Rich Eisen Show with Brian Webber Filling In Hr 1

Taste some of this. This OMG is the Rich Eisen Show. No other way to put it. With guest host, Brian Weber.

Oh my gosh. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I'm not talking to you. I talk to anybody out there. Haters. Rich Eisen. I talk to the haters right now. And now, sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. Welcome to the program. Always an honor to sit in for Rich.

And the guys. We are live on this Independence Day, meaning I have a chance to provide some verbal pyrotechnics. And I'm going to take advantage of the fact that we are not playing tape. We're not going to the archives for best of, because during our upcoming three hours together, we may get clarity on the future of Damian Lillard. I'm not promising breaking news, but feels like spending the majority of last night going through several arcane scenarios that will lead Dame to Miami. But it's becoming clearer and clearer that the Blazers want a lot more than the Heat are willing to give up as of now. We're looking at multi-team flowcharts here. So I'm going to give you the latest on the rumblings. The rumor and innuendo. Also, it's a very positive thing that I'm live today, in addition to the fact that I have no life, I love to work, and I'm a veteran of being with you on July 4th.

So I'm going to rely on that experience. There was significant news last night while you were sleeping in Major League Baseball. The Angels may have lost much more than a single game in San Diego. Mike Trout left the game against the Padres. He fouled the pitch off and instantly grimaced in pain with a wrist injury.

He departed, and we're waiting word on the x-rays. But after the game, Trout, who does play through injuries and does seem to have a high tolerance for dealing with pain, told reporters this felt a little bit different. The Angels getting set to take on the Padres, 6-40 Eastern. That's an afternoon first pitch here on the West Coast. We're waiting for people to show up at the ballpark to get an update from the Angels. And clearly, the implications of a Mike Trout injury would have consequences not only on the Angels' postseason ambitions, but what could happen to Shohei Ohtani prior to the trade deadline coming up in less than a month with Ohtani.

So I am going to talk baseball in an entertaining fashion. And because I'm with you, a lonely man with a bird of expectations having not only to deliver a quality program reminiscent of what Rich brings you every day, remember, Rich believes in the team concept. Team.

Team. I feel like Robert De Niro in the Untouchables. I have to be reasonably compelling, reasonably insightful enough to replicate what you get not only from one of the best in the business, Mr. Eisen, but the whole crew of Brockman and TJ and Mike Del Tufo. So I have to raise my intensity. As always, I want to hear from you. 844-204-7424. I give out the phone number not only because I'm a radio guy who believes in formatics. I am open to having a conversation with you. Understanding you have a lot going on today. But as you make your way to a barbecue or the beach or whatever you're doing, pick up the phone.

844-204-7424. I also, though, come with four and a half hours of content. I got to cram into a three hour bag as we're going to jump right in in less than a minute with the NBA thoughts.

So if you don't want to pick up the phone, if you find me intimidating, yes, I'll use a big word or two along the way. Twitter's your best bet. I just logged on. It is still working amazingly. You thought the architecture might crumble on a holiday. BW Weber. Weber with two B's.

And to supersize you, a thing I may or may not know a little bit about, having gone through a couple drive-through windows in my lifetime. As the song goes, I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom. Only one guest today. I didn't want to lean on our regulars and bother them on a holiday. So I'm with you for the majority of the program coming up in the second hour, 1.40 Eastern Time, and this was well planned. I did not clearly know about the Mike Trout situation, but I wanted to talk baseball today because it's July 4th. And because maybe all it required for baseball to become relevant again from my perspective was adding the pitch clock, but I'm not even just trying to be enthusiastic on the radio.

However, you're consuming this audio content. I'm connected to baseball again. I'm watching, I'm enjoying, and I'm finding my fandom from years ago that I put aside like the majority of you because football crushes everything in its path. We'll take you around the bases coming up 1.40 Eastern Time when we check in with Adam Burke of Vison. I am aware of the greatness of Joey Chestnut. I'm not going to ignore what's happening at Coney Island. In the rain, can the Michael Jordan of competitive eating overcome challenging conditions once that debaucherous, grotesque event wraps up?

I'll give you the details. I'm not building a show around the vaunted mustard yellow belt as Chestnut looks to win for an eighth consecutive time, and I'm not feeling too great today. I took the wrong scientist medicine last night. So I probably feel like Chestnut after he has, what, the 65th dog and bun? My stomach is rumbling, but I'll get through the program.

I just don't want to build an entire show around an act that I find so disgusting, yet I have a degree at this point of respect for what Chestnut can do. Just do not pick up the phone at 844-204-7424 and tell me he is an athlete, and we're not doing that bit today. I am not desperate for content enough to say, all right, golfers, skill or athletic competition? Let's get to the NBA. I spent a lot of time yesterday talking about how things could play out for Demian Lillard, and I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Ozen.

You want to hit me up on Twitter? It's B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, and I went back and listened to the conversation, not only to hear the dulcet tones as a narcissist, but we had a real good analysis provided by Curt Heelan, longtime NBA writer. He is the lead NBA writer for NBCSports.com, good friend of any program I'm hosting. And I framed my initial question to Curt in terms of the future of Lillard, knowing that NBA stars always are able to jettison their teams.

Just how it works. When a marquee name wants out, they find their way to the exit. The question becomes, does Portland owe it to Demian Lillard to send him to the team he wants to play for? And we all know that's Miami. Do they owe it to him to send him to a team where he finally will have the opportunity to compete for a championship, or do the Blazers owe it to their fans to come up with the best deal, irrespective of where Lillard goes?

And I'll borrow from Curt because he's more plugged in than I am. He says this is an amicable parting. So because Portland quote unquote wants to do the right thing, they're going to do everything they can to make sure that Lillard winds up in a place where at least he has a shot at winning a title, even if it's not Miami. Now, if it becomes a situation where the destination is so unseemly for Lillard, he'll just refuse to go. And we've seen that before in the NBA. I don't think the Blazers are going to send him to, you pick the worst team in the NBA.

They're not going to send him to basketball's version of Siberia because he's finally getting out of that in Portland. And no disrespect to the great fans in the Rose City, but you're aware of what's going on with the franchise. And if you're a Blazer fan right now, just look at Oklahoma City.

And yes, to reiterate, as someone who has no life, hopefully you have better plans than I do over this holiday week. I was watching summer league basketball last night at NBA TV, and it was great to see the return of Chet Holmgren. Remember, the number two overall pick last year went down with a foot injury, playing in a pro-am in August, missed the entire season. Still, the Thunder, a good ascending young team, had a quality year, flirted with a.500 record, and made it to the play-in.

So you plug in Holmgren now, and he was shaking off some rust, but the key takeaway was he's mobile, he's active, and he's productive again. If you're a Blazer fan, that's the goal right now as the slow build is underway. You're taking incremental steps forward to compete again, but you look at what the Thunder did. They blew it up in the name of having a realistic chance to be relevant in the future, and Portland's going to do that through the Lillard trade. But the question really hinges on how much can they get for Lillard, and what's it going to take in terms of the number of teams involved to get this done. And I think the answer for both of those questions suggests that when Rich comes back from vacation, this is still going to be the biggest topic in the NBA. If we're looking for a quick resolution, not seemingly in the offing anytime soon, because it's very clear that, for example, Tyler Herro has played his last minute of basketball for the Heat. And after all of the speculation, would he be able to come back from the broken hand injury that he suffered in the first round upset of the top-seeded Bucs, and finally had that cameo in the fifth and final game of the NBA Finals. Herro will be leaving the Heat however the deal comes together, if Lillard in fact lands in Miami. But it's very evident from everything I'm reading, everything I'm listening to, and there's the army of NBA insiders pushing out content 24-7, that Portland just is not that interested in Herro, nor Duncan Robinson. Now they're going to get a boatload of picks, and all they have to do is look at the precedent set last year in the Rudy Gobert trade. Remember, Gobert, who's not even in the same neighborhood in terms of carrying a team, obviously different skill set with his defensive rebounding.

Got a good right hand too, as we saw, and that freak is within the huddle for Minnesota towards the end of the regular season. I'm Brian Weber, eat for Rich Osm, we're live on this Independence Day as Joey Chestnut gets ready to eat a lot of hot dogs in the rain in Coney Island. We're making it rain at 8-4-4-2-0-4-7-4-2-4. Twitter is popping up right now, I'll check the tweets coming up.

B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, in less than 15 minutes will make the move to baseball, the latest on the Mike Trout injury, suffered last night. What it could mean, worst case, if we're looking at something significant, like a fracture, what would that mean in terms of the Angels' outlook for keeping Shohei Ohtani? If the team implodes without Trout, who has been less than stellar this year, not up to his normal expectations, will they then be of the mindset that they're not going to be able to keep Ohtani, so deal him prior to the deadline?

That is coming up. But as we think about what Portland's looking for, you can understand with the immediate comp of Gobert going from Utah to Minnesota to get the four number one picks, and having that kind of haul, four first round picks is absolutely insane for a player of Gobert's caliber. But Danny Ainge is masterful in contract negotiations and reshaping rosters. Portland should be holding out for that as the minimum, because Lillard clearly is in an entire different stratosphere compared to Gobert. Now the difference is, with Lillard going public via the report in The Athletic on Saturday, that he finally decided it was time to part ways with the Blazers.

My question is, why did it take so long? Now, maybe I'm looking at the Lillard situation differently than the multiple times that James Harden has been able to speak it into existence and force his way off a roster in Houston and Brooklyn, and now he's trying to do it in Philadelphia, or Kyrie Irving, for example. I respect on some level the patience and the loyalty that Lillard has shown, and that's why Portland, I think, does to a degree always a strong word, because any business is going to be guided by self-interest.

That's just basic economics and human psychology. But because Lillard hung around probably two seasons longer than he should have, waiting for Portland to get him more help, at some basic fundamental level, if you're just trying to do right by Dame, I do think the Blazers. To a degree, while balancing the franchise's goal of getting everything they can in return, they do have to be mindful of sending Dame to a place he wants to go, because if it doesn't work out, if they come up with a trade in principle that would send Lillard to a place that he has no interest in spending the next four years. Remember, he's already locked up for a contract that's going to maximize around $60 million towards the business end. But if it's clear that Lillard just says, I'm not going there, and the trade's going to implode, why waste time going through all of these arcane what-if scenarios?

But because Portland has the responsibility not only to their fans, but to run a business in optimal fashion to get the best package they can in return, I think we're looking at a minimum of three, possibly four teams. So you keep hearing, with the endgame, I think already crystallized, it feels like a done deal that Lillard is going to wind up in Miami, allowing Jimmy Butler to move to a more of a complimentary role. You don't need him to be superhuman in the playoffs, but we know over the course of his career, and I can't think of anybody in any sport that has a bigger swing from a very good player in the regular season, an All-Star, but not Hall of Fame caliber, to a transcendent talent like we see from Butler repeatedly, and most recently over the last couple of years.

Playoff Jimmy is a generational kind of performer, but he's also now getting deeper into his 30s. You pair up Lillard, Butler, and Bam Adebayo, who has found much more consistent offensive play, and then the Heat do what they do, they find dudes. We didn't know who Gabe Vincent was, unless you follow West Coast basketball, remember I'm shining for the Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara.

Vincent, one of seven undrafted players, part of that roster that made it all the way to the NBA Finals. But if it's clear the outcome is already, to a degree, predetermined, that it's almost a done deal, that Lillard's going to wind up in Miami, the real interesting part of this conversation is, who else has to get involved, and what are the other components? So you're going to hear a lot more about the Nets, and that's logical because they have nothing but draft assets, because they were on the wrong end of a demand by Kevin Durant, and a demand by Kyrie Irving, after the demand by James Harden, to say adios to Brooklyn. So they got loads of picks, but here's where it gets even more spicy, saw a report this morning, Brooklyn certainly willing to be part of a multi-team deal that would land Lillard in Miami, but one of their sticking points to play ball in this negotiation is, they want somebody, anybody, to take Ben Simmons.

Good luck with that. And I'm not trying to bash Ben, and I have a degree of empathy for anybody going through a crisis of confidence. And yeah, he's had the back injury as well, and more physical problems as of late. But to see somebody in that kind of turmoil, to go from a can't miss star after being won and done in LSU, number one overall pick, somebody that most of us thought, who follow hoops closely, and I'm not pretending to be dropping wodge bombs on you, no B-web artillery, but you remember how good Ben Simmons was early in his run in Philly, and then everything fell apart. And 95% of that feels like it was mental because not only could he not shoot, he became so scared that he just wouldn't take a shot.

And it became almost sad to see that he was three feet from the bucket, and he would pass up on a wide open layup. So, as we put a bow on this attempt to come up with a more interesting way of framing Damian Lillard other than, he's going to Miami, let's go through our power rankings in the East. If now this deal is somehow contingent on somebody being willing to take Ben Simmons off the hands of the Nets, that tells me we're going to be talking about this for even longer than it seemed. And as Kurt Heelan of NBC Sports told us yesterday, he thought, at a minimum, we're looking at another week to ten days before this gets going, because the GMs are going to show up in Vegas for that installment of the Summer League, the most important part if you care about Summer League, other than what's been going on already last night in Sacramento and Salt Lake City. But you get the GMs in Vegas, these negotiations speed up once they walk away from the craps tables, they get in a room and things start percolating. But if now Simmons is the linchpin in a multi-team deal that will send Tyler Herro someplace other than Portland and have the ultimate result of Damian Lillard winding up in South Beach, I think we could be talking about this for a very long time. I'm Brian Weber, thrilled to be with you live on the 4th of July, I will check your tweets, B.W.

Weber, Weber with two Bs, I'm open to having the conversation if you pick up the phone, 844-204-7424, I'll get the latest on the conditions in Coney Island. Can Joey Chestnut make more history, or will he have the rain impact his ability to get a firm grip, not only on the hot dogs, you gotta eat those buns as well, although he dips them in water sometimes, so perhaps that'd be another disgusting lubricant. We'll get there, I promise we're going to talk NFL along the way in 20 minutes, why is Netflix, according to reports, willing to pay the Cowboys $50 million for a docuseries based on a team that has become irrelevant between the lines, I think you know the answer, it's all about America's team. Straight ahead we're talking baseball, the latest on Mike Trout's wrist injury, and what it means potentially if it's significant for the Angels and Shohei Ohtani prior to the trade deadline coming up in less than a month, and George Steinbrenner. The boss of the Yankees, famously born on the 4th of July, is the Mets owner Steve Cohen, who's writing the biggest check in baseball history, the Mets with the largest payroll we've ever seen, and they've been a debacle, is Cohen making exactly the same kind of mistakes as we saw from Steinbrenner in the past.

Just getting warmed up on a very busy Independence Day, I'm Brian Weber, always having fun, when I'm in for Rich, it's the Rich Eisen Show. Are you currently enjoying the show on the Stitcher app? Then you need to know Stitcher is going away on August 29th.

Yep, going away, as in kaput, gone, dead. Rest in peace Stitcher, and thanks for 15 years of service to the podcast community. So switch to another podcast app and follow this show there. Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network, Brian Weber with you, 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 Grainger.com or just stop by. 844-204-7424, the number to call, let's keep the momentum going on Twitter, B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, in 15 minutes we'll mix in some football, although this is, if there's ever a fallow period in the NFL, this is the slowest week going. Now, the content beast surrounding the National Football League never stops humming, and the league is brilliant at monetizing everything and finding business relationships with all the key players, according to reports, they're expanding their connection with Netflix. Do you want to see another docuseries on the Cowboys?

Does Jerry Jones quote unquote need another 50 million bucks? We'll talk about the details of what's coming up as you flip around your streaming platforms. I mentioned the tweet, so as I was scanning through, I appreciate those of you taking the time to interact with me, and then I saw a tweet from Awful Announcing, and I did chuckle, not just to B, I know everything, I'm a affiliate host on Independence Day, but they're poking some fun as to what the talking head shows are doing across the TV networks. Here's one topic, is Joey Chestnut an all-time athlete?

How do we define a sport? I think I said two minutes into the program, here's what I'm not doing today. Now maybe that's because I have been lucky to sit in for Rich for the third consecutive July 4th, and perhaps I was an attractive candidate because even though hopefully I still have an enthusiastic delivery and it's not an act, I'm sincerely happy to be here, I love being on the radio as much as I can. I've been doing this for more than 10 minutes, so as I was thinking about how I've approached July 4th shows in the past, when I had less creativity and was very concerned about coming across, I don't know why I'm doing a weird impersonation of myself, but early on I really wanted to seem credible and I didn't want to be obnoxious, I know, seems like ancient history, so I would come across things like on this day in 1983, Dave Righetti threw an Independence Day no-hitter in front of George Steinbrenner on his birthday, and for some reason, it's always stuck in my head, that on July 4th, George Steinbrenner joined us, as did Al Davis. Now there's no topic there, it's terrible audio content, but I have a weird memory, and things just get jarred in there and don't go away, so as I was thinking about this show, I was thinking about Steinbrenner, and I'm not doing the Mount Rushmore of bombastic hands-on owners, because I think I did that 17 years ago with Steinbrenner and Al Davis, and we're still looking for an update on Mike Trout, I try to live up to what I tell you is coming up on the docket, in all candor, I don't think we're going to get any more information until people show up at the ballpark in San Diego, and if you're just joining us, Trout fouled off a pitch last night, and immediately Winston Payne didn't finish the at-bat, x-rays are pending, but he told reporters it felt different than other discomfort he's had in the past. So, once we get more information, I will change the entire rundown, but I am going to spend time coming up in 30 minutes, I'll call an audible, we'll do it at the top of the hour, and have an informed conversation, not reckless speculation, but if this is a significant injury, what does it mean for how the Angels are going to approach Shohei Ohtani, who gets the ball tonight, it's an Ohtani night at Petco Park, if Trout can't play, let's just say for a month, I'm not going to go down reckless roads, but if he's going to be sidelined in the near term, and the Angels are still hanging around in the West, and still at least in the conversation in the wildcard, but if they don't have Trout to rely upon for this run prior to the trade deadline, what do they do with Ohtani who's made it clear, beyond the Powerball money he's about to get in the offseason, he wants to play for a winner, that's not Anaheim, and they've spent money in the past on horrific contracts, Josh Hamilton's not walking through that door hopefully again, we'll talk about that coming up at the top of the hour.

But to finish my thought on Steinbrenner, I was trying to come up with the current comp, and you don't have to be that filled with ingenious thoughts just to go from the Bronx where the Yankees play over the Queens where the Mets reside. And since we're talking Padres, the Padres have to be delighted that the Mets have been even more horrendous this year, because if I was just going through the biggest underachievers in MLB, if the Mets didn't exist, I'd have to start with the Padres, who are pitching brilliantly, they just can't hit. Now if you're a Padres fan you're going to tell me it's just a matter of time, okay, I get it, baseball's quirky, and it's a long year, but folks we're in July now, and you got to stop talking about small sample sizes, and there's still plenty of time left.

Plus, because I'm based in Southern California, I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, you can be a part of the program at 844-204-7424, conversation never stops on Twitter, that's PW Weber, Weber with two B's, just one guest along the way coming up next hour of the program, just over an hour from now. We'll talk baseball with Adam Burke of Vson, but I read a lot of the coverage of the Padres online, and there have been multiple reports of friction in that clubhouse, they have a lot of oversized personalities with Machado and Tatis and the rest, so something is wrong in San Diego. Something is amiss, but because it's such a marathon, long season, and with the expansion of the postseason field, Padres still have time to figure it out, if they get to the playoffs, we saw what they did last year. Head to head against the Mets, took down the Mighty Dodgers, made it all the way to the NLCS, and this is the team of course that added Zander Bogarts in the offseason. But the Mets have been the punchline to every joke. When they took care of the Giants on Sunday Night Baseball to win that series, it was the first series they had secured in over a month, and I don't have to play the hits and go through every ridiculous move the Mets have made on the diamond. They have done things in terms of weird coincidences like hitting multiple batters in the same inning we haven't seen for decades, but you knew the season was in jeopardy before it even started, when Edwin Diaz went down with a knee injury celebrating a victory in the WBC. If that's not the most Mets thing ever, and I'm speaking as somebody who spent a lot of time at Chase Stadium as a kid, I don't know what is. Now the difference as the Mets have evolved is this. They would spend money episodically until the Wolfponds went quote unquote broke, still plenty of money but lost a ton thanks to Bernie, quote unquote made off with the money, but the Mets would go all in from time to time, and then always spend the money on the wrong dudes.

And yes I know Bobby Bonilla is still being paid and I did not celebrate Bonilla Day I hope you had a great one, but it wasn't just the Diaz injury, although that felt like it was foreshadowing something ominous. When you build a rotation around Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, you're paying for past performance, and I realized Scherzer is not that far away from brilliant years and I realized that Verlander over the course of his career has been relatively healthy, but this feels like regression to the mean that I'm not surprised in any way that neither has been as dynamic as they were in the past, and it's too easy just to look at the big names in the rotation and blame them. This entire collapse has accountability that can be littered across the roster, including Buck Showalter who I'm surprised is going to last at least for now, the Mets only have one all star.

Despite having the biggest payroll in baseball history, that's Pete Alonso, who's going to be a free agent, and I think they keep him, not only because of the star power but because of his connection to the fan base, and if in fact they're going to blow up this team, understanding that Steve Cohen is the modern incarnation of what's going on with George Steinbrenner in the past, if Cohen decides that okay, well I lost that money, I'm going to double down, and remember, his background is Wall Street. And while I have family members who worked in finance who get a little bit peeved when I make this analogy, there's a lot in common between Wall Street and gambling. I realize there's some fundamental differences, there's also the inherent risk. But Cohen, by his nature, is a risk taker, that's how you become one of the 50th richest individuals in the country, he just might double down.

But that's going to take a long time to get there. So it is interesting that even in a city like New York, my hometown that I turned my back on metaphorically a long time ago because I'm much happier on the west coast, the Mets have always played the role of younger brother to the Yankees. But they're making the exact same mistakes that the Yankees made four years before they finally had talent come through the organization.

Like Bernie Williams, like Derek Jeter, so I'm not saying don't go all in, I'm not saying don't spend big, because in a sport without a salary cap, you're rewarded. Still, it's not fantasy baseball, you can't just throw dudes together, and the Mets to me are proving that Cohen hasn't learned one damn lesson from George Steinbrenner, in case you missed it, was born on the 4th of July. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, you can slide in at 844-204-7424, hit me up on Twitter, BWWeber, Weber with two B's, we'll get back to the baseball to start the final hour of the program straight ahead because nobody talks football in a more compelling fashion than Rich Eisen. We'll get to the NFL, I mentioned according to reports Netflix, and this dropped yesterday, willing to pay $50 million for a docuseries on the Cowboys, but beyond paying for the brand, how interesting is this year's edition of America's team going to be? That's coming up, a lot more to get to as we roll on live on Independence Day, I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich, it's the Rich Eisen Show.

I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, Tuesday, July 4th edition of the Rich Eisen Show, 844-204-7424 is the phone number, Twitter handle, BWWeber, Weber with two B's, I peruse on a big word Tuesday, your tweets during the breaks after the program, so if you want to get the dialogue going, that is certainly an option. Getting closer to hour number two of the program, going to hit on the NFL presently, then going to shift our attention back to baseball, coming up at 1.40 Eastern Time, just under an hour from now, we'll bring in our only guest today, Adam Burke of V-Sin, we'll have a conversation about if Mike Trout in fact has a serious arm injury, what's going on with the left arm after he fouled off a pitch last night in San Diego, if in fact that proves to be something that has a great deal of importance attached to it, what does it mean for the Angels and Shohei Ohitani prior to the trade deadline, remember just one trade deadline, as a veteran, I used to love to throw out there just to let you all know that I'm on top of it, non-waiver trade deadline, but alas, that has gone away. And we're going to talk more NBA, I was thinking about prior July 4th shows, and I was on the air when this happened, seven years ago today I was going through Kevin Durant holding courts in the Hamptons, remember all those teams came to woo woo woo him, and the Warriors sent the full contingent, going to talk more about Durant now having another big three, does the addition of Bradley Beal really put Phoenix over the top in the West, and I did not spend enough time on the Warriors yesterday, Draymond Green, however you view him, won.

There's no question, he won when they traded Jordan Poole after he punched him in the face in the preseason, and he won financially, we'll talk about where the Warriors belong in the overall picture amongst contending teams as we still wait for Lillard to find his home presumably in Miami, knowing he will never play for the Blazers again. Okay, the NFL never stops churning out content, in part because they are amazingly shrewd businessmen, so if you think about how it works currently, if you're of a generation similar to mine, and what do you know, those rabbit ears come in handy now, right? As you think about ways to save a few bucks, just go old school, when I was a kid I would have to hold one of the antenna just to make sure we got Channel 5 in the New York tri-state area without too much horizontal and vertical adjustment. The NFL does business with everybody, Fox, NBC, CBS, the ESPN family of networks, well they're trying to replicate that strategy in the streaming world, already going all in with Amazon, in addition to the Thursday night package, for the first time ever we're going to have a Black Friday game, and what do you know, because Amazon writes a very big check, it's a compelling matchup, Jets and Dolphins. There's been a lot of talk about the league, in addition to now having a partnership with Google, the owners of YouTube, with the Sunday ticket migrating to that platform, but a lot of speculation the league wants to do more business with Netflix, and they already have a relationship with some content in terms of episodic shows. I saw the report yesterday on ProFootballTalk.com, I want to give a good friend of the program, Mike Florio, attribution, because there's too much stealing going on in the business, that in addition to a show coming up next week, focusing on quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Marcus Mariota, Kirk Cousins, I have no idea why Cousins belongs in that conversation, other than I guess if we're talking about who is on their way to the financial hall of fame, but this is going to move the needle far more than that project. According to this report, it's almost a done deal, Netflix is going to be in business with the Dallas Cowboys, writing Jerry Jones a check to the tune of close to $50 million, outbidding Amazon as well, because Netflix, like everybody else, has more competition than they had certainly at the beginning when they were the first to monetize streaming. Well, they want NFL content because it's the one thing that still generates a number beyond the games.

I'm convinced you could put the Shield logo up itself, and we would hover around the TV hoping that somebody might be playing football in the next minute or two. But here's the interesting wrinkle, because I saw the report and I said, wait a minute, I know the Cowboys print money, and I know there are legions of delusional Cowboy fans, hence America's team, which was just a marketing handle given Dallas by NFL Films decades ago, but it stuck because the Cowboys are in a different stratosphere when it comes to casual fan interest. But just from a standpoint of content creation, I read docuseries and I'm thinking, all right, is this going to be another bad version of Hard Knocks or the in-season version Amazon's had all in? Because there's nothing interesting about the Cowboys currently.

Well, Netflix is looking for an actual return on its investment. No, they're not talking about this year's Cowboys. They're going back to the glory days when the team was actually relevant.

So get ready for stories of the White House. It'll be Aikman, it'll be Irvin, it'll be Emmett, and maybe people will watch. But it got me thinking about this year's Cowboys. If there was a docuseries featuring what this team's going to look like on and off the field this upcoming season, what is interesting about Dallas currently? Now, I don't want to skew too negative, but after all, that's how it works here at Sports Talk Radio. If I was a cynic, beyond pointing out that the Cowboys have not been to the Super Bowl in 27 years, if I wanted to point out something that I would watch, I'd like to go inside the mind of Mike McCarthy, specifically play calling in the final seconds of the last two playoff games the Cowboys have competed in. Just go back to the utter travesty that occurred against the 49ers at home in Texas.

I don't have to give you all the grizzly details, but you remember how that played out, right? Remember, Mike spent his time away from the Packers coming up with this unbelievably exaggerated notion that he had embraced analytics. He was watching film of exotic offenses in his barn, and whoever hired him would get the Mike McCarthy reinvention project. Mike McCarthy version 2.0. Well, I'm not a coder, but there's still a lot of bugs with Mike McCarthy, because you saw it not only in that horrendous play that Dak was forced to run, right down the middle of the field, with tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, all the seconds coming off the clock, game over, season over. I remember Mike saying postgame with a lot of confidence, well, we've run that in practice.

I guess practice is not the same as a postseason game, big guy. If that was rock bottom, how would you describe the end of this year's playoff run? Whatever the hell, Mike was trying to draw up with some weird version of the swinging gate that had everybody spread out, that the 49ers were not fooled one second about, and absolutely blew the play up.

And again, here's the brilliance of it. Mike McCarthy had an entire year to come up with something. Anything better than the year before, when he ran Dak down the middle of the field, only to have time expire.

He came up with that? What was that supposed to be? The swinging gate and then the Cal Stanford play with nothing but laterals? Instead, who was it? Kavante Turbin got blown up. Remember Jimmy Ward?

For some reason, I come up with minutiae. Jimmy Ward destroyed him, nearly decapitated him. So I guess, just from a standpoint of enjoying train wrecks, if you took us inside the film room, just to see what Man Mountain Mike has in store this year, how does he top two of the worst play calls we have ever seen the last couple years?

I'd watch that. Beyond that, I realize the Cowboys are a playoff team, last few years. They're the third best team in that division now.

And that's not anything close to a hot take, that's just factual. Because Brian Daybell has changed everything surrounding the New York Giants. Now the biggest obstacle for the Giants is going to be a much more demanding schedule than the last play schedule that they had coming off yet another terrible season. And we'll see if last year was an aberration.

But I have more faith in Daybell, certainly than Mike McCarthy. And remember, what's happened to this roster? Okay, Dallas added vets like Brandon Cooks and Safon Gilmore, but they said goodbye to Dalton Schultz, they said goodbye to Conor McGovern. Still don't know what Zeke's future is.

Let's just put it this way, anything involving the current Cowboys would be far from must-see TV. Closing in on hour number two of the program, we're going to jump right in talking baseball on the 4th of July, has the pitch clock saved the grand old game? Let's keep it going on Twitter, that's B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's.

I'm Brian Weber, appreciating you spending part of your Independence Day with us. We continue July 4th edition of the Rich Eisen Show. How wrestling really works and how you get the ratings.

Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson explain on 83 weeks. Collision has been struggling a little bit out of the gate with these ticket sales. A little bit out of the gate. This was a major show announced on a major network with what everybody thought was this huge star, CM Punk. I said he was going to be the biggest financial flop in wrestling history. And I think I'm being proven right every minute of the day.