REShow: Evan Carter & Mike Sando - Hour 2

It's the first ever NBA End Season Tournament. All 30 teams going for one brand new trophy.

The stakes are the highest. Only eight teams advance from the group stages. Then it's down to single elimination. It's winner go home. The last four stand they will battle it out in Las Vegas, baby. They're going to go all in on the hardwood for season long bragging rights and the first ever NBA Cup. Hope everyone's feeling lucky.

The NBA End Season Tournament begins November 3rd on ABC, ESPN and TNT. NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero. Coming up, Texas Rangers outfielder Evan Carter. NFL writer for the athletic Mike Sandow. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Andrew Siciliano.

Hey everybody, happy Friday to you and yours. And welcome to a Friday before week nine edition here of the Rich Eisen Show. Biggest gamble week number nine.

Actually, there are a lot of good ones. But the biggest of them all, as I like to call it, the weekly game of the year. The Chiefs and the Dolphins. Rich calling that game live on NFL Network and NFL Plus, plus.nfl.com. Rich will join us from Germany coming up in an hour. He is up and tweeting.

Can't wait to hear what went down today in Germany. I know Travis Kelce was on the podium moments ago and asked by an international reporter if Taylor Swift is going to be at the game. And Chris Brockman, Jason and TJ, he responded when I mentioned if she's going to be at the game, the Vegas line and over under on my catches go up and down, the spread up and down. I'm just going to keep that to myself. It's hilarious that he's aware of that.

That's also his way of deflecting. He's very good. He's very good. Very good, obviously.

Very good. The show with his brother is amazing, but it's just kind of funny that he's aware of those numbers from the desert. Or that's his way of deflecting. I would say. He strikes me as someone who knows that stuff, though.

New news. He would know that. And it was the last question, by the way, on the podium. Everyone stayed away until somebody, I'm going from Jeff Darlington, friend of the program, his Twitter feed. He was asked, what is the latest status and are you in love by an international reporter?

Travis Kelce responded, I got to see her last week and I'm going to keep my personal relationship private. So there you go. All right.

All right. Hope everyone's having a great day again. Thank you for being here. Evan Carter, warm it up right around the corner as the Rangers get ready for their parade. Mike Sandow from the Athletic joins us last hour with news from around the NFL. The news this morning just handed to us fresh off the high speed news wire. Deshaun Watson is starting for the Cleveland Browns. Kevin Stefanski just said it. He is off the injury report.

He is good to go. He says he is throwing well and Deshaun will start this week in a must win for the Browns. Why is it a must win? Because they're facing a one win team.

You better win this one. And number two, you get the Ravens and the Steelers coming up next. So you better beat the Arizona Cardinals. As for whether or not Kyler Murray will go this week. Jonathan Gannon, Cleveland native said within the last hour that he'll decide it either tonight or tomorrow on the flight.

Sure, Jonathan, whether it's going to be Kyler Murray or Clayton Toon, my gut tells me Clayton Toon. He's going to get the warm towel and the nuts, TJ, and then he's going to go, ah, our starting quarterback is? You're talking about your first class treatment there on the plane. Exactly. The hot towel, hot towel, some warm nuts.

You'll get warm nuts and coach. Can I get another drink, sir? Ah, tune it is. Yeah. Come on. Like, honestly, I'm not calling Jonathan Gannon a liar.

I would never do that. This is coach speak and the way they deal with things on the podium. That's fine. The idea that he hasn't made up his mind yet. Right.

What do we do? I find I find comical. Come on now.

Like, for example, the other news today where I mean, some of the other news. Daniel Jones looks like he's going to go for the Giants. OK, they're in Vegas to play the Raiders where Antonio Pierce just moments ago said Jimmy Garoppolo will be the number two quarterback. He'll actually dress as the backup, which means if Aidan O'Connell gets injured, Jimmy's got to go in there. A lot of people thought Tom and I, Tom Pelosero and I just spoke an hour ago about the fact that I think Garoppolo is never going to see the field again with the injury guarantee next year. Why would you put him out there?

Antonio Pierce says he's going to be the number two. But Brian Deball, here's my transition, said all week. No, Graham Gano is fine. No, no, no, he's fine. He's fine. Now he needs knee surgery and he's out for the year.

So wait a minute. Deball, he was OK? Yeah, I thought he was OK. Come on, man.

Come on, really? Now he needs knee surgery and he's out for the year? Right. Sure, there's a chance Cade York could be the kicker. Cade York was just signed off the Titans practice squad. Keep an eye on that for the Giants coming up this week.

Yeah. OK, more football coming up in a second. If you missed it last night, Kenny Pickett and the Steelers hang on. They beat the Titans. And the good news today is Traylon Burks was able to get on the bus, get on the plane, go home. He is in concussion protocol. But the Titans wide receiver who hit his head on the field, scary situation. Fourth quarter last night is going to be OK. Let's transition to baseball. I was pounding the table yesterday about how good this Rangers team is when it comes to not only on the field, but just these amazing stories. Evan Carter just turned 21, was in the minors like 10 weeks ago. All he did was help lead the Rangers to a World Series championship, a World Series championship that they will celebrate today with a parade.

Live from the Metroplex now. Evan, what have your last 36 hours been like, man? Yeah, it's been a whirlwind. I mean, this is an unbelievable experience.

It's not really set in yet, I guess. I mean, this has been great. I mean, I'm super thankful for it. Super thankful. How about the last two months?

I mean, 36 hours. Yeah, you won. You partied.

You had a good time. You got a parade coming up in a little bit. You get called up the beginning of September, Evan, like a week after your 21st birthday.

And then just perspective here. You get called up on the 8th. NFL fans, think about this. That's week one. Friday, week one. You get your first home run tonight.

Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles on September 11th. So your home run probably got lost in the sports headlines. And then two months later, dude, we're sitting here.

Could you have ever imagined this ride? Yeah, I mean, gosh, the minor leagues feels like years ago at this point. I mean, it's just, it's flown by though. I mean, gosh, it's, this is the longest I've ever played baseball before though. But I mean, this is the dream of everybody. And this is where you want to be at.

So yeah, this is, this is unreal. Were you a Creed fan in the minor leagues? You know, I had heard of them. I've heard the, you know, the famous songs, but it wasn't something that I was listening to all the time now.

Tell the truth. The first time you were on the bus or in the clubhouse and you heard Creed, did you go, what the heck is this? You know, I, I was like, not, I was kind of caught off guard that they were, they were jamming so hard to it. I was like, okay, well, you know, I mean, this is what it's about.

I'm fine with that. I like old music. But yeah, no, it's, it's been fun. You, you, you, you seem like an old soul. What is old music to you? Because we're all like my age.

My age starts with a four, just, you know, I'll pull the curtain back on. Yeah. Like what is old music to you, Evan?

Yeah. So I just, I always grew up listening to like eighties music and stuff. So that's kind of what I would consider old for me.

Seventies and eighties, like classic rock and stuff. I really like that. Okay.

So classic rock, that's an old soul. We're going to clap for that. All right. Yeah. I graduated high school. Wow. I'm forgetting now. Ninety two.

Okay. So the beginning, the beginning of high school, maybe going back to the eighties, Evan, this is just like ridiculous. You're about to go out there on a parade. As I said, like you only were legal to drink two months ago. I, I read something how your teammates were giving you grief, how you still have a vertical driver's license. So like, what's this parade going to be like for you?

Yeah. And it's going to be, it's going to be great. I haven't had time to get a new license at home in Tennessee.

So I still do have the vertical one. No car here though. So it's not like I got to use, got to use the license or anything, but no, I mean, this, this is going to be great. You know, I'm going to get to go out there and see all the great fans that, you know, supported us along the way. It's going to be a great time. You said no car because you and your wife are living in a hotel nearby.

You guys not being 25 years old can still not rent a car. So you're going back and forth to the ballpark, walk it every day, which is great. Walk in the same parade route that you guys are going to be on. Who is the guy that we need to be careful for?

Because parades can get out of hand and I assume someone's going to have a mic at one point and someone's going to have a bottle of champagne or a, or a beer or five. Who's the guy that we got to be careful for when they get handed the mic this afternoon if we're sitting on the beat button. I think that, I think that Nate Lowe is always somebody that, that finds the mic. He has in spring training, you know, he gave us a little toast the other night after the win at the hotel. He's somebody that I would, I would say finds the mic today. Okay.

How about Adolis? I hope he does, man. I want to hear him say something. That'd be awesome. Yeah.

I, I think we all do as well. What was that night like, you said the toast? Obviously we saw Bochi's speech in the locker room in the clubhouse.

He was kind of chill, but then it got out of hand. Yeah. I mean, that's an incredible, exciting moment for everybody. So everybody, you know, you're fired up, you know, you've got all the, everything's kind of at your disposal in there.

You can just grab whatever and start going to town with it. But we, once everything was done at the field, we had just, you know, we went back to the hotel and they kind of had a little area blocked off for us. And that's where he gave us our, Nalo gave us the toast there, I guess. So everybody just hanging out for a couple hours after that. Evan, is that toast repeatable? Yeah, it was fine.

I don't remember the exact words. It was actually really good. It was a great one.

He just, he cracks me up cause he's always the one on the mic saying something. So you grew up Evan Carter in Tennessee. I'm assuming maybe with WTBS, were you a Braves fan as a kid? Yeah. So that was, it was either the Braves or the Yankees on TV where I'm at. So we were always watching the Braves.

Okay. Did, did you, at any point when you guys made the post-season, you guys again got in the last weekend, did, did you envision a world in which you're facing the Braves in the world series? Yeah. I mean, they were definitely the, I guess they were the favorites, especially on the, on the other side.

And listen, I mean, they had an unbelievable year and they had one of the, if not the one of the best records. And yeah, that was definitely a possibility. And I had thinking that we might be end up facing them and that's going to be really cool because everybody from home, you know, that's not too far of a drive to get to see a bunch of people from home.

But yeah, that was definitely a possibility. Evan, you ever been to Cooperstown? Oh yeah.

I've been to Cooperstown. All right. You know, your, your gloves are going there. You hear that? That's what, yeah. I talked to the guy after the game.

That's what he said. That's super cool. So your gloves are going there. A whole bunch of your teammates gear is going there. Bruce Bochy's hat is going there as well.

You're laughing for those who don't know Bruce Bochy's got the biggest head, I believe in baseball history. Did you know that Evan? Oh, I'm, I would believe it. Yeah.

Yeah. How big is this? Do you know how big his hat is? I know it starts with an eight. It does begin with an eight.

So there are eight and a quarter, I'm not sure it's supposedly eight and a quarter, but Ken Rosenthal once reported that it was actually eight and a half. Oh my gosh. That's all the baseball knowledge. That's what he's got. He's bringing to the table. That's a good answer.

There's a way to respect your elders, Evan. It's all the baseball knowledge that he has. There's an old story that, you know, when he was in the Bay area with the giants, he, that he showed up at a 49ers thing.

And I guess the Niners wanted to give him a hat and they didn't have a hat that could possibly fit his head. Well, that's awesome. So your gloves and Bruce Bochy's hat are going to Cooperstown and you are getting on a float for a parade. Evan, it's been quite a run. I hope you find some time and some place to go quiet and enjoy a little vacation. You deserve it, man. Congratulations. For sure. Thank you.

I appreciate you all. Evan Carter, everybody kind of a cool story. Anytime you have a rookie do that in the postseason, he wasn't just on the team guys. I mean, he had the huge hit when, when they finally got to gallon on Wednesday night, he sat on a curve ball, leased it.

But again, he was just a little bit more of the backstory here. He was a second round pick at a high school in Tennessee when he was taken, he wasn't on any of the lists like MLB.com's top 100, 200 or baseball America, anything like that. And then went, wait, this guy's your second round pick. Didn't show a lot of power in high school. I mean, often that's something you project in baseball. No one's hitting 30 bombs in high school.

That's not how it works. And then all of a sudden there he is late September call-up or late August call-up, early September call-up. You get those guys in, Garcia got dinged. You get these guys on the roster before September 1st, you get them postseason eligible.

He had a hit in every game and he played a great outfield chasing balls down. So what a great, great story. Now, do I wish, as I said before, that those baseball stories are more of the forefront like NFL rookie stories and that they had more of an audience? Yes, absolutely. He's a quiet kid, happy form, but we need more good stories like that in baseball to get more fans into the building.

Not that baseball is lacking fans, look at the attendance, obviously, but the TV ratings would certainly help. All right, with that said, we turn our attention back to week number nine. And the good news is mentioned with Traylon Burks, who is okay, was able to get on the bus, walk his way to the bus, get on the plane, fly home to Tennessee.

And he is in concussion protocol here for the Titans. What we learned last night about the Steelers is Mike Tomlinson, Mike Tomlin, I beg your pardon, no matter how many times you tell him he can't win a certain way, we'll win that way that you tell him he cannot win. They have been outgained in all eight games.

They are five and three. Their offense was better last night than it has been in the past. They ran the football effectively and most importantly, they opened the game well. Tomlin last Monday coming out of the bye was asked, hey, have you ever thought about ways to get Kenny Pickett playing as well in the first as he does in the fourth? And Tomlin, without missing a beat, said every day of my life, well, last night it worked and offensive coordinator Matt Canada was down on the sideline as opposed to watching from Canada upstairs. And that worked. And it meant everything that they scored early.

It got the crowd behind them early. And then when they needed him again in the fourth quarter, Kenny Pickett did it again. He has more one possession wins, he has a better record in one possession games than any active quarterback in the NFL, a minimum five starts. That includes Lamar, and that includes Mahomes, and that includes Tua, that includes Kirk Cousins, it includes all of them. Kenny Pickett finds a way in the fourth quarter.

I don't know that it is sustainable though. Right now, the Steelers on the road in Miami in January, Brockman take him? No. Uh-uh.

Uh-uh. Steelers on the road in Kansas City, take him? Nope. No. Steelers on the road in Buffalo, anybody?

January, playoff game, take him? Nope. Maybe? Can't keep up. They can't keep up on offense.

On the road in Baltimore. Oh, you're making a face, maybe? Why not? That's a rivalry.

I don't think so. I'm with you, but turn it around at home, puncher's chance, okay? Which is what they have at every game so far through eight and they're five and three. This team needs to win the AFC North is my point. Coming up, what's next in Vegas?

Did Josh McDaniels really get fired when his kids were trick or treating? And oh yeah, there's the NFL 100, which you need to check out through the athletic. Mike Sandoz with us. Rich Eisen here. If you love football as much as we do here and want to be in the game every day, there's something the guys on my show have been enjoying. Prize Picks Daily Fantasy Sports, the number one daily fantasy sports app. Brockman, tell us about Prize Picks and your strategy this season. Rich, it's so fun and so easy. You know I love this stuff. You pick two or more players based on their stats and place their entry.

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Become a DashPass member today. What was it like picking this trophy up for the first time? It was the greatest thing and it really was, Rich, it really was the greatest thing. Do you remember the circumstances?

Oh my God, man. First of all, you got to go back and think about like we were 1 in 15, we were 3 in 13, 1 in 15. When you're 3 in 13 and 1 in 15 Cleveland Browns, I know you don't think there's any chance that you will ever lay a hold of something like this.

So to go from those days to coming in 92 and winning that Super Bowl and actually somebody handing you that trophy, the most incredible thing, most incredible feeling in the world. Did you ever step in when you heard that Jimmy and Jerry were not doing well or your station wasn't that in life at that point in time? I just didn't think anything would happen, Rich. I really didn't. I was like, what?

Are you joking? You know how hard it is to win Super Bowls and you have a formula that's working and Jerry Jones, I'm telling you, that's the one thing, I'll never forget Jerry Jones telling me that when I was negotiating with him and I was saying, you know, I'll go to Cincinnati. It was just, I'm just talking, trying to get my money's up. I said, I'll go to Cincinnati, you can get Carl Pickens over here and let's see what happened. And Jerry said to me, Jerry said, Michael, you know, when I see you, I see Michael Irvin and the Dallas Cowboys. He said, I kind of see it like Magic Johnson in the Lakers. He said, what is Magic without the Lakers and what are the Lakers without the Magic? He said, you guys, they belong together, just like you and the Cowboys. He said, Michael, the best way I can tell you, if a bomb hit Valley Ridge today, that's where we practiced and blew everything up, everybody, everything.

When the smoke clears, baby, me and you, we're going to still be here, so we might as well work this deal out right now. That's what he said to you? I promise you, I said, this dude is a fool, this dude is a fool. He had me laughing as he was telling me no about my money. That's why you're in the Hall of Fame together. Oh my God. To the, to the Roku watcher here. Sorry to the radio listener. I say this all the time, but you guys keep playing great vignettes from shows past on the way back in here.

Irv is one of one. He is a tornado. Get out of his way and just keep laughing because he is, he is amazing. Drew Siciliano sitting in for rich, who joins us in about an hour live from Germany. I am sitting in the interim at the rich eyes and show desk furnished by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry.

Granger has the right product for you call or click ranger.com or just stop by when Bruce Feldman was here a couple of weeks ago and Bruce is here every week. I made the point and I think I made Bruce blush, but I mean it. I pay for my athletic subscription and I'm happy to do it because it has such great writers like Bruce, like Jordan Rodriguez, like this guy right here, Mike Sandow, who joins us live from the athletic live on the video conferencing, however heck we're doing it. And Mike does great stuff on the NFL and is coauthor on a book as well called the football 100, which just hit the bookstores. Mike, good to see you. How are you, man? It's good to see you, Andrew.

Glad to be here. We're almost halfway through this season, so hard to believe. Are you with me, though, that because we no longer have a 16 game season, the math feels off on everything like we can't exactly. We're not at the halfway point, really?

So here's the deal. Actually, I being kind of nerdy, I actually calculated the number of games, so it'll be exactly 50 percent of the games played after the Monday night game this week. It's the true mid season, so 72 divided by two. That's after Monday night. That'll be after Monday night. So that's the true midpoint of the season. I felt better after learning that. OK, you know, I feel better after you're doing the back now.

Thank you, Mike. Because I had this issue with the quarter poll with Eric at home and we were doing our power rankings on NFL dot com. I'm like, we're not really at the quarter point. I guess we're actually at the quarter point, like after the first quarter of week five.

All right. People are turning off their ratings. I did third. I was like, OK, after six weeks is now the third. Is that what we're doing? I don't know.

That's cleaner. Speaking of math, you guys have your football one hundred and it's not the first time in any sport or in the NFL for that matter, because we just had the hundredth anniversary a couple of years ago as well, where we try to rank the top one hundred players. It's difficult, though, with the changing eras and the way the game is played now, as opposed to the way it was even 10 years ago or 20 or 50 or a hundred years ago. How did you guys grapple with ranking players, considering for so many of them, they played a vastly different game than the one we have now?

Yes. So looking at the list of one hundred, there are 19 quarterbacks and there are 14 running backs. So that is showing you positional importance was mattering in the old game. Running backs were a bigger part of how you won the game.

Right. So Jim Brown's number two now in the last 50 years or so, 45 years, it's been quarterback attack. The era stuff to me is hard to solve with lineman and some positions, but I thought it's kind of fun to solve at like running back and wide receiver. And so the way I did it, I'll tell you, like with receivers, I kind of looked at all the great receivers and I learned that we should really be measuring about eight seasons for a wide receiver. So you're going to have about eight elite seasons if you're really good.

So that doesn't mean your first eight seasons. What I did was I took every receiver in history. I had like a thirty thousand row export of data and I took their eight best seasons in relation to their peers in a given year for receiving yardage. So if you led the league in receiving in 1985, that to me is the same as leading league in receiving in 2007. It doesn't mean we're saying that 2007 and 85 are the same, but we're measuring you again.

How great were you compared to your peers? Right. So I did that for the top eight, you know, seasons of all the receivers. Jerry Rice and Don Hudson were number one because they led the league in receiving like six, seven times. Randy Moss was number three. If we averaged out kind of where he was in his eight best seasons relative to his peers surprise here, Tory Holt was number four. Steve Largent, Julio Jones, Marvin Harrison, James Lofton, Larry Fitzgerald, Reggie Wayne.

We heard from Michael Urban. I think he was 14th or 15th when I did that. So I used that to kind of inform how we were going to put him on this list. They didn't all make it, but did the same thing at running back. And really it was just scrimmage yards for the top rusher. So Marshall Falk was pretty high because he affected the game and more than one way, obviously, not just a rusher. So I thought that's a fun way to do it.

Just measuring against your peers and yardage, which is a pretty good measure. I love it. But you said Tory Holt there, who?

I'll admit here is a friend. He is. I like him, too. He's not in the Hall of Fame yet, but Isaac Bruce's, Orlando Pace's, Kurt Warner is, Marshall Falk is. Now, you can't put everyone from the greatest show on turf in. You already have four. Jackie Slater, five. So he would be the sixth if he were to get in. Yet he's not in your top 100, even though you just said that using your metric the way you rank receivers, he's four.

Why? Isn't that amazing? So I think I'm on the Hall of Fame committee. He will get in.

He's gotten close. And that just happens at wide receiver. We have guys come up against each other that they don't all get in for a while.

Then they sort of take their turns getting in. He'll get in. I think he's underappreciated because he didn't have as long of a career. He wasn't around as long. But when you really look at the seasons he didn't play, they were all elite. So I think some of that just has to be bridged in our mind of like, hey, his elite productions as good as almost anyone's elite production in the history of the league. When we did this list initially, I didn't have that research done.

In the end, I wasn't necessarily sure where to do it. The receivers that we have on there are a mix. It's not just going off of this strictly, but we did move Julio Jones probably higher than we would have had him because of this. He's at 56.

I think we, who else do we move on? Well, Steve Largent, I think, was somebody who retired as the all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns, which has only been done a few times. So he definitely needed to be on the list. But there were a few guys up there.

Like when I did that major of the elite production, there were some surprising guys. Like we said, Holt was high. Jimmy Smith came in at 13 between T.O. and Calvin Johnson. Wow. Jaguar is Jimmy Smith. Jaguar is Jimmy Smith. So I'm still, what I'm saying is this, there's no final list that's absolutely 100% correct.

You can't do it. But the learning, like these are all things I'm kind of synthesizing in my mind as I think of these guys. You don't want to just rely on stats, but I think I've come closer to at least contextualizing the elite performance at the position. And this says, maybe Tori Holt should be part of that.

Maybe Tori Holt should be rethought. I covered him. I like him as well. And I've advocated for him for the Hall of Fame. He ended up not being one of the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We have nine wide receivers on here. Jerry Risetone, Hudson, Randy Moss, Julio Largent, Lance Olworth, Lenny Moore, Crazy Legs, Hirsch, and Paul Warfield.

So that spans the era as we tried to be fair, but we definitely left off some guys who could be on the list. Now, my dad, the Browns fan, loves that Paul Warfield is in there. And again, the book is the Football 100 with number one being Tom Brady, number two being Jim Brown, number three, Jim Rice.

I'm sorry, Jerry Rice, Jim Rice, not that guy. Then Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Walter Payton, Johnny Yu, and then the late, great Dick Butkus, who we just lost at number 10, Otto Gramdad is number 11. The wide receiver thing is so difficult too, because I'll be the orange man here and remind people growing up outside DC that the day Art Monk retired, who is not on your list, and no one thinks of Art Monk as one of the top five or 10 wide receivers to ever play the game. But the day he retired, he had more receptions than anyone in the history of the game, anybody. Now, he has since been passed by countless guys, but the day he decided to hang it up, he was the most prolific receiver in terms of receptions to ever step on a football field.

And yet he had to wait a long time to get into camp. He had, I just pulled him up on my little thing here, he came in at 42 on that measuring of the eight seasons. And the reason for that, just looking at it here, is that he basically had maybe about five really elite seasons in relation to his peers. And then he had his six, seven, and eight seasons pull him down by this measure.

It doesn't mean this is the measure we have to use, but he had a long career with some great seasons, but maybe fewer great high production seasons as some of the others. Yeah, it's a different game. It's a changing game. Let's talk about the modern game here, Mike Sando, real quick. From where you sit, not what went down, but moving forward, how do you think this Raider thing plays out? Well I think they all got a shot in the arm because of the culture change.

It's hard to be losing, but it's really hard to be losing when it's not that fun to come to work anyway. And I think we saw a New England export into the Raiders, and so there's a little bit of a bump. I did like the fact that Mark Davis acknowledged that he made critical mistakes with a bad process in hiring. He basically admitted that he was locked on predetermining his target when he was still in the huddle. He wanted John Gruden, had to have him. He wanted Josh McDaniels, had to have him, and then because he had Josh McDaniels and Josh wanted to have Dave Ziegler as a GM, he did that too.

So that's not a good hiring process. He's acknowledged that, and so you would hope now what would play out of this is a little bit better process. The problem he has is he's involving guys from like yesteryear of Raider history in advising him on some of these things in the past. We've seen Ken Herock, I forget who it was, another former player. He's got to make sure he's listening to the right people in building a process because acknowledging bad process is the first step to recovery, but it doesn't mean you have a good process.

It doesn't mean you have a good one. Mike, how do you think it, again, moving forward here, and they came off a big win a couple of weeks ago. Here are these New England Patriots before losing in Miami. How do you think it ends between Kraft and Belichick? So I think there has to be a push to come to shove conversation about changes and whether or not Bill Belichick will be amenable to those. Now some of this could also be what's where they drafting like I was thinking about that. Do they have a quarterback solution? But I kind of feel like it feels to me like it's nearing the end. There have to be difficult conversations after the season that maybe wouldn't sit well with everybody.

So I think it's a big challenge. Do you think there's a scenario in which he stays, but Kraft tells him, I'm taking away your GM power. Do you think he would ever agree to that? Well, no, I think it's totally impractical because who could be brought in that would actually be the real GM if Bill's there. You're not going to bring in someone over him or anyone's going to be subordinate to him and his personality and his strength in the building. I think that's impractical.

And I'm with you on that one as well. I think if Kraft says, I don't want you buying the groceries anymore, I just want you cooking the meal, then he's out of there. And then it turns to do you think he goes somewhere else to coach? Is there another owner who would be willing to give a guy in his seventies a clean slate and say, I got a question for you. Yeah.

Where did Vince Lombardi finish his career with the Washington football team? They're not called the commanders. Then are you saying you're smelling the same smoke? Well, I'm just saying if you're if we're playing this game, where's a place that you think is likely to change no matter what happens the rest of the season. Right.

So who's a new owner that can really use some juice and credibility in the league and some guidance of how to do this stuff? Right. It would probably be Washington. They could use something like that. So I think there's some logic to that if we're just spitballing and look, a lot of things would have to happen. He'd have to leave New England and want to coach and all of that. But that's kind of crossed my mind as something that could make sense for everybody. A historic franchise looking for a fresh start with new owner who's looking for some credibility. It would certainly get a lot of people excited there and might make sense. You know, there are a lot of people that that are convinced Todd Bowles is out.

There's a long season ahead of him. I mean, anybody could win the NFC South at this point. But if that were the case, how about build a Tampa following Tom?

No, I'm kidding. That would that would never happen. And bring back Tom. You know, right.

And bring back Tom to Tampa then for Bill Brockman. You cool with that one? No, no. OK. But you should be cool with Mike's new book. It's called The Football 100.

And Chris's guy, Tom Brady, not surprisingly, is number one. Mike, the thing looks fantastic over your shoulder. Can't wait to get my hands on it. Good luck to you. And I meant what I said. I love the athletic. Read it first thing every morning. Hope our paths cross sometime soon.

Appreciate it. Mike Sandow, everybody. So Tom Brady is number one. Jim Brown or Jerry Rice on every list made, I'd say over the last 15 years, had been number one. But then Brady with his last Super Bowl, or maybe the last two, whatever, catapults up to number one. Does anyone have any problem with Tom Brady at number one? No, no, sir.

No, I have no problem. However, I would also have no problem if you put Jim Brown number one. Because if you want to look at an eight year sample size and pure elite, elite of the elite of the elite. And Jim Brown is the one player where he kind of bridged eras, right? Clearly a different era, the fifties into the sixties, and the game has changed dramatically since then.

But he is the one guy where you look at him. He was 6'2", 230, and he was bigger than every linebacker. For most, Sam Hoff, Dick Butkus, others. He was as big as the linemen. Linemen were not 300 pounds then.

They were 250, 260. What would Jim Brown be like in today's game? Because there are a lot of guys that are his size. Not all of them play running back. But the linebackers, the defensive ends, the offensive linemen would all be bigger than him. He was an elite athlete. Not as fast.

Not as fast. Jim Brown could have played in every era. Would he have been an 1800 yard back?

I don't know. You gotta think too. Jim Brown would have probably been bigger just as a human.

That's a great point as well. With modern nutrition, modern workout. He's looking at Brandon Jacobs, maybe 6'4", 260. Recovery. Fitness. Recovery. Exactly.

Nutrition. Yep. Yeah. He'd be Derrick Henry.

Yeah. He'd be better. He'd be better. A better Derrick Henry. A better Derrick Henry is scary because he ran for 2,000 yards. Right.

Like I said, what? Brandon Jacobs, 6'4", 260. That could probably be Jim Brown if he was... With four three-speed. Yeah.

Around... Remember, Jim Brown is the greatest lacrosse player ever to walk and run and score. You're still going to have a hard time convincing a lot of old-timers that he's still not the greatest football player.

As I said, I would take him. I'm also biased. I'm a Browns fan with the Syracuse. All right? Yeah.

So... I have an autographed Jim Brown Syracuse helmet on my desk. You have an autographed Jim Brown helmet right there. If I were doing this show from home, there'd be an autographed Jim Brown helmet behind my shoulder as well. Okay? We love the guy.

So I am quite biased as there. One of the coolest moments of my life, hands down, was sitting across an aisle from Jim Brown on a plane. We were flying back from Cleveland back here, and we were talking over the aisle there for a little bit on the flight.

And then eventually, he got to his reading, and I got to my reading, and whatever. And I overheard this young lady sitting next to Jim, and she said, who is that you were talking to? And he said, he's a broadcaster. I can't do Jim's voice. I mean, he had the deepest room-shaking kind of voice, right?

He said, he's a broadcaster, and a very good one. And I was like... Wow. Let's do Mr. Brown.

If this plane goes down right now, I'm good. Yeah. I'm like... You've accomplished it all.

I'm good. Did you tell your dad that? Yeah.

I told anybody that who was listening. Yeah. That was like... You're talking about your top five moments of all time in your career. Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm gonna sneeze. Yeah.

I'm also a Patriots fan, so I'm cool with Tom Brady being number one. No, that's fine. You know? I get it. Works out for me. I get it.

Did you hear the big Tom Brady scandal yesterday? What? We'll tell you that. Coming up... That's a tease, people. After the break.

Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more of The Eisen Show. The football season is underway and Believe podcasts are talking about it. When he went home and went to sleep, Michael Parson was just terrorizing him.

Believe has podcasts covering all 32 professional teams and many of your favorite college teams too. And to be only producing 15 points a game, that's something that is definitely disheartening. Sideline to sideline, end zone to end zone.

As a quarterback, I would expect him to be acting like that. Make the accountability. Put that on yourself.

Don't put it on your teammates. Search BLEAV podcasts wherever you listen. Half redneck, half posh, 100% fun. Trey Crowder and Corey Ryan Forrester try and learn fancy culture in putting on airs. The host of the Medium Popcorn Podcast, Brandon Collins and Justin Brown. Okay, so Paddington too had like 100% arrived tomatoes for years. You guys ruined that?

Justin came in and like took it down like two points because it was raining. That's the time we started getting death threats. Yeah. I'm not surprised. People worship that movie. Putting on airs.

The podcast is on YouTube and wherever you listen. And then Mahomes, the memories of you just sitting next to Mahomes, just sitting right next to him as soon as he comes off the field, just chit chatting. How do you think that helped his development and did lead to the guy who's like, let's use the wasp, you know, in the fourth quarter of a Super Bowl trying to turn things around? Yeah, listen, it's a, it's a trust thing. I know he, he wants to be the best. He's not going to sit there and boast about that and tell people, but he wants to be, he wants to maximize all of his potential as a coach, you love that. So he wants you to give him one more thing to even be greater than what he already is. And you can appreciate that.

He's going to do nothing but get better, Rich. That's what's so great. I know it's, it's crazy. It's crazy, right?

I mean, what does he have to improve on? Andy? What do you think?

Well, I joke him. I say, listen, quarterback is a lot like being a farmer, like the work's never, never done. There's something in the game that you can, that you can work on. And then it's our responsibility to give them new challenges. And so there's so much you can do offensively in football right now.

And they're, they're really, there are no, there's no rules as far as there, I mean, there are certain rules. We still got to stop at red lights, but it's, there's a lot of ways to get to it. So the, the, the expansion, I guess, of offenses with the way the colleges are playing now is greater than it's ever been. And we're able to utilize more field than we've ever used. And so let's explore that. And let's not say anything's impossible until we prove it's impossible ourselves. Let's try that.

And then, and then we'll see where we end up, you know, who knows? Andy Reid and the Chiefs, Mike McDaniel and his unique brand of funny and the dolphins coming up Sunday, 9 30 AM Eastern time. The NFL network NFL plus tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of NFL network, rich on the call rich coming up in roughly 20 minutes, 15, to be specific from Germany in the meantime, you could stream the NFL and Westwood one for free sponsored by auto zone all season long. You can listen to every Westwood one broadcast of the NFL live on the NFL app, or by asking Alexa to open WWO sports or on your Westwood one affiliate stations, digital platforms. That's right. Stream Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner, and a rich all season long for free and get in the zone of auto zone. The free auto zone fix finder service can help you find a fix for free.

Get in the zone auto zone restrictions obviously do apply. Aidan O'Connell is going to be the Raiders starting quarterback. It was just announced by Antonio Pierce, their interim head coach, that Jimmy Garoppolo will be available straight off the bench. That Jimmy will be active as the number two quarterback, even though as Tayshaun Rita the athletic points out that will cost the Raiders a $90,000 bonus for every game that Jimmy is active. So so much for the idea that they're just shutting him down and they don't want to risk injury and more of a guarantee for 2024.

He will be the number two quarterback. It is a different feel in Vegas today. Devontae Adams seen playing Papa shot or whatever you want to call it, or the basketball hoop in practice, or I'm sorry, in the locker room yesterday in Vegas, you had offensive linemen I'm told wrestling each other like a bunch of eight year olds in the locker room yesterday.

Here's Devontae on the podium yesterday. I mean, at this point is, you know, it's not it's don't get it confused. We're not. It's not a celebration that we, you know, we have a new coach and, you know, there's been changes made. We obviously I think it was time one way or the one way or the other, it's time for some sort of change just to bring a little juice in and, you know, revitalize the team a little bit. And I think it's more of a mindset that we're trying to, you know, not force, but just have moving forward to just be as positive as possible. You know, and we do have a change. So there's more of a reason, like a definitive shift. You know, we have we have a thing put in place now where we can say, all right, well, you know, things are different now, but we got opportunity to change it. So I think that's kind of the mindset we're having, just, you know, trying to have fun and enjoy our time in this building, because I think, you know, as we speak to each other, it's been too much of just this has just been feeling like work too much and not having enough fun. So we just got to get back to that. And, you know, as I've said countless times, I want to be a Raider.

So I want to try to make this work and do everything I can to keep it going. Now. There's a great shot as well on Twitter from one of the reporters there in Vegas, a Davante hit in the basket, you know, shooting hoops in the locker room on one of those many hoops and looking at the reporters who are filming him saying, hey, don't turn this into Josh is gone. We're playing basketball. We're happy. We don't care anymore. That's how this is about. Right.

We're just having a good day. And I want to tie this back to the passing of Bobby Knight, if I could. There is a middle ground between discipline, fundamentals and hard coaching and loose, have fun smiles on your face. You can in the modern world, modern athletics with the way younger players, Davante has a three in front of his age, but younger players who are in their 20s, early 20s, notably can be coached, discipline, yet have fun. And that is the challenge when it comes to modern coaching, not suggesting Josh McDaniel's is Bobby Knight. Okay. I don't know that Josh McDaniel's ever had his hands around anyone else's neck. Bobby Knight is a fantastic coach, one of the greatest of all time, period.

But that way doesn't fly. These days, Josh McDaniel didn't allow his team to smile, period. Monitoring social media. What are you saying? What are you doing? Why aren't you here?

What are you posting? Like you can live a little and still have discipline. You can smile a little and still know your fundamentals. You can laugh a little and know the game plan and execute it properly.

And that's where he didn't fit there. Now, is what Antonio Pierce selling sustainable long-term? I got no idea. But listening to Vonte Adams right there, my gut tells me the Raiders are going to beat the brakes off the Giants. Yep.

Now, beat the brakes, does that mean like blow them out of the building? I don't know, but I feel a lot more comfortable as a Raider fan, I'm not one, today about this game than I would have 48 hours ago. Heck yeah. The question is, does the new guy, look, there's always, the opposite of what the coach was before is always a breath of fresh air, always. And it goes both ways. Like you could have the totally loose guy, right? Look at the White Sox. Oh my God, like the stuff that happened here. Oh my God, we got away with everything. Oh, the new guy comes in. Oh yeah, we need discipline. We need someone to set us straight.

We need to be better with all these things. It's always the opposite, right? It's how sports works. Teams generally hire the opposite of what they fired. And that's what we have here with the Raiders.

But in the short term, it works. Long-term I got no idea, but I tell you what, I like Aidan O'Connell, as long as they can protect him, as long as Kavon Thibodeau doesn't have another three sack game, which they had trouble protecting Jimmy on Monday night against the Lions, if they can do that, yeah. Go back and look at what Aidan O'Connell did in the pre-season.

I know it's the pre-season and past performance in the pre-season is not necessarily indicative of future gains in the regular season. Look at Dorian Thompson Robinson, although the circumstances that week before the Ravens game somewhat suspect, but he was amazing in the pre-season. Look like he didn't belong in the regular season. Aidan O'Connell had like a Phil Simms game in the pre-season. Like 16 of 18 for a perfect passer rating and the only two incompletions were drops.

I mean, he was the real deal. Now you saw him against the Chargers, Khalil Mack almost broke Derek Thomas' single game sack record. Which speaks more to their O-line, which has struggled all year. Absolutely, but the kid held the ball too long, didn't have good pocket awareness, but still when he was able to get it away, he threw some BBs downfield.

And they had a chance there on a fourth down late in the game. The kid can throw it a little bit. He is just a statue. He can't move. He ain't moving in the pocket, but he does have that awkward mustache and he's got a good arm. And I think they win this week for whatever that is worth. See the quarterback of the future?

Got no idea. But he should have started in Chicago against Tyson Bajan. He should have. And that might have been the death knell for Josh McDaniels. You know what also was? Mark Davis watching all the Lions first round picks on Monday night and then looked out of the field and go, what are my first round? What are my draft picks doing?

I had five in the top, what, 120? What are they doing? Oh yeah, what about the guys we drafted last year? What are they doing? Exactly. Rich Eisen coming up from Germany.

And we're still on Roku. I agree with you. Just starting Hoyer against the Bears on the spot, on the spot fire fired if I was Mark Davis. So yes, that probably was a nudge in the right direction. He had said he'd been thinking about it for weeks.

So that probably was one of the last straws. Conversely, I would argue you don't pay Brian Hoyer a million or two, whatever it is, to sit there and not get in a game. You have him there for exactly this scenario. Not to start though, to come in in case of.

Okay. He's a break in case of. Or if you, hey, you need one game. You need the veteran here. You're in a playoff hunt. I'm going to go with the veteran.

Okay. I guess I see that point. He's here. But he's, I mean, it's brutal. But he looked like he was the one, not unprepared necessarily. Tyson Bajan played a great game.

They schemed it up for him. Brian Hoyer made all the mistakes and then you got to bring in Aidan O'Connell off the bench in the second half. I'm with you. I expect them to, it's not going to be a three touchdown game.

I expect them to win pretty comfortably on Sunday against the Giants. And the final straw for Mark Davis is, hey, wait a minute. I spent all this money on Chandler Jones even last year before things went south. Wasn't giving me anything. Yeah. Jimmy Garoppolo, Devante Adams, Jimmy Garoppolo spending all this money. Tyree Wilson's barely doing a thing. Hold on. And now you want to bench Jimmy Garoppolo? Why did I write him that check? Excuse me.

Why am I doing this? I'm just throwing away money at the table here. Like I'm going to take my cards. I'm, I'd like to cash out here guys. Yeah.

Color me up. For decades, Rolling Stone has set the bar for entertainment publications. Today Rolling Stone music now takes over in podcast form. We have Michael Azerrad, who was Nirvana's very first biographer. I'm not sure how many people realize how many of the best songs on Inutero were written way beforehand. To be fair to Kurt, he was also a new father. There was a lot of stuff distracting him. It wasn't just drugs, although that was certainly a major factor. Rolling Stone music now, wherever you listen.