The Teddy Graham Rights (9-8-23)

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. We are killing it online.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3 to 7 on WSJS. Right here on WSJS, the Lions took down the Chiefs without Travis Kelce or Chris Jones. However, the time has arrived for a Carolina Panthers pick and this is what you should expect to see on Sunday. Regardless of how process blue tinted your glasses are when it comes to this football team, it requires quite the sell that the Panthers are going to win. Here's how it is. Too much has to break Carolina's way in order to beat the Atlanta Falcons.

Plain and simple. That's all this is about. How much has to go right in order to get the right result if you're a Panther fan. When it comes to receivers, even when they're healthy, this is probably a bottom five receiving corps in the National Football League. That's what you accepted when you traded DJ Moore in order to get the number one pick. That's a trade the Panthers would do again. That's a trade they should do again if it means you get your guy at that position and you get him at number one.

But one of the consequences is you don't have a strong receiving group and it's not really a group that can afford a lot of attrition. DJ Chark, for example. When he plays, he's very good. He could even at times be a one for one replacement for DJ Moore.

Look at the numbers. The problem is he's never played more than 15 games in a season. Only once has he played more than 13 games in a year.

This is a guy who misses games. And he had the hamstring injury a few weeks ago and Frank Reich ruled him out today. Adam Thielen. Questionable for this game.

Frank Reich didn't sound that optimistic that he was going to be ready to go. Tim Burns. They're still not saying, even though he's practiced the last few days, that he will be in the lineup for Carolina on Sunday. Marquis Haynes, who plays the same position, we know not going to play. He's on IR, missing the first four games. So Carolina is going to need some next man up mentality, going to need some guys to step up at key positions at spots they couldn't already afford a lot of attrition.

Here was Frank Reich earlier today. Now that we know some of these injury reports. Very confident in our team.

Excited about our team. Listen, everybody wants a full squad out there and no injuries to deal with or no absences to deal with. But this is the NFL.

You know, like we've said it, you guys know it equally as much as I do. This is just normal life in the NFL. So we get ready to play. And when we get there Sunday, the guys that are there will go out and do everything we can do to win a football game. Normal life in the NFL having your star edge practicing completely healthy, but still might not play in the game because of this contract situation.

Completely normal stuff. Receivers being out. That might still be the least of Bryce Young's concerns.

It's a big concern, but it might be the least of his concerns. When you look at the state of his offensive line. Last year, the numbers were pretty good according to the analytics folks, the nerds. But how much of that was Steve Wilks, what he was asking the line to do? They were a run first team.

They ran all the time. Not a lot of passing. Thus, some of the numbers when they did pass with play action might have been over inflated. They probably overachieved last year.

And that's when they were healthy. Austin Corbett going to miss the first four games. He's on IR.

Replaced by Icky Iquanu's college teammate at NC State, Chandler Zavala, a fourth round pick making his college debut. That's not really assuring. And it wasn't at all assuring watching the O-line during the preseason. Now you're facing a revamped Atlanta front that added Bud Dupree and Kaleis Campbell in the offseason. That's concerning stuff for a rookie who's making his debut on the road with a new coaching staff with a banged up O-line with a short handed wide receiving unit.

It's suboptimal. You see, there's a lot that needs to go right in order for you to think Carolina is going to win this game. Communication is going to be tough with it being on the road and so much being new and so much inexperience that's on the roster.

These are real challenges. Carolina is going to struggle to score early on in the year. Their defense will keep them in it, but Atlanta wins the game by a touchdown 20 to 13. On Twitter at WSJS Radio, if you want in. That's where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch.

DJ Turner in for Will Dalton again, the producer of the show. What are you most looking forward to watching this weekend? Looking at the college slate and the pro slate where there's interest locally, but there's also national interest with some of these matchups.

Which slate are you most interested to watch? The Texas Alabama game kind of snuck up. It snuck up because you also got Nebraska and Colorado at noon tomorrow and the NFL last night. Yeah.

Oh, just casually. Texas and Alabama, no big deal. That game has my interest. The Colorado game has my interest. And I'm really looking forward to see how the Dolphins do this weekend. Dolphins Chargers.

Yep. Dolphins passed on Justin Herbert for 2-1. Those are some interesting games they've played already.

We'll see what the next edition of that looks like. But since you mentioned college, let's get to the weekend in the ACC. We can agree that the ACC's opening weekend was a success. We can agree on that because you're 2-1 against the SEC. The two wins you got were the ones that mattered with all due respect to Virginia, Tennessee. Not as many people were watching that versus the primetime game where college game day was at where North Carolina beat South Carolina by two touchdowns. And then the standalone night game on Sunday when you had two top 10 teams and Florida State just whipping LSU and not laying off. You had that and the ACC today just released a statement saying that no conferences games were more viewed than the ACC's games in terms of ratings. It also helps having that standalone Monday game where Duke upset the Clemson Tigers. Did I see 44 million on that game?

No. I think it's combined. Like combined viewership. 44 million weren't watching one game. That's combined viewership. That's Super Bowl numbers. Consider the Final Four has 17 million people that watched.

Combined viewership of 44 million. The ACC only had two non-conference losses in week one. Then you look at this week's slate. Okay, you passed that test in the opening weekend.

How are you going to follow it up? You're playing because the Big Ten isn't in the ESPN Disney business anymore, kind of like Charter Spectrum. And the SEC is still in bed with CBS for one more year before becoming exclusively ESPN and Disney. We have two prime slates to play some prime games cross power five. And there are four or I guess it's power four now. There are four cross power four games this week. Two SEC-ACC matchups.

Two more of those, including one right down the road from where we're at in Winston-Salem. Wake Forest-Vanderbilt 11 a.m. kick tomorrow. We have Miami and Texas A&M. Huge game. Two teams that were overrated last year.

Both seem a bit underrated. That's a compelling game in the middle of the day tomorrow. Pitt-Cincinnati. Cincinnati with Scott Satterfield as their coach now in the Big 12 conference.

Pittsburgh going to be hosting Cincinnati in that game. And then you got Virginia Tech facing Purdue. Virginia Tech, despite barely squeaking past Old Dominion, a favorite against Purdue and a Big Ten-ACC matchup. I think the ACC is a really good shot at going three and one in those games.

I really do. And then that leads us to the ACC facing Notre Dame again. Notre Dame. There is an argument to be made that they've been bad for ACC football. Good for a lot of other reasons, but bad for ACC football. And one of the things that they do that's bad for the ACC is they only beat the ACC teams. They've won now 28 straight regular season ACC games, trying to make it 29 against NC State. But to do that, they would have to snap a 23 game home non-conference winning streak for Dave Doran. That's a noon kick tomorrow and one of the two games that I'll be at on Saturday.

I'll also be at App State, North Carolina. It's a big weekend for the ACC. If they can get a win against Notre Dame in a hypothetical sense and the pack can pull off the upset of the Irish, and you can have a winning record in these cross power five games as well. That's how you change perception by on national stages with 44 million people watching across all these matchups, winning over people and them seeing what you're capable of doing on a football field. That's what this season provides because of the television situation with relationships that conferences have with some of these networks. The Drive with Josh Graham only on WSJS. If it's Blink 182, that likely means Darren Vaught is somewhere nearby.

And yes, the host from ACC Baseball, et cetera, who has high school football, he will be calling in Charlotte tonight, happened to pop into our studio in the last few minutes. Darren, you're probably the type of guy who's thinking, oh, you could probably do a little bit more deeper cut. Blink 182, all the small things we could probably do a little better than that. Pinky finger up.

I'm excited either way. It could have been all the small things. It could have been aliens exist.

It could have been a number of things. They did a song with with Robert Smith once. Did you know that from the Cure, from the Cure, like legendary, not the Viking running back.

No, no, no, no, no. Robert Smith, lead singer of the Cure. Robert Smith, who's going to be calling the Panthers Falcon game on Sunday. Not that Robert Smith with Chris Myers, right?

Yeah. That would be great if the other Robert Smith was calling Panthers Falcons. Well, imagine just imagine Chris Myers in a booth with someone as artistic.

That feels like I'm underselling it artistic as the cures. Robert Smith trying to work a football game like speaking of the Cure, it's Friday. We're all in love that I got this note here before we get to unusual questions. A new weekend show on WSJS is going to run tomorrow morning.

NFL Insider, 6 a.m., the host of the show, Scott Graham. Not to be confused with my father. By the way, we get a lot of this going on. Happy birthday to my dad. We celebrated today by moving furniture into our home. Willow, the dog was barking uncontrollably and then we had mellow mushroom for lunch.

John Calipari's favorite. It was great. Nice.

Good. Really enjoyed that. So happy birthday. Big happy birthday to Papa Graham. To Scott Graham. My dad, Scott Graham, not the Scott Graham that'll be hosting NFL Insider tomorrow morning on WSJS. Now let's get to unusual questions since we've got Darren here.

Last week, guys, everybody made it out that I got mad at Josh and I left the press conference. That's not right. I thought it was an unusual question. And it's OK.

It's time for unusual questions with Josh Graham. And it's OK. It's OK. It's OK. My favorite part. Underrated.

Most slept on part of that soundbite. Related to my dad's birthday. This is the unusual question that I wanted to ask you both. When you give somebody a birthday card, do you want them to open it right away or wait until you're not in their presence? I think I would be indifferent. Depending what? It depends on the situation, because if there's a specific thing included with the card.

What could be included with the card other than cash? And in what instance are you seeing this person? Right. Sometimes you see somebody on their birthday. It's it's with other people.

It could just be circumstances matter for that. I agree. I agree.

I can't. No, that's sitting on the. No, I'm not cool with circumstances.

No, no, no, no, no. Tell me the circumstance where it's fine to open it up on the spot. If you're giving it to if you're giving it to your girlfriend. I don't know if I want her to open it up on the spot, because all the things written on the card, you could could communicate that without the awkward like exchange of. I'm going to open this up and read the card while you're just standing here looking at me, reading it, reading the card and then open the contents of it. I'd much rather prefer if there's something sentimental either on the card, how it's designed or what you wrote inside that somebody find that after the fact. Like today, I had a card for my dad, but I gave it to my mom to say, hey, wait till you guys are back in the car before you give it to him.

I'm not the type that wants somebody to open up a card right in front of me. Are you are you afraid of confronting feelings? Is that what you're doing?

Is that what you're doing? I'm fine with confronting feelings. I'm a very confrontational person. I'm just saying I just hate the exchange of somebody opening up a card. And you're just sitting here waiting for the person to open up the card as if it's a present. I get that our cards present now are related now, but you can include some. So like if you're if you're including something like with a significant other, if you want to take them to like a concert or whatever and you include like tickets in it or something, that feels like a situation where you probably hang around for the big reveal.

That's actually a good question to ask. Question answered. Circumstantially, I think that checks out. I buy that. But short of having something that would qualify as being a present in the card.

Yeah, if it's just the card. Again, I am indifferent. I don't necessarily want it to go one way or the other, but I get your argument. What is your unusual question, Darren? I can't get Robert Smith calling an NFL game with Chris Myers out of my head. I came up with that. So let's do this for you. It can be someone to co-host a show with.

Oh, wow. And for me, it would be in the booth, someone in the booth with me. It's Robert Smith.

It might be, you know, it might be Tom DeLonge, because that feels like the in-between between Robert Smith in the booth with Chris Myers on Fox, get him the M&M in the booth with Britt Musberg. Get him the telestrator and he'd be like looking at the back end here. This is a real coverage gap. Hey, free safety.

Where are you? He's going to be telling the defensive coordinator. I'm so sorry. It's Tom DeLonge. Tom DeLonge. Let's call the football game together. Who would I like to co-host a show with?

Wow. Is it limited to sports or no? I guess in this case it's not because you're talking about Tom DeLonge and company. Yeah, so I would say the caveat is Charles Barkley is the show. Charles Barkley is the answer. Yeah, if I had three hours with Chuck, are you kidding?

The late Robin Williams. Oh, wow. Can you imagine that energy?

Yes. And it would be so fun. Forget Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football. They should have called up Robin Williams. That would have gone way better. Bill Murray. Oh, Murray would be good. If you if I tried.

I tried in Charleston this summer. You can get him in the room for three hours. I watched Lost in Translation just earlier this week. Again, I feel like the key is getting him in the room. If you get Bill in the room, he's assuming we're assuming he's in the room. And you have him for three hours as someone who has tried relentlessly. Like, including with in my time with the David Glenn show, tried relentlessly to book him for that show.

Like getting him in the room is the key. So you have that happen. You have the phone number, though, right?

Yes. It's one number. You just leave a message. He occasionally, I guess, checks these messages and is like, yeah, I'll go do that. He has a messaging machine and a number at his house. My understanding, he does not have a cell phone. And you he he will do like random interviews because, you know, he just hears a message and says, oh, that sounds cool.

I'll do that. That's him. True story. I did get to spend 15 minutes in a control room with Jeff Dunham. Like the puppet guy. How many of the puppets did he have on him, on his person?

Four. Also, Walter was in the room with Walter was in the room. And then when we went to the show that night, the guy that I was hosting a show with was the target of Dunham's jokes all night long.

Walter would turn and go, is that right, Bob? You know, kind of called Bob out the entire show. But I mean, to watch him with Alapeno, you know, and the crazy one. I mean, he's just a good impression.

He's pulling them out of the suitcases as we're doing the show. Fifteen minutes with Jeff Dunham was amazing. Do you have an unusual question? D.J. Turner. I do. So if you got to choose your own name, what would it be? Wow.

Interest. I have I have some long lived internal struggle with my name. You guys know I'm maybe D.J., I don't know. I'm a twin. Yeah. So my twin brother's name is Aaron, which is why mine is spelled the way that it is. D.A.R.O.N.

because they just wanted it to be one letter off. That's terrible. Horrible, horrible. Over time, I've embraced it. I've come to accept it and like it. My brother, Aaron, is like probably my best friend on planet Earth. So I don't know that I would change it.

I think there are times in my life where I for sure absolutely would have changed it. Maybe the spelling change it to a D.A.R.I.N. I was a big Darren Erstad fan. Oh, I thought you were to say Darren Gantt. No, but that too.

Yeah, that works too. The my name. See, because Sarah Bradford, we've talked about this.

There's no chance she would ever go for it. I would change my name to Theodore. So you could be Teddy Graham.

The drive with Teddy Graham. And if I'm in like formal settings, I could be Theo. I could be Ted.

Is that a Nabisco product? I mean, that'd be that would sell itself. It'd be incredible. You would make millions of the sponsorships.

Unusual question. Sponsored by Teddy Graham. Teddy Graham's or Nabisco. Yeah. When's that movie coming out?

We had the Barbie movie. When's the Teddy Graham movie coming out? Teddy Graham's. Who's got the product? Who has the Teddy Graham rights?

I want to know about the Teddy Graham rights. Anyway, that's been unusual question. Let's start working on a spec script with Darren Vaught and myself and D.J. Turner. D.J. Turner. We have our first four pack of Wake Forest Vanderbilt tickets to give away later this hour.

Also, why the overreacting has already begun in the NFL and in this case, as it often is, it's kind of ridiculous. That's your cue. Three, three, six, seven, seven, seven, one, six hundred. If you want to go to Wake Forest Vanderbilt tomorrow at 11 a.m. That's Scott Van Pelt during bad beats this week. Three, three, six, seven, seven, seven, one, six hundred. The first to call in gets tickets to go see Wake Forest play Vanderbilt tomorrow at 11 a.m.. Be there.

Be square. Keep it here on a Friday drive. It's the drive with Josh Graham. Darren Vaught continuing in studio with us. How much of Lions Chiefs did you get a chance to watch last night? The NFL opener. I was waiting in studio to do the North Carolina education lottery lottery boy at the end of the game. Lottery man. Not boy.

So I caught I got most of the second half. When will we see you announcing lottery numbers? Is that tomorrow? Not tonight. I will be on locally here in the Triad.

Fox eight is the affiliate tomorrow night. Eleven twenty two. Get your winning numbers. All that fun stuff. Darren knows the numbers. I don't I don't. Contrary to popular belief or I guess don't let people want to believe.

Don't let him con you. I don't even touch the machine. I'm just standing next to it. But with about a foot of space between us, the machine pulls the numbers itself.

So you're like the draft lottery guy. Kind of. Yeah, I don't even read off of the balls themselves.

They're blown up on a monitor in front of me that's off the screen and I'm reading the numbers off of the monitor as I saunter over the to the next machine. So I take it you didn't have a chance to watch much of Lions Chiefs. I saw a lot of the second half. How about it? Detroit? Yeah, I. The Chiefs. You mentioned overreacting.

I don't I don't want to do that. You think the Chiefs are good? I do think the Lions are a pretty decent team, though.

It just turned out to be kind of clunky, kind of ugly in some spots. The Lions took advantage, like the pick six. And that's, I think, indicative of the team that they're going to be. The pick six is a great example.

The ball was right on the money where it needed to be to freak play. That leads to seven points. The Chiefs were without two of their three best players.

No Travis Kelsey, no Chris Jones. They still probably should have won if he took away that pick six. And then the drop by Kadarius Toney on the last drive that they had the last chance. So that's why you shouldn't overreact to the Chiefs side of this for the Lions in. They were one of the most hyped teams in the preseason, you know, and they're in perhaps the most unpredictable division.

That isn't to say the best division, the AFC North and the AFC East probably would have that contention. But I don't think anybody was going into last night thinking that the Lions weren't going to be competitive in that division. And we even said it yesterday that this was a great opportunity for them to win the football game. It was an ugly, low scoring game anybody could have. And I thought Kansas City would pull it out because they were at home in a coin flip. But coin flip landed on the other side, it seemed like.

But we did talk about it yesterday. This was the opportune time for Detroit to play Kansas City to have a like a viable chance where, you know, people are against them. This was the opportune time for them.

And take them on the first game and take your victory and go home. There it is. One hundred percent. And that's another good reason why you shouldn't overreact to last night to either for the Lions end or the Chiefs end.

But I will ask this. Is there a team in the NFL that has a higher approval rating nationwide than the New York Jets do or not the New York Jets, the Detroit Lions? I was about to say because no one no one really hates the Jets. But you them being in New York and having Aaron Rodgers, there's going to be some polarity there. I'm just once they start winning some games, I'm just thinking of hard knocks teams.

And also, yeah, Dave Pulaski is going to be in studio after you. But you have you I don't think there's a team in the NFL that. Is less dislike to go double negative than the Detroit Lions are like, in other words, you they're they're a team that I think people can get behind without anybody really hating the Lions. Who hates the Lions?

It's because it's because of the lack of success recently. Right. It's like my Baltimore Orioles to a degree. Who hates the Orioles? Right. It's kind of hard to do that right now, whereas the Chiefs are like. They're sort of they've been in this like, OK, are they a dynasty or are they going to be a dynasty mode for the past handful of years?

But they were really well liked, comparatively speaking. They're Jeff Gordon, like Jeff Gordon. I mean, he's I mean, he's nice. Like, why would you hate Jeff Gordon?

He's great. Oh, he enunciates. No, he just wins a lot. And he's beating the teams that you like. Like, as a as a kid from Appalachia can confirm people did not like Jeff Gordon because he enunciated.

Right. But really, if he if he enunciated and didn't win, no one would care. But the fact that he beat Dale, Dale, raise hell, praise them. The fact that he beat Dale time and time again, that's why they had problems with him. So there's a degree people don't like Kansas City because Kansas City is threatening.

But see, I don't know. Lions haven't been seen as threatening until last night for sure. But I to the to the point of Kansas City, I, I view them as a really, really good team over a stretch of time. That's me trying to avoid the word dynasty, but a team that is like in that sort of air. I view them as one of the only to be in that category and be pretty well liked universally.

Like, I don't think there are people who who despise the Chiefs. Golden State was their pre. They're like Golden State before they added Kevin Durant. Oh, dude.

Twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. We all stayed up to watch the Golden State Warriors. They were awesome. Every night that we did. We did not mind that they won 90 percent of their games or whatever. Yeah. That's the Chiefs because they're that fun to watch.

Even on fourth and twenty five or whatever it was down the stretch last night. Like you might be rooting, pulling for the underdog, the Lions, but you're like, oh, my homes is rolling out. He's got some space. He's trying to make something happen.

I kind of hope he does. It's just you root for it. You're a Red Sox fan. They play the Orioles tonight. The O's. See, this week, man, watching the Mariners more and more. That's that's the team sneaky in the A.L. that I'm like, if they're in the World Series, would I be stunned?

Probably not. First time. First time for them. They're the only MLB team not to be there. Who do you like the most as a playoff team in the American League right now? I mean, Tampa has their shortcomings.

Yeah. Some less than ideal situations off the field, shall we say. And Baltimore probably going to be without Felix Bautista. They're star closer, you venture to say. And Seattle struggles to score.

So there are flaws you can pick through teams at times. I've got a soft spot for Seattle. There's a body of work there with with the Orioles, too, that I understand Bautista is is a big piece of what they've accomplished. Literally.

But that guy's a wagon. They're like, they're good. They've not let up. They are good enough to be there. Yeah. So between. Between the O's and the Mariners, it's those are your top two. I think so.

And again, that's speaking to with just like I've got a soft spot for each of them over the race reasons over the J's, perhaps. I'm trying to think who else might be at that cut line now. It's amazing how much Texas has fallen off the map. Yeah. I mean, Houston, Houston might not even make the playoffs now. Yeah. Houston kind of feels like the easy answer. And they. Oh, yeah. We forgot about Houston.

Houston. We've got a problem. But but like that should have been your line. I don't know. I missed it. Yeah. I knew you were about to say it. That's why I said it. You're influencing me. You've been in here the last few days. I like the jokes.

I said it maybe a week or two ago to you. Even before they got even hotter, like I'm I'm way in on the Mariners. And at some point, at some point, they've got to play in the World Series. Would that be the dream?

ALCS Oriel's Mariners. Give it to me. Inject that into Darren's veins.

Yep. Make that happen. Right here in the networks are not wanted.

Got a good vein here. That's it. The networks don't want it. Atlanta.

I don't care what the network network networks do not want it. Atlanta Pittsburgh, by the way, tonight at 720. For those who are Braves fans wondering, they are red hot. They're good. They've been red hot all year, though. I mean, they have 91 with price out price elder on the mound tonight.

Braves Dodgers in the NLCS is going to be if if if the Phil's don't do that thing again, they could. Darren, but you have a football game to call up eighty five or up seventy seven, depending what traffic filled path you want to take to the Queen City. Thanks for dropping by on today's show, though.

Pleasure as always. We'll see you guys later. The moment you've all been waiting for.

You're on the drive with Josh Graham. If you're a charter spectrum subscriber and you're wondering when is this standoff with ESPN and Disney going to end now that we've hit day nine of this, make sure you're sticking around. When Joe Ovius joins us in about 15 minutes, if you are a subscriber to any of the other cable networks as well, cable companies. Companies, networks, Comcast, you know what I'm talking about.

Direct TV. Make sure you stick around for that, too, because there could be some good insight about the future of where things are heading for sports fans. But we're a couple of days out from the Carolina Panthers season beginning. The Panthers season starts on Sunday. So this is what I see for them for two thousand and twenty three. The Panthers are going to be an eight win team in two thousand twenty three.

You should expect a slow start. This is what happens when you have a new staff with a new rookie quarterback with some injuries. Adam Thielen, questionable. D.J. Tark out.

Brian Burns. We don't know if he's going to play on Sunday with the contract dispute and the schedule is very difficult. You open up with two divisional games at Atlanta Monday Night Football at the Saints coming in. It really hurts that the next game is on the road and it hurts even more that that game's on the West Coast, too. With the short week, Carolina going to face the Seattle Seahawks. Minnesota is a very good football team. Fresh off an NFC North title.

That's not going to be easy at all. When you look at their first five or six games leading up to the bye week, they could be one in five. They could be.

Two and four. I don't think they would be the worst thing if that were to happen, given how the schedule looks. And even if they were two and four or one and five, you can't completely write them off because of how bad the division is.

That's the funny thing. Eight and nine, which is what I have Carolina at, could be good enough to win the division. Now, you'd have a better shot at winning the division if you have a tie in there, if it's eight, eight and one or something like that.

Nine feels like is the number to hit to win the division might require a tiebreaker if you get there. But I don't see the winner of the NFC South getting the double digit wins. Atlanta, New Orleans and Carolina.

They all seem to be very close. But the pick is Carolina at eight and nine. New Orleans. I think is going to win the NFC South. Mostly because there's more urgency with the New Orleans Saints. With a coach that has to prove something this year and Derek Carr, who's a veteran.

You're talking about. That versus a first year coach and a rookie quarterback that Carolina has, it's just a different urgency level going on with the Saints. And if Carolina were to get to this point of winning eight games, that would be a success. That's the last thing to say here. Some will push back and say, we're playoff team.

I got my process blue tinted shade of glasses here. Oh, I'm ready to go. They're going to win double digit games the whole deal. If they win eight, that's a good thing. That would be a massive win for the Carolina Panthers. Playoffs or not, even if they miss the playoffs, eight wins would be a massive win. And this is why that'd be the most wins they've had since twenty seventeen. That's a long time. That's six seasons ago for those doing math in your head.

As you can see with my cap here, if you're watching East Carolina grad math, not really my forte. If they win eight games, that likely means that Bryce Young is the guy. When Cam Newton debuted in 2011 with Ron Rivera, his first year in Charlotte, Carolina won six and there was a lot of optimism moving forward because you knew Cam was the guy. If Carolina wins eight this year, Bryce Young's your guy.

He is a dude who is a franchise quarterback. And that is the most important thing. But out of that, that, that, that, that go three, three, six, seven, seven, seven, one six hundred. That's our last four pack of tickets for Wake Forest Vanderbilt tomorrow at eleven a.m. Go, Dix.

If you'd like to win those tickets, give us a call right now at three, three, six, seven, seven, seven, one six hundred. In less than 10 minutes, Joe Oveus will be our guest from the Oveus and Jillio podcast, shifting things a bit to the ACC since we're talking about Wake Forest and Vanderbilt. Just like last week. There shouldn't be a lot of drama associated with the ACC Big Four games, focusing specifically on Wake Forest, North Carolina, NC State and Duke. There weren't, there wasn't a lot of drama last week.

We're revisiting week one. Let's just look at the results here. Wake Forest beat Elon by 20. It was a meh type of game, a meh type of performance. North Carolina, ho-hum, dominant second half, win by two touchdowns against South Carolina. Duke won by three touchdowns. And in the fourth quarter, the game didn't feel like it was in doubt. The only game that was in doubt in the fourth quarter among the ACC Big Four is NC State's game on the road at UConn. But NC State had game control to use a college football playoff selection committee term. They never really felt like it was in doubt. Dave Doran sometimes approaches games like a boa constrictor does.

Just like squeezes the life out of games. All right, we feel like we've scored enough points here. We got a good defense. Let's just sit on them. Let's just sit on our opponent.

They might score, but they're not going to score enough in order to beat us. That's what they did at UConn to win that game. Now, once again, looking ahead to this week, NC State's the team in the most danger. They were the team that turned out in the most danger in week one, shockingly, given the matchups that Duke and North Carolina had. NC State faces the most danger with Notre Dame in Raleigh tomorrow. A Notre Dame team that's won 28 straight games, regular season games against ACC opponents. Notre Dame's a seven and a half point favorite going on the road.

And this seems like a really tough spot for the pack because the pack. The one thing they didn't do very well against UConn. The offense sputtered at some points, but the offense by and large looked pretty good, especially Brendan Armstrong, his ability to run it in addition to sling it with that left hand.

I think. Their ability, their inability to stop UConn's run is concerning. You lost some guys on that defense for NC State. But you still need to be able to stop the UConn Huskies from running it.

And they struggled to do that. And UConn's not Notre Dame when it comes to physicality. And when it comes to running the football. So while a lot of the attention for this game is going to be on Sam Hartman and his return to North Carolina and all that, Owen to it, Carter Finley Stadium in his starts, running the ball, that's what it's going to be like. If NC State can't stop Notre Dame's run, game over. And if Notre Dame can run it.

Yeah, that's kind of what the football game is. Wake, North Carolina and Duke should have few issues. Wake went into Vanderbilt last year and dominated. Now Vanderbilt's coming to Wake and Wake's a double digit favorite and they should be. I think Notre Dame, again, going back to the no drama angle. I think Notre Dame is going to probably win by double digits and cover the number. Not a lot of drama there in Raleigh. A game will be at Wake Forest double digit favorite against Vandy.

I feel the same way. I think they'll be in control with Mitch Griffiths, a quarterback, and there's a lot there from last week's game against Elon that they could potentially, Dave Claussen could coach and use in preparation for week two. You always hear about the greatest jump is from game one to game two. I think we'll see that with Wake. Duke, it's a short week, but it's Lafayette.

They don't even have a line for that game. Duke will win in a blowout, kind of like Louisville last night who won 56 to nothing. And then there's North Carolina, who's favored by 20, 19, 20 points against Appalachian State.

I hope I'm wrong on this because, again, I don't want to go to two blowouts tomorrow. But North Carolina, you know. Even without Tez Walker, they're at home and App State had an injury at quarterback already to Ryan Berger and they were replacing Chase Bryce. We'll see what Joey Aguilar brings and if App State's defense can have more success against the Tar Heel offense with Drake May than they did a year ago, allowing 63 and play better than they did a week ago against Gardner Webb. It's just a really great challenge for the Mountaineers. And I don't think North Carolina is going to have a lot of issues at home. That's the way I see the ACC Big Four games tomorrow. The best games of the day might be from the non ACC schools in the state. East Carolina, Marshall.

That's a fun one, man. A lot of history there. The Pirates getting three home debut for ECU against the Thundering herd.

I'm about that. Those are teams that should be playing each other regularly. I still say they have the coolest name, mascot name. The herd? Yeah. The Thundering herd.

The Thundering herd of Marshall. We are. I love that. That's great. This one probably won't be a great game, but Biff Pogge's boys go to College Park as Charlotte.

This is the part that's crazy about this. Primetime on NBC tomorrow night is Charlotte, Maryland. That's the game that's going head to head with Texas and Alabama. You got Charlotte, Maryland. Maryland's a 24 point favorite. And primetime on NBC.

Why? Because they don't have any other big 10 games to throw at night. Yes, there's no there.

They aren't playing conference games yet. So there you go. Charlotte and Biff Pogge going. Why do you keep laughing at Biff Pogge? That's his name. It's it's a funny name.

Sorry. Charlotte going to Maryland tomorrow. What is really happening here with Disney's standoff with Charter Spectrum? What's the future going to look like for sports fans in terms of viewing things via streaming or on cable?

Is it going to be good for us? Joe Ovius will tell us next. Joe Ovius is going to join us in just a bit.

Ovius and Jillio. His thesis on the Charter Spectrum Disney dispute is that. Disney's in a place where they need. The cable companies or more specifically, the sports leagues and teams that are being funded by the television companies need cable. But the problem is that the cable companies in response might not be the ones needing those companies anymore. Ovius and Jillio, the podcast, Joe Ovius, a co-host from that podcast who knows a thing or two about terrestrial radio. It's good to have you on. Another thing that you've done in the last week is break down in about a half hour, as well as anybody has what's happened with the ACC and why NC State flipped from a no to a yes last week in order to approve ACC.

Expansion, but focus on focusing on Charter Spectrum and this dispute with Disney and ESPN. What's the greatest misperception over the last week? You've seen people saying when it comes to this dispute.

It's actually. Hi, Josh. How are you? Hey, Joe.

Doing well. Good. I would say the biggest misconception is the relationship of the ACC network in their play for expansion. Right. So everybody's caught up in the money. And one one issue that I have with National College Football Media is that they get easily wowed by numbers and don't really look any further.

They just go, wow. Seventy five million dollars. All right.

Well, let's break that down even further, which is why Jillio and I have been pounding the table the last couple of weeks with expansion about how the math just is not mapping. Like, congratulations, NC State. You're going to add, what, three million dollars a year. OK, cool. But the response that I've gotten from that is, well, what about the ACC network when it's going to be on in the Dallas Fort Worth area, which is the number five TV market or in the Bay Area, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, which is the number 10 TV market.

And that's when I want to scream even more. What makes you think it's going to get cleared as cable penetration continues to dip? Anthony Krupi wrote a really, really good piece today on Sportico giving you hard, real numbers of where we've dropped since 2018. And when you account for even the Hulu live and YouTube TV numbers that those streaming bundles that exist.

I'm a Hulu customer myself. When you total those all up, you're lucky to get to just under 60 percent cable home penetration. Whereas just a couple of years ago, it was hovering around 80 percent. So all these things factor into the kind of money you're you're projecting going forward. And that's the issue that I have here is that these presidents, these ideas are banking their financial projections on a model that is clearly distressed. And the charter spectrum fight with Disney, the biggest misconception with that is, well, this has happened before and they always get it knocked out at the 11th hour. Yeah, that's true. But if you've been paying attention to the executives from charter spectrum, they're telling you straight up that the video business is not as lucrative as it once was to the point where they're willing to walk away from it.

Because now there's been a flip in the last couple of years where these companies are making more money off of your broadband speeds and wireless communications than they are in the video business. So I think the best way to put it was done by Ben Thompson, who covers this stuff. You know, he has a newsletter that I highly recommend called Chutechory. And the way he put it, which our spectrum is Disney's never dealt with a cable system that has nothing to lose. And when you go up against somebody that has nothing to lose, well, chances are you're in for a long fight. I can speak from experience on that, since now I'm just an independent person who has nothing to lose. Joe Obvious with us here, Obvious and Jillio.

You can find him his podcast wherever you find podcasts and also on YouTube as well. I want to talk about what this means for me and what it means for you, though, rather than talk about the state of these big companies and the money it might net the ACC in the future and all these types of things. I got the notification, as I'm sure you got yesterday, about the price hike that's about to come with Hulu, and it seems like this might be related to some of the things we're talking about. Are sports fans going to like where things you think are headed?

No, they're not. I've been saying this now since 2015 when ACC officials would kind of roll their eyes at me when I would ask them questions about the expense going forward. Sports fans are not going to like it. You and I are in a position where we can write these things out as tax write-offs because it's for work. I can legitimately make the argument that paying for all these Hulu TV and ESPN Plus and all that stuff is a business expense, and you could do the same thing because this is what you do for a living. But for the normal consumer, and this is already happening, people have made the choice. They've already made the choice, and this is something that the hardest of hardcore sports fans are going to have to make these choices going forward. What do you choose to spend your money on?

You already do that now. You decide what games you want to go to as the price of going to games has increased and the time that you have to commit to going to games has increased. So you make a choice, but that's going to extend itself to what exactly you're going to pay for going forward. The NFL is always going to be largely available because it's on broadcast networks because it gets the most amount of eyeballs, but if you're an ACC fan, get ready to pay. I really don't know how else to put it because what's going on right now with its price highs is that as cable homes continue to drop, and they're hovering around 70 million homes right now. It comes to mind that just 10 years ago it used to be about 110 million homes, and this is going to continue to drop going forward, that ESPN is charging you more or passing this cost down to the carriers to pass down to you because they cannot afford to lose money.

They're raising the rate because they have to compensate for the fact that they're losing homes. The greatest, I don't want to call it a con, but the greatest business aspect of ESPN and why they made so much money is that most of their affiliate, those fees that were coming in by people who never watched sports or were super casual fans. The bundle saved everybody money because you got what you wanted for a smaller price and you just dealt with the fact that you never watched some channels. As you break away and you get this new form of cable where you have your Disney properties kind of walled off doing their own thing, you got the NBC property, the Comcast properties over on Peacock, you got the Turner stuff that's now over on Max. It's all breaking out. You're going to make a choice. Are you going to be a Disney house? Are you going to be an NBC house? Are you going to be a Max house? Are you going to be a Netflix house? Okay, Netflix doesn't have anything I want now.

I haven't really been watching it. Cool. I could just click a button. I've canceled it.

That's going to be really, really scary. As somebody who used to work in the cable industry told me, they said the greatest thing that ever happened with cable was that it was a real pain in the ass to cancel it, right? Because you had to get on the phone.

You had to deal with a spiel about, well, what if we did this? Okay, you don't want to do it anymore. Well, you got to turn in your box. Okay, well, I got to take the box to this place.

It's a hassle. But if I want to switch from Hulu to YouTube, I can literally do it from my phone while I'm sipping a beer. So all these things are going to make it really interesting going forward.

And the bottom line is we're going to have to pay a lot of money. Does that mean I should flip to YouTube, you and I? No, I'm a Disney guy. I mean, remember, I get Disney Plus and I can tell Will's not there today.

I get Disney Plus and ESPN Plus today. Yeah, fair enough. Do you expect me to ditch Disney Plus in the middle of Osaka? Come on, dude.

Do you even know me? Is it possible Notre Dame offered a win in tomorrow's game in order to get NC State's vote to flip an ACC expansion? No.

I see what you're doing there, but no. NC State flipped because, I don't know, they got wowed by SMU money based on that Ross Dellinger piece, which, by the way, I have a quick thought on that. Ross Dellinger from Yahoo Sports wrote this big deep dive as to SMU's quest to join a Power Five conference. And don't be surprised if NC State ends up in the Association of American Universities, the AAU, which is highly coveted by research institutions, and it means more money for them in that regard. You've got to remember that these chancellors are making decisions beyond sports, too.

Don't tell your former co-host that. I got yelled at by a lot of people for suggesting academics played a role in this. Yeah, well, you've got to remember that where they're coming from in that regard is that nobody cares about academics. And ultimately, he's right in that people who care about state don't necessarily care about the academics. University presidents do, though, and they're the ones making these decisions. Yeah, university presidents do, and they're operating on a completely different level. But, you know, the other thing about NC State, and again, if you go by the Ross Dellinger piece, is that they were wowed by all this money that SMU has that can fund themselves without taking any of the tier one money from ESPN.

And I would say this. You're too young to remember, but I think it was, geez, it was like 10 or 15 years ago. I remember Duke and SMU played a football game at Wallace Wade, and SMU officials were there, and they had these brochures basically selling the fact that SMU was really committing to their football program. They had this new stadium that they were going to build and everything else. And for years, I've been hearing about SMU and the oil money, yada, yada, yada. You've got to look out for SMU. As I jokingly tweeted yesterday, SMU for the last 10 to 15 years has kind of been the dipping dots of college football. That's the future, right?

But the future is here, and dipping dots are just there. And that's kind of SMU. So I found it curious that here is this program that has all this money and has had a lot of money for a lot of years, and they've never been able to join a Power Five conference until today.

So what happened? Why have they never been a target? Why have they never really been in the legitimate target? Well, because I think people understand there's limitations to SMU. Interest level on SMU isn't great.

And then last time I checked, what are they right now in the American area? 77. Oh, are you talking about, oh, I thought you were going to go AAU on me here. No, I don't care about that. I'm talking about like SMU in the American. Have they been any good? Nah. With all that money? They were good at one year with Chad Morris. Okay.

Not very good. But they got all this money. Sonny Dykes. And they can't win a group of five conference? There you go. Come on. So like this is it. This is all.

And again, that I think that's also the biggest problem here. I mean, I'm actually shocked that Florida State was able to dominate LSU the way that we saw the other night. I mean, with all that money, right? Right? Yeah. Huh.

Maybe you finally got a coach. I mean, maybe they have something to do with it. I don't know. Will NC State be able to stop the run tomorrow because it didn't seem like they were stopping a lot of the run from UConn a week ago? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the one thing that Notre Dame has and has always had is a really good line, both offense and defense. I mean, a couple of years ago when they just completely warped North Carolina, that happened all up front.

Okay. And yeah, NC State's got some issues up front. I actually worry more on the flip side of that. I worry more for Brennan Armstrong, an offensive line that might get pushed around. And while Brennan can run, that was kind of the feature, not a bug of Brennan Armstrong coming to NC State with Robert and I. It's that you don't want him running for his life. Okay.

So that's what I'd be concerned with. I mean, we could get some rain, but I don't think it's going to be ankle deep rain like we saw with Hurricane Matthew back in 2016. And I also don't think that Notre Dame, if it were to... Were you there for that game?

I was not. ECU had a game that day. Oh, okay. That's right. That's right. I was there that day.

That was ridiculous. Are you going to be there tomorrow? I'll be there tomorrow. No. No, I'm not going to be there tomorrow.

Okay. I got hockey. I got kid hockey. That's my new life.

Love it. Kid hockey dad, Joe Ovius. Watch his stuff. I got a DJ. I'm the arena DJ. Ovius Angelio, the podcast, to hear his breakdown on Charter Spectrum and why they don't need sports, why they might not need ESPN and looking at the future of the industry and such. It's good to hear your voice, man. I'll see you sometime soon. Thanks, Joe. Later, Josh.