REShow: Hour 1

What's Right with Nick Wright is a rapidly growing podcast from the Fox Sports Podcast Network. You may know Nick Wright from co-hosting FS1's First Things First. This podcast gives Nick a chance to develop, deep dive, and defend his sharpest opinions.

During the show, Nick faces off against a ticking clock, a team of producers, and even his own family to try and get his points across. New episodes drop Monday, Thursday, and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. Very special edition of the Rich Eisen Show, even though the headliner is not here. It's the final show of the year, meaning all of the lava-filled hot takes that I have accumulated as the fill-in guy have to be jammed in today. I don't know if you at home are aware, hot takes do not carry over into the following calendar year. So, if you've heard any of what I've tried to contribute this week, or you've bumped into me along the way at some other opportunities that I'm a part of, hopefully by now you know the blueprint I try to lay out every time I'm barking into a microphone.

I move quickly, I try to get about four and a half hours worth of content into this three-hour bag, but I'll always carve out time for potential interaction. With the caveat, on a big word Friday, phone calls are taken selectively. 1-844-204-RICH, 1-844-204-7424. In all candor, Twitter is the best way to get involved. It is still functioning. Another wonky night last night. The greatness of Thursday Night Football almost brought the infrastructure down. It's been a tough week on Twitter, but I just checked the feed. It's still humming along. B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's. And, because I have delusion, I'm just that fascinating, along with trying to give you as many ways of chiming in as possible.

I never am going to bludgeon you with guests. In fact, just two coming up in our three hours together in addition to all the NFL I'm going to handle. We're going to jump right in with our takeaways from a surprisingly watchable Thursday Night Football game, despite all of the Titans resting last night. Coming up in hour number two of the program, 1-20 Eastern Time will take you round the NFL with Jared Bell, long time observer of professional football, outstanding columnist for USA Today. And the final segment of the show, 2-40 Eastern Time, beyond what I'm going to tackle in 40 minutes, because I'm talking a good chunk of college football today. Not going to get bogged down in the details of the five games coming up, although I need to read some of these corporate sponsorships for you.

But, countdown to kickoff already underway for the National Semi-Finals tomorrow. If you go to Rich Eisen's Twitter feed right now, you see him wearing his Michigan blue, a proud Michigan man. I know he is jacked up to see what his alma mater can do, making it back to the National Semi-Finals for the second consecutive year. Big favorites over TCU, although Sonny Dykes deserves a lot of credit.

Raise your hand, I can see you through the radio, it's new technology. Did you have TCU getting into the Final Four this year? And then Georgia, despite the fact they are not as talented as last year, they have the ability to do something that was not achieved by last year's national championship team. That is, go undefeated.

Try going back to back. It's Georgia with the added benefit of playing in front of the home folks just down the road from Athens in Atlanta, taking on Ohio State. We will rely on the expertise of Matt Fortuna of The Athletic to wrap up the program talking college football. Let's jump right in with Thursday Night Football, and since I've had a great time as always being in for Rich this week, we also have had to deal with breaking news. On Monday, midway through the program, we got confirmation of what we knew to be true for a long time, but it became official that Nathaniel Hackett was pushed out in Denver yesterday about midway through the show.

It's a good thing that Twitter is still functioning. I was refreshing the account, and I noticed that in addition to everything I'd laid out about Mike Vrabel telling us what we had already surmised, last night's game had no meaning whatsoever other than for Tennessee. They may have found their starting quarterback for next week's monumental matchup. It's winner take all between the imploding Titans. Last night's loss to the Cowboys, 27-13, is another moment of adversity. I'll be kind.

How about this? Six consecutive losses. They're in free fall, but because they had accumulated such a big lead in that Gasly division, they still have an opportunity to win it all next week at Jacksonville as the Jags have come alive and great to see Trevor Lawrence, since we're going to talk a lot of college football today in addition to the NFL, nice to see Lawrence playing like the competitor that we thought would be a generational talent coming out of the college ranks when he won the national championship, carved up a vaunted Alabama defense and then was saddled with the worst professional coach we've ever seen in Urban Meyer and that includes Nathaniel Hackett. Difference is old Nate Hackett seems like a good guy. My opinion on Urban is he's less than stellar. Again, I'm trying to be as magnanimous as possible when New Year's Eve coming up tomorrow.

Keep it light with a holiday mindset. So, Tennessee made it abundantly clear they were not taking last night's game that seriously. You can, especially if you're in fantasy football and you know, and before I slam you fantasy manager, you should write down the Twitter handle so you can bark at me. B.W. Weber Weber with two B's. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich. It is the Friday edition. We wrap up the year with style points on the Rich Eisen Show. 1-844-204-rich.

1-844-204-7424. Fantasy managers, I feel your pain. I am aware I gave up fantasy football a long time ago because I'm trying to have just a semblance of a life and now we all talk about gambling instead of fantasy football which was just gambling without having to be so overt about it. But if you play your fantasy Super Bowl this week, week 17 which kicked off last night and suddenly you're looking in your lineup and saying, wait a minute, Derrick Henry's not playing? Uh oh, seven Titan starters rested in addition to some significant names that were already banged up and unavailable on defense. So, my question as I signed off yesterday was, would Dallas handle their business like a dominant team that has aspirations and beyond just hopes a legitimate chance of winning a Super Bowl? Would they go out there and stomp on the Titans or would Dallas play down to the level of competition which we've seen them do for decades? As much as I want to hang this on Mike McCarthy and we have enough that we can connect Mike to that falls under the category of coaching malpractice, namely go back to what happened at the last minute or so of the playoff game against the 49ers at home last year as division champs. They imploded with some just hideous clock management including that final play call. But this is not a Mike McCarthy problem. This is a quote unquote America's team conundrum. Dallas over the years has played down to the level of competition and we saw it as recently as a handful of weeks ago when they just did not show up at all against the Houston, Texas.

Now, let's give Lovey Smith some credit. He still may lose his job. It's not his fault. That is one of the most poorly constructed rosters we've seen in recent memory. All with the goal of maximizing their draft possibilities. I really am being very congenial.

How about this? Houston's tanking. We know that. Still, they have competed. So, as much as I want to say, well Dallas didn't show up in that game, I have to give a degree of credit to Houston. Still, that would have been one of the biggest upsets in terms of money lines and spreads we've seen in decades. If Dallas had continued to gag away that game, they found a way to win. Similar story last night.

If you didn't watch it, I can't blame you. And coming up in 15 minutes, I'm going to run through my evaluation of the most important sports stories of the year. One of them is going to be the rise of streaming. Understanding when Rich comes back from his much deserved and hopefully enjoyed vacation.

My man works extremely hard. You'll have the ability to enjoy the terrific simulcast streaming on the Roku channel. A lot of my television work, if you're interested in what I do when I'm not clutching this microphone, you can go to my Twitter feed, BW Weber, Weber with two Bs.

A lot of that is already on streaming platforms and within two to three years, I'd say 75% of it's going to be there. So, I'm not anti-streaming. I'm not anti-technology. Here's a good one. I'm not a Luddite.

A movement in the turn of the last century, the 1800s into the 1900s who said, you know this new fangled electricity? I don't need that. I'm going to keep churning the butter manually. Understand. Adapt, change, or perish as the old cliche goes in Silicon Valley. Still, the streaming experience is a little bit wonky.

And when I'm watching Amazon, because they are the exclusive home now of Thursday Night Football and they are writing a massive check for it, my issue is I can't just flip back and forth to my cable channels. I probably can. I'm a little bit older than my, hey, I'm energetic. I'm happy to be here.

Delivery would suggest. Probably I just need one of my young relatives to come over and show me how to toggle things correctly. But since I was on Amazon, I rode that game all the way to halftime with no flipping. And yes, Larry Sanders told us a long time ago, hey now, Hank Kingsley, no flipping. My point is, there's going to be a point, just stand by, when I watch Thursday Night Football and some of these matchups, as Al Michaels' delivery has reflected, have been atrocious. My concern last night was it was going to be that bad.

It wasn't. But I really pay attention to Thursday Night Football, even more so than I do watching other games because I'm a prisoner of my TV. I just can't flip back and forth that easily. Plus, there wasn't much going on I wanted to watch last night. Now today, if you were flipping around, here are some of your options.

Right now, as I glance at the monitor, I am multitasking, so if occasionally I verbally go astray, that's why. The fabled Dukes Mayo Bowl is underway. Maryland and NC State, the reason I mention the matchups is, thankfully, people are attending this game.

I realize they're all television productions. The only reason the vast majority of these games exist is to get people to watch and generate TV ratings. I just can't watch a professional or high-level college game with nobody in the stands. But because that game's in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Wolfpack Connection, well-attended. Later on, Pittsburgh and UCLA, the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. I have a 1996 Sun Bowl watch. I was calling games for my alma mater, the mighty Stanford Cardinal.

I tell you this for two reasons. I'm old. Secondly, the Sun Bowl has had more name changes than I can recall. Years ago, it was the first bowl to drop the corporate sponsor and just go with the corporate name. It was the John Hancock Bowl decades ago. This year, it is the Tony the Tiger Bowl. I can't yell.

They're great because I've been doing a lot of radio and I got another show on Monday, but there's a lot going on today. So if you're flipping around, you have options. Last night, I was held captive by Thursday Night Football, and I'm glad beyond it being my job, after all, I paid a little bit more attention to Josh Dobbs because Tennessee, as mentioned, still has a chance to be a playoff team. Almost inexplicably, almost understandably, that makes no sense. There's no logic.

There's no coherence. There's no rationality, but if we're going to see Tennessee in the playoffs, and I think it's a very small possibility Ryan Tennell could come back for that postseason game, it's going to be Josh Dobbs under center leading, quote unquote, how about this, part of an offense that gets Tennessee into the playoffs if they can beat Jacksonville next week. And that's what was the key development last night for Tennessee. And yes, Derrick Henry needed to rest. If they're going to beat Jacksonville next week, it's going to be presumably a steady diet of Derrick knocking dudes over. But when we were asked along the way to come up with quick, instant judgments on Malik Willis, remember a third round pick out of Liberty after he started his career at Auburn. Maybe he's got a future down the road. I don't want to bury anybody year one.

That's unfair. He just looked overwhelmed. He looked like he was not ready for the NFL.

In fact, the numbers backed it up. A major reason why Tennessee was motivated to pick up Josh Dobbs off the practice sked, uh, practice roster for the lions nine days ago, Willis, the numbers were so pedestrian and the eyeball test was even worse. And his three starts, just 234 yards total.

That's it, no touchdowns and three interceptions. So here comes Josh Dobbs and it was a couple things coalescing. Yes, an indictment of Willis, but also an opportunity for Tennessee in a game that had no consequence last night to see if somebody who had bounced around the leagues as being a fourth round pick, coincidentally out of the Tennessee volunteers program. So nice connection for Dobbs being back in the state of Tennessee last night against Dallas. What a guy who has had at least the exposure to other offenses. At least he's been in preseason games and actually a handful of real competition circumstances. Would they get anything out of Dobbs?

And the answer is yes, I'm not buying him a gold jacket. I'm not saying he's a pro bowler, but he was a functioning quarterback and Willis just has not shown nearly enough of that. So if you're a Titan fan, here are some positives from last night. You hung around, you made the game competitive, now a lot of that comes down to Dallas and namely Dak Prescott being far too generous. And we're going to talk about the Cowboys coming up and we'll continue this into our next block momentarily.

I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, 1-844-204 Rich. Dak Prescott, well I thought he had the ability to compartmentalize last week after he had that strange play with the ball, batted up and sweat took it back for the touchdown. Dak was able to move past that and had a brilliant game against one of the best defenses in all of football. Problem was last night, back to the notion of playing down to the level of competition, understanding that Dallas was not fully healthy, no team is clearly in week 17, but they were resting Tony Pollard and that's a major loss based on his versatility. Dak had three turnovers in the first half alone.

He rebounded, he was able to shore up his approach in the second half. Still, remember Dak missed five games this year with the finger injury. Well, even though he's got a much smaller sample size than most of his peers, Dak now with five games this year with multiple interceptions, put it all together, 14 total picks, that's the same number as Derek Carr and Derek Carr just got benched and presumably we're never going to see Derek Carr play for the Las Vegas Raiders again, so I'm not throwing Dak away. I'm a Dak believer. I'm not going to go through the top 10 quarterbacks across football, but just through the old who do you trust construct, I have a lot more faith in Dak than a lot of guys across the NFL. Certainly he's not on the top tier as Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow who played in the Super Bowl last year, but Dak is good enough to win a Super Bowl. The question for Dallas becomes, remember, because they likely will be a wild card, although we still don't know the status of Jalen Hurts' positive events in Philadelphia yesterday after Hurts missed that Dallas game last week with the shoulder injury. He was back on the practice field for the first time, Philadelphia hosting the 6-9 Saints because if I say NFC South, other than the Bucks, everybody's 6-9 in that mediocre division, but let's spin it forward.

In all likelihood, Dallas will be a wild card, meaning they'll be on the road. Will Dak be able to play more efficiently? I'm not saying he's got to ball out.

I'm not saying he's got to play the best game of his career. I'm saying minimize mistakes because if you give it away and you do it repeatedly, and that's been the huge issue for Dak when he's had wobbly moments, you make games far more competitive and Tennessee had no business being in that game whatsoever last night. Other than, and this is a reflection of their belief in Mike Vrabel and his skills as a motivator, they competed. They tried. They didn't lay down and they got too many opportunities from Dallas, so the game was tight at halftime and the Cowboys finally woke up in the second half. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen.

A lot to get to, but if you want to have your voice heard, hit me up on Twitter. That's B.W. Weber. Weber with two B's in 25 minutes. We talk college football, getting you set for the national semifinals coming up tomorrow. Straight ahead, more thoughts on Dallas and where we put them amongst the premier teams in the NFC. Plus, it is the final program of the year, so I'm going to go through my hierarchy of the biggest sports stories of the year. What item will be number one? Find out next. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich.

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Don't wait, unlock your potential inside a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. What's Right with Nick Wright is a rapidly growing podcast from the Fox Sports Podcast Network. You may know Nick Wright from co-hosting FS1's First Things First. This podcast gives Nick a chance to develop, deep dive, and defend his sharpest opinions. During the show, Nick faces off against a ticking clock, a team of producers, and even his own family to try and get his points across.

New episodes drop Monday, Thursday, and Friday wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state, even in states where marijuana is legal. That means driving high could get you a DUI. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, you're wrong. Your friends can tell. Your co-workers can tell. Even your parents can tell.

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Paid for by NHTSA. Brian, we're back with you. Final edition of the Rich Eisen Show for 2022. And then Rich and the fellas back with you on Monday to kick off what's hopefully going to be a dynamic year for all of us. Still plenty of opportunities for you to be a part of the program.

1-844-204. Rich, tweet at me, B.W. Weber.

Weber with two B's. Full disclosure, with all the hot takes flowing through my veins, and I do a bunch of other things throughout the holidays just to make sure the folks who have families don't have to come in. I'm not looking for your empathy.

By the time I get to Friday, occasionally the lava burns through my sinuses. So if I'm just a touch less articulate than normal, my apologies. Still, I'd be like Jim Irsay, right? Even if I kick around the rest of the show, I'm still in the top quartile of the upper quartile.

Correctamundo? And speaking of blue horseshoe, in less than 15 minutes, because I was Mike McCarthy-esque with the clock management in that monologue, we're going to keep this more succinct. In 15 minutes, we'll talk college football with the national semifinals coming up tomorrow. Why aren't we talking more about the real possibility win or lose tomorrow and then in the national title game here in Southern California as I come to you from our Regal studios in Los Angeles? Why aren't we talking more about the real possibility of Jim Harbaugh going back to the NFL in this coaching cycle? And why don't we connect the dots? Didn't he used to play in Indianapolis?

Couldn't they use a functioning legitimate coach with experience? I know a shocking proposition. We'll get there coming up in a bit. Getting back to the NFL here and we'll also go through the handful of stories that dominated my curiosity across the sports landscape this year. A reminder, you can listen to the NFL and the NFL app on the Odyssey app on westwoodonesports.com via Westwood One Station streams or by asking Alexa to open Westwood One Sports sponsored by AutoZone. It's time to say goodnight to that check engine light with the free AutoZone fix finder service.

It'll help you troubleshoot the likely cause of your light for free. Restrictions apply. Get in the zone.

AutoZone. A few more thoughts on the Cowboys. So if we go back to a guy who was amongst many to take a big check from Jerry Jones as Bill Parcells famously told us, say it with me, you are what your record says you are. Now I never fully believe that. It's a nice bromide.

Hey bromide. It's a good cliche, a universal truth to throw out there. Still Dallas did win the football game. They're 12-4.

They still have a possibility of not only winning the division and that would be a huge development because of the parity within the NFC East. Nobody goes back to back. It's been a carousel of teams. Better part of 20 years nobody's gone back to back.

That's still out there. Although I do think Gardner Minshew and playing at home is good enough, a combination for Philadelphia to defeat New Orleans coming up on Sunday and that should be enough to put Philly over the top to be the top seed in the NFC. But if you're going to believe that, do you fully believe the Vikings are what their record suggests they are? And then the pushback would be have you watched them play? And I cannot discount 12-3. And I can't overlook Minnesota making NFL history this year 11-0 in one score games. Nobody has done that in the history of the league. Still also suggests they've gotten a lot of good fortune. So I'm not just going to, I'm not going to crown anybody because I finally have the mic where I want it to be.

If I move three centimeters the whole thing comes tumbling down. I'm not crowning anybody including Philadelphia in the NFC and that goes for Dallas as well. But if I can divorce myself of the intellectual dishonesty I have when it comes to the Cowboys and just view them with a degree of objectivity and just try to be unbiased, it's hard. Because as I go through all the things I appreciate about this year's version of the Cowboys I immediately go back to my default setting.

Well what have they done since the mid 90s? And I start thinking about Tony Romo botching the hold in Seattle and I think about Dak caught it and we know he did. And I think about the Packers furious comeback on the road in Dallas. And I think about what happened last year with the 49ers.

So hopefully you get the overall point. I think I'm being unfair to the Cowboys with an institutional assessment of them and yes I should have been institutionalized a long time ago. But if we're just looking at personnel and performance Dallas has one of the most dynamic offenses in all of football.

They have a defense that will hit you in the mouth. Demarcus Lawrence a pro bowler again. Micah Parsons not fully healthy still a huge individual difference maker.

Diggs in the secondary. So I think Dallas could make it to the Super Bowl. And then when they implode in the postseason I won't be here. I was trying to think the next time I might be lucky enough to come back. Last year it was all the way until Memorial Day. So if you're already tired of this act and I don't blame you good news is Rich does not take a lot of vacation and you may not have to hear me say. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich for about six months.

1-844-204 Rich 1-844-204-7424 is the number to call. Talking college football coming up in just under 10 minutes. Few thoughts on the biggest sports stories of the year and I'm not going to be the old time magazine. Yes I'm just playing the hits here. Well it's the end of the year you get sentimental and you think about old Lang Syne and Guy Lombardo that's a reference about 1978. I did not go through my top 10 stories.

I mapped out a few in front of me and the payoff of that exercise was I don't think there was a dominant story this year. Now the one to me that had the most resonance was Aaron Judge but again because of my background and if you can't detect it that means I've done a good job of suppressing it. Like Rich I'm originally from the New York tri-state area. Rich grew up in Staten Island. I grew up just outside the Bronx. I was high school in the city so I am a New Yorker and I was a Yankee fan a million years ago. But the importance of Judge beyond my geographical tie-in was it did make baseball relevant again for a lot of casual fans. We had the conversation about what's the real record. I had never heard people talking about the American League record along the way and that was a nice way a code way of saying presumably steroid and PED free and we don't know what anybody in jest but I'm going to say with a degree of confidence just look at Aaron Judge.

I think he is a natural athlete. He's Paul Bunyan right and man if you want to take away something beyond just the trite winners and losers there is value in betting on yourself. Now in large measure that's because the Yankees for once inexplicably I'll get out this time showed financial restraint. The Yankees. You want me to go through the 75 bad contracts I can do off the top of my head going back to Ed Whitson who was so bad he could not pitch at home because he was being chased to his car in the Bronx in Yankee Stadium but after handing out billions of dollars of ludicrous contracts the Yankees decide with Judge and I get the motivation there's no comp for him in terms of stature. Frank Howard probably the closest gigantor we've seen plus he's older than you think. So the Yankees said hey we have some reservations we're going to pay you good money we're not going to pay you insane money and Judge said okay well thank you very much I'm going to go out and club more home runs than anybody in Yankee history and he got paid.

So Judge is right there. Clearly anything connected to the NFL should come to mind but what was the dominant store in the NFL? The Rams winning it all?

Well again I know I'm revisiting some familiar ground here. I believe in consistency. I want to see that it's not just an aberration and I understand sports is very fluky that's why we love it it's so unpredictable but the Rams to me felt like a one-off and I know they made the Super Bowl with Jared freaking Goff who played a lot better than Matthew Stafford this year but the Rams a nice story okay and a thrilling Super Bowl but I don't think we're going to remember that team other than when Aaron Donald goes to the Hall of Fame 20 years from now. So I don't have anything NFL motivated I guess the ebbs and flows of Brady stand out. To me I think the biggest takeaway was this was the return to normalcy and part of that is the Warriors re-establishing their dynasty and that's that continuity I'm looking for and yes you can say well there are different chapters as the Warriors have piled up these titles that's fine you know who I'm talking about I'm talking about Steph, Klay, and Draymont and they won it all again and that is something that is going to stand the test of time but I think we were all so fatigued so battered by real-life events starting in March 2020 with Rudy Gobert foreshadowing that the world was going to become unglued just to have people attending games again didn't have to be an extraordinary moment just getting back to something that felt normal again to me that was the biggest sports story of the year we could talk about your I'm talking to you hip young people your fascination with f1 I get it I'm out of touch I still don't understand why you're watching that and I understand the importance of that Netflix documentary I'm told it's a good scene to go hang out look at the rich people at f1 but I am like the American dream Dusty Rhodes I'm the common man I'm the son of a plumber so I'm not going to put that in any real conversation for something that's important to me beyond the return to normalcy this year's key takeaway was the rise of streaming with the final catalyst coming to be made official last week with the NFL now in business with Google and they own YouTube so the NFL does a better job of monetizing their content than anybody if there's a dollar to be made the National Football League will find a way so now they are partners with Amazon look at the next year hopefully I'm filling in for rich the day after Thanksgiving there will be a Black Friday game for the first time in decades because Amazon's writing a big check as they did to get the Thursday night package Thursday Night Football probably should not exist especially at the end of the season especially with your fantasy football Super Bowl on the line why is it never going away because of all of the money involved think about the NFL now with Apple still out there as a potential bidder they'll find a way to get them involved because it's going to replicate what the NFL has done with traditional media namely they're partners with Fox there are partners with CBS there are partners with NBC jump over to the tech sphere partners with Amazon partners with Google they'll find a way to get some of that Apple money so as we think about the future this was the tipping point 2022 was the year things started skewing in our sports world more heavily towards streaming and it's never going back to what it used to be you can't unring that bell there are pros and cons let's talk in five years hopefully I'm filling in for rich them and I know you hate your cable or satellite provider I think you're gonna miss it because while we can parse how much you're paying I know I know the bill goes up and it makes no sense still are you satisfied at least with what you're getting at home and the ease of finding these games it's gonna be a smorgasbord moving forward but sports fans always find a way I'm Brian Weber in for rich you can hop aboard at 1-8-4-4-2-0-4 rich that's 1-8-4-4-2-0-4-7-4-2-4 hit me up on twitter bw weber weber with two b's no guests until second hour of the program coming up at 120 eastern time we talk nfl with jared bell of usa today straight ahead we make the move to college football I have to say that slowly college football when I left new york apparently my o's were very soft and I had a former boss said you know you say college football and he said no it's college football national semifinals tomorrow I'll give you my thoughts on the games and we'll expand our focus after interviewing with the vikings last year is jim harbaugh going to do more than flirt with the nfl this year all part of this jam-packed friday edition of the program I'm brian weber in for rich it's the rich it's the rich eisen show brian weber back with you friday edition final program of the year rich eisen show one eight four four two oh four rich one eight four four two oh four seven four two four twitter's bw weber weber with two b's I do my best to live up to my forward promotion we will talk some college football here but since we have a injury update on jail and hurts and a quote from eagles head coach nick seriana I'm also going to mix in some nfl nfl will be the focus of our monologue to kickoff hour number two of the program getting you set for the packers and the vikings here comes aaron rogers and then at 120 eastern time we'll say hello to our first guest that's jared bell nfl columnist for usa today a reminder with the playoffs looming this nfl postseason every westwood one nfl broadcast streams live for free the wild card round the divisional round the afc and nfc championship games the pro ball games and super bowl 57 here's the update on hurts I mentioned he did practice yesterday and reporters had access to nick seriani just a few minutes ago this is courtesy of adam shefter of espn's twitter feed seriani on hurts's availability for sunday quote we're still sorting through it obviously jaylen had a good practice yesterday went out and looked like he did some things really well so still going to sort through all those things haven't decided anything yet so as cliched as it sounds i think it's going to come down to the old game time decision gardner minshew i realized had two interceptions in the loss to dallas in which dallas erupted for 40 points to me the biggest takeaway from that game was dallas exploiting some philadelphia defensive issues but minshew can play well enough against a middle of the pack new orleans team if forced to go and that would get philadelphia moving in the right direction to both lock up the division and be the top seed throughout the playoffs in the nfc want to talk some college football i'm going to do a lot more of it deep in our number two of the program and then we're going to check in to wrap up the show at 240 eastern time with matt fortuna of the athletic let's talk hardball here because georgia to me is the dominant story to go back to back in this era of nil inducement and the transfer portal and a handful of teams like alabama and clemson having a stranglehold on the sport since we've gone to quote unquote the playoff era for georgia to go back to back that would be incredible i'm not saying this year's team is as good as last year if you're just looking at roster composition and dudes going to the nfl remember georgia has been a pipeline to the pros for decades it's a testament to what kirby smart has done that they've crystallized things to win the national championship the natty as you hipsters say last year and real favorites to go back to back this year but i'm going to talk about the games in detail coming up in the next hour of the program to me as interesting is the uncertainty surrounding the future of jim harbaugh now i know when asked about it in the run-up to tcu and michigan tomorrow harbaugh has said all the right things in fact i think he's enjoying toying with the media about well life has its mysteries and i'm just focused here he's quoted the bible what do you expect him to say he's a smart guy he's a shrewd football savant in many ways but because last year he finally defeated ohio state and he took the next step by leading michigan back to their status as a truly elite program you know about the history and the heritage but they had had years of far too much uncertainty and far too many ups and downs and inconsistency glory was restored by making it to the playoff and that's why i think it was pretty clear harbaugh had no issue with not even a undercover of the night not a surreptitious interview with the vikings we all knew he was getting on a private plane and going to minnesota didn't work out and you could be cynical and say well wasn't that just to create the illusion of leverage and at some point that's going to pay off financially for harbaugh remember he had some heat we had to restructure his deal when alumni were not pleased that they were not living up to expectations well that's all been restored i think if we're going to believe jim harbaugh you got to go back to what he said last year because he is a authentic character and i know people from my alma mater he was solely responsible for jump-starting stanford after decades of more than mediocrity we're talking some awful football teams jim is a unique guy but i do think he's a man of his word and he said repeatedly i have a degree of unfinished business in the nfl namely i made it all the way to the super bowl which he never won as a player and i lost to my brother after the lights went out in new orleans so he talked about at some point wanting to get back to the top of his profession and that's being a head coach in the nfl well let's go through the exercise the what if game what if michigan wins it all don't think they are going to pull it off but what if they do why does he have any reason to stick around at that point he's already beaten now ryan day at ohio satan back-to-back years he's gotten michigan back to the playoff for a second consecutive year if he wins it all what's the incentive to hang around and even if he doesn't he's already checked those other boxes i delineated so i think michigan beats tcu i know they're going to miss blake quorum but they're a better football team if michigan loses to georgia presumably in the national title game or let's make it more interesting what if they beat ohio state to win it all rich eisen and his brethren and the rest of the family in an arbor will lose their minds and at that point if you're harbaugh why not walk away on top and the colts are such a obvious destination now it probably makes too much sense because we're dealing with jim risset who i am now fascinated by in ways i never was other than you probably want to make sure he's got a driver getting him home safely based on some brushes with the law in the past but the wacky press conference introducing jeff saturday calling him a leader of men comparing the cults to the cia having the comp to don shula and reminding us the cults are in the top quartile of the upper quartile of the top one percent still the saturday experiment is a joke 33 to nothing at halftime over the vikings you know the rest of the story even harbaugh if he had reservations about leaving a great situation in an arbor nose he can go to ursay and say hey if you want me to fix the franchise you have broken you got to give you got to give me everything i want including input into the gm although chris ballard is highly respected i understand the other concerns about indeed they don't have a quarterback well think about all of the folks who could be available how about derek carr to the colts i'm not putting derek carr on that upper echelon but he's more serviceable than you think yeah he threw a ton of interceptions this year that's not all on derek cars so file it away as you watch the game i'm sure it'll be discussed tomorrow but when michigan defeats tcu moves on to national championship game we have a whole nother week it's not till a monday coming up here in southern california on january 9th i think the speculation about hardball back to the nfl is more than just rumor and innuendo it makes a great deal of sense one hour down two more hours to get to i will go more in depth on the college football i promise but the nfl is king for a reason so we're going to maintain that momentum getting you set for an intriguing game between the packers and the vikings coming up on sunday plus we'll check in with jared bell nfl columnist for usa today thanks for kicking off the long holiday weekend with us always a pleasure to be in for rich i'm brian weber and for mr eisen it's 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 i think 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