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. Much love and many thanks to everybody tuned in all over North America.
I hope you're well. I hope you're great. I hope you're amazing. The show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific.
We've been hanging out for an hour. Where have you been? We talked about Bradley Beale. former member of the Phoenix Sons. agreed to a a contract buy out today is now a member of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Caitlin Clark. Dealing with a groin injury, suffered last night. She's been dealing with a groin injury for seemingly weeks now. She came back and she's hurt again. It won't be in action tonight.
against the New York Liberty. They have beaten the hell out of Caitlin Clark. We talked about the All Star game last night that went to a swing off, and we have so much more to do as we continue on with the show. We're going to be joined by Pete Futak, who covers all things college football. He'll be here to talk with us about the SEC, the Big Twelve, what we need to see, what we need to pay attention to.
You be here. in twenty minutes. Of course, in about an hour from now, we're going to bring you a new top six list. We're going to take a look. At the top six NFL rookies to watch In twenty Twenty Five.
Yeah, we got some rookies that may not even be rookies. They may go back to college. I'll explain. We'll get to that top six list in an hour from now. Also, this in an hour from now.
We're going to have the Espy Awards. Yeah, taking place in Los Angeles. I gotta admit, since the pandemic the S P's have kinda been like uh I don't want to say a bore, but I don't think they have been all that Memorable. We'll get to that as we continue on with the show. You want to be a part of the show?
You can do that too. Here's the phone number. 888-710-4ISN is the number. That's 888-710-4ISN. You can find me online.
I exist everywhere at JR Sport Brief.
Okay, and if you've missed a minute of the show, hit where you want on the free Odyssey at. Thank you for listening live on your local affiliates. If you got Sirius XM, It's channel 375. And if you have a smart speaker, asked the speaker. to play The infinity Sports.
Network. What a day, what a day Yeah, Caitlin Clark, oh, hilarious Bacha, did you see her brother? Basically, blamed the referee last night on social media for her being hurt, and then he deleted it. Did you see that? I did not.
So, her brother complains too, just like her.
Well, I guess uh they gotta stand up for his sister, right? Cash cow breadwinner? Yeah, but like I I it's it's it's a point to to argue with the ref about you getting hurt is It's kinda crazy. Because there's other ways. It's not just the ref can't magically get you to pull a muscle, it just happens.
It just it's not on the guy. Yeah, but the beat down that she takes and the the allowing of the beat downs is I assume, where he ah Well, it's not like he provided too much insight. It is Twitter. There's never any insight there. People put an opinion out there, they drop it.
And now everybody runs with it like uh Like it has some depth. Everybody's left to assume you know, what was said. But it was pretty clear what he said. This referee the referee is to blame for my sister. getting hurt.
Caitlin Clark has already missed five games with a groin injury in her left leg. Before we even got to the season, Caitlin Clark was dealing with a quad issue. I mean, before we got to these past five games, well, she was out. Just It's tons, and I like the way her coach lies. Says we'll be fine without Caitlin Clark.
They are eight and five with her. They are four and five without her. And Caitlin Clark has been dealing with these groin and leg issues all season long. And even so much right now, she's in a shooting slump. I would assume it has to deal with her her leg issues 'cause She can't hit a three to save her life.
And she's supposed to be in a three-point contest this Friday, two nights from now. And then the All-Star game for the WNBA is on Saturday night. She's shooting nineteen percent from three. Like I would assume there are some physical issues. going on.
888-710-4ISN. 888-710-4ISN. Seth is here from Baltimore. You're on the JR Sport Ree Show. What's up, Seth?
JR, I'm well, bro. Thanks for taking my call, man. I'm a first time caller, but listen a lot.
Well, thank you. Appreciate you. What's on your mind? Bro, I just wanted to let you know, man. I know the SPs might not have been as exciting recently, but Listen to the SB bands.
The SB band is the heat, JR. The it's got Guys from Snoop's former band, the Drummer used to be the founding member of Fishbone and played with Justin Timberlake. The keyboard player is some virtuoso genius.
So they are amazing. The bass player, I think, wrote 187. for sneak dog. Played with Michael Jackson like that. We're talking about the same SP awards, right?
The ESPN awards? That is correct, brother. They have a band. Where's the band? I've been to the SPs.
Are you talking about like in the orchestra inside? I'm not sure where they're situated this year. Wait a minute. But they're there recording. You're telling me the band that plays During the award show.
Is that what you're referring to, Seth? That is correct. Ain't nobody listening to the. They play coming to not a commercial. Ain't nobody thinking about them.
Bro, JR, I know, but you're an industry guy.
So if you're there, you're watching, I'm telling you, the show might be boring. But listen to those I've been to so many Espy awards, I could care less about going anymore. I mean, nobody ever sat at an Espie Awards and said, oh, you know, how about the band? Nobody cares. Come on now.
That's true. All right, now, Jay, last thing I got to ask you, being from Baltimore, two things. How do you think my Ravens are going to do? What's your opinion of the status of the Baltimore Orioles, man? What do you think the Orioles need to do?
Is there any chance we get somebody like Joe Madden to come in and manage the club next year? And thank you for the call. No problem, Seth. Thank you for calling from Baltimore. I don't know what they're going to do.
next year. I can tell you this, for the rest of this season, they need to get healthy and they need to continue with their their pitching getting healthy. That's uno numero uno. And the bats have turned on just a little bit, but they need to get their pitching together as they go down the stretch run. As it comes down to the Ravens, bruh, That's just one massive Shrug.
The Ravens look good. The Baltimore Ravens look good on paper every year. They're good. And Lamar Jackson has become more of a pocket passer. He's improved in that regard.
They still need to get the job done in the postseason. It's the same old, same old with the Ravens. I've been saying the same damn thing for the past three years with the Ravens. Like, Lamar Jackson can win MVPs. Can the team.
Can he help lead the team? Not to an MVP, a regular season MVP. But a Super Bowl MVP, Killamar Jackson at the end of the day. stand around in February. and say boom.
Here's the Vince Lombardi trophy. Like, and this is something that we talk about all year long, every single season. Like, if you're a Ravens fan. Aren't you tired of this? It's like, hey, I know if we're healthy, we're gonna win.
ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen games. Like if I'm the Ravens, I just want to get through the season. Unscathed, I want to get there and be healthy. And then I want to see what we can do in the postseason. Not to ha not to say that, oh, all of a sudden we just need to skip the regular season.
But at this point, it's it's moot. Give me a break. I got no interest. Bacha, what the hell is going on with the SPs? You found something interesting?
Well, I was looking up the band that he was talking about. I have no idea what Seth was talking about there. But nobody cared about no band. No, no. They play like the the three second NFL theme or three second MLB theme, whatever it is.
But they will have performances, Buster Rhymes, Clips, and Jell-O. We'll be performing tonight. Excuse me? Yeah, Vitaly Angela Ball will be performing on stage. The guy who did the one song, whoa, just him?
I assume by himself. He's going to do that song and another song that nobody ever heard of or cares about. He had the other one. I forgot what it was called, but it wasn't as bad. It wasn't that bad.
He had one song that hit for like a month, two months. Whoa. And now he's fallen off the face of the earth. On a separate note, I read that. He's getting divorced.
He's married. Did you know that, or something like that? He's having a kid, right? I think he's had a kid before. I think All three of them?
Something about a kid, and then he left. I don't know.
Something like that. I have no idea. I don't know.
But he's got. Four songs put out from his new album coming out. Are you listening to his album? No, I've listened to Tweaker and I've listened to Can You Please featuring Glorilla. I have no idea what these other two are.
You you like L'Angelo Ball's music? No. I'd actually say that Lonzo Ball's music is better than L'Angelo Ball's music. Lonzo Ball, what, the one on the. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm mixing them up now. Lonzo, who just signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers? Yes, he has better music. Than L'Angelo. Are you gonna tell me that Lamello Ball from the Charlotte Hornets also makes music?
I do not think so, but his teammate does. Miles Bridges? Yeah, Miles Bridges definitely does. Didn't Miles Bridges well, we know he got in trouble for uh putting his hands on a woman. Um Di did he he wasn't smart enough to stop making music?
Now I put out a single called Jackie Chan that came out literally. Five days ago. Oh my and I I assume this song uh about Jackie Chan is about karate kicking people, beating them up. There's no lyrics here, so I can't read them, but I'd assume so. It's a picture of him.
At karate class as a kid? Oh boy. He got nothing better to do in his offseason. I mean, you got enough money, build a studio in your house. Your hoop dreams have worked out so far.
You might as well go out and try your hand at music, huh? Is that what it is? These guys haven't learned that most of them suck. Yeah, it's something to do. It kills time.
Doesn't just be good. Enter Damian Lillard. He's supposed to be good. I've listened to his music. Lillard does it.
Shador Sanders does it. But Lillard is okay, but even being okay, I don't want to hear him rhyme. Like, what is this? It's a passion project.
Okay. Nice. Everybody wants to hop into another lane where they have a Nothing to do with the damn thing.
Well, I see Buster Buster Rhymes is also there tonight, huh? Add something. Yeah, well I don't think anybody, God bless Buster Rhymes, love Buster Rhymes, leaders of the new school. I love Buster Rhymes, but I don't think anybody's tuning into the Espies to see him. You know, just like I love Ludacris.
I love Jermaine Dupree. Shout out to DJ Infamous. They were out there last night. I think most people tuning into the All-Star game. They didn't want to see these guys.
They wanted to. They wanted to watch the game. It was the guy from Fast and the Furious. That's what they know Ludacris as.
Well, Ludacris, I guess, maybe, right.
So, to the younger generation. How many of those movies have they made? Twenty of them? There's ten. No yeah, ten.
And there's going to be an eleventh. I've never seen one of 'em. None of them? The early ones I was pretty good. I'm not, what are they doing?
Chasing cars or stealing them?
Well, the first few. they're like about racing and there's hasn't happens to be crime along with it. And then when you get to the fifth one, they're kinda like, Let's rob a bank and go all out and they become like crime fighters and stuff moving on to the newer ones. Yeah, I got no interest, no thanks. No thanks.
I'll go my whole life without probably watching one of these uh Fast and the Furious movies. No thanks. There's enough crime going on in the real world. I don't need to need to turn on a movie to watch it. Nice.
Anyway, and who the hell is hosting the award show this? Is this some comedian that I also never heard of, right? Yeah, it's Shane Gillis. I've heard of him. He's from he does stand up for Netflix, has the Netflix show Tires.
Oh, so he's a Netflix comedian. He was. Yeah, he is. He was kicked off at SNL. Uh a couple years back.
Other than that, he's just he jumps around.
So he'll be better than some of the comedy that we've gotten in the past, I assume, right? I'd hope so. His style of comedy is more of like. fumbling around, just being casual and just acting like a I don't know, middle-aged man, college.
Well, let's listen to some of the attempts at comedy. over the past several years. Like when uh Peyton Manning joked about Kevin Durant leaving uh Oklahoma City. For the warriors listen to this. And I The gymnastics team was so dominant that Kevin Durant told me he wants to play for them next year.
And I gotta tell you, I don't think you'd start for that team, Kevin. Yeah. Russell Westbrook, what do you think? Let's just say that Kevin Durant was in the audience and he was not too enthused. He had no expression.
on his face. A couple of years ago we had John Cena out there. And John Cena, currently still in the WWE, want to talk about acting. John Cena was making jokes about. you know, the heroes and the villains in sports.
Time to take a look at yourself, sports, and realize that you're more like the WWE than you have ever. Imagined.
Okay, LeBron. You used to be a good guy, and then you turned into a bad guy, and now you're a good guy again? And you left the NBA hanging. What are they going to do when they don't have a bad guy? Exactly what we do.
They're going to make a new one. Yeah. Yeah, they're good guys and bad guys. And now John Cena ironically is playing a bad guy. And great character work.
And then we had Drake. Drake was uh Yeah, I don't think they'd have him there now. Botcha, didn't he host once or twice? Did it a couple times? Wow.
That's got to be. At least eight years ago? Yeah. They're not bringing him back the way Kendrick Lamar destroyed him. But let's take a listen to this guy.
He sung about the athletes and their extracurricular activities. This is a song about the real glue that holds the sports world together. It's a song that I Called side pieces. Side pieces. I know that you're watching this from home.
I can't wait to see you on the road. Cheering from the shadows, I hear you call them out. White fee sees a text and asks, what's this all about?
Okay. Well, there you go. Drake singing about side pieces.
Alright, well, let me tell you something. There's a lot of. There's a lot of people looking to get shows out at the Espy Awards. They are looking to get shows, okay? Anyway, we're going to take a break.
When we come back, we're going to talk about some college football. We've had a Big Twelve Media Day last week, SEC Media Days this week. We're going to have a chat with Pete Fuatec from College FootballNews.com. He's going to join us on the other side of the break to break it all down because the clock is a ticking. as to what we will see, In the college football season.
We'll have that chat with Peter on the other side. It's the JR Sport Reef Show Coast to Coast on the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Man, we got the Espy Awards getting ready to go down.
We got the Major League Baseball All Star Game and Home Run Derby that are taking place over the past few days. WNBA is moving towards its All Star break with Caitlin Clark kind of in limbo due to injury, so there's still plenty going on in the world of sports, but the countdown is on. for some football. And yeah, we're gonna get the NFL training camp sooner than later. Rookies are reporting.
But on the college side, we've already had some media days. We're going to blink and we're already going to be staring at week zero. The Big Twelve had its media days last week. The SEC had its turn this week to talk about some of the things we've heard and what we can expect heading into this season and during the year. Joining us right now is the founder of CollegeFootball News.com.
Pete. Few sec. Pete, how are you, man? The Espies, last night's All-Star game. There's nothing going on.
There's nothing going on in sports right now. We're all just waiting for football to kick in. It's okay. It's okay. It's that time of year.
Hey, it is. It's sitting in the middle of July and waiting on that time. You are right about that, Pete. But based on some of the things we've heard last week, there's so much talk about the college football playoff and who's going to be in and how many spots they get. At this point in time, it's it's kind of sickening.
Where do you think they they eventually going to land on this issue?
Well, I'll argue that they'll start off arguing your point by calling it quote sickening because it's fine. You know what? It's still. Better than any other playoff going because even if they expand to sixteen. You're still getting fewer teams involved.
Remember, there's 136 college football teams. If you look at any other sport, Like all the pro sports basically you have a 50-50 shot at getting into the playoffs. NBA, it's like a 65% shot. If you're counting the play-in games, and the NCA basketball tournament is about a 38% chance to get in.
So it's still really hard to get into these games.
Now, the problem is. Once you get in, unless you are a superpower, you have no shot.
So like you're not going to ever get a a Boise state or any sort of you know, Cinderella type team. Go in there and do anything great because it's just too hard. It's a different sort of sport. But it's fine. You know what?
It's still the the regular season's still gonna matter. You're still going to get the teams in there. You're not going to get really any outliers. You might get an upset or two here or there, but the best teams are always going to end up in the top of the college football heap. Pete Futzak here with us from CollegeFroballNews.com.
As SEC had its Tom the Sean this week here in Atlanta, Georgia, we've been looking for some SEC action. When it comes to actually winning the national championship, what are your thoughts on what we can expect this upcoming season? Obviously, a lot of storylines with Kirby Smart. We still have Texas now in the SEC, a lot of expectations on Arch Manning, LSU and Kelly. What are the biggest stories that you're paying attention to?
Yeah, all of that. It's the biggest storyline overall, overarching, use the word arch, is the starting quarterbacks.
So, like right now, I mean, and not putting you on a spot, but like, ask any sports fan, any college sports fan to give who is the starting quarterback for Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame, Michigan. And it's like. They can't do it. I mean, because you don't have the star power there. Like, usually, remember going into the last year, everyone kind of knew who, you know, guys like Carson Beck were and Galen Milro.
And, you know, if you're a deep college football fan, you knew Will Howard coming over was at Kansas State for several years. And, you know, so everyone had a quarterback and everyone else got a quarterback in the transfer portal, like Notre Dame got Riley Leonard from Duke. You don't have that this year. You've got a lot of young players who have never played before. You don't have any massive transfers other than Carson Beck going to Miami that matters.
So you have you know, K Club Nikki Clemson. And you have Drew Aller at Penn State. And even those guys aren't like household names. I mean, they're you know, college football fans will know who they are, but like the average fan won't know who those guys are yet. And then you have Arch Manning, who for all the hype, he's only played four started four games and he never really has not yet to play a real team.
So there's a lot of uncertainty out there over all the top teams. Who's got the quarterback who can come through?
Well, Pete, you mentioned Drew Haller and what we saw last year. What step are you expecting Penn State to make this upcoming season? There's a lot a lot of expectations because of just the continuity aspect based on what we saw last year. Exactly.
So, like, last year was easy. I mean, last year you could knew in February that Ohio State was going to win the national championship. They just had more talent than everyone else. You know, they had everyone coming back on that defense. They were all motivated.
They have fifth, sixth year seniors. And then you get Caleb Downs, the great safety from Alabama, and you had all these young wide receivers that were expected to step up. And you had the backfield full of stars. Everything was in place there. Kind of like that with Penn State, except that they're just not quite as good.
They've got all the talent in place. They've got the backfield. They've got all the experience. And they have the starting quarterback.
So overall, they have the most talent returning that you can kind of know about. You can say, okay, I get that. That unit's really good. That defensive front's a nasty. And they got player after player after player.
But there's still that prove it factor where Ohio State was just knocking on the door for years and years and years. Penn State hasn't quite been there, so they don't really get that same benefit of the doubt. But yeah. Count wise, they are the best team in the country coming into the season. But That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, like it couldn't be Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State.
You know, you have all these other teams which are right there. Pete Futsak is here with us from College Football News.com. You've mentioned some of the big-name schools we expect to be in a college football playoff. And and we're it's still early. I know, we're we're in July.
But is there a team that you think is going to take a step forward? We always have a couple of teams. A couple of seasons ago, it was like, what the hell is TCU uh doing here? What are your thoughts about a team that may be situated to to get some run that nobody thinks about. Yeah, so basically, you're asking who's the Arizona state in this question, because like.
The entire Big Twelve is right there. You don't have is the conference from top to bottom is Better, good. I mean, even like Cincinnati and Houston. I mean, those teams are better this year. Kansas should be way better this year.
And then Utah and Arizona, who flopped in their first year after coming over from the Pac-12. They're both terrific, especially Utah. And Arizona State gets just about everyone back except for Cam Scadabo, running back.
So like you have an entire conference full of very good teams. You're probably not getting two in. From that league, because to get into the 12-team college football playoff, at least for the time being, it seems like you've got to have at least 10 wins. And that's going to be tough for more than one team.
So you're going to have the big 12 champions.
So a long-winded way of saying, If you could figure out who the Big Twelve champion is, and I kind of think it's Utah. early on has has the most In the bag there. That's kind of, I don't want to say your outlier, but that's the one that can at least get there who maybe a little bit off the grid. I'm not saying they're going to do anything once they get there, but that's going to be kind of one of those teams that's just going to be just good enough to kind of be the Arizona State. Like, oh, okay, so you get one of those top four spots, even though you are 9-4 as the Big 12 champ.
Yeah, I was gonna say I take a look at the Big Twelve. My expectation is that they just go out there and cannibalize each other. Yep, exactly right. Again, there's absolutely no shocking result. that you can find on a game by game basis.
Like if you say, you know, Kansas beats Iowa State, okay, you know, or Cincinnati takes down Arizona State, all right, you know, because everyone's just a little you know, about all about the same. And none of them are National Championship good, but there's a lot of very, very, very good teams. There's a lot of sticks and sticks. Seven and five teams in that bunch. Pete Futak is here with us from College FootballNews.com.
Speaking of the Big 12, it feels to a certain degree. Between them and the ACC, they're trying to fight out of being little brother between the SCC and then the Big Ten, which obviously now spans all across the country. is that always going to be the case? I mean, we have we still have conference realignment going on, we still have NIL. Like is there a space in time and way where the two smaller conferences can join Big Brother?
Not really, because you're just not going to have There's a whole bunch of reasons for this. Don't forget in all this The SEC is not far out of that because it's good. It's the SEC. It means more, and everyone, it's got Alabama, all the power teams, all the power conferences. Eventually, everyone's going to wake up and realize that a couple years from now, Purdue is going to make more money than Alabama.
The Big Ten has all the money. They have all the biggest deals, all the biggest markets. It's the biggest conference. Doesn't mean Purdue's better than Alabama. It just means that they're getting paid more, which in an NIL world, you're going to have more money to play around with.
And then eventually these SEC teams, their schools are going to be like, wait a minute here, how come we're not getting that deal?
So there's it's actually not a power two in terms of business, it's the Big Ten, there's about a hundred foot drop in the SEC, then about a 500 foot drop in the Big Ten and ACC. And the problem with trying to say, okay, well, we're going to create some super league of just the powerful teams. If you remember 2020, when you had just conference in conference action, when you had all the SEC's teams only played each other. And I think you only had like four teams that finished with winning records after the bowl season.
So if you're someone like uh, you know, uh oh m actually Mississippi State, you're never gonna have a winning record if you're gonna play if you don't get those three games against Central Directional State and you know, some other one double SES team and then a Mac team. You're never going to have those winning records. And so a lot of these schools aren't gonna like the idea of having to scratch and claw by going four and eight by playing nobody but Alabama, then Georgia, then Tennessee, then all the killers right in a row.
So you've gotta have schedules that at least have some sure wins on there. for at least the uh the the most of the members. No, Pete, you know, talking about the ACC, there's a guy who's coming over from the NFL. He's still talking about his time in the NFL. How long is Bill Belichick going to be sticking around in North Carolina, given how he hasn't even coached a game yet?
And there's a focus in on everything but football. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
Well, that's one of those you've asked before about w who's that you know funky outlier team. North Carolina's not anywhere near as good as uh Clemson or Miami coming into the season. But their schedule is not bad. They have one nasty game, I believe it's Clemson, and they get that one at home. It's either Clemson or Miami.
They get one of those two at home. And every other game you're looking at, you're kind of like, wait a minute, that that's not bad. It could be Wake Forest. You know, they can they could win, you know, NC State. They could beat Duke.
You know, Duke's really good this year. But like you look at their schedule and You can say, you know, it might be mid-November, and we're talking about 8-1 North Carolina. And Bill Belichick is like, wow, look at this, it's working and everything, just because the schedule's really good. The other part of this is Remember, it's not like Bill Belichick can go back to the NFL and be the emperor of all he surveyed. I mean, because nowadays in the NFL, obviously, you've got GMs, you've got other factors.
You can't just. To coach GM and own every aspect of the franchise and the personnel thing, it's hard to do. And he'll never get that kind of control if he goes back to the NFL. In college, It's if you're the head coach, that's your show. You are the lord of the whole manor.
So it's uh uh it'll be hard for him, ego-wise, to say, Yeah, I want to be back in the NFL, unless he wants to go just as a a a purely a head coach. And Excuse me, that's full trust in whoever the general manager would be. Yeah, well, he can ask his girlfriend for advice. She'd be able to help him out, right? Hey, you know what?
Getting older as I am, God bless you. Like, that's not knock it out, Bill Dollar Check. You do what you do. And, you know, look, if they win, all of that girlfriend stuff is just kind of a fun, quirky side note. If they lose, then that's what becomes a distraction.
Just all that matters is just win, just do your job. And win, and then everything else would be fine. Yeah, what a way to potentially end a coaching career. What a wild one. Hey, Pete, thank you so much for the time.
Tell everybody where they can follow you and all your work with collegefootball news.com. That's it, collegefootballnews.com. We've got all the rankings up now, all 136 team previews. If you want to deep dive into every team, we've got every team analyzed, broken down with win totals and all that kind of fun stuff.
So, collegefootballnews.com. Hey, Pete, thank you so much for the time. We'll catch you on down the line, okay? Absolutely. You have a great night.
You as well. Shoutouts to Pete Fuatek for joining us from College Football News.com. Hey, we mentioned Bill Belichick. He's in the news again for nothing related to North Carolina. It seems like he's still got a beef.
With his former employer, Robert Craft. Is this just going to bleed on forever? We're going to get into that on the other side of the break. Of course, at the top of the hour, it's going to be time for a new top six list. We're going to give you a list of the top six NFL rookies to watch in 2025.
We'll talk about Bill Belichick on the other side of the break. But right now, it is time for a news flash. Here he is. Rich Ackerman. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief.
It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infiniti. A sports network. Thank you so much to Pete Fuatek for joining us from College Football News. Dot If you missed that interview, Talking about everything from big conferences to little conferences to Belichick to Drew Aller and Arch Manning. If you missed any of that chat, go ahead and hit Rewind.
One the free Odyssey app, Okay, and when we get to the top of the hour in about 15 minutes, it's going to be time for a new. Top six list. We're going to take a look. at the top six NFL rookies to watch for in the year twenty twenty. Five.
But to to kinda put a bow on the conversation we just had with Pete Futsak, You want to think about a rookie. There's a rookie coach In college football, who's had a lot of success at the professional level, has never done it at the college level. And there are some interesting expectations. It's been an interesting ride so far, and he's yet to coach a game. That man is Bill Belichick.
we just talked about. Showing up in North Carolina. has his uh girlfriend with him, who's fifty years his junior, after twenty nine seasons with the Browns and the Patriots and Third most wins all time in the NFL. Six championships, eight count'em. If you want to take a look at his time as a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, Bill Belichick, by all means, is not a rookie.
when it comes down to coaching. He is a rookie. coaching at the college level. And he's been back in the news.
Well, he's back in the news today. Because he responded to some comments that Robert Kraft made to Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski on their Dudes on Dudes podcast. Yeah, what else would you call a Rob Gronkowski podcast? Dudes on Dudes. Anyway.
Robert Kraft was asked about hiring. the Obalachek. and Robert Kraft, the owner of the pad, said It was a big risk. That was the biggest risk that he has ever taken. as owner of the team.
He says the one I got questioned the most about was in nineteen ninety nine. I gave up a number one draft pick to the Jets for a coach that had only won a little over forty percent of his games to get him out. I don't know if there are any Jets fans here. I think getting Bill Belichick to come to the Pats in 1999 was a big risk, and I got hammered in the Boston area, but he was with us. for twenty four years.
Robert Kraft is also on record as saying The past couple of seasons with the Patriots have been the worst of his time there. And then he kinda said, Robert Kraft, that we did okay. Thinking about the six championships that they won.
Okay, sure, yeah, fine.
Now, you might recall. When it was reported that they mutually agreed to part ways, That sounded like a load of crap. Bill Belichick basically Got. Fired Listen to the press conference announcing that he was leaving. This is what Robert Kraft had to say at the time.
Any of you who are in and it's like a marriage. And things don't always go great. And you know, you get through the difficult times and it makes the relationship stronger. I think we had a chance to do that over the last almost quarter of a century. I think both of us felt that at this point in time, It was in our mutual interest.
To each go our own way. But Knowing that We have that bond and foundation that's really hard in this business to create, very hard. Mutual. After that press conference Robert Kraft said Yeah, kinda when I let Bill Bella check go. Back in April on CBS, Bill Belichick basically reiterated on that famous interview with a girlfriend.
He's just like, listen. It was a mutual decision. for us to part ways. He wanted to promote his book. and he reiterated multiple times.
It was a mutual decision. For us. apart. ways.
Well, apparently Bill Belichick has now responded to Robert Kraft saying That it was a big risk to bring him on. And I guess these two guys, one in his 70s, one in his 80s. They're just going to be punching back for the next several years, however much longer they're going to be here. Bill Belichick said That it was he who took a big risk. in joining a franchise that was let's just say the Pat sucked at that time.
This is from Bill Belichick from ESPN. As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job. I already had an opportunity to be the head coach of the New York Jets, but the ownership situation was unstable. Yeah, Woody Johnson was buying the team. Belichick said he was urged by scores of people to reject Kraft's offer and remain with the Jets, who just hired him, despite the instability.
I've been worn by multiple previous Patriots coaches. As well as other members of the NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job. was going to come with many internal obstacles. I made it clear that we would have to change the way the team was managed to regain their previously attained Success. We got just grumpy old men, Fighting.
This is where we are? I mean, with all the success that they had over the years, The end is where they wanna just just sit and lie down on? Come on, man, we we can do better than this. I want you to listen to Bill Balachek. This is months ago.
Talking about his time in New England. I had a vision of building a winner, building a championship football team here that's exceeded my wildest dreams and expectations. The amount of success that we were able to achieve together through a lot of hard work and contributions of so many people. Um so very proud of that and and um And always have those. Those great memories, I'll carry those with me the rest of my life.
Bill Belichick is seventy three years old. Robert Kraft is eighty four. And Robert Craft every now and then he's just goin' sit around and say somethin' crazy. Does he owe? And not because he's old.
He's an NFL owner. He's a billionaire. He's old. He's just going to say what's on his mind. Without fear of a repercussion, this is a man who decided to go to a massage parlor and receive massages.
And all of a sudden the evidence was impermissible. Yeah, being a billionaire certainly helps in a lot of regards. And so he's just gonna say whatever's on his mind. I would encourage Robert Kraft to maybe just Fall back and relax. Like you have a new head coach, one that you can probably be happy about, in Mike Vrabel.
Mike Rabel was one of the best coaches in the NFL in Tennessee, and the only reason that he got the boot is.
Well Amy Adams, what what does she know about anything going on in Tennessee? This is a woman who thought Will Levis was going to be worth a damn, or at least cosigned it. He got rid of the guy in the building who knows the most and pretty much told you about it. And so, look, I I think it's time for Robert Kraft. And Bill Belichick to just shut up about the time.
Embrace it. If I'm a Patriots fan. I'm looking at the six titles that we won. And I'm good. Like, I don't need to hear about Bill Belichick anymore.
He's gone. You've had some terrible years. You've had some bad years. Post-time Brady was not fun. Looking at the offense with Cam Newton, barely try to score, was not fun.
But it's time. To move on, especially. when you guys are both AARP eligible, Well, now anybody can be AARP eligible. They start hitting people up early now. Either way, Robert Kraft.
Just stop complainin', bruh. and Bill Balichek get over it. What do you need to defend yourself for? You won six titles. Enjoy your young girlfriend.
and enjoy coaching at North Carolina. Apparently, if you ask me, there isn't too much. that any one of these guys needs to be out here complainin' about.
So let's just Must stop. Botcha, why these what these old guys complainin' for? 'Cause they it was a okay, I the way I see it is that Robercraft in himself wanted to do just get rid of Bilbelichek, but Belichick As the face and icon of the Patriots, he wanted to leave on his own accord, and over time tension built. Robert Kraft said, I'm going to fire you one way or another. It's going to be clean or dirty.
And Belichick said, Okay, I'll do it in good light. And either way there's still gonna be tension in bad blood. If you get fired by someone, You didn't want to leave when you wanted to, and now you got kicked out, and then of course it was hard for him to find a second job, and now he's coaching in college.
So I'd be mad if I was Bill Belichick. Yeah, but sometimes you gotta look at the realities of the situation. And I think as they both understand. The time ran up is good. Like y'all had a 20-year run.
The most successful 20-year run that you would ever have in football, which you're not supposed to have. Just shut up about it. Y'all look at no. Like, no need to spark beef here. Wait till one guy is dead, okay?
Just keep it moving. It's the JR Sport Re Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We come back, it's time for a new top six list. We're going to talk about the top six NFL rookies to watch in 2025. Don't move.
