Out of the Gate…from Greensboro!

So let's start, and then we'll get started. I mentioned it yesterday, but the last time I was in this building was three years ago tomorrow. Now, this is not the date, it's the Wednesday, actually it was the Thursday, three weeks ago on Thursday, three years ago on Thursday. The Thursday of ACC Tournament Week in 2020, that was the morning that it all shut down.

As the last time I was in this building, I know there are a lot of people who are kind of the same. Last time they were in this building, three years ago, we sent everybody home. That was the beginning of how the pandemic completely crushed sports. This tournament was shut down, we thought we might actually play. It was a weird, weird, weird day that Thursday, because we were told the night before that it would be business as usual, but without fans. And remember, there were games all Wednesday, all day Wednesday.

We had four games, including a packed house Wednesday night. We were told we would have no fans the next day, but we would play the games. And then we got here, and the commissioner had a press briefing at about 10 o'clock in the morning, and we were still prepared to go on about our business as usual. And then about 1130, we had started to hear rumblings that we were done. And I remember Joe Ovius and I from 99.9 the Fan, we finally got the news, and I think it was at noon, maybe one o'clock.

I'm trying to remember the time, but we had to come on the air and say, yep, they're sending everybody home. And shut the ACC tournament down. They ultimately shut the NCAA tournament down. We stopped the NHL season, the NBA. They came back in the bubble in Orlando.

The NHL returned in the bubble in Toronto and Edmonton. We played an entire baseball season with nothing, with like no fans. Dodgers won a title. Lakers won the title in Orlando. Tampa won their first of back-to-back titles.

Tampa's two titles, they're not tainted because somebody had to win, but Tampa's first title was in Edmonton in front of nobody. The second one was the pandemic year where we played 56 games. It's just a weird, weird, weird time. And it all started, for me personally, and for a lot of you, it all started right here at the ACC tournament.

So it's a little bit, I don't know, emotional, so probably not the right word because I don't feel like I'm overwhelmed by it all. But it's definitely, definitely a different feel. But it'd be cool to be back in this building again because this Greensboro Coliseum has meant so much to the Atlantic Coast Conference. And we'll be here again, and I'm sure Greensboro will come up through conversations over the next, on this show, well, all week.

But I know for a lot of people who are here, it'll be somewhat nostalgic. All right, to some ACC tournament matters. The all-ACC teams were announced, and there's two different ones. We have, there's actually three different ones because we have the ACC media does one.

Then there's the Associated Press that does one. And then I believe there's a coaches ballot as well. So there's three different ballots.

It's goofy. But the official ACC ballots are the ACC media, and it's a panel of media, not everybody. Used to be anybody who covered the league could vote. But here is the first team all-ACC based on the voting block. Isaiah Wong of Miami, who is also the player of the year. Tyree Appleby of Wake Forest. Armando Bacon of North Carolina. Hunter Tyson of Clemson. And Pittsburgh's Jamarius Burton.

That's your first team. Kyle Filipowski, Terquavian Smith, Jarkel Joiner. We know them locally on the second team, along with Jordan Miller of Miami and Blake Hinson of Pitt. Norshad O'Mear from Miami. Third team, PJ Hall of Clemson. Kihei Clark of Virginia. Jesse Edwards from Syracuse. And Reece Beekman from Virginia. Look, I made a point, by the way, Jeremy Roach, D.J.

Burns, R.J. Davis, Caleb Love, all among the honorable mentions. I made a note to myself. I wrote it down here. And I'll even show the camera for those people at home. So, you know, I'm not lying.

It says it right there, middle of the page. Not going to argue with the first team. So I'm not. Because, honestly, this is the type of year it was. And I said a couple of weeks ago, we had our little, or last week, we had a poll question about who's the ACC Player of the Year. And I figured we'd have a ton of players get first place votes. And we got eight. Eight different players got first place votes. And I don't know how that compares to previous years.

It was not overwhelming. It was very close between Wong and Tyree Appleby. Wong got 30 votes. Tyree Appleby, Wake Forest got 23. Armando Bacock got just nine. But Jarkel Joyner received votes. Jeremy Roach received votes. And I will start here. And, I mean, honestly, well, here's what I don't get. A planet does not exist in which Kihei Clark is better than Jeremy Roach.

Sorry, doesn't exist. Like, I don't really care. But that just jumped out at me. Like, I expected Jeremy Roach to be one of the three teams. Or, I mean, I certainly didn't expect him to be behind Kihei Clark on the pecking order.

But it is what it is. All-defensive team, Reece Beekman. He was the defensive player of the year from Virginia, which I believe the league is contractually obligated to name a Virginia player the defensive player of the year.

Because, you know, that's what Virginia is known for. Edwards of Syracuse, Leaky Black, Derek Lively, both getting all-defensive team honors. And Judas Mintz, Judas Mintz from Syracuse made the all-defense team. Kyle Filipowski, rookie of the year in a runaway over Mintz. Tyrese Proctor and Derek Lively both on the all-rookie team. Here's my question. Why was Proctor on the list of the all-rookies other than the fact that there might not be any good freshmen in the league?

Because I'm not arguing. He should be on the list. But the reason he's on the list is because of his defense and I'm actually kind of surprised that he isn't an all-defensive team. I'm kind of surprised he's not on the all-defensive team. I mean, he was a phenomenal defensive player this year. Jeff Caple, coach of the year, Pitt.

I'm not going to complain at all. I mean, Caple did a great job, brand new team. And think about where Pitt was a year ago. I mean, tons of defections.

I mean, rats leaving a sinking ship. Most of us thought that Caple was going to get fired. And the Pitt staff showed him some, the Pitt administration showed him some faith. And they put together a really, really good season this year. Again, two of the top ten players in the league based on the ACC media.

And that's true or not, doesn't even matter. He had guys who had good years. And Pitt was good. And Pitt's going to be in the NCAA tournament this year.

I'm not going to complain about that. Kevin Keats got two votes for ACC coach of the year. Again, they had a good year too.

Didn't finish as well as they would have liked. John Shire got no votes. Huh. No, no votes?

Zero for John Shire? All right. You know what? Duke had a great recruiting class coming in. And a lot was expected of Duke. And they were preseason in the top ten before the year.

And once they exited the rankings, they never re-entered them. All right. But I'm a little surprised that the people who watched basketball in this league didn't give John, nobody, nobody gave John Shire a vote.

Tony Bennett got votes. Huh. Okay. All right.

Be an investigation. All right. We have, let's move on to some football news. We have football matters to discuss. So the Saints signed Derek Carr for year 150 million dollar contract.

So it brings to mind today's poll question, which we will kind of weave in and out of the program today. And I asked Panthers fans because I know there were a lot of Panthers fans that wanted the, wanted Carolina to sign Derek Carr. Let him be their quarterback. So Panthers fans, which is the more accurate statement? This is the poll question today. The Carolina Panthers have to face Derek Carr twice a year.

New coach of the new quarterback of the New Orleans Saints. Or the Carolina Panthers get to face Derek Carr two times a year. You see the difference between half to face and get to face, right? Right now, get to face an overwhelming leader. And there's still two more hours left.

Yeah, that's right. Because I put it up last night. There's only three more hours left.

Strategically done. I put this poll up right at the end of the show. It's just after the show ended yesterday. And so we will get our answer basically by the end of the show today.

Three hours left to vote. Seventy two point one percent get to face Derek Carr. Twenty seven point nine percent have to face Derek Carr.

And you understand the difference between get to and have to. So the website, the 33rd team, our friend Trey Wingo does some work with them. Actually said that Derek Carr is the most polished New Orleans Saints quarterback since Drew Brees. And when I saw that, I went, you mean like in the last two years? Like two whole seasons? Hasn't been that long. Drew Brees was last year, his first year, not there or two years ago.

He's two years gone. Right. So, yeah. So that's it.

Yeah. So we have Jamis Winston, Andy Dalton and Taysom Hill. That's that's the competition. That ain't a low bar. That ain't a high bar. We've laid the bar on the ground for Derek Carr. So, I mean, it's not an inaccurate statement. I'm just it's like saying it's been two years since X team won a championship.

And what's the point? I appreciate that. Here's Adam Schefter from ESPN on the Saints and how we got to this point with Derek Carr going to New Orleans. New Orleans prioritized Derek Carr after the Raiders released him and allowed him to go visit. That was the one place that he spent a couple of days going to visit. He's played before with the Saints head coach Dennis Allen, who was part of the Oakland Raiders organization when they drafted Derek Carr out of college.

Now, those two men will be reunited again. He had interest from the Carolina Panthers. He had interest from the Jets, but clearly he wanted to go to New Orleans to play in an NFC South division right now that's lacking in quality starting quarterbacks. That essentially is in a position where the Saints can win that division and the Saints had a good enough offer on the table. It's a four year deal, but it's really going to be about a two year, 60 million dollar contract. He can make more in the third year. The deal, the fourth year, the deal is back loaded. So really amounts to a two or three year deal.

All right. So, I mean, I think the Panthers are further along than the Saints. So if he wanted to play in the NFC South, well, whatever this is, I think the Saints made a better offer to Derek Carr than Derek Carr chose the Saints over everybody else. By the way, according to Trey Wingo and then confirmed by NFL networks in Rappaport, the Jets are in hot pursuit to channel Buford T Justice. The Jets are reportedly in hot pursuit of Aaron Rodgers. So the Packers have given permission to the Jets to negotiate with Rodgers. He seems open to it. And this would be, of course, deliciously ironic because the Jets is where Brett Favre played after leaving Green Bay. And I have done the research. There is a Crocs store on 34th Street just off Times Square. So just in case you're wondering, you know, because we had the whole Brett Favre wearing Crocs thing, just in case you're wondering, there is a Crocs store, a brick and mortar Crocs store on Times Square.