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Hey, Rich Eisen here. I hear from a lot of business owners like you about the work it takes to pursue your passions. So, I know how important it is to have the tools that can help keep you moving forward. And with access to world-class business and travel benefits, the American Express Business Platinum Card helps you take your business to the next level. It offers a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business.

Plus, you'll have complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge. So, you can keep running your business while you're on the go. See how the Amex Business Platinum Card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply.

Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Amex Business. I'm living my best life. Yeah, yeah. This is The Rich Eisen Show. Here's the other surprising part. With guest host, Brian Weber.

Yeah, big shoes to fill. Eisen's a legend. Live from The Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. The Rich Eisen Show. Do you know who I am? I'm a guy on television.

I have my own show. And now, sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. It is the final hour of the program. Still plenty of opportunities for you to get involved. No phone calls today.

We're doing it old school. 844-204-7424. But jot the number down or you should have it committed to memory by now.

Maybe a tattoo on your left arm so you're never in search of those key digits. Rich and the guys back with you tomorrow if you like what you've heard so far. And I know many of you are going, no! But if you've endured this act for the last two hours, I'm typically back on major holidays. So, I will take the next few months off. Try to get rested and ready for a jam-packed Memorial Day shift.

Meaning, I better leave it all in the studio today. And we're getting back to the NBA coming up. In 45 minutes, we'll talk college basketball with Jon Rothstein. College Basketball Insider for CBS Sports. The SEC is obliterating the competition this year.

They could get 13 teams. A record setting tally into the NCAA tournament. We'll get his takeaways of the showdown between number one and number two.

War Eagle flying over the Crimson Tide Auburn victorious over Alabama on Saturday night. We never get too far away from the NFL. In addition to the NFL conversation we had in the previous hour of the program. We'll go with Eric Edem of NFL Media. A reminder, if you miss any portion of any show, you can listen anytime on demand on the podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts. It'll be posted just after the conclusion of the show. Coming up in 20 minutes. Does it feel like now the Chiefs have gone away?

Suddenly, they are not ubiquitous on a big word Monday. We had the Eagles raucous Philly style victory parade on Friday. Who in the world? I know it's Philadelphia. I'm originally from New York.

So I have strong feelings about the quote unquote city of brotherly love. Who in the world threw a beer at Howie Roseman in the head? Howie bleeding from the cranium. He's a tough guy.

He was still on the podium. Hey, angry Philly fan. Be as mad as you want. Now, never throw anything at anybody. I'm not endorsing that.

But if there's one person you got to protect, it's the brains trust. It's Howie. Because as we think about some NFL coming up in 20 minutes with the future of Travis Kelce on the docket. I'm not doing the tedious. Hey, can the Eagles run it back?

8442047424 is the number to call. But if you're just fair minded with your reasoning about the Eagles, why can't they win multiple championships in a small window coming up with the big caveat being the health of Saquon Barkley? Understanding, as he said, the single season, if you include postseason yardage, single season record for yards from scrimmage and rushing yards. He had a ton of wear and tear this year. Still, Jalen Hurts in his 20s. Young defense that got to Patrick Mahomes six times with the sacks.

And they have cap room because of the big brain of Howie Roseman that some knucklehead could have damaged by lobbing a beer at him. NFL coming up in 20 minutes. But it's a day in which my passion for basketball is justified because of all the fallout from the NBA. Experimenting with a new format last night in the All-Star Game.

We have hinted at this. And if you're with us in the first hour with the astute analysis provided by Curt Heelan of NBC Sports Dotcom as a foundation for what I'm about to lay out. There are major components across all of sports, but specifically in basketball that led us to the absolute unmitigated disaster that was last year with the teams combining for better than 200 points and absolutely no defense and even less effort. So this is not me bashing the NBA because I'm already on the record. If you care about my opinion as the Phil and Hack, I'm Brian Weber in for rich.

You can hit me up on Twitter as B.W. Weber Weber with two B's as someone who loves basketball, but also remembers a time in which we appreciate distinct segments of the sports calendar. We used to be much more well rounded. That's why I'm talking college basketball coming up to wrap up the program. I'd never build the show around college hoops unless it was during March Madness. But before the NFL crushed everything in its path, college basketball had a much bigger national profile during the NFL playoffs, during the fallow period between the conference championship game and the Super Bowl. There was college basketball on Super Bowl Sunday not too long ago. I realize it feels like I'm talking about the 1940s and this should be a black and white movie and I should be wearing a hat and taking the train to work. But there's a larger point of play here. How did we get to this all star debacle with a lack of effort?

Because that's the greatest indictment you can make against any professional. If you're working today, I hope you're getting time and a half. It is a holiday. But the biggest thing you can say to take somebody down the most negative observation could be, hey, thanks for showing up.

Did you actually do anything today? And I know the great Woody Allen and he's canceled, but I'll steal the line observation about 90 percent of life is just showing up. That last 10 percent matters, as we saw last year and the last half dozen years in the NBA All-Star game. Same thing in the Pro Bowl. I can understand why NFL players would say, I'm not tackling anybody. Why am I going to blow out an ACL for a meaningless exhibition? And that's now why we have whatever the new silly thing is with flag football and the skills competition.

The reason, in my estimation, we got to the tipping point of the hideous game last year has been a long time coming. First in basketball, there's more camaraderie. These guys know each other going back to the AAU circuit and just do the numbers.

Not great at math, but we can do it together. A 53-man roster in college, over 80 players available. A basketball team is small, 12 to 15 dudes. So it's a much tighter community, meaning by the time you faced a potential opponent that you're supposed to detest.

I don't hate anybody, as my departed mother used to say, but you can have animosity towards somebody wearing a different uniform. By the time you've squared off against that guy, AAU High School College NBA, there's going to be a degree of kinship of fellowship because you're in a very exclusive club. So that's one layer for basketball, given the size of the roster. Yes, the money has changed everything, but maybe not in the way you think.

Again, I hate to belabor the point that I'm old, I'm just baring my soul on the radio. But I remember when All-Star games across sports were an opportunity for players to captivate a national audience and cash in. Because if you balled out in an All-Star game of the Pro Bowl, maybe you have a chance to pick up a few more ad deals. Or in the case of basketball, since that's the focus of our conversation here, the almighty sneaker deal. What's changed?

Everything's changed. Guys in high school now get sneaker deals. And I'm not saying it's wrong.

It's just the facts of where we are as a sports culture. And then you throw in beyond even the notion everyone's friends and everyone's getting paid and everyone has their own personal brand. They all do podcasts or many of them and they go on each other's shows.

So not only does that add more intimacy, that's another payday meeting. They don't need to hustle ad dollars the way they used to. And if we're just spelling it out as transparently as possible, because we know so much about these guys now. If Michael Jordan went on a tour of Asia in 1996, unless I was reading an USA Today, I was not aware of that.

Now you follow all these dudes on social media. That's why the NBA has such a degree of connectivity with young fans, because they feel like they know these guys because they watch them eat sushi and drive their Lamborghinis. They're letting people in. We also know what they do in the offseason. They get paid again. And I'm not saying that they're not doing their job in terms of fitness or conditioning. I'm just saying the offseason isn't just R&R like it used to be. It's another chance to build your global brand and get paid.

So instead of hanging out on the beach, these guys are on, yes, private planes, but still a 14 hour flight to Australia to be part of a clinic being paid for by a sneaker company takes a lot out of you. So when you get to a rare weekend off that coincides with All-Star weekend, I'm not defending it, but I can understand how the players said thanks, but no thanks. So in terms of what we saw last night, I thought it was a decent watch, but I also had no expectations because I endured last year's game like the rest of you. And if you're going to be totally transparent, I have to give the league a degree of credit for doing something that you could argue that no choice but to do.

They had to blow it up. So if you didn't sit through and I will credit, I wish I had written down where I got this from because there's too much stealing going on in our business. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich. Rich and the fellas back with you tomorrow.

You can have a conversation with me on social media in the interim. It's B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's in 30 minutes or so. We talk college basketball with Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. Forty two minutes of actual basketball was played in the two semifinals and championship game in that mini tournament. A reminder, if you set your DVR, you were wiser than I. I watched it in real time. I got the receipts on Twitter.

If you want to get my thoughts as things were coming down my tube and I was saying, what is this? It was a three hour programming window. So not a lot of basketball.

Some of that by design, because I think the league said, let's spoon feed this to the players as much as we can. Hey, guys, can you go out? Remember, three still count because that's all basketball is about these days. Can you go out and play a game to 40? Can you do that for us? And the reports that the league led by Adam Silver, the union and the players who had gathered at the glittering new arena in San Francisco, just off China Basin, had a meeting before the games got underway yesterday emphasizing the need to compete. So in addition to lowering the threshold as minimally as possible, in addition to saying, guys, all we need you to do is pretend like you care.

And if you happen to win the game, can you come back and play another game? They made it as straightforward as possible. And I think given that low bar, they pulled it off. I saw semblance of defense, mostly from the rising stars who Draymond Green and he's getting exactly what he wanted by being so thermonuclear with his reaction during the TNT broadcast. Anybody signing his check probably wasn't thrilled when after the first game they went outside and he said, quote unquote, it sucked on a scale of one to ten, he gave it a zero because Draymond now suddenly is the arbiter of good basketball and felt like the rising star guys like Dalton Connect and Zack Eady and other anonymous rookies didn't, quote unquote, deserve to be playing on Sunday night.

Well, a couple of problems with that. I understand we live in the hot take culture, but if you're going to be on someone's payroll, probably not a good idea to demean their product during the game. And I fully understand Draymond is going to be a hot commodity wherever he wants to go as a broadcaster after his career. And some of that is his act. He's a villain. He's putting on the black hat beyond what he does on the court, which sometimes is borderline criminal. He's that excessive. And I'm a Draymond fan from a basketball standpoint, but I can't justify his pattern of behavior nor knocking out Jordan Poole after a practice. If you guys are having problems going back and forth, he's your teammate.

Talk about it. And I am no way saying, hey, let's play flag football's version of the NBA. I understand physicality is part of the game. Basketball, as designed originally, is a contact sport, but there's no justification for punching your teammate in the face as Draymond did last year. So you get him on the broadcast yesterday, annihilating the product among many outlandish things he said over the weekend, including the Warriors are going to win a championship now with the addition of Jimmy Butler. And that's just Draymond looking for attention.

Mission accomplished. I just talked about it. The complete hypocrisy of what he laid out comes down to this. Draymond is not good enough to be an All-Star anymore. I realized in the past he was. Even with the expanded roster, and he feels somehow that the addition of the rising stars took slots away from more deserving people or watered down the product of the quote unquote real All-Stars.

Well, two things can be equally true. If you believe in what Draymond saying, and I clearly don't, you can also acknowledge his days of being an All-Star are long gone. He is not aging well. He has a diminished skill set. So in my opinion, that's called projection by Draymond because he knows he's never going to be an All-Star again. He doesn't feel like the competition is worthy moving forward if he's not going to be a part of it.

And then secondly, I'll steal directly from his TNT colleague, Charles Barkley, who just said, essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Draymond is speaking on behalf of the generation of basketball stars who ruined the All-Star game because they just refused to try. So where does the league go from here? I think they perhaps come back next year with this format. They'll wait for the ratings to see how much of a hit they're going to take from last year's number, which was down because anybody with a brain and a remote control clicked away after the first quarter. Once it was clear, those guys weren't going to try at all.

We kicked around with Kurt Haaland of NBCSports.com in the first hour. Maybe they shift to a one-on-one tournament, which to me is absolutely the wrong progression because that's not even close to legitimate basketball. But if you don't like what you saw last night, you could say, hey, Phil and Guy, that wasn't real hoops either.

Maybe the answer, like most things, is just to bribe these dudes. Because even if you have multi-generational wealth, who's not going to show up for another big payday, as we saw with the in-season tournament? I don't get paid by the league, so I don't have to call it the NBA Cup.

But the larger takeaway is these games are inherently flawed because they were always designed to be meaningless exhibitions. And it's not easy for me to say that because my whole monkey trick, my competitive advantage before Google when I got into the business in 1992 was I'm an amateur sports historian. So, yes, I can go back to Carl Hubble mowing through names like Jimmy Fox, Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth at the All-Star Game.

You don't know what I'm talking about, nor do you care. Something that happened almost a century ago, unfortunately, is not relevant when we're talking about what has always been a collection of stars getting together in the name of entertainment. Yes, they played harder in the past, in part because of financial reasons. Winning team got a larger share. In part because, if we're talking baseball, the National League hated the American League. There was real animosity, but that's long gone.

And if you don't change with the times, well, that's a you problem. So I'm not going to bash the NBA for being open minded and also doing what they had to do because there was nowhere to go but up from last year's grisly forest of a game. At the same time, I thought they made a lot of mistakes. As mentioned, just 42 minutes of action. That thing should have been a two hour window max, but they're never going to walk away from revenue. So they stretched it out to run more commercials. I love old school hip hop.

I keep name checking the Bay Area. I was, you don't want to see me dance, but to watch E40 last night on my screen was turning back the clock. I didn't need a mini concert during every break in the action. I certainly did not need that much of Kevin Hart, who I think is hilarious, but less is more.

And I didn't need all of the interruptions. I didn't need if we're going to talk about the broadcast, nine people talking at the same time. But maybe Turner feels like it's their last year of actually showing live basketball. Although another contradiction was Kevin Hart, essentially after they played the tribute video prior to the business end of the championship game. Kevin Hart performed a eulogy for inside the NBA. The show is not going away. We just had the report last week that Shaq's been re-up for better than 15 million dollars a year. I know it's going to be different, but you already have the reports of the co-branding effort between ESPN and Turner.

I don't know what that show is going to look like, but I do know we're going to see Shaq, Kenny and Charles, probably not Ernie because of his Turner affiliation, but we're going to see those guys on NBA broadcast again. So to me, that was also poorly produced and not well thought through. But I think at some point we can all nitpick. And I understand that's my job. I'm paid to opine. But not everything is terrible.

If you say everything sucks, where do you go from there? We're going to do degrees of suckiness. So I had minimal expectations. I was entertained. I saw more defense. I didn't see necessarily the kind of basketball I want to see. But I'm never going to see that again because the fundamental problem with the modern NBA is the math guy won. That guy, that one guy with a calculator who figured out years after the three pointer was introduced in the NBA. Remember, if you know basketball history, it was a gimmick in the ABA along with the red, white and blue basketball to differentiate the new league from the old league. Larry Bird was selective with three point shots, just as was the case with every great three point shooter.

Then Steph Curry came along and it changed everything. But the reason why it spread across the league was one guy with a calculator ran the numbers. And analytics said shoot as many threes as you can, because even if you miss them, the differential of the value with the makes, as opposed to a two point shot, will give you a competitive advantage in the long run.

That's why if you watch and I have no life, I'll watch high school basketball. If it's on every level of basketball has been bastardized by the three. And that's what the league needs to focus on addressing immediately. Whether you cap the number of three point attempts per quarter, per game, I'm not in charge of the league. I'll tell you what the first thing they should do is eliminate the corner three for these guys, because they're such great shooters now. That's a gimme basket.

So I think the first step would be modify the arc, make it maybe just a flat line across the wings. You couple that with make it a precious asset like a timeout and teams will hang on to their threes that they needed for a comeback effort late in the game. But something has to change. You can't push the three back because we watch these guys knock them down from the logo with regularity. So that's the larger issue that all the histrionics about a meaningless All-Star game are not going to solve.

I got on my soapbox there, huh? Well, I am passionate about basketball and I appreciate Rich giving me the opportunity to go in depth. I'm Brian Weber in for Mr. Eisen and the fellas. They are back tomorrow. So it'll be far more conversational than me bloviating.

Hit me up on the X platform. That is B.W. Weber Weber with two B's less than 30 minutes from now. We shift to March Madness when we're joined by John Rustine of CBS Sports dot com. Got to get back to the NFL. I mentioned that raucous parade in Philly on Friday as the Eagles were running wild with all their fans. What about the Chiefs? Is it fair to KC and their fans and one of their star players? He put it all together.

Is it fair for the Chiefs to give Travis Kelce a deadline as he potentially ponders retirement? A lot more to get to on this jam packed President's Day edition of the program. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich here on the Rich Eisen Show. Are you looking for a voice that truly represents your values? AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens, was created to champion the needs of Americans who believe in faith, family and freedom. Members gain access to incredible member benefits and discounts, including the award winning AMAC magazine. From exclusive discounts on travel, insurance, everyday services to a strong voice in Washington. The Association of Mature American Citizens is here to make a difference in your life and in our nation.

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Hey, Rich Eisen here. I hear from a lot of business owners like you about the work it takes to pursue your passions. So I know how important it is to have the tools that can help keep you moving forward. And with access to world class business and travel benefits, the American Express Business Platinum Card helps you take your business to the next level. It offers a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business.

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Learn more at American Express dot com slash AMACS Business. Don't let the urge to sing along to that catchy tune distract you from that truck drifting towards your lane. Or that lane splitting biker creeping up beside you. Fortunately, every Hyundai offers advanced safety features that can alert you to potential dangers around you. And Hyundai is over 120 IIHS Top Safety Awards since 2006 because Hyundai is always working to ensure the road doesn't get you.

Hyundai vehicles have won over 120 IIHS Top Safety Awards from 2006 to 2024. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. Ryan Weber back with you. I'm 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 click Grainger dot com or just stop by. Home stretch on this holiday version of the program. Rich and the fellas enjoying a much deserved three day weekend back with you tomorrow.

If you've enjoyed my approach, you can follow me on Twitter. B.W. Weber Weber with two B's. And now I think I've completed the trifecta other than Flag Day. But if we go through major holidays on the Rich Eisen Show, yours truly as check the boxes.

Plus, Rich needs to and he won't because he's the hardest working man in show business, maybe coast a little bit more. Uncle Brian's got plenty of free time, willing and able to roll in here with four and a half hours of content that I tried to crab into a three hour bag. But we got 30 minutes left coming up.

We're talking Travis Kelsey. And then in 15 minutes, we wrap it up with gusto as we close in on March. Getting you set for what could be an S.E.C. Fest in the NCAA tournament with three of the top four seeds right now being held by teams from the Southeastern Conference. Looking forward to analysis provided by John Rothstein, college basketball insider for CBS Sports. I hope I've given you enough football.

Are you not entertained? And when Rich returns tomorrow, I'm guessing as we get closer to franchise tag decisions, he'll continue to focus on the Bengals. What are they going to do with T Higgins? And Joe Burrow is doing all he can to create the, I think, perception of leverage by going public, saying what any fair minded quarterback would say with the weapons around him. We have to keep this team intact.

But he's got to remember, if you're going through. I said no Mount Rushmore, so I'll just make it a list. The most frugal. But in plain English, cheapest owners in all of sports. Got to put Mike Brown on that list. So going to be very interesting to see what the Bengals do to retain all of the skill they have at the wideout position.

Also looking for more clarity as to the trade market for Deebo Samuel and Myles Garrett in terms of trying to create leverage at all we could by going public with the trade request in a very polite fashion from the Cleveland Browns. He hijacked some of the attention on day one of Super Bowl week and he was wise to do it. So you have media members looking for things to talk about other than the game.

Throw it out there. And he got a lot of coverage for a good 48 hours. Those are all topics that Rich is going to get into. In addition to all the quarterback conversation we laid out over the last two hours and 30 minutes. But I know Rich I think well enough. I know I'm on a personal level and I'm proud to call him a friend and also as a daily listener and watcher of the simulcast on the Roku channel.

Rich always does an excellent job of spinning it forward. So now that we've moved past the middle of February. If you don't own a calendar, that's OK. February 17th to be official.

Got two more weeks less than that to figure out how to pay the rent. We're all now on Travis Kelce watch watch watch watch watch because you might have missed this heading into a long holiday weekend. And I would hope that you have better things to do than get granular with NFL analysis. But there was the report that broke the other day from the athletic that the Chiefs have given Travis Kelce a deadline, not a soft deadline, an actual deadline of mid-March to decide if he wants to continue playing or call it a career. Now, I've seen some opinions floating around on the X platform and talking head shows because we're all looking for football topics to hit on. And I'm raising my hand right now. I'm guilty as charged that somehow it's disrespectful by the Chiefs to lay out a deadline and that Kelce deserves to take as much time as he needs because he's, quote unquote, earned that right as a future Hall of Famer.

And I can understand the sentiment, but I can't disagree more strongly. Can I give it an H-E double hockey six? No. Heck no.

I'll clean that because kids are on the car on a holiday. First of all, this is the NFL we're talking about, not the NBA. As we saw again over the weekend in San Francisco, the players run the league. LeBron James has earned the right, if you want to use that phrase in that context, to be transparent that he was not feeling 100 percent, but to eliminate his name to be a late scratch from an all-star game that was all about participation and effort was not a great look from a standpoint of optics.

Regardless of what's going on with his ankle, he could have tapped out prior to the weekend. He could have created a slot for somebody else, but LeBron wants it both ways. He wants the adulation. He wants the ability to hold court at media sessions, and he didn't want to play. And he got away with it because he's LeBron and players run the NBA. And I'm not anti those who generate the revenue having a huge say in how a business is run because that's how it works in the real world. If you're the best salesperson, you've got clout, but it feels like the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the NBA. And you compare that to the NFL, which is the undisputed heavyweight champion of printing money, which the players have virtually no say because their union has been consistently out bargained by NFL owners because in the past you've had players cross the picket line and you know that 18 game season is coming.

And I'm only interested in seeing how little the players get back in return because every negotiation has felt like the beat down the Eagles applied to the Chiefs on Super Bowl Sunday. So remember the league we're talking about. It's not the NBA, and there's a different set of business parameters in the NFL.

More importantly, I'm not bashing Kelsey. He's a first ballot Hall of Fame. We are talking about somebody that was 35 years old who plays an extremely physical position because you have to block as a tight end, even though it's all passing all the time in the NFL. And think about the additional wear and tear he's gained with all the playoff games that the Chiefs have consistently piled up with their year in and year out run to at least the AFC Championship game, if not the Super Bowl. Now, if you're on Team Travis, or if I have any of you Swifties a little bit annoyed, do not hit me up on the X platform, although I could use the additional followers. In fairness, if you're a Kelsey supporter, you're going to say, hey, filling guy, whoever you are, Travis caught 97 passes.

How do I know? I looked it up this morning to be accurate with these thoughts. That is a excellent total for any player, but you got to dig a little bit deeper because it was only a couple lines away when I was looking up things on ProFootballReference.com. Are you aware of the fact that Travis Kelsey only had three touchdowns in the regular season?

That's a career low, which I confirmed this morning. Yards per catch this season, also the lowest in his career. There's also the matter that he only caught two passes in the AFC Championship game, only four in the Super Bowl. Again, math is not my friend, but six receptions in the two most important games of the year ain't going to cut it. So really, the question comes down to the same premise we've been kicking around for Aaron Rodgers observations. Does Travis Kelsey want to go out that way? Does he want the last images of his Hall of Fame career to be him being shut out effectively, him being marginalized in a Super Bowl that was lopsided from the very opening quarter?

I keep going back to the fact that I'm not young. That felt like the Super Bowls that I endured growing up in the 80s, and we all had to go through until the game got much more competitive over the last decade or so. So if you're thinking about Travis's mindset weighing those pros and cons alongside where the Chiefs are, the one thing I will take exception with, and I consume way too much sports media, so maybe I need to get out of the house and read a book more, but I keep hearing somehow that this is the end of the Chiefs run, and I get all of the people who are tired of the Chiefs. KC fatigue is a real thing.

Plus, we love to build teams up on the way up and then destroy them when they're down. Yes, I am aware that the Chiefs have gotten pushed around and not look good at all in both of their losses. But talking about Super Bowl games with the whole world watching, the notion that KC needs a massive rebuild is just wildly exaggerated.

Yes, I am not Vince Lombardi, but I have eyes. I'm aware they have to fix their offensive line. Mahomes got destroyed. Some of that, though, came down to what Vic Fangio was dialing up as a skilled defensive coordinator for the Eagles and what Sweatt and company were doing in a situation in which there were no blitzes.

That was all a traditional four man rush. So some of that was a byproduct of the Eagles playing exceptional football. But as we saw with Aaron Rodgers, I keep going back to him, even though he is older than Travis. But I think there are some parallels that stand out.

If you're thinking about retirement, you're already retired. And Kelcey at this point has everything else but football, it would seem, on his mind. He's dabbled in acting. He's got the podcast with his other sibling who was equally overexposed. And he's dating one of the most famous people on the planet.

So I'm not going to tell anybody what to do, but I'm trying to be logical in these conclusions. I think he'd be inclined to come back for at least one more season. But whatever choice he makes, it's not wrong for the Chiefs to demand clarity, because after all, they have a football team to run. And whether he comes back for this season or we've seen the last of Travis Kelcey, they have to come up with a succession plan. They have to think about the future of the organization.

And they're never going to replace a first ballot Hall of Famer, but they have to think about what's next after the brilliant run they've gotten out of him for a long time. I'm Brian Weber, in for a jazz and want your thoughts over on the X platform. That is B.W.

Weber, Weber with two B's. Coming up, we will head to the hardwood once more. The top 16 seeds were revealed by the NCAA selection committee on Saturday. How many teams is the SEC going to get into the NCAA tournament? We'll find out when we check in with John Rothstein, college basketball insider for CBS Sports. First, it is time for a sports update.

Rich Ackerman has all the headlines. Let's talk TurboTax people. You might be sitting there going, wait a minute, Rich.

I don't get it. It's not April. Why am I thinking about my taxes now?

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See full terms at MintMobile.com. Brian Weber back with you. Let's wrap up the program with style points. Say hello to an excellent hoops journalist, John Rothstein. Check out his great work as a college basketball insider for CBS Sports. CBSSports.com. John, I am a big fan of your work and you are a skilled broadcaster.

So I'm going to give you the transparency of the clock. We got nine minutes left in the hour. I want to get to a lot of topics.

So I'm going to go with short and hopefully to the point questions. What were your biggest takeaways from the showdown between number one and number two won by Auburn over Alabama on Saturday? Just how high the ceiling is for Auburn to be able to go into a game like that in an environment like that and pretty much control the game from tip to finish.

And in addition to that, denied room having the game. He had nineteen, thirteen, six and two in a situation where the FCC is now being forecast as having thirteen and fourteen potential bids in the NCAA tournament only reiterates the level of competition that this guy is getting on a night to night basis, which is vastly different than what? Cooper Flagg from Duke, his main competition for National Player of the Year honors is getting in the ACC. I thought Broom again reiterated why as of today, he should be the National Player of the Year.

You led me where I wanted to go. I follow the bracketology. I'm seeing thirteen SEC teams to the NCAA tournament. A reminder of the record. Eleven bids secured by the Old Big East in 2011.

Do you think that number could be fourteen? I think it could be and I think when you look at the teams right now that are at the bottom of the SEC in terms of NCAA tournament projection, Texas is finally getting healthy. Kendall Weaver could return this week from a hip injury has kept him out the last couple of games. Arthur Columa did not play in the win against Kentucky Saturday.

He could return for the game on Saturday against South Carolina. Arkansas has played good basketball even in defeat as we saw against Alabama and Texas A&M the last couple of Saturdays. The two teams I'm looking at that are stumbling a bit are Oklahoma and Georgia. Oklahoma suffering a costly loss on Saturday to LSU. We're in a situation right now where I think the SEC has fourteen in play.

The question is could it get twelve or eleven. That's possible because this league is cannibalizing itself right now at an Anthony Hoskins Hannibal Lecter cannibal level. Getting you set for March Madness with Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. Jon you went back to back national championships like you kind of has done. Ultimately is going to catch up with you but that's a bad loss to a six win Seton Hall on Saturday.

One of the biggest challenges that Danny Hurley's team is facing at this stage of the season. Well UConn did not adequately replace Tristan Newton at point guard. Adrian Mahaney the transfer from St. Mary's has not obviously lived up to the expectations that he obviously came in with via the transfer portal. And Hassan Diarra who assumed point guard responsibilities for UConn has really been hampered by a lingering leg injury that's taken some of the stability that they've had at that position off the floor. UConn obviously had a disappointing loss on Saturday against Newton Hall but UConn a couple days before that was still good enough to win against Creighton. I know people have a short term memory in sports but as long as UConn has Danny Hurley as long as it has Liam McNeely and Alex Paraban UConn is still a team that's going to be really tough out in March. Rick Pitino at St. John's also able to secure a victory over Creighton and Rick had as of last week the red storm back in the top ten for the first time since 2000. We know Rick is one of the best in the history of this sport. How has he been able to work his magic so quickly in New York City?

Well he obviously did a really really good job in the transfer portal. He's done a really really good job developing some of the players in his program. This is something that I think needs to be pointed out because the college sports space right now is so volatile off the court and off the field. The product has never been better I think or it's as good as it's been because we have players staying longer because there's finally anti-ellen play which was long overdue in college sports. I know people are going to point to Kadari Richmond and he is obviously well worth all the attention who is St. John's best player pound for pound inch for inch. But St. John's also has several players, Jimmie and Welcher, RJ Lewis, Zuviedrafor who were a part of last year's team and because they didn't transfer, because they stayed in the program, they have gotten exponentially better in year two under Rick Pitino. Retention deserves more attention especially when you're talking about the St. John's Red Storm who were 22-4 and chasing their first outright Big East regular season title since 84-85 which you guessed it was the year that Luke Harnett's section Chris Mullen went to a final four. But you know as well as I do this is only February.

Well I was waiting for you to say in 11 days this is March. This show is based in Southern California. Who's the best team on the West Coast right now? UCLA and UCLA very quietly is in a situation where it has gotten this program back to the level that Mick Cronin had it, you know, the three years prior to last when he went to a final four and two Sweet Sixteens and in those Sweet Sixteens, UCLA was ravaged by major, major injuries.

One to Heidi Hockes in 2022 and then two to Jalen Clark and then Bonin in 2023. UCLA to me, you know, is the type of team that could break open a bracket in the round of 32 in this year's NCAA tournament. You know, we have some really good teams in college basketball. We have nobody like UConn and Purdue a year ago that were clearly the two best teams. So the Bruins have a dog in this fight thanks to their head coach who will go for its 500th victory Tuesday night at Holy Pavilion against Minnesota.

John, you can do it in 30 seconds. Who do you think is the leading contender to replace Mike Woodson at Indiana? I don't think there is a leading contender right now, and I want to make this really, really clear. You know, Indiana is a program that was made obviously famous by Bob Knight and his three national championships, one in 76, one in 81, one in 87. Since 1994, Indiana has been to the Sweet 16 four times. The program we just talked about, UCLA, since 2021 has been to the Sweet 16 three times. Since Bob Knight, these are the following coaches. Mike Davis went to the national title game in 2002, four NCAA tournaments in six years. He was asked to leave. Calvin Sampson never got the full test of time there because he was asked to leave after committing NCAA violations.

Tom Crane, three Sweet 16s to outright. And we got to leave it there, my friend. I love the passion. I love the knowledge. Thanks so much for being a part of the Rich Eisen Show today. John, the best in the business with his machine like information. Thanks to John. Thanks to Curt Heelan. Thanks to Eric Adam. Thanks to Mr. Eisen, Bruce Gilbert, all the great people at Westwood One, my friend Art Martinez for running the board. My name is Brian Weber. Rich and the guys are back tomorrow here on the Rich Eisen Show. Does this deserve another look? The Benny Show sees it in all of its glory. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.