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Now, on with the show. Hey, you know what show I love? The Rich Eisen Show. I had some secret meetings with Coach McVay. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.
Why all the secrets? It's messy, so you keep it quiet. To the point where one coach plays Mr. Grumpy. Today's guests.
Rams general manager, Les Snaid. Saints head coach Kellen Moore. Actor Chase Crawford. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Oh yes.
I can confirm that by my presence. Good to see you, everybody. Welcome to this new Rich Eisen Show, everyone, on Disney Plus, the ESPN app, ESPN Radio Series XM Channel 80. Uh, yesterday we had two NFL head coaches on. Today, we've got one NFL head coach in Kellen Moore of the Saints and one general manager, Les Need, will be joining us.
I don't know what we're going to talk to Les about. I have notes, though. He's joining us in less than 20 minutes' time here in Los Angeles, California, part of our ESPN radio world. It is ESPN 710 here in L.A. We say hello to everybody out there coast to coast, however you're listening and, of course, watching.
NBA playoffs going down. TJ's got a lot to chirp about today. Thanks to that big fourth quarter and Joel Embiid showing up like the Joel Mbi that you always hoped would show up every single day. Shocking the Celtics to force a game six in Philadelphia. The Knicks blowing the doors off of the Hawks to take a three games to two lead there, sending everything back to Atlanta for a game six, and the Spurs wrapping things up.
In their series as well. They've moved on along with the Oklahoma City Thunder. 844-204 Rich is the number to Donald here on the program. Good to see you over there, Christopher Brockman. What's going on?
Nothing. Don't like sports today. Understood. All good. DJ Mikey D is at D's nuts.
Good to see you. Good to see you, TJ Jefferson. That candle's as lit as the fourth quarter for you, Les. Yeah, surprisingly, I love basketball and baseball though. You're not right.
You had a metal. You're back. You know what I'm saying? A whole new world. Stop the count.
Yeah, let's just move on to the post. Let's start this uh broadcast with the NBA's approach to uh stop tanking. Sure. Let's do it. They came up with a new system that Shams got a hold of.
And reported. It's not official yet. These are sources saying this is the plan that they're working on. But it he got every last detail down to the last percentile, okay? If he's got it.
And I consider myself a A smart guy? Do you know I have not one, but I have two degrees. How many? Two. I said two degrees.
I said two degrees. Two. All I got to do is, you know, take a class on television, you know, a PhD in television, and I'm Doctor T V. Wow. Oh, one word.
You'd be like Penta. I've got a bachelor's of Bachelor of Arts of I think you should do it, Richard. Master's of Science and Journalism.
So I guess that's my resume, along with 30 plus years of doing this for a living. I read these details. From Shams and a bunch of other places. I read a whole bunch of articles. And my opinion, after reading all of that, is.
What? Yeah. What? As a matter of fact, Dave Chappelle meme. It's so convoluted and so deep in detail.
We have unearthed the Rich Eisen Show exclusive of the. Room In which everybody from the NBA got together to come up with this new anti-tanking plan. Show the photograph. There it is. Oh, gosh.
There it is. Looks an awful lot like Charlie Day. Show that. But there it is. Lots of red string.
Yep. A lot of coffee. Trying to figure it all out. As always, we try to figure it all out for you here on the program.
So here it is. It's called the new 321 structure. Contact. The reason why it's called 3-2-1 is some teams get three ping-pong balls in the lottery.
Some get two ping-pong balls in lottery. And some just get one. And you're like, that should be simple. It's no longer, you know, all these ping-pong balls, and now you get five different numbers, and that equates to a certain combination that's attached to a certain team. And it's like Powerball, and it's difficult to understand.
It sounds like it's just that simple, really?
Well, it's now a 16-team lottery, not 14-team lottery. You've now expanded it to 16 teams. This just didn't, that's more than half the association. There's 30 teams.
Okay. And it sounds simple. But We'll do our best to explain it because it's not simple at all. Put the graphic on the screen that I believe, was this a Smitch title or a Rich Isaac show recording producer? Tanks for Nothing.
That's amazing. Which is a Caddyshack reference. Tanks for Nothing. Tanks for Nothing, Daddy. Noonan.
So the teams with the three worst records. Three teams. You get two ping-pong balls each. Two, two. I said two ping pong balls.
Give me two. Utah. Which is A 5.4% chance of winning. The number one overall pick. The rest of the non-play-in teams, because you know there's now the play-in tournament.
Of course.
So anybody who doesn't make the play-in tournament. 11 down to, you know, 15. You get Three ping pong balls. Three. Three.
That's the magic number. You now have a chance of. At 8.1% chance of getting the top pick. All right. This is like Steinerman.
Now, if you make the play-in as the ninth or the tenth seeds, which this year. were uh Miami and Charlotte.
Okay. If you were that, well, part of me, Golden State, Miami, Charlotte, Golden State, and the Clippers, okay? You make the Nine and ten in both conferences. You get Two ping pong balls each, 5.4%. Which is wait a minute, the same as the three worst records.
in the league. Put a pin in that. And if you lose the seven eight game. You make the 7-8 game and you lose.
Okay, Sons and Magic this year were those who did that. Which means you're the eight seed at some point. They were. Right. You get One ping pong ball.
Which is a 2.7% chance. of getting the number one overall pick, meaning You could make the playoffs. Playoff and have a shot. at being the eighth seed and having a shot, At getting the first overall pick.
Now then, Mm-hmm. This means that the NBA Has become the first of the four major North American sports leagues to officially penalize its worst teams. in the standings. from getting the best draft choice. First one ever.
Because the NBA's Governors And executives. And maybe coaches, and maybe front office staff and maybe Doctors and physicians and analytics. Can't be trusted. to not Tank. Can't be trusted.
So now the teams with the three worst records Don't have the best chance to get the first overall pick in the NBA anymore. And to essentially communicate What they're intending to do. With this. Two of the fans who were kinda confused by that. They are calling.
The teams with the three worst records. That portion of the lottery, the relegation zone, they are relegating you. They're relegated. You are now relegated to a worse status. Just like if you don't win in the Premier League, you're relegated to a different status.
League, they're not going to relegate you to the G League. They're just relegating you to worse odds than teams that. Don't make the playoffs. Playing or otherwise, and the eighth seed. Or the teams that have nine that make the play-in game is 9-10, you have the same odds as those teams that made the play-in tournament.
You are relegated. And the Rich Eisen show, we have an actual photograph of what it looks like in the relegation zone. Put it up. There it is. That's the relegation zone.
Might look like General Zodd and his comrades from Superman 2, but really, it's just imagine three NBA teams trapped, hurdled into the NBA universe in deep space. It's what it is. That's the relegation zone. You're trapped. And also, just in case you don't understand that they mean business.
Because you can't be trusted to not tank. They also have now instituted A rule: no team can get the first overall pick in consecutive years, and no team can choose in the top five three straight years.
So you're messing around just because you can be. That'd kind of do one year. To be trusted in the system, they won't trust you. for the next two. I kind of like that, no?
I mean, it's tough. Like, you take a look at how the spurs have been built, and you take a look at how the rockets have been built, and the pistons have been built. Where they got some top picks together in the top five. And they're now in the playoffs. One of them is a one seed, might be out soon, to an eight seed Magic team.
Who could get the number one pick now? Who could get the number one pick now? Um And just in case you're wondering, what's the difference between the way it's done now? percentage-wise and the way it's going to be done. Right now The wizards, nets, and pacers would be your relegation zone.
That would be your general Zod and the rest of them.
Okay? Kneel before the wizards. If I'm not mistaken, General Zod once told the president to kneel in Washington, D.C. after he got out of the relegation zone. All right.
Yes. Yes. It was Trying to make it somewhat understandable, okay? You don't want to be hurtled into deep NBA space, definitely not. No.
Right now, the Wizards, Nets, and Pacers have a chance of winning the top pick. 14%. That would go down by 8.6%, down to 5.4%. Oh, right. Wow.
Right now, the Jazz and the Kings have an 11.5% chance being the 4-5 team. That would go down to 8.1%. Which is what the rest of the non-playing teams are in right now. That would go down 3.4%. Memphis has an 8% chance as team number six.
That would go down by 0.1%.
So there's your sweet spot. If you finish sixth, you're no worse in the new system than you are currently.
So, they want you to not be relegated. Try for six. If you stink. Which is better than trying for one through three. In their estimation, we can go down the list here, but You know Seventh is the spot where your chances are now improved in the new system.
Right. Atlanta currently sits seventh because they have the Pelicans pick. Their chances go from 6.8 currently up to 8.1. The Mavs at 6.7 go up to 1.4. The Bulls currently at 4.5 go up to 8.1%.
That's 3.6% chance. The best improvement right now would be the 10th seeded Bucs at 10 at the very bottom of the rest of the non-playing teams, as far from the relegation zone as you can get. With an 8.1% chance of getting the first overall pick. That's currently 5.1% better than they have in the current system.
So to tank To be The worst team in the league, you're now incentivized to tank to be like just bad enough to not make the playoffs.
Well, it's no difference between finishing right now sixth and tenth. But if you're in the new system, or pardon me, fourth and tenth. But I want the difference between finishing fourth and tenth, but if you finish. Top bottom three. That's a massive difference.
So now there will be like, you got to win to get out of that relegation zone. No one's going to be tanking. In January anymore.
Well, you're going to be tanking in more creative ways, I feel. You talk about unintended consequences for new NFL rules all the time. The unintended consequences here are let's game it out this year.
So Golden State would have been incentivized to not bring Steph back To make the playoffs, to not make any moves, to not acquire Porzingis or whatever, to just be just good enough to make the play-in to get blasted in the play-in, or maybe if they got out, they would have probably gotten it. Yes, that's what you're incentivized to be just bad enough, but good enough to be in that seven to ten range.
Well, right now, the Suns and the Magic have no odds in getting the first overall pick, none. Because they under the new system, they would have a 2.7% chance of getting it. Right. Which is currently better than 11th. It's between 10th and 11th.
So a team that could conceivably win a playoff series, maybe go to their conference finals. is now eligible to get the number one overall pick? I get we're doing something to try to fix this, but that doesn't seem really fair either.
Well, there will be loopholes that the smart people that are currently. Figuring out how to tank. There will be loopholes on figuring out how to not tank but not completely tanked like you don't want to be completely down at the bottom of the ocean right And the unfortunate thing is, the unfortunate thing is, is that it has gotten to the point. where the NBA needed to get in a room and look like this. Right there.
Okay. Like Charlie Day. Can we put Adam Silver's face up? We could potentially do that. I don't know if we, you know.
But at least he's doing something. Yeah, they're not. And the teams are just so untrustworthy, you got to look like this. to make sure that teams don't want to wind up Like that. Yeah.
In the relegation zone. I don't understand. It's whack, man. You don't want to be in the relegation zone, banging against the mirror. Hurdled into NBA deep space.
Three teams. Three villains. You don't want to be that. Does it make a little bit more sense now? Did we map it out?
I got to be honest. I'd like to inform myself of at least, let's just say I'm of at least average intelligence, right? No, you're a tremendous lie. I don't get this. I would imagine at least 65 to 70% of people watching and listening to this definitely don't get looked up.
It's not fun. No. It's not fun. It's not easy to follow, but the NBA is out of options. They're out of options.
Don't say, try and win. It's not a difficult acceptance point. If you're Adam Silver and you've got fans who know tanking when they see it, wouldn't it be better to have fans confused? over how why teams are not tanking as bad anymore. Like that's a better option to leave fans completely confused.
On how it works or why. All they want to know is: if I'm bringing my kids to the game, are there five guys fresh from the G-League out there or not? Rich, right there's the problem.
Okay. Tanking might not be the problem. This load management that you've been on for years now, that's the bigger problem, especially with what you just said.
Well, they're intertwined. Load management is a fig leaf for tanking. Yeah, but if they just could control that, maybe you know, the rest of this wouldn't be such a just getting started, man. Yeah. No, they want to add two more teams.
Yeah. Well, listen, I think we're the only show anywhere that will explain the new 321 anti-tanking business from the NBA. By Roping in Caddyshack, always sunny in Philadelphia in Superman one and two. I think that's. I think that's obvious.
You're welcome, is basically all I'm saying. Goes without saying. All right, let's take a break. Less need, everybody. The general manager of your Los Angeles Rams is next.
This is the Rich Eisen Show. Mm. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. Rich Eisen here. I've traveled all over for some of the biggest NFL moments you can imagine: conference championships, Super Bowls, draft weekends, and everywhere I go, the city just feels different.
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Connect with us at Thriveant.com. Yeah. Need parts fast? O'Reilly Auto Parts as fast. Need them now?
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Oh, oh, oh. Oh Riley. Auto parts. On ESPN Radio, certainly also here in Los Angeles on ESPN 710. And I've got the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams on the Rich Eisen Show Simulcast.
Les Need here on the program. All right, Les, let's just jump into this thing right here. Why did you draft CJ Daniels in the sixth round? I'm just kidding. Great question.
I mean, let me tell you what's hey, CJ. He's someone that can run a route. He knows how to run a route. He can find a hole in the zone. He's tall.
He goes up and he makes contested catches. If you remember, he might have had the best catch in football. If you go back all the way to that opening weekend of college football, Monday night, Hurricanes versus Notre Dame. It was right there before half. Carson Beck lays one up and he goes and OBJs that thing for a tug right before half.
Now, in all seriousness, though, do you watch that? Because the whole country was watching it too. Do you make a note as the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams and go, okay, that's one piece of tape I don't need to watch again? I just saw that. I don't know if you make a note, you definitely make a mental note, and then when all of a sudden it becomes your time to put CJ under the microscope, and then you go, oh, CJ's, this is his jersey number.
Oh, this is the young man who made that great. Because sometimes you might not remember the name, but you definitely remember the play. And then when you start doing your reverse engineering and putting that player under the microscope, I'll go, oh, yeah, I remember where I was at when I saw that play. Less need here on the Rich Eisen Show. All right, I'm going to throw the sports conventional wisdom in your direction about your first.
First round draft choice that you made, Ty Simpson, and you answer the questions. The question of drafting Ty Simpson at all: why would you do it with the 13th overall pick, Leslie? Let's go there. I can't just answer it in one line. Let's break it down in systems.
Probably started the year before when we got a bonus. First round pick, and that pick ended up being the 13th overall. When we sat down in the offseason, and at the end of the day, Matthew Stafford saying, you know what? I want to continue chasing special with you guys. That's that, hey, that's let's call it.
That's that's checkbox, that's task number one. And then at that point, we said, Okay, we need to recharge that defensive backfield room, in particular the corners. But as we were going through free agency and looking at Jalen Watson, there's, wait a minute, his teammate over there, Trent McDuffie's pretty good as well.
So you start figuring out how do you do you sign Jalen?
Okay, we'll check that off the, you know, as a task. And then you start saying, can we reinforce from the draft?
Well, maybe some of the better corners go before us at 13. Maybe, oh, Trent McDuffie, there's a possibility he could be true.
So we end up using our original pick, 29, for Trent McDuffie, really solidified, right? Our, our, let's go, our top needs, our top wants.
So now that gets to. To pick 13, a little bit of a bonus. There's this element.
Now, let's call it like it is. Matthew's on his way to a Hall of Fame career. We want him to play in Los Angeles, right, as long as possible. We all know that's coming to an end at some point. Do we prepare for the future?
Do we not? Do we pick a player? All of those things are in play. Oh, by the way, we do need a backup QB as well.
So, when we did make that move for Ty, what that did allow us to do is also think about the future. Because if you have a QB that's toward the end, you're always going to wanna save future picks. For the possibility of having to use that on a quarterback, what that can allow us to do if opportunities arise is use those picks for either, hey, players we can draft or maybe veteran players like Trent McDuffie.
So that's the algorithm. That's the formula. That's how we got to that pick. It wasn't, you can't just look at pick 13 in a silo.
Well, exactly. Certainly when there's others on the board that one would think could help you win right now with Matthew Stafford, Makai Lemon, Ruben Bain being another. Why stick and pick? Couldn't you have traded down, do you think? And still.
It's interesting. I know going into, we were definitely thinking about trading down. I do think what happened right around pick. Pick 11 or 12, there was, I know some players got picked, and then let's call it the interest in trading back dissipated a bit.
So, but we did have a plan in place that there was a possibility we would trade back and still be able to get tied. But once some of the better trade-back scenarios dissipated, we decided to stay pat. Uh, stick with the plan and move forward.
Well, I mean, let me pay you a compliment in bringing up the criticism of you is that you're so good at drafting guys that can help you right now. And it doesn't matter the round. I mean, Jared Verse being the only other first-round pick other than Goff and Ty Simpson that you've made. Um, other picks, third-rounders, fifth-rounders, significant players for you that you could have done that with the 13th overall pick right now for Matthew Stafford. And that's uh one of the things that's being asked about you.
That's that, you know, that we always we were asking ourselves that, uh, just as everyone's uh, let's call it discussing it uh post-draft. And that, I mean, I think I've mentioned a few times that beginning, probably starting late February. Myself and Sean, and then along the way, you know, people on the staff, coaches, coaches, things like that. We've probably all spent it on, at least on workdays, right? Two to three hours every morning, heck, sitting on the Couch where I'm sitting right now in my office.
And it began with our team, right? Where the direction we'd like to go. Then it went into free agency preparations and plan and then draft preparations and plan.
So that spectrum of picking for the immediate versus the future is always going to be a variable that's to be discussed.
Well, in terms of the kid, what do you like about him so much? Because you're savvy, man. You know the way this works and the conversation in the world that you would know that this would be a post-draft conversation, one that you can obviously. Know, survive and bear, certainly with a team as good as the one that you currently have. But you obviously had to like him for a lot of time.
If we're picking him at 13, I think, hey, there was a lot, and not just myself, there's a lot of people in our building that appreciated what Ty Brawl to the table was a quarterback at the micro. Uh, level, you know, he's someone that is a quarterback. Uh, he's been trained traditionally. He's what we like to call, hey, he can execute a passing attack. By that, I mean, there's there's concepts that the coaching staff's trying to uh design, right, to uh put conflicts on the defense, get people open.
So, hey, growing up, a coach's son, also playing with uh Ron Grubb there this year, who spent a year in Seattle, some some pro-style concepts. It was easy to see right him make some of the throws, even some of the decisions, right? Not just the throw, but the decision that that led to the throw, which we like to call passes. There, he's got the uh, I always say sneaky mobility, the ability to avoid some, hey, let's call it some of those known passing downs when all of a sudden there's there's a free blitzer and there's pressure, right? Avoid that, keep his eyes down the field, make it on the throw.
I say sneaky because he was a, he was a dual threat coming out. Macro level, at the macro level, He appreciated his journey, you know, from it took him a while to start there. He went through a coaching change, went and started with Coach Sabin, ended with Coach DeBora, his staff. Didn't start off so well either. We were talking about the SEC.
I grew up in Alabama. You lose to Florida State. You're the starting quarterback at Alabama. The sky is falling. I can tell you that next Monday through Friday is probably your worst five days of living in the state of Alabama.
And to see him overcome it and the journey they had as they went on their road to competing for an SEC championship and earning a bid in the playoffs and winning a playoff game and all those things. Yeah. Oh, by the way, he did win a playoff game. You know, a lot of folks, the way that the conversation nationally has been about Ty Simpson, he would be one and done in Alabama. But then again, again, it's 15 starts.
That's it. And he waited such a long time to start. And it appears that he's going to wait a long time with you to start, if he does at all. You never know how things work. You know what they say about football players?
You do more practicing than playing.
So you beat me to the punch, you beat me to the punch for the you beat me to the punch for the question, Les. You beat me to the punch. Like, how are you going to coach him up? Like, what's the plan? To coach.
It's a little bit tough. I think he would probably tell you running, being a backup quarterback at Alabama against some of those defenses are as good a training as possible. I do think, right, the. Practicing and then just years upon years of experience does lead to a version of efficacy, right? Where you have proof that you can go do something.
Now, on the other side of the coin, like you're talking about, he's played in games where they're going to actually keep score, right? And there's going to be a winner and a loser at the end of them. He's only done 15 of those as a starter.
So that's what it is. But we do appreciate the fact that when he did get his chance this year, you could tell he was ready, right? It wasn't like, oh, he started as a freshman. And sometimes when you see younger freshman quarterbacks, you can tell there's a chance they're going to be really good. They're just not quite there yet.
So. He wasn't microwave. He was kind of been, you know, it's kind of been an oven experience for him. Two other things for you on this front, Les. I hear he's whip smart.
And that he kind of shares a similarity, brain wave, football wave with Sean McVay. Is that true? That's definitely, I would say that. I think to have success and to be able to thrive in a Sean McVay offensive ecosystem, you better be, as you call it, whip smart. And then, hey, I say this.
Whip smart football wise, right? Yep. Yeah, sure. I hear I'm not saying he can go be a NASA engineer, not sure about that. Maybe he could, but I can say this: when him and Sean talk football, it sounds like you're listening to NASA or SpaceX employees trying to put someone on Mars.
I can tell you that they're doing some physics that you didn't know exist.
Well, that's great. That's what you obviously need. And then that's the last part: the sensitivities involving your MVP quarterback as well. Where do things stand with Matthew Stafford and keeping him in the fold for as long as he wants? And how do you handle that lesson?
You know, you definitely handle it because it's interesting, right? Hey, we're in the age of right. AI is about to take over, but guess what? It hasn't taken over yet. Not sure it ever will.
But anytime you're dealing with humans, you're going to deal with those sensitive delicacies. And really, it boils down to communication, boils down to working through things, explaining the visions and all that. And that's what we're doing. And Matthew's. A very, very, I would say this: Matthew's very, very smart.
He understands, he can comprehend, right? The big picture. And at the end of the day, Matthew's, hey, if you talk about someone with efficacy, right? He has a resume. He's done it, right?
So there's, it's not like, oh, I'm nervous, right? Anything like that. Hey, Matthew's done it. And now it's just how much more do we want to do it? How much more do we want to chase special?
So I think at the end of the day, Ty's going to learn a lot more from Matthew than what Matthew has to go through in our decision. One other thing, too, in your draft, you chose Max Claire out of Ohio State a tight end. We were talking about it just yesterday. you know on the program uh uh with uh Greg Olson. About the proliferation of tight ends.
Can't have enough of those now anymore. And in your offense, Are you a collector of tight ends now? Just you know what I mean? Because it's just sometimes you got three out there. This is a good story.
When we evolved, and it occurred organically last year, and we went to 13 personnel.
So, think about it, we'll put it into numbers. Last year, we had four tight ends on our active roster.
So, if you have four up, Right, and you're in 13 personnel, and you're playing a lot more.
So, this was more than just let's call it a six-snap package. Right, this became significant snaps. But if you ever, let's just say at the end of the day, one of those four tight ends, and it occurred last year, had a soft tissue injury, was going to miss a couple weeks.
Now, all of a sudden, you have three up on game day, and you're relying on all three of those to do all of your 13-personnel package plays.
Well, what if you lose one of those right to some sort of attrition during the game?
Now, 13 personnel is out, so uh, because you only have two tight ends up and you're down to 11 and 12.
So, in numbers, you can get the math there, you can see why it's uh very important. And as we keep evolving, and I say that, Sean, in that package, uh, having uh let's call it a fifth tight end and having five that can actually come in and contribute and give us an edge was very important, even though it's not the sexiest thing to do, uh, you know, let's call it from a fan standpoint. Yeah, but I mean that that that Personnel, that formation is the basis off of which everything else works, right? Yeah, I think a lot of teams probably looked at that. I'm not saying everyone's going to go 13.
Maybe you bring back the tight end, but I do think, and I, I, you'd have to fact-check me on that.
Someone did mention to me that maybe there were more tight ends picked on day two of the draft than there's ever been. That's correct. That's a fact. That's true.
So there was a run on tight ends, and you can, it's one of those things in the league when a multiple tight end. Package works, I think other teams will look at it and go, Well, if that works, maybe we can implement that into our ecosystem as well. Last one for you, Les, before you hit the road here. Your relationship with Sean McVay that got called into question for about 24 hours before he showed up and called himself Mr. Grumpy.
Um, what I tell people all the time that he hit, you know, that's showing on a Tuesday as he's preparing to try to uh, you know, uh, come up with a plan to maybe uh put another team in conflict and try to score more points than him, but at the end of the day, that uh. Hey, our relationship, we're in lockstep. We've been together 10 years. There's, you know, as I mentioned, we've been together now. For at least two hours every morning.
And it stopped probably on Wednesday before the draft, but from late February to right there before the draft. We spend two to three hours every morning together preparing for that night. Uh Hey, we're brothers. We'll be brothers till the end. Bless.
Thanks for the time, man. Appreciate it. We'll connect down the road. Thanks for your time, pal. Really appreciate it.
That's Lesney, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, as he heads off onto his. Rest of his Wednesday. Today's a Wednesday, right? Yes. Wednesday.
Harold, good. Do you get the answers to your questions? I mean, you get it when they explain the process, you understand it. It's just, you know. Bottom line is.
You could see, you know, hey, Ruben Bain's there and Makai Lemon's there. And, you know, and as much as you say, you know, Sean doesn't play rookies, he played Jared Verse. Because Les nailed it, because that's what he does with his draft choices when he doesn't F them. He he gets it done. But at the end of the day They like this kid a lot.
I get it. But if we fast forward to January and they get bounced early, but if Bain is rookie of the year, you're like, oh, man, would have been nice to get away from the ball. And they get bounced early because they don't have a pass rush? Right. Like, you're going to start connecting dots all the way from the 13th overall pick to here.
What if Ty Simpson beats out Stetson Bennett for the backup? Matthew can't answer the bell, and he wins a game. Crazy things have happened. Crazier things have happened. Right, you know what I mean?
But at the end of the day, They Like him. And in the same way. you in all your years water skiing behind Yachts in Gillette Stadium. Drive to quarterbacks every single year.
Well, but all I'm saying is the years and years and years. Where you were duck boat parading And it was all great in the Foxborough hood. You went through a lot of in Bill We Trust. You're sitting there going, all right. Really?
And then roster moves get made, and things go a little bit crazy in the draft. A lot of questionable draft picks. Exactly. And that didn't work out as much towards the end. But throughout, there was a lot of like, really?
Are we doing that? Logan Mankins, really? Remember that one? Yeah. How'd he turn out?
He was a beast.
Okay, so. The Rams fans in this one pick. have reached the in less and shawn we trust phase. They have to. There's a difference there, you realize.
What's the difference? Is that one had multiple trophies in the case? Whole lots of jewelry as opposed to but in this day and age, there's. You know, with the exception of the Chiefs, not many, and I guess the Eagles over a span of about five years, no multiple winning. franchises The Rams, though, won one and have been pretty damn good for years and could have won it again this year.
They all And And to lessen the rest of the Rams' points, it's not like they came away with nothing in the first round. Trent McDuffie. Is a fantastic football player. Who might solidify that back end and make the defense even make that front seven even more ferocious because they can get to the quarterback? Who's holding on to the ball longer?
Was not torching them on the back end. Yeah, but you would conceivably punt it on a spot 16 picks higher than the McDuffie pick. Understood. I get it. It's going to be a conversation.
For years. They can handle it. Long-term deals and a lot of success. But the Rams fans have reached the in less and Sean We Trust phase. With what this one pick.
844-204-Rich, number to dial. I have a power ranking still to come. Oh. Of the 10 players in the draft. Who will?
live up to the billing the most. That's coming up. Call and Moore. Head coach of the Saints. Chase Crawford of the Boys.
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I know that's really deep X's and O's conversation. But they do have a lot of tight ends.
Well, but his point is that one goes down. You can't run a certain personnel set in the way that you want it. And then what happens in your game if that's the way your game plan to keep having them? And he's right. The night two had, I believe, it was seven tight ends taken.
Yeah. on night two, which is a record. And we had a record tying 17 wide receivers taken in the first three rounds.
So you see the way this is all going here on the Mm-hmm. in the National Football League.
So, you want to talk about your Philadelphia 76ers? You want to do that, T.J. Jefferson? How do you feel? How do you feel?
You know, when the series started, I said all I wanted was one game. Oh, seriously, as I thought.
So now you've doubled your pleasure. I thought that's as good as it could possibly get. How about two games in Boston?
Now it's starting to give me hope. And I don't want hope, I really don't. Why? Hope is a dangerous thing. I mean, because then it's like I'm setting myself up to get my heart broken.
They get my feelings hurt. One home game away from getting for game seven. And I think if you watched the game yesterday, and I've said this for years, guys, that like. If you truly love basketball, We were robbed of a healthy Joel MB. The dude's skill set is unmatched for a man of his size and It almost stinks, Chris, to sit back and watch him last night when he still can't jump.
You know, the athleticism is. Pretty much been taken away with his bad knees. And yet, the dude is still able to put up a game like he did. Last night. Can he do it back-to-back games?
Right, right. That's the issue. And I don't know if he has that in him. Yeah, it feels like Embiid is at the point now. And you're right.
Such a beast. His MVP season probably should have two MVPs. Him and Jokic probably should have switched the years that they won. But he's kind of the, I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was. And that's kind of what we saw last night.
That's a good one there. To kind of carry Philly. And now it's kind of. Anybody serious? What do you think?
In a weird way. Are you nervous? Because you're the one saying that the Rockets are going to run on the Lakers. A little nervous. The Celtics, you know, this team, not constructed for a deep playoff run.
This was supposed to be a gap year. You know, Mannix was here at the beginning of the season. They don't want to make the playoffs. They want to be in the lottery because the draft is so deep.
Well, here they are, favorite still to win the East. And they're the ultimate, you know, if threes go in. They're going to route you and look amazing. And last night, you know, missed nine free throws. You know, they missed 27 threes.
And. You kind of get what you get. You lose by double digits as a double-digit favorite. And it's, you know, it's a frustrating thing about being a Celtics fan in this kind of era of we're going to shoot 53s, and if we make them, great, we're awesome. And if not, you kind of get what happens.
You know, last night, Jalen Brown is kind of struggling a little bit. Derek White has been terrible in this series. And so, you know, we'll see what happens. Ironically, this team kind of plays better on the road, so maybe it kind of suits us to go into Philly and close this out, but. Yeah.
Yes, I'm worried. I got you. Thank you. I didn't know I should be sitting here saying that the Knicks should be the ones getting the magic. I didn't know that.
Uh Nicks look great. Yeah. Yeah Nicks look great. I think it's going to come down to uh in look I By the way, the match is pretty tough. If they move on, I'm not going to sit here and this is the team we thought was going to, you know, at the beginning of the season, you know, this is a top four team in the East, kind of a lock.
They could go on a run with Paolo taking a leap, and they kind of really struggled all year, you know, had to play in the play-in, and now they look like world beaters. What if the Knicks wind up being the only team in the first round in the Eastern Conference to have home court advantage to advance? Woof. What would those odds have been on your computer over there? Yeah, yeah, pretty good.
But right now. That's interesting. Um, pretty looked pretty damn good last night. Pretty damn good last night. Yeah, was it because of him?
And the Knicks could have easily taken both in Atlanta. Yep. Oh, they lost each game by one point.
Well, they won.
Well, they won the games that they've lost have been by one point. That's correct. Okay. No Durant tonight. That's kind of.
I know.
So the Lakers are. I mean, what is going on with that? And word is that what, that Luca might not be back for round two either? Right. But Reeves tonight.
But Reeves, I think, yeah, Reeves tonight. Lakers in the downtown Hoops Dojo could take this thing down and move on. Also, shout out to the New York celebrities. They've overtaken LA as like the. Celebrity court side.
See, they were like celebrating like they were the 13th man on the roster. But that lineup, it was Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Chalam, Kylie, and Ben Stiller. Away's not rolling that out tonight, are they?
Well, I mean, no one can rhyme like that with you know, Tina Fey and Chalamet.
Okay. You know what I mean? Look good. Did Jack show up tonight? He just had his birthday last week.
89. Woof. Jax 89. That would be impressive. Yeah, that would be great.
That would be great. Jack on the uh on the Celebrity Row this evening. We'll see. He might be saving his one appearance for the second round. Yeah, perhaps.
Yeah. Against what? Against the Thunder. Jack might want to get it out tonight for a win. Yeah, go tonight.
Go for it. Hour number two: my power rankings of the Surefire draftees and Kellen Moore. The Ridge Eisen Show Podcast. Mm-hmm.
