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Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. This is the Rich Eisen Show. The Elena Falcon Select, Michael Penix Jr. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. What has Raheem Morris told you about Michael Penix's role? The message to me was just, you know, nothing changes for you.
Just go to work and do your job. Earlier on the show, host of the Pat McAfee Show. Pat McAfee. Coming up, Apple TV MLS analyst, Sasha Kleschen. Host of the Dan Levitard Show with Stu Dotts, Dan Levitard. Super Bowl champion quarterback, Drew Litzel. And now, it's Rich Eisen.
That's right. Hour number two of the Rich Eisen Show is on the air. Hour number one, we had a simulcast for the Pat McAfee Show. That was a blast. That was awesome. We had to do that more often. Positive feedback.
We're getting a lot of positive feedback. Very fun. That was cool. I mean, we had fun with it. We definitely did. So that was great.
That was great. He's still on the air. We're still on the air. It went well. Everything's going. Yeah, nothing. Everything's going, right?
Oh, fantastic. We're live on the Roku Sports Channel right now. Dan Levitard will be joining us in about 20 minutes time to discuss that soundbite he elicited from Tua Tungovailoa that is reverberating throughout the National Football League landscape. Drew Bledsoe in hour number three.
But we haven't done this in a while, guys. What's that? It's a Rich on the Pitch segment. Presented by Apple TV, where tonight you can watch the League's Cup semifinals. Look at me in my kit right there. That picture is so good. Oh, my goodness gracious.
I look very good in that, actually. And to discuss the League's Cup semifinals, the Philadelphia Union versus Columbus Crew in Colorado Rapids versus LAFC in downtown Los Angeles. It's always a party whenever LAFC is on the pitch, as they will be tonight. Joining us right now on the Rich Eisen Show, 13-season MLS veteran, two-time All-Star, Sasha Kleschen here on the program. Good to see you, Sasha. How are you, sir? I'm good. I'm good. I'm ready for tonight. Some excellent games on tap. For those who might need a League's Cup refresher, I want you to lay out there for some people what this is about and what we're seeing tonight on Apple TV.
Okay. The League's Cup is a very unique tournament that you don't see anywhere else in the world where two leagues, Major League Soccer and Liga Emeces, which is the highest professional division in Mexico, have come together to play a World Cup-style tournament, so all 47 teams. There's a group stage, then the knockout stage. We are down to the Final Four, which happen to be all MLS teams, which is a tip in the cap of Major League Soccer, because Liga Emeces teams typically, over the last 20 years, have dominated Major League Soccer teams.
And it's a really fun tournament that is very unique, because every game that ends in a tie goes straight to a penalty shootout, so it's been a really exciting, really dramatic tournament. And now we're down to the Final Four. So there's no extra time? No extra time, Rich, because soccer's already too long, I think. Ninety minutes, and I'm a soccer player, and I love the sport, but 90 minutes is too long. And so an extra 30 minutes of overtime, it's boring.
Guys are tired. There's rarely any goals. So straight to penalties, bring in all the drama. It's the most exciting way to end a soccer game. Yeah, because managers like playing it close to the vest, right? When it's extra time, very rarely are you going to take a chance, because you just don't want to get beat that way.
Exactly. At the end of the game, nobody wants to take a risk. It's all about not losing at that point, which takes all the excitement out of the sport anyway. So I really love this new wrinkle that Major League Soccer and Liga Emeces has thrown into this tournament to go straight to penalties. Hopefully, maybe it's something we see in the future in soccer around the world. All right, union versus crew, break it down for me, Sasha.
Break it down. Okay, Columbus defending MLS Cup champions, probably the deepest team in Major League Soccer, so they will be the heavy favorites tonight playing at home. But last seven games against Philadelphia Union, they have not beat Philly.
So this goes back. These are two of the best teams in the East over the past four or five years in Major League Soccer. It's kind of a budding rivalry of two very good teams.
Philly's had a bad season so far in Major League Soccer, but they've kind of had a rejuvenation during the Leagues Cup to make it to the semifinals, a kind of a kickstart run for maybe their last third of the MLS season. But Columbus will be the favorites. They've got the best player on the field, Cucho Hernandez, and they're playing at home.
I expect them to win tonight. All right, and then Rapids versus LAFC just downtown here this evening. Rapids were one of the worst teams in Major League Soccer last season, finished second to last in the League. They hired a new coach. They spent some big money in the offseason to bring in some U.S. national team players back to the Colorado Rapids, and they've done very well. They've kind of been a Cinderella team in a way by beating four Mexican teams in a row in this tournament to get to this point. However, LAFC is probably the best team in the Western Conference. The last three times they've played Colorado at home, they've beat them by a combined score of 10 to nothing. So LAFC will be the heavy favorites tonight. Okay, fantastic.
And that's all going to be on Apple TV. So is there a way to read into the fact – has the United States surpassed Mexico in terms of these leagues now that we're seeing a Final Four that's all MLS, or we shouldn't spike the football on that front right here? I don't think we're ready to say that we're the superior league just yet because you have to remember that all these games are played in the United States, so we have home field advantage. The tournament would probably be more even if we had more games played in Mexico as well. Typically, the top four or five teams in Mexico, they spend more money than us.
They don't have a salary cap, so they're able to add higher quality players throughout the entire roster than we are in Major League Soccer, but the competition is getting closer and closer, and it's getting close to even in my opinion. All right, and the last couple minutes I have with you here, Sasha, you just missed Zlatan, right, when you went to LA Galaxy? He left, you arrived, is that what happened?
He left and I arrived, yeah, but we had a pretty big battle on the field in Paris a few years before that. Do tell, please, do tell. Okay, this is my Zlatan story. So my best friend that I played with at Anderlecht was Swedish, and he had told me that he had played with Zlatan on the national team and knew that Zlatan was very self-conscious of the size of his nose. So we got into a little very ugly and that I should shave it, and I said, you're talking about my mustache with a nose that big, and he blew a gasket and wanted to get in my face even more.
It was hilarious. Then we played against each other in Major League Soccer many years later, and he remembered the incident, and he scored a hat trick against my team to beat us 4-3, so no fun playing against Zlatan. Did he say anything to you after he hat tricked? He didn't say anything to me personally, but my brother has worked for the L.A. Galaxy in the front office for the past 13 years, and he let him know that he remembered the incident and he got his payback. But did he draw yellow when he went nuts on you, though, or did you get him to draw red?
No, no, no, no. We were face to face, and then, you know, it's a soccer fight. No one's going to throw a punch.
They call it handbags. It's just a little bit of talk and trash, and that was it. All right, fantastic. All right, before I let you go here, Sasha Kleschen here and Rich on the Pitch presented by Apple TV right here on the Roku channel. So tell me your thoughts on Mauricio Pocatino and how he might be the guy, it looks like he's going to be the guy, the former or recently former, well, there's lots of former Chelsea managers, but he might be the new steward for the U.S. men's national team.
What do you think of that move, Sasha? Yeah, it looks like Mauricio Pocatino will be the new U.S. men's national team coach, and I'm very excited about it personally because I feel like the U.S. men's national team players lost a little bit of the honor that it meant to play for the national team. They got a little bit too comfortable under Greg Berhalter. So now you've got a coach who was a big time international player for Argentina and has been a big time coach for Chelsea, for PSG, for Tottenham in the Premier League. He's managed some of the best players in the world, right?
Neymar, Mbappe, Messi, Harry Kane, all these guys. So now he comes in and he's going to command a lot of respect from the locker room of the U.S. men's national team, and also I think he's going to instill a little bit of fear in these players, which I think is needed. So I'm really excited about this hire, and I hope he really leads us into 2026 World Cup in a really good way. All right, Sasha, thanks for the time. Really appreciate you joining us and getting us straight on what we're going to see in the League's Cup. League's Cup semifinals tonight on Apple TV and that fun Zlatan story, brother. Anytime. Thanks, guys.
Thanks again. That's Sasha Kleschen right here, rich on the pitch, presented by Apple TV. Catch the League's Cup semifinals and finals with exclusive content available only with MLS season pass on Apple TV, the home of everything League's Cup.
Right here on the show. I like to know extra time. Having done a ton of soccer this summer? Great rule. Great rule. We'll get you in your convertible so you could take your toothy selfies faster.
Get back home, T.J. Zlatan. I mean, why don't you take your toothy selfies? Why couldn't you? They are toothy, though.
What do you mean? I paid for these teeth. We're all proud of these teeth.
That's true. I paid for these. We're on the radio. This is I have to be descriptive. Yeah, well done. I paid for these teeth.
By the way, just in time for the fantasy season, Del Tufo's toothy selfies. Might be one last entry for us to teach you. I mean, some of these, we really need to decide. Well, don't worry. This morning you came up with it. I mean, I've got about 50 on here. So in advance of Dan LeBertard joining this program, he got to a sat down, and the two was sound bite.
I mean, when you ask the right question and you get the million dollar answer like that, I said it was a million dollar question, you got a billion dollar answer, right? Of two are basically talking about the difference between Brian Flores and Mike McDaniel. And he said basically that Flores, to paraphrase here, made his life miserable. Called him a terrible person. He said, what happens when a terrible person is telling you you're awful at this, you're crappy at this, or whatever, and somebody else comes in and says you're special?
That's a big difference maker. So Brian Flores is now the DC in Minnesota. I don't know how many press conferences he holds, right? Coordinators don't hold a lot of press conferences, but maybe this is something that was scheduled or not. But you bet he addressed this. This is what he had to say on Tuesday about Tua's comments. Specific to the comments that were made by Tua, I just want to say, look, I'm happy, genuinely happy, genuinely happy for the success that Tua's had.
And I really wish him nothing but the best. And I think player relationships are very important to me. I think that's kind of the foundation of coaching. I got into coaching because I was impacted as a young guy by my high school coaching, my college coaching, my going all the way to Pop Warner. I got into coaching because I want to make that same kind of impact, positive impact, pour into young people, help them become, as K.O. says all the time, the best versions of themselves.
And that's really my goal always in coaching. So that was his opening soliloquy. Then the follow-up question from a member of the media about how did the terrible person comment hit you? The words you used were terrible person. I'm just curious how that hit you. Look, I'm human. So that hit me in a way that I wouldn't say was positive for me. But at the same time, I've got to use that and say, hey, how can I grow from that? How can I be better?
And that's really where I'm at from that standpoint. Do I feel like that's me? No. But how can I grow from that situation and create a world where that's not the case, that anyone says that about Brian Flores? So, you know, by the way, there would have been the first soundbiter saying, am I a terrible person? Absolutely. That would have been a first. Listen, just and we'll ask Dan this when he joins us after the break we're about to take. You know, did Flores not want to at all?
I mean, it kind of always felt that way, right? Maybe he wanted Herbert. He was shuffling in Ryan Fitzpatrick, too, during those years also.
I don't know. Because and again, this is why if I'm an owner in the NFL and I say this with the ultimate due respect to folks like, you know, Mike McDonald, who, you know, I'm very fond of from his one year in Michigan up there in Seattle or, for instance, you know, D'Amico Ryans. And also, you know, Robert Sala, just to name three. Jonathan Gannon, defensive. If I am an owner in the NFL, my head coach is going to be connected to the quarterback. Period. End of story. That's it. I don't know how many quarterbacks Brian Flores has ever had to manage in his career. In his entire time, how many has he ever had to manage and you then have to manage personalities as well.
So it's that simple. And again, I know I'm just all making it a cookie cutter situation. Things are different.
People's personalities are different. Coaching styles are different. Flores comes from the Belichick tree. I told that story about Mac Jones telling me last year in a production meeting before he had truly the start that I think ripped up their entire relationship in New England.
That was the last straw, that performance against the Colts. He was talking about how Tua told him about his relationship with Mike McDaniel. And he's just like, would I want to have a coach sit down next to me and throw his arm around me and go to dinner together? Of course I would. Flores comes from that coaching tree where they don't do that.
Tua needed it. I'm telling you, man, if I'm owning a team in the NFL, I'm finding a quarterback-minded coach and say, you're my guy. And if I already have the kid, I'm like, tell me how you're going to work with him. Or if you're about to draft a kid, saying, let's talk about who we're drafting.
And I say that about even with Raheem Morris, who everyone loves too. We'll see how Harbaugh does with our neighbor Cross Street Herbert. Let's take a break. Dan Lebatard will be joining us next. That outstanding interview discussed with the man who elicited the soundbite.
Next, on The Rich Eisen Show. Let's talk DoorDash, people. If your family's like mine, it probably is. You want something to eat, your kids want something else to eat. How do you handle it all? How do you make sure everybody's happy? DoorDash.
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The show is brought to you by FX, stream on Hulu. Like, what were you thinking, you know? So after you won the game, and you're picking confetti out of your hair, he still took a moment, in that moment, to revisit that sack. Yeah, being who he is, I mean, you know, he pulled me to the side, he said, you know, why did you take the sack?
Right. You know, and I thought it was a good time to joke with him, you know? I mean, we won the national championship, so I told him, I told him, well, you know, we needed more room to throw the ball, coach. You know, and, like, he looked at me, and, like, I was laughing, and he's like, that's not funny. So, I mean, I didn't know what else to do in that situation. I was like, okay, I'm sorry, coach.
So I shook his hand, and he just moved on. I was like, oh, man. That's amazing. I love that story.
That man made my favorite story the whole week. So you just figured, yeah, hey. I was like, oh, maybe. We just won it? Yeah. Thought it was a good time to joke, but it wasn't.
Yeah, nope, it's never a good time, I guess, in that respect. It's two at the Super Bowl in Miami, where we all know he toils. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show radio network on the Roku channel as well.
Let's bring him in. He is one of the best in the business and has been for some time, and he is the host of the highly popular Dan Le Batard show. He is Dan Le Batard. Good to see you, Dan. How are you, sir? Rich, good seeing you. Always good seeing you. Thank you for having me on your program. It is a pleasure to have you, sir.
We've had quite the day already so far, and you now just help raise the roof a little bit. So let me just jump into it here, because Tua doesn't do this very much. He doesn't sit down. He doesn't sit down.
He doesn't do one-on-ones. So walk me through the process and him sitting down with you and getting him comfortable. You must have known him, obviously, for some time, but I'll just throw that out to you. Yeah, the first time I talked to him, we did a corporate event together, and that was like taking a tire iron to his mouth and trying to get an hour's worth of content out of him. Because he was just out of college, and he was guarded, and he was a kid, and he wasn't an adult the way that he is now with job security, with children. And so from the moment that he sat down, it's a Tua I hadn't heard before. I've talked to him a couple of times, but he wasn't guarded at all. He wasn't careful. In fact, seeing him in that clip with you, that's as relaxed as I'd seen him, and that was still a kid, right?
You were still talking to somebody who was a little more fresh-faced than the guy that we got a hold of, but you can imagine, Rich, right? Two years in the league, feeling like your coach isn't backing you when you have a bad offensive line, you've got no separation from your receivers, you're going to grow up fast. He is, and this is hard for me to say, Rich, I can't believe I'm saying it, as polarizing an athlete as I've seen outside of LeBron James in South Florida. And my history here, 35 years, and it's super bizarre because he's decent. He's not controversial, but the whole sport has changed so much, the people analyzing the measurements on what people are worth are changing. And so it's just been fascinating to see him become a polarizing figure when, you know this, he's not a polarizing figure.
No, not at all. I mean, he's actually a delight to talk to, and he's a good people, he's a good human. But, you know, our sports world, narratives get formed and they're tough to shake, and him coming into the league injured, basically, right? Or he was healthy, clearly, when he was drafted, but coming off of the end of a college career injured, and Joe Burrow basically leapfrogging him. And then Justin Herbert being drafted behind him, and he's the one that gets benched for Ryan Fitzpatrick by his coach. You know this, when McDaniel came in, the general sense was, oh, he's going to boot him, he's not going to try to win with him.
And it was exactly the opposite. And now we see a tour that is piz-aid, and maybe that's the guy that showed up. He's like, he's now got the ultimate respect of being completely paid.
And I think maybe that's why you saw that tour sitting on your couch, Dan. It can be all of it, right? Sure, job security, financial security, that is the ultimate guaranteed belief. You see the difference, Rich, between and how quickly these things can happen in that sport, particularly when the power goes from Brian Flores when he had it, how he behaved, to what it becomes when Tua's got the power, and how Brian Flores has to react to it.
That's a pretty seismic shift, right? I think that what we have seen this offseason, Rich, I mean, it can't be talked about enough. The best coach any of us have ever known is unemployed.
He had to do multiple interviews with the Atlanta Falcons because whatever it is he was doing is not something that's wanted at present in this league. He's got a whole lot of disciples who have tried to do it his way. Not one of them has succeeded. Not Bill O'Brien, not Charlie Weiss, not any of them. There's a whole bunch of people who have fallen from the Belichick tree and all that fruit is rotted on the ground.
So there's no daddy protector anymore on your style is the style that works. There's a new generation of player. He's younger, and when you pay that player, that player has real power. And you just saw what happened to Brian Flores when he crumbled under it, humbled, because he's trying to stay around on the fringes of the league. And Tua's got a guaranteed spot for a while. Yeah, and the one coach I think you would say, and he didn't perform well when he was there in Miami as a head coach in the NFL, who is as successful as Belichick from his tree, is Nick Saban who coached Tua. So you can't sit here and say Tua can't take hard coaching, you know what I mean? It's not like he would be a wallflower being coached by Nick Saban. So the question is, did Flores never want him?
Is that basically it? He behaved like a coach that didn't want him, and then you can imagine, Rich, right? Like this one's funny. Let's think about what Brian Flores' reference point was for quarterback play.
Let's think about, I mean, what's he comparing it to? He's got his first job, and he's coming out of, okay, I've had Tom Brady running the Patriots for 20 years. That's what it's supposed to look like, right? It's supposed to look like Tom Brady looks. Well, this doesn't look like Tom Brady looks, so I understand why the pressure would make it so that Flores would think as a defensive coach, well, I'm doing everything I can. Look, that was a team that was said to be tanking, Rich.
That team overachieved. Brian Flores might be the greatest success on the Belichick tree that isn't Nick Saban, right? Like Brian Flores had, you know, he overachieved with what it is that he had, but I found most interesting the reaction around Tua, which seems unreasonable and insane to me at all times. People calling him soft when, look at what he does for a living, and he, you know, had to have conversations with family and doctors over whether to continue playing that violent sport that caused him a brain injury that made us all recoil because it looked like he was having a seizure on the field the way that his hands were frozen in front of him. So people are calling him soft as if this is participation trophy culture, and we can politicize anything in the divisions of today, so people are now fighting about all the things around Tua. When I have found, Rich, and I'm sure this is your experience, too, athletes are better at handling criticisms than media members are, or human beings are, because they come from coaching, and they're always trying to learn and improve, and you can imagine, Rich, if we sat you down after your show or sat me down after our show, and then everyone picked apart all the things we did wrong in film study in front of everybody else. Like, they're used to criticism. This is not a soft human being. He would not be at the top of the survival of the fittest sport if he were a weak human being in any way.
Dan Labotard here on the Rich Eisen Show. So maybe we're going to see just a different Tua on the confidence level, right? Like, he's now freely sharing this stuff. You mentioned how he's got the power, and he's got certainly the horsepower surrounding him and a coach who adores him and knows how to scheme the horsepower around him.
I mean, I don't know. Everybody thinks the sky's the limit at this time of year in the NFL, but what's your two cents on him this year being paid for the Dolphins, Dan? Well, one of the many interesting things here, Rich, and I would defer to your expertise, right, because I can't untangle in San Francisco Brock Purdy's greatness and his value from Deebo Samuel and Uke and Trent Williams and McCaffrey and Kittle and all of the overwhelming talent that surrounds him. But Tua has kind of, to me, brought Purdy on steroids, and I would say to you that the Dolphins' best window to win was when they had Tua in value.
Now, they're paying him more than Mahomes, and they still have to go through Mahomes, and Mahomes is cheaper and has lost the weapon that Tua needs in order to make him as confident as he is. But I would say to you that wherever it is that confidence resides inside of sports or in human beings, it is successes stacked atop each other. And I would assume that this man's confidence is real, having a coach who backs him, a system that clearly supports him, he gets the ball out very quickly so he gets to play a Brady style.
He's not as good when he doesn't get rid of it in two and a half seconds, but he gets to play a style that's less violent than the others. And on top of that, you tell me, Rich, I don't think you could lead the league in passing yards by accident. Like, we could say system, we could say coaching, we could say Tyreek Hill, but I would think that there's a real confidence in knowing, wait, I just did this for a full season healthy. And when I did, I threw for more yards than anybody was throwing for, so my confidence is real?
I can do this? It's not a belief. It's not a hope. There's less doubt. Like, I've done it.
I can do it. If you give me these pieces, I'm going to get better doing this because he's not yet at his prime, is he? Like, he's still learning. He's going to improve. Listen, I'm not a system quarterback guy.
I'm just not. Brady's a system quarterback. You know, Peyton Manning was the only guy who could run his system to the point where, when he went down for the season for Indianapolis with that neck injury, nobody else could operate the system the way that he could operate it. Aaron Rodgers, perfect example, last year, he's the system. He's the guy calling plays neck up and everything else. So when you've got somebody like McDaniel who can bring in a scheme and knows I just need speed, and I know I need smart receivers that know how to get open with their footwork and just to follow along what I'm trying to tell them, and I need just somebody who's really whip smart, who can get the ball out quickly, no doubt he saw two, and he goes, that's the guy.
I can do this here. And the Dolphins were smart enough to say, we'll hire you, even though you've got no head coaching experience, and we don't know what you're going to do when there's three minutes on the clock and you've got to throw that red challenge flag, so on and so forth. It's just, to me, the Dolphins, out of anybody in the NFL, need a home field advantage.
Obviously, nobody wants to go play in sub-20 degree, negative-20 degree weather, but this system needs to operate right there in south Florida and stay there. That's the way I look at it. Everybody stays healthy and doesn't have any non-contact injuries like the defense suffered last year. I do think the Dolphins are a force to be reckoned with, Dan.
I really do. The things that you're saying, injury and Decembers that have been collapses, those are things that happen in football and they make the measurements difficult. I would ask you this question, Rich.
Yes, sir. If I simply put in front of you from the last two seasons, and this is just the way that we're doing this empirically, now that everybody has a fantasy team, everything on hard knocks with the New York Giants is let's study the executives. Everybody's an architecture expert, so it becomes about value for Tua and Purdy. If I gave you just their stats and told you nothing else, if I said, Rich, here are Purdy's stats from last year and here are Tua's stats from last year, is that one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL? Yes or no?
Don't look at the uniforms, the systems, nothing. I'm just giving you numbers. Your answer is what? Yes. And so I don't know what we're doing with our obsession with measurements when we have to disentangle who's responsible for credit and blame on something that's empirically numerical.
Like I don't know what we're doing. We're obsessed with it, but I'm just asking you because nobody, I can't get consensus on whether Tua or Purdy are actually as exceptional as I think they are, but the numbers I can't argue with. It's narratives, Dan.
It's narratives. Purdy was the last pick in the draft for a reason, right? Supposedly. And Tua, like I said, the minute he threw that pass to win the national championship game for Alabama, it was, well, Nick Saban even had to bench Jalen Hurts because this kid was going to go to the transfer portal and he's one of the special kids ever, and Joe Burrow wound up being drafted over him, and Herbert had a much better few first years, and again, Tua can't shake that for so many people. That's all that it is, I think, but when it all comes down to it, the question is, do you have the rest of the system around you and the players around you? And I think both organizations do, and there's a reason why you're mentioning both of these teams also. McDaniel came from Shanahan and they run similar worlds, and again, I guess to bring it all full circle here, Dan, were you surprised that Tua said what he said? I was, because I'm expecting a quarterback at any point in my lifetime doesn't bring or welcome or invite those headlines around the locker room.
The quarterback position, hell, I've seen this for so long down here, Rich. You have to understand, the power struggle at the top of the Dolphin organization, as soon as Jimmy Johnson got here, he wanted to run off Dan Marino. He had a problem doing it. He could not do it, because there was a quarterback coach power struggle. So for Tua to be as careful as he's been his entire career, because he has not been a scintillating interview, what I just saw at the beginning from you, at the beginning from the Super Bowl, is as good as I've heard Tua in other circumstances. He's pretty careful, and that position is also careful.
So we don't have a lot of going after active coaches right before a season. So yeah, I was surprised by all of it, but it wasn't just that, Rich. It was the entire 20 minutes, like this was a confident human being.
This was not a person who was being guarded. I'm telling you that the other times I've talked to Tua, I've always felt like, not necessarily that he's a child, because I don't want to infantilize him, but when you're obsessive compulsive at that position and to be that good at it, you're going to come out of college as sort of a lopsided individual, right? It's hard to be a fully formed adult coming out of college when you've had to get to the top of that, and some of the other things that are adulthood you can put off to the side. I was talking to a very confident adult that was not bluster. Now, you can say it's the contract. You can say it's the numbers he's put up.
You can say it's the growth through the fire of two years of hell when your coach doesn't support you and you think your dreams are going to collapse, because your receivers can't get open and your offensive line stinks. I don't know what it was, but I'm telling you that's somebody I haven't heard before. I have talked to him a number of times.
That relaxed is not something I've seen before. That was awesome, Dan, and I appreciate you joining us. Before I let you go, let's get to the most important question. Is Stu Gott still accusing me of stealing his dumb ideas, Dan? Well, he'd be curious to hear that you introduced me as the host of the Dan Levitard show. Yeah, with Stu Gott.
Dan Levitard show with Stu Gott. I did that purposely. You knew what you were doing. Dan, that's purposeful. That was on purpose. See, you cut him, you cut him, and then you object.
You're passive aggressive about, why would he be mad at me? I didn't say that. No, no.
By the way, this is not a process question. This is a yes or no. Is he still accusing me of stealing dumb ideas that I would never know was coming out of his mouth in the first place, Dan? Is that happening or no? He hasn't done it in a while.
No, he has not done it in a while. But I think he's afraid of you because you lashed out. And he's just afraid of your razor, your talons, your talons.
No, I'm a nice guy. I wouldn't do that to him. So, all right. Good to know. Tell him I said hi. I will pass it along. All right.
That's Dan Levitard, the host of the Dan Levitard show with Stu Gott. Very good. Hurt you.
Hurt you to do it. Just a little piece of me, Todd. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Take care of yourself, sir. There he goes. There's Dan Levitard.
Heading off. Too good. That would assume Stu Gott showed up to work. He doesn't show up?
Is he like me? I mean, a lot of controversy on that show. Lots going on. Oh, okay. Lots going on. Okay. Long time listening to first time callers. Yeah.
Good times. I know sometimes fans will be like, well, media types are trying to make bigger things out of what I believe it to be just because they're trying to enhance the conversation around their work. Sure. But Dan Levitard is not off by saying Tua doesn't talk that way. He never has talked that way.
He doesn't do one-on-one interviews very often. And he, when asked the direct question about talk about Brian Flores and the difference between him and Mike McDaniel and the answer that he gave is I believe a concrete example of how different things will be for him. That he has a confidence level now. He's been paid. And truly, this is 100% a respect measurement. This is a measurement of respect in a salary cap driven world.
How will you parcel up your salary cap for me? And in the salary cap world, there are certain payments given to quarterbacks and the Dolphins bestowed upon Tua Tungovailoa the highest respect. And the guy who was drafted over, remember that LSU Alabama game? It was like, who's going to be drafted first overall in the NFL when it was borough versus Tua. And borough gets drafted first overall. Tua is like, well, you're going to run the risk of taking that guy after that hip surgery.
How's he really going to do? And then the Dolphins draft him over Herbert. And you're hearing, you know, our friend Mike Lombardi called him just a guy, right?
Because you just take a look at him and you see his stature. You want somebody like Herbert who's going to stand in the pocket, take the hits and be that stand up quarterback guy. And now here's Tua hearing all this stuff. And he had his coach saying what he was saying to him and Ryan Fitzpatrick is taking over for him.
And he's wondering what the hell's going on. And then Mike McDaniel comes in and he says, you are special and I'm going to show how special you are to you. And guess what we're going to do? We're going to get Tyreek Hill. We got Jalen Waddle. Let's go to work. And we're going to keep drafting these kids out of the running back position who are faster than fast to use the Lightning McQueen phrase.
I am speed. And now he has overcome, at least for one year, the concussion conversation. And he has now been paid. And he's just like, forget the salty Tua because, you know, honestly, the whole conversation about salty Tua is like a wink and a nod. He's a guy who's just never will say anything to ruffle a feather and he's not trying to stir it up. And it would pop out. It would just come out of nowhere like this sweet sort of, you know, cartoon character.
I say that with the highest of respect, by the way, he's just a sweetheart. And he would just like, you know, all of a sudden, I don't know about you, it looks like money. Because everyone who was giving him crap about his wobbly passes in in in practice to Tyreek Hill.
Dolphins tweeted out the video. You know, and it's just like, hey, look at this, you know, Tua to Tyreek with the googly eyes. And then the ball would be like, I don't know about you, but that looked like money after he threw a pass that looked really good. And it's just like, so he's hearing it. He's seeing it.
And even then it would be like, all right, Tua, like we were having fun. Here's salty too. And I kept on saying, own it, own it, Tua, we need more salt in your diet. And now here he is saying, you know, that sound bite one more time, if you don't mind just queuing it up just one more time. But he told Dan LeBertardt, here he is saying the honest truth about how he felt and it landed in the lap of Brian Flores. And and he had to account head coach in the NFL to account of like being called a terrible person is what he said. This is something else. And that's why I'm saying like, could this possibly be a different guy because he has been paid. Can you explain to us the difference in practical terms between having a coach who did believe in you the way that he did and the difference between that and what was happening with Flores?
Yeah. To put it in simplest terms, if you woke up every morning and I told you, you suck at what you did, that you don't belong, doing what you do, that you shouldn't be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven't earned this right, and then you have somebody else come in and tell you, dude, you are the best fit for this. Like you are accurate, you are the best whatever, you are this, you are that, like, how would it make you feel listening to one or the other? You see what I'm saying? And then you hear it, you hear it, regardless of what it is, the good or the bad, and you hear it more and more, you start to actually believe that.
I don't care who you are, you can be the president of the United States, you have a terrible person that's telling you things that you don't want to hear or that that you probably shouldn't be hearing, you're going to start to believe that about yourself. So the salt is out of his diet, it seems to me, in the fact that that looks like for the first time from what I'm seeing, and this is not a way that I think he talks, but I'll say it, this is a tua that is out of F's to give, and I can't wait to see that every week. Will it translate on the field is a great season long storyline arc for the Miami Dolphins this year. Let's take a break right here on the Rich Eisen Show.
We're back with more of your phone calls, Drew Bledsoe, top of hour number three. Are you struggling to close deals? Business to business selling is tougher than ever, and that's why I want to tell you about LinkedIn Sales Navigator. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales intelligence platform that helps professionals effectively prospect and engage high value customers, drive higher revenue, and increase sales performance.
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Just go to LinkedIn.com slash direct and get started. Let's talk O'Reilly Auto Parts, people. You love their jingle. You're going to love their friendly, helpful service even better because they're in the business of keeping your car on the road. And the parts knowledge they have, it's all you need for your maintenance and repairs.
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That's OReillyAuto.com slash E-I-S-E-N, O-O-O-Reilly Auto Parts. You said how Aaron Paul, you were thinking of killing off his character by the end of season one. The original idea was, you know, you always got to come up with a great season ender. You want a cliffhanger of an episode to keep folks watching next year. And my thought early on before I even met Aaron, before we cast Aaron, was to have this young guy, a former student of Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, give Walt his entree into the business, sort of show him the ropes of criminality.
And then at the end of that first season, that character, Jesse Pinkman, would get horribly killed in some very cinematic, graphic way that I never quite nailed down, but he would be murdered by some rival drug dealers and Walt would feel very guilty and then he would seek revenge and that would propel us into season two. Then I meet Aaron Paul and I cast this young guy and he's fantastic in the role and he's such a sweet guy to boot. He's just a wonderful guy that I think we're probably shooting the second episode. And I was hanging out on the set with him, you know, sitting in those chairs near the monitors and I just make a conversation, I say, you know, I was going to kill you off.
That was the original plan. He goes, what? He gets all really nervous. He goes, what are you talking about? No, this is a good thing.
It's a good thing. And I tell him the story I just told you, but he's not hearing the compliment contained within. He's like, Oh my God, I might get killed off. And I told this story to Brian Cranston.
I think he wandered by as he's hearing the tail end of this. And he, he was relentless for the next six years. He'd get, every time he got a script for a new episode before Aaron did, he'd look through it and he'd read it. And then he'd go up to Aaron and he'd say, buddy, he started massaging his shoulders. It was this next one.
It's at least you're going to go out with a bang. That was our first day coming up on a 10 year anniversary. That was our first in-studio guest Vince Gilligan. Back on the Rich Eisen show radio network and our Roku channel sports, Roku sports channel feed.
844-204-RICH is the number to dial here on the program. Make sure that you get the mobile app game time on your phone and start buying tickets to anything in your area. Concerts. DJ Mikey D, how important is the view in your seat of the stage at a concert hall?
I've used it. It's, it's, you have to do it. I mean, you have to do it. I do a lot of concerts.
You know, I go to a lot of concerts. That's why I'm asking you. I'm not asking TJ, he doesn't leave his house.
I mean, here you go, you know, but it's amazing. We already know the view from the seat for, for him, he doesn't need the TV. Yeah.
Are we forgetting that I'd left the house? That's true. At any rate, the point is this, the point is this is we all use the game time app and you should as well. Takes the guesswork completely out of buying this person's concert tickets with game time. Download the game time app, create an account, use our code rich for $20 off your first purchase. Again, you get to view from your seat so you could see exactly where the stage is before you buy your concert ticket.
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Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's make it up to TJ because I do believe Jory in San Antonio, Texas wants to talk about Dallas Cowboys. What's up, sir? Hey, how's it going, Rich? Can you hear me good? We can hear you just fine. What's on your mind? I was, I'm hoping it's not too late.
I'd love to do the win-loss game for the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, okay. Before, like where, where are you right now, Jory? I am currently down in San Antonio. I'm working though, so I'm actually closer towards Laredo.
Oh, okay. But where do you, what are you working in? Are you driving around working?
Yeah, I'm a truck driver. Oh, fantastic. We, but, but my hands-free device, I was about to say, I'm about to say hands on 10 and two when you play the win-loss game because we don't want any problems. All right. Let's get Jack with you. Very good. Here we go. The long arm of the Jones law right there.
All right. Jory in San Antonio, Texas, he's riding his truck. He's on the job and he's trying to drive the Dallas Cowboys to the super bowl. I'm assuming. What happens when the Dallas Cowboys visit Cleveland in a couple of Sundays?
Well, I'm going on a limb say CD will be there, but I think it's going to be a slow start. I'm going to give them a lock on that one. All right. Home for the saints. Oh, that's a win.
All right. Now you got the Ravens coming into Dallas. Oh, that's a loss right there. That's a one and two start. It's a little bit of panic, but hey, good news is you got a game coming up just on that following Thursday at the giants.
What happens? Oh, that's our little brother right there. That's on the mat.
Baby. The disrespect is two and two at the Steelers. Oh, that's going to be a good game.
I'm going to go with the sneaky win right there, but I think it was going to be a really sneaky, good thing. Three and two home for the lions. That's home. I think the lions are going to get screwed over again somehow. So I'm going to win for that.
All right. Four and two off the buy at San Francisco. It's all on this game, Jory. I'm going that we get over the hump this year. I say we're going to be in San Francisco if they beat San Francisco and have a four game win streak and they're sitting there at five and two going into Atlanta.
They're right here for me. What happens at Atlanta, Atlanta? We we own Kirk cousins as well. That's a win. Oh, it's five and two home for the Eagles. On for the Eagles.
Oh, they can have our sloppy second to tell them more. Well, that's a win for us, by the way. I've missed count. That was five straight wins to go six and two. That's now six straight wins. You're seven and two home for the Texans on a Monday night. The Battle of Texas, the Texans are still a little brother as well. That's a win.
Seven wins in a row at the Washington commanders. I will take that. I don't think that's a loss right there.
I think it's actually going to be a good team as well for a wrinkle in time right there. OK, then home for the Giants on Thanksgiving. I mean, that's that's a win. That's nine and three on the Bengals on a Monday night. I think that's going to be real good game. Joey being better later in the season when he's healthy, that Joey takes that, OK, so at Carolina now, oh, that's a win, 10 and one, two, three, four, 10 and four home for the Bucks. That's another one, 11 and four at the Eagles. I wish we could go this year. I don't see it. We lost too many good guys.
I think Kellen Moore is desperate at this point and he has to take my place in it for them. 20 and then you finish up against the commanders. Oh, that's a win. Wow. Wow.
So that's a 13 and four season. Oh, yeah. I like your style, Jory. Thank you, Jory. Keep on driving straight. There you go. I like your style. By the way, do not pass Jory on the right hand side when he's playing the win loss game right now.
Open up and truck him. That's first place NFC East right there. That's first place NFC. You might be right. Yeah.
I like Jory's style. Drew Bledsoe's coming up on the program. 13 and four. What are the other Cowboys? I have Jake and Phoenix had him nine and eight.
Okay. Yeah, he's on that. TJ had them 11 and six. I'm TJ.
That's so realistic. Jimmy in LA had him 12 and five. Oh, Jimmy in San Antonio. Our Jimmy. Our Jimmy.
All right. I need to... Jacob in Fontana had him 10 and seven. And Chris Redd as Stephen A. Smith had him two and 16 because they won the bye. Who was their one win?
Other than the bye. I didn't. I realized where he was going with it and I stopped recording the L's.
He only really made it through like five games. Yeah, I know. Oh, yeah. TJ, yours is the most realistic. Because I'm a realistic person.
And if anyone gives him crap for that... Oh, they will. I know when you leave. That's normal.
I'm gonna. You know. I saw Chris Redd in New York.
He was at the Stand Comedy Club where I was hanging out with Jeffrey Ross the night before our Fanatics Fest. Oh, cool. Yeah. Did you grab a mic?
By the way, another reason why I probably ran a touch slow against Schefter is I made the steak of wine at dinner and a little bit of vodka. Oh, just a little bit? Welcome to my world, Rich.
Yeah, not much. At the Stand with Jeffrey Ross. Welcome to my world. Welcome to my life.
The Roastmaster General watched him on stage and Chris Redd went on after him. Fantastic. Speaking my language. No.
Vodka. Is that right? What I'm doing? Oh, that's your mic.
That's why you're smiling in your selfies is you know you're going home to survive. He's got it under his desk. The toothy selfie of Mike Del Tufo takes us to break. The Rolling Stone Music Now podcast gets inside the biggest stories with Rolling Stone's senior writer Brian Hyatt, movie director James Mangold. I don't want to turn Bob Dylan into a simple character with a simple thing to unlock that then makes you go, ah, now I get him. First time I sat down with him, he said, what's this movie about, Jim? It's about a guy who's joking to death in Minnesota and reinvents himself in a brand new place, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to joke to death again and runs away and you smile. He's like, I like that. Rolling Stone Music Now, wherever you listen.
