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Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen show. It's a blood sport when the Yankees and the Red Sox play one another. Up, Red Hotter. Tony Victor.
The Rich Eisen show. Congrats, you're moving on. It's what it looks like. Earlier on the show, Pro Football Hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald. Coming up, NBC Sports Boston Patriots insider Tom Curran.
Three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth, and now it's Rich Eisen. All right, everybody. Hour number two, the Rich Eisen Show is on the air. Baseball playoffs game three, the lone game three of the wild card series, is coming up later on tonight. Because the Yankees closed out the Red Sox and the Padres closed out the Cubs in just two games, that left the Braves and the Phillies to fill the lone prime time spot tonight at eight Eastern Time.
The right to move on and take on the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres have moved on to take on the Brewers. The White Sox have moved on. To take on the Guardians and the Yankees have moved on to take on the Tampa Bay Rays because what's better than having teams that faced off all year long than to put them in a playoff series against each other? Second straight series for the Yankees against an AL East team.
All right, so dumb, so dumb. But let's move on to the actual baseball playoffs itself. We like to put our finger on the neck. I mean, pulse of things around here. I don't know what was going on with Sunny Gray's neck.
I was screaming at the screen all night long. What was on his back? I literally thought, because I am a very positive, sunny dispositioned guy, thinking, boy, he had some sort of a rash or something on his back of his neck. I have no idea, but it was gone in the post game, post shower interview that Sonny Gray had talking about being removed in the fifth inning last night, which. Personally, again, as you know, I'm a diehard Yankee fan.
Here, I talk about it on this program, and have since jump. I was Chris personally thrilled to watch Sonny Gray leave that game last night after 70 pitches. I bet you were with two outs in the fifth. I bet I could not believe Chad Tracy was coming to get him, because Sonny Gray was dealing, dealing. And confounding the Yankees until Luis Garcia yanked one out to give him a one nothing lead, and with runners on, and and a decision to be made, out comes Chad Tracy.
And took him out after seventy pitches last night, and I thought to myself, I don't know what this guy's doing. Certainly, bringing in the reliever who gave up a home run to Ben Rice the night before, and sure enough. Miller gives up a base hit, and if the Yankees' third base coach didn't wave Ben Rice home to cause the third out at home plate, that might have been a big inning for the Yankees. And then Wilson Contreras, the next inning, hits a home run, and I think he just crossed home plate right now. Honestly, he he took he took such a long time.
It was a stroll. Like he literally walked the last third of. The third base path to home plate. He literally stopped running and walked it. You know, three hundred and sixty feet is tiring.
He made he made Big Poppy look like Ricky Henderson. You know, with that home run trot. That's the longest long walk. And and and and Max Freed was staring a hole through him. But that two one game turned into a much bigger deficit.
Because now in comes Garrett Crochet, who hadn't pitched since April, and he he he threw such a nasty off-speed. I guess that is off-speed pitch. I don't even. I mean, he's so good. He threw such a nasty pitch to.
Spencer Jones that it bounced and Spencer Jones reached to first because Wilson Contreras fielded the ball behind first base. What was he doing?
Well, again, that's baseball playoffs, man. Like if somebody's got a little bit of a flaw, the ball will find him. And then Spencer Jones steals seconds, goes to third because Rutschman threw it into center field, and then the route was on. Which I'll be honest, I don't think would have happened if you had let Sonny Gray battle it out in the fifth inning. He's got 18 wins for you, and whatever the hell he was doing the deal because he had a no-hit bid against the Yankees in the regular season.
That kind of flipped the entire season that series, right? Oh yeah, we that was the sweep, right? And exactly got the whole run right. They got the 32 and five run sparked, and this guy's on the mound. You know, Ace been the best pitcher all year.
The biggest All Star snub of the season. You know, Schwitter clear AL Cy Young, but Sonny Gray will get votes. He'll probably finish second. It was just inexcusable. I don't get it.
Inexcusable. I don't get it. And then Tracy intentionally walked Ben Rice with Garrett Whitlock to bring Cody Bellinger to the plate. Who, by the way, what a night for him! His dad Clay throws out the first pitch, ceremonial first pitch to him, and then he has a four RBI night, including the big blast that sealed the season on the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium for the second straight year.
And the Yankees not only beat the Red Sox two in a row, but beat them up a sixteen run advantage. Nine nothing, nine two, yeah, two nines, not surprising. And what the Yankees did just to put a a point on it for the Yankees, they came out with their best back to back games all year. Schlitter and Freed check those boxes. The relief, with the exception of Will Warren last night, and he's trying to learn that role for them moving forward because he's not going to get any starts with everybody else healthy.
Um. With the exception, the bullpen did its job, and then the two words that the Yankees had so much trouble with all year long—productive outs—they were the kings of striking out when a ground ball or a fly ball would do. And last night. They came up with a bunt, a Trent Grisham bunt that loaded the bases, that led to a big inning, and then productive outs: a fly out from Wells, a ground out from McMan, made it a five-one game, and then the big blast after Tracy decided to intentionally walk Ben Rice for Cody Bellinger. Productive outs.
If the Yankees do not strike out as much as they do or have, and get the bottom half of the lineup productive as they did without Judge and Stanton in this series, and get the pitching that they got from Schlitter and Freed again with Cole and Radone getting starts against the Rays, look out! Look out! It's it's for real. Is the way I feel about the Yankees right now in a way that I did not in August or July or June and parts of September. To be honest, the Rays are going to be tough.
Rays are going to be tough. Do we have the American League Divisional Series schedule between these two teams? Let me just say it to you. You said it's weird. The first game is Saturday.
Game two is Monday. Game three is Wednesday. Is it because they don't want to go up against the NFL? I don't. They're going up against the NFL on Monday Night Football.
Well, a full slate of games. I mean, a one-off game is a little bit different. I I don't know what they're thinking. It's Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday. Yes, a five game series taking eight days is not baseball.
It's just not. No, this is not the NBA. Are they trying to build in maybe weather possibility? I have well, Tampa's indoors. Yeah, that's true.
I don't know. I don't know. That's that's very odd. It's it's so games one and two will be like a game seven. Look alive.
Doesn't matter if you're going to use your relievers because you got the next day off. That's not baseball. It's not baseball. Certainly, if you're going to jam the wild card in so fast that teams are you know 18 innings away from having their season over, what are we doing? And that's frustrating.
That's the Yankees. That's for the Red Sox, dude. Great season, regular season. Postseason, utter complete disaster, and and the the manager that they've taken the interim tag from, he was in a blender. Honestly, Aaron Boone in Boston is is a four letter word from what he did with his bat, and it's a four letter word frequently when the Yankees have taken on the Red Sox or anybody else in the playoffs.
With all due respect for Yankee fans, because we're wondering what moves he's made. I mean. Again, leaving Tim Hill in the bullpen in Game One of that World Series to bring out Nestor Cortez, who hadn't pitched in weeks, and certainly not in this role, is something that I will take to my grave. It just—it's just the—it's—it's—it's a fact. It's a fact.
But Chad Tracy has Aaron Boone looking like Casey Stengel. To be very honest, I—I'm not mincing. Boone had a great series. I mean, because again. Bunting productive outs.
Where has this been all year long? Doesn't matter. They have it now, or at least they did over the last two games against their blood sport rival. They came in, and the manager taking out Sonny Gray. I still don't get it, and neither.
Did a lot of the Red Sox afterwards? Did you see Wilson Contreras was asked about it and he zipped his mouth shut? Yeah, he was like, "No, not gonna." And then went off on some sort of anti-analytics campaign. And this is what Sonny Gray had to say afterwards about being taken out. I think I'm the best pitcher in the American League.
Going through the order the third time, I think that's a fact. Um. Yeah, I mean, I would have liked to live or die with with with me in that moment, but that's the competitor I am. And yeah, I think you can probably ask the guys, and they they felt the same way.
So I felt strong, I felt confident, I felt convicted. You know, I'm just gonna do what you need to do. You know. Yeah, I would have liked to. I would have liked to been trusted in that moment.
Man, wow. Can you blame him? No, I was like, "What is he saying that's not true?" Right there, two seven ERA this year, led the American League in wins. He's been your ace all season because Crochet has just been out. Live and die with this guy.
There, it literally is no tomorrow. And the analytics part is he's referring to when he says that I I've been I was the best third time through the order. Which pitchers don't really get the chance to do that anymore? Remember when Blake Snell got taken out? Same deal in the World Series.
Binder said, "Oh yeah, get out of here with that." Third time through the order, it's just like, how do you like? Thank you, seventy pitches, and that was Wilson Contreras's point after the game, where he was saying, "Like, look, what are we doing?" I get what the numbers say, but there is a feel, and you can your eye, the eye test of what's happening in this game. It's one nothing. This guy is literally. Keeping you in the game with an offense that's really struggled in the last month without Roman Anthony, without who was out last night again with the same hand.
I know, unfortunate. And then you know, again, I know this sounds like low hanging fruit or whatever, but you look at that soundbite afterwards. That rash got washed off in the shower, man. That neck was clean. He's the only pitcher that.
No, I know that. No, I get it. No, Chris, I totally get it. It's been going on for decades. I totally get it, but it's 2026, and you got 4K cameras all over the place.
You see it all over the place. I don't know what that was because he kept going to it, and I'm like sitting at home. I'm like, does am I am I crazy? Like in game one, I was hearing music during the game. I'm like, what's happening?
Yeah, that was odd. You know, and and by the way, I thought NBC's coverage and it has been, and it's great. I've really enjoyed it. I really enjoy their announcers, and announce teams, and I thought they've done a great job. But last night, like, what was that about?
But the Red Sox are going to have to deal with the way this season ended next year, and and we'll see how it all does play out. Who knows? As the Yankees move on to take on the Rays. You've got the White Sox having moved on. Are they the most fun team, or what?
Well, you know, I mean, this. You know, do we want to do it here? Let's do it here. We'll do it now. We'll do it now.
We're calming. This guy, he's incredible. You know the the last time we heard from him in a in a Champagne drenched locker room. He gave us a new. That's how he said he felt.
Scale of one to ten. He said one hundred, and he kept it. You can play it again. He kept it one hundred again, and in his celebratory moment with the White Sox moving on, yeah. They're the only Chicago team left, and they're the only team with the word "Socks" in their title left.
The White Sox are moving on. A hundred losses last two years—unreal. They are really a fun team to watch. All right, here's the latest from our our friend from Japan. Unai, you gotta tell me what are you feeling right now?
One hundred, one hundred, not a thousand this time? Yeah, one hundred. I'm Japanese. Hey, it's early in Japan. They're celebrating with you.
Anything you want to say to them? Same height, same, same, same. Yeah, he's drunk. He's drunk. Ah!
Today, but he's drunk. Yeah. Told me you didn't need him. I'm drunk. Yeah, yeah.
Today, maybe hangover. You know? Yeah. Tomorrow hungover. Yes.
No. No. Yes. Today. Tomorrow.
Yeah. Today. I don't speak English. I need the translator. Congratulations, winner.
Thank you so much. Ah! The White Sox have to advance just for this alone. I'm sorry to our friends in Cleveland. Keep this going.
I need to see. I need to keep seeing. Keep it going. I'm drunk. Oh, we got a new draw.
I'm drunk. Fantastic. Fantastic. What? It's great.
We make it's great. Everything about it is awesome. You make a mistake. One hundred, one thousand, all of it, all of it. Um, we'll hit the National League later on because um, just want to comment about the Padres.
They look good, and you know, put a bow on the Cubs season, and you know. Did you hear what Bryce Harper had to say after the game about how he wiped out the memory of him botching a fly ball in right and then coming up with the game tying home run and inning later? Did you hear about that? It's pretty neat stuff. It's pretty neat stuff.
That's coming up. But since it is now officially Patriots season for you, Chris, I figured we'll have Tom Curren on the program.
Well, I think it's Celtics season. Oh, okay. I might be done with the pads. Oh God, Brockman. They're going to lose by thirty in Buffalo.
Like let's be honest. I don't know. We thought that last year too. Don't forget. They started one and two, then they put up a forty burger on Carolina.
I was like, okay, great, Carolina. Right now you're going to Buffalo.
Now we'll really see. And you had no idea that a ten game win streak was about to unfold. True, very true. I don't. I think I'm.
I think I'm. Um, it was more than ten in a row. I. I don't know. Yeah, I just don't have that same level of optimism right now.
Tom, maybe I should be. Whether it's a crisp fall morning, a full blown thunderstorm, or you're loading up the car and heading into the game. Whether you're kicking through piles of leaves or trudging through puddles of mud, whether you call it fall or autumn, or you're one of those sweater season people, you're gonna want WeatherTech for your vehicle. Whether the mess is your fault, your kid's fault, the dog's fault, or just the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and seat protectors that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit WeatherTech.com today.
When we come back, Tommy C, what is going on in New England, football-wise? Replace your worn wiper blades right now at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Receive two times O Rewards points and save ten dollars when you purchase a pair of Rain-X Latitude wiper blades. Their professional parts people will even install them for free at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Rich Eisen here for Gusto.
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The first time with LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Get started by posting a free job at LinkedIn.com/slash Eisen. Twenty-three-year-old Fernando Mendoza today. Happy birthday! He turns twenty-three today, Mister LinkedIn himself.
By the way, born in Boston. Oh, yeah, man. See Brady. That's why he's a Brady fan, right? Everybody's a Brady fan.
Tom Curren's joining us here on the Rich Eisen Show, fresh, fresh from New England right now. NBC Sports Boston and Patriot Maven. How are you, Tommy? See, Tommy. Good.
I'm sorry. I hope my audio is okay. I was just trying. I got a new laptop, my new lappy, four thirty six, and I was just trying to get everything straight. All good.
That's all good. You sound you sound great with a new lappy and everything. You know what I mean? Thank you, buddy. Oh, right back at you.
All right, Tom. We were just playing sound bites of Drake May saying Vrabel's the best coach I've ever had. I'm so excited to play for him. And where did this conversation come from? That he and Vrabel are potentially.
Not liking each other anymore. You know, it's terminated with our friend Dan Orlovsky.
Okay, who wondered if Mike and. Drake were a compatible match," he said. He still has plenty of confidence in Drake, but he wasn't sure how he felt the match was.
Okay, and Colin Coward also intimated that maybe Josh McDaniels was rubbing him the wrong way. And I had a long discussion the other night with Michael Felger, who you know on NBC Sports Boston. Right, and he's like, "This has to be coming from somewhere." I said, "You know what, Mike?
Sometimes I say stuff, and because we have time to kill." I speculate on things when you're casting about for reasons and issues. Right.
Sometimes you land on things and you don't have anyone at all whisper to you. But it continued with Greg Hill on WEEI, who Mike is on the morning show with him, and he said that an insider had whispered that there was some trouble afoot.
So. All Drake may had to do was complete that pass at the end of the Seahawks game to Mac Hollins, and nobody's talking about any of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, you know, I, I, I hear you. You know, sports nature abhors a vacuum because we're trying to come up with answers to something that we are kind of surprised is a question, and that's Drake May's abilities. You know what I mean?
Like it looked so good last year for so long, and it looks so opposite of that that we've gotta we're we're we're in search of something. My guy Kurt Warner says it's a crisis of confidence for him. Would you agree with that? I do, and it really stretches back. Kurt probably highlighted this.
I would echo the same feeling. Is it really? Stretches back to when he's played good teams. Period. You know they went.
It's a seven-game stretch now. It's not just this regular season. In the playoffs last year, he had seven fumbles. Since the beginning of the playoffs last year, he's had 15 turnovers in seven games. He's taken 30 sacks.
He played good defenses against good defenses last year, even though that schedule was horrific. It was mostly the offenses on those teams which were bad. Cleveland had a good defense, obviously. There were plenty of good defenses that he saw, but he had the comfort of knowing, in some instances, that that he was going to be able to take care of business. I think he misses Diggs.
He certainly misses AJ Brown, and I think going against the Seahawks. The Steelers, after his confidence had had been frayed a little bit in terms of making dunderheaded mistakes and taking a whole crap ton of heat for it, and then last week, now he kind of doesn't know whether to poop or go blind, as my mother used to say.
Well, I mean, Vrabel used a golf analogy about gripping the golf club too hard and trying to, you know, get an ace on every swing. And rather than just be yourself, matriculate the ball, do the right things, put good snaps together, so so on and so forth. And it's easy to say that. What what are you hearing other than you know mental whispering to May that that is being done? What is going on behind the scenes that you know?
It's more really. It's a plow through it mentality because. He's not a dummy, but I do think that there are players sometimes more less experienced players. I would say, you know, I've really only covered four quarterbacks, starting quarterbacks since I've started ninety seven, Bledsoe, Brady, Mac Jones, and and now Drake May. And there are some Bledsoeian tendencies to the decision making that we're seeing.
Brilliant talent, but Drew came into the league at twenty. Drake May came into the league relatively young, especially in terms of games played. Brady didn't. Brady Brady played four years of college football. He had an apprenticeship under Bledsoe.
He had a poise and a demeanor and a confidence I think that was born of I know what I'm supposed to do here. I think with both Bledsoe. And May, you have gunslinger mentalities, which sometimes would bristle at being reined in. I can fit it in there. I can make this play.
I can do this scramble. And when he had that pick against the Seahawks, when the team was up ten three early in the fourth quarter, it's second and nine. Seattle hadn't even sneezed yet on the Patriots' defense. He threw for no good reason. A forty-five-yard bomb into double coverage that was picked by Seattle, intended for Romeo Dobbs, and he later said, "You know, I just need to be patient there." And he said the same thing last year before the playoffs.
You know, I need to just be patient and take what's given me and take the profit. That, to me, is. I just like to play a certain way. Don't make me do this. Watch this.
I'm going to do this, and he did it on the last pick too against Seattle.
So now he's trying to toe the line between, "Hey, I'm a gunslinger," and just put his hands at ten and two. And they just wanted to put his hands at ten and two. And I believe the same thing. And I'm babbling on here, Rich. No, but I believe the same thing should be true for all these quarterbacks when you carry that much responsibility.
You can't just go out and see what happens if you do X, Y, and Z. Which is how Brett Favre existed, and two great success at times, but they're just not a good enough team for him to go out and throw picks. NBC Sports Boston, Tom Curran, Patriots Talk Podcast host Tom Curran here on the Rich Eisen Show, fresh off of being crossed off the Christmas card lists of Matt Castle, Brian Hoyer, Jacoby Brissett, Bailey Zappe, Cam Newton too. Cam Newton, who else? Who else to do this overlook?
Where Cam Newton go? Joe Milton, Jimmy G, Joe Milton, Jimmy G. Hey, if Joe Milton didn't start. Then Travis Hunter didn't pick off Drake Maypast last weekend. We'd have Calvin Williams, and none of these problems, Tom.
You know, you know what I mean. I do know. Great, yeah. You understand what I was trying to anointing starters, anointing, anointing. Just pointing out, you know, there were some others, but you know, boy, Bailey Zappi's going to be hot, man.
Bailey Zappi's going to be like, wait a minute, hey, I. Start it. Come on, I'm smart guy. I knew he didn't like me. That's right.
I started Bill Belichick's last win of his NFL career. The freaking Mac was a third quarter match. What a thing! Chad Riden is the outright. Bill made Bill a winner one last time.
May not like each other. You want to see not like each other? About Mac and Bill three years ago. Holy crap! I had a front row seat to that, sir, in Germany.
I was in the booth watching all that, but that's that's then. This is now.
Now this one means a lot to Robert Kraft. What do you? I was there for all of that, man. As were you.
So, when's AJ Brown coming back, Tom? He has moved through the locker room. Those high ankle sprains are difficult. And I was talking to somebody, just just gassing, and because he's a bigger guy. And a little bit older guy, I think it could be hard for him to return to the same kind of explosiveness because he's so strong upper body wise.
There's a lot of force in the way he runs his route, so it's probably. Am I just babbling? No, babble to hear myself talk today, Tom. You're on it. Go.
Keep going. This is why we have you on.
So once it was a kid named AJ Brown. It should be billions of years ago. The Earth was a molten mass, and then it played around. No, come on. Maybe you just had too much Duncan.
It's all good. I I love hearing you talk.
So you think Brown is it? It's going to be longer than expected. Is that where I'm picking up from you right now? It was a pretty good injury. I would say, but you know, he's been down for two full games.
If he's not back in the saddle by the end of the month, I wouldn't be surprised.
So maybe early November. But that Dan, Rich, yes, sir, it's okay. That is a full, outright, unadulterated, unabashed guess. Oh, I got it. I don't listen, and and the bottom line though is this: okay, um, this is kind of must win territory in Buffalo because if they don't win this, they name with three and zero Raiders.
Well, even even that though, but at one and three, you are now three, base basically three and a half games behind the Bills. In a division you're trying to repeat in, right? And so you're taking a look at the NFC, the AFC North. Everybody's two and one there. Yep.
You, you know, the Raiders could come in at four and zero, three and one. But the bottom line is, if you're going to be aiming for a wild card spot, and you're assuming the Raiders aren't going to win that division because of the fact that the Broncos and the Chiefs are in it, that's a pretty damn big football game for a tie break down the road. You know what I mean? It is the Jaguars have a tiebreak on you if if they don't win that division because I mean I'm I'm laying it all out here. I understand there's a massive amount of football left to be played.
I get it. Um, but last year they were 500 going into Buffalo and Drake May balled out and that started that sparked the win streak. But you know they would be one in three and the Bills would be four and zero. That's a fact.
So, would you put this in a must-win category this weekend? Ah, I wouldn't just for the simple fact that you get a by hook or by crook get to to ten wins, and there is still space to do that over the final. That would be. Four games in over the final thirteen, you know you can still get to ten. I just what what would concern me, and my hesitancy to call it a must win is they don't they barely have a pulse right now.
They're the worst offense in football. They have a quarterback who, had we not seen what we saw last year, we would wonder if he was going to be an abject failure in the league. I mean, one touchdown and six picks. And the fifteen turnovers—it's the inability to control the ball.
So, I would say this: you can't expect them to win a Buffalo. Buffalo is averaging thirty-three point seven points per game. I think it's eleven touchdowns accounted for by foot and arm. For Josh Allen, so far, Greg Russo's a one-man wrecking crew right now. The Patriots are missing Draymond Jones.
They'll be missing as their edge guy. They'll be missing Craig Woodson most likely at safety. Gonzalez missed practice yesterday with his shoulder. Calvin Davis has a shoulder. Buffalo is not looking at the Patriots and going, "Oh, these guys beat us last year." They're going, "Whoa, these guys fell off." So I would.
It's hard for me to call it a must win when I know it's virtually roll this back on Monday. Will you? I got you. Impossible. I hear you.
When they, of course, win twenty seven twenty four. You are just shooting straight. I guess one last one, just off the board here. Why did Case? Why did Why did Keyshawn Booty get a code red?
Like, would they redo that right now? You think sure? Yeah, they would do redo that. They would redo. I have a spider coming off my hat.
They would redo that. They would also, I'm sure, redo Stephon Diggs. You know, if you knew then what you know now that AJ Brown was going to get hurt, then you wouldn't do that. The reason Keishawn Booty wound up in Houston is he didn't play special teams. And for those of us who loved Keishawn Booty, myself as the main bus driver.
I said, AJ Brown is a nearing thirty or thirty-year-old wide receiver who sometimes has knee issues. Keep him around; he can be a backup there. He can be a backup in the slot. He's a bigger player because right now, without AJ Brown, Romeo Dobbs is decent-sized, but Kyle Williams, Efton Chisholm, and Demario Douglas are not.
So you have an accuracy issue with your quarterback right now, and he's throwing to guys who are no bigger than pylons. Yeah, it's not good. And listen, I'm I'm I'm I was so happy that Travion Henderson left the Big Ten, and he's such a home run hitter. Yeah. Um.
Where where is he? Why doesn't he get enough more touches? Is that fair? I think it's yes. We have asked.
Part of the reason is Stevenson looks so good in the summer and training camp, and had looked good in a couple of the early games, especially against Seattle. Even though they didn't have a very successful night offensively, he had a good game. But Henderson seems to me like a guy who needs more of a—he needs more touches to get into a rhythm because his timing isn't great when he gets on the field and is just doing cameos. You know, sometimes he's hesitant, and other times he's running into the offensive linemen like he's the last guy trying to get on a subway.
So he probably needs. There's a lot of different things that I would say to Josh. Can you get the ball to him in space? Can you get the ball to him in space? And he would say, "Yeah, we're trying, but we're trying like 12 other things at the same time." They're also hampered by the fact that in a tight end driven league, in my opinion, right now.
The rookie from Notre Dame, Eli Raritan, was hurt last week, and Hunter Henry is having a really poor start to this season after being having a great season last year.
So they don't really have a tight end answer for a quarterback who's kind of needing one, scatter shot, yeah, needing one. And I guess just before we let Tom go. What did you just say? My year, Chris Brockman.
So, Tom, not sure if you're aware, but Josh McDaniels is speaking or has spoken the last twenty minutes. Yes, he is. He said that Drake May's shoulder, quote, got dinged last week, but it hasn't impacted the game plan for Week Four. Business as usual. Yeah, full participation for May.
Yesterday, I'm sure it'll be full again today.
So that kind of leads to, and that was a a big Watergate level conspiracy yesterday. Why did Why did Frable say it was fine on Monday or and after the game, and then Drake said that it wasn't fine, but it wasn't bothering him. And it's like I don't know, but he's a full participant with a shoulder on the on the injury list, and as May said. As I think, anybody who's watched the Patriots can conclude as well: this isn't a shoulder issue; this is a decision-making issue. And May said that.
Tom, you are the man. Thanks for the time. Thanks for having Ian McShane on. Oh, yeah, dude. Actually, thank you for mentioning that.
But that was years ago, and that's we just go down in the archive. It was his birthday yesterday. We just popped that video up on Instagram. Deadwood, right? How great is that?
I know. Bear it away. I know. Give some back. That's what you like, Tom.
Good to see you. About good to see you. NBC Sports Boston Patriots Insider Patriots Talk Podcast. All of the pearls of wisdom from Tom Curren. Right there.
Yeah, you said must win. I don't think it's a must win. I'm not expecting a win. I think you just got to show signs of life. Must win for the division.
I'll be honest. Yeah, you'd be you'd be three and a half behind the bill. I think the division is toast.
Okay, you got to worry about like Tom said, getting to that magic number of ten or eleven, and just show signs of life. Let's put twenty points on the board. Let's see some drives. Let's see May throw a touchdown. Let's see Romeo Dobbs be involved.
Let's see Travion. You know. Run the ball like we know we can. Just signs of life, you know. Make it make it twenty seven twenty.
I I would live with that. But you don't want to see what happened in Jacksonville last week. Yeah, or just turnover Palooza and the train whistles are going exactly. And the Bills are four zero, and the Patriots are one in three. Can't have it.
And you know. And the division, I think, would be toast. Yeah, just don't get the boards done because again, the Bills would have four wins; they would have just one. And all I'm saying is the following: with 13 games left to go, you'd have to win nine of the 13 to get to the magic 10, which I think the Bills are absolutely going to have more than. Yeah, so the division would be gone, and then you're now beginning to have to look at your record in conference and head to head, and now you're in the wild card mosh pit at one and three, and the Raiders are coming in, and they're playing better than you.
That's a fact.
Fact, big time. And they're going into a building like normally everybody like oh gosh we're playing in Foxborough and yet they could say we won here last year because they did yeah with a completely different team but I hear no there's still there's still some of the same people. Eight four four two zero four. Rich number to dial here on the program. Mark Schlereth in hour number three.
Talking ball, people talking ball. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast. In my house, the best moments don't always happen while I'm sitting still. Maybe the game's in overtime. My favorite podcast getting to the good part, or playlist just found its groove.
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So, if you don't have the lead on the Padres going into the fifth inning, you're you're finished. You're done. I think same thing against the Brewers too, right? They're very similar teams. I mean, everybody throws one hundred five miles an hour, and their off speed is around ninety five.
It's crazy. And that's why you know the Cubs are are wrapped. They couldn't get the lead. They they they were done in the first inning. You know.
Padres gonna be tough, and they're up against the Brewers. That's gonna be a great. They're built very similarly. Yeah, although the Padres have more pop. I think so.
Yeah, a little bit.
So we'll see. But they are fun to watch. They're chanting "Holy Sheets" and then Sheets homers. Yes, like Don Orsillo's got got that town wrapped around his finger. What a moment that was!
They're chanting "Holy Sheets" and then he homers, and then when Mason Miller comes in, oh man, it's like Wild Thing, right? Yeah, but he's better than Wild Thing. Yeah, I mean, he touched what 103 last night, right? And speaking of Wild Thing, by the way, it's that was the matchup in Major League was Cleveland versus the White Sox. Look it up.
And then there's the Braves and the Phillies. This is this has been epic, man. It has been epic. You getting lead changes late. You getting you know managerial decisions that you can talk about and hang your hat on, or sink your teeth into.
And you know, the big one was the ball finding Bryce Harper and right, and it goes off his glove, and the Braves lose the lead, only to have. Unbelievable! Schwarber crank one out as only he can, and then Harper goes back to back, and then they tie the game. They get the lead, and they win it in extras. Without, by the way, a ten-in game without a ghost runner.
We'll figure that. How about that? Because boom goes Oppo, and this was a this is awesome. Bryce Harper was asked about how he was able to turn the page from that. Dreadful play and right to cranking one out to tie the game.
I tell you what I was thinking about, crew, my son. You know what I would say to him in that situation. You know, I think it's a learning situation, not for myself, but everybody else as well. You know, right? I think you try to flush it as quick as possible.
And I, I grew up playing a lot of big games, and not just. I mean, I've said it in the past about the postseason and. You know, but playing huge games that people are counting on you from the time you were ten years old all the way till now. I don't think people understand what that feels like or looks like because when you guys were ten years old, you probably weren't playing in front of three thousand people. You know, yelling and screaming at you, wondering why you're not the player you want to be or anything else.
So, I've been through a lot of situations to get me to this point. And you know you make a play like that, and I'm hearing it out there, obviously. But how quickly can I turn the page and just get past that moment, knowing that I'm still coming up to plate to hit, and knowing that in the postseason, it doesn't matter what you did the at bat before, the inning before. It's what you do in that moment.
So for me. Everybody's going to make mistakes at some point, but it's how you come through in the next situation.
So it's not that serious, to tell you the truth. You know, I think people take it very seriously, and don't get me wrong, I take it serious. But I think there is a mindset, especially for kids nowadays, is parents and coaches put so much on kids these days to have to you know come through and be great. But for me, it's How can you learn from each situation that you're in to to come out great in the next one? Being present, man.
I love that soundbite. That's why we've just played. You don't usually we don't usually play two minute long soundbites, but being present, thinking about my son. What am I going to say? By the way, he's been at this.
He's great. He don't forget. He came up as a 19 year old with Washington. He's in year 15. He's 33 and in year 15.
Man, and he's another one. TJ, we always talk about the the guys who were you know the prince that was promised, and this, that, and the third. This guy was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was in high school. He was anointed the next great baseball star, and all he's done is live up to it. He has been awesome from the get go.
Rookie of the Year at nineteen, two time MVP. The only thing that's missing is a World Series ring. Bryce Harper's a surefire Hall of Famer, and I know Sarah doesn't like him, but I'm a huge Bryce. Harper fan, and I all he does is come up huge in the postseason. Dude is an absolute gamer.
Well, you know, with all due respect to your wife and your rooting interests, when Donald Arthur Mattingly can win and move on in the playoffs, I'm I'm putting my thumb on that scale. True, my favorite player of all time. You know, thanks for listening to the Rich Eisen Show podcast. You can watch and listen to the Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from noon to three Eastern on ESPN Radio, Disney Plus, and on the ESPN app. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.
