Eric Edholm: A Lot Can Happen In The NFL Over The Next Month

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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's another hour of the program and it's great to have you with us.

We are live, we'll do it live, on this President's Day holiday primarily because Rich wants to make sure his loyal audience is always, at least this is the goal, entertained and informed in that order. Brian Weber with you. The phone number should be held for reference because I'll be upfront with you. I'm not taking calls today.

844-204-7424. Pick it up and dial Rich tomorrow. Conversation never stops on social media. You can get at me on Twitter, B.W.

Weber, Weber with two B's. Hit the NBA hard in the first hour of the program. I'm not going to devote all three hours nor freak out too much about changes to a meaningless exhibition in the All-Star Game. But it was worthy of spending a good portion of the first hour of the program to give you my takeaways, the fallout from the shift in format and get the analysis from Curt Heelan of NBCSports.com that he provided to wrap up the first hour of the show. We'll make the move more heavily now to the NFL.

I'm going to give you thoughts on the big name quarterbacks who could be on the move and we will ease into draft talk with the combine coming up in Indy next week and then to amplify those thoughts we'll get more analysis coming up 20 past the hour when we check in with Eric Edel of NFL Media. Final hour of the program, our final guest will take you across the nation focusing on what's going on on campus. If you're not tracking college basketball, I understand. I get far too autobiographical as a fill-in host.

You just want me to quote unquote play the hits. But this is a personal medium and since I already outed myself as someone who loves basketball even more than the NFL, a big part of that in the past was an extreme passion for college football. I've been lucky to cover three final fours. I used to host a college basketball coach's show but I understand the audience is never wrong. Most of you pay absolutely no attention to college basketball until championship week, maybe more likely selection Sunday but we're getting close and it's always great to have someone who has such extreme knowledge of the sport like John Rothstein of CBSSports.com. If you want me to break down the Horizon League, John can handle it coming up in the final hour of the program. Just to circle back to the overall perspective that Curt Heelan of NBCSports.com offered and I was messing around with Curt but he is part of the platform that is getting the NBA back. Let's close our eyes, not if you're driving, but cue your mental orchestra for John Tesch working on Ramball Rock 2025. Yes, the Peacock is getting basketball back.

They're going to have a say in terms of how the All-Star game could evolve further if the numbers aren't solid based on last night and if you didn't watch the game, I can't blame you, and if you did watch the game and we're flipping back and forth to Saturday Night Live, I have to hit that T hard because I'm from the East Coast, SNL 50, which I did, I'll be totally upfront with you. I watched the first game in its entirety. Now, this was not heavy lifting. It's not like I was working in a coal mine. It is my job after all and it was a game to 40 and I thought it was competitive and it blew by in 20 minutes. So when you have Kenny Smith's young stars without Anthony Edwards, if I'm going to crush LeBron for not playing because of the ankle injury, I got to point out that the Ant-Man was a late scratch as well because of a groin issue.

We've all been there or half the population has. The young stars matched up with the global stars, aka the international team, and that was a compelling game to a degree. I'm not trying to replicate the intensity of game seven of the NBA Finals. I just want to watch something that is competitive and I saw it in that game.

Game two, which I probably should have stuck around more for, I DVR'd and came back. The rising stars, if you're just thinking about raw incentive, largely anonymous team of first year players that most casuals would know, given that opportunity, they balled out. They played defense. They tried their best not to make it a conga line to the rim as we saw last year in that disaster of a farce of a game. And then you watch the last game, which is the one that if you thought the fix was in, the NBA clearly wanted to happen.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. International team against the OGs, the old guys, and that was over in a blink of an eye. 11-0 lead for Steph Curry and company. And that game was billed as the potential last dance or the winding down of the era of LeBron and Steph playing together as we saw them do so gloriously at the summer games in Paris alongside Kevin Durant and the names we've come to know. But if we're going to give them all the props they deserve at the same time, they are the generation that decided the all-star game was no longer worth playing hard in. And coming up in 40 minutes, we'll get to the reasons why we've arrived at this point.

I don't have the solution for you, nor is it my job. Reading some of the advanced word about if the numbers are terrible when the ratings come in, how the league could further tweak the event. I'm hearing proposals of a one-on-one game, which to me would be ridiculous. Even if they put a million bucks on the line, that's not basketball. What was being played last night in the modern context of all threes all the time felt like an actual game.

And that's how low the threshold has been reduced to because these guys just couldn't be bothered to give a damn anymore. And there are reasons for that conclusion and I'll address it coming up in 40 minutes. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen. Pass along your thoughts on the NBA, NFL, anything you want. BW Weber, Weber with two Bs by the volume of arcane references I've already thrown your way.

It should be pretty clear. I have no life. So after the program, we can continue the conversation on social media if you want to and kick around the notion of who killed the NBA all-star game. Back to the NFL. We spent a small portion of the last hour of the program talking about the fascinating development that Matthew Stafford somehow now has become the focal point of what's going to happen with the dominoes falling across the NFL with quarterbacks who could be on the move and try to fill the void that so many teams have. It is an interesting exercise back to having no life and maybe this is because I used to do a seven hour commercial free red zone on the radio program for five years. So Scott Hansen, less annoying, hopefully, and more actual content I would throw to pick your favorite announcer.

Let's go to Philadelphia. Merrill Reese has the call and it would be a touchdown jam when hurt. So I was looking at depth charts.

Again, I have a wonderfully rich social life. I was looking at depth charts just to see where things stand in terms of backups, because I mentioned I knew it intuitively, but I wanted confirmation. Jimmy Garoppolo is the backup of the LA Rams should the Rams decide to use Matthew Stafford as an asset and trade him. Now, again, I try not to get too bogged down in salary cap talk because it is dreadfully boring and I was told there be no math involved, but Stafford's only due to make 27 million bucks this year.

Even if you share my opinion that he's a middle of the road quarterback at this stage of his career at best, and I realize the numbers are big, but everybody's numbers are big other than Jalen Hurts because Philadelphia decided to run the football with the best running back when healthy of his generation. Stafford's a steal at 27 million. Now, some of that also comes down to the fact he's played things well with his negotiations with the Rams. He shook them down for $5 million of additional guaranteed money last year by the posturing stance that, well, maybe I don't want to play anymore.

I'm on the wrong side of 35. He's made over $360 million on the field, but that's also balanced by that he can still play and certainly would help any contending team as he helped the Rams on their unlikely run to the division around the playoffs. My observation about the context for the Rams would be, yes, they deserve credit from rallying from their one and four start. Yes, they're ahead of schedule rebuilding on the fly, but somebody had to win that terrible division. With that, you get the right to host a playoff game.

Unfortunately, those horrific fires blew through where I'm coming to you from our studios here in Southern California. Game moved to Arizona and Sam Darnold turned into Sam Darnold again, as we saw in the regular season finale, and then he got absolutely pummeled by that revamped Rams defense in that neutral side, quote unquote, game in Arizona. So if Stafford now is expendable, if you believe this is true and it's not just the case of both sides trying to play 12 dimensional chess and ultimately what will happen is the Rams get a multi-year commitment they're looking for from Mathieu. They don't want to continue to be held hostage by him at the end of every season saying, yeah, I'm not sure if I want to play. They want him in and having him contractually locked up and also a verbal assurance that he's going to play for at least two more years. If not, they're ready to rip the band date off now. Stafford just becomes one more intriguing name amongst other ones.

And I did not think when this season kicked off and that's why the NFL is the best reality show of them all. My apologies to the situation and Snooki, my dear friends from Jersey Shore. I'm Brian Weber in for rich asm. You can pass along your thoughts on Twitter. Hit me up.

My handle is BW Weber Weber with two B's in less than 15 minutes. We get you set for the NFL draft with the combine starting next week and more NFL free agency talk when we check in with Eric Edo of NFL media. When this year started, raise your hand.

I can see you through your audio device. Raise your hand if you thought Sam Darnold would be as coveted as he was heading into the penultimate big word Monday, the second last week of the regular season. And then everything changed. Sam woke up and remembered he was Sam Darnold. He was lousy on the road in Detroit winner take all game with the top seat on the line in the NFC. And I already alluded to just how wobbly he was in that wretched playoff performance by the Vikings. I understand it is not one on one basketball. It is not arm wrestling. When is a team loses a team.

I can spout cliches as well as anybody. But you can't tell me that Darnold took a major step back in both those games and imploded right before our eyes. So what does that mean for a quarterback who's just 27 years old before the destruction of Sam Darnold?

That sounds like a World War II novel. Before Darnold regressed, conventional wisdom said at a minimum, the Vikings would tag him about 40 million bucks to buy time. Also, it gives them the option if they want you to tag and trade him. So he's an asset.

You can flip him. But the overall succession plan would not change too much in Minnesota. They got another year to fully evaluate Sam and find out who he truly is at this stage of his career. It was hard to get a proper evaluation when he was jettisoned to the Jets and then Carolina, the NFL's version of a gulag. Now, I'll take you behind the curtain if you care at all about my academic background. I went to grad school at USC.

Yes, I have squandered a master's degree to be shouting into this microphone. But in terms of what it means for this program, I saw Sam Darnold play every meaningful game of his career at USC. And while he was a fine quarterback deserving of going in the top five, my issue with Sam was the penchant for horrible turnovers.

And we saw it again against the Lions and against the Rams in the playoffs. Does not fully negate what an excellent year he had. But if you want to dig deep into the numbers and scrutinize the body of work, how much of that was Sam? How much of that was the receiving corps led by Jefferson? How much of that was Kevin O'Connell being a quarterback whisperer?

Well, you put it all in the stew and mix it up. I think it comes out to the tag is still an option or the Vikings come back and say, Sam, we're going to offer you something reasonable but not outlandish because we still believe in J.J. McCarthy, as was the case when we had that run on quarterbacks last year with six going in the top 12. And for J.J., the concerns are now he's coming back from the knee injury. Remember, he was very young, 21 years old after winning the national championship at Michigan. So while you never want to see anybody get hurt, especially not potentially your franchise quarterback, there is a quote unquote silver lining that he had time to fill out his physique, work on his upper body as he rehabbed, but he is still an enigma. We don't know if he can play on the pro level. Minnesota has some real decisions to make.

And if you want to continue to connect the dots, duh, duh, duh. How about Matthew Stafford to the Vikings? I just mentioned in passing Kevin O'Connell, the NFL coach of the year, has now gained this reputation of being a savant. Well, where did he coach before the land of 10,000 lakes? He was on the staff of the Rams, part of that coaching staff that won the Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford as the starter. Although remember, Sean McVay is the play caller, so whoever has the title of offensive coordinator isn't that involved in the nitty gritty, but they're close enough to get some of that shot. The rub, as they say in professional wrestling, as I channel my inner Bobby Heenan. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen. What are your thoughts on the NFL QB market? Hit me up on Twitter. It's B.W.

Weber, Weber with two B's in 10 minutes. We'll expand the conversation check-in with Eric Edelm of NFL Media. So, Darnold is the name to watch early on. And then we go old, and that's fine. I've mentioned I'm in my mid-50s.

My life is over, although my life expectancy is for another four decades, so I got no problems with old guys being in the mix. We should not overlook Daniel, I can't call him Danny Dimes anymore, whatever bad moniker you want to come up with. Daniel Jones, who might get some of the shine, I keep using that word.

Where's my shine box? Billy Bats walking through door number two. He might get some more respect for having spent some time with Kevin O'Connell when his brief and turbulent run with the Giants ended. Daniel Jones out there, a Mitchell Trubisky kind of name, if you want him.

But at least he's not 140 years old, because the other guys we're talking about should have been on the cover of magazines in 2008 when that was still a thing. Kirk Cousins, first ballot Football Financial Hall of Fame. And Kirk seems like a nice guy.

I have interviewed him a couple times, gracious. One of the guys who will always throw your name in there, even as a fill-in hack, just tells you he's smart enough and emotionally intelligent enough to know that's a little trick to make people feel valued. But you saw him at the end of his run in Atlanta, and some of that may have been he was not fully back from the torn Achilles, which is going to be, in the old days, a career ending injury. Now, certainly a career impacting injury, especially when you're in your mid-30s, as was the case for Aaron Rodgers. Cousins will get a job someplace, because it's the same conundrum. Back to me, Googling depth charts, there's a massive difference between even the worst starting quarterback, whoever you think that is. Will Levis, if you want to go Tennessee's direction. Whoever you think is the worst QB one, the golf two backups is massive, because there just aren't, apparently, more than 32. What's the number?

35. The real number is probably 18 serviceable starters, but expansion says we have to have dudes under center. So, Cousins is going to get some interest. Plus, he can work at a discount after making hundreds of millions of dollars. He's going to get paid to go away from the Falcons, because whatever he does, he wins financially. I don't know what the Steelers are doing, because the Steelers believe in continuity more than anything else. I'm not saying that Mike Tomlin should be fired. That would be absolutely foolish, because they got back to the playoffs, but you saw how they fell apart down the stretch. Feels like they need something big to jump start the offense.

The defense is fine. Chris Boswell, their kicker, their most valuable scoring weapon. Would you think that Aaron Rodgers is an upgrade over Russell Wilson?

I don't know. That seems like a wash, unless you believe these reports that Mike Tomlin and Aaron Rodgers have a very good relationship, and Rodgers would be willing to sublimate his ego and not continue going on the Pat McAfee show and maybe keep his opinions about vaccines and everything else to himself. But if we're just making a football decision and a football calculus only, why would you roll the dice on Aaron Rodgers other than there's the conventional wisdom in coaching that there's always one guy out there who says, I can coach him up? And whatever the issue is, and to me the issue is, he's old. Aaron Rodgers looks like quarterbacks used to look late 30s, early 40s.

I'm not saying George Bland to ask, but you know what I'm talking about, before Tom Brady changed everything. And his body has betrayed him, coming back from the Achilles injury. But because I watch games closely when I'm not googling backup quarterbacks on Sundays, I did see more of the quote unquote vintage Aaron Rodgers over the last half dozen games, certainly than we saw for the first substantial chunk of the season. Was that enough for a team to say, yes, sign me up for a year of Aaron Rodgers, even if we have to endure him talking about Jeffrey Epstein in his free time. And maybe it's a team like the Raiders, where he's a placeholder for just one year. The one thing I do not see at all is Aaron Rodgers volunteering to be a backup. I saw something on ESPN.com that indicated Rodgers might be, this was somebody spitballing, but might be inclined at this stage of his career to go mentor a quarterback.

Where do we get that notion from? Does he want to win so badly? If you think Chicago's poised to win now with Ben Johnson taking over, that he would go and back up Caleb Williams, I just don't see it. So as we spin the quarterback carousel, it's a lot of old guys. Somehow Matthew Stafford at 37 seems young and spry, but here we are not even approaching March 1st and the depth and quality of names, even if the quality of play isn't sensational, these are big marquee names. I can't remember a quarterback market like the one we have this year, having that kind of star power because you have Super Bowl champions in there and even Kirk Cousins in the mix. I can't remember this kind of collection of talent all being available if Stafford is available at the same time. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen. I'm about to check the X platform.

So go there presently. BW Weber, Weber with two B's. We are brought to you by Hyundai. Here's a riddle for you. What do yoga mats, a toothbrush and Hyundai have in common? I'll give it to you in a moment. Time's up.

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Join AMAC and become part of a movement that stands for you, your family and your future. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm Brian Weber and I'm proudly 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 clickrainger.com or just stop by. Let's keep the football conversation going. Always a pleasure to take you across the NFL with one of the best in the business.

It's Eric Edel of NFL Media and NFL.com. Eric, I appreciate you taking the time. How are you? Doing well, sir. How are you? I am doing well. I'm always in a good mood when I'm keeping the chair warm for Rich and the fellas.

And my goal is to make sure the audience is satisfied. I'm going to the X platform for my first question. Bob in Indy wants to know because I was going through teams with quarterback needs. I talked the Jets. I talked the Giants. I talked the Browns. I talked the Steelers. I talked the Raiders. I did not mention the Colts.

So dreaded two part question, but you can handle it. What was your major takeaways from what you saw from Anthony Richardson last year? And what do you think the Colts think about him moving forward? Yeah, obviously it was a frustrating season. You know, the, the fantasy folks were, were very excited about Anthony Richardson. And so were a lot of the draft people obviously who, who studied him coming out and, you know, saw the alluring blend of, of size, athletic traits, arm talent.

And I mean, like if you took a, a cut up of the 20 best Anthony Richardson plays from last year, you might've thought the guy was a pro bowler. Like if you had watched a minute of Colts football and, and just saw that you might say, wow, this, this guy is a weapon, but the problem was of course, the inconsistencies in between those snaps and, and, you know, being benched and, you know, responding initially, but not sustaining any level of consistency that I think would make Shane Steichen or Chris Ballard or Jim Mersey happy. So obviously there's a, a real concern. This is the pivotal year, year three.

How, how do you handle this? You know, they've, they brought in a couple of veterans behind him to try to, you know, shepherd him on his way to, to stardom and all that, but it just really hasn't taken yet. I think obviously if you add more receiving talent around him, that's not going to be a bad thing and maybe a tight end.

That's been the, the position. I think they could probably upgrade the most, but drafting a quarterback high in this draft with so many questions at the position, maybe two guys worth using a first round pick on. I don't know if that's a possibility, but I wouldn't rule out someone a little farther down the line, you know, someone in that middle range of the draft where you can get someone with talent to push him, but also allow him a little bit of breathing room to see if year three can be the year where everything kind of unlocks.

Eric Edholm of NFL media works with Rich Eisen is our guest here on the Rich Eisen show since you mentioned the top of the draft and you follow the draft very closely on a granular basis year round. Let's shift to what's coming up next week with the combine getting underway in Indianapolis. How much separation do you see in your evaluation between Cam Ward and Chidora Sanders? Yeah, I mean, they're, they're both interesting players.

They've been working out together. You know, they, they say they've become friends during the early stages of the process and it will be interesting to see how the pieces fall. First, we need to sort of figure out where the veteran quarterbacks are going and then we get a little clearer landscape of, okay, which teams remaining still need quarterbacks and how are they going to go about doing this and how high do these guys go? You know, I think the winds have been blowing in the direction of Ward more than Sanders as far as which one might be drafted first. But as you know, Brian, all it takes is that one team to make a bold trade up, whether it's all the way up to number one with the Titans, if, if they're not going to be picking a quarterback. Maybe it's to a team picking two through four, if they're not convinced, obviously New England at four has Drake May, but point being, I mean, that's getting ahead of a few of the teams a little bit farther down the line. You know, and that's going to help determine which one goes first. It's not necessarily the best version of the best quarterback prospects.

Which I should say who always is taken first. You know, you think about Mitch Trubisky obviously going ahead of Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes. You know, you think about Bryce Young going ahead of CJ Stroud.

That wasn't a consensus and it still isn't now. So, you know, it's really hard to say if there is a whole lot of separation, especially considering they play such different games. Ward's the more sort of athletic loose player than I would say Sanders is. Sanders is a little bit more of a rhythm passer, a pocket passer, an accurate guy.

Doesn't have that wow athleticism or arm talent, but you know, does a lot of good things as well. So maybe a little bit more juice with Ward right now, but I think there will be some teams that view Sanders as a better fit. Eric Edel, NFL Media is our guest on this President's Day edition of the Rich Eisen Show. So conventional wisdom in alignment with your analysis, if it's Ward and Sanders in whatever order people want to slot them. Who's number three on the QB list and is there a possibility we see three quarterbacks go in round one? Always the possibility, you know, even, you know, I always say January and February things that feel impossible end up being probable or even possible by March and April. So, you know, what can happen over the next 60 days, 90 days, whatever it is. And, you know, at this point, is there an obvious candidate?

Not to me? No, I think Jackson Dart from Ole Miss would be the one who, you know, if you, it hasn't happened in a few years, but if you see a team kind of in that, uh, like Lamar Jackson in 17, when the Ravens traded up to the bottom around one to get him to make sure they get that fifth year option. If there's a team that misses out on Sanders and Ward and, you know, comes to that spot and, you know, realize and say, we've got to make a play here, maybe even overpay to do so. I could see something like that happening. You know, Jalen Milro from Alabama, I felt like he had a great opportunity at the senior bowl.

Not don't believe he necessarily cashed in on that fully. Still think he's a talented guy who goes on day two, but round one, even with his array of skills, I just feel like it's kind of the Anthony Richardson discussion a little bit where you worry whether he's going to be able to give you very much from day one and be consistent as a starter, maybe even in his first couple of years in the league. Since you mentioned the Titans in passing, if you were calling the shots and I think you're qualified, I'd love to see that come to the focus.

If you were running the Titans, what would you do with the number one overall pick? Oh, you butter me up like that. I mean, I, well, you're coming out on a holiday. Come on. That's right.

With my kids home too. Yeah. Oh, your father of the year.

I appreciate that as well. Yeah. I it's, it's a really fascinating situation. Obviously Brian Callahan, you know, comes from Cincinnati where he saw how much Joe burrow could, could change the face of franchise. Mike Morganzi, new GM, Kansas city. He was there when Patrick Mahomes was drafted it, you know, it's not hard to sort of connect the dots and say both men were part of a franchise changing draft picks with quarterbacks and they could easily see how the right guy can make that team relevant again.

Right. But at the same time, you know, and even with Chad Brinker, you know, the, the president of football ops saying that they won't pass on a generational talent. I'm not sure that either of the quarterbacks, you could fairly call them generational towns a year ago. If somebody applied that to Caleb Williams or even Jayden Daniels before the draft, maybe even Drake may, I don't think people would really bet with really batted an eye. That would have been a, a fairly, you know, maybe a little stretch, but certainly out opinion, most people could, could sort of embrace this year with those quarterbacks.

I'm not sure you can say that. I think they could be good, but, but having that kind of confidence, the little beyond we're on that to me, that generational player in this draft is probably either Abdul Carter from Penn state. You know, I don't know if he's Micah Parsons, but he's darn good. I mean, he's on that same sort of the spectrum or Travis Hunter, you know, the, the, the two way player who's one of the more unusual evaluations and in recent memory.

So I think it would be one of those two. And my, I would lean towards Carter because receiver slash corner at number one, I don't think you would positional value wise. I don't know that that's going to be going to help you quite as much, but again, two positions, such an unusual talent.

I I'd have a hard time passing on it, but I think Carter would be my pick. Talking football with Eric Edholm, check out his terrific work across all of NFL media's platforms. And if you still read, reading is a thing. Cause Eric writes well, it's NFL.com since you're on daddy duty, I will try to respect your time and we'll wrap it up with Matthew Stafford. Maybe this is geographical bias.

I'm based here in Southern California. Maybe I'm just caught up in internet slews, trying to connect the dots. Aha's brother in law is now the assistant quarterback coach of the giants. What do you make of all that's percolating around Stafford now? Fascinating.

Isn't it right? Even a year ago, there was some sort of question about his future and when he signed the contract and it sort of came down to the last minute and camp there. And you know, I'm not saying there, there was tension or that these sides don't like each other or anything like that, but you could tell they were, there was a little distance between them there as far as the contract was concerned. And you know, the fact that, you know, the Rams don't have any guaranteed money on him beyond this year, there is a big cap money, but he's not scheduled to make very much, at least in terms of the top quarterbacks in the league, he's around 27 million. I want to say so, you know, from Stafford's perspective, you can understand why he'd want to ensure that he has a safety net, right, that he gets paid commensurately with the top guys. As for the giant specific rumors, I can't speak to anything other than I know, you know, Joe Shane and Brian Dabel have to be feeling the heat have to understand that they need a quarterback who can win. Maybe word and Sanders excite them, but maybe not to the point where, you know, you can get somebody in here who can deliver a winner right now, maybe that might be more appealing with, you know, Malik neighbors, Tyrone Tracy and a good defense, you know, a good left tackle and Andrew Thomas, maybe you could forge a line around him and, and make it work that way. So yeah, it's hard not to read the kind of the smoke signals happening.

They're distant right now, but we could see them and they're, they're starting to maybe grow in intensity a little bit. Eric, tremendous insights as always when Rich goes to the bullpen on a holiday, I'm very happy to pick up the phone and I'm equally pleased that you make yourself available. So thanks so much for taking the time and also congratulations on doing your job as a parent. Seems like you have well behaved children.

I didn't hear any screaming in the background. I'm the Travis Hunter of draft evaluators. I don't know the two way guy maybe perhaps. Thank you for having me, Brian. It's always a pleasure to talk to you too, man. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Eric.

Eric Adam, who has been kind enough to join us. I'll go plural. I'm not that big. Am I? No, it's the radio term. We have opinions that I dating back to his time at Yahoo sports and whatever the future of NFL media may be.

Eric is always going to be in demand because not only does he take the time to really get all of his information properly source and dissected, he's got great communication skills as well. And on the radio, or if you read his work on NFL.com, I'm Brian Weber doing my best just to take it one syllable at a time. I also am friendly to those of you on Twitter. So we have the question from Andy. I read it cause I'm a wind up doll.

You have further thoughts. I just gave you confirmation. I'm checking out the account in real time. B W Weber Weber would two B's an hour from now we wrap it up talking March madness as February is winding down. It is an intriguing year, especially in the SCC. We will get you set for the bracketology when we check in with John Rothstein college basketball insider for CBS sports. And speaking of hoops coming up back to the NBA, now that the league has changed its all-star game format for better or for worse, what changes need to be made in the regular season that is coming up. But first time for a sports update. The great Rich Ackerman has the latest.

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That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be Brian Weber back with you. We are motoring through this three hour audio extravaganza.

Thank you for putting up with me. Good news is just one day off, one day off, one day off for rich and the fellows back with you tomorrow, along with the Emmy nominated simulcast on the Roku channel. We have a lot more to get to.

However, not going to mail it in. Feel good about the first hour and 45 minutes. Little bit of MBA here because since I've not worked this program since January 1st, slightly different clock as they say in the industry.

So don't have a ton of real estate in this programming segment. Got a lot of time top of the hour in addition to the opportunity to get further interactive with you. Appreciate all of you who have decided to follow me along the way.

Slide over to the X platform, not if you're driving BW Weber Weber with two B's and just under 60 minutes from now because it's appointment audio. We'll wrap up the program talking college basketball in entertaining fashion with John Ross team of CBS Sports. John is so in depth and comprehensive. The under over for questions asked is three. I think I have three as a possibility. John will be exhaustive with his takeaways of the battle between number one and number two, one by Auburn, much to the consternation of Alabama fans, Crimson Tide, though not getting hammered in the new AP poll out this morning. Depending on where you live, it's morning here on the West Coast, Alabama sliding down to number four, Florida number two, Cooper Flag and Duke at number three. That means as has been the case for the majority of recent weeks, three of the top four teams in the SEC mirroring the NCAA selection committee's reveal of the top 16 seeds as of now.

Three of the top four coming from the Southeastern Conference who says that football is even relevant in that conference anymore. That might be a bit of an overstatement in advance of further takeaways from All Star weekend. And I will look ahead to what's remaining of the regular season because I understand if you're still hanging with me as the Phil and Hack, a lot of you parachute into the NBA at different times. So as I keep dating myself in the old days, well, not too long ago before the NFL decided they wanted to run Christmas as well. But a lot of casual fans would get their first glimpse of basketball on Christmas Day because other than the blue gray game, the college football All Star game, other than that, the NBA was the only thing on. Well, that's changed. So now some of you slide in during All Star weekend.

Maybe you just wanted to check out the greatness of Mack McLung. Man, that guy has one dimension, but that dimension is incredible. It's too bad he can't play in other facets of his game.

Nearly as well as taking it to the rack, but he has saved the slam dunk competition one more, once more winning it for a third consecutive time. If you didn't watch this weekend, I get it. There's another big chunk of the audience that pays no attention to the NBA until we get to the playoffs in April.

So if you're part of that contingent coming up, we will try to sort out who is for real at this stage of the season. I'm not going to read the standings, but because I keep hammering, I do love the NBA. I'm the kind of guy who watches what's that LL Cool J. I'm name checking another group from the past.

Salt performer. Ladies love Cool James. I'm the type of guy who will sit down on a Tuesday and watch NBA TV all night long. I'm going to give you my thoughts on the handful of teams you should believe in with a possibility of winning it all as we discussed with Curt Heelan of nbcsports.com to wrap up the first hour of the program undeniably. It's not a hot take. They have the best record in the West. Same as Cleveland sharing the best record in all basketball.

OKC has been a revelation that is coming up to tip off our number three. But on the way, I do think that we get distracted by the wrong things because and we'll talk about this more coming up in a few minutes in the final hour of the program. While there's the ability in this medium to take a show any way you want, the audience is never wrong. So when I'm following the reaction on social media last night, the consensus is this is terrible. All-star games suck. What should we do to fix it?

Some things, unfortunately, are not fixable. All-star games by their very nature are meaningless exhibitions. Now, not too long ago, I remember that the Pro Bowl was watchable. Remember, they played it the week after the Super Bowl and guys showed up. Now, the difference is nobody wanted to risk injury, but you still saw major names out there.

But that's ancient history because the world has changed. Hockey, very different because of the fabric of the sport. This four nations tournament has been sensational because hockey players are aliens.

They're just different than you and I. Major League Baseball All-star game has been consistent. The problem is, other than abandoning players wearing their own unis, which was a hideous decision, we don't know who most of these players are because most of us don't follow baseball anymore. So All-star games by their nature were never meant to be the end all be all and the constant hand wringing and freaking out has gotten a bit tiresome, but it is my job after all. So I'll give you more takeaways about what happened last night in San Francisco and we'll look ahead to the second half, quote unquote, of the NBA season coming up. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen. I appreciate the company. Hang with us. Our number three is up next. needs a stock. No one needs cryptocurrency.

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