The Return of The Movie Game (9-3-20)

Welcome into your Thursday afternoon, where it seems, Robert, everybody's doing their fantasy football drafts this week.

Have you knocked out yours yet? No, I'm doing them on the weekend. I've got two Sundays. So this is the week everybody's doing it. Everybody's starting to feel comfortable with the fact there's going to be an NFL season and even a college football season as well. Got a handful of college games to watch this weekend as well. And I've had more than a few listeners take my advice on drafting Curtis Samuel already as a sleeper pick.

B. Dot, he did so and he was sitting here in studio, saw the reporting from Jonathan Alexander with the Observer that Curtis hasn't been that impressive at practice, even though he's been dealing with the calf. So while I'm not a big fantasy football guy, let me back up what I've been saying and tell you why I believe Curtis Samuel is going to be the biggest beneficiary from the change in offense and working with former LSU Co-OC Joe Brady.

Joe Brady, he is more of a receiver guru than he is a quarterback whisperer. We just do this innately, it seems like. It's lazy.

It's an assumption. Anytime somebody is a promising offensive coordinator, instantly quarterback whisperer gets attached to him. Why do we do that? Sean McVeigh, oh he's a quarterbacks guy because he's younger, he's innovative and we do this with a lot of college coaches too. See I got to know Lincoln Riley a little bit when he was at East Carolina.

We've had him on this show even in the last few months and he got that tag. Younger coach, offensive minded, oh he's a quarterbacks guy. Just look at the way Baker Mayfield played, won a Heisman Trophy and that was followed by Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, he was tremendous last year.

And yes, he does know a thing or two about quarterbacks, but do you know what helps quarterbacks? Really good wide receivers. And what I always tell people about Lincoln, look at the productivity of the wide receivers that he's produced at the collegiate level. At East Carolina, you look at the all-time receptions list in the history of college football. They were on the same team, one and two, East Carolina's Zay Jones and East Carolina's Justin Hardy, both under-recruited guys, number one and number two on the all-time receptions list. In Lincoln Riley's offense, they had all these stupid numbers that they put up.

I don't think that's a coincidence. Then he goes to Oklahoma, DeeDee Westbrook, he wins the Polittnikoff Award, CeeDee Lamb I thought was the best receiver in college football last year, also at Oklahoma. Now, bringing it to Carolina with Joe Brady. During the national title game, I remember the camera panned to Michael Thomas sitting there on the sideline and the announcer, again just making an assumption, said, oh Michael Thomas is here because the game's in New Orleans, just wants to take in the big game.

He doesn't have any ties to the LSU Tigers or the Clemson Tigers. What he didn't know, that announcer, Michael Thomas is close friends with Joe Brady and Michael Thomas gives Joe Brady a lot of credit for the way he blossomed early on with New Orleans. They overlapped before he started having a lot of success at LSU. Justin Jefferson, average wide receiver before Brady arrived.

Jamar Chase certainly wasn't going to be a Polittnikoff winner like he was last year. Joe Brady arrives, he elevates their play. Lincoln Riley, he was a wide receiver's coach. Joe Brady, a former wide receiver himself at William & Mary. I think Carolina's wide receivers are going to take the biggest jumps this year. DJ Moore, I don't know how much further he can go. 87 catches, there's two ways to think about that.

Okay, is he going to do the same thing again? Can he go much higher? Or he caught 87 balls without Joe Brady tanking the final month of the season. Kyle Allen, Will Greer, and an injured Cam Newton throwing him the football.

Robbie Anderson, he's in this offense, seems to be more of a deep threat than an underneath target. And then you got Curtis Samuel. I think Curtis benefits the most because he's yet to have that breakout season.

I think this is the year. He's in a contract season. I mean, you could just look down the list of guys the final year of their contract who perform and it's no coincidence.

They perform because they need to perform and he's still flying under the radar. If you're not a Carolina Panthers fan, you probably don't know who Samuel is. You know of DJ Moore, the numbers are there. If you're a fantasy football guru, you certainly know about him. Robbie Anderson even, but you probably don't know Curtis Samuel. Folks in football know that, but if you're trying to figure out what DB to put on a wide receiver, assuming you're not just establishing corners to sides, then I don't know who's choosing Curtis over DJ or potentially Robbie Anderson. So he could be freed up in the middle of the field and get some good matchups. All of this makes sense for Curtis to have a breakout season. He's the most versatile wide receiver they have. He played running back at Ohio State and did so effectively. The biggest game he ever played in was when Ohio State and Michigan were both ranked in the top 10, maybe even the top 5 in 2017. Game goes to overtime and Curtis has the game winning touchdown to beat Michigan. He did that as a running back.

And do you know who knows that first hand? Joe Brady. I asked Joe earlier today about him playing running back and accounting for 150 yards against Penn State, while Joe Brady was a graduate assistant with the Nittany Lions.

And here's how that sounded. I was fortunate to be on the offensive side of the ball, so I didn't have to deal with him too much. But I know our defensive coaches, you know, they stayed up some long nights trying to find ways to stop him. Clearly didn't, you know, slowed him down a little bit. But he's a dynamic football player, so I'm glad I didn't have to game plan for him then.

I'm glad teams have to game plan for him now when he's on my side. Yeah, Ohio State was number two in the country. Penn State won the game 24-21 in Happy Valley. And Curtis Samuel had a 50 yard touchdown run, 70 yards rushing in the game, about 80 yards receiving. He did it all. So if anybody understands what he's capable of doing, it's Brady. And I remember catching up with Curtis a few months ago, and when I asked him about Joe's offense, he just lit up every single time with a wry smile, not giving too much away, as if to say there's a lot that we're doing that you guys don't know about, and the Las Vegas Raiders do not know what's about to hit them. You can tweet the show at sportsubtriad.

336-777-1600 is the phone number. I want to shift things to the big news today. In the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets have their new coach, and it is Steve Nash, the Hall of Fame point guard. A lot of people are bashing this.

Oh, he doesn't have any experience. What's happening here? Stephen A. Smith even went as far to call it white privilege. I like the move. I like Steve Nash, and I think the Nets made this decision to appeal to Kyrie Irving. Kevin Durant's there, of course. Kevin's a better player than Kyrie is, but KD's never had an issue with a coach.

He'll play for whomever. Kyrie, meanwhile, was surly throughout this year, and it didn't really work out with Brad Stevens, Brad seemed to be one of the best coaches, not just in the NBA, but in all of basketball. And if Kyrie can't make it work there, I have a lot of concerns about who can make it work among conventional coaches. So it makes sense to me they bring in Steve Nash as a two-time MVP point guard, because if Kyrie can't relate to somebody who rose up in the coaching ranks in a traditional way, well, Kyrie certainly can respect and relate to somebody who's a perennial All-Star or a former All-Star point guard, who brings great gravitas, who's been in big moments, who played the way that Kyrie Irving hopes to play at an MVP level in the NBA.

The inexperience doesn't concern me. Think of the NBA champs in the last five years. Here are the three coaches who have won NBA titles. Nick Nurse, who last year won in his first year as a head coach in the NBA. You have Steve Kerr, who was hired with no coaching experience. He was straight out of the television booth when he replaced Mark Jackson.

And then there's Tyronn Lue, who was five months in on the job, being promoted from an assistant coach to the head coaching job when David Blatt was let go, winning with LeBron in Cleveland in 2016. If experience didn't matter so much for those three, why are we pretending it matters for Steve Nash? Brooklyn's just taking a big swing here.

That's what this is about. When they brought in Kyrie and Kevin Durant, it was about making a big splash and becoming relevant. And Nash is a name, and it does that.

So they're pushing all their chips to the middle of the table right now with that threesome of Nash, of KD, and of Kyrie Irving. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch. All right, we've got a big hour set up here. Big hour.

David Tepper, he met with reporters yesterday. There's some good there. There's some bad.

There's some ugly. We'll get to that later on. Darren Vaught is going to be in studio with us. We're going to do some comparing with Darren.

But we also have another headline that we haven't gotten to yet. Late last night, we learned Leonard Fournette is going to join Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC South. So should we just anoint them NFC South champs already?

I'll say not so fast and tell you why next. I thought Christian McCaffrey was a borderline superhero last year. A thousand receiving yards. A thousand rushing yards. In the same season, only Marshall Faulk and Roger Craig can say they've done that in a singular year. So I thought it was quite a bit of usage.

It was quite a bit of an achievement. But there are things coming out of Carolina Panthers camp. I'm just going to be honest. Have me really concerned right now as Darren Vaught joins us here in studio. First, it was Matt Ruhl saying a month ago that they could use Christian McCaffrey on punt return and kick return. This summer, they just gave him the richest contract any running backs ever received. He's going to get over $60 million. And that cash isn't going to start hitting until the 2022 season. So I'm thinking, OK, long term rebuild, seven year contract for Ruhl. Let's protect McCaffrey. Let's protect the asset. Let's, you know, for this year, don't shoot for the $1000,000 season again.

I don't think you really need it. McCaffrey got paid. It's an achievement. Something to feel good about from last year. That concerned me. Today, it seems Coach Ruhl and Joe Brady are in lockstep that the touches he had last year really weren't all that much.

This is Coach Ruhl earlier today. You know, he's averaged about 25 touches, and I don't think that his touch count can change. You know, that's, you know, I go back and look at Walter Payton. I mean, he averaged in 1985, I think it was like it was 20 some carries and like seven touches or six receptions, whatever. So 26, 27 a game. I think that's the right number.

They were about the same. So to me, I think, you know, we want Christian on the field as much as possible. Yeah, let's just go back to a time where we didn't know what concussions were. Let's go back to the 80s and try to, let's compare football to when John Riggins is pounding the ball four straight times. Yeah, we're just going to give it to him. I know it's fourth and six. We're going to pound the rock.

What the hell are analytics? Really? That's going to be the approach. And here's Joe Brady going a step further. I don't think the amount he had last year was a ridiculous amount of touches.

I don't. I think he was kind of on course with, you know, a player to his caliber, you know, touches. Now, it might more so be, you know, when he's getting those touches and how he's getting those touches. You know, by the end of the day, we want to win football games. And that's the most important thing to him and to us. OK, Darren, let me ask a general question. If I'm welcoming what Joe Brady is saying there, that it's not an absurd amount of usage, not an absurd amount of touches, what is absurd?

It's a good question. I think it's worth noting. I was thinking about following with that, but I didn't want to be disrespectful. Coach, that's not a ridiculous amount. I just want to ask generally, Coach, define what would be ridiculous. Like, if he's playing quarterback and then throwing himself the ball, maybe playing some defense.

Just give him five or six passes. I know. I know they're trying to replace. They're trying to replace a punter. Maybe you can have them punting a little bit while also catching punting. Like, what is ridiculous?

I don't know. I think it is worth noting. We've got two guys in their first ventures on NFL coaching staffs who both came from the college game, where if you've got a good player, a talented, dynamic player, you run that dude into the ground and don't think twice about it.

In this case, they're like, oh, I've got that guy and we're paying him all this money, so what I do with him on the football field is justified? It's worth noting. I've got another theory. You just, I think I have it all figured out, OK?

Based on what you just said, I figured it all out. They're playing to that. They're playing dumb with the rest of the NFL. Hey, they all think we're stupid. They think you're 30 years old. They think I'm a first year coach. They think we're just going to run this guy into the ground.

Let's say that a thousand and a thousand isn't absurd. Let's say that that's actually something we're going to do. And you know what? To kind of getting them off our scent, I'm going to compare them to Walter Payton. That's what we're going to do to the media, because really, there's no value in us saying, oh, yeah, we're not going to give Christian the ball that much. Are you stupid?

Right? Like, how does that help the Carolina Panthers? Does it help Carolina to say? Actually, you know, defenses, I know you're trying to figure out how to stop us on offense.

But just really just focus on him. Do not worry. Don't worry about Christian.

We're going to protect that investment. We're not going to give him the ball at all. So while you're preparing John Gruden for the Panthers in nine days, that's a guy you could just leave standing over there because we're not going to throw the ball to him or run the ball to him.

It seems like this is a little bit of misdirection. If not, concern. If he's on punt return or kick return, I'm going to be really concerned.

No if, ands, or buts. You can use decoy. You could do the decoy deal when he's on the field at wide receiver or running back, and that's fine to protect his health. Hard to do that when you're the punt returner or kick returner. That's going to be a telling sign. So I'm going to wait before really freaking out about this until I see him at punt returner or kick returner.

Hopefully not against the Las Vegas Raiders. All right, I'm burying something. It's time for us to do some comparing with Darren. We got you in studio here. For those who don't know, Robert concocts random examples of things, just anything, and asks us to compare them in some way, shape, or form. Robert, would you like to take it away?

Yeah, I was waiting on my music. There it is. There it is. Doesn't that just dump so much serotonin in your brain?

It does. Doesn't that just make you feel good? Who wants to start?

Just toss it up. Rock, paper, scissors, Darren? Do we have time for that?

We got all the time in the world. Hold on, rock, paper, scissors or rock, paper, scissors, shoot? Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

That's an important distinction. All right, rock, paper, scissors, shoot. You got it. I had rock, you had scissors. Darren's going first.

Darren. Fantastic. I'd like you to compare Patrick Mahomes proposing to his girlfriend at the Super Bowl ring ceremony to Spider-Man and Mary Jane sharing that upside down kiss in the rain. Such a great scene. Is it? Is it?

It really is. Like when she unfurls the bottom of the mask. Kirsten Dunst, right?

Yeah, Kirsten Dunst. A little forced. Right before Hero by Nickelback was planned. Yeah, to that point.

A little forced in both cases. And also, for Mahomes' sake, not good timing, right? How big did that engagement ring have to be if you're whipping it out after the Super Bowl ring, which was gaudy as hell? Great point. He can afford it, but you got to make sure that ring is more impressive than the one you just received. Put yourself up for success and put yourself in a scenario where the ring is going to look gigantic and right next to your Super Bowl bling is not going to work.

That's something I didn't even think of. Women, they want to show their ring off as if they have something special. You made her do it on the same day that you're showing off a better ring.

In this circumstance, everybody you're showing it off to just got some bling tips. Yes. Poorly done on Mahomes' part.

Cool. That was a pretty good one. I don't even know what the comparison was. I don't know either, but I just needed to get that off my chest. It was forced, I think was the general takeaway. Josh, I'd like you to compare calendars to the triple option in football. Yeah, we still have a bunch of calendars in here. And I think you're referencing this because if the Cowboys don't win double-digit games this year, I have to do a 12-photo calendar shoot in underwear, which isn't great.

That wasn't the exact reason. What are the parameters there? Run that back. The Cowboys have to get over 10 wins. If they get 10 or more wins, Josh has to do a 12-photo calendar shoot spread. That's right, 12 poses. In a Cowboys speedo.

In a Cowboys hat, maybe. How did that come about? They drafted your guy too, CeeDee Lamb.

Yeah, they did. Here's how I'll compare them. Those types of calendars that you have in your offense, in your office or the triple option offense, both a little outdated.

A little outdated. I covered my fair share of triple option offenses. And yeah, it's usually you get more than one look in a calendar.

And with the triple option, there are multiple different variations too. There you go. Darren, I would like you to compare the Maui Invitational being played in Asheville to, I can't believe it's not butter. Former Wake Forest basketball coach Dave Odom, a proponent for both, I would imagine. He's getting to a point where he's got to watch what he's eating.

So you've got to save the pure butter and go for the imitation version of it. And for those unaware, Dave Odom has a lot to do with the Maui Invitational. So I don't think it's an oddity. It is an oddity that they're talking about playing it in the western part of North Carolina. But that's also close to where Roy Williams is from.

UNC is supposed to be in the tournament. Yeah, I'm going to use Coach Odom as my comparison there. Coach Odom probably likes it. I can't believe it's not butter. He probably, no one likes it.

He probably uses it. There you go. Gross. You've got to go for that real butter. I'm not a butter guy.

I don't put butter on anything. Speaking of Wake Forest, Josh, I would like you to compare Wake Forest and Notre Dame being played in front of no fans to no movie theaters being open for the tenant release. Well, I guess John David Washington isn't going to be it either. That's a fair assumption. And I'm still going to figure out a way to watch both.

I'm going to figure that out. True. I think we have time for one more. Darin, you won the rock, paper, scissors, so you get a lucky extra point. Okay, all right.

Good. Darin, I'd like you to compare Lou Dort's 30-point game last night to Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings. They both let a ring slip away. Valiant effort while also letting a ring slip away.

Which one was more painful, you think? Dort, can we talk about Lou Dort coming out of nowhere? I didn't know him as an Arizona State Sun Devil. The dude hit six threes last night, and I saw the stat.

He hasn't hit six threes in a game since at least high school, maybe before. I was surprised he was the most noteworthy Arizona State Sun Devil last night. Yeah.

Unbelievable. But I guess the other one had a block to clinch things. Hardin's never come up in those moments. Anyways, yeah, they both let a ring get away. Poor Frodo, poor Lou Dort. Not poor Lou Dort.

He's probably going to get a huge contract out of it. Maybe. Both unlikely heroes. You both did great, and that's comparing with Darin. Always fun. You did great, Robert. I appreciate that. Coming up.

You're too sweet to me. The good, the bad, and the ugly from David Tepper's comments yesterday. Keep it here on The Drive. Alright. This segment I just want to call Good Old Fashioned Fun. That's all we're trying to do here.

Like, if you're looking for something intelligent for the next ten minutes, that's not what this is. Not going to find it here. Tenet's coming out this weekend. I'm really excited for movies, even though movie theaters are not open in phase 2.5 in North Carolina.

Chim's are, though, so looking to get swole a bit. Darin Vaught, he's hanging out in studio with us from the USA baseball podcast covering the bases. I hate the gym.

Voice of High Point as well. It's time for the movie game. Let's just hit the imaging that Robert hates so then Robert can then explain the rules. And I hate this imaging because I have to explain the game.

Isn't that half of the job of imaging is to explain the segment? It's just like, here's a movie game. Let Robert stumble through the rules of this. Anyway, for the stumbling.

If you haven't heard the movie game, it's a lot of fun. Josh and Darin are going to try to Why are you so mad right now? I'm not mad. I just told you I hate this imaging. Josh just likes interrupting me whenever I'm trying to do something, but if I ever interrupted him in the middle of him doing something, God forbid. Cruise fob. This is the Rotten Tomato movie game.

I had to cut Josh's mic off for a second or I was going to blow up. They are going to try to guess the Rotten Tomato scores of these movies. Golf score, so the lower score at the end of the game wins.

If they hit a movie on the head, that is a 10-point deduction. And if they are within 10 points after the final movie, we will go to a golden movie to decide the winner. The theme today, fella, is football movies because I am lazy and I didn't feel like coming up with a better theme. How's it going? You guys ready to play? Yes, we're ready to play. You're just really mad right now. Not really mad.

I don't know where you're getting that from. Draft Day is your first movie. Underrated flick, Draft Day.

But, upon second viewing, none of it makes sense. But, like, football movies is a category. Not one of these is going to be particularly high. There is no such thing as a great football movie, I don't think.

But, since it's the audience score, some of these might be higher than you think. This is, alright, so if we're talking about, like, Wade Boggs is a baseball hall of famer, but he ended his career with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, in obscurity, right? Costner is first ballot, 100% sports movie hall of famer.

Yes. This is his Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I don't know, he's very proud of this movie. Like, if you hear comments, he thought this movie was going to be Field of Dreams.

I'm sure Boggs thought he had pretty good at bats with the Devil Rays, too, but they didn't matter. Here's the thing, when's the last time you watched Draft Day? It is a lot of fun. There's a great drinking game you can play, too, and you'll probably knock out six or seven brews, where every single time there's a trade, you have to chug, and every time Jennifer Garner has a line, which is only written by a guy to try and suggest that she knows a lot about football, too, guys. Yeah, you've got to take a sip, as well.

There's a number of things in there that's worth it. Instead of talking about another game, how about we play this game? Do you guys have guesses for Draft Day? Dude, you need to calm down. I'm great, Josh.

Am I wrong on this, Darren? There is no calming down. We're good, man. We're good. We're playing the movie game. I feel very attacked right now.

You should. I'm always coming out to attack you. All right. But I need your score. I'm just trying to keep us on time. All right, you've got one.

Who's first? I've got one written down. All right, 42%. I have 40%. Both of you guys. Shooting low here.

Because it's awful. Draft Day comes in at 59. Okay. All right, so I've got a two-point lead early on here. All right. All right.

Feel good about that. Moving on to our second movie, another terrible football movie, but the kids love it, The Blind Side. Yeah, this is not a good movie. I thought at first it was upon second and third viewing. Not a good movie.

At first you're inspired. You're like, oh man, Sandy Bullock did it again. And then you just think about how they portrayed an actual person in Michael Oher. Then I actually met Michael Oher and talked to him how he felt about this movie and talked to S.J. Toohey. And guess what? Neither of them are a fan of it. I love Sandy Bullock, shouts to East Carolina. But yeah, not great.

I think the public reception of this was a bit better, though. So I'm going to – I have chosen to bump up my score a little bit because of that. And I've got it at 58. I got 87 percent. I'm shooting high.

I think a lot of people thought high of this movie because of Sandra Bullock. Darren, you said 58? 58, correct.

The Blind Side comes in at 66. Okay. I feel good about that.

All right. So after two movies, Darren, you are in the lead with 27 points. Josh is trailing by 11 at 38 going into our third movie, which I feel like is the best of the bunch, Radio. Radio is a really good movie.

Not a great movie, but a good movie. This might – yeah, this is a good football movie. Maybe because it's not necessarily about football. Well, it's about radio.

Who loves football? It's about both. The football team is the vehicle, right? The vehicle. That's how I know you're from the South. Vehicle instead of vehicle. I do it too. You slur that? Vehicle?

Does anyone do that? I don't say vehicle. Vehicle? But I think in the South we say vehicle like it's some type of ice cream.

Like, hey, you got a popsicle? You got a vehicle? We don't say vehicle. All right.

Hold on. Speaking of movies, Robert, do you say theater or theater? Theater. Theater. Theater, okay. All right.

I know it's a very Southern thing to say theater. I've got – Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Get a score down.

Because this is the game right here. All right. Yeah. I need to – Within 10 is the movie? I need to do one point better than you to force a golden movie here. I'm going – you got your score? Yeah, I got it. I'm going 79%.

I have 70 even. All right. This is going to be huge.

I was within the 11, so you can't beat me on this. Robert's laughing. I don't know why.

It's going to benefit me more than it benefits you guys. Radio comes in at 35. What? A tragically low score. Robert swerved us saying the best movie of the bunch. Shut up.

I thought it was the best movie. Josh, with a score of 82, Darren is your winner with a score of 62. I can't find the moment of Zen music on this computer, so you get Dropkick Murphy, buddy. Do it. Yeah. No, that's fine.

I can't believe I won it because I was – I guessed double the score on that last movie. Are we doing this because he's a Red Sox fan? Maybe. No, but see, 2020 is not the year to talk about the Red Sox, my man. Yeah, they're really bad. They are really bad. I'm going to plug – Sorry, I'm taking it away from your time.

No, you're fine. I'm just going to plug the podcast because I'm a company man. USA Baseball is covering the bases. My most recent interview, you guys might not know of him unless you're a diehard college baseball fan, but Baylor's Nick Lofton dropped by? Collegiate national team guy. He just was recently drafted in the first round by the Royals.

Coming up next, though, be sure you subscribe because in two weeks, the always inspirational Jim Abbott is going to be on the pot. Wow. What was that first round guy's war? What was his war at Baylor? I don't know.

Probably pretty good. You're supposed to know that stuff. I don't know that off the top of my head. Robert would enjoy the story of Jim Abbott. See, Robert doesn't know anything about baseball, so he doesn't know anything about Jim Abbott. So, Jim Abbott – There's a very important detail about Jim Abbott that I want Robert to figure out via Google search. On his own?

Yeah. Don't tell me yet. I was going to save it for Baseball for Dummies. Now, just search Jim Abbott, and let's just see how long it takes to figure out or for Robert to figure out why Jim Abbott, aside from him being a really good pitcher, is noteworthy and memorable. He's on his Google search. We need some sound. He's looking at – I've got him for you.

I'm going to type sound effects for you. Is it his large chin? His large – Nope. It's not that. Juff of a mouth?

No. It bites his bottom – He's got great facial structure, okay? He does have a great chin.

Let's see how long it's going to take. Good jawline. Great genetics. When he sees it, he'll know. I'm in Google Images. I don't see – All right. Yeah. Do you see his pitching rotation, like this guy – His delivery. Does he have one arm? He has one hand, yes. He has one hand? He was born without one of his hands. That is crazy. There it is.

It took 30 seconds. Look at that. Born without one of his hands. All these pictures, he has a glove on, so I'm thinking it's his big muff mouth or something. Well, what's great is how he fields ground balls, because obviously you need to – With his chin?

No. It's his large shovel-like chin? Down and dirty, Jim Abbott. So what he would do, Robert, is obviously he's got one hand to wear a glove on, but he also needs to throw on that with that hand. Oh, God. So he would balance – That's the ball. He would balance his glove on his off-hand while he delivered the pitch, and then sort of maneuver it to where he put the glove on his throwing hand when he needed to assume the fielding position. That's crazy. Did somebody make him play baseball?

Like if I had one hand, I would just be like, I'm just going to be like a chef or something, no pressure. That's what makes his story so incredible. It is incredible. And why you need to listen to the podcast next week.

It drops in two weeks from today, Jim Abbott covering the bases, the official podcast of USA Baseball, wherever you get your podcasts. Darren, appreciate you being here, buddy. Of course. Good hour of sharing.

Follow him on Twitter at Darren Vaught. Could the Maui Invitational really be held in Asheville? Like really? All right.

We're going to discuss that and reflect on the life of Tom Seaver next. Places, everyone. Come on, places, please.

We're ready. Back to the drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. So David Tapper met with the media in Charlotte for the first time since February yesterday. And there are a lot of things that have happened in this country.

And with the Carolina Panthers since then, Cam Newton no longer a Panther, the Jerry Richardson statue is no more in front of Bank of America Stadium. In fact, our next guest has a story up on that right now that you can read at charlotteobserver.com. It's Scott Fauer, the award-winning columnist from The Observer who's now with us. There's a number of things that I found interesting that Tapper had to say yesterday. But I suppose looking at the good, the bad, the ugly, I'm glad he acknowledged some of the disadvantages that Rule's facing because Matt can't say it without looking like someone who's making excuses. The bad, citing Cam's salary and COVID for his departure seems to be a bit disingenuous.

The letting go of employees, the furloughs, saying it's in the best individual's interest in doing so might qualify as the ugly if we're going to use the Clint Eastwood good, bad, the ugly term there. But you were the one on the call, so I'm interested. What was your biggest takeaway from what Tapper had to say? I thought he was a little more downbeat, Josh, than he is normal.

That might have been partly that it was Zoom, and you know how Zoom doesn't always translate in the same way as next to somebody. Tapper is an energetic, gregarious guy, and in this case, I think he was really bugged by the Panthers not getting fans in there for the first game. I think that really has bothered him.

And that seemed to be almost the overriding theme of it to me. All those things you mentioned also were important, but I think for Tapper, one of the things he wanted to get across maybe in that call is that they really want fans in the stadium on October 4th for their second home game. And I think that was one of the messages he was obviously wanting to give everyone, and he did answer questions for about a half hour, so it was good to hear from him again. Again, I thought he was a little downbeat and a little P.O.ed, honestly, about the lack of fans for this game.

Let me ask you this. Do you think he's right to be P.O.ed about it as somebody who was at Bristol you went to and actually covered a race as a fan earlier this year? I think they could have done it, but no, I don't necessarily think he's right that they should have done it. It's sort of like that old line in Jurassic Park, right?

You start thinking about what you can do and not whether you really should do it or not. In this case, waiting one more month to me seems fine. I mean, Bristol, yeah, I went. I felt safe. It's also a 150,000-seat place, and they had maybe 20,000 in there.

I think the Panthers could have done it with 10,000 in a 70,000-seat stadium, but I don't necessarily think they should have done it. Here's what I'm interested in as well from what Tepper said. We're chatting with Scott Fowler, by the way.

Shoot him a follow on Twitter if you haven't already at Scott underscore Fowler. He was asked, you mentioned that Tepper, he's outspoken, doesn't mind. Maybe making people uncomfortable with what he has to say, gregarious is a good word to describe him as well, but when asked about Marty Hurney and his contract status, he didn't really say anything other than, oh, we haven't even discussed that.

Which I always find interesting in the last year of someone's deal, how that's not something that comes up. If Tepper is thinking big picture, and we know it, and he's already making the excuses for why, or not excuses, but acknowledging some of the disadvantages Carolina's going to have this year and Matt Ruhl's going to have, and that's why he gave him so much security with the seven-year contract, what's your read on Marty Hurney and why he is left on him, one year left on his deal heading into the season? Well, the way that Tepper talked about that was a little bit the way he used to answer the Ron Rivera question, just, you know, I think he's leaving himself a lot of room there to do whatever he wants, and I don't mean that he's necessarily going to fire Marty or let his contract lapse at the end of this year and not rehire him, I guess would be the actual way it would happen. If the Panthers surprise everybody and go 9-7 and make the playoffs, you know, I don't think Marty Hurney's going anywhere, but I think Tepper's leaving himself some rope, and if they go 3-13, Marty Hurney's in his early 60s, he's, you know, would certainly help with whatever transition, because he's a company guy, and, you know, they'd go from there. So, yeah, certainly maybe they haven't talked about it, but you can bet David Tepper has thought about it a lot.

Two things, two more things I want your thought on before we let you go, Scott, and the time is always appreciated. About a month ago, Matt Ruhl said that Christian McCaffrey, who just got this massive extension that's going to kick in in a couple of years, record money for a running back, he had him punt returner and a kick returner, a valuable asset in a year that seemed to be a rebuilding type of season, he's going to be at those spots and potentially vulnerable to injury, and earlier today, Joe Brady said, oh, last year, the 1,000 rushing yards, 1,000 receiving yards wasn't an absurd amount of usage, and Ruhl even went as far to say, look at what Walter Payton did back in the 80s, which is a totally different football, different kind of football, than what we see today. Do you buy that they're going to use McCaffrey at the same usage, or is this just a coach not seeing the value of letting your opponents know that you're going to use somebody less?

Some of all of that, Josh, you were on this coast today, and they're being so paranoid. Although a lot of these guys are college coaches, they've certainly got into the NFL paranoia of not saying anything that an opponent could possibly pick up on. I'll tell you this, I will be absolutely shocked if McCaffrey returns any punts or kickoffs this season, or you should maybe say not more than like one, and that one is at the end of the game when there's 10 seconds left and they have one punt to try to do it. I think that's what they hired Pharoah Cooper to do, I think that's who'll end up doing that, he's good at it, and you don't want to expose McCaffrey there. As far as the touches, though, yeah, if you're doing your fantasy draft, McCaffrey said he'd pick himself number one, I probably would too. I think those touches don't change a lot. They're going to not run in between the tackles 20 times a game, but they're going to get them out there with the ball in his hands a lot.

I think 22, 25 times a game, something like that, is very doable. The last thing I want to talk to you about, you had the story where you talked to John Fokie, who had the unfortunate typo where he said the N-word when he meant to say nuggets. The Hornets investigated it, they decided to let go of Fokie, so they're going to be looking for their fourth radio broadcaster for essentially a two-year span that they're going to try and replace here. Based on your conversation with John and being in Charlotte, were you surprised that the Hornets parted ways with Fokie? A little bit, but I guess I'm not as shocked as I would be if McCaffrey started being the regular Tommy Turner, I guess I'll put it that way. I mean, Fokie really did touch the third rail here, and he certainly, I believe him when he said it was an honest mistake. It also was a horrible mistake, and long where he's a high-profile guy and he's a communications person like we all are, and so he knows he should have known better and should have read and reread that tweet many times and didn't. But was I surprised?

I sort of was, I thought maybe they would suspend him for a couple of months or something without pay, make it hurt, but I didn't necessarily think they would fire him, but here we are and they have. Scott, thank you so much for spending the time, I hope I get to see you sometime soon. I guess it's been good to see you on those Zoom calls, as you mentioned, but we'll certainly catch up sometime soon. Thank you, Josh, I appreciate it as always. And check out his story on Jerry Richardson, the statue, not going to return to Bank of America Stadium, and Tepper kind of said as much, but said what he had to do. You can read in between the lines there, but Scott always doing great stuff, doing great work as always.