REShow: Mike Tirico - Hour 1

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Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Limitations apply. Get ready. This OMG is the Rich Eisen Show. No other way to put it. With guest host, Andrew Siciliano.

Oh, my gosh. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I'm not talking to you. I talk to anybody out there. The haters. Rich Eisen. I talk to the haters right now. Today's guests from NBC Sports, Mike Turrico, senior writer for The Athletic, Vic Tafer, plus overreaction Monday, your phone calls and more.

And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Andrew Siciliano. Hey, let's do a show. What's going on, everybody? Hope you had a fantastic weekend. I had a good weekend. I think we had a good weekend. As I believe the great hacksaw once said, hope you had a fantastic sports weekend. React to me.

React to me. You on the five parking lot. I'm looking for a golf call. A football call. In all seriousness, yesterday was, and really include college football as well, include the Breeders Cup.

I mean, include anything you did over the weekend. Yesterday was an example, the NFL specifically, of why we love it, of why we always come back. And I'm not saying that, you know, any sport is above reproach.

I'm not saying you should ever, you know, always excuse its faults. But yesterday is why we love it. C.J. Stroud, right? The end of the Cowboys-Eagles game. Sorry, T.J. Dari Ogunbowale, Josh Dobbs, the AFC North, the Raiders, Brian Cook in Germany. You can go on, and Keaton Mitchell, raise your hand if you'd ever heard of him before Sunday. Now put it down, you're lying. Alex P. Keaton?

Alex P. Keaton, not related. All of the awesome, I'm sure we're leaving out a lot of the awesome yesterday. There was so much of awesome yesterday. I mean, at one point, Tyson Bagent had more rushing yards for the Bears than the Arizona Cardinals had yards. I mean, think about that. Football's so dumb. Football's so amazing. It's why we watch it.

What is that? It's why we watch it. Come on. God bless. Hey, let's say hi to everybody. Hi, my name is Andrew.

I'm happy to be here today and tomorrow, and then later in the week as well on Friday. Rich is in Germany. He will join us next hour after, what a great game we had there in Frankfurt, with the Chiefs getting out to the big lead, the Dolphins making the big comeback in the second half and then falling short at the end of the game. Rich will join us there.

What did we learn from Germany? Other than, yet again, the Dolphins can't beat anyone that is any good. Chris Brockman, speaking of teams that are not any good.

Wait, what? The Patriots? I was getting to the Patriots. Good day to you. Good day, sir.

Good day, sir. This morning on the podium, Bill Belichick is peppered with questions. He resigned? What?

Like, have you been given an assurance that you're not getting fired this year? Seriously, after Jonathan Kraft lip readers watch a CBS conversation, Kraft and his dad in the suite during the broadcast yesterday, where seemingly Jonathan Kraft waves his hand to the field and says, we're just not good enough. He's right. Dun, dun, dun.

Is Mike Vrabel heading back to New England next year? Man, I read that yesterday. Dun, dun, dun.

Man, what a hot rumor that would be, huh? Jason, congratulations on your Raiders. Thank you, sir.

Three percent chance still. Did you smoke a cigar after the game? I did not. Okay. I should have.

You should have. Have you ever seen a team smoke cigars to celebrate not only a victory, but let's cut the malarkey here, to celebrate that the other guy's not here anymore, that the other guy's not here anymore. Those were Josh McDaniel's victory cigars. Yep. Look at that, buddy.

Mm hmm. Yep. Max Crosby's so happy.

They're all so happy. Look at that. There's the owner. Mark Davis. Hey. Hey. Hey, Mr. Davis. Thank you for writing a 50 million dollar check again, so the guys don't work here anymore. The amount of money Mark Davis owes people that no longer work there, it's a lot unbelievable. Vic Taffer from The Athletic, who is there after the game, will join us coming up shortly.

And TJ, two things. Number one, I hope you're feeling better. I know you've been battling some headaches. Number two, I'm sorry for the headache that the Cowboys clock management gave you at the end of that game in Philly. I mean, I heard it was a good game. The migraine made it so I couldn't really watch the game.

It's a good thing you didn't watch the game. It seemed like a good game from what I heard. It was a good game. It was. It was a great game.

And I'll say this. And Andrew, not to interrupt, it seems to me that football penalties now seem to be... Oh boy, here we go. I don't know. Like, I didn't know you could tackle a guy before he actually reached out to caught a ball. I just... Talking about the fourth down play to Luke Schoonmaker.

Yeah. I mean, you can throw a flag for a legal hand to the face on Brandon Cooks and then go, oh, you know what? Let's pick this flag up even though... But you know, hey, whatever. Well, that's a deeper conversation. And we talked about it last week, T.J., that in each, we've seen this a lot, flags being picked up.

Right? Guys talking now, the league will tell you, hey, that's a good thing because sometimes someone has a different angle the officials should get together and discuss, really, was that the right flag? In that case, yeah, I'm sure you would have preferred if it had not been picked up. Dak played his tail off. He threw what should have been a touchdown there to Luke Schoonemaker. Obviously, they got the call right. He didn't get the ball over before the knee went down.

The two-point conversion, he almost got it in, but he had stepped out of bounds. By the end of the game, the Cowboys mismanaged. Those are the things that the Eagles, the little things, do right at the end of games. The Cowboys do not get them right at the end of games. Compare and contrast, and credit to Mike Florio here, Pro Football Talk, he pointed out both the Texans and the Cowboys got the ball back with 46 seconds to go, needing to drive down the field and get the ball in the end zone yesterday.

C.J. Stroud did it. Dak Prescott did not. Now, to that point, Dak had played an amazing game. He got them to the six-yard line. There were some Eagles penalties, C.J., I'm sure you heard those with your eyes closed, some Eagles penalties on that drive that helped them. They got to the 11, Jalen Carter jumped offsides, then they're on the six. First end goal on the six, and from that point on, Tyler Smith, false start, back five. Dak Prescott, when you cannot take a sack, took a sack back to the 22, instead of spiking it, chose to run a play. Now, we can debate.

That's debatable there. Personally, I would have spiked it. That's just me. Sometimes it's better to catch the defense off guard too. That's what they tried to do, almost got picked, didn't happen. Tried for Jalen Tolbert, again, Jalen Tolbert, Reggie Wayne's nephew, by the way, South Alabama's Jalen Tolbert in Mobile, then you take a delay. You can't take a delay. That was the thing, the delay.

Whose fault is the delay? Well, don't know, but I'll say this, probably either the quarterback or the coach. The coach is the play caller this year. Last year, that would have been Kellen Moore. This year, it is Mike McCarthy, quarterback or the coach.

Either way, you're pretty high up on the food chart or the food chain or the org chart. Call it both, put them together, I don't care. You can't take the delay, you can't take the sack. You can't take the delay, you can't take the sack.

The little things at the end of the game doomed the Cowboys, doomed. And then on the final play of the game, I'll have what Greg Olsen was having. You don't go to Jalen Tolbert with man across the board.

You just don't. Now, Jalen Tolbert had the touchdown, he had the deep shot earlier. He had a very nice fourth quarter. First career touchdown for Reggie Wayne's nephew.

The kid came to play. But with the game on the line, you're thrown to a well-covered Jalen Tolbert in his second year from South Alabama. I don't know, man. I don't get it.

Well, C.D. Lamb was triple covered, so you can't go to him. But the two other guys aren't open.

I mean, Ferguson had a great game. He wasn't open. Where's Michael Gallup?

Where's Brandon Cooks? It's very easy for the five foot seven with shoes on guy to sit here behind this lovely Rich Eisen show desk furnished by Granger. You're big in stature.

Oh, I'm 6'3 on TV when not standing next to people that actually are 6'3. It's very easy for me to say you don't throw the ball where you throw it. I'm going to echo, as I said, what Greg Olsen said, who knows far more about this than I do, has forgotten far more about this than I ever will know. If I'm a Cowboy fan, let me just put it this way. It does not in any way change my belief about how January will go for this team.

Because we know how January usually goes for this team. If you were to look at the standings right now in the NFC, you know what the Cowboys would do? If the playoffs were to begin today, which they don't, say that for the hundredth time, the Cowboys would go to San Francisco. Do we think it would go any differently? Recent issues for Brock Purdy in the defensive line and getting sacks and everything aside, do we think it would go any differently? Show of hands.

Nope. I mean, are we talking about the Niners that beat us or the guys who are on a three-game losing streak? As I said, regardless of the way it's going now, I think it can. Because in critical money on the table, game on the line situations, this is how this team reacts. They just do. Again, compare and contrast with what C.J.

Stroud did yesterday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where Rondy is ripping them from the booth as well as saying it's the worst secondary he's ever seen. I get it. I get it. But the kid drove them down the field.

I get it. It's the Eagles and they're on the road and their secondary is decimated by injuries right now. And they were dropping like flies during the game. Look at C.J.

Stroud's weapons compared to Dak Prescott's. Tank Dell. Nobody ever heard of him before the season. Former Cowboys rookie. Tank Dell's a very talented rookie who was highly regarded. He wasn't a first round pick, but yeah, OK. Yes, it's not Brandon Cooks and C.D.

Lane. Look at all the money the Cowboys have on their offensive weapons and look at the Texans. So how did we get to the point where we're comparing the Cowboys and the Texans? Oh, I'm just going off a florio tweet right here who noted the symmetry that both of those teams got the ball back, needing to drive down the field with limited resources and 46 seconds left. One of them did it. One of them didn't. Look, I thought the Cowboys were scoring. Like they get out of the six like, oh boy, yeah, buddy, I wasn't necessarily rooting for him.

I'm rooting for a great ending. True story. I do not have a dog in this fight, a horse in this race. Truly don't. I'm not a cowboy hater here at all. I'm not.

Just thought it might end differently. I wanted to be proved. I wanted them to prove us wrong after all these. Yeah, I mean, as a football fan, you just want to be proven.

I want to see them win one of those games. Because it's better for all of conventional wisdom is how are they going to blow it? And they want another week of Eagle when they're on a buy this week, another week of the Eagles fans and media going, shouldn't have been this hard.

Why is it so hard? Why are we blowing people out? Man?

This team has so many flaws. Wow. We'll take it as another ugly win. I don't want that. I would love the narrative to be flipped, right? Week 14.

Hey, say this. This is bullshit about the Eagles. They get the buy, and then they get four straight games against teams that are conference championship game worthy. Long and difficult schedule here for the Philadelphia Eagles. They get the Chiefs, the Bills, the Niners, and then the Cowboys, and then the Seahawks.

So that is five straight games. And then the Giants, who in all likelihood may not win another game between now and the week 16 game against the Eagles, because if you're just joining us today, Daniel Jones, it is confirmed by Brian Daybal, is done for the season. He tore his ACL yesterday. And now Tommy DeVito, formerly of Syracuse and Illinois, who throws a nice deep ball. He's got a gun. I like the kid, but I don't know that he's necessarily ready for NFL prime time action here.

Nope. Didn't look good yesterday. Tommy DeVito with Matt Barkley recently signed off the couch. When I say recently, I mean last week, like four days ago as now the backup, because Tyrod was put on injured reserve on Saturday.

So he's out for a while. So Tommy DeVito and the New York Giants are, if you're keeping track of these things for recreational purposes, now a 15 and a half point underdog this week on the road in Dallas. So Tommy DeVito and the Giants are likely just what the Cowboys need to bounce back from this because they have what 11 consecutive home games, which is the longest active winning streak in the NFL. Now that the Niners lost last week at home to Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals, it is fair to ask what Daniel Jones future is now in New York, because the Giants at two and seven and with Tommy DeVito at quarterback and Evan Neal injuring an ankle yesterday.

Don't know how severe and how serious, but again, something to monitor. You have a hard time going down the Giants schedule and finding many victories. The Giants in all likelihood, and Brian Daybal is the reigning coach of the year and I fully support the guy.

I love the guy. It's going to be difficult for Brian Daybal to piece together victories here down the stretch. So with Tommy DeVito at quarterback, the Giants are in that conversation for a top five pick next year. They go to Dallas, to Washington, home for the Patriots, who knows about that one. Green Bay, New Orleans, Philadelphia, the Rams, the Eagles.

It's not a horrible schedule, but it is a we're picking in the top seven to eight schedule right now, if not the top five. Daniel Jones is guaranteed $36 million in 2024 and at that point there is a clean out in the contract. There'd be dead cap. There'd be an acceleration, but in essence, the Giants can get out next year at the end of next year. And it would have been a two year $82 million deal at that point. Now a lot of time between now and then I think Daniel Jones is a good quarterback who can play in this league.

And if the Giants want to move on from Daniel Jones, because they find themselves in position to draft somebody high next year that they think is the future, Daniel Jones will go somewhere else and be a winning quarterback. I am convinced of that. I said corner. I meant quarter.

Maybe switching position would help. Yeah, you never know. Daniel Jones is a good quarterback whose offensive line was decimated this year and then everything fell apart around him and then he fell apart. But the big question in New York is not only when will he come back and what team will he come back to, but why was he back on the field? Brian Deball reiterated today that, cause remember he, he tweaked the knee, left, said he was okay, then went back in and then no contact went down. Said he repeatedly told us he was fine. The trainer said he was fine and then he tore his ACL. Was it torn when he went back out there? Who knows?

It doesn't matter. He's done. He's done for a year. Coming up next, what did we learn last night in Cincinnati? The man who called that game on NBC, Mike Torrico, set to join us next. Andrew Siciliano sitting in for Rich.

Rich Eisen here. Let's talk about DoorDash because we talk about it in our household all the time. Susie and I always go to DoorDash whenever we need some terrific food from our favorite restaurants with timely, responsible, professional drivers delivering the food right to our house in a timely fashion. We use DoorDash and now DoorDash is made even better with DashPass. DashPass is the one membership you need to get the most out of DoorDash in everyday life because DashPass members get $0 delivery fees and up to 10% off eligible DoorDash orders, including groceries, drinks, personal care items, and more. DashPass makes delivery even more worth it, helping members save more than $35 per month on average. So put a little joy back into your schedule.

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You know, in today's world, it seems the best treatment is reserved only for a few. Well, Discover wants to change that by making everyone feel special. That's why with your Discover card, you have access to 24-7 live customer service as well as $0 fraud liability, which means you're never held responsible for unauthorized purchases. Finally, no matter who you are or where you are in life, you'll feel special with Discover.

Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Limitations apply. You were 29 when this first started. Now you're in your mid-40s getting all rocked up like you did in this. Do we need to test you, Matt? Did you take- No, no, I should have.

That might have made it easier. In my experience, if you're not going to take anything, which I'm not, it's the same workout that it was when I was 29. It's just a very strict diet, two a days in the gym, and it's just all work.

There's no shortcut. So you just cut out what, sugars? By the end, it's just protein and vegetables and no carbs at all and just two workouts a day.

I mean, it was a lot of work. For how many weeks, months did you have to do that? Well, I was in shape. I got in shape for The Martian and then for this movie I did in China, and then about 10 weeks out, I kind of ramped up even more. So it was to try to get under, down below eight, then like 7% body fat.

It was more about body fat than weight. So when you were done shooting, what was the first meal that you had when you were done shooting? Oh man, I mean- What'd you do? No, for me it's Italian food. Pasta, bread pasta, red wine- Chicken parm? Yeah, oh my God. Like a chicken parm situation? Yeah, are you kidding me? That's the thing. That's what killed me. Sometimes when we order out, we'll get this chicken parm and this parm and this pink pasta that they like, and it's just like plating it for them.

It's just like, I start shaking. I'm just wondering if the Boston and you just came out, I think I just said chicken parm. Did I just hear that? I didn't say chicken parm. I didn't say chicken parm. I thought you just said that.

I did. I said chicken, but I forgot the R. It wasn't that it was- Hey, I'm the same way, when I go back to the old school days of where I grew up. I love chicken parm, Rich. It is the Rich Eisen Show. Andrew Siciliano, hi. Hope you had a great weekend. Sitting in for Rich, who's going to join us from Germany coming up next hour after calling the Chiefs.

Hang it on and beat the Dolphins. Coming here now at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call or click grainger.com or just stop by. Calling the game last night, a Bengals win over the Buffalo Bills, 24 to 18 in Cincinnati, but now home in Michigan. Joining us from NBC Sports, good morning to you, Mike Tirico. Hello, Mr. Siciliano, how are we doing?

I'm doing well. Nice hat, by the way. Of course, it is opening night of basketball season for the first time in your lifetime, for the first time in the lifetime of many who are watching, listening, streaming, consuming. Jim Boeheim, James Arthur Boeheim is not the head coach of Syracuse basketball to start a season.

Adrian Autry era begins tonight. I was at the game, Syracuse BC game, which I know nobody wants to talk about, Friday, but got to watch a quarter and a half of football with coach Boeheim up in the press box. He's doing great going to do a little TV this year, which will be fun.

It's awesome. Mr. Mr. Media, that'll be great, but I do have to tell you, Jim Boeheim is a huge football fan. He has seen so much football and loves it kind of like Tom Izzo's big football fan. I love talking other sports with coaches from another sport because they see something cool and unique. Anyway, it was a blast to do that. I'm ready for hoop season and it's halftime in the NFL season.

Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for hoop season too. I'm actually going to see coach Saturday. He's out here in Los Angeles and I'm going to see him Saturday evening for a little dinner. And for those who don't know, like you said, he doesn't miss anything. He sits in his house in Syracuse and literally watch his basketball or anything until three in the morning. Like if Sacramento does something, he sees it at one in the morning, he doesn't, he doesn't miss a thing. And I have no doubt he was watching your game last night where afterwards Zach Taylor doing Bengals radio, it might, might've been with our friend Dan Hoard had a mic drop moment at the end. He ended his interview by saying the Bengals are back, Mike, what'd you see from them last night? I didn't hear about that. That's pretty cool.

And I feel the same way. You know, they, they beat Seattle and San Francisco and Buffalo, and those are three good wins in a row. And that's not taking away from the win against Arizona before that, but they're on a heater. They've won four in a row.

This is a lot like it was last year. And what we're seeing is Joe Burrow's calf is better and they are who they have been. The ability to defend people in this league is so good for so many of the good teams that the plays that are unscripted when the eraser is out there in the quarterback's hand, he's running around with the ball, whether it's Josh or it's Patrick Mahomes or it's Lamar or it's Herbert tonight or Joe burrow, that's the difference maker in the key plays of the game.

Joe burrow has his calf back to health where he can do that. And it made a difference in those early drives and it made a difference in their, their win over Buffalo. Who's got some work to do here in the second half of the season, it's going to be a tough haul for the bills in the second half. And you made the point after those first two drives, cause Josh Allen marched his team down the field like, Hey, this is going to be a great night. We have these two great quarterbacks and then Lou Anna Rumo's defense put the clamps down and we really didn't see anything that a couple of drives that stalled obviously, but anything productive until the end of the game, how concerned should they be in Buffalo this morning? Yeah, I think concerned. And I don't think it's because the team is, isn't good.

They're good. I think the schedule is a mounted coming forward and they have a bunch of injuries. You know, you can bring in people like Russell Douglas to replace what you lose with Trudavious white like Linville Joseph, who comes in in the middle of the year, like you did with Philadelphia.

I was part of a Superbowl run. You can bring him in to take a little bit of what you missed without Daquan Jones, but you start losing people over and over and you had injuries in the game. Benford gets hurt, misses the second half. Micah Hyde gets injured in and out of the lineup. You lose a linebacker in Bernard during the game.

At some point, it's going to matter. They kept it together. I mean, Cincinnati didn't walk up and down the field on them at all in the second half Buffalo hung in the game, but given what they have coming up, you know, you, you look at the AFC and you're thinking maybe it's going to take 10. And right now the AFC North is halfway there at this point. So I'm a little worried that Buffalo is not going to be able to get to the playoffs. Now, having said that, they can beat Miami head to head and win the division. They've got that shot at the end of the season. So they're just going to have to keep pace, but keeping pace is going to be hard because there's a backload to this Buffalo schedule. But I trust Sean McDermott and I trust Josh Allen. So I'm not going to bet against them, but I'm a little more worried if I'm a bills fan than it was last time.

Yeah. I trust them both when they have the quarterback and they've proven they could beat the dolphins and they have that game, even though it is going to be obviously a lot of the line there. I was coming, coming into the season, Mike, they were that one team where I hate to say, well, the pressure is on them because pressure, as you know, is on every team and every coach at every quarterback in this league. It's not more different one place than another, but it kind of feels like this group has to do it now this year, like, you know, Von's not getting any younger. This could be it for him this year.

Like how many times can you keep this group as currently constructed together and say the results are going to be different? Yeah. Windows close fast and they don't always close because of age. Sometimes they close because of salary cap.

And it's funny, Chris and I were talking about this during the week and we mentioned it briefly on the air. If Cincinnati's window changes, if they can't bring T Higgins back, and it's really hard to have two receivers on number one receiver contracts, plus a quarterback, you're paying $250 billion to end field and offensive line to keep them upright. Those are hard things.

You have to make choices. And that's why I, I want to give credit to what Kansas city has done and what Brett beach has done with the chiefs here over the last few years, because they have really worked and Steve Spagnola gets a lot of the credit too, because they have reworked around what they have to pay my homes, Kelsey protecting those guys with an offensive line, pay a Chris Jones. There was a contract issue as we know at the start of the season, but 15 and I don't have the count as of last week when rich was doing the game in Germany, I don't have the count right now, but when we had them earlier in the year of their 25 guys on the defensive side of the ball, 15 were either year one or year two, which meant rookie contracts.

Some of them less expensive than others, and you got to put it together on some portion of your team with a little bit less expensive players. So can Cincinnati after this year, keep Jamar chase and T Higgins with borough, plus the offensive line to protect all that stuff. It's going to be really hard because I asked Chris on the air and that's what I love about Collins worth. He's not shy about sharing his opinion that says T Higgins, a true number one receiver Xandra, we've always seen the guy opposite a great player gets that money, but he's not a number one guy.

And Chris said, absolutely. He thinks T Higgins is a number one. So if somebody is going to pay him a boatload of money to be their guy to go with a stud quarterback or a future star quarterback, will the Bengals look like this? So maybe there's an urgency there as well, but to the main crux of your question, yeah, there's urgency with Buffalo for a variety of reasons. And some of them are salary cap and a couple of them, the vets they have on the defensive side of the ball.

We're going to Mike Torico called the game last night, the Bengals beating the bills in Cincinnati. And as it stands right now, that is pending your jets this evening. All four teams would be in from the AFC North right now, Mike, how many teams eventually at the end of the year, do you think get in? You think three would be what we've seen from these divisions that feel stacked in this current format of seven playoff teams and four teams in each division. And I say that because the interdivision battles tend to beat you up a little bit, but I'll take away this. And I asked almost a very similar question to Zach Taylor, the Bengals coach this week, and he called it the hunger games in the AFC.

You play each other and you beat each other up. I mean, the Bengals can put up an NMS NFC West championship banner. They, they swept the NFC West going for an O. But when you play against these AFC North teams, you learn the toughness within the division and these battles harden these teams.

So let's say you get three out. You may end up with three of the final four out of the AFC North, but we've got a long, long, long way to go. We're halfway through the season. You know, there are going to be turns and injuries and other subplots that pop up that you never expect, but Baltimore looks really good Pittsburgh. I don't want to be in a close game with them.

I don't want to go face Jim Schwartz's defense. Who knows where people are kind of bring pressure from you called one of those Cleveland games on radios. You you've seen them in person firsthand. You know, they're the real deal. And what I saw last night is a team that if you tell me these guys are going to show up in the AFC championship game, probably at Arrowhead again, like it usually is. I believe it Cincinnati could be there again. They look that good. I totally believe it.

I don't want to only focus on the AFC here, but real quick, you've done a couple of dolphins games this year. Rich is going to join us from Germany, as I mentioned, coming up in a bid. Where do you stand on the they can't beat anyone thing? First off, I was texting rich this morning as I was getting a cup of coffee. He did get an update on his travel itinerary for the next couple of days. And he has promised to become a full fledged tourist in Germany so that he can get the loyal Arias advertising show viewers slash listeners slash downloaders.

The update on the eyes and as a tourist tour of Germany, that would be a great update for the listeners. Yeah, the dolphins. I thought Mike McDaniel said it best. If you don't want it to be the narrative, then beat good teams, right? And that's why we should talk about it. There's so much in football right now that is conversation. And before the game's over, people want to know, well, what's going to be the topic of conversation this week?

Well, can we talk about the game first? But if you want to fast forward to that with Miami, it's you're going to have to be one of these big boys before people start giving you that respect. Now, if you get into playoffs, it doesn't matter if you haven't beaten somebody beat him in the playoffs.

That was the story. The Bengals. Two years ago. I did the Bengals Raiders wildcard game in the jungle and the Bengals had won a playoff game in 31 years, but they did. And then they got to the Super Bowl. And then last year they were this close to getting back to the Super Bowl.

The penalty at the end of the AFC championship game. It's a three point game. But for kicks a late field goal, they're close to being back to back Super Bowl champs as a team that had won. And I think the number is Andrew five playoff games in their history. And the last two years they've won five playoff games. And the two losses in the last five years are the Super Bowl, the Rams, they got the ball at the end of the game.

And then the Chiefs beating them by a field goal in the AFC title game. So they, they stopped the narrative by performance. So it doesn't mean the narrative has to stop weeks one through 18. If you get to week 19, then you got a chance to stop the narrative. All right. I said, we'd get to the NFC to heck with it.

Last one for you AFC only because your jets who play this evening, you get them coming up this week on the road in Vegas against Antonio Pierce and the cigar smoking Raiders after that game yesterday. Let me clarify my jets. First off, I, that, that was something I've grown out of.

It's like kids with an allergy early on. I was a, I grew up at Shea stadium for anybody who remembers that the jets played there. That was my, the, my youth and my existence, but I try to stay neutral in this job and suggesting bias, you know, no, no, no, no, no. That's just, you know, it's Scott van Pelt, our pal says everybody's from somewhere, somewhere. And now I'm 25 years living in Detroit.

So they've become my lions as well. And all that. So it's all, it's all good. It's all fun. I've got one.

I'll admit to that on a full-time basis. Look, the, the jets have an interesting spot and I'll just hit them for one second because I think they can win this game and all of a sudden they start believing we can win the division because they're tied in the loss column with Miami and they jump ahead of Buffalo and they've got stuff ahead of them and all that. The Raider thing is fascinating. I mean, like right out of it, maybe this, maybe this was scripted, maybe this was part of the NFL script. I was like, Hey, we need to dust off the Raider storylines a little bit. Let's just get this going.

And Antonio Pierce, NWA, Compton, cigars in the locker room. I mean, what the heck happened in, in one week, it was a complete 180 and it's cool and it's fun. And it's going to be a scene. You think the Raider fans who were quiet are not going to come out of the woodwork here and the jets fans are going to make the pilgrimage to Allegiant stadium. So it will be the jets Raiders, old AFL, absolute carnival the week before the F1 race in Vegas. So let's hit the strip. Let's go. Let's have fun. I'm looking forward to Sunday night.

I mean, I, I, that's going to be awesome. And the Raiders get the whole New York, New York, not the hotel and casino, but they get both New York teams. They're back to back and I've never, yes. I've never seen. And you guys hold on.

Now I'm off track. You guys had Josh Allen listens to Sinatra during the week. I had never heard that one before pre pre-game has an eclectic mix, a little bit of Elvis. And he said, he told us this was in the game.

We did up muffler. He said, and Frank Sinatra that's life. He said, Frank Sinatra is that's life is one of the great songs in the history of music. Josh Allen's words about that song and you listen to the words and it's grabbed. I love Sinatra.

I grew up in New York. My family that I grew up with listened to Sinatra. So I love Frank Sinatra music.

It's mixed in with all my other stuff on my, on my Apple iTunes or whatever the heck I have on here. And that is a great song. So that's why we used it for the story of Josh Allen, but it listens to some Elvis Josh is a cool dude. He's a cool guy.

I love. And I said it when they scored the touchdowns back to back to start the game. When you have good quarterbacks, you usually have a terrific game because the defenses rise up and it gives you something. And right now we've got 10 rookie quarterbacks in the league. If Tommy DeVito plays against the giants, 10 rookies who've started games, it's a very interesting time in the league and put so much value in two things where you're going to draft and who you're going to draft next year. If you're one of the teams that doesn't have one and what happens with fields in Chicago, I think it's really interesting, probably one of the most interesting things to watch the last seven weeks of the season. Does he secure the job going forward or is he trade fodder to add to what the bears can do in their rebuild?

I think it's one of the more fascinating things in the last half of the season. All right. I promise very last thing, short answer, because we'll close it here with the jets. I was at the Breeders' Cup on Saturday, spoke briefly, Darren Rogers, who had a lovely purple suit on. Name drop. No, hold on. We're making it.

We're bringing a full circle here. He had on, I wouldn't call them orthotics, but like those. And he joked about it on the broadcast, those shoes, what do you call them? Like the, you know, the almost feels like the bottom of a walking boot.

If you've ever worn one of those, you kind of roll on them. But he made his way back and forth to the buffet, to the window with friends with Miles Teller. Everyone's having a good time. He was moving well. OK. Told me he was feeling well. Wouldn't wouldn't say he's coming back. Mike, do you think he comes back? Do you think we see him on the field this year? Everybody else, I would say no.

This guy, I wouldn't put anything past him. I mean, what have you seen that somebody hurt their Achilles and then they're out there seven weeks later and warm up, just standing there and throwing, standing there and throwing and doing like you said at the Breeders' Cup, walk into the window, sitting, you know, sitting there and kind of moving around back and forth. I know he's attacking rehab in ways and with energy that most haven't before.

And I know the AIDS and I know the situation and all that. But I will not put anything past him if we didn't think Cam Akers would come back who got hurt again. Right.

I hate that, man. We didn't think and you saw him in the preseason with the Rams when you were doing the games there a couple of years ago. We never thought a running back would come back within the same year and he did. So our heads tell us this is what happens when you get this injury. But our heads are not in the space of medical advancements continue. So I will never say no if that guy says, I think I'm going to keep the window open.

Why not? And you know what? Whoever wrote the story for the NFL this year, those had this script winner, total winner. Yeah.

Totally amazing. Yeah. I mean, Cam Akers a lot younger, but the same doctor and, you know, Cam Akers a lot more than Aaron Rodgers has to move.

And anyone who saw him Saturday, he was moving or no, put it this way. If someone walked in there and had no idea who that guy in the purple suit was walking around, they would have no idea that he was rehabbing from a major injury 10 weeks ago that should limit his mobility. Yeah. Nine weeks ago, whatever it was, they would have no idea. Anyway.

I have this idea. We're, we're holding you too long. We thank you kindly, sir.

A great call last night. Enjoy Vegas this weekend. I absolutely, without a doubt, I will and enjoy the update.

The big tease for the rich eyes in American tourist in Germany later in the show, coming up live from Frankfurt. Thank you, Mike. See you, bud.

Go orange. Thank you, sir. Likewise.

Mike Torico, everybody. Yeah. No, I'm not name dropping. Aaron Rodgers was there. Yeah. I was sitting near Aaron.

We only spoke briefly. As I said, I mean, he's got security all around him. Not that he needed or wanted it, but people wanted to make sure, you know, he was a guest of some others that the guy was left alone, but he was social and talking to people. And whenever he got up and walked down to the food or to say hi to others, nobody would have known that that guy was hurt. Nobody. Now, if you looked at the shoes, as I said, those, what do you call them?

Orthotics, comfortable, rolling shoes, whatever. He was moving just fine. As I said, we talked briefly. How you doing? I feel good.

That's what he said. Okay. I think we'll be back.

I do now. It would certainly help if Zach Wilson can beat the, uh, the chargers tonight. It would certainly help if Zach Wilson could beat the Raiders this coming Sunday evening on NBC, give him incentive to come back.

If this team face plants the next month, maybe not, but if they're in position and right now they're in position, yeah, I think it's coming back. Interesting. Crazy.

I'm going to bring the table and make everyone in the control room upset. Anyway, Andrew, though, it's one thing to have some hocus on and walking to get some food and a suite. It's another thing when Brandon Graham is chasing you. Totally.

Totally. As I said last week, if they could put him in like the, the Dave Grohl throne, right. And have him just sit there. Everything's out of the shotgun.

Outright and stays in the pocket. I don't know if Aaron Rogers is coming back with like that extended stretch wide zone play fake. Nope. No, no, no, no. He's not doing that. No scrambling.

No, no, no, no, no, no. He's not doing that. Did you see the Lamar Jackson play?

Yes. Well, he's not Lamar Jackson ever, even when he's healthy, but he could move. But where Lamar was running away from boy, a ma face screaming off the right edge.

And he, he, he stiff armed him with his left arm and then got around the corner and ran for 50. Like nobody can do that. That ain't happening. Nobody can do that. He won't even be Joe burrow kind of escaping pressure and running for first downs like last night. That ain't going to happen either.

No, it can't. All right. Coming up.

What CJ Stroud did yesterday and Josh Dobbs for that matter. And we're 20 minutes away from rich in Germany. You're listening to the rich eyes and show half red neck, 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 a hundred percent of ride tomatoes for you. 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 know people worship that movie putting on ears, the podcast is on YouTube and wherever you listen, the football season is underway and believe podcasts are talking about it. When he went home and went to sleep, Michael Parsons terrorizing 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. Side light 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. I thought to myself, okay, in the few minutes that are here, let me, let me write, uh, an Ed Hockley retirement letter and read it out on the air. We then posted on the Rich Eisen show feed exclusive.

The number of people that retweeted it and said they thought it was real is alarming. It's the only way to put it. So God bless him.

You know how much we love SVP Scott on the line now is Scott there. Yeah. You thought it was real.

Well, I mean, as you, as you said, it's, you are a guy that has a reputation, worked at the end of the phone network. You got sources. When it was brought up to me in our meeting, Hey, did you see the letter Hockley wrote? And I thought, well, that's funny. And then later as I'm trying to write this script, I'm not finding it anywhere on like Google searches or whatever, but I'm like, where'd y'all see that? And then the producer that had, it's like, Oh, it's on, I read your feed and I'm like, there it is.

I see the quotes that work and I just, I just slam it in there on the script and read it on television. Fake news. Fake news. Hashtag.

Yes. Hashtag. Fake news. I'm mortified. Apologies to Mr. Hockley.

I'm sorry. We did not. That was not our intent.

We didn't know what was going to happen like that. That's entirely on us for not, for not vetting and it goes off to me that I'm not able to find this anywhere but there, but again, and this is where I'll turn it and point at you and blame you, Mitch Eisen, when you're a source of information and you've got stuff no one else has got, you think, yeah, sure, I've got the Hockley retirement letter. And it's, I guess, believable that he's got his own stationery with himself on it when there's a watermark of him as a rat. As believable as it is that he's going to go sort out the lactic acid with this regimen. Vigorous regimen.

Vigorous regimen. I beg your pardon. You're the best, man. You're the best. I'm sorry. You're the worst.

Don't don't don't spoof me like that. Thanks to Mike Torrico for giving 20 minutes of his time when I say your jets, much like Rich's Jets or my Browns or your Patriots or Jason, your Raiders or T.J., your Cowboys always get asked, hey, you work at NFL Network, but you can't actually root for NFL. You can't root for a team like, well, you have to be professional and you're always going to play it right down the middle. At the same time, we're all here because we love football. We're all here because we grew up playing, watching, loving the game, wrapping your arms around it.

We've all been lucky enough to have their arms wrap or the game wrap their arms back around us. So, yes, we're all fans in a way. Facts.

Facts. Facts that you could stream the NFL and Westwood one for free, sponsored by AutoZone all season long. You can listen to every Westwood one broadcast of the NFL live on the NFL app by asking Alexa to open W.W.O. sports or on your Westwood one affiliate stations, digital platforms. That's right. Stream Kevin Harlan, Kurt Warner and me. Nope. Try that again. I'm reading the page and Rich all season long for free and get in the zone with AutoZone.

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AutoZone restrictions obviously do apply. We had bouncing in here coming back rather from break. We had Scott Van Pelt on with Rich, an old segment there. And it leads me to the best thing I saw this weekend. I'll use something that Scott likes to do.

Best thing I saw this weekend or this or today normally is what he says is what happened. This one's so tough. Do I go with Josh Dobbs here or do I go with the Houston Texans and C.J. Stroud and Dario Gumbawale?

What do I do? Is there a wrong answer? No wrong answer. I lean Josh Dobbs. You lean Josh Dobbs?

The Texans it was great, but if you're a quarterback, you shut up and you don't know three fifths of your lineman's names and you still do what he did. That's pretty. All right, let's go. Thank you, guys. Josh Dobbs, who has for a long time been one of my favorite football players because he's an astronaut. He's not actually an astronaut, but in the off season he works at NASA. True story. A couple of years ago, there was something fun going on.

I don't know. We were bouncing off an asteroid or landing on some planet. I can't remember what it was, but I was interested enough to watch the NASA live stream because I was at home working from home that day drinking coffee, the live stream of of what was going down in space. Josh Dobbs was one of the analysts on the NASA live stream.

He's that cool. He is on his sixth team at 11 months. I know you hear five, but he was actually on the Browns twice. So if you count the Browns twice, this is his sixth team in 11 months.

He got there late Tuesday night. And then after Jaron Hall, you feel bad for the kid, got a concussion in the first quarter in his first career start, Josh Dobbs had to go in there. And all he did is become the first player in the one hundred and four year history of the National Football League to score three touchdowns in a game, passing, running, whatever in back to back weeks for two different teams.

Last week, he did it for the Cardinals yesterday. He did it for the Minnesota Vikings, and he didn't know the names of his teammates. Hoskins play something to start, probably if we had to pull up a roster to go names, I'll be I'll be a bad teammate today.

Yeah. I knew Alex. I knew a lot of first names, Alex, Brandon. I know like a lot of nicknames, per se, but yet names, names, that's that's that's for this week.

That's an assignment for this week. When I said Hoskins play something, I mean, we had two thoughts, it didn't matter because they both worked. He also said, and I'll paraphrase this because we're short on time, that it was like you learn Spanish, you know Spanish, but then you got in there and everything was in French. OK, he kind of knew the playbook only because he had been so many other places.

And with that system, there's some familiarity, obviously, with what they had in Arizona and what they had in Cleveland, a little bit with what they had in Tennessee as well. But he was in situations where he would get the play. He would call the play and then he'd confirm with his skill players to make sure they're on the same page. Right. Here's the play call off the wristband. Hey, just to be sure, like I got curl flat on the front side.

And Jordan, do I have a slant on the backside? And they would say, yes, here's what I'm running. Here's what he's running.

And then he'd go out there and run it. And they won. He threw a touchdown at the end of the game to Brandon Powell, whose name he may or may not know, and they won. He didn't take a single snap in practice, nor throw to any of the guys he threw to yesterday in practice.

The first pass caught by Jordan Addison was the first ball he had ever thrown to Jordan Addison. That's amazing, man. That's crazy. On the sideline yesterday, he's working with Gar Bradbury, with the other old linemen standing there, so that they can hear his cadence for the very first time.

Wow, the crowd's going nuts. That was cool, actually. And he won the game. That was really cool.

Josh Dobbs. We salute you. We salute you. You know what? I laughed at the Space Force when it was launched.

Where is this going? Okay. And their uniforms. Oh, my God.

They're comically bad. I mean, it's like Star Trek, the next generation that we don't want to meet, right? But Josh Dobbs should head up the Space Force.

Like, he could do anything, honestly, give him a job for life. He's that cool. Here's the other sound bite. If you were taking Spanish all year, and you showed up, and Wednesday, someone told you you're taking AP Spanish, and so until you have that AP French exam on Sunday, and you gotta go execute, someone's gonna talk to you in Spanish and translate it to the French. So that's kind of what was going on out there. There was a lot of communication, but I'm able to process a lot of information and be able to react on it and not let it handcuff myself and my play. And so it was good.

It was good to be able to hear what he was saying, and as I'm processing what the defense is giving me, and then go out and still play good football. You get that right. Romance language is, hey, I speak Spanish. I could look at a newspaper in Italian and figure out what they're saying, right? I speak Portuguese, oh, let me read the French. Yeah, I kinda know what they're saying here.

That's what he did, and won the game on the road in his hometown of Atlanta. Other than that, yeah, just another day, the office rich is coming 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 In Utero 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.