REShow: Ephraim Salaam - Hour 3

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Rich Eisen Show. Send us your ideas. We are open to any idea. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. What are your two cents on the running back market right now, Mark Ingram? I think it's criminal that they're trying to do our position like this. Would you tell them to hold out?

I definitely would. Earlier on the show, three-time Pro Bowl running back Chris Johnson, actor and comedian Godfrey. Coming up, 13-year NFL veteran Ephraim Salaam. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Mike Hill. Two hours down, one more hour to go on the Rich Eisen Show.

Mike Hill sitting in for the great Rich Eisen. Happy to be here with you guys. Brock and Del Tufo, TJ in the house with me. Fellas, two hours down, man. The weekend is almost here, baby.

Let's do it. It's flying, man. I'm still recovering from last weekend, man. You know, what I've realized at my age, I'm 52. I'll be 53 next month.

Shout out to all the Leos out there. It's about to be our season once again. Is that I can still party. I just can't recover. Yeah, it's a recovery. I can't recover.

It takes me a long time to recover. I was out in Vegas. I hung out one time to like four o'clock in the middle of Summer League out there, man. And the heat and everything, partaking some beverages, you know what I mean?

Here and there and hanging out with some folks and partying, listening to music and then going to the pool and doing it all over again. I realized the next day I wake up, man, it's like your body feels things they've never felt before. To get to be a certain age, your body just doesn't like bounce back the way it does. I mean, like I understand I need to go to cryotherapy. I need I need like oxygen tanks. I need those type of things to recover. I need what the NFL players and the NBA players use. I just can't afford it.

But yeah, that's what I need because I can't recover. My man, Ephraim Salaam is joining us right now. 13 year NFL veteran. This is my guy. And when I tell you, like I met a lot of people in this business that I admire, that I love, that respect.

But Ephraim is definitely at the top of that list when it comes to that man. 13 years in the league. Obviously, we worked together over at Fox Sports.

We had a radio show together on Fox Sports Radio for a while. Hit show. And this guy is just an incredible person, incredible human being, incredible husband and father. He does it all.

He is the example. Quick story. Quick story. Now, obviously, I'm divorced. I just got divorced. But Ephraim is the reason why I got married the last time.

Ephraim is the reason why I met Cynthia. Yeah, that was the one. Yeah. Struck out again. The third time's the charm.

I said three strikes. Yeah, man, I thought I thought so, too, bro. That's the reason why I married. But anyway, things happen. We're still cool.

We're still good friends. But Ephraim, when we was doing a radio show together, I don't know if you remember this, but you're the one that said, hey, man, you know, would you go on a dating show? Remember you asked me that? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You remember that? Yeah. You said you had a producer friend.

Yeah. And she was looking for somebody to go on Steve Harvey's show. Called me and was like, hey, I was like, I think I got the perfect guy. And I called you and I said, would you be open to dating one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta? You were like, which one? Which one? And I was like, Cynthia Bailey. He was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Set that up.

Set that up. You know, and look, I thought the rest was history, you know. But look, life is full of experience. It is, man. You take the good, the bad.

You can learn from every experience. And, you know, that's relationships. It is. It is.

It's history. And, you know, but you've been able to carve out a great career for yourself, but also a great relationship with your wife, Reneece. How long have you guys been married now? We've been married 17 years, been together 20.

17, 20. And she used to be a dancer. She was one of the best dancers in the world. She danced with Beyonce, Destiny's Child, Ricky Martin, Usher, Rihanna.

She toured the world, you know, for 12 years. Wow, man. Awesome. 17 years together, man. How the kids doing?

Beautiful. And you're coaching, you're coaching? I coach, it's basketball. I have two games tomorrow.

Okay. So I coach my minors, which are my nine and 10 year olds. And then I coach majors, which are 11 and 12 year olds out in the valley. And we got a good team, man. We work. We have a model, right? We have a team like saying.

What is it? If they don't score and then the team says they don't win. Oh, so you practice defense. The first thing we learn, especially at that age, is defense.

Okay. Because when you, defense is all effort. Defense is all effort. You don't have to be the most athletic.

You don't have to be the tallest, the fastest. It's just effort. Right. When you get kids at that age, you get different levels of athletic ability. You get different levels of offensive output of, of basketball IQ. So I focus on the defense because you can win games 15 to four.

Yeah. Well, that, that, that you have to give kids who, who may feel it be intimidated about the offensive aspects of games. Like you got to dribble, you got to get past the defender. You got to pull up.

You can't travel. You got to shoot a jumper. All of these things may be a little daunting for some kids who haven't had as much exposure and practice in basketball, but you can say, Hey, this is your area.

Anybody in this area. You can't let them get past you. How hard is that to do though? To, to, to focus and to preach defense to these kids who see the Steph Curry's in the world, the LeBron James, they want to go out there and they want to score the basket because that's where the glory comes. Yeah. The glory comes from that. But I said, the biggest glory is winning. So if you want to win, then you can't allow them to score more than you.

Right? So we'll have one or two, sometimes three kids who can really go, but they can go, they can break down the defense. They can hit the open man. They can do some special things, but as a whole, we have to be a defensive minded team because if we put that press on you. So you're like Nolan Richardson. Hey man, we going after you. Okay.

All right. So we generate easy offense because we get turnovers. We can't, we don't let you cross half court.

Wow. So we, we get turnovers and that's easy layups. That's first thing you should, the first shot a kid learns is a layup. Y'all frustrating the hell out of little kids. The little kids on the other team, they frustrating him.

No, I can't get past half court. I hate them. The thing I've learned and parents, parents have had, they've tried to Richard Pryor, toy me. Oh, what's that mean? Right. So you remember that?

Yeah. I remember the toy, right? Where they hired the man hired Richard to be his toy to come up, grow maybe with the kids at home. And so they would come up to me and be like, Hey, Oh my God, we love you.

Um, he doesn't listen to anybody, but you, can you come no, I'm not coming to your house. I have kids. My kids are right here. I'm not coming to your house to be with your kids, but it's just the respect that, that you have to give when you're part of a team. I T I'm always tell the kids, look, I'm teaching you basketball, but these are life lessons through the lens of basketball.

If you give effort, if you work and you work within a team, not only here, but anywhere in life, you'll be successful. That's a great lesson to have right there. And to give them to show them at an early age, because they gotta, they gotta, they gotta grow up that way. Uh, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, obviously we'll talk about sports because we, we did, you know, do sports, but we talk about life when we was on our radio show, that we talked, I think we talked more about things outside of radio. This is sports, but I think part of like, I think sometimes like life, uh, parallels, like you just mentioned, like, you know, the life lessons, you can learn so many life lessons from the game of sports. And one of the things that I like about you is that we talk about the running back situation. Sometimes you gotta be, you know, you gotta be able to adapt.

You gotta be, and you've been able to adapt in a lot of ways, man. So after your football career was over, you went into broadcasting great as a broadcaster. And now you are a writer on a hit TV show. People don't realize Ephraim Salam is one of the head writers over on Bel Air, which is on Peacock, which is going into his third season.

Yes, it, um, I love it. I love being creative. And my mentor, Chris Collins, who got me into television writing, my first show was a show called the Continental based on the hotels in the John Wick movies had nothing to do with sports or anything like that. But what he said to me was, you have a perspective on life that nobody in our writer's room will have. And you're always trying to find different voices, different people to, to fill these writer's room that have different life experiences. If everybody went to Harvard or Yale and, and, and, and mastered or majored in, in, in writing or theater arts, then you get the same experiences.

You'll get some of the same pitches. And I, he said, you've been able to live life that nobody in any of these writer's room will ever have lived. So you can speak to certain things, uh, through a lens that no one has, has viewed.

And I need that. Right. So once I understood that, then you start looking at whatever the project is, I've been, you know, five, six shows now, and you just try to add value. It's like being in a locker room, right? You go to a team, you immediately have to add value or you will be going to another team or going to do something else. Right. So if you take that same mindset of being a collective, being a team with one goal, right? Win the Super bowl, make the playoffs, win a game. And you take that into the real world, right?

You got a nice team here. Everybody's wants to make a good show. So every is no ego involved, right? Whatever it takes, you go into a writer's room with that same energy and you understand the material and you have, you know, great pitches and it, it, it just, it just lends itself to it being successful because it felt comfortable.

It didn't feel like, you know, I could talk, I could tell stories all day. So just building out these characters, especially as a, you know, a beloved IP as, as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and trying to recreate that. My man, my man, Morgan Cooper for Kansas City, shout out, Kansas City, had the vision to, to redo that. And he did that, you know, sizzle reel and put it on the trailer and put it on, on, on YouTube. And the rest was history, but we connected when I met him and we had some of the same visions of what we thought the show should be. And this is back in 2020.

So this is pre-TV deal or anything. We really talked about this show and what we thought it could be. It meant so much to me and my youth. So it's been, it's been a pleasure, man, and a blessing.

I enjoy, it's very cathartic. And it's a really good TV show. Like I said, it's going into its third season now.

We just wrapped up his second season, really good show and best of luck. I don't want to get too far into it, but best of luck with everything that's going on with the right of strike. You know, I know that's tough. It's cold out here on these streets. It's cold out here on these streets. Believe me, I'm in sad. First time I've ever been on strike. I don't know what it means, but I'm like on the strike.

So thing is, man, hopefully we can get these right. Cause they're so important to our culture and everything that goes on and everybody watches all these TV shows. So we need those people in the rooms and the importance of that. So hopefully both sides can come to an agreement so we can get back to work very soon. I need to get back to work. So now that you got this time on your hands, you just spending more time with the kids, the wife is, is, is, is, uh, uh, Renice, is she getting, you get on?

It's a gift and a curse, right? Cause I called you yesterday and I was like, man, you coming, you want me to come to the show? Hey man, I know it's short. No, I'm like, what time?

I don't know. I've been sleeping. I was here last night. I've been in the parking lot waiting, uh, to get back to work. No, but it's been a gift and a curse because normally I would be, you know, improve being pre-production right now in July, we usually start pre-production. So we'd be, I'd be over at universal and we would have been building the show off since May 22nd in the writer's room. And I would be busy. I would be unavailable to do anything.

It'd be difficult for me to continue to coach my kids, um, in the summer because of the demand on, on building out a new season and things like that. So this has been the gift and the curse. The gift is I get to really spend this summer with the kids, with the family. Uh, we had all our birthdays in the summer and my 11 year old will be 12 next Friday.

So happy birthday Rashid. And you know, our anniversary, 20 years together, 17 married, uh, was in June. My birthday's in June. My wife's birthday is in June.

My youngest son's birthday is in June. Right. So, uh, that's why I really need to go back to work. So anybody out there listening to this, I'm available.

June has wiped out the, uh, my phone is just completely wiped out the emergency fund. Um, but the curse is I, I'm a worker. I love working. Yes, you do.

You know, I love to create, I love to engage. And so I, you just gotta, it's the ebbs and flows of life, man. You gotta take the good with the bad.

It is. And I look at it and tell me if I'm wrong, but it's all a blessing to be honest with you because the fact that you get a chance to spend this time with your family, especially your kids in that quality town with the wife and whatnot, I don't know how much you love your wife and you want to spend time with her, but the kids grow up really quickly. I mean, my kids, my youngest just graduated from college. Congratulations.

Thank you very much, man. She just graduated from UCLA already on her own working. And when she comes back home, it's like a blessings. I get a chance to see what y'all want to do and enjoy this time while you can. You know, my oldest, he don't even want me to kiss him no more. You know, when do you stop kissing him?

A boy. And now you can kiss him. I think, you know, my dad wanted to kiss me right now.

Kiss my dad's my dad, man. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just, that's love.

That's so what we have to do is we have to start putting rules and parameters on love, right? Oh, well, you got in a certain age, you got to stop. No, man, these are my babies. These are my babies. Look, man, they, I told him, he was like, dad, I'm not a baby. And I said, baby, you're going to always be my baby. I don't care how old you are.

You're going to always be my baby. That's all right. But that's the father I'm raising men. Yeah. My wife and I, we raising black men. Right.

Right. And so you, I want to, we want to raise them with love, empathy, respect, knowledge of self so they can be fathers and do the same thing. Eventually us in our community, we got to break the cycle. And I'm glad you're doing that because we need to do more of that.

Like you said, not just in our community, but all around the world, man, that men can show that type of emotions with one another and still be real men. I love you. I love you. You want to hug me? We hug, we hug chest to chest.

Yeah. We, we, we, we embrace, man. I ain't kissing you though.

I love you, but you know what I'm saying? Back with more Ephraim Salaam coming up. We'll talk more about the NFL. I want to talk to you about the running back situation in the NFL as well.

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Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. What's great, man, are these, you know, we do a lot of NFL, NBA shows on Family Feud for celebrity. Right. It's great, man, when regular people discover that celebrities don't know nothing. They don't. You think cause a person is famous, they know more. They actually know less. They know less than anybody else because they're exposed to less. Rich people don't know how much milk costs. You get out of touch, man. And when they come on Celebrity Family Feud, you find out how out of touch they are.

They don't know anything, man. Like one of the questions for the NFL team was, and we were asking a guy running back for the Packers. Can't think of his name, but the question was complete the sentence, strip, and you spoke, you know, like strip mall, strip, strip, poker, strip sack, strip sack. I said name complete the word strip.

He said per strip per. I went, hold on, man. I quit breathing.

How is that your point of reference to complete the word strip per PR. That was it. I was done. That was one of my great moments.

And again, you just walk away and you just, you realize that in the moment, like, okay, this is it. And I'm going to let this thing go. After the show, he asked me, he said, Steve, is there any way we can edit that out? I said, sir, we're not editing that out. Matter of fact, we're going to embellish it. You're going to say per so loud. You guys have had some incredible moments on this show, man.

Oh man. Once again, we're back on the radio side on the television side. They play these archives and they was talking about Steve Harvey was on the show and talking about Family Feud. And he's talking, he said, complete the sentence strip just for the radio people. And he was a NFL players one there. And, uh, one of the players completed the sentence instead of saying strip mall, strip tees.

He said, strip per, per, per, per. Yeah. That's your brother. And right there, that's I'm, I, I understood that. I mean, that didn't seem weird to me. I'm like, that makes sense. I mean, look, we were all young and, and, you know, you're into whatever you're into. Yeah.

I mean, you know, in the day that we surveyed a hundred, who would a hundred people, right? You know what I'm saying? Right. They weren't in Atlanta.

That's the first thing they say, strip per, per, per, per. Exactly. It's all about where you are and where you're polling these people. That's why I'm always saying that we asked a hundred people, blah, blah, blah. In South Dakota. Yeah. Cause we ain't asking where I'm from.

We don't know nothing about that. Welcome back to the Rich Eyes and Show on the radio network. I'm sitting in the Rich Eyes and 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 hanging out with my man, one of my best friends in the world, Ephraim Salaam. My mom is going to be so happy. My mom just loves, she's like, Oh, tell Ephraim I say hello. She just loves her.

I think she wishes you were her son. Well, I mean, it happens. It happens. I just, I'm just being me, man. You, you, you're just a great guy, man.

You was giving us some, some marital advice during the break and how much your wife should be your best friend and all that. And no matter what you see, if you can see a stripper hanging out, you still got to go home to your wife. I mean, like if you look, and I used to tell the younger guys in the locker room this, so every Thursday I might be spilling the beans, but every Thursday in an NFL locker room, the teams by position go out to eat and you either go to the strip strip club before you eat or after, but if you going, you go and you going to be there.

Well, first of all, the strip club got some of the best wings. Now I'm not going to eat lemon pepper. I like, I make it a rule not to eat around open, but I'm not, I can't like butts in, in, in, in burgers. It's just, I can't, like you wouldn't, you wouldn't just be on the table naked at home eating. So why like, I can't do it.

I'm sorry. Well, I mean, but you put your dollars in the dollars are fine. You don't eat the dollars. I'm not about to, yo, yo, no man, no, no, no, no sanitary. But I would tell them like, they, I hear them on the phone like, oh no, we want to eat. Uh, baby, we going to be late and we going to be at the steak house all night. And I'm like, well, but they'll hear me. I'm like, yo, we're going to treasures first or wherever. And then we're going to go eat. And then it's like, oh man, you told your wife you're going to the strip club. I said, yeah, fool.

Wow. I said you had, you had one that understood because I went to those establishments prior to getting married. We've gone together. And so like it, I'm not going in there. I got it. I'm sorry. I got to do a survey here. Cause who's Brock when you married? Not technically, but okay.

Who has a significant, if you had a significant significant, you, you, you, you, you, you, you want to be honest, right? Absolutely. You want to be transparent. You have to be, have to be, are you telling your wifey or your, you know, that's what we call in the community wife, even though she ain't your wife, wifey that you probably would. I'm not a strip club guy, but I would tell her, Hey, this is what we're doing. Okay.

And she would be like, cool, have fun. That's good. It's good to be transparent that way. I guess, you know, you can't, if you're, if you can't tell the truth about that, then you're going to find yourself wanting to lie about more and more things.

Here's the problem. Sometimes as you can tell the truth and be very transparent and be very honest, and then you're still going to get a lot of crap. You got married though.

So yeah, that's true. See, that's why you gotta know that's why you can tell the truth all you want and fall into a fight, but that's what you marry. But I, I'm, I'm the one that's always been really transparent, been honest. Hey, this is going to be a FaceTime and Hey, here's, who's here, blah, blah, and doing all that type of stuff like that in the background and like, okay, get home. And then there's the drama. So it's almost like I'm damn if I do a damn for don't because the reason I want to be your ex girl. So, you know, you remember at my birthday party and you remember we're going to mention names as well.

Yeah. It was like, there's a story here. And I were like, what is happening? And we weren't even together. We were, we were sitting there counseling this girl and all she could do was be like, I wasn't even with her anymore, man.

Is he, who's he talking to? I'm like, that's just, but I look, I say that to say, I said, gentlemen, you're going to walk yourselves into an argument because we all play for the team. So you don't know who the other patrons are in these establishments. All it takes is, Oh, Hey, um, my cousin was at so-and-so and saw the guys there. And by the time you get home, that news has traveled home already.

And then now you got to lie again. Like, where'd you guys go tonight? Oh, we went to, uh, uh, uh, Flemings. Oh, no, no. This is how it goes. Like, Oh, so yeah. Did you have a good time tonight?

This is how it goes. Did you have a good time tonight? And who was there again? That's when you know, you're in trouble when they, when they ask that.

So who, who was there again? Look, if you, if you, for all of the newlyweds out there, people in, in marriages, if you can cut those little things out, like your phone, if my wife was like, Hey, I'm going to run to the story quick. I don't know where my phone is. I'll say, take my phone. Right.

Men would, they would throw their phone on the ground. I say that to say the amount of weight that, that, that you release from being able to do something like that, or not having to hide something. It's just, it's free.

It's very freeing in a relationship. It is man. All right. Let's talk a little sports. I'm here talking to you from salon man, former NFL player, 13 years in league. You missed this time of year training camps, training camps, open it up.

Nope. I, I, I get anxiety around this time of year. Why is that? I hated training camp. Well, I mean, most NFL players hated training camp, but you don't miss any, any parts of the game of football. Like you said, the comradery, being in the locker room. Yeah.

I love that. But I came into the league in like the late nineties and training camp was actually really training camp. Like we had six weeks of tour days, full practice, my first four years, we had it up in my first three years. We had it up in at Furman university in South Carolina. And that must be where the devil went to school. Cause that's how hot it was.

That's where you vacation, man. You come out of there and the third week training camp, your head hurt from the helmet is 110 on the heat index. And you just, it, it, it, it just became like, uh, now being with the guys, being in the locker room, knowing that everybody was feeling the same way, except for the kickers and, and, and the punters, they just goofing around. That's why I don't know, they just goofing around over there, kicking balls in the trash can and all of that. Um, and it's just those long days.

So it's a 7.00 AM to 9.00 PM day every day. Yeah. You played with Jamal Anderson, Jamal Anderson, dirty bird back in the day. Great running back, you know, played until he got injured, ran out. Why don't we see running backs get the respect they used to get anymore? I know it's a passing league, but they're not getting respect when it comes to getting paid.

Why do you think that's the problem? Well, the illusion of quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, those guys were so great. Like Patrick Mahomes is so great.

Joe Burrow. We really still waiting for Kansas city to have a dynamic running game. That's true. They're winning Super Bowls without it. But those are the outliers.

That isn't the norm. Every team doesn't have a Patrick Mahomes. So this notion of, well, we can win without a running back. No, he can win without a running back.

Tom Brady can win without a running back, but everybody else, y'all can't win without a running back. But isn't this a league that's a copy? In any sport, there's always a copycat league. Obviously you got to have a quarterback like Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow.

But there's still a copycat league. And I'm trying to think of the last Super Bowl winner that actually had a great running back. I mean, Fournette with the Bucks, but Tom Brady was still on that team. No, you're looking, it would be probably the Rams, Marshall Folk. I mean, that goes back to, what was that, 99?

That was 2000? This is, it became more of a passing league. So when you talk about the argument that you need that running back and Super Bowl winning teams have not had that running back or needed that running back, can you see, and on which I'm playing devil's advocate, can you see where NFL teams are saying, well, why are we going to overspend for running backs when other teams are won without running backs that were superstar players? Yeah, I can see it, but it doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand it because only one team can win the Super Bowl.

But that doesn't mean only one team has a successful year. So you have to be able to, number one, I'm an offensive lineman. Right.

So I understand. And I would rather run block than pass block. I would rather go forward with aggression than back up and wait. That seems simple, right? I would rather go forward.

Like when we, when we, we had our first 15 mapped out and the night before the game, we would get our script, the first 15 plays. And I would, I would look, I just like, please, don't be no seven step drop. Don't be a pass. And I look, and it'd be like 23.

I left 23 scat. That's empty, empty backfield, four receivers, right? Now they know what's passed. I hated starting a game with the pass play because as an offensive lineman, we want to set the tempo. Right. Like I want to be the aggressor.

I want to go after them and not let them go after me. So in terms of having a running back and a running game, I know how important it is for time of possession to be able to grind out those yards, to not feel like on second and six, you have to pass the ball. I want to give us an opportunity to get four yards a carry after, after three carries, that's 12 yards. That's the first down, right? The longer we have the ball, when I was in Houston, the first time the Houston Texans ever beat the Indianapolis Colts with Peyton Manning, we won the time of possession by a mile.

It was third. The game plan was it's going to be 39. We're going to run the ball on 39.

It didn't matter. We were running the ball. As long as Peyton didn't have the ball, he didn't have them. As long as he stood on the sideline, because he stood on the sideline, we had an opportunity to win the game.

Ron Dayne, I believe, had 153 yards rushing that game. But that to me, that's a formula that I can win because now you get chunk plays off play action, but you cannot play action without running the ball first. That's true. That's true.

Talking to Ephraim Salaam, talking about the NFL, I want to go around the league real quick. Obviously, the commanders just got sold $6.05 billion. So Daniel Snyder, no longer the owner officially of the team. You ever played for an owner that was just horrible, that was terrible, or just someone that you just felt like, why is he in charge of this scene?

No, not in that aspect. I've played for an organization where I didn't think ownership and management were clear about how to be successful. What do you mean? It didn't feel like I was on an NFL team.

Cheap? It was just the way things were done. What do you mean?

Explain. So in 2009, right at the end of my career, I went to Detroit for a year. And this was after they went on 16. And that was my 11th year.

No, that was my 12th year in the league. And so I had experienced what the NFL was, the highs, the lows, the greatness of being a professional athlete in a city, in a town. And when I got to Detroit, it was like just going to work. So it was, things were being done that didn't lend to winning football games. So the guys there, the Jeff Baccuses and Dominic Raiola, these guys who have been in Detroit their whole career, they never experienced what the true greatness of the NFL was.

They literally were just going to work. Because that was part of the culture. You didn't become a professional athlete just to go to work. It comes with certain things. The city, like when I was in Denver, I'd never paid for a meal.

I'd never paid for a meal anywhere. Just because they loved the franchise that much. So when you get to a place and certain things are happening and you're looking and you've had an experience in the league, you're looking around like, oh, wow, this is terrible. And you know, I don't want to be disparaging. And they're not winning.

No, and they're not winning. And so it was just like, huh, like you can sacrifice certain things to win, but if you don't get those things and you don't win, then you really just punching the clock. You're punching it with a hell of a time card, but it just didn't lend to the excitement of what the league had to offer. We were talking about the first segment of the day with Brockman and everybody was trying to figure out the worst owners in franchise sports history. One person that we did not bring up was Bengals owner Mike Brown, Mike Brown. I mean, I mean, they just started recently winning right with Joe Burrows, the quarterback, but notoriously cheap. Right.

Yes. Heard so many stories about the hard part about hearing some players. And I know you guys are NFL players, professional players, and a lot of people in the real world don't want to, oh, you guys get millions of dollars. I can't sometimes if they don't give you proper equipment, they don't give you fresh socks or, you know, things like that. Some of the central basics. It can lead to a terrible culture.

Oh, that is a terrible culture. It becomes, you know, dog eat dog. One owner, I saw that segment, one owner you didn't mention. What's the, what's the lady's name who owned the Reds? Marsha. Marsha.

Yeah. A lot of racist owners. That probably would be up at the top of my list because she was just in the media saying the stuff. She was just crazy. She was on. What was the report that came out?

The Cardinals were charged for their food and lunch and at the facility, things like that. Yeah. That, that to me is, that is crazy.

Yeah. Remember who's was it? Eric Davis was in the world series. Eric Davis got hurt. It was in the playoffs and I can't remember what it was.

They didn't pay for him to come back home or he was on the road. Can't remember exactly what it was. Yeah. It's been some, it's been some, some really terrible owners and you got to realize most owners, this is like a game. It's like monopoly, right?

Most owners have made their money elsewhere and they want to come do this thing. Like, Hey, I'm gonna come buy this. This is your hobby. This is your hobby.

This is what you're going to do. And it's like playing a board game at home. But it's a damn good investment. I mean, if I give you $800 million and I make $6.05 billion. If Donald Sterling bought the Clippers for $12 million and he made $2 billion.

And he ran them like they were. And they, they ran him out of the league and he still sold it for $2 billion. Yeah. And that was like, I mean, the Clippers weren't worth $2 billion at the time, but, uh, that was, you know, it was what it was.

It was some friendship there. And, uh, bomber came in and overpaid, which is, it is what it is. What it did was it raised the value of every, if the Clippers cost $2 billion, what the Lakers cost? Yep. Yeah. Right. Think about that. If the Clippers, you pay $2 billion at the time, if you pay $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers, the Lakers must've been worth $10 billion.

So I, I get it. He in, in turn raised the value of NFL franchises. I mean, of NBA franchises across the board, um, similar to what this group just did right now with the commanders at six billion. So now at $6 billion, what are the Cowboys worth? I think they said the Cowboys and the Yankees are going back and forth. It's the, uh, they're valued at eight, eight and change. Right. But I bet if Jerry sold it, he could probably get 10 because somebody is going to, there's going to be a bidding war.

You would think if the, if the Lakers, the Yankees, the Cowboys ever went up for sale, I mean, what they're worth is one thing, but they're going to be, who wouldn't want, if you can afford that, who wouldn't want to own one of those franchises. That's like, that's incredible. With Eva salon. I want to end the show. We had a, I think you had a segment Brockman about best and worst alternate uniforms. Oh yeah.

We got some Jersey stuff. Let's take a break and come back and do that. Okay. We're going to take a break because Brockman is a producer.

He's one of the producers on the show. So when they say, take a break, that's it breaks. So we're going to take a break.

That's what we're going to do right here. We had Jerry on the show just a couple of weeks ago, Larry, and I asked him how come Steinbrenner himself never appeared on Seinfeld. And he said, Steinbrenner shot a scene, but it was so bad.

You cut it. Is that a true story? Yeah. What was so bad about it? He flew out on his private jet to do the show and flew back that day.

And okay. He did it. And then I go into editing and I'm watching the show and Oh my God, he was so awful. He was so bad. It was, you couldn't use it.

It was much better from behind with my voice, you know, than actually seeing the real, the real guy doing it. Right. So that was a scene where he was with Costanza. He was with Elaine in a restaurant, I think.

Okay. And I had to call him up and tell him he was cut. How did that go? I called Yankee stadium. I said, I want to talk to Mr. Steinbrenner, Larry David, you got my phone. I said, Mr. Steinbrenner, it's Larry David calling from the Seinfeld show. Yes.

Yes. Larry, what is it? I said, I said, I'm sorry to tell you this. He said, come on, you can tell me I'm a big boy. I can take it. But you slipped back in that voice. Right back in. Right. And I said, I'm seeing I've been cut from the show.

And I said, it's not your fault, but it's just the end of the scene wasn't working. And that was it. How did he take it? He was a big boy. He took it. Well, he told you how he was going to take it. And he actually took it.

Yeah. George Steinbrenner and Elaine. I would never have guessed. I would have thought that there would have to have been a Costanza George moment. I know there was an Elaine scene. I don't know.

There may have been a George scene. I'm not sure. I don't remember. Back on the Rich Eisen show. Mike Hill filling in for Rich Eisen today, hanging out with my man, Ephraim Salaam, the fellows in here, you know, one observation I made. I've been doing the show.

This is my second time doing it in the last couple of weeks. TJ, I didn't realize he borrows a candle over there. I did not like the whole like the ambiance, the whole bar is real deep over there. That's how Rick starts every show. And he gets to me. He's like, is the candle lit? Is the candle lit?

OK, man, I'm working on my own. I got a feeling that you light other things on the weekend. I just get it. I don't know. I mean, why wait for the weekend? I'm just saying is legal.

Green room for a reason. You know, the best part weekend outside of when we went to break a Laker fan and a Celtic fan having a discussion. The most hilarious, intense thing you will hear.

Ephraim Salaam. I just made a statement. I said. The Celtics are done. They'll never have a team as good as they've had for the last two years. That's all I said. And you were crazy. Well, you say done like like they're not gonna make the playoffs or make the playoffs.

What did you say? Why would they make the playoffs? Because the East is what? Well, the East is not as strong top to bottom as the West.

You're absolutely right. But given that with the team that they've had, they still haven't been able to win a championship. They were up to one of the finals and they pushed Eastern Finals to Game 7. I think a lot of fan bases would sign for that.

They would love that for their favorite team. The Lakers aren't like that because we only go into the season for championships not to make deep playoff runs. That's the difference between Boston and L.A. Oh, oh, I'm going to start between what now? The team with the most career titles?

No, not the most. Y'all tied. Yes, we're tied. Oh, wait. What about the five for Minneapolis?

We're tied. Those don't count. They do count. You and O'Shea count those fives.

They don't count. And then you got the asterisk on the one a couple years ago. Oh, the asterisk! He brought out the asterisk. 17-17.

He said the bucket didn't exist. I don't know what world you live in, but it's purple and gold and it's not like the rest of us. You take Bird, I'll take Magic. You take Paul Pierce, I'll take Kobe. Yeah, yeah. So we got that.

That's fine. You take, I take Kareem. You take Bill Russell. I mean, both great franchises.

Yeah, both great franchises. Yankees got 27 by the way, though. 27. Even though we haven't won in almost 15 years. So the fact that we haven't won in 15 years, still got 27.

That says something. I'm just saying, you know, I got seven in my lifetime. I got 11 in my lifetime, so I'm happy with that.

11 what? Championships. Overall.

Yeah. Oh no, I'm not talking about just my baseball team. I got four for my football team.

I got two for my basketball team. I'm that old that I had two championships from the Knicks. I am that old.

I was born the year they won that first championship. Do you count that one? I can't. I can't even remember it. I don't remember it. I know the archives, the footage is so grainy, man. It's just crazy.

When you go to the Garden, you see the Reed banner hanging. On the Rangers. I count the Rangers as a team, 94, you know, so yeah. Yeah, I got to see 11 and just all in basketball, so I'm happy about that.

11 all in, dang. You seen 11 Lakers? Have the Lakers won that many championships?

The Los Angeles Lakers. And T.J. got so many teams, I'm pretty sure he's seen so many teams. Nonsense is ridiculous. How is it ridiculous? Like everybody talked about how many teams T.J. has. But let's let's let's be real and look at this now. I'm counting as my argument being there's 150 plus college teams, right?

I didn't go to a D1 school. So because I like, well, I grew up in the middle of Pennsylvania, so I like Penn State. And it's like, so what? And by the way, again, I'm not one of these guys who like locks himself in a room on Sunday like college football. I love, but I'm like past that point where I'm going to sit there and let a bunch of kids who can't legally drink like ruin my weekend. So I don't like college football's great.

I like it. But yeah, I like these teams. But if I got if I got a party to go to, I'm not going to miss it so I can sit home and watch Pitt play. No, I'm like, oh, if they win, great.

If they don't win, great. Life's going to keep on. He's got the message. It sounds like he said this a couple of times. Again, guys, let me explain this again. You sound like you're just going to write it down, just read it over. It's like I got to keep explaining myself.

I'm sorry. I'm never going to mess with you again when it comes to your multiple teams, man. That's like one football team. And that's primarily why we're in the building. So we'll just, you know, we'll concentrate on that team. What's the what's your team? Well, the Cowboys.

The Cowboys, of course. Oh, yeah. Two minutes left in the show. So we don't have time for that. Do we have time for that? You want to do it?

Yeah, let's do it quick. So the NFL, some teams have been rolling out the throwbacks that are coming back this season. Some cool, fun uniforms. We just want to take a look at some stills.

Get your guys's opinion on what you think. I think these Seahawks won. I love that. That's Steve Largie. Just think about that.

That's kind of Jim Zorn, baby. That's good. I like that. That's dope.

That's my era. So, yeah. Yeah. I like that fluorescent green and stuff they'd be wearing now. I don't know.

Oh, wow. Cleveland going white, white, white. That's clean. That's real clean.

That'll almost make you watch them. I love that helmet. Is that a throwback? That looks like just an alternate. That's an alternate uniform. OK, yeah. It looks like the Division three college team.

It does. I'm not feeling that. I like the black helmet, though. The black helmet is classic. Yeah, right there.

The same uniform they were wearing when we beat them in the NFC championship. I like that. I like that.

The Morton brothers. Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, you know, it happens. Yeah.

They had Mr. Field goal all season long. And then the Lions. What is this alternate? This is an alternate. That looks like a Greyhound bus logo right there. That doesn't look like a lion. That lion looks like Scar. Not Mufasa or Simba.

I don't know. We got to wrap it up. I want to thank Chris Johnson, Godfrey, the comedian, my man Ephraim Salaam for joining us here on the Rich Isaac Show. I'm Mike Hill filming for Rich Isaac.

Enjoy your weekend, everybody. 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 and 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. 83 weeks on YouTube or wherever you listen.