Packers control playoff destiny, Bucks fall to Pacers, National Championship Game set

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Indeed.com slash BlueWire, terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Good morning, everybody. I'm Bart Winkler. We are going to rename this some sort of Winkler-verse adjacent. I think that's the most that have come in that people want something Winkler-verse. I feel like it's very vain of me. But then again, I call all my shows The Bart Winkler Show.

So how much more vain can I possibly get? In terms of the podcast, I'm going to jump on and do a couple lives once a week for sure, maybe twice depending. I do plan to do a Packer postgame this week. I say that I say plan because if I say plan, I'm probably going to do it like 99%.

But I still want to give myself wiggle room in case something happens. But after the Packers play the Bears, going to go live, it'll probably be a disaster since every time I get hyped for a big show like that, our team usually loses. That cannot be the case this weekend.

That can absolutely not be the case. We'll drop on Thursday mornings. So if nothing else, check your Spotify, check your Apple, Thursday mornings, meet Paul and Grant, you'll have an episode. And then other lives throughout the week.

So I know that the schedule of it is different. But I still wanted to do this. This is fun. I like you guys a lot.

And so let's continue. Plus, I want to talk some Wisconsin sports. You know, this is going to be the Wisconsin sports outlet that I have not that I can't bring it up when I do CBS shows.

But tonight, I'm going to spend probably very little time on the Packers. I will spend time on Justin Fields and the Bears. I think the Bears should keep fields. They're not going to be able to because of the contract. But I think he's where they need him to be.

I think Justin Fields is good. Are you going to win a Super Bowl Justin Fields? I think that's the question they got to ask themselves.

Maybe the answer is no. But Justin Fields is the kind of quarterback I think they've been looking for. It's just a bummer that now that they think that they have to pay him a bunch a bummer for them. I don't really care. Ballas says mid-afternoon treat.

Can't wait to hear the hot takes from this last weekend of sports. Ken notices my Miss Minutes shirt. Joey says just finished listening to a replay of my CBS show.

Helping out his Tuesday at work. The CBS show, if I refer to the Bart Winkler show, that's the CBS show. That is on Odyssey right now where you can rewind. It will be in podcast form. It's going to take a week or two. With any new show, it takes like a week or two. Same thing had to happen for this.

So, that is available but then it's fleeting. The episode we did on Monday, I wanted to work on New Year's because I'm a hero but I really wanted to work on New Year's because I wanted to talk about the college football games which we can get into in a little bit. Jake says the Bart signal is lit and the Winklerverse will answer. Scott says go Pat go. Bucks lost but whatever they'll be fine.

Badgers hopefully will be good in a couple of years. Have to get back to work. We'll watch later. The CBS show will get online. It's on the Odyssey app. 24 hours rewind and then the podcast will be there as well. But I believe they go on everything else too. Spotify should be on there.

So, wherever you get your podcast is something for a reason. Oh, Jake also says rock Roman at Mania. Dude, I would rather see Cody in Roman. I know that's a bit controversial. That was great to see the rock back. There's nobody nobody's music hits better.

Nobody has a bigger aura or presence. But I gotta see my guy Cody finish the story. Cody, friend of show. Alright, so I guess I'll start here with the Packers and their win against the Vikings and you guys, of course, are welcome to join at any time.

The link posted on X and also in the comments. The Packers on Sunday night was great. There's no other way to put it. Jordan Love is the real deal. I think there's been a couple of different moments throughout the year where we thought, oh, okay, Jordan Love is the real deal and then, like, this is, it's not plateaued.

It continues to grow and this was another one of those games where he just looked really good. Even some of the throws that he looked like he shouldn't be making, like, what are you, are you jumping and throwing the football? He can do that though. A lot of other quarterbacks try to do what he did on Sunday.

They wouldn't be able to. Now, I'm just, all I can think about in my head, not all the people that are agreeing with me, not all the people that are excited, not all the people that are retweeting everybody who doubted them, but our guy Spark guy who still is very adamant that Jordan Love is Mitch Trubisky. I don't think that that's the case. I think you're closer. God, this is a bold thing to say right away because we keep talking about Jordan Love. We keep talking about Jordan Love and how the Packers have three in a row. Favre, Rodgers, Love.

But then what do we do? Then we say, he's not a Hall of Famer. We're not, we're not going to say he's going to be a Hall of Famer because that's what the last two have been. But Jordan Love, I think I'll say this. Jordan Love is going to be closer, much closer to Aaron Rodgers than he ever would be Mitch Trubisky.

I think that's just a problem. Like Love's already thrown more in a season, right? Than any Bears quarterback in the history of their franchise, yardage wise. I know some people are trying to drum up a Jordan Love MVP argument, which is fun. And if you look statistically like, Hey, he's statistically better than my homes.

And statistically you can make an argument. He's on pace with Lamar Jackson and statistically he's pretty good. I think Lamar Jackson is the unquestioned MVP. Um, what are the Packers without Jordan Love?

What are they with Sean Clifford? A four win team, five win, three. So he's obviously worth a bunch of wins, but Lamar Jackson has taken a Ravens team that would be on the outside booking in to a team that I think they are going to, uh, they're my Superbowl pick the Baltimore Ravens.

So I would put them there at this point. Uh, with Love, this is, I like this comment from Ken. He says, you can't say he's as bad as Mitch as this point. Turbisky never had games. Turbisky, Trubisky never had games this good. I don't remember ever watching a Mitch Trubisky game like that.

I don't remember ever seeing that where we thought, Oh my God, this is the guy I, because we did it. Uh, Chad says, Love is Alex Smith. Uh, I mean, I think he's better than Alex Smith.

Alex Smith was good. I just let Jordan Love be Jordan Love. Let's let's do that. Let's watch Jordan Love.

See what he is. He's having a nice year this year, better than expected. Let's see how he follows it up. They're going to give him a contract. It's going to be a very large contract and I think he'll live up to it.

And if not, then, then we're in trouble. But the comparisons are very, I mean, that's what we do. We've got a hundred years of NFL to do it on. I just want to watch Jordan Love and let him be Jordan Love. You know, we don't compare Brett Favre to anyone anymore. We don't compare Aaron Rodgers anymore.

I just want to compare Jordan Love and be Jordan Love. Can we shout out the wide receivers? We absolutely can. So quick rundown on the game on Sunday, as you're aware of by now, another hundred plus yard game from Aaron Jones. And then the receivers, Bo Melton, that was the first hundred yard game from any receiver this year. It was Bo Melton, six for a buck, oh five and a score. Reed looked really good. He did all that in one half. Tucker Kraft might be tight end number one next year over Luke Musgrave.

So you got a good two tight end combination. Romeo Dubs, everything that I didn't think would work about this team when they were really at their lowest. And I said, you can't bring all these guys up together. This isn't baseball.

This isn't basketball. That was an L for me. I seem to have been wrong on that. I want to thank Tack who called in last night on the show. He did have to get dumped though. He did swear and hot take Jake called hot take.

Good to hear from you. Oh, leave it to smoke and Jay to drop an F bomb on the air. Well, cause Tack text me as after Tack text me and he said, I'm going to call in. I promise I won't swear.

And then he swore within like 20 seconds. Well, I'll be honest when I called in that I had to actively keep that in my head that like, you know, it's like calling it into the 1250 again, you gotta keep it under control. So I feel like I did a decent job. Your call was great.

I enjoyed talking to you. Tack, he later sent me a message that said, I just heard your voice and it just like softened me that I could swear. Has Tack ever appeared on any of these shows like completely sober. I always wonder that he's, there's a little bit of like a soft slowness to his voice that I'm like, I take it as he's a very relaxed man. Yeah.

Well, it could be elsewhere. I'm not saying he was bombed, but he's like the guy at the bar that you're like, Hey, you think you should be driving? He's like, no, bro. I'm good man.

Like seriously, I'm totally fine. Bucky Boyd comment. Love found the open man this week shows growth and potentially an early deviation from the old Aaron Rogers, 12 Chuck it for Jesus. Yeah. I wanted to talk about Jordan love last night, but I'm like, eh, it's a national show.

I don't want to like overrun it with local stuff. And I wanted to give you an opportunity Bart, because I extended it to Horvat on X Twitter and he of course did not oblige. Pride is a funny thing. Can you now admit the Jordan love pic was awesome is awesome has always been awesome and will continue to be.

Well, that's going to be tough. I am very pro Jordan love and I'm very pro that he could be good. I think we saw signs a little bit last year and then we saw him in the preseason and I thought, Hey, this guy could be good.

And so I'm, I'm willing to take the victory laps when Jordan love is good. However, I did not like the pick and I still feel like at the time the pick cost us a super bowl. No, I think it did guys bust in the first round every single year. You know how many guys in the first round end up being bust as is, you know, that's the territory where you're looking at a Daytona Jones type or who's the scrub offensive lineman that we drafted?

Like it just happened. What I stress about the pick is they picked him in the first round, gave up a fourth rounder, a fourth round. They wanted AJ Dylan and they wanted Josiah Deguara. They could have got Deguara.

No, don't do that. Dylan was going to be a third round pick. So there's so much better than the first and second round picks for the future. Now, if, if you look at it, if you look at it and say, we're going to take Jordan love, like if you show everybody what's going to happen, you say in 2020, we're going to take Jordan love and we won't win a super bowl with Rogers and then we'll have the next quarterback for 10 years.

We won't win a super bowl. Does that make the pick a success? There has to be a super bowl out of this pick before I can retroactively say it was good. Cause I think it cost us one.

No. How can you say the difference of one guy picked in the late first round cost you a super bowl? It's not just one it's one. It's the first round pick. It's the second round pick. It's a better third round pick. Everybody will talk about T Higgins at that time. Nobody was calling for T Higgins at that pick. Okay. So let's just stop with the 2020 hindsight.

It's a bunch of BS. The other thing is Bart, you're so much better than they could have got this guy in this round. You don't know that it takes one GM clearly to value a guy highly than another GM does. We saw that. So I don't like 2020 hindsight when it comes to draft. Thank you, Bucky.

Yes. Well, if you want to talk about that, if like 2020 hindsight, if you want to, if you want to hammer me into a corner and say, Bart, never say he wouldn't have gone in that round, you will, you, you could get me like, if my life was on the line, you could get me to 99.9% willing to agree. And then with my, and you'd say, all right, you're going to die. If you, if you don't go a hundred and with my last breath, I will say, but Josiah de Guara wouldn't have gotten drafted by anyone.

And then I would, my life would be over, but I would have to die with principle. I just think, um, the NFL draft, I guess any draft in general, not so much baseball, but that plays five tight ends and are desperate to find a sixth and or seventh where's the Guara. So he was a bust, right?

Well, that, that makes him part of the love pick that happens, but that's a guy they take in the fourth round that they took in the third round instead. So your third round, like this is where you have to think You're it's a little bit of butterfly effect. You're going on. I think it's, it's not that deep. I tried to give you an opportunity, man, but you're kind of digging the hole deeper. I don't like this. Any argument that fulcrums on Josiah de Guara, that's just too much for you.

Well, yeah, pain of your existence. The love pick was great and love the foresight of Gootie. If I have a criticism of Gootie, they should have traded Aaron Rogers after he choked against the Niners in the playoffs again. Now that's where I'll get into hindsight and go on forever because my, I have my theory about the deal was in place with Denver. And I think personally Murphy stepped in and said, no, give Rogers what he wants.

That's I'll go to my death bed thinking that, but you're just basing that on putting together, you know, connecting the dots. They traded Devontae. It's like, let's go to this rebuild.

We got the next kid. And I think that, you know, who else above Gouda Coons or who else is above Gouda Coons, Murphy's the only guy. We know that Gouda Coons wasn't keen on keeping them around, or at least that's what we're led to believe that those two had an icy relationship. And people forget after Rogers came out and announced that he's coming back to Green Bay and they got the contract. It was literally within less than 10 minutes, Denver announced, they traded for Russell Wilson. That's not a coincidence. Well, that would have been something, huh?

What can you do? But I'm happy we got Jordan. He's taken another step. This season reminds me, and I, you know, I have to be careful here.

I'm starting to get magic carpet vibes from this team. And this is coming from a guy who was saying losing was the way to go earlier in the year. Now, I believe you guys came on the show and cried after wins. Yeah. And you know, then I admitted I was wrong, which is again, something you're, you're legally allowed to do people. But I was wrong five minutes ago.

Kind of you admitted you were wrong. Like the way my wife does about the wide receivers. I was wrong about the wide receivers. Yeah.

They're great, man. Besides the fact that like they're all stepping up, I love that their skill sets are so different and they all kind of bring something to the table. So a lot of people I see are like, Oh, in the off season, let's bring in Devontae. Let's bring in a number one.

I'm going, no, just get everybody healthy. They've, they've got this great mindset of, you know, maybe it's not your week this week. Maybe it's Romeo's week. Next week. It's Christian. Now this week it was Bo.

I love that in unselfish group of guys that seem to genuinely love each other. And before I go, I got to say, I told you try to tell you guys they're bringing back Joe Berry next year and it's so happening. Fuck. I don't know yet.

They can't. If you had a bat bark, you know, you, you've got to put your, your home on the line. You got to put whatever's in your bank account on the line Packers and Joe Berry next year. Yes or no. What are you going? I will go. No, I'll take that hesitation as a little bit of a fib, but I'm I love you buddy.

I'm going to let you get back to doing your thing. Always appreciate the show and the Winkler verse. Love you guys. That's how I take Jake. Oh, he called in on Monday night, which feel free to do, feel free to do on the national show. M shark says he's not coming back.

No chance. Leflore even said it was one game when he complimented him. What it all comes down to is Leflore's like Leflore needs to make the phone call.

I think Leflore is ready to do it. I think he's got the note written and he's got the speech planned, but he doesn't want to like make the phone call. He doesn't want to have to do it. There was, there was a time and I forget what happened. I forget what happened in my life, whether I wanted to quit the job or not go to some extracurricular activity or something. There was something that was in high school and I needed to, I didn't want to do it. So my dad said, all right, don't do it then. But you have to be the one to say that you have to tell these people or you have to make the call. And I don't remember what it was exactly, but I remember in the moment, like thinking, man, I am such a bitch right now that I can't let my kid, I'm not saying my dad should like, I'm not saying my dad failed. I'm saying that I just, I just thought in the moment, like my dad's going to let me get away with being a bitch because I am a bitch.

I just don't want my son to be a bitch. The Sean O'Connell wants to know where Delvin Cook is going to land. We can discuss that and more. I do want to remind you and once again, thank Chris and Rob at happyplacehemp.com. Happyplacehemp.com. The promo code is BART. That promo code works. And we're going to do a Green Bay promotion, stack on their wins to the percent off that you get.

That'll be coming up at the end of the season. In the meantime, you need some sleepy sleepy nine nights. You need some happy happy fun funds, whatever you want to go with at happyplacehemp. They got the CBD, they got the CBD CBDN, they got the THC, THC free. You can get the Delta eights, Delta nines. I think I will get in a routine where the purple ones are going to be more of a necessity coming home at one 30 is odd. And then I'm kind of like chart up. I was pretty charged up after Monday night because of the college football playoff. I thought I was going to win a lot of money on draft Kings. I stacked Washington and they were just racking up points and at halftime I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be one of those nights. I had a great lineup going.

This is going to be one of those nights. And then they just kicked a bunch of field goals. And then that last drive cost me money too.

And they gave. So I put in like, I put in a bunch of entries. I won like $13. I thought I was going to win a few more zeros.

So I was pretty amped up. So needed the gummy happyplacehemp.com promo code Bart, happyplacehemp.com promo code is Bart B A R T 25% off each and every order. You're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day.

Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash blue wire. Just go to indeed.com slash blue wire right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed.com slash blue wire terms and conditions apply need to hire you need indeed. For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time. There's Granger offering professional grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need.

Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you call click Granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Back to the Delvin Cook question these Sean O'Connell says he's practicing his non local sports questions. I did like the tweet that was put out by Tom Pellicero, where you can totally tell his agent Delvin Cook's agent wrote the tweet. Four time Provo Delvin Cook running back the Jets. Four time Provo running back Delvin Cook and the Jets mutually have agreed to part ways allowing Cook the opportunity to play for a playoff team for his agency. Then the tweet says the dynamic playmaker has fresh legs after minimal usage in New York and can now compete for a Super Bowl.

So I think before I see if Aaron Nagler did the yes or no a bit I do enjoy. Ken Ingles Packers cap man says if the Packers claim Delvin Cook it would cost them about $400,000 against the cap. If he was active, he would also be an unrestricted free agent in the offseason and could net them a compensatory pick.

I don't think it happens, but it's not the worst idea I've heard recently. That third string running back spot has been held by guys like Kenyon Drake and James Robinson and Patrick Taylor and Delvin Cook did sign all these offensive running backs as opposed to the defensive running backs. But all these offensive running backs signed like not really good deals. Delvin Cook was able to finagle one from the Jets some way, which is going to allow a team to get a compensatory pick. That seems like another Jets mistake.

I think Joe Douglas is very bad. And that's one of the things I have to do a better job of as a person is I keep thinking of that Pat McAfee thing where they were praising Joe Douglas and thinking Brian Gudekins was bad. And when you're that confident in a take, like at some point when the take is wrong, there should be some sort of admittance that you were wrong. Like I'm eager to announce if I was wrong.

I've learned along the way that announcing you are wrong or being able to admit you are wrong about something is a sign of growth, is a sign are you able to learn, you're willing to learn, you're willing to bring on knowledge. To go back to what Jake was talking about, I'd love for the Jordan Love pick to be a good pick all the time. But things are going to need to still happen for that to be true. Even if we get to the gray area line of he's really good and he gave us another quarterback, I think a Super Bowl has to be a part of it. Not saying that drafting Jordan Love 100% cost them a Super Bowl. Like play it out the other way, they win a Super Bowl.

Patrick Queen, T Higgins, you know, name your fighter. But it did. And then you could argue the other thing. Well, Rogers would be an MVP, I don't know. But it was, you know, it was pivoting towards the future instead of focusing on the Super Bowl now, which has worked for the Packers in the past and is working again here.

Is that something you want to continue? I don't know, I still think when I went the first when I first said it, when the draft first happened, I said for it to be a success, Love needs to win a Super Bowl, and Rogers needs to win a Super Bowl. That was a little high bar. But for it to for us to look back at the pick, and there'd be no question about it, and say it was 100% of success, you have to win a Super Bowl with Jordan Love. Because you drafted this guy was drafted in 2022. It's 2024 or 2020. It's 2024 now.

All right. It's 2024 now, as you know. Thanks for joining us here on the Dan Cheney YouTube stream. My guy Dan Cheney, selling you your insurance into the new year.

So please reach out to him. The playoff scenarios, you may have been able to go through them. I just want to kind of remind myself of them here. The Packers basically, they need to win. They can get in with a loss. But they're going to need if the Bears win, the Packers need the Seahawks to lose to the Cardinals. They need the Saints to lose to Atlanta. They need the Vikings to lose to Detroit. And then they're in if they lose.

Now, we don't want that to happen. So let's say the Packers win. First of all, they have to beat a Bears team, who they've said the same stuff that they've always said. This Packers game is going to be different. You know, the Packers have had a lot of success over Chicago recently. I thought there was a lot of weight put on that first game because it was going to determine the fates of Jordan Love and Justin Fields. And now the Bears have their opportunity to come to Lambeau and beat us. I would predict the Packers to win.

Again, if my bank account was on the line, I am a little apprehensive about the game. I think that Justin Fields is going to be one of the better quarterbacks they've faced. He's better than Tommy DeVito. I'm more afraid of him than I was Bryce Young.

I'm more afraid of him than I was Baker Mayfield, who had a perfect passer rating. So even if like the thing that Tommy DeVito killed us was, he had that nice play in the end zone, but he also ran all over us. And once you introduce that into the occasion or into the uh, sure.

Once you introduce that, it's going to be really tough to stop. That's where I mean, once, once Tommy DeVito figured out the read option against the Packers, it was over. It was, I mean, they could not stop them and they lost the game. And had they win that game, we'd be obviously in a much better spot. You know, you look back at some of these games, even when you don't think playoffs, you don't think playoffs, you look back then and see the games that you lost. And it's like, how, I mean, how, how did we lose those games? Maybe that's why I was hyperventilating. No loss affected me this year as much as that giants did. I was really in my emotions about it, but I just, it just felt like it was bigger than it was.

So I am a little worried. Plus we saw it last year. We saw last year, week 18, the Lions come in nothing to play for, so to speak and beat the Packers. And it was with a different quarterback.

Sure. The defense is a lot worse though than it was. Uh, we got to get Christian Watson back.

That would be huge in this game. He's still been out for a long time. What was the story on him that he it's still the hamstring injury and some of they asked him if he was going to look into figuring out what he can do different next year to prevent these injuries. And he said, no, like something's going on, fix it. There's a something's wrong.

Whatever is wrong, you need to fix, sir. So that's interesting. Uh, but I do think Jordan love, um, we'll have a nice game. I think the Packers will be able to run with Aaron Jones. I'm just a little concerned about the whole narrative aspect of it, of Justin Fields coming in here and what could is, could be his last game as a bear.

I'm really fascinated by this. I'm fascinated by the bear story because so many of his teammates have spoken out in support of him. There's a lot of things that play here with the bears. So if you want to hear more bears breakdown, check me out tonight on CBS sports radio. So let's say the Packers win.

Let's stop being doom and gloom here for a second. Let's say the Packers win. You would then be as things stand playing the Cowboys. So if the Cowboys win, that will be, uh, locked in if the Eagles win and the Cowboys.

Okay. So if the Cowboys win and the Packers win, or if the Niners beat the Rams, then we can be the six. So either way, we're going to play at Dallas, at Detroit, at Philadelphia.

The scenarios are a little complicated that if I try to talk them out, I'm going to lose people since I'm kind of losing myself. So that Niners Rams game is important. The Niners may be resting guys. They have the one seed and the Rams are going to maybe want to go in on a high note, man.

Look at this, look at what's going to go down. These playoffs could have the Packers traveling to Dallas to take on McCarthy. They could have the Rams traveling to Detroit with Matt Stafford on the other side of things. You could eventually have the Browns at some point, go to Baltimore. These playoffs are going to be pretty fun.

Uh, there's, there's going to be a lot of fun stuff coming up. Joey says, Packers beat the Cowboys head to head. Cowboys run defense is bad.

Their secondary can be exploited. I would say I would rank and I'm not going to include the Packers in this because it's too hard out of the NFC. I think it's most likely the Niners get out. Oh, even though I don't want to admit that, uh, Cowboys, man, that Cowboys went over the lines.

Certainly did mess things up for Detroit. I'm not done with the Eagles. Eagles could go to, it looked like they had the one seed. Then they lost three in a row. Then they lost to Arizona. They could have a stretch where they have to go to Tampa, go to Detroit or Dallas or go to Dallas probably. And then it's going to be really hard for them at this point. They really look like a super bowl team again.

I just, I just don't know. I feel like we're a little quick to bury everything, uh, Philadelphia Eagles. So I'm not sure there before we get onto college and the bucks and some other stuff, I didn't want to play a voicemail from Matt in the falls, Matt and the falls left a voicemail. I don't know how relevant it is in terms of the actual moment that it was sent, but it's still relevant in terms of how coaches talk to the media. Sometimes there's a Carl's plays voicemail, Carl of et.com backslash Bart LaFleur was up at the podium and he wouldn't talk about suspending Jair and seems like everything worked out with that. They won and Valentine had a pick and all as well that ends well.

Um, but LaFleur got up there, suspended Jair, and then it was all like about it. And so I'm on to Minnesota, all these coaches do this stuff. They understand the, they understand the shockwaves that I'll have amongst fans and media.

And they just pretend like it never happened. So here's, here's Matt in the falls on, uh, coaches and their strategy. Hello, Bart.

It is me. Uh, this is a little rant. Um, I was listening to today's or yesterday's episode, um, talking about Matt LaFleur and the media and the game and, you know, the back and forth. And you said it a lot. And I mean, that is an understatement for me, the, the game that these people play the reporters, the coaches, and this, this isn't even just sports. This goes for everything.

You know, politicians, businessmen, athletes, it doesn't matter. There's so much fucking bullshit in this world. Why can't we just be straight with each other? Like we know that something is going on with Jair. You're supposed to just tell us like this fucking shit with we're on to the Minnesota Vikings and oh, we're not going to tell you. And like, we know that something is going on.

Stop pretending that we're stupid or that like we shouldn't know, like just quit lying to each other and bullshitting and let's just be straight with each other. I mean, come on. Like at some point, I don't understand why these reports, like if I was a journalist, a sports reporter and I got that response, I would, I wouldn't be able to not be like, Hey dude, why don't you quit fucking around and just answer the question? Like, I don't understand how these reporters can handle themselves and keep it together because there's, there's just so much bullshit.

Yeah. I think just based on any experience I've had covering teams, um, and I don't think it's this way for everybody. I just told you how I was a little bitch in high school. And I think a lot of that has continued onto my real life. But when I was like, you get in there and I feel like when I'm the reporter and I'm into like, you're into their world, even though they essentially they'll say they don't, but they need you. I mean, they're not making multimillion dollar contracts if we're not as invested as we are, but you do feel like you're tiny and you feel like, I don't know, again, some people aren't this way.

I always felt, I, I, I can't say that I've felt anywhere less at home or less like myself in my own skin or less confident than in a big league locker room or, uh, any kind of locker room. I can't say like brick says, that's a bad take. They can't just call people out blatantly. Players don't appreciate coaches airing out private in-house stuff, just like coaches hate it when the players do it. I think what, what more, maybe what more could be more pointed is the floor, the floor up there pretending like it wasn't even a thing that was occurring. No, no, we're on Minnesota. I mean, you get, you might have to give us a little bit more than that.

And maybe he thinks it will alienate the direction of the gyre situation or any of that stuff. I don't know. It's tough. It's tough being in the locker room. I think we think a lot of times these reporters need to hold them accountable and go get, go take them to task. Why, why can't you, why can't they scream at them? But it's also their place of work. And in some weird way, they're like colleagues they're not, but you need that other person to do your job.

So then you alienate them once and then you can't get any access. So we love it when Belichick is crass at the media, but Matt LaFleur can't be. First of all, I don't love it when Belichick does that. And I've never thought that Popovich was cool either for doing it, but Belichick does it better than LaFleur. When Belichick does it, it's like, don't bother me. When LaFleur does it, it's like, he's doing a bad Belichick impression. That's the thing. Maybe it's just you need to be an old man to do that. I don't know.

I don't know. Again, shout out to the reporters that cover the team. There's a lot of good people that cover the team, the Packers specifically. There's people that cover themselves.

That's weird. But the people that cover the team, I have kind words to say about all the people that make it their mission to cover the team. If you're covering yourself covering the team, that's pretty odd. But if you're covering the team, I support you.

College football playoffs. You know who I want to give a shout out to? Maybe you guys saw this? Tim Shea. Last week, I jumped down here. Shea had a prediction.

Now, of course, I cut him off like an asshole. But here's Tim Shea's college football prediction. That would just be great, because that's what everyone wanted, was a great game. And by the way, USC beating Louisville, leave Florida State out of it. Washington upsets Texas. Washington's winning the whole thing. Washington beats Michigan. So Tim had Washington. All right, I had Washington too. Tim had Michigan.

Okay, some people in Michigan. Tim had OT. How about that? Tim had OT. Classic Bart Cutt and thank you, Jake R. Not bad. So the college football playoffs, the first three quarters of that game were awful. But the finish was great. And I was trying to get people to remember the finish, but no one cares.

I'm on an island there. And then the Texas-Washington game was great throughout, and then it got weird at the end. So that was a good day of college football. And when the playoff committee sets down and says, what should the day be like? This is what they want. They don't just want the best teams. They want the best matchups and the best games.

That's what they want, okay? Florida State didn't get in so we could get that 45 minutes of thrill between Alabama and Michigan. And that's why they didn't get in. And I won't talk too much about Florida State since I made that my whole personality, and I don't need to still do that. Their result in the bowl game is irrelevant to the organization.

I don't even think they should have gone. The information comes at some people that Florida State didn't have a bunch of guys play, and then it just misses you. And you think that that Florida State team was led by Jordan Travis? That was not the team that beat LSU at the beginning of the year.

I know you know that. But anyway, we're under the national championship. Michigan and Wisconsin are two teams in the Big Ten. Michigan's playing Washington actually. Two teams in the Big Ten will play next year.

Here's what I want to make clear too. ACC and Big 12 are going to be one-bid conferences. Because if you have Florida State next year and they go 11-1, beating Notre Dame, beating Clemson, losing in the ACC championship, and then you have a team like Michigan, who let's say they lose to Ohio State and lose to they play Texas. They also have Washington on their schedule. They have USC on their schedule. They have Oregon on their schedule. A two-loss Big Ten team, maybe even three, two-loss SEC team with Texas and Oklahoma, are going to trounce a one-loss ACC team. Next year there will be more weight on strength of scheduling to me because these conferences are adding these huge schools, playoff schools. Teams that almost made the playoffs.

Teams that were ranked in the playoffs. The Big 12, I got no idea. Who's coming out of the Big 12? Kansas? Utah? Arizona? Oklahoma State? Who's coming out of the Big 12? You're telling me they're going to have two teams?

No. The 12-team playoff will make college football better. It will make them better. It will make college better. There will be more games to enjoy. More games to enjoy that matter means less focus you put on the games that don't matter. So these bowl games that we think are terrible, well they won't exist anymore.

There'll be playoff games that do matter and then some of these other bowl games we can just murder pop tarts on air. Brevin wants to talk about Shaka Smart running around like a maniac on the court during the last game. That, okay, so college basketball ain't my thing. Saw that. That, you can't do that. That, I would be furious about that.

He was the sixth defender. You can't be doing that. It's ridiculous. I like Washington in the title game. More than anything I'm upset that they're underdogs again. You put them 10 points again you put them 10 points against Oregon they win. You put them four and a half points against Texas they win. They're four and a half against Michigan. They win close games.

That's what they do. They got a big offense, a defense that just needs to make one play. They win these games 33 to 30 all year long. Now narrative-wise it does seem to be Michigan's coronation and then Jim Harbaugh goes off in the sunset.

So we'll see on that one. The Badgers played also on New Year's Day. Does anyone want to talk about the Badgers? It's great that they were in a New Year's Day bowl.

That's nice for the program. I don't know that they necessarily deserve to be in a New Year's Day bowl. I'm not worried that they lost. I remember one year there was a year that was it when Biema left or Anderson left and then we played Auburn and Barry was back. Whenever we played Auburn and we won and I was like this bowl game matters it's going to set this team off in the right direction and sometimes you think about that in the moment and then you know it doesn't. The Badgers, the only thing that I'm really upset about in the Badgers lost is that there were a lot of cowardly punts from Luke Fickle. A lot of plus territory punts. A lot of bad fourth down decisions and if you're going to do that in a exhibition in a college bowl game what are you going to do when the game matters? Luke Fickle brought in some transfers and I think Pauling had a big game.

Whenever I see his name on the TV I always think it's Paul Imig. I get confused but I think he had a big game. Tanner Mordecai finally in this last game the air raid offense comes into play but I don't know I just thought Fickle where are you punting here? What are you doing?

Why is this why is this hat doesn't make sense to me? If you're going to do it there what are you going to do in a real game? Badgers, I think a lot of us were hoping for Badgers national championship this year because the schedule was pretty light and maybe if things you know work out differently with the coachings the movings and goings and all that kind of stuff we could have had one. Next year they got no shot and they're not in that shitty conference anymore so what do you gotta do next year? Well you don't have to beat Alabama it's not a conference but you have USC, Purdue, I'm talking about just getting in the Big 10 title game you gotta be top two out of 16. USC, Purdue, Rutgers, Northwestern, Penn State, Iowa.

What are we there? Four and two at best? At best. Oregon, Nebraska, Minnesota. That's not even one of the tougher slates in the Big 10. We don't have Washington, we don't have Michigan, we don't have Ohio State. Got Alabama non-conference.

I mean it'll be great to watch these games but I don't think the aspirations are going to be as high as they may have been. The Lazy Steve wants to know how you can be aggressive with a name like Fickle. Missing out on the chance to have a catchphrase like Ficket, let's go for it. Hey Lazy Steve, nothing lazy about that comment. That took a lot of mental gymnastics to get to. Nothing lazy.

Physically, I don't know. Are you lazy? I am.

I'm horizontal much of the day. Not in a sexy way either but that was creative. Ah, Ficket.

Good t-shirt idea. The Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks. Bucks lost, was following the game for the first three quarters and then I got sucked into the Oregon, not Oregon, Washington, Texas game and I missed the fourth quarter. So I was in a room, I was in the studio with two TVs, I couldn't get TV2 to work, forgot to keep flipping, didn't see the end of the game. I text somebody, how did the Bucks lose this game? It was a big Bucks fan, it was one of my brothers and he said, I don't know, I was watching college.

So I thought okay, maybe a lot of people were in that boat. So we had some boots on the ground last night, so the crowd was pretty good but I look at it here and the Bucks 38 to 25 in the fourth quarter, that'll do it. That'll do it. I'm actually on ESPN.com right now, there is an ad here for pornography.

How can ESPN do this? This is blasphemy. Actually that is a Whitlock joke. The real ad I'll show you, the real ad that I have is Culver's Chicken Tenders which is kind of kind of worrisome because I haven't looked up anything Culver's on this computer in a long time. But I did go to Culver's with my kid two days ago and we ordered chicken tenders.

So obviously maybe my credit card information is in the system. Like I haven't even, have I talked Culver's? I guess I've talked Culver's around my computer but I haven't searched Culver's.

Interesting. The chicken tenders were good though. He only ate the fries. He had a dinner of fries and ice cream. Dad of the year move. And I had a Butterburger single because I wanted to eat light but then I went ahead and had his chicken tendies. But he wouldn't let me have his ranch.

Anyone else annoyed by Halliburton? That's from Brevin. Yeah, we got Tyler Herro. We got another Wisconsin guy that gets out of here and then just the whole, it's a good rivalry. I'm glad that we have another rivalry.

I am. I wish there was more attention to division rivals in the NBA. Like in football, in football obviously the division rivals matter. Bears, Vikings, Lions, matters.

You play them twice. In baseball, you hate your rivals. But in basketball it's like we don't even, we don't even know. That's when I was the most upset.

I namedropped, asked Malcolm Brogdon once. I said, who are you rooting for? Warriors or Cavs?

And he said, Cavs. I go, why? I go, why?

They're your division rival. He goes, he basically was like, I don't give a fuck you sweaty little troll. Okay, so it can, it can, it does know where I go.

The internet does know where I go. That's good. Jake, yeah, Jake kind of agrees. Can't stand Halliburton. It's nice to have a divisional rivalry with some juice. Well, it's nice too that we're still better than them. So it's nice to have a rival. Sure, they can get us here, but in a seven game we're beating them. So as long as that's the case, like if the Bulls want to beat us some random night, that's fine. But if we play them in the playoffs, we'll win. So as long as, as long as we have that, like the Bears, if the Bears, I'm worried about Sunday.

I truly, truly am. Joey says, Buck's bench has no versatility besides Crowder, who's hurt. So I, who is the guy that people want today?

Matisse Thaibel. Was that the guy I saw people making trades for? Every loss, every win. Even the playoffs. Every loss, every win.

It's got to be a trade machine day. I still, I still am stupid enough to think we don't need to make any moves and that we can outscore teams. Problem is we got to outscore teams. Dame going three of 16 isn't going to get it done.

One of nine from three. So does this, does this team depend on Damian Lillard making shots? I do think we're also still underestimating Giannis' greatness. This is a Pacers team that threw everything they could at him still, 30, 18, and 11. So I've said that the fact that Dame's on this team makes Giannis' MVP candidacy a little less because he got another superstar, but Giannis is still playing at an MVP level. Celtics almost lost to the Pistons the other night.

Everything will be okay. That was one of the more higher rated games on NBA TV ever. And that was during a Thursday night football game. And I got sucked into, to that game.

That was fun. Grant reminds me of this audio clip. Hi, I'm Malcolm Brogdon and you're listening to the Milwaukee Bucks. And you're listening to the Milwaukee Bucks.

I have that clip here somewhere. There we go. I'm Malcolm Brogdon, Milwaukee's best Bucks coverage here on the fan. I think I've talked about this too much. I walked around media day getting this from people.

I'm like, hey, can you read these off a sheet? Hands shaking. I'm Malcolm Brogdon and you're listening to Sparky's Bucks weekly on the fan.

Good job. Hey guys, this is Yansa, the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, and you're listening to the Milwaukee Bucks post-game show here on the fan. Yeah, look at me.

Look at me habnabbing. Hi, I'm Jabari Parker, Milwaukee's best Bucks coverage here on the fan. Ooh, here on the fan.

He was pumped. Here's one. This is Michael Carter Williams, catch the Milwaukee Bucks post-game show after every Bucks game here on the fan.

I got one more, one more, one more. This is Miles Plumlee, catch Sparky's Bucks coverage one more. This is Miles Plumlee, catch Sparky's Bucks weekly every week here on the fan.

You know, I didn't get enough credit for doing that. I walked around Bucks media day. They told me there would be, because Bucks media day used to be, it used to be like 30 different stations where they would all go to take a picture, do a Snapchat, do all this. And they told me that we would have a station where the Bucks would have to come and I would interview them and make them do this.

And instead I was like, Hey, where's my station? And they're like, no one said anything. So I just had to walk around and like tap Giannis on the back and say, Hey, I'm with the fan.

Could you read this for our coverage? And he's like, I guess. I don't think he wanted to. He did it.

Hey guys, this is Giannis of the group of the Milwaukee Bucks and you're listening to the Milwaukee Bucks post game show here on the fan. Yeah. Then I saw him at swimming. Did I ever tell you guys that when I saw him at swimming?

I saw him at swimming. All right. We will have an coming up on Thursday morning for your delight. So again, the we'll get on Thursday mornings, fresh normal time.

That'll be the pod that is the most consistent. I think Tuesday at two might be a nice time to just kind of jump in and recap a weekend and look ahead to stuff. Fridays, possibly I could sneak some in. I could do that. And then I will do a Packers one.

Bucks post games are pretty much dead. Sorry. So I'm going to change the name of the podcast to something Winkler-verse-esque and it should still be in the same spot that you have been getting it. I've got no idea.

Blue wire's done all that for me. So I don't know what to do. And if you look for the Bart Winkler show, it should take you to the CBS show. Once that officially loads. I love you all.

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