Greg Papa: 49ers Were Moving On From Steve Wilks No Matter What

Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Andrew Siciliano. He is a brilliant, brilliant creator. He's in charge of every detail. He knows what he wants.

It works. Live from The Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Earlier on the show, from Pro Football Focus, Trevor Sikkema. Coming up, 49ers Radio play-by-play announcer, Greg Papa.

Plus your phone calls, latest news, and more. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Andrew Siciliano. You get me for today, you get me for tomorrow. Rich is back on Monday. Welcome to the final hour of The Rich Eisen Show. You know, I was taught years ago by my boss in radio, you should never say hour number one, hour number two, hour number three. But I just did it there. I throw a flag on myself because I was told you never want to make your listener or viewer feel bad that they weren't there or like feel like they were missing something.

And I'm like, that's his philosophy. Is that an AER thing? Did you want to know? No, no, no. It was an old Fox Sports radio thing. Andrew Ashwood, may he rest in peace. But I don't think that's, I don't think that works anymore because now you could pod the show, podcast the show later.

I think now that should change because now, right? You can go back and listen to what you missed. Anyway, Trevor Sikkema is what you missed earlier. He had the new PFF mock draft and he has at number two overall Drake made of the Denver Broncos after a trade. Coming up this hour, trying to get a hold of him. He is on vacation today.

He is driving to vacation today, but the voice of the 49ers, Greg Papa is nice enough to join us coming up shortly when we get ahold of him to tell you what they are going to do with defensive coordinator now that Steve Wilks is out. We also have breaking news from Adam Schefter that the Seahawks are not going to cut Geno Smith this week. That had been a thing.

Really? It had been a thing because Geno has roughly 13 million on his contract that was to become guaranteed tomorrow. Now, no one thought it was like, Oh yeah, they're whacking them. But there was a chance.

One of those things had been whispered. Maybe the Seahawks just get the money with, get the pain with over, over with now and get rid of them. Doesn't mean they won't draft a quarterback, but just get rid of him this week.

That is not going to happen. If it had happened, what they're doing, they're moving some money around. If it had happened that, that would have meant Geno Smith could have signed with the team tomorrow or Monday. And he could have gone to say the Falcons or the Steelers, or I don't know, the commanders in advance of taking a quarterback at two.

I don't know. Just saying it could have happened. But again, the breaking news from the ESPN that that is not going to happen. Wouldn't be surprised if they took a quarterback. Anyway, Seattle's kind of been one of those teams, even with Russell Wilson there, you know, the Pete Carroll always compete.

They always seem to get more guys in the quarterback room and just see what you got. Well, look, John Schneider now, I think if there's one headline from all the coaching moves in the off season and the firings here, that maybe doesn't get enough attention. Is that called a consolidation of power? But John Schneider is unquestionably the man in charge. Now in Seattle, he was running the draft before, but it was a very collaborative effort. He's been the GM obviously, but it's been a collaborative effort.

Yeah. McDonald's he's new head coach, but John Schneider is certainly the man in charge here. And he's been known to be a dealmaker. He's been known to have his eyes on a quarterback for a long, long time, long before Russell Wilson exited stage left in 2018.

He was there scouting Josh Allen at Wyoming in 2018, long before the Russell trade to Denver. Anyway, let's get the phone number out of the way as we wait here for Greg Papa, who by the way, Hoskins just did text. I said, waiting for the call. I said, we're going to call you. He said, okay. So just heads up.

Where was I? 844-204-rich. 844-204-rich.

844-204-rich. The Roku channel is 210. Sirius is 161. XM is 206. Online is 998.

You can stream it for free on the Odyssey app or odyssey.com. We're on the Twitter and the Instagram at Rich Eisenshow. At Rich Eisenshow.

Chris Brock. We are monitoring the socials. TJ Jefferson. We are monitoring the socials here as well.

And obviously keeping an eye on what's going down in Kansas City. The numbers are up to 23. One dead.

23 shot. Many of those shot children. We could tell you, thankfully, that all of the children are expected to recover from their physical injuries.

Mental. I don't know when the kids get over it. You know, I said before, you feel safe anywhere anymore. I know you're not safe when you leave your house, right?

You're taking a risk every time you walk out that front door. But kids shouldn't be shot at a parade. And I wish it would stop, but it doesn't stop. It's not ran about gun control. Just you shouldn't be shot at a parade, especially if you're a kid.

Can I add to a parade at school, in church, in a grocery store, on the street, anywhere? Like, yeah, exactly. Awful. Yeah, and like, when it comes down to sports, like, we don't want to be covering these stories. Not that we're the issue here. Not that covering these stories is the worst part of the story.

It's not. But when you go to parade, you should feel safe with your kids. But honestly, my anxiety, not necessarily gunfire at a public setting, it's stampede, right? When something like that happens, and that is always my anxiety, like I'm looking over my shoulder, where's the exit? Right?

Yep. Always know, always know where the door is. But Jason and Travis on the New Heights podcast a couple of weeks ago, a couple months ago, actually, I think they did this topic too, because Jason was asking, and I'm going to make the turn to Taylor Swift here. I didn't plan this, but Jason asked Travis, when you and Taylor are out, like, where do you sit? Right?

Do you sit facing the room, or facing the door, so that you keep an eye on an exit? And he's like, oh, she's got all the bodyguards. Like, we're good.

Right? And Jason said, no, no, no, no, no. As a man, not that, you know, security in public is always the man's responsibility, but Jason's like, when I'm with my family, right? I'm with my wife, with Kylie, and I feel like, obviously, everything is on my shoulders. I sit with my back to the wall.

I'm in the booth, and I am scanning. I know where that door is, and that's not necessarily a gunfire in public thing. That is just a, if something goes down, I got to know to get out.

There are plenty of us who always, gun debate aside, have that in their head. I'm always afraid of the stampede. That's just me. And Andrew, you know, ever since that horrible thing happened at the Batman movie a few years ago in Colorado, I've never gone into a movie theater without kind of, like, eyeing, it's just, I hate doing it. Like, I went to see One Love the Bob Marley movie yesterday, and as I'm sitting down, the first thing I'm doing is I'm scanning.

All right, where is the exit? And I hate doing it. It makes me sick to my stomach that I feel that way, and I'm glad you brought it up to see, like, obviously I'm not the only person. You are not the only one, TJ.

Not the only one. All right, we'll update the Kansas City story, unfortunately, when we have more information. In the meantime, we'll turn as professionally as we can to the football. Yesterday, right around the same time, Kyle Shanahan was doing a conference call. You knew that when a conference call was called with media this after his Tuesday presser that something was up, and in the end, it is Steve Wilks out after one season as defensive coordinator. The voice, the legendary voice of the San Francisco 49ers, Greg Papa, is on vacation today, driving to his vacation home, and he's kind enough to pick up the phone and answer our questions.

How are you, sir? Well, I'm heading up to Tahoe to do a little skiing, but today would be the day, Andrew. The events of Sunday Night Gone just one play differently. We'd be having our Super Bowl parade starting in Santa Clara and all the way through the bay up 101 and all the way to San Francisco, but I do want to start by sending out from the 49ers organization our deepest condolences, our thoughts and prayers are with the folks of Kansas City after a horrific, you know, senseless, speakless tragedy yesterday that marred a great celebration for them. We can congratulate them on their Super Bowl, and hopefully the citizens of Kansas City will be able to pull crew, but that was a rough afternoon to be able to watch that. Yeah, it was. Greg, how is the story played in the Bay Area?

Well, it's hard. I mean, we lost to them in, you know, February of 2020 after the 19 season, and we were going to have a big parade, you know. We had a, they were in a third and 15 with seven minutes and 13 seconds to play in the Super Bowl, and they ran an infamous play, famous, famous play, they're infamous here, two, three, chip, jet, was the 13, 13, 15 to Tyreek Andrew, and otherwise, I think we win that Super Bowl, but looking back on it, we would have had a huge parade. There may have been a million people in San Francisco for that parade to celebrate their first title since 94, and we had a global pandemic hit, you know, right around that time. We were unaware of a killer virus was out there, so maybe in retrospect, it saved a lot of lives, and what happened yesterday in Kansas City, you have to wonder, are we ever going to be able to have a normal parade and celebration to celebrate our champions, or are we going to have to do it in a stadium where fans go through a metal detector to get in, and if you do it that way, you're not going to be able to have a half a million or a million people, so obviously, we're sickened by it, you know. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the folks of Kansas City. Yeah, absolutely, well said, and now we turn to the off season, not callously turning to the off season, but, you know, there is business to be done here.

Free agencies right around the corner. The combine is even closer than that in two weeks. Were you surprised?

Actually, let me rephrase that. If they had won, would Steve Wilks still be the DC today? Well, to your first question, I'm not surprised at all, and had they won the game, I think there's a strong chance that Kyle makes a change anyway.

There was just a disconnect with Steve from the beginning, and I think it's just, it's no fault of Steve's. He's a very impressive human being. When I first met him and did a lengthy, you know, panel with the season ticket holders in front of thousands of people, he was extremely impressive. Cerebral, very much, I think, a head coaching kind of guy, a CEO. Maybe he's better served to be a head coach than he was as a DC with this particular team, but it's just, you gotta understand, Robert Sala and D'Amico Ryans raised Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw and Nick Bosa.

It just was more of an internal way of which they did things here, and it was going to be tough. I was a little surprised that Kyle went outside the building to hire Steve, but what he was trying to duplicate, Andrew, was what the Niners did, George Seifert did in the early 90s, when Mike Holmgren left to be the coach of the Packers. They brought in Mike Shanahan, Kyle's dad, you know, to tweak that Bill Walsh, Mike Holmgren offense, and Mike lived in a hotel. Kyle and his mom, Peggy, weren't even there for three, four months, and he just watched every tape, every, you know, ounce of film and all the audio from Coach Walsh and Holmgren and put his own spin on it, and they had heartbreaks.

They lost to the Cowboys. How about them Cowboys game in 92 and 93 in Dallas before they finally got the monkey off their back in 94, so Kyle was looking for that, and Steve Wilks, he holed up at a hotel when he moved out, you know, about a year ago at this time, and for whatever reason there was just a, it just didn't connect. I think a lot of it was they asked Coach Wilks to learn the Niner terminology, and calling plays on defense is not like Kyle's three paragraph offense. You can call it, you know, a defensive play. Anaheim is their call for a cover three, which they run a lot, but it was more, you know, Steve come in and run our defense and make your subtle tweaks, and maybe he would have made more. Had he gotten past this year, he would have made more in year two, and like Mike Shanahan, been able to figure it all out at some point with the Super Bowl, but it just didn't work for a lot of different reasons, and I think I felt, you know, halftime of the lion game and the championship game, got 24-7, there's going to be a change made. They came back and won that game, and then I think it's a broader, you know, say you just get Mahomes down on the ground on that fourth and one. You make one play, you win the Super Bowl. It would have been harder to make a change, but I think there was a disconnect that spoke more than just one game.

It wasn't that. So now the question is, you know, what does Kyle do? Does he water run that? You know, it's not like every single snap is cover three defense, but that's basically what they major in, and then they adjust off of that. That's what Salah ran almost every snap in the early days when he went to the Super Bowl in 19, and then, you know, with D'Amico made a little more changing where you do more, you know, cover two on one side, cover four on the other, you know, Nixon three and a little more won.

So we'll see if he wants to stay married to that. I think he does, but, you know, if you go outside of the building and you talk to somebody like Mike Vrabel, now are they going to change to a 3-4 defense and ask Nick to buzz out in coverage like the Chargers do? Joey Bosa?

I don't think they'll do that. So the question is, do you want to go outside the building, which is intriguing because you have some of the greatest defensive coaches available that have been maybe they're overqualified. You're really going to, you know, get Bill Belichick to take this job or Pete Carroll or Mike Vrabel. I think more realistically Brandon Staley would be someone. But he's a 3-4 guy. Yeah, he's a Fangio guy. Right. Yeah, so that's up to Kyle if he, and just knowing him and talking to him over the years, I think he does want to continue with the same defense, but he has talked to Fangio in years past about running the defense.

So if he does want to bring in a guy who's a disciple of Lord Fangio, you know Staley would be the guy. Fascinating. Talking to Greg Papa here, the voice of the 49ers coming off the Super Bowl 58 loss and heading out on vacation.

Again, grateful, thank you Greg, for doing this. You mentioned Belichick. Obviously that's been kicked around.

That seems farcical though. He wouldn't, would Kyle make the call? You mean as far as if Belichick's on the staff? Yeah, like, I mean, I've already seen it written. Would Kyle Shanahan pick up the phone and call Bill Belichick and say, do you want to be defensive coordinator?

That sounds insane. They have a relationship. They text back and forth. When Jimmy Garoppolo was traded to the Niners by Belichick, it was Belichick reaching out to Kyle. And obviously John Lynch, they've made other trades and they've talked.

So maybe you do it through an intermediary or an agent. You don't want to offend him. But he was a great defensive coordinator. I mean the two greatest games ever coordinated in history is when he beat the Niners in the 1990 championship game and the Leonard Marshall hit on Joe.

And then what he did to the Bills in Super Bowl 25, playing nickel the whole game. I mean, he loves defense. That would be up to him. I mean, he's a great defensive coordinator. That would be up to him.

You probably know him a little bit. I mean, does he want to go into TV? Does he want to come in and coach defense for a year? I don't think it'd be insulting to reach out to him. But, you know, would he want to do it?

If he wanted to do it, hell, go at it. And then, you know, the question would be if he's on the staff, Kyle's still the head coach. But Belichick knows the pecking order.

I mean, when he was with Parcells, you know, there was a lot of snap in there, going back and forth. He knows how a structure is work. He's respectful of his job. Now, would he want to do it?

I have no, I'm not going to speak for him. But he could come here and win a Super Bowl. And then also, you know, maybe take some of the Niner offensive coaches with him when he goes to his next stop or players that are going to be available. I'm not going to speak for Coach Belichick.

That's up to him. I think Pete Carroll would be more of a natural fit because with Belichick, you know, he likes to vary his fronts. It'd be a very different defense.

Not saying he has to run a 3-4. You know, but Bill does vary things, which Kyle may be open to. I mean, I've spoken to Kyle many times about Bill Belichick. He's the best defensive coach of, you know, this maybe of all time, certainly of recent years. So he has great respect for him. There's no doubt.

It's glowing. And Mike Shanahan does as well. They went at each other a lot. But I think that's, you know, just as far as a structure, you'd have to change things. And ultimately, whoever the name is, you want them to get the best, the most out of your players. So what's the best defense to run for Fred Andre and Nick and Sharvarious Ward and Diomino Lenore and Tallinoho Fungo? That's who you're trying to serve. But Pete Carroll, you know, the defense, the Niners are running and has, since Kyle's been the head coach, the Seattle defense. And he's the guy who did it. So he got away from a little bit the last couple of years. He's from the Bay Area. He used to be a defensive coordinator of the Niners. In fact, when Mike Shanahan left to become the head coach in Denver, I think he moved into Pete Carroll, moved to, I don't want to say Mike's house, but I think the same school district.

They all just kind of swapped. Pete's from here. He's from Marin, Greenberry. And so, I mean, does Pete want to do that though? He's been coaching as the head coach level for 20 years. He hasn't run a defense since he was with the Niners in the mid nineties.

So I don't know. I mean, Mike Rabel may still want to be ascending. They do have internal candidates. I think the one people aren't talking about, obviously Chris Kisera, the D-line coach, Johnny Holland, the linebacker coach, Daniel Bullocks, the secondary coach, but there's a guy on the staff, Nick Sorenson, who was with Pete Carroll in Seattle when they won the championship.

And they won the Super Bowl 10 years ago. And he did a number of things on that staff, special teams, and then he segued over. He did play DB in the NFL and he's very instrumental just watching him run the defense on walkthrough Saturdays and scout preparations. He's the one who's really hands-on quite a bit, but he's never run a defense before. He's somewhat of a leap of faith, but at the same time, neither did D'Amico Ryans. He had a good idea he could do it, but D'Amico was a great linebacker and a linebacker coach. So it'll be intriguing to see which way Kyle goes.

First of all, do you want to go internal, external, inside the building, outside, and do you want to change the structure of the defense at all, or do you want to stay predominantly being a Cover 3-based defense? And then if it's Pete or Rabel or Belichick, then I want the cameras in there for hard knocks because that would be my CTV. We wouldn't have to. We went to the Super Bowl last year.

I know, but still just do it, which they wouldn't do it. I would not like that. I want to go back to the game. One last thing here before I let you go, and again, thank you for your time here on vacation.

Anything for you, brother. So I don't know if you've seen, have you seen the Inside the NFL treatment yet or can you not watch? Yeah, I've watched snippets.

Honestly, it's painful for me. I went back and watched the game a little bit, but I've seen the excerpts. Well, let's talk about the fourth and one here because you got Trent Williams on the sideline saying, watch the keeper. It's going to be pad.

He's going to run. And then you see the sideline angle when he does turn the corner. And when, when Bosa realizes, you know, they blew it, he kind of has his hands out.

Like what the H right. And then you have Trent Williams again, kind of saying like, I told you on the sideline when you and Tim Ryan are up there in the booth, you're, you're great partner, the great T rock. What did you see? Did you guys see it coming?

How did it unfold? Well, I mean, there were several plays. That was obviously a big one, but I think the fact that Kelsey led him out in space there, it was really hard to defend that play either way. It was a perfect, unless you overload the side he's going to. And he made his check to the other side. It was going to be a difficult cause he had a two way option.

If there was pressure right in space, then Kelsey just releases the flat. So it was a really hard play to cover the one that bothered me more was the zone read. They ran right behind it. And I know Nick said, um, he hasn't run that. And even Tony Romo has said, I, we've all seen Patrick Mahomes run.

Are you kidding me? I mean, last year in the super bowl with a bad ankle, he ran past Jayvon Hargrave to get him to field goal range to win. And he did the same thing to us later in the game. And he did it against Cincinnati. He did it against Jacksonville.

He did it on one foot cause he had the high ankle sprain. So he led them in rushing, leading rusher for the Kansas 66 yards was not Pacheco was, it was him. So you know that he's, uh, you know, so those are, you know, but you know, there are elements to, uh, their offense that's really hard to defend. And I think looking back on it, um, I'd like to see the nineties incorporate more combination routes to pop Devo Samuel open, not just try to run linear routes against Trent McDuffie, where he just cannot uncover what Kansas city does. Like the, you know, the, the, the corn dog play that they ran to Tony and sky more and last year's super bullets, ultimately what beat us was that in and out action by, by Nicole Hardeman. And it's hard to cover that, you know, Traverius wards, they didn't throw a Traverius ward the whole day, but when they needed that touchdown, they ran a sprint right option that way. And it's an easy pitch. And Kelsey just runs a little interference. So the bottom line is there are three outstanding coaches and Matt Nagy's there as well, but he got Andy Reed, Steve Spagnolo and, and Dave told, I mean, these are veteran guys that are better. They're all in their sixties.

They've been around forever. You knew going into the game, their personnel is, is fabulous, obviously on both sides of the ball and the scheme would pop. So that one place frustrating, but that was to me a really hard play to cover. They also did some things earlier in the game. They, they had a short yardage situation where the Niners and they typically run a wide nine front, the Niners, but they pinched in, they had Bosa Hargrave Armstead and the other end chase young all in the A and B gap. They had nowhere to go. And so it Kansas city was forced to burn a time out.

They seemed unprepared. I thought they'd run one of their patented jet sweeps off of it or a pitch and get wide cause they loaded up in the A and B gap. So that's one play. I mean, that's a hard play to cover when he's given you a two-way go there, you know, with him rolling out to keep it, or if you step up and get in his face, he's going to get it out to Kelsey somehow.

So what do you do in that play? But there was, there were a lot of plays. The Niners won on defense for Kansas city wasn't ready. And in the ultimate analysis, they, they made the big plays at the end and it's a hell of a tough loss, Andrew. I mean, going back to the Superbowl 54 loss, just brutal. You had them down, you know, 10 points with 713 to play the championship game in LA, not able to convert a second and one or a third and two drop a pick. And last year in Philly, the quarterback gets his elbow ripped off.

And then this one, it gets your heart ripped out. So I've been with the Niners five years now we've lost two Superbowls and 200 feet championship games. So it's hard and it's really, you know, it's easy to go back and look at moments and moments and plays and try and could see it from the sideline, but when you're in the middle of it, you know, they, they just, they got them outflanked on that play. And yeah, Mahomes is also like the ultimate deodorant. If, if the play stinks, he'll make it smell better. That's a John Madden quote. I think winning is the ultimate deodorant. Exactly. And he is the ultimate quarterback to erase all negative things.

And he won again. And now it is vacation time. I hope you, you ski safely. You enjoy some time by the fire with your feet up, pour a cocktail and, and take your mind off this stuff. We appreciate you.

About a week and a half off before I come back to work. And by then we still have a loss to Superbowl. So it's one of those you'd never get over, but at some point the hard part is it's a beautiful day in the Bay area.

We'd be having a parade in downtown San Francisco. As a Browns fan, I'm still replaying the opening drive of the third quarter in which they're in plus territory. And it's a, it's a field goal game. They're going in and, and, but they didn't. So that's why we love sports, right?

It's also why we hate sports. Yes. Greg Papa, you're the best man.

Talk to you soon. Thank you, Andrew. Greg Papa, the voice of the San Francisco 49ers. Okay.

A lot to unpack there. He didn't say no to Belichick. Did he? I didn't hear a no.

I told you Pete Carroll's in this thing. You watch. All right. Coming up next Brockman with the tiger update. Yes. Yes.

He's on the prowl lurking on the rich eyes. Let's talk about door dash people. We are a huge door dash family in my household. As a matter of fact, my wife loves door dash so much.

She almost named one of our kids door and the other one dash I'm serious. We got everything door dash to the house. Kinda like what we saw during the big game, right? Door dash went all out for game day and door dash stuff from all the ads to one lucky winner, cars, snacks, even tax software. What a football game that was for sure. It was one heck of a delivery for the winning team and whatever watch party or anything party you've got coming up, get it delivered to door dash. You're going to love it.

We sure do in my house football season may be over, but we are still in the thick of basketball games, the school year, and let's face it winter. I can think of a million reasons daily to order door dash. So hop on the app and make your day a little easier.

Get dinner for tonight groceries for the week or a consolation prize for your sad friends in San Francisco, all on door dash door, dash your door to more head to the door dash app to get everything you need delivered on the bigger pockets real estate podcast. Co-host David green and Rob Abasolo interview real estate investors and entrepreneurs about successes, failures, and hard earned lessons joined by author Dave Meyer, who wrote a book. I did write a book. It seems like you're coming out with a book every four minutes. You were wanting to talk. You've released two books this year. I've done half as many as you.

It is more about strategy than it is about just finding whatever the new buzzword happens to be bigger pockets, real estate podcast on YouTube or wherever you listen. What was going through your head when David Baker appeared all of a sudden, bill, you know, I had absolutely no idea. And the ironic part of it was that I sat down that morning with my wife, Veronica, you know, I talked about, I said, I don't think I'm going to get in and I'm okay with it. I almost put some closure on it. And, um, that was okay. You know, when I came in, no one really said anything, weren't discussing it. I thought, well, that's pretty professional.

I appreciated them kind of like giving me my space from it all. And, um, I was getting ready to do an eye vision with, uh, with Phil Stens and talking about Lamar Jackson. And then next thing I turn around and I see David Baker and we all know what he stands for. And, um, and it just was a lot of things to try to process at the time. It's kind of why I thought this isn't, this is the way I thought this was going to be. I thought I was going to get a call and say, Hey, you know, you were close, but you didn't get in.

And we'd all find out on Tuesday night or something because it's going to air on Wednesday. And, um, yeah, it was almost surreal. And, um, it's so funny. I sat back and watched Jimmy Johnson and the same thing happened to him on the halftime of the second game on, on, on Sunday at home. And I know exactly what he was feeling.

Matter of fact, I had to put out a tweet night. First thing I thought about is, you know, did Adam Stanley really know that he had two future hall of fans players watching Bobby Buscea and the water park and Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Johnson and I were done there. And I remember Jimmy and I, this is like 1997, 98, whatever it was. And, um, and Adam, actually, I think it's since then retweeted and I said, but we're talking about Boogie.

Who's Bobby Buscea. And he sat, he's saying Zach Taylor. I go, no, he's like Greg Lloyd.

He goes, whatever. And, um, so it was going to be really, really kind of fun to kind of get reunited with Jimmy, uh, over that little one. That's fantastic bill. I mean, that is just great. And we're back on the rich eyes and show here telling you that I'm sitting at the rich eyes and show desk, which is, if you don't know by now, you should it's on you.

It's furnished by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger is the right product for you to call or click ranger.com or just stop by a couple of things in the NFL going on right now. Cliff Kingsbury is on the podium is introductory press conference in Washington says he doesn't want to get into why things fell apart with the Raiders member. He's going to be the Raiders OC. They never got a deal, even though everyone reported it. He says he has respect for Mark Davis and Antonio Pierce said all the right things, but don't want to get into specifics.

There was a report as well over the weekend. Was it our Ian Rappaport don't remember that said Magic Johnson factored in recruiting with Kingsbury Magic, remember minority owner, the commanders away from Vegas and to Washington. He was asked point blank, Hey, um, uh, yeah. Um, what about Magic's involvement? I don't want to comment on that.

Any specific, I don't get into specifics again, guys. So wouldn't go there. Also said just now, it's not real air raid. He says, yeah, it is.

Um, he likes to run past balance. We didn't really see that ever in Arizona. We didn't know. I mean, James Connor was good. Sure.

But wouldn't call it a balance. Yeah, exactly. James Connor had a fantastic 2022. Yeah.

Amazing. He might have had the NFL. He did leave the NFL on touchdowns.

Yeah. From scrimmage tied for that league lead rather, at least. Um, I had to jump back on the air here, so I have not yet heard his answers to the, are you going to go get Caleb Williams question?

Um, but I'm sure he's going to get it also. Um, some of the salary cap, uh, know-it-alls on Twitter are saying that with the way the, uh, the Seahawks have structured, um, they're restructuring rather of Geno's contract, uh, with his bonus due on Friday, there is still a window to trade Geno up until the 17th. Um, that is couple of days into the new league year, the new league year, circle it on your calendar is the 13th, 4 PM Eastern time, one o'clock specific. That is when the ball drops on the new league year. And that is when, and we'll have wall-to-wall coverage beginning on Monday on NFL network. That is when the deals that we will begin telling you about on Monday, the 11th can become officially official at four o'clock Eastern time on Wednesday, March 13. Got it. And that is when trades that will inevitably be done between now and then can become official. Like two years ago, the Russell Wilson trade had happened obviously before March 13th or before the start of the new league year. Anyway, um, Cliff was just asked about Caleb.

He said, great kid, all those, all those good things. Anyway, breaking news from Riviera. Tiger woods in the opening ride of the Genesis Invitational is where on the big board, Chris Brockman. Oh, Andrew fellas, Tiger woods T 17 right now on the green from the fairway at number nine, one under your leaders, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, both teed off just a minute ago on 10. They sit five under through nine, one better than will Zala Taurus.

Okay. So to be clear, Tiger's one under and he's playing the back. No, it just finished, uh, the eighth hole. He is just hit the green on nine fairway. Gotcha. Nice, beautiful approach. It's got about 30 feet for birdie. Okay.

There you go. Tiger day at Riviera back at it. Sun is on a beautiful day.

Crowd is robust. You and I are as of right now, tentatively planning to go tomorrow. Indeed. After this big show, come say hello. If you see us walk in the ground, do we have tickets yet? I do. I don't know about your situation.

I am all set for tomorrow. So then you're not going together. You're attending and he's attempting to attend. I do. You texted me Monday or Tuesday, Tuesday, do we go to rib after the show Friday? Yeah.

You buy it for him. I didn't, I didn't ask you to buy me a ticket or get me to bamboozle me a ticket. We, we did not go together last year, but we did run into each other and hung out a little bit there last year. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I did in last year.

I think I got one tomorrow. I'll figure it out. Andrew, you know, someone calls you and maybe I'll go to game time. If someone asks you something like that, you assume that they would have the hookup for you, right? I don't, I don't, I don't think I had already thought of it.

You did not offer me. We were just like, Hey, should we go tomorrow? Outrageous. Yeah. But if I hit up Andrew, I'm like, Andrew, let's go to the clipper game tomorrow night. I'm thinking Andrew would probably assume.

Oh, TJ must have an extra ticket for him. No, no. Well, it's phrasing. Phrasing matters.

Phrasing matters. It's do you want to go with me? Let me go back here. Let me go back to my text.

That's human beings. That is what we're thinking. If I call you and say you want to come to this with me, I think phrasing matters.

Here it is. So we were texting on Tuesday when, right? When, when, when we determined we were working together here and you just wrote, I'm looking right here, Riviera on Friday, question Mark. Yeah. That's a question. Yeah. That's like, that's a question.

Not any intent to purchase tickets. I wrote back yes to RIV. You, you gave it the heart thing. I did. I heard it. Right. I hearted your affirmation that we're going next up should have been, will you get me tickets? That's what you should have done. I was working on tickets.

I have a buddy there right now working on tickets. I think we're good guys. Tigers got 26 feet for birdie.

Focus. I think we're good. I think we're good. I should also say that the big boss man sitting back there in the control room, he's got it right. Did say, I know he's listening right now. Did say, Hey, Friday after the show, I'll buy you tickets to RIV. Oh, something like that. I don't know exactly how we phrased it. It was something lines up.

I will take you to the Genesis Invitational. You know, we're in a park too. There's a good spot. So you don't have to walk up far.

I don't know what that means, Mike. I mean, you could also park at like Countrymart and walk up Allendale. You can do that. So, you know, you got it. You know where lived on the west side for 15 years. Okay. Well, this is the most LA conversation of all time.

Like where to drive for your parking hack. I mean, this is basically an episode of curb, but not funny. No. Right. Exactly.

Anyway, I digress. Have you seen the new curb season? I have. Yeah. All caught up. All caught up.

Funny so far. It is. It is. Although I will argue this. I, the, the concept of being shamed for not buying something and using the bathroom, that's a little farfetched, but you might get a funny look when you walk out of the bathroom.

I think it depends if, if you're going odd or even, you know what I mean? Oh, it doesn't quick set up. So Larry David is in a store. He's got to go. He says to Leon, I got to go. And he said, well, you got to buy something. It was Leon who was in there. Right with him.

I think, or was it Jeff? Jeff goes across the street. Anyway, long story short, he just goes, when he comes out, the, the guy at the store says, we got to buy something now that ain't going to happen. Like, come on.

Have you, does that actually happen? Now you have to buy something. Maybe, maybe at the, if it's a higher end store, now you have to buy something. Yeah.

If you're not eating in restaurants, they don't let you go to it. Yeah. I understand that, but there's a way around that. There's like, because like, I no longer have shame if I've, if I've, you got to go, you got to go. Right.

Yeah. It just walk confidently. Walk. Don't stop. Don't stop at go. Don't collect $200.

Don't collect $200. Like just go. Like you walk in that front door and you walk confidently into the back of that store, restaurant or bar. Are they going to tackle you? Once I'm in, I'm in that door shut.

I don't care anymore. Walk confidently. Now you do run into trouble.

If it's like say in New York or, or say somewhere on the side of the highway where you got to type in a code, that's different. Okay. Walk confidently. Like half of life is acting confident and walking fast. Yup.

Yup. Just walk confident. Like you want to walk into that club, that party, that bar. Like I've said this before, like watching like, here's my IFB, right?

Like how we do the show in television, right? You put an IFB in and walk confidently. No one's stopping you. Not that I've done that. I don't like carrying an IFB with me. Hey, let's get into the party. Everyone wear one of these. Yeah, you might.

That would be the Del Tufo thing. Andrew, back in Pittsburgh, I once got into a Bone Thugs and Mary J. Blige concert in the civic arena simply because I knew the manager, one of their manager's names that someone told me. And I just walked in through the artist's entrance and acted like I belong there. And I got a prayer line with Drew Hill. That's great. Now, that's funny. DRU, Drew Hill. I was holding hands with Cisco, saying the Lord's Prayer.

It was great. Backing up why anybody would brag about seeing Bone Thugs in harmony is beyond me. Well, are you trying to crap on Bone, bro? I'm sorry, I don't like him. I know they're from Cleveland. I just don't like him. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Not a fan.

Wasn't a shot at you. I'm sorry. Yeah, I just not a fan. You know, there's just kind of mumbling.

I mean, man, it's kind of mumbling. I'm sorry. Not a fan. It just doesn't do it for me.

I mean, as a hometown person, a month hip hop group. I'm surprised. I'm sorry. They talk really fast. Well, yeah, you know.

Yeah. Coming up next, Chris Brockman previews NBA All-Star Weekend. I better hope Lazybone doesn't hear this.

And if he does, see you. Andrew, sitting in for Rich on the appropriately named Rich Eisen Show. America starts the day with America in the morning. Hi, I'm John Trout, your host for the latest news, politics, entertainment, business and weather.

Our staff of correspondents provide a fast paced look at the world with specialized reports from where news happens in New York. I'm Sue Allard. I'm Charles.

So that's my saga. Meghani, Washington. I'm Jennifer King. I'm Clayton. I'm Kevin Carr. I'm R.G. Zaraleta. Concise, accurate and fresh each day.

America in the morning. The podcast available wherever you listen. Hi there. Sorry for the interruption, but are you enjoying the show on Google podcasts? You should know that the Google podcast app is going away this spring.

That's right. Going away. Gone as in no longer available. You can still enjoy the show elsewhere, though. Try out Spotify or Amazon music or maybe tune in is more your style, whatever app you switch to. Be sure to follow so you never miss the next episode. And thanks for listening. Wherever you listen. I got a recruiting story. You want to hear it?

Please think hard boss crazy. So I'm recruiting right for Cal. Is that fire real?

It is definitely not real. So I'm it's a television set. I'm recruiting back in Minnesota and it's like January. All right. And it's snow and it's cold and everything like that.

The HC of Cal. So we're sitting around a home visit, right? Family visit. Yeah. So the kids there, the mom and dad, little sisters are there.

Grandparents are there. And we're just kind of having hot chocolate, right? Yeah.

And so it's kind of, you know, we're talking about go to Cal, you know, great school, the best in the world and all that stuff. Yes. And so when you sit there for several hours, sometimes the conversation is good and sometimes it drags. All right. So, so it started to drag and I was running out of things to say, if you can imagine that.

Yeah. And so there it was snowing out and it was cold and it was cool. It was just awesome being in there, you know? And there was a cat sitting over by the fireplace, right? Like just like this fire, like this fire when it was a real fire, rich. And it was a cat and it was all curled up and it looked so cozy. So awesome.

Yeah. And then conversation was dragging a little bit. I went, wouldn't you just love to be that cat right now?

And, and everybody looked at the cat and just as I, just as everybody looked, it rolled over and started licking himself all over the place. I didn't get that kid. All right. It didn't go well after that. Kind of went downhill. Oh yeah. But that cat just kind of screwed me over a little bit. Wow.

Looked like it was screwing itself over. Cozy for a while. And we're back. A couple of minutes to go here on the Rich Eisen Show. Again, always grateful for this opportunity.

Happy to be here. We are heading into NBA All-Star weekend. It is in Indianapolis, but what a, what a 10 days, what a two weeks really for Indy. They had the NBA All-Star festivities this weekend. And then the entire NFL rolls into town on the 26th, two Mondays from now for the combine, which by the way, you can watch on NFL network throughout the week.

Rich, Daniel, Jeremiah, cast of thousands will be there. Anyway, saw a cool video. Tyrese Halliburton welcoming everyone into town here. Good pacer, social media. Can't put it up here, but it's cool. I will be honest with you. And I'll say this again tomorrow. Chris Brockman is going to be your NBA All-Star guide because I just haven't watched a lot this year, just even less than in years past. Right?

I mean, normally I'm watching, I'm watching that after the NFL season. All right. I'm in this year. It just didn't happen.

So Chris Brockman. Hey, do we have NBA? Do we have John Tesh music? You can't play John Tesh. I can't play.

All right. So the NBA TJ helped me out here. If I miss anything, they're going back to the East first West format. So for the last few years, it's been the captains basically been LeBron and Kevin Durant.

And for the most part, Giannis, I think was a captain one year picking teams. Super fun. Super cool. I was into that idea. Adam Silver said, just kind of mix it back up, get a little more competitive competition, going back to the East first West.

Love it. One of the headlines of the weekend is going to be a Steph Curry against a Sabrina Ionesco three point shootout. That's going to be super fun. I think the regular three-point contest still going down as normal. This is kind of taken over TJ. I think it's the highlight of all-star weekend. The three-point contest. Yeah. The three-point I turned out on Saturday.

I always do. It's still Saturday, right? It's still, it's still all-star Saturday night.

Okay. Dame Willard, Tyrese Halliburton, uh, kind of your headliners, uh, looks like Trey young, Malik Beasley, Jalen Brunson, Carl Anthony towns, Donovan Mitchell, uh, Lori Markenen, uh, also involved dunk contest has definitely fallen by the wayside. Uh, Mac McClung, the G leaguer who came in, you remember him from YouTube growing up?

Uh, he won last year, so he's back to defend the title. He plays for the Osceola magic right now. Uh, Jalen Brown, kind of the biggest superstar to be in the dunk contest, uh, kind of in a long time.

He's involved. Hameha is junior, the rookie and Jacob Toppin from the Knicks. So those are your four dunk contest participants. Who is the favorite?

Do we have a favorite? Ooh, uh, let's see. Good one. Let me, uh, look up the odds real quick. Don't contest odds for the dunk for the dunk contest. Uh, Jacob Toppin is five to one Jalen Brown plus five 25.

No love for, uh, the defending champ, Mac McClung. And for the three point shootout, what do you get? Uh, odds on the three point shootout.

I think it's a bunch of guys. Oh, sorry, Dame Willard is plus four 75. Hal Burton plus five 50. And that's coming up this weekend. And that's coming up this weekend in Indianapolis.

So yesterday it's going to be pretty fun. We had Devin Booker tossed after like five minutes. He had two quick tees, two quick tees for book. Welcome to the ref show. And, um, in a story that Nick said, the next situation that's still pending, uh, if you saw the end of that game the other night, Jalen Brunson got absolutely hosed on a call. What's pending against the rockets. Like there is no relief.

They, am I wrong? They filed a protest officially and I would expect them to win that. But what, but what is the relief? I think they replay the game from that point in time. They pick it right back up. So the Knicks are be up to with a few seconds left. I imagine they have to restart that game and then try to finish it. So the next time these two teams play, they have to finish the game and then they'll start the new one, kind of like a baseball thing. Like you can finish the last two innings of the game.

The next time you're in town, I know odds are slim. There's only been, I think I saw eight ever overturned, uh, or, or successful protest in the history of the NBA. And I think it's in the history of the NBA, but I got to imagine they win this one. That was really bad. When the two minute report came out later that night, they admitted that they blew it and that Brunson didn't touch, uh, was it Dylan Brooks at all? So I got to imagine this is going to be overturned. I will say this, the NBA with their, um, post game reports, they are, they're ahead of everyone with the other leagues when it comes to say, yep, Nope, we screwed up. Shouldn't have been that. Yeah.

Shouldn't have been that. Um, and I, and I think the other sports and that includes the NFL will be better served baseball as well. They undermine their officials kind of all the time with these two minute. And I know the officials don't like it. Transparency is a good thing here, especially when a lot of people think, you know, now that gambling is everywhere, uh, these betting partners that they think a lot of these games are rigged. Look, we have sack ass. We have, we have pitch track and baseball where you can look at it on your phone and 10 seconds later with the MLB app, know that that ball was really outside by three feet and angel Hernandez blew it.

Okay. You can do that immediately, but baseball doesn't come out and say, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. That that should have been ball four.

You should have forced in the winning run. Baseball doesn't do that. I would love to see baseball do that. We'd love to get to a world where football does that as well.

It's not going to happen. Period. And one last thought from the Superbowl. It was really refreshing that the officials were not a story that we weren't coming in on Monday, like last year and talking about how they blew a huge call in the last two minutes. Totally agree. That was really refreshing. Bill Vinovich and crew did a great job. I agree. Yep. We're back tomorrow with the tiger update with the NBA All-Star preview with more detail than the one we just gave you. Chris Brockman, Michael Del Tufo, TJ Jefferson. I'm Andrew. See it.