Bob Ryan

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3-7 on Sports Hub Triad. I love all forms of entertainment. Sports obviously, I'm excited this time of year because the Oscars are coming up. Can't wait for The Bachelor tonight.

That's like my guilty pleasure show. And here's what I found as someone who constantly consumes entertainment and pop culture. In American culture, we love stars and we gravitate towards talented people.

However, we also want our stars to be humble. In other words, you can't be supremely talented and know it too. It's the problem with Kanye West. That guy's put out a lot of really good music. Now I know there are also other things you could criticize about Mr. West and you would be right.

You would have no arguments from me here. But I think what rubbed people the wrong way about Kanye's popularity about 10 or so years ago was that he put out really good popular music then would say that he was the second coming of Walt Disney. Or that he was so talented he could also take over the fashion game as well.

He publicly said that he is the greatest and the best artist of the generation. You can be that, but if you say it, then people will have an issue with you. Maybe a more relatable example might be the smoke show at the bar that knows she's hot. Or the guy at the gym who's wearing the cutoff t-shirts that he cut off himself. You've seen these people? The ones that cut off their shirts. It looks ridiculous, but they want to show off their abs. I'm not taking anything away from that guy who's probably roided up getting some human growth hormone. That good old HGH. A little bit of that, yeah. Maybe just pounding some protein bars definitely has the milk jug full of water with labels on it.

How much he can fill up because you need the precise amount of water as if he's a high school wrestler or something. That guy, if he dresses that way, feels a certain way about himself. We like confidence. Don't get me wrong, it is a line that you have to toe correctly. We like confidence.

We love supremely talented people and beautiful people. Just as long as you don't know it or act like that you know it. That's what I believe the problem with Aaron Rodgers is.

Aaron Rodgers, he's an all-time talent. But I think he knows it. I feel like he knows it. And I think nobody likes that guy, to use the air quotes, that guy. He's not a tremendous leader. When we look at all these quarterbacks who are great, usually we loosely say that somebody's a leader if they are assuming a leadership role when we put quarterback as a leadership role in football. But I believe teams can be great without your quarterback being a great leader.

I don't think Jimmy Garoppolo is the leader of the 49ers. He does the job. He does what he's asked. And he wasn't asked to throw a pass for over an hour and a half real time yesterday. But he does the job. He does what he's asked. Aaron Rodgers is asked to do a lot. He needed to have a supremely talented, a supremely next-level performance in order to get Green Bay to Miami. He did not do that. Is that Aaron Rodgers' fault?

No. San Francisco, they earned it. They were the better football team. But A-Rod's taken a lot of heat today. And I feel like if any of the other great quarterbacks lost in that spot, Breeze, Brady, heck, even Mahomes, there would be more people coming to his defense, their defense, this Monday morning, or this Monday afternoon, excuse me. But I don't see a lot of that with Packer players.

It's a strange thing. I don't want to bring his family into this because that's none of our business. But when former players are coming out saying that, yeah, that guy was a pain to deal with. He pushed out a head coach.

That doesn't strike me as leader. When I'm looking on the sideline, I see him there, and he's very nonchalant while his team is getting drubbed. When he's turning over the football, he has the same mannerism to him. Meanwhile, when Pat Mahomes is down 10-0, or 24-0 like a week ago, it's like a sports movie. He's getting guys fired up. Hey, we need to do this.

We need to do that. That's a part of leadership. And that's what teammates say of Mahomes, that he lifts people up. Brady, he's fiery in that way.

Breeze, he's leading motivational charges before the game. Not with Rodgers. I haven't seen that with Rodgers.

Now, if that's not his personality, also, perfectly fine. But I wanted to see something there from Aaron, and we didn't see it. He almost plays like he's protecting his passer rating. Doesn't throw the ball down the field, doesn't take many chances. If you're going to beat San Francisco, you've got to take chances. You're the underdog.

You're on the road. You're the less talented team. You need to take shots, and he didn't. A lot of check-downs, and it's hard to watch. It's one of the things that frustrates me the most about where football was at about five or six years ago. There were so many Kirk Cousins, Case Keenums of the world playing quarterback, Sam Bradford throwing the pass three yards sideways, and these awful 14, 15 play drives that end in field goals that it just made the product unattractive to me. Thank goodness we now have Lamar Jackson, and we have this Kansas City motion-based offense. I love what Kyle Shanahan does. And we had the Rams last year with Sean McVay. Thank goodness we have these fun players that kind of changed things up and proved yet again that you can take chances and have a very fun style of football and still win and get very far in the postseason. So that's my take on Aaron Rodgers.

Do you have a better example of somebody that knows they're hot or knows they're talented than Kanye or the smoke show at the bar that is just the worst that you can't start a conversation with unless you're Robert who has quite the way with women or at least speaking to women? Stop, stop. You're just good at talking to people.

I am, I am. And I would raise you Russell Westbrook maybe. Oh, wow. Somebody who is supreme. You can't deny this guy's ability to attack the basket or anything else you want to do statistics-wise, but that is the last dude that I would want on my team.

Oh, my gosh. If you're playing pickup, you're never seeing the ball. Never, never. He's calling all the fouls. So he wants you out of the lane so he could grab the rebound. Yeah, he's wondering why everybody's not setting up a pick and roll for him.

Like, we can't all be screening for you, dude. Yes, Aaron? The only person that comes to mind that actually kind of did this semi-successfully is Muhammad Ali.

Right? He was pretty. He was great.

He would let you know about it at every turn. Now, granted, during his heyday, he was hated. Right. He was maybe the most polarizing athlete in the history of American sports. Which kind of speaks to what I'm talking about here. We like guys who are talented.

We like confidence even. But when you get to arrogance and just outwardly saying, I'm the greatest and here's why, then people have issue with you. Yeah, so a lot of people would just tune into his fights to see if he got knocked out or not. And then you saw later in his career he was beloved. It is amazing.

When somebody passes away, how the narratives are so different. Muhammad Ali, the most beloved athlete there is. Um, no. You would think that every athlete, every room that an athlete was ever in was so bright. They're like, oh, they lightened up a room. It's the most fitting conversation to have on Martin Luther King Day, isn't it? True. People now make Martin Luther King, just like Muhammad Ali, a cartoon character. This guy was perfect. Never did anything wrong. When what we should do is say, yeah, this guy was human. He made mistakes.

He made mistakes in his marriage, but he's still one of the most important people in American culture because of this and this and this. Painting people to be perfect, that's not what we should do in death. Humanizing them, that's the right thing to do because then people can relate to that. You can't relate to cartoon characters. You can relate to people who have issues because guess what?

We all have them. And if you want to aspire to be Muhammad Ali or to be someone great like a Martin Luther King, this is not the path I thought this segment was going down when we started with Kanye West. But I think you need to tell the story, the full story about somebody so that way people can feel like they can be heard to rather than us looking at Martin Luther King and saying, oh, well, why even aspire to do that? We can't reach that point. We can't reach that mark. I feel like this didn't end up where you wanted it to. No, no, this got really heavy. Live radio, baby. This got heavy really fast.

This is the part where I usually just throw it over, just throw the microphone over to Robert. He says something funny, and then we punctuate things the right way. Why are we at work today? Is this a holiday? What are we doing here? I asked you last week, are we off Monday for the holiday? And Josh is like, nope, we're here.

Championship game. We got to talk about it. I love actually working on holidays like this.

People are home. They're sitting in there listening to us. Like, that's good. And we appreciate you listening to us. Even though Robert's ticked off and Aaron is too, even though his team won, they're both bothered by the fact they have to be here.

We are happy that you are listening to this show right now. Hall of Famer Bob Ryan of ESPN will tell us what his early lean is for Super Bowl 54 next on The Drive. So it's the Chiefs going up against the San Francisco 49ers in Miami in about two weeks. And we'll have plenty of time to explore the matchup. But pushing things ahead, I'm interested in our next guest's thoughts on the matchup, his early lean on it. Bob Ryan of ESPN, the Hall of Famer, and the NSMA kind enough to spend some time here in the triad. Bob, the Chiefs, the better coach and better quarterback, San Francisco, it looks like, has the most complete team.

When those variables meet, what do you tend to value most? First of all, it depends on the coach. Wait, what was that? Sorry, I didn't catch that, Bob. Let's see if we can get Bob on a better connection very quickly. Robert was so excited because he knew that Bob Ryan was a big Frank Sinatra guy. So he wanted to pull some of that out. In fact, I was having this conversation with Bob a short while ago.

Where were we talking about? Some of the radio stations he tends to listen to. I go to sleep to music and I used to go to sleep specifically to Frank Sinatra. And that's where me and Bob kind of had a conversation. He's very passionate about everything.

Sports, music, entertainment, and otherwise. So it shouldn't surprise you to know that he had very strong feelings about Sinatra. He has strong feelings about the Beach Boys.

Aaron is not that fond of the Beach Boys. Let's not explore that right now, though. No, let's not go into that today.

Maybe the next time we have an opportunity to get to that topic, we can get there. Also, Bob's one of those foremost authorities on baseball, I think, too. Being placed in Boston, obviously we're waiting to see if the Red Sox had any carryover with Alex Korver coming from the Houston Astros to the Red Sox in terms of how they cheated, if they cheated at all. It's a tough time for Major League Baseball. And speaking of that NSMA that Bob was inducted into the Hall of Fame for many years ago, Dan Patrick, who was with us last week, Michael Wilbon, both inducted Dan previously of ESPN. And Wilbon currently at ESPN, pardon the interruption. We can get a Wilbon or DP story out of Bob as well. And between all that, your thoughts welcome on Twitter at sportsubtriad and we'll get back to Duke basketball. That loss that they had on Thursday, or excuse me, last Saturday. I think there's another side to it.

It's a great win for Louisville, but on the other end of it, there are some things we have to get to with Duke as well. We'll get to Bob Ryan in just a few minutes. But Aaron Gabriel, we need to talk about your fandom with the Chiefs. Let's do it. Any chance you'd go to Miami for the Super Bowl? No. I'm not rolling like that.

I don't have it. If I make the financial decision to go down to the Super Bowl, I've got months of payments ahead of me and I'm not trying to live that life. Out of the game, we'll see if there's any trash talking within it. You've got Richard Sherman, who's going after Darryl Revis right now on Twitter. I don't see any beef between San Francisco and Kansas City. I don't even really see any beef outside of that position.

DBs usually are the ones that claw at each other. Could you imagine how big the headline is, how big the headline would be, I should say, if two quarterbacks were going at each other the way that Revis and Sherman are? I don't know what candidates. Who would be the strongest candidates for it? Yeah, what two quarterbacks? I have a good feeling who one of them would be. Baker Mayfield would be one of the two. Baker Mayfield most likely would be the trash talker, if you had to pick one. Aside from that, who would be the most likely quarterback to engage in a Twitter beef? Baker, he goes after Colin Cowherd, Baker goes after whoever. Right, but he's also losing right now.

That's true, that's true. If Daniel Jones had the spine, he would have fired back at him after the GQ quote last year from Baker. I could see Aaron Rodgers going at someone last week. I could. He's petty like that. No, no, no. Rodgers is too petty to get into the Twitter stuff though.

Actually not petty enough, I should say. He does not do the burner account KD thing. He wouldn't do that. Same thing for Joel Embiid.

So, I don't think Aaron Rodgers would be the bet. As far as like on Twitter, like a social media beef? Like a social media beef. Oh, okay. Alright.

Man, that's tough. Yeah, you don't usually see a lot of successful winning quarterbacks take to Twitter as much as, say, anyone else. You don't see it that often. I mean, name a quarterback you've seen on Twitter just going at it, just tweeting back and forth all the time. Yes.

I don't know. Tom Brady recently has done some Instagram media tweeting. Brady has realized he has more power. Right.

So that's more of a marketing thing for him. No, I don't think it would have to be someone younger. It would have to be someone younger. It would be fun if Baker was winning. But that would be the biggest headline out there if two quarterbacks, I don't care who they were. Like if it's Garoppolo, I mean, it would be massive. It doesn't matter who the quarterbacks are. But since Richard Sherman and Darryl Revis play corner, it's not as big of a headline.

It just isn't. And Darryl Revis isn't playing right now. So I think if he had beef with, say, like if Richard was coming at, say, Tyreek Hill. And Tyreek Hill responded with, you know. Well, if they're playing in the Super Bowl, yeah, then I'd buy that. But the point I'm trying to get at, we wipe away and scrape away any amount of interesting when it comes to these players' personality.

We scrape it all away until there's nothing left. Right? There's no interesting in any of these quarterbacks' personalities. Phillip Rivers has some of it.

Has some of that push. But I don't think he's on Twitter. Is he?

No, he's definitely not on Twitter. Now, on the field, he'll light you up on the field. There it is.

So it's a lot different. I like Richard Sherman because he can back it up, and he did with his fourth interception of his postseason career last night. But it's just interesting we've never had that when it comes to quarterbacks.

Bob Ryan of ESPN now here. So early leaning. We're talking a lot about this game. We'd like to push things ahead a little bit.

I know we have a lot of time to think about it. But Kansas City, they have the coach, they have the quarterback. San Francisco, I think offense, defense, special teams, the more complete unit.

Which of those things, when you look at those variables meeting, do you tend to greatly value? I think there are two outsized figures in this game. One is Mahomes, and the other is Nick Bosa. And he has had an incredible effect on the entire, not just the play of their defensive liner and their ability to get to the passer, but I think the psyche of the entire team, an incredibly impactful rookie. Now that's just an opinion, but I think the big dynamic ultimately, however, is Jimmy Garoppolo is still taking his exams.

He graduated from college, and now he's in the grad school, and he hasn't gotten that master's degree yet. When you only have to throw eight passes in a conference championship game, you're not being tested to your ability to perform under enormous pressure. In this showcase, I'm not saying he can't. I like him.

He had an excellent regular season. But I'm just simply saying that that's the one unponderable. We don't know how he's going to react under moments of stress, or if he needed to be the man for a while, and he hasn't had to do that. I'm not saying he can't. We know what Mahomes can do. So I think that's an interesting one, and until Garoppolo does it, it's going to be a question mark. To use the academia example you give, I think it's a really good one for Garoppolo, is there a quarterback you can remember who's had as many tools to prepare himself, who's had as good of professors, we'll say, than Garoppolo has had considering he was behind Brady, who's in the New England system under Belichick, has a couple of Super Bowl rings, and saw it firsthand, and now he's in a system with Kyle Shanahan? Well, I'd say Steve Young, when he came to the 49ers when Bill Walsh was there and he was behind Montana, and assuming I am going to make the assumption that Montana was welcoming, if he wasn't, I don't know, maybe you know, maybe someone out there knows, I don't know. Then the other one, of course, would be Rodgers and Favre. You know, just learn by watching in each of those cases. And plus the coach situation with Green Bay and Favre was a very good one.

So those are two possible analogies. Bob Ryan with us from ESPN. The baseball stuff I'm interested in for this reason. Obviously we want to see what ramifications, how wide the ramifications are across baseball in addition to what the Houston Astros are known to have done. But baseball's in a tough spot because there are players who seem to, who have done some pretty heinous stuff within, when you look at the credibility of the sport and some of this cheating, and players are calling them out on social media. But if Major League Baseball wants to get cooperation, they have to grant some level of immunity, it seems as well, in order to try and get some of the organizations who have done wrong.

If players are wearing devices or buzzers, which is alleged of, of course, some of the Astros, namely Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, what kind of punishment should be handed down? Well, if that is proven, you know, I'd say you start with a year's punishment, a year out. If that's proven, it's going to be hard. I don't know if they're ever going to prove it. We have the extraordinary circumstantial evidence of the clutching the jersey, the famous video, and his statement that he was shy, and I just got through reading how they said they've shot pictures of him with his shirt off.

I mean, it sounds dubious, but crazier things have happened, I guess. I would say, you've got to get people's attention, that this has got to stop. Look, I'm not real good at solutions. I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm not in this regard. But, I mean, in many of these regards. But here's what I do know, or here's what I do believe.

I shouldn't say no, but I believe. This is potentially the absolutely the worst crisis baseball has faced since the Black Sox scandal of 1919, which came to light in 1920, and resulted in the expulsion of the eight players, and then, you know, all know the Shoeless Joe Jackson story, okay, and the implementation of a commissioner. They never had one before that, et cetera, et cetera. And baseball was facing a crisis of credibility.

Well, they've got a crisis of credibility on their hands now. And this is the lasting baseball needs, Josh, at the moment, because baseball has enough problems already. There's this growing dissatisfaction with the inordinate length of games. This is the growing dissatisfaction with the shrinking amount of active action in the game that included the three outcome game that we're seeing, the strikeout, walk, home run situation. And the last two years, we've had more strikeouts than singles, which is beyond.

If you told me that 15 years ago, I absolutely would have said, you know, you're concocting science fiction. And it's not as entertaining a game, period. And you've got to try to attract young people. And it's difficult with the new sensibility of people and the way people grow up now. They've got enough problems already. And then this, where people have a reason to doubt about the up-and-up nature of the game, I hope Rob Manfred and those owners are up to it.

I hope they understand the enormity of the crisis they are facing. Where does the lack of credibility potentially hit most for baseball affect the most? Because for me, going into the season, whether it's the juiced ball stuff, stuff that still lingers from the steroid era, and now this, I have the feeling when I watch baseball, there's no all that can come from anything I see. Because if a guy hits 50 home runs out of nowhere, oh well, that guy's probably juicing or has a buzzer on or something. And if any team now emerges, maybe even the White Sox, that good young team, if they emerge this year, we're going to start being, we're going to arrive at a place where everything is met with caution and everything is met with uncertainty first. And I don't think that's a good thing.

How about simple idea of someone gets four runs in the top of the first, and people are thinking already something's amiss. Wow. Think about that. That's what I'm talking about.

People can extrapolate it any way they want, and they might. And as I said, the last thing baseball needed, it's got crisis on its hands with the nature of the game changing enormously. It's just not the game that I grew up with. It is not the game I grew up with. And I don't like it as much. So I like it still. I still think it's the best game ever created, except that it's being over technologies, the analytics. And number one, people are just going, anyway, that aspect. And then now you're introducing technology, look out. It's changing this game for me and all this for many other people.

Let's end things on a light note, though. The NSMA Hall of Famers were announced. You are one of them for June.

We can't wait for the ceremony and the weekend to get here. And two guys you worked with are being inducted this year. You got Mike Wilbon from ESPN, of course, and Dan Patrick, who used to be at ESPN now with The DP Show, which we air in the mornings here. Happy for both of them.

They're well-deserving. Michael, I'm glad that people, just as they did with Tony Kornheiser and recognizing him for what he is at heart, and that's a writer. He's a writer who happens to be in broadcasting, who happens now to make a living in it. It's a more lucrative living than he was ever going to make at The Washington Post. I know that from my own career of life experience. But Michael Wilbon was and is remained an excellent writer, and that's what he is.

And all this other stuff is a happy circumstance. He and Tony fell into this show back in 2001, and they made it a success and they created a spinoff show called Around the Horn, which I've been privileged to be on as well. But he's a writer, and so is Tony, a writer, first of all.

So that's what I'm happy about. Dan Patrick is a terrific broadcast person, a voice to die for. I would pay lots of money to have had that voice. And he's made the most of everything.

He took his circumstance and he's made the most of it. The first time I met you, Bob, I remember it was before a Finals game four or five years ago. And it was you sitting next to Ann Killian and Frank Isola.

And I remember you guys were just going back and forth, and it almost seemed like an episode of Around the Horn. And I can't wait. Hopefully we'll try to bring Tony Kornheiser back and get him together with Mike Wilbon in the same room, because I can only imagine that kind of story.

Tony doesn't usually like to leave home too much, but I think for his partner and his buddy, he will rouse himself one more time to come to come south and join us in Winston-Salem. And I will certainly do my best to make sure that happens. You're the best, Bob. Thanks for doing this. Thanks. That's Bob Ryan of ESPN, who's on Twitter at Globe.

Bob Ryan. Coming up, the damning reality with Duke Basketball that I think was exposed in the last week. This is The Drive. I think it's fitting that the 49ers meet the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV, because they have one big similarity. I believe the Chiefs and the 49ers to be the two fastest teams in the NFL. Not in terms of tempo, but in terms of just possessing players with wicked amount of speed. That's what you have with these two teams going head to head. And I think the name of the game hasn't just been speed with these guys.

It's speed in space. That was the biggest innovation Sean McVay had when he transformed the NFL in a sense, or innovated or evolutionized offensive the NFL a couple of years ago. He had these tight offensive sets and he would find ways to get the ball to Todd Gurley where he had one defender to try and juke away from.

Or open field in front of him, whether that's throwing it to the side, whether that's moving somebody in motion, whether that's a jet sweep, whether that's a screen pass. He had quick players on his roster all over the place. Brandon Cooks, a good example of one of those guys, Sammy Watkins back then.

So I thought what we've seen from Casey and San Francisco this year was another step, another building block on top of what McVay did before. Kansas City, they've taken this tight set offensive putting guys in space to another level. They have Tyreek Hill. So if you watch a Chiefs game, what you're going to see so commonly, Tyreek Hill lined up in the slot, Tyreek Hill lined up on the left side of Mahomes to the right side in the backfield in motion. They're going to put that guy everywhere. So if they get him the ball, there's likely going to be a blocker right next to him.

You're going to get him in space. And then when teams have to respect, he'll potentially catch it behind the line of scrimmage. Maybe you get single man coverage and he's going to beat you right up the seam the way that he did yesterday in the championship game early on. That's what teams have been doing. San Francisco, they've taken the tight sets from McVay and they've motioned the hell out of it. There isn't a team in the NFL that has motioned as much as the San Francisco 49ers do.

Over 75% of San Francisco's plays feature motion right before the snap. That's what Kyle Shanahan has done. And I love watching his team run the ball because it's like old school throwback football. Run the ball and kick the other team's ass in doing so.

Just be brutal and push guys off the line with Staley and McGlinchey and all those guys up front. But doing so in an innovative way, whether it's Deebo Samuel getting the ball on a jet sweep or having these track stars at running back, gash through these massive holes through the line that you built to be one of the best in the league. Like Tevin Coleman, when he was with Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta, he wasn't seen to be a primary back.

Nobody thought he had that in him. It was Devante Freeman and Coleman was this fast guy that maybe he could catch a pass on third down. Third down and short. Oh, you bring him in to spell Freeman. What Shanahan saw in Coleman, and I'm interested to know how he's doing after yesterday's injury, he's wicked fast.

Get him the ball in space. The player who we learned had a lot of promise. More promise than anyone gave him credit for.

Raheem Mostert yesterday. He was breaking NFL playoff records, running behind a great offensive line the way that Timmy Smith did way back in the 80s, running behind the Hogs. But what sets him apart from other bags? He was a track star. He was a track star before he became an NFL player. But he couldn't land on a roster. He's been on six different teams.

But in this offense, he was a perfect fit because it's been built around speed. What we're going to see in Miami, two of the fastest teams in the National Football League. Your thoughts are welcome on Twitter at sportsubtriad.

336-777-1600 is the phone number. What's your early leaning on 49ers, Chiefs? Hall of Fame sports writer from the Sporting News, Mike Picorsy, is going to join us in 10 minutes to talk college basketball, maybe get some thoughts on the Oscars as well from him. The difference between good and great for the 49ers this year? A couple of moves that John Lynch made. Drafting Deebo Samuel for one, how many Patriot fans do you think are kicking themselves? Or how many New England Patriots fans? Or New England Patriots all together are thinking, man, we should have drafted Deebo over Neal, the wide receiver out of Arizona State. Honestly, Patriots fans are probably just OK. I mean, you're fine.

You got six championships recently, just you're OK. So they added Samuel, who's been great for a bunch of different reasons, a perfect fit in Kyle Shanahan's offense, but also trading for Emmanuel Sanders. It's given the deep threat that you have to respect, even though the 49ers did not throw a pass for over an hour and a half real time yesterday. You still have to respect Sanders and Deebo.

You have to. So those two being added to this run offense was the difference between the 49ers being this novelty opening the year with all these wins in a row. But all of us saying, oh, come on, they're not the best team in the NFC. The NFC is loaded this year. They're not going to be the team representing the NFC. The moment they were taken seriously was when we saw the talent that Deebo possesses and that they acquired Emmanuel Sanders.

That's what took them from being good to be in a great team and a team that now is playing for a title. 336-777-1600. Let's go to Dave and Clemons, who wants in on this offense that Kyle Shanahan has been running. Dave, you're on Sports Hub.

Try him. What thought do you have to add? I just wanted to say it reminded me a lot of the San Francisco 49ers offense of the late 90s Broncos. When Kyle Shanahan's father, Mike Shanahan, was with Denver, they ran the same type of blocking schemes.

And it didn't matter who the Broncos had back there, it could be some real favorites. He was a six-round pick. Mike Anderson, he was in the service for a while. Whatever the fact they put back there, running for a thousand yards each year. And so this 49ers offense kind of reminds me of what his father was doing.

And there were, thank you for the phone call, Dave, two other similarities. You got great veterans on defense. You have Richard Sherman in the secondary on San Francisco. Back then, it was Atwater who was back there.

I really loved that Denver team in the late 1990s. You mentioned Terrell Davis at running back, but who did they have throwing the ball to? At tight end, you could rely on Shannon Sharpe. Give him the football. Just like we're seeing Jimmy Garoppolo distribute it to George Kittle. John in Greensboro. We're going to go all X's and O's right now here.

We're talking about stretch zone offenses and now we're talking about motion? Let's do it. It's a Monday. John, what do you got? Yeah, I was just curious, man.

I love you to death, Josh. Did you just make up that stat about nobody motioning more than San Francisco? No. It was mentioned during the broadcast yesterday. Because I feel like Lamar Jackson has Mark Andrews coming across every single play, like literally every play when he's in pistol especially. Yeah, well, I mean, it was a stat mentioned in the broadcast yesterday.

Thank you for the phone call, John. Robert, see if you can find what the exact stat is, but I think the San Francisco 49ers, they motion 76, 77% of the snaps that they run. And when you watch San Francisco, it's just so much guys moving all over the place and trying to confuse defenses. And you're a Baltimore Ravens fan, so I think you might have some perspective on this as well. Yeah, the only thing I can actually find is that guy's kind of correct. The Ravens lead the league in pre-snap motion with 34% of their offensive plays. Well, the Niners have over 70% of their plays. I mean, I'll try to find that stat, but I cannot find that. As of right now, I see that.

All right, see if you can find that. And then we'll revisit. Mike DeCorcy going to be here in just a bit. In addition to that, Andy Reid, he's going back to the Super Bowl 15 years after his first visit with the Philadelphia Eagles. And I'm just so happy for Andy. He's another example of success always finding great and talented people. It just might not happen as quickly as you'd like at times. Sometimes you look sideways, see somebody else's success and wonder why that's not you.

But the reality of it is this. Andy Reid, he hasn't won because he hasn't had the elite quarterback like he has right now. Before Mahomes, his three best quarterbacks were Donovan McNabb, old Mike Vick, Alex Smith. And that was good enough to win. If you're a great coach, you can find a way to win almost with anybody.

And they won with those players. But they didn't win big because eventually you'd run into teams that did have the great elite quarterback. He'd get knocked out by Kurt Warner with the Rams, get knocked out by Kurt Warner with the Arizona Cardinals. He'd get knocked out by Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees. Then he goes to the AFC. He runs into Tom Brady, loses in overtime last year. Back in the NFC, he'd lose to that historic Bucks defense. Now, there were bad losses in there. The Panthers in 03, losing to Jake Delombe on your home field, Donovan throwing three interceptions, the Ricky Manning Jr., the Titans two years ago.

That was a bad look. He has no more excuses now. He traded up to take this quarterback while he already had a playoff-caliber quarterback on his roster. And he developed them the same way he's developed head coaches in the NFL, the way he developed Doug Peterson and Matt Nagy and Eric Bienemy. We saw the type of game he was able to call yesterday, not hired this year.

He has no more excuses. The pressure is on Kansas City to win the Super Bowl. San Francisco, they are the young upstart with a third-year head coach. Casey has the Hall of Fame coach that's been to the Super Bowl before and many other championship games that's produced all these NFL head coaches with this coaching tree. He has the quarterback and their favor. So this is the Super Bowl that Reed has to win. That isn't to say Mahomes can't go on this dominant run with Andy Reid for the next decade or so considering Tom Brady and his age and what's happening with New England. I don't know who would even be the top competitor in the AFC over the next five years. Maybe Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. But considering what that looked like in the playoffs, I would probably lean Kansas City just because the sample size is still small with Lamar and he's done great things. Probably should have been in two Super Bowls. He's going to one and he lost in overtime to the greatest ever.

Robert, what do you have? I found the stat and why it's a little confusing. They were put in motion more. They were number one in the NFL.

The San Francisco 49. Yes, 78 percent. But that was only up until November that that stat was effective because they've changed their offense. The stat here is talking about how it jumped 40 percent.

They were in motion 37 percent, but somewhere in November they changed a little bit what they were doing pre-snap. Well, I heard that stat from Joe Buck's mouth yesterday. And that guy knows what he's talking about. I would not doubt the Buck.

The Buck stops here. And what a neat stat that Jim Nantz brought to the broadcast. Fox and CBS being competitors. The last thing that was mentioned on the AFC Championship broadcast. The Chiefs go into the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years. Jack Buck broadcast the game on television 50 years ago. Now the Chiefs are returning and Joe Buck is going to call the game for Fox alongside Troy Aikman. Duke Basketball had a tough loss on Saturday. Tough losses the last week.

They lost to Clemson on the road, too. What have we learned about the Blue Devils in the process? Mike Nacorce, the Hall of Fame sportswriter for the Sporting News, will join the show to discuss next. He really appreciates you listening and thanks you from the bottom of his twisted little heart.

Congratulations, you've won over a complete imbecile. The drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. The Hall of Fame sportswriter for the Sporting News, Mike Nacorce now with us. And Mike, I was at Duke Louisville on Saturday. The Blue Devils, they lose their second consecutive game.

I'm so often trying to push against overreacting to one or two results and valuing the larger sample size versus the small. But when I see Alex O'Connell unable to be on the floor only playing two minutes and Javon Delaurier playing just nine and neither of those players producing a point. Jack White getting just one bucket, Trey Jones going scoreless in the first half and Joey Baker at the moment I think is Duke's best three-point shooter and he only made one shot from the perimeter or one shot altogether from Saturday. It seems to me Duke's experience is not the experience players aren't going to be good enough to carry them where they want to go. What was your reaction or what have we learned about the Blue Devils you think of the last week?

Well I think everything you said has been in place pretty much from the jump. I mean with the exception of Trey having a bad day and maybe not quite. I mean there wasn't a lot of book on David Johnson at that point and I think his performance surprised Duke a bit. Not that they didn't know he was a player and all that but he hadn't done much so far this year. Injured early, struggled to catch up from the participation standpoint, what he needed to do, how he needed to do it. And then finally he catches on and so if they had another shot at him maybe they'd have a better handle on how to go into it than they did. So I won't worry much about Trey. But the perimeter defense, I remember after the Kansas game, Mike and I may have talked to you about this but I talked to some other people about it and Mike was really enthusiastic about it.

And it felt to me like a producer of a movie, to use an analogy that we both would appreciate, who put together a B minus production and is trying to sell you on its capacity as an Oscar contender, that kind of thing. Because the Duke defense wasn't that good in the opening game against Kansas. They gave up penetration all day. They did a nice job double-teaming Udoka as a bookie but in a lot of cases it was more on how Duke executed or didn't execute against those doubles. And Kansas turned the ball over a lot but it was a lot of stepping on the sideline with the whole three-point thing and throwing bad passes that maybe Duke did or didn't influence. And I thought that he was kind of talking his guys and it was smart coaching. I'm not trying to say anything negative about Mike but it was smart coaching. I think he was trying to sell them on the idea that they could be good defensively and look what you guys just did and take all the positives out of it and now believe because a lot of defense is belief. If you execute, you don't have to be, I mean you look at Rutgers right now, there aren't many five-stars on that team, but they believe in each other and they believe in their coach and they believe in the concepts that have been introduced to them.

And so they execute them and they work. And so I thought that he was really pushing hard that night to get his guys to buy into defense. But at the end of the day, it's not a team that is built to play great defense. That other than Trey and Javin who has not, I don't know what, I mean they haven't been pleased or delighted with him basically all the way back to spring, excuse me, to fall practice, preseason practice.

So other than those two guys and Vernon who's young and big guy defense is a lot to learn, they just have a lot of guys who maybe aren't built to be great defenders. And that has caused a problem with their ability to keep the ball out of the lane. On the other side though, Louisville wins the game. A year after they blew a 23 point second half lead at home against Duke. And I asked Chris Mack after the game about losing that game last year and then showing the resolve to have Duke and Cameron tie the game and then come with him one point with David Johnson hurt. And he just flat out said that was the toughest loss I've ever dealt with and he was very pleased with how his team got tougher. And I think that is the big difference between Louisville this year and Louisville last year.

With of course added experience and having a couple more parts to work with. Louisville, I picked them in the preseason to win the ACC. They lost it home to Florida State. It seems like to me it's a three team race for the regular season conference championship. Who do you like the most out of those three squads? Well, this is without, I don't have the schedules in front of me and I don't have them memorized.

So I don't know who is advantaged or disadvantaged by that component. But I like Louisville if Johnson is healthy and if he's that Johnson. If he's that guy that played on Saturday then they have more, I can't say they have all the bases covered, but before they didn't have a short stop. They were playing with three infielders. They just did not have a point guard who could make everything work at a high level. They had guys who could get you through it but they didn't really have a guy that could really turn it up. And they were waiting for him to see if he could get on that moving train so to speak. And Sunday he jumped on and within the engineer's chair he was doing unbelievably well.

So that's the question. First of all whether he's healthy after what happened on Saturday and then can he sustain that. Look, I watched D.J. Carton for Ohio State against Kentucky and I went on TV and I said he looks right now like a final four point guard and I don't think he's had a good game since that Kentucky game which was pre-Christmas. So you can't say that because David Johnson had a great game at Duke it's over and he's there, but he did show what is there and make you believe he could do it again. Mike the Corsi with us from the Sporting News.

He's on Twitter at tsnmike. You're a big movie goer as am I. The Oscars are coming up and man I get so excited every time the Oscars come around. So Robert he's got the music and I just want to know where you're leaning. Not official picks here but when you look at best picture and for those who don't know Ford versus Ferrari, the Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time on Hollywood and Parasite are nominated.

I want to go through the major categories to just see where your initial leanings are for who might win. Let's start with best picture. Well I've seen five of those now. I still have to see 1917. I have to see Joker even though I don't want to and I have to see Parasite which has been highly recommended to me by a lot of people. Yeah you'll love that.

I think you were one of the people who said that it was true. Parasite is my second favorite movie this year. You need to see it. You absolutely need to. Yeah I mean I need to see them all because I'm sure you're aware of my streak. I've now seen all the movies nominated for best picture every year going back to 1984.

So I've got to keep the streak up no matter what. So I'll see them all. I thought that Marriage Story was excellent and I loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I have very high hopes for 1917. It's kind of up my alley for the kinds of movies that I appreciate so we'll see if that works. I did not care that much. I can't say I didn't care. I thought Jojo Rabbit was an odd movie. It was obviously very daring and inventive. I'm not sure if it was best picture material based on what I saw.

All right. Moving on to actor in a leading role. Yes they love you Mike Decorsy. Antonio Banderas, Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam Driver, Joaquin Phoenix and Jonathan Pryce from Two Popes. They're the ones that are nominated. In terms of performances that you've seen which again you haven't seen Joker or Marriage Story yet. I mean Leo. Do you find it strange that he is the actor in a leading role here while Brad Pitt is a supporting actor? Well you know Brad Pitt did have a lot of screen time but he had especially the time on the Manson Ranch whatever they called that thing. It was a long scene. An awful long scene for a supporting actor but I don't know if you go back if you've ever seen The Killing Field.

Yes. It was a great movie and Hang Noor was the one for best supporting actor that year and I don't know what his screen time was but I mean he was in it like almost every scene. Sam Watterson was billed as the leading actor and he got nominated and did not win and Hang Noor did win and was really terrific. He had a very demanding part but he was on screen the whole time.

So sometimes those things go strange but I love Brad Pitt's performance and would really like to see him win but I thought if the ones I've seen without having seen Phoenix I would say Jonathan Pryce. Actress in a leading role. Scarlett Johansson was awesome in Marriage Story.

You were the one last time that was with us. You were with us to talk about Renee Zellweger in Judy. And I mean her playing Judy Garland it's just an incredible performance. Charlize Theron looks just like Megyn Kelly in Bombshell. So actress in a leading role. If you had to go Scarlett Johansson or Renee playing Judy Garland who would you go with? Yeah as good as Scarlett Johansson was that's like Michael Jordan against the college player of the year. That was one of the best performances I've ever seen and it wasn't an imitation it was a performance.

She was being Judy Garland she wasn't doing Judy Garland. I'm going to give you an opportunity to jump on me the way that everybody else has been jumping on me when it comes to Tom Hanks. Actor in a supporting role.

This is the first time he's been nominated in over 20 years. I'm not saying Hanks is a bad actor. I didn't say that but when it comes to the best Hollywood has to offer I think there are more diverse actors that I would put over Hanks. I wouldn't consider him one of the best that Hollywood has.

Tell me why I'm wrong. Well I think he's a terrific actor. I think he's very good at playing Tom Hanks in certain circumstances but he's also shown some range.

Philadelphia is a good example of that. Although I don't care for the film very much because I don't like the movie. Beautiful day in the neighborhood? No the movie from the 90s that won best sports comp. I did not care for the movie but I thought he came up with a really inventive performance there. He's a great actor. I understand he's not Dustin Hoffman or whatever. Leo DiCaprio gets a lot of notice as a great actor.

I don't buy that. I thought his performance in Wolf of Wall Street was really good but I thought that was an aberration for him. I think as an adult he has not been a great actor but he is generally appreciated as one.

Just say it. The bear deserved best picture in the revenue. When you see all the movies we'll have you on right before the Oscars start and we'll get your thoughts on all the movies in whole and get your official picks but appreciate the time in the meantime. Thanks very much Josh I enjoyed it. You got it.

Mike Decoracy from the Sporting News on Twitter at TSN Mike. I love talking movies man. This is my time of year where I'm watching two or three movies a week. I watched Marriage Story yesterday and I've redone the list that I made on Twitter about a month and a half ago without seeing Uncut Gems, without seeing Marriage Story to that point. I have my top ten.

This isn't like wordplay or anything like that. We do this at the middle of the week, our top ten list. But this is the top ten movies I've seen this year.

Robert do we have a bell of some sorts to get this thing fired up? Number ten. My number ten movie that I've seen this year.

Us. Number nine. Is that the bell from the spelling bee?

Is that what that is? You don't get three like this. You don't get that if you're right.

I'm just giving you a little. Number nine. Booksmart. Number eight.

Marriage Story. Number seven. Mike Wallace is here. Number six. Knives Out. Number five. Uncut Gems.

Whoa. Roy Williams. Doesn't like Uncut Gems and Sandler.

What are you doing? It's the Sandman. This is how I win. Number four. Joker. Number three. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Number two. Parasite. And number one. The Irishman.

I have come around completely on The Irishman. I think it should win all the awards. I think. You need to see it multiple times. Have you seen it once? I have seen it once but it was not in one sitting. It was separate sittings.

Okay. What did you think upon your first watching? I enjoyed it and being somebody who, we've talked about this before, Scorsese is one of my favorite directors.

I really enjoy his stuff. I just got lost in the middle of it sometimes. So you need to watch it a second time because the first time you watch it you're distracted by the de-aging. Yeah, there's a lot of different stuff. I mean there's a lot of things that are happening that you're trying to follow along. The second time you watch it, man, you really pick up on some of the symbolism.

There's a lot of other stuff in there too. That's just really, really, really, really, really top notch stuff. I think this is going to be the movie that we remember the most from this year of movies. And it's been a damn good year of movies too. Once upon a time in Hollywood, when you watch the Oscars you're going to see, in the same room, Tom Hanks, Joaquin Phoenix, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino.

I mean you just got top notch people all over the place. Yes, Aaron? Right, so you just ratted off that list of great actors and Tom Hanks was the first name. He is a great actor. I'm just saying. He is a great actor.

He is the first person he thought of. It's going to be a very interesting show. And if I had to give my picks right now, and I've seen a lot of these movies that are nominated, my gut says they're not going to give it to a foreign film. I think there's still beef with Netflix. I don't think the old timers who are voting for this award are going to give a lot of love to Netflix and let Irishmen win.

Also the holes you can pick through the de-aging stuff. There's going to be people doing that. I feel like either 1917 or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is going to win. And just because I don't want to imagine a world where 1917 wins, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I think it's going to win Best Picture. Joaquin Phoenix.

Sorry to everybody else. Love you Leo. Adam Driver is very good at Marriage Story, but Joaquin Phoenix is going to win that award. Actress in a leading role.

I'm with the corse on this. Renee, is it Zellweger? I've always heard Zellweger. Who in the hell is Renee Zellweger?

I got that from Chappelle's show and I've always said it that way since. I think it's Zellweger. Who is Renee Zellweger?

From Trading Spouses. Classic. She's great as Judy Garland and Hanks doesn't have a chance. An actor in a supporting role. I think that should go to Pesci. Pesci was unreal in The Irishman. And Brad Pitt.

Don't sleep on Pitt. Those are the two running in that. Laura Dern I thought was very good. An actress in a supporting role, but to be honest I haven't seen Richard Jewell.

And I haven't seen Jojo Rabbit with Scarlett Johansson, so I can't speak for certain, but I really like Laura Dern. Thank you Robert. What do you got to take to the house? How long... Is this applause? Yeah, how long is this applause? How long can you stay in a grocery store unbeknownst to the employees? They like me. They really like me. An auburn man found out and you will. Next.