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Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Host of the Business of Sports Podcast, Andrew Brandt. Senior Writer for The Athletic, Andy McCullough. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero.
Welcome to another Rich Eisen-less show. I am Tom Pelissero. Thrilled to be back once again in the studio with my fellas.
What's happening? Chris Brockman. Tommy Pease. Jason Feller sitting in for Mike Del Tufo, who's at his 80th high school reunion. Jefferson?
Idiot. In the house as well. I walked in here today like Pete Alonso on his way to first base. Have you seen, granted, there's a lot of unique statistics about that home run, right?
The statistic I would want to see would be, was that the highest ratio of immediate celebration to distance clearing the fence in playoff home run history? Because he swings. He knew it was gone. He knows it's gone. But he's just going, ah!
And then you look at it and I'm going, that thing's going to die at the track. It's a line drive. That had all the makings of the shot where it's a three-pointer and the guy shoots it and then turns to the crowd like this.
Nick Young. Swagging P, baby. Right! That's what I was sitting there thinking. The more replays I saw, the one trained on the outfield fence, you're going, I don't know how much that's clearing it by.
It's great. I mean, I don't know how many people are walking. 50,000 probably last night. The pitcher, Devin Williams, like all the eight other Brewers on the field, they didn't know it was gone. They assumed that he was going to be caught at the wall. And the polar bear is just like, I got this, baby. Walk off almost. Chef's kiss. We're going around the bases. It's a thing of beauty. The best part, to me. Playoff baseball, man. Playoff baseball.
The best part about that, to me, was the fact that Pete Alonso managed to time it exactly at halftime. Yes. Of the Falcons munchkin. It was perfect. I'm sitting at the hotel. Perfect.
Eating in the, let's say that the current amount of light outside by the time my food ride was the same color as the meat I was eating. But it was saved by the fact that I've got the game on prime video right in front of me there. I flip over and immediately see the first pitch I see is Pete Alonso going yard for one of the most thrilling, unique final at bats or final walk off home runs in baseball. Unbelievable. You mentioned it was, halftime was perfectly timed.
The chicken nuggets I made had just gotten out of the air fryer for Cage. It was just, everything about it was simpatico and then Cage immediately started running around the living room doing the chef kiss. Shouldn't call it a walk off. Not a walk off. Obviously the Brewers had a chance to tie. Was this at the first, ninth inning, go ahead home run in a winner take all playoff game?
Of all time. Which of course TJ found out about 20 minutes ago that there, until recently, there were no other playoff games. It was just the World Series until like the 60s. I completely forgot about it.
It gradually, gradually increased. I'd forgotten. TJ, we know your reaction when the Mets were playing the Braves on Monday. We were all here. What was, you're a Mets fan.
You've seen all the pain and agony. What was going through your mind? You know how you guys are always asking me like during Cowboy games, were you nervous? Are you nervous? And I'm always honest. I'm like, no, I wasn't nervous. And Rich was like, yeah, right.
I'm being honest with you. I wasn't nervous, but last night. There was a, it's hard to describe the kind of feeling I had watching this game. It was like, you know, when you ever been in that situation when everything is just in chaos, but you somehow have a calming. Like, so you felt like something good was going to happen. Shut out for eight and a third innings or whatever it was.
And you still feel good. You know, the other day I said that somebody needed to channel 2015 Daniel Murphy. And I knew that person would be Francisco Lidore, you know, and I still have my my World Series ticket from 2015.
That's a lot of the sport. So show that ticket again. They really make sure you don't lose that one, huh?
Yeah. Well, I'm going to keep the front page printing. Who knows when we're going to make it back? Who knows when we're going to make it back?
But, you know, I, I'm not going to lie to you guys. To quote Drew McIntyre, I prayed for that. And it happened yesterday because I'm a Brockman knows he probably knows better than anyone. How much I love Peter Lonzo.
I love Peter Lonzo. So as that at bat comes in, he announces like this could be his last at bat for the Mets. I seriously was feeling a little something, man, because that's how baseball does you.
Right. It kind of catches you in your feelings, even though you I didn't expect to have those feelings. So as he's at that bat, I'm really praying to the baseball gods. I'm like, please just let him put the ball in play. And then when he hit that home run, I'm sure my whole building was like, what is going on down there?
Because I let it out. You guys were terrible. They had two hits up until that point. And both of them were by Lindor. He was the only one who could do anything last night. And he did. My prophecy was fulfilled.
I said, I need someone to turn into Murphy some doors. So, hey, man, we got it done. I'm shocked. I'm in shock right now, to be honest with you. And all of Mets nation, I think, are in shock.
That was unbelievable. That gigantic ticket took me back, back, back to the hard copy ticket days, which now I can't remember the last time I walked anywhere with a ticket, physical, everything is on the phone. There's only there's a lot of places that even still have the ticket. I grew up in Minneapolis, the Twins win two World Series. By the time I'm 10 years old, I'm thinking this is easy street at the baseball fan. But one of the things I will always like my dad, his fandom was like a big reason that I do what I do now. Right.
Always into sports. But I will never forgive him that in 87 and 91, I got to go to game one of the ALCS. Pretty cool.
But he had a game one in 1991, two tickets as well. It took my grandma, his mother. It's a very nice gesture. Oh, wow. But heartbreaking to a 10 year old kid who sit and watch into home while dad and grandma are at the game.
But so my dad tells this story better than even I can. But so this is at the Metrodome where if you ever went to a game at the Metrodome or any of the old inflatable stadiums, because of how they had to inflate the roof, there was a suction element where you would come in or out the doors like when you went in the doors, you went through like the revolving door. When you went out, you were blown out of the stadium. The old carrier dome in Syracuse is like doors would open. You go, whoa. And it was like gale force winds.
It was awesome. Shoving you out. Yeah. It's like the, you know, the vomitorium at the Coliseum where they build the stairs like a downhill 20 degree angle to make people exit faster.
This was it times 10. But so my grandma walking in, she gets, you know, there, this is the ripoff ticket. There's no scanners in 1991. She's holding the ticket. She gets up to the revolving door and the revolving door grabs the ticket and begins spinning it around in a circle. So her ticket is caught up in the revolving door. They eventually managed to get it out. They got to wait for it to come all the way around and yank it out.
I'll always hold that one again. So last night, obviously, again, that happens at halftime of one of the most bonkers Thursday night games that we've seen. I mean, if you, if you don't like defense, which sometimes, you know, everybody says all Thursday night games are sloppy. They're low scoring. Sometimes there is good defense.
There was not last night. There was not a whole lot of defense in that game. Although obviously big play by Jesse Bates when it comes right down to it, knocking the ball loose from Bucky Irving and turning that game. It's like we were talking about on the show yesterday of how would the Falcons and Kirk Cousins be viewed if Saquon doesn't drop the ball on third down in week two, right? You don't get the chance to go down the field. Same thing last night, where if Jesse Bates doesn't punch that ball loose from Bucky Irving, you may not, that game may end completely differently.
I'm sitting there watching the second half back in my hotel room and go, it's gonna might be ugly around Atlanta tomorrow. They're about to be two and three and they can't stop anybody right now. But to their credit, they make enough plays. Kirk Cousins, a guy who, or the two knocks Kirk Cousins has been in the league since 2012.
Okay. This is 13th NFL season. He spent about 10 years of that where all anyone would say about Kirk Cousins was he's all stats. He doesn't perform in the clutch and doesn't perform in prime time. Well, two of their three wins this season have been in prime time and in all three of the Falcons victories, he's led a game winning drive and you watch him in those situations. You're not thinking, boy, I know there was a breakdown of the broadcast last night of like the exact biomechanics of the Achilles.
All I know is when he needs to, and when you give him time, there are not a whole lot of guys who are better at just absolutely playing in rhythm and dicing up the defense. If Darnell Mooney doesn't have a horrible drop, we don't even get to overtime. Maybe we don't get anywhere near there. There's two decisions slash situations that I want to break down in that game because I thought that they were both really interesting situational football type things that make you think, because a lot of what we do, certainly the broader media apparatus and fans, a lot of it is outcome based analysis, right? Where exactly what I'm talking about, Hey, wow, what an amazing performance by Kirk Cousins. What if they don't get the ball back or say it doesn't drop the ball.
We don't get the chance to talk about it. And then it's what's wrong with Kirk. In the end, he's playing football at a high level right now, win or lose. He's doing his job, but here's two of the situations late in that game. The first one comes on fourth and 15 in the fourth quarter minute 52 to go Falcons are down three.
I always, there's a, there's a X account Twitter account. That's the fourth down decision, but Ben Baldwin is an analytics guy created this thing that it takes every, every situation on fourth down and basically spits out immediately real time. Hey, here's what the analytics say.
Here's the percentages. What should you do? So I immediately looked at that one and it said in that particular case, it considered that one, I believe to be a toss up slight lean toward punt. The Falcons go for it in that situation. I like that decision. I know a lot of people were second guessing it in real time on social media.
I like it in here's why. They had all three timeouts, right? It's a three point game, right? They have all three timeouts and there was back and forth between Al and Kirk in the, in the booth, Herb street, not cousins.
That would have been unique if you were on microphone. But you're sitting there going, okay, you should punt the ball away and get the stuff you need to stop either way. And because it's a three point game, you're thinking, well, your worst case is if you get that stop after failing on fourth down, they're kicking a field goal in the end. It ends up being even better than that because they get backed up on a penalty and they can't kick the field goal.
So I like going for it there cause it's one more bite at the apple. It's one more chance to convert and with the way cousins is playing, right? He's balling like the downside of it. He ends up throwing a pick on the play to Lavonte David. You could also argue Lavonte David should just knock the ball down because then you're getting the ball at the 20 yard line instead of, I think it was at the 35 you're definitely in field goal range and you're going up six in that situation though. I liked the thinking behind that decision.
I liked the idea of it's one extra shot. You punted away, you have no chance to convert on the fourth and you still got to get three stops and then, and then drive. So I liked that decision even though it didn't work out for the Falcons. The second one, and this goes back to something involving your Cowboys, TJ, you remember three years ago in the playoffs and the infamous, they can't get it spiked game against San Francisco. They're down six points. I went back, I went back and watched that sequence and charted all the times and everything. And then I watched, re-watched it from last night on NFL Plus, shameless plug, you should get that, review the games immediately. In that game, three years ago in the playoffs, there were 14 seconds left when the Cowboys snapped that ball. Dak ran 17 yards, could have gone down earlier, that was one of the things in that game, but he slides with eight seconds left. Eight seconds.
Okay. It should have been enough. You watch it. And I mean, I broke it down from every angle at that time and watch the all 22 and where the official was. The, the official who's supposed to spot the ball doesn't move until Dak slides, then runs all the way up, collides with everyone, pushes his way through, re-spots the ball, then re-spots the ball again.
Everybody has to shift. They spike it right at zeros and the game's over. And Mike McCarthy got so much blowback after that game of what are you thinking? Like how could you try to run a play there?
Now they don't know what they were trying to do in that situation. Wasn't set up a field goal. It was set up a better shot at the end zone, right? Get down to about the 20 yard line and run a real play as opposed to a hail Mary. But you know, Mike said after that game, the threshold was a little bit higher for where they, how much time they thought they had.
We thought it should be able to get spotted in time and we spike it. Watch last night. There are 12 seconds left when the Falcons snapped that ball there at the 43 yard line cousins passes 14 yards to Drake London, who is tackled with eight seconds left the exact same amount of time. But he then ran another five yards after catching it, catching 14 yards total in the play.
So you're roughly the same amount down field. If you watch it, the center does the same thing. He sets it where the guy was tackled. The official who has to come up from behind the play again, has to go through traffic.
He's going right through. Watch it. The official comes through, taps the ball and gets out of the way and they snap it with one second left and spike the ball.
Unreal. What's the mechanics go back and compare those two plays because there was so much angst and criticism directed at the Cowboys trying to execute that play last night. That's what it's supposed to look like. You know, it's all the, they have to hand the official, the ball. Apparently not because the official comes up and just goes, literally tap and keeps moving. He doesn't even stop.
Doesn't even slow down. And that's not to criticize the Falcons there. They got to get into field goal rates, but that's perfectly executed in that moment.
And for as much as Kirk cousins, you know, at times this year, probably had some limited reps coming off the Achilles. And you wonder just in those big situations, are they ready? Like you watch it.
It's not totally clean. Kyle Pitts, the ball's down. Kyle Pitts is kind of like, Oh, wait, are we spiking in? He's like by the center and he has to get outside, but they get up to the line of scrimmage. They spike the football, they kick the field goal and that sets up over time and listen over time is, I mean, there's luck, especially in the regular season where it's the first team that gets the ball. You score a touchdown, the game's over. They benefit from getting that coin flip, but you have two situational football things there. One doesn't work out, but the downside in my mind was less significant than the upside.
If you're able to convert it. And the second one, they, they run a play, she drank London, have gone down three yards earlier, tried to conserve a second or two. You can argue that, but it worked out and the timing of the play. So next time somebody tries to run that play, just remember so much is dependent on the mechanics of the officiating in those spots. Let's say somebody accidentally, you know, the official kicks the ball while he's on the way by the game's over, there's no recourse, but trip and fall or anything, but you've got to execute the play to the way that you've drawn it up. The Falcons did that last night. It's a credit to Kirk cousins in that big moment. It's a credit to where he Morris, I think for having the fortitude to say, you know what, these are the right things to do. Even though there's some risk there, you could play a conservative and just throw a three yard out and try a 60 yard field goal.
No, you think, Hey, this is why we run all those situations. All those scenarios, the entire off season in training camp, drilling them day in and day out, they did it right. They got lucky on the 50 50 proposition on the coin flip, and they went a really entertaining game last night. Uh, we'll talk more about that game as well as the rest of week five in the NFL. We've got some big injury updates as well. We'll get to those in just a little bit here. Coming up after this break though, guy made one of the big plays in week four lion safety, Kirby Joseph, a breakout star on that lion's defense is going to join us. Talk about that interception that he had last week.
Talk about the lions who look like a really good team right now in the NFC lot more to come. Kirby Joseph joining us right after this on the rich eyes and show let's talk LinkedIn people and small business owning. I'm a small business owner.
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Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company or affiliates not available in all States or situations prices vary based on how you buy. Let's talk about game time tickets people. We've been talking about it actually for months here on the Rich Eisen show and our rich eyes and podcasts, but guess what? There's something new to tell you about game time. There's a new feature called game time picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play live even easier game time picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats. So you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets yet another way that game time makes things easier for you when you're looking for tickets to anything in your area with the new game time picks.
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Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. I got a recruiting story. You want to hear it?
Please saying hard boss. Crazy. So I'm recruiting, right?
For Cal. Mm hmm. Is that fire real?
It is definitely not real. So I'm, I'm, uh, 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 with the HC of Cal. Yeah. Yeah. So we're sitting around at a home visit, right?
Early 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, um, it's kinda, you know, we're talking about, let's 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's 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.
Right. And then I went 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? Just like this fire.
Like this fire when it was a real fire, Rich. Yeah. 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 everybody looked at the cat and just as I, just as everybody looked, it rolled over and started licking himself all over the place.
Grandma looked at me like, what? I didn't get that kid. All right. I didn't go well after that. Kind of went downhill. Oh yeah.
But that cat was, that cat just kind of screwed me over a little bit and he's like, timing is everything. It's like it's self-open. Oh man.
Cozy for a while. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show radio network. I am Tom Pelissero in for Rich and I am sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.
Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Week five in the NFL, got off to heck of a start last night, thanks to the Falcons and the Bucks. Week four ended with one of the games of the year so far. The guy who sealed it joins us right now. Third NFL season stand out on one of the best teams in the NFL line of safety, Kirby Joseph is with us.
Kirby, man. It's, it's, it's the bye week. Are you chilling?
How are we, how are we doing there in Detroit? Oh, you know me, man. I'm old about it. So what do you do? You got, you got a rare break in the season. Do you, do you watch, do you watch football? Do you, do you work out?
What do you do? I'm always watching football. I watched the game last night. Really, I just been taking care of my body and just being in the studio. What's it like for you sitting back, right? You're at your couch, you're at the crib, whatever, watching this game, are you watching it like a fan would, or are you watching it being like, I wouldn't have called that coverage right there.
I would have this answer for Kirk Cousins throwing for 509 yards right now. No, I'm definitely watching it like a coach or like an analyst. Like I'm definitely like, okay, like I'm predicting, I'm trying to predict a play in the next play and stuff like that. Like, yeah. You played against Kirk, what, probably four times so far in your career, like guy throws for 509 yards last night.
Nothing ever looks like nifty. He's not getting out and throwing on the run like Patrick Holmes. What, what, if anything, makes that guy a challenge to face as a defender? I just feel like he knows where to go with the ball.
You know, he's been in the league for a long time, so he just knows how to operate offense. So last week it comes down to, you know, a final drive, final chance for Geno Smith and the Seahawks. I'm not going to lie to you, man. I went back and watched that interception like five times because I knew you were coming on the show. Are you sure you caught that ball? Like is your hand really under that ball?
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure I caught that ball. I had total control of that catch. I don't even know why, and this little talk like, oh, he didn't catch. I caught that ball.
Like I literally like when I caught it, like I knew I was going to fall. So I had to like put it to my side because if I would have fell on it like head on, like it would have came out. So I literally put it to the side. So it'd be right here. So it wouldn't even move. Watch the ball. It wouldn't move.
But so, all right. So you get back to the sideline. They're probably showing that on the jumbotron, right? The big video board in the stadium. Are you going like, I got it.
Or are you thinking like, and I've seen them overturn some stuff before this, this might come back? I wasn't even worried about it. I went straight to the stands. I was dapping up the fans and all that.
I was, I was straight. I knew I caught it. That photo we just showed of you making that interception too.
Show that photo again here. Like your feet are above, your one foot's above your head. Like you land hard on that play. How were you feeling the next morning after that one? I mean, I feel good. I don't really, it didn't really feel like nothing. I kind of messed up my little side a little bit. The play, like a couple of plays before that. Yeah. Other than I was straight.
Okay. So the, so the obliques, maybe feeling a little bit this week, but you got, you got some time to sit back and chill. So another, another game that's a, that's, you know, in a standalone window Sunday morning, I'm guessing you're going to get up early and watch the, the Vikings and the jets game on Sunday. Everybody's talked, you know, for a year plus and for good reason about the lions, you know, being one of the top teams, the rising team, all of a sudden people, you look at the power rankings, people are putting the Vikings number one, what do you make of the state of the, the NFC North right now? We just know we got to become the NFC champions again, like we got to go over there and take over the division.
We got to take it one step at a time. So going through each opponent, we just got to see them one week at a time. So for the lions this year, and this is the first time again, there were, there were expectations going into last season, but they were based on potential, right? Now you guys made a deep playoff run.
You're this close to going to the Superbowl. How, if at all, has it been different this year? The fact that the lions now are not, you know, the hunters anymore, but you're very much the hunted. You know, I was just going to say that like coach Campbell said that, and that was just a great phrase to say, like, we're not hunters no more, but now we're become like, now we're getting hunted. I feel like we still don't care. Like we still don't play our game. Like we're not worried about that. We know who we are and we know what we're coming to do.
So we just got to play our game. Dan Campbell has probably more phrases than anybody. Like he's a very intelligent guy. He knows ball, man, but he says like, everything's like a one line, like you could put everything he says, like once a press conference, I'm sure once a team meeting, lay on a t-shirt, what is your favorite Dan Campbell ism? What's your favorite Dan Campbell phrase?
My favorite one, uh, got bite at kneecaps. He spent three years trying to get out of the bitey kneecaps thing and you're bringing it back, man, but I do, I do love playing for coach Campbell, man. Like he's just so inspired, inspiring him. Like he fires us up before every game. Like, and I just, you could really just tell that he just loves the game and like, he loves his teammates.
I mean, not teammates, but team. And like, he just loved it. Like, loves his organization. Like, he's just a great coach. Like overall, like he, I could tell he just has so much passion for this game and like, he just does the best he does the best he could do to get as well prepared to play on Sunday.
If I'm not mistaken, he had like a knee replacement or some type of significant surgery in this off season. Yet I come to training camp the first weekend, like he's out there doing pushups with you guys and stuff like he is, you know, if you had like a dual of all the coaches, Dan's probably going to be one of the betting favorites to win, you know, just like a giant fist fight. You're like, how many guys on the team? You put them in like an arm wrestling situation, a box.
How many people on the team would like, get in the ring with Dan Campbell? No, I, it's not, it's not, it's not too many, man. You got, you got a couple, you got a couple that get in there, but man, they're pretty huge. Like, they were like six, six, six, bro, like, oh man, like, I really don't know.
He's got, he's got that, like, you know, the triangle shape too, like his shoulders and his arms are like huge and then he's, you know, got the narrow, the narrow lower body. I should say though, since I'm bringing up like the boxing analogy here, your, your fight with Malik neighbors, by the way, in training camp, like that was, that wasn't a football fight, man. That was a hockey fight on a football field. You landed like two good rights in there. I don't try to like get like that, you know, I got to defend myself. Well, I mean, yeah, he took that little, he gave you the little slap on the way by, you got to, you can't let somebody, I cannot go for that. I cannot go for that.
I'm sorry. Hey, I can not go for that, but simply that happens in a game, right? You got to, you're intense within the game. Somebody might do something like that. I mean, we all know who the antagonizers are on the team.
One of the best ever was on your team last year with CJ Gardner Johnson, but like some will happen. How do you, how do you get in the mindset of, yeah, you still want to defend yourself, but you also don't want to do something stupid and get yourself in trouble on the field. I won't fight. I won't let the fire kind of just, I'd be chilling.
You know, I'd just be chilling like, you know, people play crazy. I just got to handle it. There's some humility. Go, go watch that. That fight's still on Instagram.
You can find it. Kirby. Kirby. He doesn't want a piece of it.
You don't, you don't want to mess with it with this guy right here. Kirby Joseph. So, all right. I know you got a lot of stuff going on off the field to Kirby.
Tell me what else you're up to. Um, I started a clothing brand. It's called a super motion, super motion, which is according to the card Z U P E R motions like super motion, but super motion. Where's the name come from? What's the, uh, what's the clothing line all about?
Um, it's like you said, super, but I replaced the S what is Z because I'm Haitian and you know, we, we represent, we represent ourselves like as ZO, you know, so I put the Z for ZO in front of Zoopa. Um, I just felt like it's just like clothing brand and like, I just wanted a mix like street wear and like, like comfortable wear together. So like, it's just going to be a whole bunch of just like different types of stuff. So I mean, you got, you got four dudes in the studio that we definitely use some clothing upgrades. Can we get some stuff?
Can we, can we check out some of the product here? Yeah. What's up? Hey, y'all repost my stuff, man. I'll send y'all some boxes out and I got y'all send me outside and I got y'all all right.
There we go. So last thing for you here, Kirby, just, you know, the rest of the season, all right. It's a long season.
Your buy came really early, right? Week five by a lot of people who don't necessarily like that, cause you now know the grind. You got another schedule right here.
You got basically the entire slate. You haven't even played a division game yet. And you're hoping, you know, after that week 18 game, there's two, three, four more games beyond that here. What's the mentality for Kirby? Just what's the mentality of this lion's team for what you've got ahead of you over these next few months.
You got to keep that grit don't stop. Another day is only up from here. Well, Hey man, thanks a lot for coming on the show, man. Just like with the clothing line, we'll look forward to the shipments. I'm like a, I'm probably a shmedium, you know, I'm, I'm on the lower side.
So hopefully you got some smaller sizes for me. We'll, uh, we'll make it happen. Kirby.
Thanks a lot for coming on, man. I appreciate y'all for having me at his lion's safety. Kirby Joseph, one of the, one of the young stars or the headline, the Detroit news, Kirby Joseph has become a bonafide star for the lion's defense, the lions America's new team, America's team. And that's what, that's what I was getting at with him. And I know that he doesn't want to, you know, go in on Sam Darnold and the Vikings at the Packers, but like, isn't that amazing how some of that stuff flips every power rankings I see right now.
And I get it. Vikings are four. No, they're playing at a high level. They've had three straight, really impressive wins taking that away from the giants and week one.
Sure. But the 49ers and then the Texans and then the Packers at Lambeau field, like that's a run, but we've spent two years talking about the lions and we've talked about the Packers since the middle of last season. And all of a sudden that quickly, it flips to the Vikings of the team.
That's trying to stay on top, a team that nobody talked about. And I'll tell you this they'll never say this, but the Vikings loved that this off season, they loved that. Nobody was talking about, everybody was talking about, man, the lions were on the doorstep almost went to the suitable. The Packers are on the doorstep, remember the Packers much like the lions also were like a bouncer to a player two away from beating the 49ers in San Francisco in the playoffs last year. It was arguably worst throw of the season to end that game last year. Correct. Cross the body, full Brett Favre, you know, watch me do this.
Oh no, it's picked. Right. But the Packers were another team who, and again, you know, you have, you hold your breath when it's week one and love goes down to the heap and to be an MCL spray in his back. But you know, the other sexy team wasn't the Vikings, it was the Bears. All we talked about was Caleb Williams and the Bears and listen, it's four games in. We got a long way to go in terms of the schedule here. And Caleb was always going to be a process because he just, he didn't play that much in rhythm.
He didn't play that much in the pocket, you know, Oklahoma or USC. So there was going to be a growth process that needed to happen. And you're seeing them make some adjustments here.
They're trying to figure things out in terms of just how they're using all those pieces. Like every time I watch a Bears game, I'm like, is Deandre Swift still on the team? Like I'm pretty sure he is. I think he scored a touchdown last week, but there's so many times where it's, it's, it's the other backs who are getting the ball. They're trying to figure out what their identity is and they're also working through it with a player who had so much focus on him, which happens when you go around showing people the background on your phone says, you know, I'm going to win eight Super Bowls.
I mean, that's, you're setting the bar extraordinarily high. And you know, I actually asked Tom Brady about that because that's all, you know, Tom won seven and it was, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to be the greatest ever. I want to be the number one pick. I want to win eight Super Bowls. And I asked Tom Brady when he came on the insiders on NFL network, I think it was a couple of months ago. Like, do you, do you like that? Like do you like the, the sheer chutzpah to come out and say like, yeah, I want to win eight Super Bowls.
Or do you think like these dudes have no idea how hard it is to win one. And what he said was everybody's got different ways to motivate themselves. It was a very, you know, Tom was playing it cool on that one.
I'm sure he had some other thoughts about it, but basically he said like everybody's got different ways to motivate themselves. Well, all of a sudden now you watch the bears, particularly the dichotomy compared to the commanders and what they're doing with Jane Daniels right now. And I don't blame people for going like, Oh man, is this, is this last year again, is this CJ Stroud where you had a pretty good idea, even though the Panthers and Bryce young beat the Texans and CJ Stroud in the early portion of the season last year, is this another situation where the number two pick is better than number one pick? I think that the core difference here is you are seeing flashes of Caleb Williams.
When you watch, it's not consistent right now, when he gets out the pocket, when he's rolling to his left on a play that was, I think it was two weeks ago and he contorts his body and throws it like a shortstop across his body and throws a dime 20 yards downfield. That's the guy, right? That's what's in there.
It's all the other stuff. You know, it was a lot of scouts and coaches I talked to even before the draft were like, you know, part of it with him is just, you can't play hero ball all the time. You don't need to make the amazing play just sometimes. And he had to do that at USC last year because his offensive line was terrible and the defense was bad and the receivers weren't very good. So he had to try to do some of those things. In Chicago, he's got a defense.
He has weapons around him. And there are times where based on Matt Eberfluss and how, what his mentality is, you probably want the quarterback to be a little bit more conservative. Whereas Washington with Cliff Kingsbury as the OC is like, we're gonna, we're gonna outrace people. We don't mind being in a shootout, even though Dan Quinn's a defensive guy, it's let's cut this guy loose. And Jane Daniels has been awesome.
That's the other thing. It's not as if, in other words, I don't think that Caleb Williams looks as out of place as Bryce Young did a year ago. And I'm still, you know, we had Bill O'Brien on yesterday who was, who's now the BC head coach. He was one of the OCs for Bryce Young in Alabama who said he delivered it very strongly. Like absolutely. This guy can still be a really good player in terms of Bryce Young because he just, he needs the right support system.
It's gotta be the right coaches and all that stuff. And I believe that too, just because his wiring is the right way. His love of the game, his processing ability, but you don't see it, man.
You didn't see it. And that's how the guy gets benched after three different play callers over the first 19 games of his career, two games into his second season as the first, as the number one overall pick who you gave up all sorts of resources to go and get. With Caleb, you at least see that it's in there. Now it's a matter of how do you bring him along? He's going to have the pressure on him. If you can find a win, a way to win games, 18 to 15 or whatever, that's not necessarily the worst thing, but it is going to be a situation where, because of the expectations, he's got to play better over the course of time. Right now, if you're stacking up the NFC North, I mean, I think as much as all through the off season, I said it repeatedly on this show, like you just objectively would stack the Vikings fourth out of four.
Now that's kind of flipped. I think that the bears objectively based on what you've seen so far, you probably put in the number four slot at the same time, you talk to coaches who go up against the bears and they'll tell you how hard it is to play against Matt Eber flus. And that defense, they're still really talented on that side. And when you got a player with a rare play, make an ability at the quarterback position like Caleb Williams, it's still dangerous. It doesn't look great. It's not consistent. And it's not what Jane Daniels is doing.
I don't, I don't get the same types of vibes off that situation right now. And by the way, the lions are still really good. You know, a lot of it's going to come down to, you get into the playoffs, you get into outdoor games, which has been an issue for Jared Goff over the years, even though, you know, he played well at times when they were playing outdoors at the Coliseum early on in his career with the Rams, but you know, in some of those situations, but those guys on the fast track at Ford field playing indoors, what Ben Johnson is scheming up for him.
And still, I understand the power rankings. The Vikings have been really impressive. I was at the week three game against the Texans. I mean, they're playing really, really well. I still just based on the consistency with which the lions have done it, that team still scares me every single week going up against those guys.
I also think that there's still upside on all those young players that they've got on the offense. I mean, Goff's the one distributing the football and has completely remade his career in Detroit. Like we haven't seen a Jameer Gibbs takeover game yet. We really haven't seen, I don't think an Amman Ross St. Brown takeover game to really do anything.
Right. Jamison Williams has been like the breakout star and rightly so that was one that I think everybody was sleeping on. That was one of the guys where I talked to, I talked to Dan Campbell, I talked to some of the other coaches while they were at camp, everyone was just like, Jamo, like this is now the time. His first year is totally messed up because he was coming off the ACL.
He was never himself. Second year he gets the gambling suspension. You saw flashes of it. I was at a game in New Orleans, it was like last November, December, and Jamo had a big play in that one. And you're like, oh yeah. Remember when that guy was the best player in college football?
Right. It wasn't all that close. He gets hurt in the, was it the national championship game or the, the semi-final right. It was in the playoff. He got hurt in the playoff.
It was a significant injury and that just slowed him down. Like the Lions still traded up and took him because he's the best playmaker in that entire draft. Now year three, finally, no suspensions, no injuries. There's a lot of upside on that Lions team. Like everything else, it's who you play when you play them. It's about injuries and all that. They're a pretty healthy football team overall right now.
And what I like too about them is Ben Johnson, not afraid to just play smash mouth like that. We saw in week one in overtime, it was just David Montgomery down your throat, try and stop it. Even though they have all these pass catching weapons and golf is slinging it, not afraid to just line up and boom, we're going to run it down your throat. I was telling that to Rich, you know, this off season, we're talking about what players could step up and he was high on Jameer Gibbs as all of us were, but I had to remind him, bro, David Montgomery, they're not just not going to use this bad. Like in, like you said, he's like a wrecking machine.
Not afraid to do it. He's kind of like weapon in your back pocket of like, oh no, we can play this way if we need to, which have we seen the Packers unable to do in the playoffs when it gets cold, you need to be able to run the ball and they have that ability. And the David Montgomery, the how he got to Detroit is still so fascinating to me because in division, the bears just gave him up, but they were also, the lines were trying to resign Jamal Williams, Jamal Williams, turned down a deal, wanted more money from Detroit. The lions were like, okay. And they pivoted and they went and got a guy they thought was a better player.
And I think that that's borne itself out with David Montgomery. They paid him a little bit more. Jamal Williams ends up taking a lot less money in new Orleans, basically was like a negotiation and it was, Hey, we're done. This is the best offer, but they would have resigned Jamal Williams. If he took the deal. Instead, they ended up with David Montgomery, who's been one of the biggest tone setters on one of the best teams in the NFL and as for Ben Johnson, real quick, before we go to break, I was reminded by somebody that game against Seattle on Monday night, not only is he facing Mike McDonald who got the head coaching job that Ben Johnson also interviewed for, and Ben was very much in the mix for that job. He interviewed, they liked him. He just, he wasn't really in a head space to take a job this past year.
But Mike McDonald also member shut down Ben Johnson and the lions last year when he was the Ravens defensive coordinator, that game watching it. And listen, the players got to go make plays, but when they bust out Alcatraz, a play that's been in the playbook for years, they never use the reverse pass, throw it to Jared Goff play. That one feels like it's a little extra.
That one feels like, I'm just going to, I'm going to use this one right now. Extra sprinkles. I'm going to remind you why I'm going to be one of the top head coaching candidates again this year.
All right. Let's take a quick break here. We've got some injury updates around the NFL. A key running back is out for this week.
A key receiver is out for this week. We'll also get back to that Mets game right after this, Tom Pelissero in for Rich on the Rich Eisen show listeners, please welcome a real finance nerd from our sponsor nerd wallet. Hey Sean. Hey Rich.
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That's smarter. Y'all nerd wallet compare Inc and M L S one six one seven five three nine. 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. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, either in store or online.
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That's O'Reilly auto.com slash E I S E N O O O'Reilly auto parts. You are the commissioner of baseball. I make you commissioner of baseball right here, right now to start off, what, what do you do?
Nothing that anyone would like, but why would you say that? Because they're not going to like my ideas and some replays over why, who cares? Because if you see it at home, you need to use it, right? Why, why do we have a balls and strike empire? We don't need that.
We can easily do that with GPS. Why is he there? Well, okay.
Why is he there? Why don't get rid of them? That might actually happen.
That might actually happen. And then what do you have? A robot, a robot, I guess, or yeah, there's a, there's a value to charm my friend. There was a value to it that we sometimes ignore. Uh huh.
Okay. So replay's gone. Replay's gone.
I do kind of like replay, but it bothers me. The designated hitter is gone, so why, because that's not baseball. One of the essential, one of the great principles of baseball's democracy of talent and physique. This is what makes baseball very special, right?
Democracy of talent and physique. Everybody plays, plays it. Okay. Everybody. Right. The little shortstop, the slugging, uh, left fielder. They're all, everyone's welcome, right?
It's democracy. What do you think of just the intentional walk? Like just you go to first now? No, don't like that either. Why?
It's fine. How much time are you saving? About 10 seconds. I mean, it's 10 seconds. We can all say it's like when someone texts you the letter K instead of, okay, what are you doing with that time or are you going to add that up? And so you can watch an 11 minute YouTube video of a skateboarder bouncing his nuts off a railing. Is that what we're doing? Someone's texting me T Y instead of thank you.
T Y I'd like to bounce your nuts off a railing. Welcome back to the rich eyes and show Tom Pellicero in for rich Andrew Brant in the house. He's going to be in studio here. Long time NFL executive now, podcast host does a lot of other things around the sports world.
Always has great insights. In just a few, uh, some key injury updates around the NFL Malik neighbors officially out, according to Brian Dabel, still in the concussion protocol that when you don't practice Wednesday and Thursday coming out of concussion protocol, that's usually a pretty clear sign that you're not going to make it. So it's a big loss for them as they get set to go to Seattle and take on a Mike McDonald.
That was a Thursday game to remember. And there was a lot of hope that maybe the extra couple of days would turn clear for this week. The moment that he didn't practice Wednesday when it's set six days later, you're not practicing six days after concussion.
You're probably not making it that week. So they'll continue to proceed cautiously as always, uh, Khalil Shakir. This is kind of an underrated one, but Khalil Shakir is out for the bills. I say kind of an underrated one because their primary threats in that receiving game right now are Shakir and it is Dalton Kincaid. Now you just so happened this week to be going up against the guy who used to be your primary receiving threat in Stefan Diggs.
And there's a legitimate question. I mean, okay, so now you're rolling without your number one receiver and now you're relying on Keon Coleman, who you drafted as a potential Stefan Diggs replacement. He's, he's, he's actually, he's been somewhat productive moments. He's also had not great moments, which is kind of what you expected a couple of weeks ago. And then, you know, but I still think he's a good player.
He might have a breakout here, Tom, I don't know. The crazy, the craziest Keon Coleman stat is still, he was playing basketball. He was on the basketball team for Tom Izzo at Michigan state. So he wasn't even fully training to play football and had more receiving yards in 2022 than a guy named Jayden Reed, who's now arguably the Packers top receiver. It's it's there. The potential is there with Keon Coleman.
You're just trying to get toward it. Joe Mixon, not expected to play, still hasn't practiced since that ankle injury that he suffered on the hip drop tackle. You know, Damian Pierce hasn't been doing a whole lot either. So it's going to be Dari Agunga Walia, who was the star of last week's game, as well as Cam Akers has done a pretty good job for him. Trey McBride. Good to go. According to Jonathan Gannon, he's going to be out of the concussion protocol.
So safe to put him back in your fantasy lineups. Brian Robinson, who Brockman has asked me about, I believe about 17 times since I got here yesterday. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah. So we, we, we taped an interview with Brian Robinson Jr. yesterday in advance. He was back.
It was Wednesday and Thursday. He was on the field, according to reporters on the scene this morning, I asked Brian Robinson though, first question out of the gate was just, how was the knee feeling? And are you going to play on Sunday for, you know, pretty, a pretty significant type of a game here coming home, live excitement around that Washington team. He said the knee, the knee feels great. He said, you know, it doesn't really want to get into game time decisions, but he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, like, I feel great.
So that should tell you plenty. That says to be game time decision probably listed as questionable. It sounds like it's leaning toward Brian Robinson Jr. goes this week.
So that's another one that we will be keeping an eye on. TJ's Mets got the big win last night to advance in the place. How are we feeling by the way, about the next round TJ?
It's going to be tough, right? I mean, obviously, but you know, season series, Phillies won the season series seven to six. So it's not like we don't have a chance. And, you know, with baseball, man, sometimes something magical happens. Maybe that magic dust gets sprinkled on us this year.
Who knows? But it's going to be interesting. And I'm so before a good series. I didn't expect us to even be here right now, Tom.
So all this is gravy, you know, we'll talk and Andy McCollough is going to be here later on in the show. But you look at this right now, you look at the playoff bracket. It's it certainly seems Brockman to be the Dodgers versus the field. In my mind, I know the Tigers are the hottest team in baseball. I know that a lot of people are going to be on the Yankees bandwagon in this thing. But there's something about this Dodgers team and the level of which Otani has played throughout the entire season that it's hard to imagine right now if you were taking guesses on who's advancing that the Dodgers are not going to be most people's favorite. You think so?
I mean, look, you could just say, oh, it could be chalk. You can make a case for all those teams. The Guardians are maybe the least talked about team in Major League Baseball with the least superstar type player in Jose Ramirez.
Dudamos went 40 40 and no one even said a word about it. I just think it's interesting when I look at this bracket and who's left your final eight teams, three of them are from the American League Central. So that division gets three playoff teams among the final eight and then the worst team of all time is also in that division.
That's correct. In the White Sox and three playoff teams out of eight and the worst team ever. I don't think that that's not getting talked about enough. I think that's hilarious. Meanwhile, the twins who were winning the division like six weeks ago fired their or excuse me, parted ways with their general manager earlier today after the collapse.
That might be a legitimate one. The payroll caps that they have to deal with their the lack of free agent spending. I would also lose a little bit of patience when you're putting a team on the field that can collapse to that degree at the end of the season. So the Mets advance last night, Pete Alonso and I didn't you guys were accusing me this morning of like underselling the magic of that moment. It was a pretty awesome moment. Let's play not just the call for me. Let's play the call from how he rose of Pete Alonso's winning over here this all day.
William sense. Here's the pitch. Swing on a fly ball to right field. Pretty well hit. Feel it back at the wall. He jumps.
It's gone. He did it. He did it. Pete Alonso with the most memorable home run of his career pumps as fast as he round second. That's a three run homer. He's given the Mets a three to two lead. They all pour out of the dugout. Alonso on his way to home plate. They're waiting for him. He hits the plate. He is first congratulated by Nimmo. Hugged by Lindor. There are a dozen Mets waiting for him outside the dugout. Pete Alonso keeps this fairy tale season going with the fairy tale swing of his career.
Three to two to yard. All right. I had, I had not heard the end of that. I hadn't heard the full play by play of the congratulate. I got chills right there. I did.
It was amazing. That's a moment to not trip, to describe every moment that way. Yeah. I mean, there's two ways to do it. Your TV announcer, let the moment breathe.
Your radio announcer, tell people what they're seeing. I mean, that's, that's one of those indelible moments that'll live in Mets lore forever. I hope I remember it forever.
Even if they get washed out of the next round by the Phillies. Who cares? We also have the video. Tom, you're on my good side. Don't, don't, don't, don't get on the bad side, please.
Can I live? I'm having a good week here. Howie Rose also, as, as baseball broadcasters do, was on the Mets team playing back. We've got the video. This is awesome. Of Howie Rose seeing, seeing the moment here in the call on the team playing.
This is awesome, man. High five. Pete Alonzo's having a good time there in 38 C. How's Howie Rose in the, uh, the comfort plus? I know that's not the primary takeaway of that video. He's got a better seat. He's got the better seat than Pete Alonzo. He's got 10 years. He's been doing it what, 40 years? I guess you, you eventually you got, you've had that same seat forever. He was feeling good. Tom.
He didn't care about his seat last night. My man was living life. Wheels up again.
Not too long for Philly. Was that a grand? Bingo. All right, bill. We're recording now. And please put your phone on silent. Oh, where is my phone? Let's go man.
Get it together over there. Player. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. I would say that to my son. Just go.
All right. Why would people want to listen to the Sims complete podcast? Father-son dynamic duo. Talking about the game of football. We do a lot of quarterback and coach talks. It's fun. I love doing this.
It's been awesome. Sims complete. Check us out on the believe network. Appreciate it. Just search Believ. Believ. Believ. Believ. Believ. Just search Believe B-L-E-A-V wherever you listen.
