Why do we have to watch the Denver Broncos in primetime?

This is the Adam Gold Show. In my day, there were only four teams in the playoff. Now, if I was really old, I could be like, in my day, there was only two teams in the playoffs, right? Just the winner of each league winning the World Series.

That's it. Right through the 1936. But I was trained to only pay attention to win this in ALCS and in ALCS. And we're on the verge of that. And in fact, I might even make an exception and watch some afternoon baseball today. Yeah, it's four o'clock game.

We have that lining up. That is one of the many things we'll talk about today. I am Hayes Permar filling in for Adam Gold. And I have the honor, I guess, of being produced by former Panthers head coach Matt Ruhl.

Yes. At the end of the day, Hayes, there's always going to be sports to talk about. And for us, you know, we got to make sure we do the things the radio way. Are you one of us, Hayes Permar? I knew he wasn't working for the Panthers. I did not know he was picking up, I did not know you were picking up extra shifts filling in to 99.99 The Fan. Not that 99.99 The Fan isn't great, but that is a bit of a drop. Well, you know, there are connections between the Panthers and the fan because 99.99 The Fan in Raleigh is actually the local affiliate of the Panthers.

So that's why I'm here. All right. Well, Dennis Cox, check out his great video. Still going on.

I think the latest one dropped today. He's got just a series of Matt Ruhls going on. Follow him on Twitter at The Fan Rookie. Also, the Culture State podcast.

You can check out all those videos they drop on their social media. I might need a few more Matt Ruhls during the day to get me through. I believe, am I crazy on this? Like, it was literally, you were the one that brought to my attention that he says, I got to go check the tape. Like, instead of admitting that something went wrong, you would say, he would say, I got to check the tape. I was like, really? And you were like, yeah, let me pull some audio for you. And you were doing it, but then also showing it for me. And I was like, dude, that's a pretty good Matt Ruhls you got going on there.

And it's only grown from there. And I've now seen, I don't know if he picked it up from somebody else, but there was a coach, I can't remember who it was this weekend, that used it multiple times. NFL like, I got to check the tape. I got to check the tape. But it's basically the, I don't feel like answering this question. And so I'm going to claim that I have no recollection of anything that happened until I can go back and review it on the tape.

But you made the phrase famous. Got to check the tape at the end of the day. For us. And for us.

Elite. Those are the big three. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about the Matt Ruhl Panthers anymore. We still do have to worry about the Panthers. And actually, do we have to worry about Charlotte sports in general?

Yeah. We're going to discuss that on the show today, but right now let's get out of the gate. They played Monday Night Football again, so I guess we have to talk about it. I have some questions. Okay. Why do the Broncos keep getting primetime games?

That's a great question. I mean, they are not fun. They are not interesting. The Broncos serve a perfect purpose of you need teams to play at four o'clock on Sunday. Yeah.

Right? They're one of those teams of like, they're not, specifically to the North Carolina region, we're not like overrun with Broncos fans, right? But they're not a nothing, no name team. Like everybody kind of knows the Broncos. So like, for example, whoever's good out west right now, it's like the Chiefs or the Chargers. They have quarterbacks that people want to see when the Broncos are like the perfect foil. It's like throwing the New York Giants or the commanders in there. They're like, yeah, they got enough of a fan base that they're always relevant, right?

But right now they are teetering on relevant. Now, to be fair, they've lost in overtime the last two times out, right? So two overtime losses, they're two and four.

That means you could be four and two, right? If you do some Matt Ruhl logic there. Turn it around. But it's not just that they've lost, it's the way they've lost. They've just looked bad. What happened to Russell Wilson? That's another one of the questions I have. He threw a touchdown early, second half, they had negative passing yardage in the second half.

Did not threaten to score and it just looked bad all around. It's a weird thing. And also Russell Wilson, there's probably other people this applies to. But Russell Wilson is going to be the rare person that very well might have the distinction of that one time being the most underpaid player in the National Football League. Because if you remember, he was drafted in the third round, which came with third round money. That's usually when you're drafting a backup quarterback. If you're supposed to be a big quarterback, you're taking in the top half of the first round, maybe late in the first round, right?

That's where most of the starters come from. Third round pick, it's like, we'll see, maybe he's a backup, maybe we develop him. Russell Wilson was leading them to the Super Bowl, I think, on that rookie contract, making, I don't know, like half a million dollars a year.

Now, he's in this 250 million dollar, I don't know how many years contract, and it looks bad. So he's gone from being maybe the most underpaid player in the NFL to maybe being the most overplayed player in the NFL. And I talked about this a couple weeks ago when I was on here with the Panthers, where they're on the virtue of being not just bad, but being a punchline. The only time they come up is when people are making jokes about him, like when a quarterback plays well and like, oh, can't wait for the Panthers to try and sign that guy in two years.

That's where they're headed. The same is true of Russell Wilson. He was always able to deflect, not that he tried to, but it was easy to be a fan of Russell Wilson, even if you thought he was inauthentic, because he was winning. He won Super Bowls, and that's always cool, right? Kids are going to like people who are a winner.

When all of a sudden you're losing and people are like memeing you and mocking you and the Let's Ride and the Subway commercials. Now, if I'm a betting person, I'm not necessarily betting on Russell Wilson to turn it around in season this year, but I'm not betting on Russell Wilson being done. He seems like a guy who has overcome odds before. He's not expected to be an NFL quarterback coming out of college in the manner that he has been, right?

Believed in himself, so I expected him to get back, but it doesn't look good right now. Russell Wilson was asked if with the defense playing so well and the offense playing so poorly, this has caused any divide in the locker room. No, we don't have division in our locker room. You guys saw how hard we played for each other tonight. I mean, everybody, it didn't go our way, but everybody's fighting their butts off every day. The guys up the front of the line, receivers, tight ends, running backs, the defense, the defensive line, linebackers, and just, I mean, our safeties in court. I mean, everybody's playing for each other. We felt like we could have won the game, you know, and then we had the foot play at the end and we still felt like we could, you know, right before that play, we still felt like we could have won the game. And it didn't work out. But everybody's together.

We still believe in everything that we can do. Did he just, did he just list the positions? Was that what it was? Did he just filibuster about it?

I believe he did. Everyone was trying hard. The safeties, the O-line, the D-line, linebackers, running backs, like you're just listing positions that we're doing now. Everybody played hard.

Yeah, the guards, the tackles. I mean, it did sound a little bit like a, like a bad rule. Okay. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna name things here. Yeah. Just to make my point. Russell Wilson, 15 of 28 for 188 yards and one touchdown. Gross.

Yeah, I'll be interested to see how this turned out. The other big question I have for the night, and I realize that I'm not a doctor or whatever, but just watching the game, my question is, why does Dustin Hopkins keep kicking? Like, we hear how vulnerable those guys are and like the awkward position you are when you're trying to kick a ball that hard and, you know, every small muscle tweak and like really throw things off.

And usually it's like shelf that guy. Cause I mean, a good kicker is helpful longterm, right? So you'd sacrifice kicking in one game for having the right kicker for the season. But man, they just kept running that guy out there.

That's how they, you know, that he's not like Justin Tucker or Harrison, Harrison Bucker or whatever. Like if he was more valued, they would not have had him kicking. All credit, he kicked, was it four, four or five in the game.

I think three in the second half, including overtime or whatever. But it was just painful. It was, it was like watching Tiger Woods when he would play on one knee, you know, before he had the surgery, he's playing that US Open and you're like, if this wasn't a US Open, this guy would be out of here, right?

Because he's still in contention. So he's swinging just, ah, Dustin Hopkins swinging that leg hard and then going down to a knee grimacing. And again, apparently it was like just getting tight or whatever. But I'm like, I don't know. And watching it, it feels like Dustin Hopkins is taking years off his kicking career just to make a couple kicks on Monday night against the Broncos.

Again, no Dr. M.I., but it just, it had the feel when he was, would go down every time. Justin Herbert, the quarterback, was asked about Justin Hopkins and his gritting out the injuries. We've got so much respect for him. We know he's hurting. And, you know, that's the great part about the NFL is those guys, you know, they're committed to our team and, you know, he's tough. And that's all you can say about him, for him to go out there and play and put up with some pain like that.

It's great to see from him. I don't know, man. It feels like, I would feel like I was thought of as expendable if they were still sending me out to kick. It's also probably him being like, no, I'm going to go out there and do it. He has a hurt hamstring.

He's like, no, you send me out there. Because otherwise, who are you going to send? Can your punter place kick? Oftentimes they'll do the punter, you know, kicking the extra points. Usually the punter, like, could practice an extra point. Some of these were like legit kicks. I mean, maybe they would have gone for it on some fourth downs.

I don't know. I mean, I'm not knocking the result. Obviously, it worked. The guy got it done. He talked about, I read some quote where it was like, he shortened his backswing and just tried, I mean, you can kind of see they're not regular kicks. Almost like, you know, like a little, almost like punching the ball through.

I'm trying to do a golf motion here with my hand. But yes, Dustin Hopkins. Again, it was cool to see him do it, but I was also like, why is this guy on the field?

Get him off. Another Monday Night Football game. Have we had a good primetime game at all? We had one good Thursday night game, I think, this year. I think the season opener with the Bills. Yeah, then we've had some trash Thursday nights.

Bills and Rams was all right. Prime time football. Be better. Next up. Salisbury. Burlington. Archdale.

Raise up. York Carolina Hurricanes. Still undefeated. 82-0 on the table. I don't know exactly how many points. I guess it depends on if we get, no, if we get all those wins, we get a point every time.

It might affect your overtime then, but I guess if you get wins. Yeah, two points every time. That's what, 164 points.

Set records. We're not even wasting time at overtime. We're not giving other people points.

Exactly. Cane's are 3-0. 2-0 on the West Coast.

Swang. Last night the victim was Seattle. We beat them down 5-1. Andrei Svecikoff, two goals and assists.

Monster. Sebastian Aho, goal. Consistent.

Standard. Jordan Martinuk scored a goal. When rosters were being set, I saw a lot of Cane's Twitter.

Now a lot of it was couched in, love the guy. I love the guy, but maybe it's time to put somebody besides Martinuk in there. I'm just saying I saw a lot of that from Cane's fans' Twitter.

I don't know if that's what the experts were saying or not. Everybody knows that Martinuk brings sort of intangibles to the team, right? And those things are important. The question is, what is he giving you on the ice and does that package together with the intangibles to make a player worth keeping? Well, if he's scoring goals, then I think it is, right?

There we go, Marty. And maybe the story of the first three games, from what I see and my own opinion, is Andrei Svecikoff, he's been good the past couple years. It's not like he's been a disappointment, right? But there is this belief that he might have monster in him, right? And to be fair, he started at such a young age that he is now just getting into the young 20s where it's peak, still young and fast, but also more cut, more experienced, stronger, smarter. And there's this thought that it might all come together and Svecikoff could be the super-Svecikoff beast that we hope he will be. And there's early signs that he might be.

The other great sign early on is Marty Natius. I don't know, how many points is it? Five points now? Couple goals? Something like, I think it's around five points. Two goals, three assists so far.

That sounds right. Points in all three games. He's going to have an 82-game point streak this season, Hayes.

There we go. There were some questions last year about whether it was his fault he was underperforming, was it where he was being played, was he out of position, was he not in the position he wanted. I don't have all the answers to those questions, but it was clearly on his mind at the end of last season and in theory on the mind of the coaching staff. From the looks of the start of the season, everybody's on the same page in the Martin Natius world, right? And he's planned to prove himself and right now he is and we just hope that continues.

He has always been one of the most fun dudes to watch for me. I remember a couple years ago, he is so fast and it'll be, especially in overtime or something, it's fun watching Natius just fly around there. And so if they get all-star level Svech and all-star level Natius, 82-0 still on the table. 82-0 still on the table. And Seth Jarvis is playing better too?

Yeah. It's been fun for the Canes. Hopefully it'll be a stretch if they come back home undefeated, but regardless, whenever they do come home, the excitement will continue to build.

Next up, getting out the gate. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains. Ah, the wisdom of Bull Durham. It applied in the playoffs last night because the Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians?

Is that right? It's hard to keep up with team name changes, but the Yankees and the Guardians postponed for rain last night. They did not play. That means you get afternoon baseball today.

4 o'clock, Yankees-Guardians. I gotta think. Do we get live cut-ins of Aaron Judge?

Ooh, yes. No, he's not going for any records now. Doesn't matter. He's not going for seventh place on the regular season home run list now, so there's no reason to cut in on him. I gotta think baseball execs are pulling for the Yankees here tonight, right?

Of course. Because you didn't get the Dodgers, you didn't get the Braves, you got stuck with Phillies-Padres. Sorry to all the Phillies-Padres fans out there.

I'm just saying what the money wants, right? What the TV ratings want. Yankees-Astro, obviously, that would be the ratings series that the TV executives would want. Guardians-Astro doesn't quite have the same ring to it, so I'm gonna pull for the big sports story and pull for the Yankees tonight. Also, I'm kind of a Yankees fan. Don't tell anybody.

What? When I was nine years old, I was put on a team in baseball and that team was the Yankees, okay? I didn't know that they were the evil empire. I just went with the team that had the name that was on my team. As I mentioned, Phillies-Padres also start tonight. Give me the Padres in this one. I like you, Darvish. I like Blake Snell and I like Manny Machado and Juan Soto. I like when teams go big, I like for it to work out, unless it's like Daniel Snyder or some owner that I hate. I like when teams that go aggressive and they're like, we're gonna try and get the best player, we think we've got a window right now, and they move on that window, I like to see good things happen for them.

So I'm down for the Padres to win the whole thing. Next up. How you say that? Sir Purr. Oh, Sir Purr?

Wow. You call him that? That's his name. So you be like, what's up, Sir Purr?

How you doing? Fortunately for Robbie Anderson, I do not think the thing he'll be remembered by is the being kicked off the sideline during the second half and getting into a shouting match with the coach. Fortunately, the thing he will most be remembered for is that clip right there.

What's that bear doing? And then also the like, wait, that's his name? That's how you address him? Sir Purr?

Like his not understanding? I enjoyed the Robbie Anderson experience for the Panthers. I wish there had been a little more past catching, but I blame that more on the quarterbacks and the play calling than I do Robbie Anderson. He showed flashes in the one good year that he had, not last year, was it two years ago? They dropped a bunch last year. He could have a bunch of drops, but he could play the Ted Ginn role of like, if everything else around me is good, I'm fast enough to run far and make the defense at least react to me. You got to throw it to me like three times, and one of those three times I might catch it and something fun will happen.

But I'm going to move the defense a little bit by running fast down the field and then you can Christian McCaffrey it over to the other side, right? But I enjoyed Robbie Anderson. I enjoyed the fact that he was willing to take the podium after getting kicked out of the game by his own team. But alas, he has been traded, not just a seventh round pick, a sixth and a seventh round pick. So we got our money's worth there. And next up. That's right. The king and duck back at it because the NBA opens tonight. You know who's excited about the NBA season finally opening? The Charlotte Hornets!

That's exactly right. Even though the Charlotte Hornets are probably going to be pretty bad to very bad. They're still excited because the season starting means that the off season is over. And this is one of the worst off seasons in the history of off seasons. I like to refer to it as the Charlotte Hornets and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad off season. Let's review this very quickly and then we're going to talk to Brian Geissinger about some more NBA stuff.

I keep opening the wrong document there. Let's see, they tried to hire Coach Kenny Atkinson from the Warriors. In fact, they did hire. It was reported that he was hired. And then he decided, no, not to. And then instead of getting an exciting new coach, they brought back their old coach.

That's right. There are people like me who are going to tune in and be like, Steve Clifford, didn't we fire him? Yes, we did.

He is back. Then the arrests begin. Montrezl Harrell arrested.

Although his, in my opinion, was a little BS. It was like a couple pounds of weed, whatever. Against the law, he got arrested. Miles Bridges arrested, much more serious charges. LaMelo Ball got hurt. He's probably not going to play opening night.

And then just this week, James Booknight arrested. I'm not even sure who they drafted, but I'm not hearing a lot of talk about him. Oh, they drafted one dude that they traded.

Just a bad off season. So as bad as the season may be, the off season ending is just a good thing for the Charlotte Hornets. Now they can move on. They're caught between the two most important things for the future of the Charlotte Hornets.

The Brian Geister will probably hear this and admonish me later. Are doing whatever they can to keep LaMelo Ball. And I don't know what LaMelo Ball wants from the Charlotte Hornets to stay.

Whether it's money, glimpse of them having hope in the future. And then the second most important thing for the Charlotte Hornets is to be bad enough this year to get the best chance you can at getting Victor... Wimba-ma'am? I'm saying that one right? Wimba-yama? Wimba-yama? There we go.

Wimba-yama. I'm interested to see... Again, I'll ask Brian. He's going to know more about this than I am. But there's talks that a lot of teams will be tanking. And it seems like if you go back and look at the history of super prospects like LeBron James.

When it was a can't miss guy, it would have been worth doing whatever you could to get that guy. Because when you get the superstar on your team, it changes your franchise. Go look at Giannis, right? When he became one of the best players in the NBA consistently every year, their franchise became a different thing, right? So that's like whether you're the Kings or the Hornets or the Pacers or some other nondescript no-name team.

If you get a guy who's a top five player in the NBA, you instantly become good. Free agents are coming there. You're going on TV. Good things are happening for you. So everybody's going to be trying to get this Victor guy. And let's see if the Hornets can do it. And the final thing, getting out the gate.

I never remember what came out during the show yesterday or before, so I may be repeating. UNC number one in the AP preseason poll. Duke is tenth. It's the tenth time that UNC has been named number one preseason.

If they only have six titles, does that mean they failed four times? Actually, obviously they won the title some years where they weren't preseason one. Let's just be glad that being preseason number one doesn't guarantee you a spot in the Final Four like it does in college football. So at least UNC, whether they win it all or not, they're going to have to earn it by winning six games in a row in a tournament. Presumably two or three of those games against another pretty darn good team. So it won't be, they won't be in the Final Four just because they're preseason number one, as is the case in some other college sports that we watch on TV. This is the Adam Gold Show.