REShow: Hour 1

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I like that they have personality. I'm living my life, man. The grass is so freakin green here.

You have no idea. Live from The Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. The 47 year wait is over. The Denver Nuggets stand on top. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pelissero coming up. NFL Network insider Ian Rappaport. And now sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero. We've got some NFL news. We shall get to momentarily a big holdout for one of the AFC contenders player absent from the mandatory minicamp that is beginning today. But we shall start with the moment that you just heard immortalized right there by the Nuggets broadcasting team.

Mike Breen on TV. Really excitement unparalleled for everyone except apparently Nicola Jokic, who just wants to go home. I've seen a lot of a lot of championship celebrations over my 42 years watching sports, consuming it, covering the NFL. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like the post game with Jokic last night. The best player, the finals MVP, the NBA MVP.

And let's just play it right now. Here's Nicola Jokic with Lisa Salters moments after the Nuggets clinched the NBA title. You are an NBA champion, Nicola. How does that feel? It's good. It's good.

When the job is done, we can go home now. Lisa Salters is a longtime pro. And you know, she's she's fairly straight laced on the air.

Even she kind of just like, wow. Okay, I was thinking there'd be a longer answer. Where do we go?

Right there? We'll check the notes. Get to the second one. Listen, I don't I don't mean to make too much light of it because I have no idea what's going on. Jokic's, you know, personal life, what you know, you may want to get back to in Serbia, the mental and physical fatigue. I can't imagine you're playing basketball.

They go to training camp in like September and you're still playing in mid-June and you come out and you play a grueling series. That was a physical game last night, too, that in the second half. I felt like that was watching a game like a 1990s style NBA finals where there's a lot of contact.

There's a lot of back and forth. Jimmy Butler makes a massive shot when the heater down like eight and it looks like it's over and he's shooting terribly, makes an off balance three. Also, the first player I've ever seen draw a foul by kicking someone in the crotch. Am I wrong that the no rules change that you can't kick the leg out unnaturally?

Yes, that is on that play. And then they reviewed it. Put it this way, after after watching that review last night, I don't want to hear about the NFL replay process for a while because how you're watching that again, I'm not I'm not professing to be an NBA expert or even a regular fan of the game. But if the player kicking a guy between the legs who jumps straight up to try to block the shot, it allows him to draw three free throws in a critical moment and it stands on review.

I think there might be an issue with the process. I think maybe like is that his natural shooting motion? Like one, two, three, kick him where it hurts. Is that the natural shooting motion for Jimmy Butler?

Throw my feet forward and land on my butt and hope to get a call. I don't know, T.J., were they saying they didn't give him enough landing room? I still can't believe that call.

That has to be it, right? I can't believe it. But look, what's it matter if the Nuggets if the Nuggets had lost that game and if they come back after that, that would have been a massive controversy. That's all we'd be talking about today. But I'm still talking about it. I still found it so absurd. I guess the basketball gods righted the things.

And now we don't have to worry about that. I mean, look, Reggie Miller used to make a living doing that. Carl Malone did that.

Sure. Back in the day, I had my volume down a little bit, so I didn't actually hear why after the review. They didn't explain it. They just went call Stan.

So the guy was also very helpful. Three shots. Maybe I didn't have the volume down. I was like, I didn't hear it. I didn't say it. Look at all the Nuggets players like Jamal Murray does one of these.

Like, you know, it just buries his head in his hands. So I was thinking back, though, after after watching that again, setting aside the grueling NBA season and whatever else might be going on with the O. I just kept thinking, like, what if Kevin Garnett, when he won the title with the Celtics, had kind of finished off his legendary quote with what Jokic said last night? Anything's possible. Anything's possible! We can go home now.

Does it not make everything better? So funny. It's almost like he was being held hostage in the only way he could go home. It's like you can only come back if you accomplish this and you bring this championship back.

Now you can go home. What about when LeBron went back after he won in Miami? It goes back to Cleveland was one of the great the great postgame NBA championship speeches, speeches of all time.

And I just kept that same positive attitude, like instead of saying, why me, they're saying this is what he want me to do. And Cleveland, this is for you. We can go home now. We can actually go home. The hustle, Bron, going home right now. Back to Cleveland. It makes every quote better.

I need that drop. It's good. We can go home and go home now. Patrick Mahomes had a pretty good speech after the Chiefs won their second Super Bowl this past year as well. We challenged each other. It took everybody to win this football game.

So shout out my teammates that were Super Bowl chance. Let's go. We can go home now. I want it. I want it always and forever. We can go home.

And you can it's it's mine. It's my new favorite quote. It probably embodies just kind of who Jokic is as a player. Yeah, it's just like the I mean, it's a frankly like a warlike mentality. I mean, it was just like the job is done.

We can go home now. There's not you don't watch him in sense. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, like a lot of joy. Like even the style of play is just kind of this like methodical battle by battle. Wear you down over possession by possession throughout the game. It's not the highlight reel type of a thing, but to watch him even with the trophy last night.

You can say that was the most awkward thing, but I think stand Kroenke thinking he had to whisper back into Lisa Salter's ear in the post. Stan, Stan, you're winning. You're winning tons of stuff.

We got to master the championship post game. He's won well with the Avalanche. He won with the Rams and won with the Nuggets in the past couple of years. His he owns the Colorado Smack like the lacrosse team, I believe. Mammoth the man.

And then the Arsenal name almost won Premier League. I want to start looking at like like those leagues like majorly lacrosse and start thinking of like brainstorming new names for the Washington football team when they inevitably sell to Josh Harris and drop command. How about the Washington Mammoth?

I like that. There's not a lot of mountains around, so I don't know. Man, I mean, there are a lot of mammoths like the wooly mammoth, the wooly mammoth. There's one in the Smithsonian. That's which is located in Washington, D.C.. We got it right on full circle, transport that to the new RFK Stadium.

They're going to build in DC, bring it back. Yeah, I said that in the group chat last night. I'm like, the stand know that the microphone isn't and maybe. So the only thing I can come up with is maybe Stan's done this so much. He was a sort of Lisa could hear him. So we wanted to make sure that he was spitting game. It was just I'll say this is somebody who does, you know, post game interviews. It is always a little bit uncomfortable when you're doing it at a very loud stadium, like right after the game. And you're not sure if the person could hear you. So you're like every post game interview, when you hear me talk on NFL Network, I'm basically shouting at the guy. And I even tell myself, don't shout. And then I hear it later. It's like, what do you think?

Because you're just thinking like, I don't want I don't want to go. Excuse me. Yeah.

What did you say? So you kind of do like the lean in. I've never had anybody like lean back and whisper in my ear before. But I think that's just staying in the moment.

He's so excited. And yeah, he's thinking like, OK, I'm I'm just going to kind of say it back. The make sure you hear what I'm saying. Say it back the same way.

I'll say this. The up close and personal post game interviews still light years better than the covid post game interview. You remember those seeing the long distance types of things? You know what it's like to try to interview somebody who's 50 feet away from you on the field when you're not allowed on the field and you're in the stands. And there's a guy with a gigantic boom mic and you're shouting to them and you can't actually hear any of the words coming out of their mouth.

So you're lip reading. Did you have mask on, too, at that point, too, or no? Some stadiums. Yes. Some stadiums required you to have masks on while doing it as well.

I specifically remember one where I was interviewed with AJ Brown in Nashville. They did have fans at the end of 2020. They could have like 30,000 fans was like half capacity. So it's still pretty loud. I'm in the stands because we're not allowed on the field. He's out on the field.

It's very loud. All the fans are chanting, AJ, AJ. And I'm just shouting my questions.

Derek Henry. And then he's just going, yeah. And I'm literally just reading his lips like, all right, I think. And you watch the interview, you wouldn't know it.

But it's like, that was a I hope we don't have to go back to that challenge. I'd rather have rather have Stan whispering in my ear. You know what else always jumps out about? $10,000 electric blue jacket that he had on. That's a good, Stan's a well-dressed man.

Like if you're ranking, I actually should think about this. This is a pretty good segment. Like top five best dressed NFL owners. Like it's Stan. Stan always dresses as well. That suit is worth more than my car.

I guarantee it. Adam Silver looks pretty good there too. I like that pinstripe. Stan is definitely top five best dressed NFL owners. Shod Khan is definitely up there.

Yes, Shod Khan is coming. Yeah, right. The mustache is always thoroughly waxed. Bobcraft. He's got his own line of the Air Force ones that he had made years ago.

Like those are all Bobcraft originals. He pulls off the sneakers with the suit as well as anybody. I'd have to think about who the other two are that would slide in there. I mean, Mark Davis is a fashion icon. I don't know if he's a top five best dressed. I love Mark. Bolder with hair. I mean, he'll roll in like full white suit. Like he owns it. But I'll put Mark Davis on that list.

That's awesome. He's a well-dressed man. I got to think about who's number five.

Stan's up there though. The other thing in the postgame that I always find hilarious. You got millionaire athletes, right? And this goes not just to like winning the NBA title, but like when NFL teams clinched the division, you know, when baseball teams, you know, win the, when they had their five different champagne celebrations playing game.

Yeah, we're going, we're going. Like there's always the hats, the hats and the t-shirts. And people actually refer to it as the hats and t-shirts game. Like last night, Jamal Murray. I don't know if you guys saw this at the end of the broadcast, but the game's over like a minute past, you know, the end of the game.

It's still just pandemonium and everything. Jamal Murray's like got his head in his hands and he's crying and he's overcome by emotion. And there's somebody like jabbing him in the stomach with a hat, like put on the hat like this. If you watch it, there's five seconds where it's just him being hit. Yeah, there he is. He finally put on the hat, but he's just being like hit with it. Just give him a second.

Like is the new era deal that good? But they're like, you have to have the hat on within two minutes. And players also really want the hats. The hats and the t-shirts are on immediately, except for who is the player who walked around shirtless after the game? Aaron Gordon went out in the streets.

That's a that's a new one. I recall one of the Red Sox players did that after the Red Sox won. Mike Napoli famously was shirtless in the streets of Boston.

Yeah, this Aaron Gordon was the closest thing I've seen to it. And there were like hundreds of people around him. But the hilarious part was it wasn't like he went in and changed and then like got in the parade. It was he's literally wearing his whole uniform, except the jersey, the shorts. He's got his ankles taped.

He's got the sneakers on. It was like the scene in succession where one of the the Roy kids goes out just in the full suit and like joins the parade. Aaron Gordon wasn't out there like yelling to people in a bad way. Yeah, I didn't see him after.

Hopefully avoided, you know, getting punched in the face or anything else bad out there. That's a fun moment, man. Fun moment.

Yeah, it's cool. And now we think about TJ. We turn the page already is like, where does this Nuggets team rank or we talked yesterday? Is this a budding dynasty? Do they rank Joker? I mean, is this a great NBA team?

They were not the one to answer this question. They went 16 and four in the playoffs right in the last 20 years. Only one other team has done that. It's a really impressive run. And everyone wants to make fun of Joker about how his, you know, his attitude after the game. Man was just tired. He played 40 minutes or more in half the games.

He was just exhausted. Guy put in a championship effort after a tremendous three season run in which he won two MVPs and now a finals MVP. This is an all time performance. And, you know, I think we're going to remember this team kind of fondly.

They they ran through everybody. On the flip side of that, you go 16 and four through the playoffs. Is that a product of how great this Nuggets team was or who they ended up playing and when they played them?

You face the Heat team that's an eight seed going to the playoffs. Going to the playoffs, Jay Butler's their best player swept the Lakers, a team that thought was going to win that series. A lot of people thought they were going to win that series. No, I'm aware they're playing really well in the playoffs. But we also didn't think the Lakers were going to make the the the players almost lost to the Timberwolves in a play on game. But a lot of people did pick them to go far. You know, they beat Kevin Durant and Devin Booker and Chris Paul. Well, Chris Paul didn't play. The whole series. I don't think the whole three might play game one. But yeah, I don't know. I think Denver I don't want to hear that. Who did they beat stuff?

That's like super hot. It's a valid thing I'm throwing. I don't know. Maybe Kevin Durant, LeBron James. Who is the great team in the NBA? You say that because sometimes the team you got through, who did they beat?

And I'm always like you beat who's in front of you. Sure. Yeah. But a lot of teams, you know, if you want to talk about the Eagles last year, that was the whole thing. Well, who did they play last year? Not a lot of superstars on the teams that the Eagles played on their run last season.

A lot of superstars and Nuggets just went through. I always subscribe to the theory that you play the teams that are in front of you and you beat the teams that are in front of you. So it's all it's valid. It's valid what they did. 16 and four, they had the best player, which there's no argument for that right now. They had the second best player, which I don't feel there's any argument for right now. So yeah, this is I'm not saying they're an all time great team, but they definitely did the thing.

They handled their business and they're well deserved of winning this championship. Speaking of superstar players, we've got a big one who's not shown up today. Not a lot of holdouts in mandatory minicamps. A couple of guys ended their at least put on hold their trade requests. What is going on with Stefan Diggs in Buffalo? And what did Sean McDermott have to say about it today?

We will talk about that coming up after this. A lot of NFL talk throughout the show. Leonard Fournette is going to join us. Ian Rappaport, my NFL Network colleague, will be joining as well. And you can call us 844-204-RICH.

It's Tom Pelissero in on the Rich Eisenless show. We can go home now. Men, do you get distracted during the day thinking about your underarm sweating, itching or emitting an odor? Do those thoughts keep you from showing care when it counts? New and improved Dove Men Plus Care Antiperspirant with 72-hour sweat and odor protection and one-quarter moisturizing cream helps you forget about your underarm so you can be present for the moments that matter. Don't let underarm insecurities keep you at arm's distance from the ones you care about.

Buy new and improved Dove Men Plus Care Antiperspirant wherever personal care products are sold. It just seems like it wouldn't happen. It happens, yeah. Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum, wherever you listen. Stefan Diggs here on the Rich Eisen Show. Josh told me when I interviewed him for the pregame show prior to the AFC Championship game that you and he are brothers, but very competitive, like that you actually compete walking down the hallway to see who can walk the fastest. Is that true? Is that really a true story?

That story is true. Actually, he caught me one time walking from the weight room, and I was like this, like, why is he walking so fast? So I sped up a little bit, and then he continued to speed up, and then he just took off.

So I was like this. Obviously, there's a competition between quarterback and receiver, and it'll never stop. So it's something that I'm never going to give up. We compete on video games, who has the most kills and who carries who. I think it makes for a great relationship, though.

No, I hear you, and I asked this question with the utmost of respect, Stefan, so please understand that. Talking about walking down the hallway fastest and playing video games, what are you guys, five? Are you guys five years old?

Yeah, got to be five years older. We're writing on the walls, getting in trouble. We'll be joking around in the walkthrough, and you'll have Coach Deball come in, and he's super serious, but at the same time, he jokes sometimes, and he'll crack a joke and be like, all right, all right, get your butt back to work.

And it makes for a great environment, great working man. How are you a different guy now through this season than you were when you were acquired? It's different. I feel like I'm the same guy.

I just feel like my surroundings are a little different. I was dealing with a younger quarterback. A lot of the guys I was pretty much are established or were in the league for a very long time. I was dealing with a young, charismatic, big, hard guy that wanted to jump over a linebacker and run people over and stiff on big ones. I was dealing with a quarterback that's young, and I came at a great time to grow with.

So it's just, you know, all situations are different, but this one was one that it coincided and it worked well. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger. With supplies and solutions for every industry, Grainger has the right product for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. A lot of NFL talk over the next two hours and change here on the Rich Eisen Show. I am Tom Pelissero in for Rich. Leonard Fournette is going to join us in a little bit. We've talked a lot about the running back market.

What's happening? Lenny's sitting out there unsigned right now. Really interested to hear what he's got to say. Ian Rapport is going to join us as well. Let's get to an interesting story this morning. And I think that there was a sense that something was amiss in Buffalo, and that was confirmed this morning when Sean McDermott spoke to reporters and noted that Stefan Diggs, not present for the mandatory minicamp that began today.

Let's play with Sean McDermott. Steph is not here. Everybody else is here at the current time. How concerned are you about that? Oh, very concerned.

Yeah, very concerned. So we don't know all the details at this point on this. Diggs has been active as he always is on social media. He's posted some cryptic tweets through time. But this is not the same situation as years ago in Minnesota back in 2020 when he pretty much tweeted his way out of town, when they realized they could get a really good trade package from Buffalo.

And so they opted to move on. Stefan Diggs on his contract is due, I looked this up, $24.415 million this year. That includes a $22.745 million signing bonus that was part of a restructure just back in March. When you do that, the way that NFL teams create cap space, because of course the cap is real.

Let's remind everyone, the cap is real. When you do those, what they call simple restructures, what you're doing is you're converting a big chunk of base salary into a signing bonus because you can prorate the signing bonus over the remaining years of the deal. So a $22 million signing bonus this year counts as, quick math in my head, what is it, $4.5 million over each of the next five years, something like that.

I think I'm close, $24.4. So his contract right now is not tradable because he's got a mountain of dead cap space that would all accelerate into this year's cap or next year's cap. It's not realistic, not to mention the fact that he's already gotten a $23 million signing bonus this year. He signed a big extension not that long ago that pays him pretty close to the top of the market type of money. It's difficult to believe the bills are going to look to move on from.

It's really not a tradable contract from their standpoint. It's also hard to imagine that Staphon Diggs thinks he's gained a big raise someplace else. So what exactly is going on in Staphon Diggs' head?

I'm not certain. I haven't seen Staphon since the Super Bowl. Seemed to be in good spirits. We talked for a little bit there.

I sent him a message. We'll see if he gets back. Maybe there's clarity that he wants to get out there. He certainly likes to be, I think it's fair to say it, I think he'd agree with this, the center of attention at times.

He enjoys that people are talking about him. But this is really unusual for a player who, again, has already restructured his contract. He's going to be there. There's not really a way to trade him to be holding out for a mandatory minicamp. Now you can sit back and say, he's only got $99,000 in fines.

He's making $24 million this year. This really doesn't matter. Missing minicamps, not that big of a deal, but it does certainly raise questions because why do players hold out from minicamp? You still got training camp coming up in six weeks.

You're going to get fined close to 100 grand if you miss all three days of it. We've seen other guys show up. I mentioned earlier a couple of the trade request guys yesterday. We know Buddha Baker showed up for Cardinals minicamp after he had requested trade earlier in this offseason. Devin White today is at the Bucks minicamp. He's not participating because Todd Bowles said they want to see what type of shape he's in, which sometimes yes, sometimes no could be code for, yeah, he's just not going to practice.

He doesn't want to be out there, so we're just going to kind of let that settle for a minute. Don't know if that's the case here, but Devin White at least showed up. Jonah Williams also showed up to Bengals camp. He had requested a trade earlier this offseason, hired a new agent, wants to be a left tackle. They had signed Orlando Brown, gave him a whole mountain of money.

Those guys showed up. The only other player besides Connor Williams who missed the Dolphins minicamp last week, that's holding out right now is Danielle Hunter of the Vikings, which is strictly contract related. With Diggs, there's not a lot contract wise that's going to take place, and it's not about going on to a different team. So are there lingering frustrations from how last season ended? That was a really challenging season for a lot of reasons for the Bills, and Diggs was one of the players who at various points voiced some frustration about the situation. But if it's not about money and there's really no way to engineer a trade, what does Diggs want or is this just some part of the new NFL where what are you going to do, take $99,000 from me?

I'm going to go to Bermuda for three weeks right now. I don't care. I mean, the offseason program, this is one of the interesting things, too. I think that's played out the last couple of offseasons here. So when I started covering the NFL 20 years ago, no veteran showed up for the voluntary practices in the spring. It was almost all rookies, just the young guys who needed more time. But you didn't see, you know, 10, 15, 20 of those veteran players still training camp. Then sometime in like the late 2000s, early 2010s, it became this thing of like almost a competition between the head coaches of who can get the most players to show up. And if you got 100% participation, you could dump your chest and say, you know, hey, look at the buy in we've got the program we're building here.

All these guys want to be here. Sometimes teams like the Packers were just structuring huge workout bonuses to make sure guys showed up so that they couldn't miss those. But then now in these past few years, and it probably dates back to COVID, you've seen more players going back and training on their own again through the course of OTAs. Remember, 2020, there was no offseason program.

2021, it was still COVID impacted. Then when teams came back last year, you started just seeing more of those players not showing up. Is this the next level of it where the top players who are getting the most money just simply don't care about $100,000 finding me?

It's basically like they have $100,000 workout bonus guys blows those off all the time, right? There is something, though, about in some way violating what the coach would think is sort of the trust of the team by not being in a mandatory activity. And so this is this is going to be an interesting situation to watch, because again, there's not a clear thing that Stefan Diggs plausibly could want here.

Like, what's the action item? What will make him show up? Is it he wants them to sign another player?

Is it he's frustrated about something else? We'll find out. I'll certainly be trying to find out after the show, but a unique situation there. And then in terms of some of the others, you know, with a guy like Daniel Hunter, that's strictly contract related at this point. We'll see how that plays out here in the coming weeks. At this point, we don't know of any other holdouts around the NFL, though there are a ton of unresolved situations when you talk about the franchise tag guys, even some of these players who showed up for minicamp.

And will they end up showing up come training camp time? You know, Saquon Barkley, we played those sound bites from him yesterday. Does not sound like a guy who's thrilled with the state of negotiations, though at least there are negotiations at this point.

What's he going to do, Tom? Saquon? What's Saquon going to do? I mean, with Saquon, he wouldn't rule out, wouldn't rule out the holding out the season. Hold out. It's hard to imagine, but if there's no deal done, does he show up day one of training camp?

Maybe not. If you haven't signed your franchise tender, you can't be fined. Same thing with Josh Jacobs. If they don't do a deal in Las Vegas, and at this point there are no signs that anything's moving on that front, I don't think he shows up. That's a great loophole rule that you can't find me if I haven't signed my franchise tag. Well, I mean, the flip side of that is if let's say the Raiders at some point go, you know what? We'll sign somebody else and rescind your tender. That might be great for Josh Jacobs because then he goes out to the market. But you don't generally want to hit the market in July.

You want to hit it in March, right? And so what type of deal does he get someplace else? He's one of the best running backs in the NFL is the reigning NFL rushing champ. He do just fine out there, but this is not the ideal situation. If you're going to become a free agent, just like Delvin Cook, who is going to get paid, but would have been a lot easier to get the type of money he wants in March than it is in June.

So yeah, it is. It's a loophole of sorts where you just, you don't have to come in because you're technically not under contract. Tony Pollard goes in and signs his franchise tender early on because it's Tony Pollard. He hasn't made a lot of money lock in $10 million. Your extension is probably not going to be worth on an average per year basis, a lot more than that.

So make sure you get that money. But as we talk about turning around the running back market, the way that you, the ultimate leverage any player has is withholding your services. Not in mini camp, not even in training camp, but the threat of I'm actually going to miss games. Saquon said himself, we don't have Patrick Mahomes, which of course not a slight, don't flip it like that. Not a slight.

But it's, yeah, I mean, it's the truth. That's a Giants team that depended a lot on him, especially in the first half of the season when they really didn't have any semblance of a passing game. So the Diggs one is really curious because Stephon Diggs kind of invented this, by the way. Stephon Diggs invented the tweeting your way out of town move. Like, nobody was doing that four years ago.

Nobody was, you know, three years ago, whatever it was three and a half years ago, nobody was using social media to kind of engineer these things. And then we've seen other players try it in the past few years with varying degrees of success. So is he going to be able to somehow create enough of a firestorm that the circumstances change in Buffalo? Again, it's really hard to believe on the surface that that is possible, but we'll see because, I mean, either he has a plan or the plan is just, I'm good. I don't need three practices in June.

I'll see you at the end of July. Yeah, you just want to handicap the chances that we're just reading too much, like what the hell is going on? Am I reading too much into this?

Is that the Tyler Cowell one? That's what we're all wondering. Then we're just oversimplifying this and it's like much ado about nothing.

I just, I don't care about a hundred K and I just don't want to work out and go to Buffalo. I would bet you, Brockman, we probably have a Stefan Diggs tweet before the end of the show. Am I reading this right?

Bottom line, whether it's a, whether he messages me back or whether he just goes on Twitter and tweets out something himself, he never shies from social media. So Adam Benigni, who covers a team for radio in Buffalo, they have confirmed that Diggs was at team headquarters yesterday for medical testing and then did not show up today. So again, there's obviously something unusual with the situation.

We will find out exactly what it is. If you're Stefan Diggs, we're ranking the receivers in the NFL right now. Very high.

Where are you putting them? In the NFL or the AFC? The entire NFL.

The entire NFL. He's top five. You got Justin Jefferson up there. I got Devante Adams. I still have Tyreek Hill. Stefan Diggs, four?

Four sounds good. Behind Jefferson? Yeah, behind Jefferson, Hill, and Adams. Right.

I'm going to put them fourth. So it's one of your, it's one of your most important players on an AFC contender at this point. You would think you would want to resolve whatever this is as soon as possible, but again, we will await further information on that point.

Meanwhile, Tom, I called this back in Arizona during the Super Bowl. It's very clear. Steph Diggs wants to play with his brother. Okay, that's bottom line.

He wants to play with his brother. There we go. Give me your ultimate cowboy's conspiracy theory, TJ. Let's hear it. How are you going to make this happen?

I don't know because, you know, none of us are good at math, so we can't figure out a, we can't figure out, you know, the numbers behind this. But I'm just telling you, he said some things during our interview with him in Arizona for the Super Bowl that just led me to believe it. Maybe as a cowboy fan, I'm reading into this too much, but he wants to play with his brother and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I mean, Steph Steph did do some disappearing acts on the Vikings. I remember during the regular season in that final year back in 2019, I believe it was he just didn't show up one day.

It was like on a Thursday and he just wasn't there and that became an entire thing and that was part of what put the blocks in place for him to eventually be out of town. There's only, there's a small percentage of players. I mean, you talk about him being a top four receiver Brockman in the NFL. There's a small percentage of players that are good enough that you can put up with a variety of different things.

Diggs is definitely in that category. But once again, I would just reiterate, if he thinks that somehow this is going to get him out of Buffalo, it is really, really hard to imagine. And I think that the people who have been around Stefan a lot would frankly just say Stefan's going to do Stefan. He's going to do his thing. It's he likes a little bit of drama. He likes all the talk about himself during the off season.

This is certainly one way to do it. This is unusual. This is a different way to attempt to pull it off again because he restructured his contract not that long ago with some of the other situations with Devin White in Tampa, just like Buddha, just like Jonah Williams. Jonah's a little different because in essence, his position was taken away and he wants to play a position that is now occupied by a very highly paid player in Orlando Brown Jr. With the others, there are some of these trade requests that I don't want to say they're fake, but they're about negotiating employees.

They're about trying to push things a certain direction. And the Buccaneers have zero intention to trade Devin White. When Todd Bowles talked about him today, he basically just said, yeah, are we ready to go for training camp in the season?

No issues. Doesn't sound like there's any trade talk on that front, but you know, how are you going to get that deal done? Could he potentially hold out into training camp? The issue with holding out into training camp, of course, is the CBA is fairly punitive now in terms of how much money you can lose if you don't show up, particularly if you don't show up through, I believe it's day five. They can start going after signing bonus money and everything else.

You kind of have limited options unless you're willing to eat millions of dollars in fines and then begin missing game checks. So the time to do this stuff in terms of trade requests and everything else is now. It's the spring. It's just, again, Staphon Diggs is breaking new ground by not showing up to the mandatory minicamp. Jonah Williams, same thing. He was a first round draft pick. He's got a guaranteed contract. If the Bengals don't want to trade them, and the Bengals almost never trade, they never trade, they almost never cut anybody. The Carlos Dunlap trade that they made a couple of years ago to Seattle was like their first trade deadline trade since the 70s or something. Like they never make trades. Obviously, they traded Carson Palmer, but he flat out retired and said, I would rather not play football than play in Cincinnati anymore.

So realistically, these are the things like agents have to navigate too. Like, what is a team's history on these things? With the Bills, they've never let anybody tweet their way out of town. They've had some not great endings with different players, but certainly not one of their top players and not a guy who's making as much money as Staphon Diggs is this season. Give us a call on this too.

844-204-RICH. We got a lot to talk about here. AJ Brown, that's my fifth receiver. AJ Brown. I've always thought AJ Brown is one of the underrated receivers in the whole NFL. I think last year in Philly, finally, people saw when he's in an offense that wants to throw the ball more than 100 times a year, that he's pretty productive.

I just always have thought he's an unbelievable physical threat just in terms of like what he can do on the outside, the different ways that he can beat you. And great guy to interview from screaming down to him on the field. We got to take a break here. Leonard Fournette is going to join us later on. Ian Rappaport sent me like five texts. He's got to come on at a different time now. We'll find the spot for him. He'll join as well. Join the conversation with us.

844-204-RICH. It's Tom Pellicero in on The Rich Eisen Show. You need to create something new and of course, you're going to use traditional parts to get there.

It's like saying you're not allowed to use a pencil to create a piece of art. Rolling Stone Music Now, wherever you listen. Jeff Schwartz is going to autograph my copy of Great Jews in Sports. Amazing book and I don't know this thing existed.

A Star of David. Have you ever signed? Give me the book and I'll hold it up right here. Let's see what this looks like.

What do you mean? You signed a toilet seat? Yeah, in Oregon, we had this like, you know, like the big day where everyone comes and signs things.

And and someone guy brought a toilet seat one year and then bought a toaster the next year. Okay. Oh, yeah, there you go. Do you know who the you and your brother were the first Jewish brothers?

Yeah, in the NFL since, you know, the 1923. It's in my book. You my Schwartz.

It's like the start of the book. Do you know the name of the do you know their names? Yeah, it was a it was a it was the Friedman Brothers, right? No, no, no.

Benny Friedman, who by the way, went University of Michigan, father of the modern. I should know this. There.

I think I'll give you I'll give you Ralph and Arnold. Yeah, I should. Horween.

Horween. Yeah, I used to know I used to I should know that it's in my book. But yeah, yeah, that's that I do know. Ralph was an All-American at Harvard. Oh, his mother must have been so proud. Yes.

Won the 1920 Rose Bowl, played under the alias of Ralph McMahon, an Irish name. What the hell? Are the Horween's in the book? I just went to I just went to local Oregon. Geez.

Arnold played four seasons for Racine Chicago Cardinals of the Brothers. Let me look it up. They had it better on a minute. Here we go. Here we go. Hold on a minute. Are they in here?

The Horween's are not in here. Or are they under the Irish name? Red Holtz.

We got to look under McMahon just in case they put the Irish alias in here. No. Red Holtzmann's in here. We have a special project that I gave you guys this morning. We're going to do it at the top of the hour.

Yeah. Idea of it being we're starting a franchise right now in the NFL with any four players. We're going to do a little draft, an expansion draft.

I think it's going to be fascinating to see how this sorts out in terms of the building blocks that we come up with. And Brockman, for the seventh time, you cannot draft Tom Brady. Because he's a free agent and he's retired. He's both not playing anymore and not on the team.

This is only players who are in the league now. Has that paperwork been submitted? The paperwork has been submitted, but that is irrelevant because all you do is you file another piece of paperwork saying, I'm back, Michael Jordan style. I'm back.

And you are immediately reinstated to the roster. So no Tom Brady. Fine.

You just ruined it for him, Tom. What about Gronk? Gronk also not on a team and not playing in the NFL. So my first four picks were going to be Brady, Gronk, Edelman, James White. You got to move on. Seriously, I'm starting to think you have a problem. Well, I like to win.

You gave me the assignment a couple of days ago. Yes, Tom. This is a great idea. Your name is Tom.

It's a great idea because he came up with it. Thomas, are you a Thomas? I am technically a Thomas, but I've never gone by Thomas in my life. I have Tommy growing up. Tommy growing up.

And then got to college and decided, Tom, it's time for Tom. Are you a junior or a third or anything? I'm a junior. You're a junior. Okay.

What's middle name? Do we know? Is that public knowledge? Do you want my social security number over the air too?

LifeLock, you should be good. I'm sure you can Google it. All right. Top five to all time Tom's from Tom Pelosero. I brainstormed this after the show yesterday and there are a lot. There's a lot of great options. It's been a popular name for a long time.

Don't know where it ranks on. You're seeing the state lists and it's always like, there's certain names where like zero people are named Chad this year, but like there's 8,000 in your state named Jupiter. You know, it's always like, what is everyone really? That's everybody's name right now. But so I decided that in order to do this the right way, we got to take out everyone named Thomas and Tommy.

We can't do any, any variations. It's got to be strictly Tom's. So they're known as Tom. Exactly. Apologies to Thomas Jefferson, Tommy Lee, Tommy Lee Jones, Tommy Lee Lewis, Tommy Frazier, Paul Thomas Anderson. Now, you know, you're really stretching it. No, Thomas isn't Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, no, Tommy's.

Okay. If we're going straight up, here's a lot of Tommy Hearns. I'm a, I'm gonna put your boy Tom Brady at number five.

Well, it's easier just to get that one out of the way. Like clearly the greatest, greatest of all time in the NFL. I got to make it so we'll see where Patrick Holmes is in 10, 15 years here.

Tom Brady clearly. Okay. Clearly makes the list number five, all time. Number five, all time, Tom's number four, going Tom Morello, the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine surprising number of Tom's in music. Might be another one on the list here, but Morello makes it number three, Tom Hanks.

Okay. No, no brainer for 40 years from the comedy days in the eighties through right now, the blockbusters and everything else. He also invented COVID, all the stuff that he's brought to us. I don't want to give him props for that.

Hanks Hanks is up there. I mean, he was like, that was the day, it was the day it was him. And it was, uh, and then I thought it was over.

And then I, I, you know, was the next day trying to buy toilet paper and fighting people for the grocery store. And that was, that was really the, that was the turning point. Uh, number two, I'm going to go Tom Petty.

Oh, another, no, another no brainer. I'm not like the number one Tom Petty fan in the world, but there's like a lot of hits. When you really dive into the full catalog here, I think that he's one of those Tom Petty has to be on the short list of artists to like, do you know anyone who like dislikes Tom Petty? There's either there's people who love Tom Petty. If you were like, yeah, like Tom Petty, no one ever goes, I hate Tom. Right.

No, one's ever like, Hey, you want to listen to, Hey, who's this Tom Petty? F that guy. Like no one's ever off.

Start walking said that street, right? Who do you expect to meet? I want to hear the rest.

No more enjoyed every second of that. Thank you. Number one, uh, I wasn't told whether or not fictional people could be in here, but I am going to go Tom Wam scams. The entirety. Wow.

Turn off. If you haven't watched the finale yet of succession, I'm giving you five, four, three, two, one, cover your ears, turned on the volume, come back to us at the top of the hour. Wams Gams is a fantastic Minnesota character because when you grow up in Minneapolis, like I did in the Minneapolis area, you know, a lot of people who are sort of like that, there's the people who are just Minnesota through and through, and they got the accent and you, you know that they just kind of like, they, they live the Minnesota life. And then you've got the other people and I wouldn't put myself in this category, even though I've definitely spent a lot of time on my non-regional addiction who just kind of like spend their lives, like making sure that like, you're kind of, you're floating into, you're not a Minnesotan because one of the songs do, you might move away in the end up back.

Tom Wams Gams is the ultimate climber. And from the start of succession, a show unlike any other where after the first episode, my wife, Sarah said, I can't watch the show. I can't watch it. I hate every character on the show. I understand Sarah.

She's also very anti opens of shows. You know how, like on, on what is it now? Max, not HBO Max, just not HBO Go. Nope.

What was the other HBO Now? Now? Nope. Max. Not, it's not now. It's not Go. It's not even HBO.

It's Max. Yep, but then you can scroll over to HBO on the top of it. But on, on max now, when the show begins, you can, you know, do the intro and Sarah more than any person I've ever met. I love her. She does not want to listen to the intro.

It's 15 seconds. We're on the finale of succession. She's like, skip it. I'm like, skip theme songs of any show, all time. Really? So she watched the whole series with you then she watched.

Yes. So we had to, after ruling out the show, we took like a year and then everybody was talking about it. So we literally started over from episode one and like gutted it out through several. I can't watch this anymore.

I hate them all. The point being Tom Wamsgams, which is just the most fun name to say of all time, but also was somebody who I don't know that you could truly hate him on the level that you hate all the Roy children. He just was just sort of this cartoonish character all the way back to the bachelor party, which we will not describe on the show. You would love that episode.

That is, I've never seen it. Tom Wamsgams to me is just a fantastic character. The combination with cousin Greg, and then for him to be the one that comes out on top in the end, because he's the least objectionable of all the options of all the people was a perfect ending. Yes, the hand, the very tenuous union. This is as close as he and Shiv are ever going to be right here at Tom there.

Yeah, that's Tom Wamsgams suggestion. The suggestion ending was also sad for me on multiple levels like that and Ted Lasso both ending the same week. So not only was that two of like the regular shows that I actively look forward to watching, but it also ended a great run for those of us with sloping shoulders on TV. Like there's not many people like I've had the affliction, right? Like shoulders have never been my thing.

It's just kind of all its neck to the arms. And we had a fantastic run between those two shows with Kendall Roy and Roy Kent, which are two names that are really similar. By the way, I didn't think about it till I just said it right there. Yeah, Kendall Roy, Roy Kent, both guys with no shoulders whatsoever and they show that you can have success. I'm sitting in this chair. I probably come in number three on the no shoulder success list, but it was really sad for me. Yeah, you watch, right?

It's it's representation. I just want to see some people that aren't chiseled that don't have like broad, broad chests and everything else. I just want to see some people who look like me on TV and I had them and now both characters are gone. Roy Kent in a better spot than Kendall Roy.

How so? I think we would admit, well, at the end of the show, at the end of the show, at the end of their respective runs. Roy Kent's got us again, earmuffs, five, four, three, two, one. So Roy Kent has a friend. Finally, he kind of has a girlfriend. He has a new gig. He has the opportunity and he's got a new gig. Yeah.

Which, by the way, I'd still watch, right? The Roy Kent show? It's just it's still Ted Lasso. Ted's back in, where is he? Nebraska, Oklahoma, wherever he is. Kansas.

Kansas. And Roy's coaching the team. Yeah. Now, I thought the show got a little, little off the rails toward the end.

It became more. It's like the later years, the final season of Seinfeld, where everything's just sort of a caricature of the people within the show. But the last like four were really strong. Yeah, I'd still tune in. Yeah, I'd still come back from it. Yeah, Logan Roy staring out into the abyss as his father's bodyguard is watching to make sure he doesn't jump.

Yeah, that's one of the sadder endings for a show in modern history, but also very appropriately depressing and dark. Yeah. I mean, TJ, he's here. He's there. He's everywhere.

Roy Kent, Roy Kent. We need more songs. No NFL player has a song, right? Oh, every soccer player, the great soccer players, they all like Jamie Tartt, European crowds, and they make it the chance going. They got the nicknames. You know, they go like, is that just an American thing?

We just don't want to come up with songs. Like, I've been to a Minnesota United game, and they have supporters who do their chance and I have no idea what they're saying. You haven't been to LFC game. They have the whole section behind one of the goals, and they stand and chant and sing the whole game beginning to end. And it's kind of a thing. If you sit in that section, it's kind of understood that you're going to participate. Doesn't baseball lend itself to this, to having chance? Like, we're constantly... Every discussion about baseball is, boy, this is a boring sport.

How do we get this thing? Let's just get this game over faster. There were just chants and songs the whole game.

Forget walk-up music, walk-up songs. European crowds come up with interesting chants. American crowds would rather blow up a beach ball and pass it around the stands and do the wave. That's our thing. Right. Yeah, it's, oh, is this a Cuban shuffle? Great. Here we go.

European crowds. It's been the same four songs in American stadiums and arenas for my entire life. Like, Rock and Roll part two. We've been doing that for 40 years, and it hasn't ended well for Gary Glitter.

Maybe we need to have somebody write a new song. I don't know, part three. All right, the NFL expansion draft. You did not want to miss that.

Coming up right after this on the Rich Eisen Show with me, Tom Pelissero. That was just above the school. Just imagine a bunch of kids running out of school. Most of them probably just ran home. Theories of the Third Kind on YouTube or wherever you listen.