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Get their newest arrivals in-store, online, and in the app. We love Rich Eisen. We certainly appreciate all you do for the NFL. Today's guest, CBS Sports Broadcaster Jim Nantz.
Bills tackle Dion Dawkins. Founder and CEO of Clutch Sports Group, Rich Paul. And now, it's Rich Eisen. That's right.
Can confirm it. Here I am. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Another odd way to start it, but I am who I am.
What can I tell you? Right here live on the Roku Sports Channel, right here live on the Infinity Sports Network, Sirius XM, Odyssey, and more. We say hello to anybody out there listening to us whenever you want on our podcast, available every single day through the Cumulus Podcast Network. We greatly appreciate that.
844-204-RICH is the number to call right here on this program. Good to see you over there, Christopher Brockman. How are you? I'm great.
I'm great, and I just want everyone to know how much restraint I showed in the group chat yesterday. Is that the way you choose to lead the program? Well, you did that after the Celtics game. Well, I didn't lead the program that way. Well, you kind of did. I just want to pay it back.
I mean, I didn't lead the program. I want to pay it back forward for you. Good to see you, Jay Felley. How are you?
What's up, Rich? We're great. Good to see you, Jay Felley. Good to see you, TJ Jefferson. The candle's lit.
Candle's lit. I was just thinking, the last time me and you and Jay were together, man, it was a good time. Oh, yes. It was a good time. Well, yeah. Because we were sitting at the bar in Atlanta.
Magic City. Yeah. Watching the Yankees beat the Mets in a subway series game. Juan Soto making the last out. That part wasn't so great. You walked into that one.
That's a spinning curve in the zone you hung at me, man. Overall, it was good just to hang with the boys. Yes, and the Knicks were eliminating the Celtics to make the Eastern Conference final. And that was the first time I think the three of us have ever done anything together.
I wouldn't say that. Just the three of us? I mean, we're doing this. Yeah. Just the three of us. Is that the way you want to lead the show? Oh, my God.
What is happening here? Jim Nantz is on this program. We'll chat with him. Dion Dawkins of the Buffalo Bills is going to join us.
He's going to join us because in March he was here in studio. I said, hey, you're commissioner for a day. What do you want to do? What rule would you want to change?
He goes, it's not a rule I'd want to change. I'd like to create an award called the Protector of the Year Award. And the NFL announced this week. Wave of Wands. We've got one. It's called the Protector of the Year Award. So Dion Dawkins spoke something into existence.
That is so cool. Which means he, bring me Dion Dawkins. And he was kind enough to say yes. He will join us. And the Bills are doing hard knocks. And the Bills are doing hard knocks. Lots to talk about with him.
Like Penny Lane said, it's all happening. And in hour number three, Rich Paul, the founder and CEO of Clutch Sports, will be here in studio. Lots to talk about with him from Clutch Sports.
And we start with the opposite of Clutch. The New York Knickerbockers. We all know about them. We've heard of them.
I talk about them a lot being a native New Yorker. Grew up loving the team. Diehard Knick fan until James Dolan had Charles Oakley dragged out of Madison Square Garden. I swore off the team. Until Jalen Brunson showed back up and got me back and pulled me back in.
Pulled me back in. And, you know, fully aware of how unaware the New York Knick fan base, as a whole, is painted and viewed by the general American sports population. Not to rope you in, TJ, but the Knick's fans are frequently equated with Dallas Cowboys fans. And the fact that we believe our team is the greatest of all time, you know, don't really have the recent victories to back that up. And by recent, I'm talking about decades. The Cowboys have won Super Bowls, plural, since the Knick's last won a championship. 4-0. Correct? Knick's won a championship the year I was born.
This fine wine may not back it up. I'm in my mid-50s. You're in your prime, baby. And Knick's fans celebrating the bouncing of the Boston Celtics like they won it all. Honestly, like, cops had to be called in.
People were climbing up on top of billboards. It was like a Philly parade. What the hell's going on? Except the Philly parade's after they win it all. No, honestly, that's a normal Wednesday in New York. I get it. I get it.
Throwing garbage at people? Fans get opened up to interpretation this way, as if they're front-loading something they have to still go earn. But good feelings abound. I understand Tatum got hurt. I get it. Knick's eliminated last year. They were banged up.
It happens. Gotta beat the team in front of you. And they beat the Boston Celtics and suddenly have the Eastern Conference Finals in their home. Home court advantage. Who saw that one coming all season long?
Nobody. While the Cavs were winning 64 games and the Celtics were doing Celtics things. So Knick's fans are feeling it. Feeling it.
This is it. This is their time. I'm feeling it. Here come the Pacers into the building. Team that eliminated them last year. Knick's fans feeling all we had to do was be healthy. We would have beaten them.
Guess what? They're healthy this time around. And they got Carl Anthony Towns.
And Bridges. And a home court advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals. All they have to do is take the court and game one and make sure these good feelings, these good tidings, these advantages they have aren't washed out by a loss that recalls all the bad feelings of the last few decades. All they got to do is avoid the embarrassing, mortifying, heartbreaking, heart-wrenching loss at the hands of the Pacers blowing a massive lead to recall the times that they would blow leads.
Oh, wait a minute. I'm told that's exactly what happened. Choke 2.0 is the back page headline of the New York Post. Epic collapse crushes Knick's in frighteningly familiar fashion. The inset is Reggie Miller doing the choke move then when he scored.
Wow. All those points in those small amounts of seconds back in the day and there's Tyrese Halliburton in eight seconds. Tyrese Halliburton with the same damn move. I mean the proper hand over. It's not like he had it prepared or anything.
No, he couldn't have. Same damn move. But even that was premature celebration for which there is medicine. And that is after you consult your doctor for premature celebration, winning the damn game in overtime that you didn't see coming because you blew a 14-point lead in the last two minutes and 51 seconds. Win it in overtime.
Couldn't do that. Lost it. They lose it and all the bad feelings. Charles Smith can't make a layup and Patrick Ewing can't make a finger roll and John Starks can't make a shot against Houston. They're all coming back with Reggie Miller and the choke move. All of it laid bare in front of Clyde Frazier and Bernard King and Larry Johnson and Starberry and Larry David and Susie Essman were back together.
And I'm sure all of the language they're associated with was used liberally by every Nick fan in Madison Square Garden watching this disaster unfold. The slow motion car crash unfold. Don't forget Chalamet. In front of Chalamet.
I love Chalamet, man. If Tracy Morgan wasn't vomiting, he was by the end of this one. Starks was in the building. Everybody was there. Yeah, they were all there. Everybody.
All of it. And I got to be honest with you, Chris, I don't want to have this debate. We've had it multiple times. I know you keep saying, if you know you're going to lose, you'd rather be blown out rather than this.
Yeah, of course. I mean, me, Smith making. Everything. Every shot in the fourth quarter. And no, he's getting the ball and it was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean splash over and over and over again. And Halliburton hitting the back heel, having it pop straight up and come down the chimney. That was insane.
Anything but net. Insane. And it took its time, too. Oh, it was like 20 feet in the air. It hung. I saw it.
I was like, so badly. Poor Bill Bradley was there in front of everybody. Holy crap.
That's a shame. And. In terms of never seen something like this before, the Pacers had all the stats.
Yeah. Tweeting it out over the last twenty seven postseason teams were all and nine hundred seventy when they trailed by fourteen or more in the last. Two fifty of regulation that's now one and nine hundred seventy.
But wait, there is more. The interns were crushing it since ninety six ninety seven teams that have trailed by seven or more in the final fifty seconds in the fourth quarter or overtime of the playoffs are now four and one thousand seven hundred and two. The Pacers have three of those wins and they're all this year.
That was the one round. They did it to the box. They did it to the Cavs and now they've done the next.
They've done it in each round, which makes them feel inevitable. I don't blame them. They are deep. They're good. And they feel no deficit.
Is too large. They feel it. Tyrese Halliburton, Knicks fans, I'm sure he is now viewed as public enemy number one. And hey, Nick fans, you don't want to do the choke sign. Make your free throws. Stop the three pointers when you know they're going to take them. Play better defense. Keep them out of the end zone, we always say in football, Halliburton was asked after the game.
Tyrese Halliburton, which is what I believe Cedric the Entertainer called him after his church bells celebration against Cleveland in the last such comeback win. Right. Is what he had to say about the choke move in the moment. I mean, I wasn't like plotting on it or anything. I just everybody wanted me to do it like last year at some different point. But it's just got to it's got to feel right.
And it felt right at the time. If I would have known it was a two, I would not have done it. So I think I might have wasted it. If I do it again, then I might be people might say I'm like or farming. So I'm not I don't plan on using it again.
Can somebody help translate that last line for me? No, I do are farming like no idea, like you're seeking attention, you're looking for recognition. By the way, if he does it again and it makes a comeback and does a joke again, who cares or a farm are you on? Cooper, my 14 year old, who is a Celtic fan. Again, Sue's got the Celtics and the Patriots. I got the Yankees when he goes to college and he tells his new dorm mate, his favorite teams are going to say, what weirdo are you?
At any rate, he turns to me. My sweet coop says, Dad, looks like you're getting a taste of your own medicine tonight, aren't you? I love that. I love Cooper. That's what he said to me. And I said, yes, Cooper. No, go to bed.
I am. Go to bed! To your room! In front of Chalamet!
Is that a new phrase? In front of Chalamet. Oh my God! In front of Chalamet. Rich and Chris, are we forgetting maybe the most important thing? If Tyrese Halliburton wore a 13 and not a 14, that would have been the walk-off.
Well, guess what? Or if he was, you know, actually behind the line, that might have just been all net. That's true. Wouldn't have hit the back of the rim.
Interesting, that extra foot, who cares? Listen, this was what Brunson had to say next to a despondent Karl-Anthony Towns afterwards. Roll it. I mean, in playoffs when you win, it's the best thing ever. When you lose, it's the worst thing ever.
And so the best way to deal with all that is to stay level-headed and making sure we have each other's backs. Obviously not the way we want to finish the game. Obviously it's not a good feeling, but a lot of basketball is left to be played.
So we can't sulk. We just got to get better. I got to be honest with you guys, the feeling... Kat balled out too.
He did. He was great. Kat was great.
He's great. Everybody balled out. This was a great game. It was epic. It's the sort of thing that everybody's going to be talking about.
And I understand the NBA playoffs, one game happens, the next game's on Friday. You can turn the page right there. I just have a fear and a feeling. And they're one and the same. This has a sensation of the Gibson home run, the Freddie Freeman home run.
Interesting. Game one moments of seven game series where you have the sense of game over. I don't know how you come back from this, and it would be a testament to the grittiness that has been ascribed to this Knicks team all season long. To find the reserve, to go back into that nightmare location, the Mecca. I get it.
And even the series go to Indianapolis, quiet the crowd there, use the home court advantage, and make this just an asterisk and a footnote rather than another tombstone in the decades long search to find the Willis Reed, Bradley, Clyde Frazier, Red Holtzman. Good tidings once again. That is a massive mountain to climb. Is what I thought of when I cried myself to sleep last night only to wake up in the middle of the night and have it wash over me. That's the type of loss.
Have trouble going back to sleep. Talking to yourself to say it's just a game. You're a grown ass, man. Why are you feeling this way?
Get over yourself. That's the type of loss it was. And congrats to the Pacers for doing it again. We'll take a break. Jim Nantz, when we come back, normally he joins us the day after the schedule gets released, but last week he had something called the PGA Championship to do. We'll talk with Jim Nantz about this, the NFL, and everything else when we come back. In the NFL, there's zero margin for error.
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Offer valid 5.15 through 5.28. In front of Ben Stiller, right? We could go on and on. Shafter was there with his dad apparently.
I saw him tweet that one out. Good seed, huh? Bro. Doesn't feel so good, does it? Listen, the 20 point wins the Knicks had in games one and two in terms of comebacks against the Celtics wasn't... I mean, it didn't have the epic feel to it like hitting the back iron and pop like that moment. Also, the way I thought they were different, I didn't really think that the Knicks choked last night because they were still making shots. It wasn't the Celtics. They were doing stuff like missing cat missed a free throw, I don't know if he missed a free throw. Cat also scored where there was 40 seconds left. He drove to the basket. There were 15 seconds left on the shot clock.
You take that much time off. But the Celtics were just missing wide open shots. That is a choke where you're wide open and you're just missing and missing and missing and missing. The Knicks were still making. The Pacers were just getting three for two.
So they weren't really gaining much ground until the very last minute. Well, there was also a goal tend that I thought should have been called. It looked like Miles Turner got the ball off the backboard when Brunson went to the basket, also got fouled. No call, but nobody was getting calls last night, both sides. I don't mean again to bring this up for you, but Cooper said the Halliburton shot.
Again, my 14 year old, I don't know how he remembers this. He said it was similar to the Kawhi Leonard shot against the Sixers. That one hit the rim like four times. But similar in the, you don't see that to buzzer beat.
You don't get that type of bounce. Buzzer's sounding off like it's either a loss or it's not. In the case of, you know, Toronto and the Sixers, it was a loss and a win.
This one was a loss in overtime from CBS Sports. Our good friend Jim Nantz is here. Good to see you, Jim. How are you? Always great to see you. Hello, friend. I'm excited to be able to talk a little NFL.
Scotty Chef were romp in Charlotte. Good for the game, but I got football on the brain right now. Let's do it.
Let's do it. We got the notable CBS games just to start this off. And as usual, Jim, a large smattering of Kansas City Chiefs games. Why not start things off, though? You are going to be it's sort of like an old school, I guess.
What would you say? Some are all Brookshire CBS Sports game, right? An old an old school NFC battle. You're going to be in Green Bay, right? Lions Green Bay to start things off.
Yes, you can see there September 7th, we have a double header early. Pittsburgh and the Jets, which should be Aaron Rodgers going back to take on the Jets. That comes to fruition, which we anticipate it will. And then, yes, the Lions and the Packers. I like your throwback call there with Brookie and Summerall before it was Madden and Summerall.
But I'm thrilled to have it. That's turned into a really nice rivalry now that the Lions are so established and so relevant. They've had some wonderful matchups.
They had great games last year, and it'll be a wonderful scene at Lambeau Field at the 425 window. Week one, we got the double header right out of the box. And, you know, again, as I mentioned, there's a lot of red Casey arrows up on the screen. And I guess that's part and parcel of what you get when you're the CBS Sports NFL lead play by play announcer, Jim. Right. Well, first off for the network, we have nine Kansas City appearances, nine of their 17, which we should. I mean, we should have the bulk of it since we are the AFC network.
But everybody's jockeying to get a piece of the action. So I think the second most for any one entity is three. We've got nine of them, including early on week four. We have Baltimore and Kansas City, which will be really good. We have there you can see it right there, September 28th.
And then we're going to have as the primary games on the 19th of October Raiders in Kansas City always ends up being just so intense. The one though, of course, I'm really trained on. There are two. There are two.
I'll get to Thanksgiving in a moment. But November 2nd, Kansas City at Buffalo. That is and I'm not trying to sound like I'm selling a bunch of hyperbole here, but is that not the best rivalry right now in the game? You got to be right. You can make that argument, Jim, because obviously you've got somebody who, if he doesn't play another snap, could be put on the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacking and Mahomes and many people's opinions.
And then you've got Josh Allen, who is the reigning MVP, who is yet to appear in a Super Bowl because mostly Mahomes has been standing in his path. And they're always epic, right? There's no real blowouts here. They're always something epic. It always comes down to the end. There's always a play to talk about the next day on shows like this one. Well, last year it was twenty three twenty one Buffalo fourth and two at the Kansas City twenty seven yard line.
And it's an interesting what do you do here situation you don't see all the time. You kick a field goal. You make it. You're up five.
But you're going to give Patrick all this time knowing what he needs to do. And you just know that the Chiefs would be marching down the field in all likelihood anyway and winning the game. And Sean McDermott made one of the coolest coaching calls of the year. He went for it and it ended up being a twenty seven yard dash to the end zone, bouncing off a four or five Kansas City defenders, like just shredding their tackle attempts. And it ended up I called it on the spot. The play of the year in the NFL.
I think that play had a lot to do with the momentum that led to him eventually being named the most valuable player. Thirty to twenty one final Buffalo. But to your point, they keep meeting in the regular season because they have the first place schedules as divisional winners.
And gratefully, Romo and Wolfson and I, we've had that this matchup, I believe, seven of the last eight times. And Buffalo wins these regular season matchups, but Kansas City wins in the playoffs. And that's precisely what happened last year with the AFC title game being at Arrowhead and the Chiefs winning that game and a nail biter. So, look, it will be one of the games of the year.
And then let me just segue from there. On Thanksgiving Day, Kansas City at Dallas, you could argue the two biggest brands right now in the NFL. The Cowboys have obviously been the brand, the national team moniker for 40 years at least. And now Kansas City is trying to lay claim to that. They're trying to get a piece of Christmas Day and on a full time basis. But they're willing to play anywhere because they're such a brand team.
They're so good. But Casey and Dallas to put those two gigantic brands together on the most watched day of the regular season, the NFL. It's going to set records.
That's not what I'm out for it to do. But I just hope it's a great football game. But it will be a wonderful matchup to call on Thanksgiving. Casey at Dallas is the game we wanted. We wanted Casey and Buffalo also. And I think those are the headliners on our schedule.
I think, listen, Jim, and you're not about clearly you're not a click baiter. I think we've established that over your career. But I think and I've spoken to some people at the NFL as well in the last week since the schedules come out, that if everyone's healthy and the game does feature the winning teams that we expect, I think the Chiefs and Cowboys could be the most watched game you've ever called in a regular season ever.
I think that has that potential right there. I think it's a good chance of that. I would love to go back and see what the numbers were like when we had Brady and Manning all those many years. And, you know, they played 17 times against each other.
I got the call of 11 of those 17. There was one year or two in Indianapolis when when the Colts run defeated. And of course, the Patriots are coming off a Super Bowl win.
I know that was a monster rating. By the way, I've got Jim Mersey in my head and in my heart today. I knew him and I was just devastated to hear the news. You know, he he had a really generous heart.
We just put it that way. Yeah, I was going to bring him up to you, Jim, because, you know, the one Super Bowl that the Indianapolis Colts won in the in the rain and in Miami that night that everybody talks about for the halftime show. And Tony Dungy wins it, which was historic in its own right. The man who handed the trophy to Jim Mersey, that's you right there in the rain on that night. I was wondering your recollections of this moment, Jim. Yeah, I know that I got to share that moment with Jim and. I was reminded of that a few times, you know, when I would see him years, years down the road. But my my memory of him was something that happened away from the football field. My father had passed away.
It would be like eight, eight months before that Super Bowl. And I'd written a book about my father. You remember you were very generous to talk about it a lot, always by my side. And when my father passed away, it's amazing what that moment means to you when you lose a parent and people you hear from and you're gutted. It just means a lot. It means a lot to me to think back to the people who reached out. And it was an amazing list of people who reached out. But I just want to say that Jim Mersey not only reached out to me, he sent the most beautiful flowers and a lovely note.
