. He's still not. It's not his back or his oblique yet. It's probably a string of everything and he'll blame the thumb now. Oh my God. And what is he making? Like 20, I think, right?
Yeah, he's close to 20. Oh my God. To be to be on the injured list every single year.
Yep. And Verlander too has not been great with the Giants. Oh my God. I mean, well, he's just trying to chase a 300 wins. I mean, what else is he? What is he like 270?
Yeah, but even still he 30 wins at his age is kind of crazy. Oh my God. He's not 262. Like go sit down, bruh.
Just enjoy your family. Sit down. He's 42 years old.
He thinks he's Nolan Ryan. No, man. Just please go, go, go sit down.
It sucks. Yeah, Corbin Burns now out for the year with Tommy John surgery. At least, at least these guys got reasons. I know last, well, last night or even all this week we talked about all these young NFL players who are dealing with all these shoulder issues. We got Anthony Richardson, his shoulders busted up because he drops it into everybody. We got CJ Stroud dealing with a shoulder issue. He's had shoulder issues dating back to college.
Well, I get it. You playing football, people are trying to knock you the hell on out. Man, there's, there's nothing worse in sports than I'm going to say being a pitcher, but you just know there's going to come a point in time, especially if you logging the innings and you out there on that Mount, they're going to have to cut you open. I mean, damn it, Shohei Ohtani has been cut open twice already.
And it's just, just a day at the park. I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to just strengthen everything in your arms. So you don't rip the shreds, but nobody's supposed to be throwing a ball a hundred plus miles per hour. You're not supposed to be putting spin and all this stuff on the ball.
Not a regular arm motion. Now, Corbin burns out for the year. Yeah.
I just saw that pop up on the screen. I'm like, I saw he was hurt, but damn, what a world. Hey, Boncher, did you play baseball? I played in the summer. I was never good enough to play in high school.
Plus I didn't have the work ethic you could say. Ah, okay. So I watch it. I played in the summer, played in the fall, but never on a real good team. What does that mean? You played in the summer, played in the summer league. Like a rec summer league. Oh, okay. It's fun. So everybody, everybody gets a medal in that, right?
No, not at all. It was very competitive actually. Oh really? There was a lot of arguments, a lot of fights. I thought at the fights, I thought at the end of the season, how many games in the summer do you play? Like 15 games? Usually double headers every Saturday and or Sunday.
So three or four weekend. And somebody gets a medal and trophy, right? The winner. Yeah.
The number one team. And everybody else got nothing but the, uh, the thrill of going out there and playing. Yep.
And, uh, maybe heat stroke. Wow. Because it's the summertime. What time are you playing these games? 10 in the morning, right? You start at 10 or 11 and then you play till four. Oh bro.
I don't got time for that, man. No. Do you drink beer during the game or after? No, this was before pre 21.
If anything, anything post 21 would be slow pitch softball. Okay. All right. Yeah.
So no beer for people under the age of 21. Absolutely. Okay. I was just thinking, man, if I was out there playing rec anything and you put me in the outfield right now, man, I'm putting a beer in my back pocket. Okay. I don't think they would have questioned it honestly.
Oh, why would they? I mean, that's a, I need a, now that I think about that and shout out to my guy, uh, Bernie Williams. I've played in his, his softball game a couple of times. I should have had the idea botch. I should've, I should've had a beer in my back pocket.
What's wrong with me? Uh, as long as you get through it before the innings over. So it doesn't like spill. You're good. Oh yeah. I'm fine. Good.
You good. Good point. Good point. Wow. And I'm surprised many, many Ramirez used to, what do you have in this back pocket?
He has some weird back there. Then they do dip. Wasn't that very popular? I don't know if he was with the tobacco. I think by the time they made a statement, still had it around when Manny was, well, definitely when he was early in his career in Cleveland. But I'm trying to remember what year they got rid of it. The major league baseball for all the things that they promote used to promote cigarettes. They, I guess, uh, it came a point in time where they stopped the dip.
I think I want to say it was made about, well, yeah, we in 2025, Dan. What do you think about 20 years ago, 15 years ago, they stopped the dip. You know, I think the biggest thing that probably stopped the dip was Tony Quinn's death. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah.
But it was, it was after, but I'm trying to think what year, what year did MLB stop? And it's crazy. I mean, Tony Glenn was amazing. Yeah.
Just watching him play. And then as he got older, you, even as he got older and he got a little bit more portly, like his hand-eye coordination did not. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
I think even when he was older, he was still batting like his three 30, three 40 with no problem. Okay. Yeah. 2011 teams, MLB banned tobacco in minors. 2011 no longer allowed to provide smokeless tobacco. 2016 new CBA band dip. Yeah.
How about that Bosher? Wow. Not even a full decade yet. Wow. Yeah. Anyway, there's other things that players can have. Yeah. He has special gum. Yeah.
There's a lot of, a lot of things like that. Good for them. And good luck to Corbin Burns too. He's gonna, he ain't got time for dip. He's going to have to go to the rehab. Anyway, it's the JR sport pre-show here with you coast to coast on the infinity sports network.
Thank God the NHL actually starts their games at a reasonable time and we'll have game two in about 90 minutes from now. 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN. That's 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN. We are going to take a break. When we come back, we all found out yesterday that Aaron Rogers is, he is going to be joining the Pittsburgh Steelers. What does this mean for Kirk Cousins?
Because he is now down another option. We'll get into that on the other side of the break. At the top of the hour, we'll talk about some options potentially for Jason Kidd and Giannis.
We got a lot to do. It's the JR sport brief show on the infinity sports network. And right now it's time for a newsflash. You just heard him. It's Rich Ackerman. You're listening to the JR sport brief. And I thank you. You have no idea.
I'm very thankful. It is the JR sport brief show here with you coast to coast on the infinity sports network. Man, I'm trying to savor this time of the year from a sports perspective, right? Because we're going to blink. The NBA will be done. NHL will be done. Everything will be about major league baseball. I mean, this is even before we get to NFL training camp.
And there's still time. We got the drafts coming up at the end of the month, but this is the winter sports over. It's the summertime baseball time, right? Before we get to training camp. And now even with an NFL story, Aaron Rogers has let everybody know that he's going to let the Steelers know he's going to show up and work for one year or at least half a season, because basically it's June. By the time we get to December or early January, the season will be over for the Pittsburgh Steelers. So Aaron Rogers is like, yeah, I give you guys six, six months of solid work.
Why the hell not? Not the worst thing in the world. Aaron Rogers could be stealing money. Pacers, some people say they stole a game last night.
The same thing for the Edmonton Oilers coming back after being down 3-1, 4-3. But if you want to talk about anybody stealing anything, God bless them. Kirk Cousins, he has stolen and taken a lot of money in his NFL career.
Just going from Washington to Minnesota and tag after tag after tag after tag. And then he's signing with Atlanta four years, one hundred and eighty million dollars. And certainly the Falcons taking on Michael Pennix right after they sign him to the deal. Kirk Cousins wasn't happy with that.
He sucked at the end of the year towards the end of the season, one touchdown to nine interceptions. And then he waited until after the fact to get the Falcons in trouble and say that he was hurt. Yeah, the Falcons don't want him. Kirk Cousins doesn't want the Falcons. And now that Aaron Rodgers is on his way to Pittsburgh, that is one less destination for Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins was openly flirting with the Cleveland Browns earlier in the off season, popping up at Cleveland restaurants.
It's like he took a day trip just to pose and take photos at local establishments. Yeah, Kirk Cousins isn't the type of guy to make a public stink. He's not going to put in a trade demand. He's just going to be polite about it because it's it's Kirk Cousins. Well, there ain't no spots for him in Cleveland. Talked about that yesterday. They got four quarterbacks who the offensive coordinator legitimately says could start. We could see Chador start. But I highly doubt it.
Not at all. Think about Minnesota. Why would they want to rock the apple cart? Unless J.J. McCarthy really sucks. Why the hell would they go back in time to have Kirk Cousins just hold down the fort? And why would he want to go back unless he says, man, I can really steal this job? It's no job in Pittsburgh for him unless Aaron Rodgers rips up his leg in training camp.
I'm not hoping or asking for it. That's just my thought. Kirk Cousins has run out of options. This is like a game of musical chairs and everybody is sitting down except for Kirk Cousins. He's standing up. Holding a clipboard for the Falcons, or at least that's what he would be doing, because he's not at camp. Kirk Cousins was not at training camp, minicamp, voluntary minicamp. He was hanging out with his wife and kids.
Why not? I don't know where he was, but I assume that's what he's doing. And so what's realistic for Kirk Cousins? Is he getting trade? Is he traded? Is he getting cut? Apparently the Falcons, they want a team to pay almost half of his salary. He is owed $45 million. They want somebody to come through and at least put up 20.
Is he really worth it? Like some other guy would have to blow his leg out in training camp. Some team would have to go, my God, our best option just went down in order to pay Kirk Cousins.
Why would anybody do that? I mean, back in April, the general manager here in Atlanta of the Falcons, Terry Fontenot, he was asked about Cousins and how the trade offers were looking, how this process was going to go. And I'm sure it's going to be worse now that Pittsburgh is off the board. We just have to look at whatever, say, if we get an offer on any player, we get an offer, we have to look at it and say, is this going to help our team?
Is this the betterment of our team? And then we'll do it with Kirk or anyone else. It comes down to that. But the report that says there's a specific number, that's not accurate. We haven't said that.
Oh, so you don't need nobody to come through and take half. Okay. All right.
He could have said that about anybody. We have heard that time after time after time. Yeah. We just got to wait for a deal to come through. That makes sense for us. Well, no doubt that we're talking about you. I think Kirk Cousins is going to sit around on the Falcons roster into training camp.
I really do. Like the Falcons wanted this to be awkward when they drafted Michael Pennix Jr last year, right after they signed Kirk Cousins made everybody, including myself, scratch our heads. They're going to continue with this being awkward, and they're just, they're going to pay the guy. And I don't know the ramifications financially of if you just cut them, but I know it's not going to be easy. But when you gave him that money, you already knew that he was either A, going to work or B, he was going to be a ridiculously expensive insurance policy that you're just going to have to pay Kirk Cousins.
He's not going anywhere. If you think about Terry Fontenot, he used to work for the saints, Falcons and saints, at least their fans. They hate each other. They are annoying by the way, not one fan base over the other. I love my people in Louisiana. I love my folks here in Atlanta, but when you get them together in the same room, it's just like, well, y'all shut up. You know, they're both arguing about nothing. At least the saints can say, hey, we won.
What have you done? Blow a 28 to 3 lead? They like to say that. There's a possibility Kirk Cousins gets moved, but I think the fan base, send them to New Orleans. They're not winning anything. They got Tyler Shuck right now. Who the heck is expecting anything out of him besides getting hurt again, this time at the professional level? You think about a quarterback being hurt? Is CJ Stroud a possibility? You know, I mean, if he goes down and he's going to be out for a period of time, wouldn't Kirk Cousins be ideal just to go out there and plug and play?
But I do think by the time we get to next month in July, the training camp is underway. Kirk Cousins will still be a Falcon and he will be a backup. There was a point in time he was right there in the same quarterback room with RG3. And there was an expectation that, hey, you guys got to battle this out. Kirk Cousins had to, you know, wait after RG3 got busted up and kind of take the job.
And this go around, he's older, had an Achilles injury. Kirk Cousins is like, Batra, you got you said you got hit with Sage. Was it Sage today? Yeah, it was Sage. You got it with Sage? Yep.
Yeah. Kirk Cousins might need, he might need some of that. He might need to be blessed with some of that here in Atlanta because I don't think he's going anywhere out the gate.
He's just going to have to sit here and wait a while. He's going to have to wait until a quarterback gets hurt. The only thing I would say is if you take half a salary, right, it'll be around 22 million. That puts him behind Baker and barely had a Justin Fields. So you look at it, he's going to be the lowest paid real starting quarterback besides a rookie because Justin Fields is the lowest at 20 million. So it's not that bad if you had to trade for him to start.
But yeah, it's not a need right now for teams. It's the trade. It's like, what am I, how, well, a team that's going to bring him on is a team that's trying to win. You would think that a team that's trying to win unless, and this is why Houston might be a good possibility. I mean, CJ Stroud is still on his rookie deal.
He is not in the stratosphere yet of these other guys who are making the 50s and the 60s. Well, Dak Prescott's making 60. Like if Dak went down, they can't bring this man on and say, how are we going to pay to back up, you know, 20 mil. I just, it's somebody, some, some young quarterback is going to have to go down, get hurt.
And some team that thinks they have a chance is going to have to say, you know what, let's, let's, let's hit up the bat phone. Let's call down to Atlanta and see if we can get our hands on Kirk Cousins. But even then you'd have to be real desperate because Kirk Cousins is, is good, but he ain't good in the games that matter. In the postseason, Kirk Cousins has a record of one and four.
Now he's not complete trash. It takes more than one guy to win. But I think in a postseason, Kirk Cousins, and this happens to a lot of quarterbacks. I think he's, he's too careful. I don't think he's, he's willing to go down the field and actually push the ball. He's just too conservative and trying to maintain the game so he doesn't lose it.
And in turn, doesn't win. We got a lot of quarterbacks like that. Kirk Cousins has been highly paid in the process of it, but he's going to be here in Atlanta.
I'd say for a couple more months. Who the hell needs to trade for a quarterback in June? The answer is nobody.
Nobody. It's the JR Sportbree Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Can't wait until Aaron Rodgers press conference next week. That'll be fun whenever the hell they schedule it. 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. We have no idea where Kirk Cousins is going, but apparently Jason Kidd might be on the move. Giannis Atetokounmpo, we already knew that he might be on the move. And Kevin Durant? Yeah, he's probably done in Phoenix. But all three of these guys are, are connected potentially to the New York Knicks?
What? We'll get into that on the other side of the break. Zach Osterman is going to join us. He covers the Indiana Pacers. We'll talk some more NFL. Talk some Pacers as well.
Later on, we got a lot to do. It's the JR Sportbree Show, the Infinity Sports Network.
