REShow: JJ Redick/Mike Garafolo - Hour 2

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Put it all out there and start finding that someone for today, or for ever, download the Bumble app. Who's that? Let's go! This is the Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pelissero. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. How did you pull off the biggest comeback in NFL history?

Okay, I need a second time. Earlier on the show, host of the Old Man in 3 podcast, JJ Reddick. Coming up, NFL Network reporter Mike Garofalo, plus two-time Super Bowl champion Dion Branch.

And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero. I was at that absolutely bonkers Vikings-Colts game working the sideline last weekend. You heard the little blip there from Kirk Cousins after the game, one of the most memorable post-game interviews in my entire time covering the league. I want to talk more about that game a little bit later, along with all the other stuff going on in the NFL.

Big games this weekend, a ton of relevant injury updates, quarterback updates. Mike Garofalo is going to join us here in about 20 minutes, so we'll get into that with him. But right now, joining us on the Mercedes-Benz Vans phone line, a guy who played 15 NBA seasons.

He's got a podcast. You cannot turn on ESPN for five minutes without seeing his face. JJ Reddick is with us, and JJ's appearance brought to you by DraftKings, which is offering the NBA Christmas No Sweat Bet. Bet on any NBA Christmas Day game on the DraftKings sportsbook, and get a free bet back if you lose. JJ, where are you going to be watching the games on Christmas? Well, I'm actually excited because I'll be calling my first Christmas Day game this year. I've got the Philadelphia 76ers at the New York Knicks at the Garden. It's the first game of the day, a great way to kick off Christmas Day with the NBA. I retired partially because I was tired of playing on Christmas and missing Christmas with my kids. My whole family is in New York.

I live in New York. My whole family is coming to the game. I'll be able to spend Christmas morning opening presents with them. I'm probably going to go home and turn my TV on and sit on the couch the rest of the day and watch the other four games.

That's kind of a lot of pressure there, isn't it, JJ? They could have given you Raptors, Timberwolves on a Tuesday or something. We're just going to roll right into Knicks at the Garden on Christmas Day with the whole country watching?

Well, no. I've called games. It's my first Christmas game. Got it.

Got it. It's my first Christmas game, yeah. Tim Corrigan was nice enough last year to give me a couple regular season games in March.

I guess I was good enough because I got three playoff games. Then when I did my new deal with ESPN, I have a full games package. That's been a lot of fun. I'm calling the game with Ryan Ruko, who's one of my favorite guys at ESPN. We just called the game together in Dallas against the Bucs. That was an awesome game. Cassie will be with us as well on the sideline. It's going to be a fun game.

Sounds awesome. Tell me about the Brooklyn Nets. I feel like we've talked about them. For all, let's say, the better part of two, three seasons here for every wrong reason possible. It's things aren't working. It's Kyrie drama. Suddenly they've won seven in a row here. Is this a real thing with the Nets, or is it a little bit of smoke and mirrors right now?

Well, here's the thing. I was pretty much off the Nets last year. Even at the beginning of the season, there was clearly, outside of just the off-court stuff, there was dysfunction on the court. They didn't feel like a cohesive basketball team.

They certainly feel at will now. I was at the first game after Steve Nash had gotten fired. They played the Bulls.

They lost that game. Since then, they've been fantastic. Kevin's been awesome. Kevin's always awesome. The big thing is they've been much better defensively.

I still have some question marks about their size and width down low, if that makes sense. They're second to last in the NBA in defensive rebounding. They have the offensive skill set, and they have guys like Kevin and Ben, bigger wings that can guard multiple positions. Kevin, by the way, has been unbelievable on the defensive end. We don't often think of him as an elite two-way player, and that's a real shame because he has been great defensively for a number of years now. I think Kyrie's averaging like 26 points a game right now.

Is this actually going to work out? Are we going to wake up one day before the trade deadline and he's a 76er or something? I think give Kyrie Irving some credit. What happened earlier in the season was an absolute disaster.

I spoke at length about it on first take. Since he came back, there hasn't been any drama. He's played really good basketball. He's played winning basketball. Kyrie the talent, Kyrie the basketball player, the guy that so many fans across the world have fallen in love with, that's what we're seeing. It's been fun to watch him play basketball. JJ Redick is our guest. What's happening with the Celtics right now, JJ?

That's a great question. The Celtics this season under Joe Missoula has done a fantastic job. I should shout out Joe Missoula because right now, I'm here courtesy of the draft teams. Joe Missoula got the head coaching job at the Boston Celtics literally four days before training camp opened. He's got the highest odds right now in drafting for coach of the year.

He's done a fantastic job. What has happened lately is they haven't made their threes. I don't want to simplify it, but this is a team that has been one or two in the NBA all season in attempts. They have prioritized spacing and pace and shooting threes. They were shooting well over 40% for the entire season.

I think since December 10th, they're under 30%. They just haven't shot the ball well recently. The other question mark early in the season, their offense was historic.

It's since normalized a little bit. I think they were over 120 points per 100 possessions, which would be the best in NBA history. They're at 116-ish now. Their defense was not great early in the season. That has actually trended in the right direction and you're starting to see them play better defensively. But yeah, I just haven't made their threes lately. The Lakers seem like a complete mess.

That's been going on for a while as well. I'm an NFL insider, JJ. I don't dabble in NBA news, but I would say from what I'm hearing, the Anthony Davis injury doesn't sound great. It might be one of those navicular fractures, which would be a season-ender. He's getting additional opinions and all that, but that would seem like the type of death blow that might have the Lakers being sellers at the deadline. Am I right?

Yeah. It's really unfortunate because basketball fans, the media, we've all wanted to see the version of Anthony Davis that we've seen over the past four to six weeks, just playing dominant on both ends of the floor, efficient scoring, really attacking the paint, getting the free throw line, and then he has really what was kind of a freak injury. It was just an accidental play. It's really unfortunate and you certainly will have to now think about the long term, which the Lakers haven't really prioritized and most teams that have LeBron James on their team don't prioritize the long term. I don't see a path though without a healthy Anthony Davis for them to become a contender.

There was a lot of talk earlier in the season about maybe trading Russell Westbrook for Buddy Heald and Myles Turner. The Pacers are now better than expected, so I don't know if that trade ever gets done. The Pacers, by the way, are really fun battle teams to watch. If you ever want to watch a really high-level offense orchestrated by Tyrese Halliburton, go tune into a Pacers game.

It's a lot of fun to watch. How does this all end for LeBron, J.J.? As a player, I imagine everybody you kind of started getting the sense at some point that you may not be the player that you were. With LeBron, he's performed at such an unbelievable level for so long. Do you see a guy who still has time left here or is this going to be kind of a slow descent into, I hate to say irrelevance because he's the most relevant player of the past 15 years in the NBA, but is this kind of a fadeaway situation or can he make another run here before he's done?

Look, I think he can make another run. I think he can make another run playing high-level basketball. I don't know that he does it with this Lakers roster. In fact, I would venture to say he doesn't do it with this Lakers roster.

It's interesting when you talk about relevance because I think LeBron will always be relevant as long as he's playing. The basketball world has waited and sure as detractors and haters have waited very patiently for him to have some sort of decline and steep drop-off. He's held off father time for so long now. What he's doing in his 20th year is remarkable. It's remarkable. He's in some ways the same way that Tom Brady did it at the quarterback position. LeBron has reset the standard for playing at a high level into your late 30s. I don't think there's any player that has played at this level in their 20th year.

JJ, real quick about Nicole Jokic. Can you just put in perspective kind of what we're seeing here and is it realistic that he could win a third straight MVP for the first time since Larry Bird? It's realistic. It's realistic. Look, I am a fan of analytics and advanced stats.

I'm a fan of the eye test. I watched that guy play and it's clear that he's one of the three or four best basketball players in the world. By the way, we have a lot of three or four best basketball players in the world. I think we have more than three or four best basketball players in the world.

The talent pool in the league is right now. I watched that game the other night that was on TNT and I'm just amazed at his mind. Nicole Jokic plays in a way that he knows everything that could potentially happen in a given play and then he just makes the right play every time. There's no overthinking.

There's no agenda. It's like he has slowed down time and it has gotten ahead of everyone else. Everyone else is working at a different pace than him and he is able to just orchestrate and make plays. If they end up a top two seed in the West, he's going to have a really good chance at winning his third straight MVP. Do you think they are the favorite in the West and is this finally the year that the Nuggets go on a deep playoff run?

Because that's kind of been the thing the last couple years. They're not the favorite in the West. The West has a lot of really good teams.

I don't think there's going to be the separation at the top that I think you're eventually going to see. You have seen a little bit in the East with Boston, Milwaukee and Cleveland also is a really good basketball team. Now the Nets are playing great basketball as well, but in the West there's just too many really good teams. I don't actually have a favorite in the West, but the team that I think has a really good chance is the Memphis Grizzlies. They've played great basketball. They're currently tied for first.

They were 9-3 with them. I had question marks last year in the playoffs about them sort of needing a second star along with Trevon Moran and Desmond in those 12 good games proved that he can be that guy. So if he's healthy and Jaron Jackson continues to play at the level on both ends of the floor that he's playing at right now, I think Memphis has a really good chance to come out of the West. And how fun is it watching the Pelicans play and finally seeing Zion kind of live up to all that pre-draft hype? Look, it's hard as a basketball fan, somebody who watches games every single night, not to have favorite teams to tune into. I have some favorite teams. The Pelicans are one of them.

The Grizzlies are another. I love watching the Warriors play with Steph Curry. The Pelicans are such a deep team and this is where I think they have potentially a real advantage in the playoffs because they have a number of players that can play multiple positions, start multiple positions. One game, one series you may want to play heavy drop coverage with Jonas Spell and Jonas. Maybe the next series you need more of Larry Nance and the ability to switch out the perimeter players.

Maybe you need Jose Alvarado to play 30 minutes a night and be a pesky defensive end. And then they have the wings with Trey Murphy and Brandon Ingram and Herb Jones. This is just a really deep team and a fun guy. By the way, I named all those guys. I didn't mention Zion who is playing at an unbelievable level. I mentioned the talent pool in the NBA.

By the way, I just want to point this out just because I have the numbers in front of me. On Christmas Day, we've got the five guys who have the best odds to win MVP on Drafting Sports. We've got all of them playing. We've also got LeBron James.

We've also got Ja Morant. We were supposed to get Steph Curry. We were supposed to get Anthony Davis.

Zion isn't even playing on Christmas. Think about how many great players are in the league right now. It's a great time to be an NBA fan. Well, there's seven guys averaging 30 points a game.

We haven't seen that in a long, long time. No, and you know, Jay Gildas-Alexander, who's a casual basketball fan, is probably not that aware of. He's another guy who could potentially be an All-NBA All-Star guy in Oklahoma City this year. They're a pesky team. Them, Houston, Orlando, they don't have great records, but they play good basketball every night and have the chance to beat anyone. Hey, JJ.

TJ here. I just want to maybe switch the focus to the college game real quick. Myself personally, as a Duke fan, what do you think college sports and more specifically Duke basketball is going to look like without Coach K room in the sidelines for the first time in nearly 50 years? Yeah, it's interesting because Coach retired during a very interesting transition period for all of college athletics with NIL and the transfer portal. I've had a number of college coaches say to me, you know, you recruit a kid to sign, the kid signs, and then you've got to recruit them to stay every year. And so that's a really different dynamic. The reason that college sports have existed in the way that they've existed is because the coaches in the schools and the conferences in the NCAA have had complete control over the players. And over the last few years, because of NIL, because of the transfer portal, they have lost a great amount of control.

And so I don't know how or when the transition period ends and sort of what that looks like. But I think we're going to see a lot of different things happen over the next five years, seven years, whatever it may be, specifically to Duke. I think John Shire is in a great position. He knows the school. He knows the program. He's a great basketball mind. He's clearly a great recruiter. Duke specifically, this year's team, I've tuned in for a few games.

You know, I think with Lively and Whitehead being in and out of lineup and being hurt, I think it's really hurt them and they're young, but they certainly have some talent to make some noise in the tournament. You can see him calling that Sixers Knicks game on Christmas. You can listen to him on the Old Man and the Three podcast. J.J. Redick, thanks a lot for the time, man. Thank you, guys.

I appreciate it. Great conversation with J.J. Redick on all things NBA. Find the latest and greatest audio entertainment on Audible. It's got everything you want to hear, including the Rich Eisen Show. Along with podcasts, you'll also find audiobooks and exclusive originals. We're talking comedy, sports stories, deep dives with athletes and entertainers, business and anything else you're into. With Audible, you get access to thousands of included titles with more added every week. Listen on the road, at the gym or anywhere you want to fuel up your imagination.

Join and get 30 days free at the home of storytelling, audible.com. Ravens coach John Harbaugh, while we were talking to J.J. Redick, went to the podium. It's official. Lamar out. Tyler Huntley starts again. Third straight game missed for Lamar. Can Huntley rally them this weekend against the Falcons?

It's down to crunch time here. Our buddy Mike Garafolo from the NFL Network going to join us right on the other side of this break. He's also going to be hosting a show out there for the Jets-Jaguars game in New York. In East Rutherford tonight on NFL Network.

A lot to get into with Mike around the NFL up next on the Rich Eisen Show. Anyway, and even so, what's the worst that could happen? Your insurance goes up, you lose your license, you lose your job, you total your car, you kill someone. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk.

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It only takes one mistake to change your life or someone else's forever. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by NHTSA. Tom Pelissero back on the Rich Eisen Show. We're on the Roku channel, we're on Sirius XM. Stream for free on the Odyssey app or Odyssey.com. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at RichEisenShow.

Subscribe to the YouTube page, YouTube.com slash RichEisenShow. Did I get all of them, Brockman? That everybody? Yeah, we're everywhere. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram.

Just like, find us. Enjoy. Interact. Speaking of everywhere, please be joined right now in the Mercedes-Benz Vans phone line by my colleague at the NFL Network and be hosting a show prior to the Jets-Jaguars game tonight. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, this is the Rich Eisen Show debut for my good friend, Mike Garofalo. Let's give a round of applause, Mike. You made it. You made it. Hi, Rich. How you doing, Rich?

Is it good? I don't know. It's me.

It's Tom. Oh. Yeah. Okay. It's your friend. Set the scene for me here. I know you're not at the stadium yet, but a relevant Jets-Jaguars game on Christmas week.

This is probably a, this might be a first time ever occurrence. So my weekly, mostly weekly assignment, I missed a couple, but Thursday Night Football was going to be my assignment for the entire season along with Steve Smith. And so I looked over the schedule and I was like, oh, look, you got some good games here. I got into December.

I'm like, who schedules Jets-Jaguars in December? Like, what were you expecting from this game? And so it started out that way. And then early in the season it was like, well, wait a minute, that's actually going to be good. And then it took another dive down and I was like, oh, it's going to be terrible.

And now as we got closer, it's like, you know what? It's interesting enough. Both teams are still alive.

I believe both teams could be eliminated tonight or at least one team, the Jets can, if I'm not mistaken. So it's like, okay, at least, at least it hung in there and it's entertaining and the weather could make it a fun watch as well, although it's not going to be fun for us standing down there in the rain and the wind. We have rain?

How is it raining? Isn't it like 10 degrees below zero? No, it's going to be in the 50s. So the weather is going to come, the temperature is going to come up throughout the day as the rain comes down. And then overnight, like it's a high of 56, I think today.

Let me open it up. So it's a high of 54 today. Tomorrow, a high of 57, a low of 14.

So it's going to start warm overnight and then it's just going to nosedive and all this rain that's coming down is probably going to freeze. That sounds like a lovely drive home for you. Steve and I tend to leave at halftime, so we'll watch the first half from the stadium and then get out of there.

So I think I'm going to pull that. Usually it's back to the hotel, but this is a home game for me. So I'll watch the second half on the couch. You spend a lot of time around the Jets, Mike.

You know a lot of people there. It's been an unusual quarterback situation for them throughout the course of the season because Zach Wilson, just what we had about 20 months ago, taken number two overall in the NFL draft, one pick after the guys going against tonight and Trevor Lawrence. He's benched.

He's put on the side going through mechanical stuff. He's not even active for a few weeks there. Now only gets the opportunity, and this is for the second straight week, to play again because Mike White has several fractured ribs. Where do the Jets stand right now on Zach Wilson, not just in terms of him potentially in any decision, if there even is one, about keeping the job when White is healthy, but also about the big picture and where you go in 2023? Yeah, I think they're of the reality that there's really nothing he's going to do down the stretch here that's going to allay all fears and say, okay, this is our guy going forward. He's back. He figured it all out.

It's too tight of a time frame. So I think what you need to see is, and you started to see it last week, there were a couple of plays, what I call pro-day throws, right? The kind of throws that he was making leading up to the draft in his workout to get teams to be excited about it. And what happened this year particularly, and even leading up to this year, was he was paralyzed by something, mentally, whatever it was.

We even heard back in the spring about how he's got the yips. And you didn't see any of that. It's like, okay, if you're going to play poorly, at least put the skill on display and try to make those sensational throws that made you worthy of the number two overall pick in the draft.

And you weren't seeing that. So you're making mistakes and we're not seeing the skill on display. It's like, there's a lot to work on with him as far as getting him back mentally. And that was the thought process to benching him was, let him be inactive because the inactive guy is going to run our scout team. So let him run our scout team against our top defense, which we know what they've got up front.

And now let him feel that in practice it's breaking down and still try to make things work and do the best you can while the play is breaking down. Develop some pocket presence because in BYU he didn't have to deal with that. They were so good on their offensive line. They had grown men because of their mission. They've got guys that are way older than some of these other guys they were going against. And so their offensive line when he was there was dominant and he didn't have to deal with a lot of that.

So now he's having to learn that and it's tough to learn that during the process. So I'll be curious to see which way it goes in the offseason. I don't see anything that's going to change it in regard to, again, him being the unquestioned guy in the in the Jets hierarchy of quarterbacks. But he can at least thrust himself back into the conversation and probably have to, at the very least, he's going to have to stave off Mike White in an offseason quarterback competition.

Who knows where else they can go. Zeg Wilson is also part of kind of this one called a new wave of quarterbacks, but mechanically he's doing what a lot of high school and college quarterbacks are taught to do now, which is like the Aaron Rodgers stuff. It's not the have your foundation and your base and throw everything on platform and in rhythm. He's got something where it's everything can be, you know, kind of the flick of the wrist.

It can be off your back foot. It could be the things we see Rodgers do a lot. And I remember there were a bunch of people who really, I mean, thought his tape was amazing.

Coaches thought his tape was some of the best that they had ever seen. But the people who were detractors in the pre draft process also said there is an issue when every throw is a trick shot. And even last week in watching that game, Mike, I felt like some of those throws he's trying to make, including the terrible interception, but even that deep completion he had down the right sideline where he's kind of fading away. It's like he's still throwing the ball in such a way that I go back to Robert Saul last year when he said something along the lines of he's got to make the layups.

Those were the concerns coming in. It was not can he make every throw he can. It's can he make the basic throws consistently enough? And that's one thing I would be just kind of monitoring here for as long as he's on the field. Well, I mean, you saw some of the that's where the Yips came in, right? So you've seen some of those where, you know, he's got to he looks downfield.

There's nothing there. Check it down to the running back in the flat. And he's throwing five feet higher wide of him.

Those are those are major issues. And that's why they wanted to kind of get him reset. There was a there was a play against the Patriots where Devin McCourty dropped an interception and it he he looks left and kind of comes back to the middle and he's got absolutely no base to stand on. And that's why the throw itself was just horrendous. And that was like I want to say that was like the play that made them bench him. But it was one of the plays that day. And they said, this is what needs to be corrected right here.

Basic fundamental stuff. So he had some breakdowns this past week. He had some of those sensational plays, but he also had some mental and physical breakdowns last week. Let's see what he can do, particularly in the right. I don't know that they're that upset that it's going to be raining tonight. Like, let's add a little bit of that to let's see if he can overcome that.

We'll see. Meanwhile, Trevor Lawrence, despite the fact that he's been playing with that toe issue for a couple of weeks now, Mike is playing the best football we've seen of him in his NFL career. He's looking absolutely like the guy who was the number one overall pick in that same draft with Zach Wilson.

And you look at the way that they've kind of built. I remember Philadelphia once referred to it as the nest when they had the the guys around the quarterback when Carson Wentz was coming up and playing an MVP level in year two. And it was at that time it was Doug Peterson, but he had Mike grow there and he had John DeFilippo there in Jacksonville. Now it's Doug and he's got Press Taylor, who, of course, is also a member of that Eagles staff. It's Mike McCoy, who's an experienced offensive coordinator and quarterback guy. They've found that way to kind of surround him, it seems, with the right people. They've obviously also invested in a bunch of weapons. And he I mean, he looks like a legitimate starting franchise type quarterback right now.

He does. And, you know, this is this is year two. And then all of a sudden they loaded up. You often see that like you'll get a high draft pick and then they load up around him in year two.

Because for various reasons, you know, teams usually if they've got a high draft pick, they're kind of rebuilding and they're not yet ready to make that splurge in free agency or whatever they do. I remember it back when I covered the Giants with Eli Manning. Year one, he had a money tumor and I kill you.

It's like, OK, he needs some more help. So before year two, they go out and they get Plaxico Burress. They added a couple of offensive linemen as well. And it's like, OK, all of a sudden they were retooled.

He had more to work with. You're going to see it in Chicago with Justin Fields this offseason. They're going to be big spenders to start to surround him with some talent at the receiver and tight end position and whatnot. They got Cole Kmet, but they'll reload for him.

So you saw it with Jacksonville this past offseason. And now these guys are starting to hit a little bit. Zay Jones has really come on. It's really clicked for him. Evan Ingram. Evan Ingram's a great story.

Coming back to MetLife Stadium tonight and really starting to get into the swing of things. Doug Peterson's been good about Zach Ertz and I believe he was there for the start of Dallas Goddard. Yeah, being able to use tight ends out of various positions and all of a sudden it seems to be clicking for Evan Ingram as well.

So with Lawrence being able to get these guys and hit them in rhythm. And that toe injury that you talked about, I did talk to Peterson about it. He said he feels it during the game, but it doesn't affect his mobility and it's been getting better. So that's really helped him as well. He's also, since that Denver game, and Doug mentioned this before, he mentioned this to me again the other day. That interception that he threw in London against Denver, that was a turning point for him.

It was a, I've got to make better decisions. I've got to play better football. And since then he really has. So give Trevor Lawrence a ton of credit for everything that he dealt with last year and now really building on things this year and moving in the right direction. My fellow NFL Network insider Mike Garofolo is with us on the Mercedes-Benz Vans phone line. Jalen Hertz, Mike, we don't have the final status report, but Nick Sirianni certainly suggested strongly that he's not going to be out there this week.

It'll be Gardner Minshew, which is what we've expected throughout the week. He's got a right shoulder sprain. It's his throwing shoulder. From what I'm told, it's not long-term.

It is nothing that's going to require surgery, but this is generally an injury that's best treated with rest. Which brings me to, I think, an important question, not just for everybody who has Jalen Hertz in fantasy football, but for the MVP race as well. If the Eagles with Gardner Minshew beat the Cowboys on Saturday, wrapping up the number one seed, do we see Jalen Hertz again in the regular season? Do they give him an opportunity to try to polish off the rest of his MVP case? Or do they simply rest him and say, see you in second, third week of January?

Well, I think there's two things at play. One, if he misses one game, and we've heard various estimates and takes on whether he's going to be back next week. I've heard some people say he's got a shot and I've heard some people say he's got no shot. Obviously if it's no shot that makes things easy, but if he's got a shot and they've wrapped things up, I think it's easy to play him in week 17. Now the question is, what if he doesn't play in week 17 and then week 18 rolls around? Because now you're looking at the possibility that it'll be, I believe, a month and four days between games if he doesn't play at all in the rest of the regular season. So if he's available in week 18 but you've got the, well we don't need this game obviously, we've wrapped everything up, boy I'd love to give our starters a rest. I don't know, I think Nick Sirianni might have a tough decision on his hands and nobody's told me this.

And when I ask about it they say, we'll worry about that when we get there. In large part because they don't know how the next two weeks, they could theoretically lose the next two games. So I think at that point you may have to play them for rough purposes, right? Even if it's just a quarter, a half, whatever, get them out there against the Giants and play them a little bit along with the starters because you don't want that long of a layoff if possible. So keep an eye on that one because that could be an interesting scenario and it could theoretically if the Giants lose to Minnesota, which I believe they're expected to, they're not favored in that game. Then they've got the Colts the following week, which don't sleep on that team, you could have a scenario where the Giants need that week 18 game and the Eagles may play hurts in their starters again because of rough purposes or maybe even for the MVP or whatever it is.

That could set up a really interesting scenario between the two divisional rivals. So I've got an eye to week 18, let's see how it goes on both fronts there. Noel Lamar Jackson again this week, Mike. Jon Harbaugh saying it's going to be Tyler Snoop Huntley again.

Third straight game, Lamar has missed. This was kind of a similar type of thing, different injury. Last year was what ended up being revealed as a bone bruise in his ankle. This year it's a PCL injury in his knee. But there are similar vibes right now out of Baltimore where it certainly sounded like when Lamar got hurt, they thought this week against the Falcons was probably about where he'd be back.

He still has not practiced since that injury. And there's twofold in terms of the fallout of that. Number one, the Ravens are in a spot now where they've got to win this game this weekend or they're really in trouble in the playoff chase. And the second part of it is, Lamar of course setting himself up to go year to year it seems like at this point. And with regard to the idea that he wants a fully guaranteed contract, he's a fantastic player. But if two years in a row your franchise quarterback isn't available for the last month of the season, that seems like a pretty big deal when you're talking about a nine-figure investment. Yeah, he kind of said it all.

I agree with all that, all of the above. And that's something that the Ravens are going to have to deal with as they also assess whether to keep Greg Roman. I understand Jon Harbaugh is standing by him right now, which I would expect no less. But you're kind of in the thick of it now as you approach 2023.

Do you want to make a change there? It's a guy who really has designed and executed some of the stuff that's made Lamar Jackson and go back to Colin Kaepernick with San Francisco, some of the stuff that made him successful. He seems to have dialed up some stuff better than anybody else, which is why the Ravens certainly value what he does in the last couple of years, extremely high. Last week there was a less than 50% chance that he was going to play. There was an outside chance. This week was greater than 50% and the expectation that he would at least be in the run. As soon as he wasn't on the field the other day it was like, oh boy, he's not practicing to start the week.

He kind of knew where this was going to go. So yeah, I think disappointment that he's not available right now is probably the right word. And I don't want to say disappointment in anything he's doing, but just disappointment that they don't have him for this game that they thought that they would have him.

So you're right. This is now two years in a row where let's see if this drifts into next week because then you start to get in a scenario where... I remember last year, week to week, I was like, yeah, he's going to be out this week, but hopefully next week we'll give it a go in so many words. And just he never came back. So when it comes to the contract, when it comes to durability, the style he plays, he's been a lot smarter as his career is going on about taking hits. But you're going to play that style. You're going to take hits for sure. Last thing for you, Mike.

I was on a plane awaiting takeoff. Eventually got going two and a half hours late last night, but when the Pro Bowl show was on and the rosters were released. And the biggest thing that jumped out to me is the leader in fan voting, Tua Tungavailoa, did not make the AFC roster. Obviously fan voting is one third of it. There's also, there's players, there's coaches.

I'm sure some people are taking that as, well, why didn't the players and coaches vote for Tua? My reaction was, is anybody going to make a Pro Bowl for like the next 10 years except for Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen? That's a gauntlet where, I mean, those guys are going to be perennial picks and outside of guys dropping out with injuries or when they're in the Super Bowl. Pro Bowl games, excuse me, the inaugural Pro Bowl games. I don't know that anybody, even the guy who leads the NFL in passer rating, is going to be able to break through that triumvirate for the foreseeable future. Yeah, and NFC, he makes it, you know, no question about it. But unfortunately, they still do AFC, NFC. Maybe we've got to go, if we're going away from the game, maybe we've got to go away from that format as well.

Who knows? But yeah, listen, I mean, I know you said you don't want to look at it as the players and coaches knock them down, but they certainly did. Not because of, you know, looking at him and saying, well, you know, you didn't do or can't do a certain thing, but because of what those guys, those other guys you're talking about are able to do. So yeah, I'm going to make the point on air later tonight that CJ Mosley, the Jets linebacker, was shipped in fan voting and then got vaulted up to number one via the coaches and the players, which shows the respect that they have for him. It's kind of the opposite at play with Tua right here. So yeah, I know a lot of fans were disappointed in that one. Tuanon surely was disappointed in that one.

I didn't see any reaction from those folks. I don't even know, do we even know who Tuanon is or are they anonymous? I mean, that would be the anonymous part of Tuanon, right? That is a large part of it, yes.

Dark Web. So yeah, it's going to be a battle every year and we're talking about those four quarterbacks, just those four that we're talking about with only three spots. There's going to be a disappointment every year if those guys continue to play the way that they have. This year it's Tua, maybe he gets in next year, we'll see. What time are you kicking things off on NFL Network for MetLife tonight? NFL Network, it's 6 Eastern, Game Day Kickoff. It is with me and Steve Smith, Baldy, Ryan Baldinger. We're going to have Baldy's breakdowns in the studio along with Rhett Lewis and Thomas Davis because usually it's Colleen, Mike Robb, and MJD, but they're on their way to Pittsburgh. Steve is with me in Jersey so he can drive. They wanted to make sure the other ones got there early because they had to fly.

So it's a little bit of a different cast, but it's going to be a great cast. It's 6 Eastern, NFL Network, Game Day Kickoff leading you up to kick off with Jets Jaguar. Thanks for coming on, Mike. You got it, Tom. He made it through. I think he might be invited back now. Mike Garofolo, NFL Network.

Mike's always welcome here, a member of the brotherhood, so he's welcome back anytime. So beyond the Pro Bowl voting, which of course, controversial, Chris McCaffrey, Delvin Cook didn't make the team either. Miles Sanders was in, Tony Pollard was in over those guys.

Even more important than that. Sanders, good season, I mean. Very solid season, but Chris McCaffrey, Delvin Cook are two of the best players in the NFL.

It's tough names, tough gauntlet. Hey, look, man. Chris McCaffrey got traded halfway through the season.

How good could he be? Still was in the NFC. I'm just joking.

Stayed in there. It would've been more awkward if he got traded across party lines. Here's the other thing. Half these guys are going to play in the game anyway. They're all going to get replaced by their players. But if you are named on the initial ballot, that's a big deal.

That is a big deal for contract incentives for some of these guys. But also, it's just the you're on the initial team. You know, if you're added later and you're the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh alternate, it's not the same as you're it's on NFL Network and it's on the initial list.

It just it feels a little bit different. But what I was going to say is even more controversial than that. My annual poll of general managers and executives from around the NFL came out this morning on NFL.com. We're going to get to the results of that in just a little bit. Also, Dion Branch going to join us shortly here.

A lot to talk with. Let's smile on Brock's face. Dion about Patriots legend. What's going on with Bill Belichick? What's going on with his old quarterback? Tom Brady as well. We'll talk about all that as this episode of the Rich Eisen Show rolls on.

This NFL season, every Westwood one NFL broadcast streams live for free Mondays, Thursday, Sunday nights, Christmas triple headers and every post season game. It is the Rich Eisen Show without Rich. Tom Pelissero in for him. Phone lines open at 844-204. Rich, let's go to the phones right now. Terzo in Iowa. What's going on, Terzo? Hey, what's up, guys?

Tom enjoying the show today. I wanted to call in with you guys all a happy holidays. I really do appreciate you guys letting me be a part of the show, man. It's a lot of fun and I hope you guys have a great weekend and a great holiday. Appreciate that.

You too, brother. Hey, hey, I'm sitting here in Iowa right now and it's negative 10 degrees. It feels like it's negative 40 degrees.

Absolutely horrible. And I still, though, would rather walk a mile in this weather than the way I feel about my San Francisco Giants whipping on double AA run and also losing out on Carlos Correa, man. Like that was just heartbreaking. Yeah, I mean, we don't see that often. Players backing out or having a medical issue arise in baseball.

As somebody who was in Minnesota, I live there. Carlos Correa was an interesting case study last year because he was not the most popular guy for a good chunk of the season with the Twins. Obviously, then gets paid on a historic contract before that becomes a slightly less historic contract with the Mets. But a unique position, too, right, Terzo? You're looking for a shortstop. Mets are going to play him at third base, but there's not a lot of difference makers at that spot.

Well, and that was the whole thing is it kind of got me really excited. You lose out on Judd, but you come back and here we go. We got like the next best guy and there's no real excitement around the Giants right now. And we know the only big contract you've ever given out was Rowan, which was kind of a bust and that very veto. It came back on the back end, but it still wasn't a great contract.

And I was just hoping to get one of these guys just have a big bat in that lineup. What are you going to watch this weekend, Terzo? I'm very curious about this for sports fans, because for a long time, decades, the NBA has ruled Christmas Day. The NFL, by virtue of the fact that it's a Sunday, has now taken over another day out of the another holiday out of the calendar with a triple header. Ten and a half straight hours of football. Where are your eyes going to be? Where are you going to be spending your time?

All right. So I'm going to be I'm going to be down at Carl's place, my local bar, so I will have the TVs on at that point of NBA and NFL. I'm a huge NBA guy.

Love it. And the East, you know, the East is just absolutely dominant right now. I think the championship comes out of the East.

The champion comes out of the East. But I'll be I'll be going back and forth between all of them on all the TV. Is everybody in Iowa at the bars on on Christmas? Is this like a common thing? What time do they open? So Carl's place opens it typically at 10. But sometimes you can find your way in at either 830 or nine if you if you know the right people.

The 830 a.m. Christmas in a bar. I think that's that's a cry for help right there, Terzo. I don't know. Well, no, the fun part is they they cater in all the food as well, too. So if you don't have if you don't have immediate family or anything, they take care of yourself.

So it's kind of a second family for you. That's excellent. Well, enjoy the holiday, Terzo.

Take it easy on the 8 a.m. eggnog. We'll we'll talk to you soon. You brother. I always love you guys. Thanks.

All right. We got to go to Carl's. It's man. Carl's place. They love it.

They love us up in there. I like I like a bar that they didn't think too hard on the name. Carl's. Hey, Carl, what do you call your bar? I don't know. Carl's place.

Yeah, works. That makes sense. Not going to forget that 830 a.m. in the bar. What's that's when the games are on. At 830 a.m. Not in Iowa.

Oh, not in Iowa. What time is it? We got a pregame. It's two hours later. They're on central time. Well, the Brockman just like zoomed in from outer space here on Pacific time. Some of us. It's a little bit different. Well, this is our time zone.

This is how we live. It's really the only time zone to watch sports. Like, let's be honest. Like, if you're a kid and you live on the East Coast, you never see the end of every game. You never watch the second half of the fourth quarter. It was all of us.

I mean, it stinks. The battle of I can remember vividly, like having to battle to get to halftime of Monday Night Football. When it started at 915. It started so late. I grew up in central time.

So it was 815. But you like just to get to halftime, you were pushing 10 o'clock. And that was a conversation when you're 10 years old. Well, just getting there and then you wake up in the morning and ask what exactly happened. Well, how'd the game end? And the rest of that game. So you're up 10 a.m. You're watching at 10 a.m. every week.

10 a.m. in the fall. Actually, last Sunday was maybe the most perfect sports Sunday. Because you had the World Cup final starting at 7. And because it went to extra time and then it went to PK's mic. Literally, it ended right at 959. And so it ended and then boom, it flipped over and there's Cowboys Jaguars on five.

It was perfect. I was the, you know, the sideline reporter for the Vikings Colts game. And a lot of our crew and the producers were from Fox. And we're sitting in the production meeting waiting for Jeff Saturday and company to come in. And somebody said something about the World Cup. And I said, it's still going on? And I was serious because I just, as soon as the U.S. was out, I'm seeing 2026. And then I looked around, I'm like, this is probably not the room to say that in.

This is literally the lifeblood here for Fox. That's funny. Yeah.

But I don't think I'm unique in that regard either. No, no, no. A lot of super casuals. We were into it because we were betting every game.

But it was like mad fun, yeah. What are the lines in soccer games? We'll talk about this in a second. Over under.5 every game. Yeah, you're betting a lot of money line, like win in regular time. You can bet the draw. You're kind of banking on it going extra time. Bet how many extra, how much extra time? How many goals you can bet guys to score. So I was basically just betting like Messi to score every game. I can see that.

I can see that working out. That game on, yeah, Del Tufo, exactly. Well, you didn't know that. He's our extra time expert. He got us through the World Cup. He was able to calculate, because that was one thing we had about soccer, Tom. The timing, the clock seems arbitrary.

You never know how much time is really left. There's one guy who knows. And it's Del Tufo.

Yeah, I'm the guy. He's two guys, the referee and Del Tufo. So that was Mike's job throughout the World Cup. I think TJ and Rich appointed me the stoppage time expert.

Yeah, he was the stoppage time expert. I also find it when they go, okay, it's 10, right? They got the guy, he's got the card, okay, 10 minutes. And then you look at the clock, and it's like 11 and a half, and they're still going. Well, that's the, see, that's the problem. I always think- It's kind of a little arbitrary.

It's not shown anywhere. In the NFL, they got seven officials on the field. Exactly. You still miss sometimes the play clock running out. Exactly. You think, did the guy just forget to look?

Was he so captivated? Yeah, like, oh man, crap, I was supposed to, I hope nothing big happened here. I was supposed to blow this dead five minutes ago. My bad. It's- It's my bad, guys.

Sorry. My annual poll, GMs, other executives from around the NFL voted this week on MVP, all the big awards. We're going to dive into it, some of the best unnamed quotes, all that right after this on The Rich Eisen Show. How wrestling really works and how you get the ratings. Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson explain on 83 weeks. You're either growing or you're dying. I think it'd be hard to recreate the kind of growth that WCW experienced between 95 and 98. This audience should be growing. The characters should be coming more and they're not. Everybody's gradually losing audience. Not that people will say, well, but AEW is 15% ahead of where they were last year. But there's variables there. Let's see where we're at year from now. 83 weeks on YouTube or wherever you listen.