Tom Pelissero: Everyone Is On Board With The Cleveland Browns Off-Season Plan

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Savings vary. Subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. This is the Rich Eisen Show.

Get ready. But what if Daniel Jones becomes a jet and they start winning in a manner Aaron Rodgers did not? Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Earlier on the show, Bills tackle Dion Dawkins. Coming up, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero.

Apple TV lead MLS analyst Taylor Twelman. Actor Michael Fassbender. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Now we're number two of the Rich Eisen Show. We just said farewell to Dion Dawkins. It was a delightful chat with the left tackle of the Buffalo Bills, talking about his quarterback. He wants to create something called the Protector of the Year award.

I kind of dig that idea. Said he's already spoken to the commissioner about it. Talked about Bills Mafia and how, what's the phrase he used? Signing Flesh? Signing Flesh.

But which I think, it's not a fantasy team name. I think it's the name of a metal band tour. You know, like the Signing Flesh Tour. Good one.

That would be on a laminate. That would be like Black Sabbath and Megadeth on the Signing Flesh. We exchange numbers.

We'll get them on No Contest Wrestling. That'll be a fun chat. That'll be great.

844-204 Rich is the number. What's more likely coming up later on in this hour? Same thing with Taylor Twelman.

Give us an update on what's going on with MLS. The actor Michael Fassbender will join us. And joining us now, though, is a man of the hour, our colleague from the NFL media group, fresh off of his birthday on Thursday. Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Pozzero. Tommy P. Thank you very much, Rich.

Good to be here. What's up to my boys in the studio? Tommy. Tommy, 31. What up, brother?

Happy birthday, Tom. Did you get my Starbucks gift card? Did you get that? See, those records remain permanently sealed. Highly redacted.

Already started. Highly redacted. Highly.

I cannot comment on anyone who might have given a Starbucks gift basket to anyone for any reason. I just I simply cannot get into it, please. Just beautiful. All right, Tom, let's let's jump right into to your report from today about Myles Garrett attempting to have what appears to be a second conversation just recently with the owner of the Cleveland Browns and Jimmy Haslam tells Myles Garrett no.

And two things I want to know of the information, obviously behind it. But firstly, your choice of this photograph. Did you choose the most Walder Frey type photograph for Jimmy Haslam? Did you choose this picture?

Tom? No. My ask.

So we've got a fantastic social media team, as you know, at NFL Network. And so when I'm going to put out a story, I'll often ask, hey, can you give me a photo? And I'll try to generally describe, for instance, if a guy is about to sign a massive contract extension, I don't want him looking sad after they lost the game. Yes.

If he's if it's something that's, you know, really bad, he tore his ACL. I don't want him smiling and two thumbs up. So in this case, all I said was, hey, I need a Myles Garrett Jimmy Haslam photo where neither person looks like they're really thrilled. And I think Aaliyah in our social team nailed that photo.

So this was this was by choice. I like it. Look how you're you're producing. You're producing as well as reporting. Tom, that's you. You're next level.

What a control freak. I appreciate it. I've got I've had a few I've had a few of those, though, in the in the can where it's like, oh, I've got that breaking news graphic. Now look at I'm like, that's not the right tone for what I'm about to report. So you just got it.

I got it fresh. Now let's get to the reporting. Walk me through what happened with Myles Garrett and and Jimmy Haslam or what didn't. So this is obviously Richard continuation of what's been going on since right after the end of last season, which is Myles Garrett very quickly after last season ended, even mused about it publicly in his exit meeting with reporters, you know, saying that he had some things you need to evaluate. He and his agent Nicole Lynn went to the team right after the season, began to tell them, you know, hey, we'd like to go elsewhere.

You know, the time has come. Myles is you know, he's around 30 years old. He's got good years left, but he knows that, you know, he's only got a certain amount of a window to go compete for championships. Myles doesn't feel like you're close to competing for a championship and he wants to go someplace else. They conversed on that for several weeks quietly. Then on the Monday of Super Bowl week, they felt like, you know, they need to put out the trade request publicly to try to move things along because the Browns weren't moving. However, in the month or so since then, there's still been no movement from Cleveland side. And my understanding has been that they are in total alignment as an organization. They've got an offseason plan and from ownership to the GM to the head coach, everybody's on the same page with that plan, which does not involve training Myles Garrett. So people have called the Browns. People tried to talk to Andrew Berry about it at the combine. And I've spoken to a number of those people and everyone says, you know, Berry, it's not like there's wiggle room. It's not, well, what might it be?

Or talk to me. It's I am not training him. So for Myles Garrett, who is seeing absolutely no movement and he feels, you know, you can argue, you know, how you feel about, you know, his state of mind at this point, but he feels like I've been the face of the franchise for close to a decade here. I've given you a lot of good years. I won defensive player of the year. We've been to the playoffs. We've won a playoff game. You know, it's time for me, as you know, a Hall of Fame caliber player.

You know, I should have a voice in this. And when Andrew Berry was not willing to move on that, Myles tried to go to Jimmy Haslam, who again, as this thing was evolving way back in January, they didn't converse at that point. But Myles basically said, from my understanding, hey, I want to come in and meet and I don't want to talk. And Jimmy basically said, I'm not getting involved. Go talk to Andrew Berry, who of course has already rejected all the overtures they've made to trying to sign Myles Garrett. So I can see this or to trade Myles Garrett.

So I can see this from multiple standpoints here. For the Browns, you're going, you know, this is an occasion where Jimmy Haslam has gotten criticized before for meddling or the perception of meddling. Here he's saying, hey, I'm staying out of it. This is a football decision. I'm leaving it with the football people. From Myles's point of view, he's going, well, if Jimmy's not going to get involved, what am I supposed to do here? And so this is a continuation right now.

Both sides are dug in on this. The Browns, again, from the top down have told everyone if they've even called him back, we are not trading this guy. And Myles has said, I don't want to play for the Browns. It's not about the city of Cleveland.

He loves it there. It's about he doesn't think that they're ready to win right now, coming off of a really challenging type of season. And now Myles Garrett is, from what I'm told, beginning to contemplate the very real idea that if the Browns don't trade him, that he might have to sit out games.

He might have to sit out into next season, which, of course, Rich is every player's greatest leverage is. I'm not going to be out there if I don't get to go the place that I want to. So I remember saying this, you know, when I came on this show, I think it was the day after the day after that trade request became public. This is going to take a while. This is not a simple, all right, yeah, all right, we're moving forward here. The Browns don't want to trade them. Myles wants to be traded.

Nobody's budged. The real pressure point in all of this, since clearly it doesn't come a few days before free agency here, is going to be the week of the NFL draft. And if at that point the Browns have not budged on Myles Garrett, now you get past the draft.

You're talking about downgrading those draft picks into future draft picks here. That's really the next pressure point. But obviously neither side has moved at all. In terms of how they're looking at this situation, and we'll see if there's any movement, you know, basically who blinks first in this staring contest.

Tom Palaciero with the latest here. And so what is the Browns' plan to rebuild or not call it a rebuild and try and win while Myles Garrett sits back and hopefully comes around? You know, like the way I've been putting the analogy of the approach for the Browns to Garrett is sort of like beauty in the Browns, you know, where the beauty is in the basement and they're going to be, the beauty is captive. And at some point the beauty will come around, you know, and the Browns are just going to sit up top and just go about their business while showing what they can do with their new lives, right? And so what is that plan, best you can tell, that I guess Garrett was filled in on and didn't like or wasn't moved by it? What is it, Tom?

You got it? It's really Myles Garrett looking at this and saying, what are the odds that a four-win team from a year ago is suddenly going to be in title contention? And listen, they've ridden a rollercoaster there in terms of, you know, the year before Kevin Stefanski is the coach of the year. They start five different quarterbacks, they win 11 games, they're in a playoff game down in Houston, you know, and then all of a sudden last year is just such a mess on so many levels. Obviously DeSean Watson being central to it, they converted his bonus yesterday or converted his salary into a signing bonus, which they've done over and over.

They've now paid out almost that entire $230 million contract, although they still have to account for about half of it on their salary cap over the next several years here. You know, for Myles Garrett, you're still, you are at the early stage of the offseason, right? It's felt like, I'm sure for Myles, like it's been a long time, but the Browns haven't had a chance to maneuver yet. Their standpoint seems to be they made some mistakes last year, they do not right now have the quarterback. And listen, DeSean Watson, after suffering a second Achilles tear, you know, there's a very real possibility he's not going to play at all in 2025. You're eventually going to get, because of your insurance policy, cash and cap relief from that, but you're going to need a different quarterback, if not two quarterbacks. They own the number two overall pick, they will be in position if they choose to use that on a quarterback, they can do that. I would also anticipate that they're in the veteran quarterback market as this thing moves along. And you're sitting there, if you're Andrew Berry and you're Kevin Stefanski in the organization, you're going, okay, offensively, we've got some weapons. You know, Jerry Judy had a really big year last year, David Njoku is still under contract.

You just saw the news yesterday, Joel Patonio, one of your stalwarts on your offensive line, he's coming back. Defensively, you know, they've got talent, they've got obviously the Myles Garrett thing hanging over their heads. JOK and his injury situation still needs to play out, they've got talent in the secondary. This is a team that should be able to move forward relatively quickly.

But you haven't even seen that yet. Myles Garrett is sitting there going, I don't know who the quarterback is, I don't know what the plan is. I don't know, you know, what's the future of Nick Chubb, who's also going to become a free agent here. And what are the odds that whatever they do, and all the stuff you've got to deal with cap-wise, what are the odds we're going to be able to compete in that division with Lamar in Baltimore, Joe Burrow in Cincinnati, and Phil in the quarterback and the Steelers in the next several years here? You know, Myles Garrett, again, he's got years left. He probably doesn't have 10 years left. And if the next couple of years are part of, well, we're trying to get this thing moving in the right direction, he just would like to be in a position where he can compete to win a Super Bowl immediately and have the opportunity to add that to a Hall of Fame caliber resume.

I can tell you this, Rich. And of course, you know, in that same state of Ohio, we saw the Bengals dealing with Trey Hendrickson, who requested a trade last year. They didn't, granted, at that point.

He played out the year, led the NFL in sacks, comes to him again. They were trying to work out a deal. The Bengals made an offer to Trey Hendrickson.

They're just not there. And so he requested, hey, can I get permission to go in and seek a trade? And they said, sure. And so now Trey Hendrickson and his agent are out there seeking a trade. Myles Garrett is looking at that and saying, I can't even get the opportunity to speak to the owner.

You can imagine where some of the frustration comes from here. But, you know, to be very honest, this is not a leverage play by the Browns. They truly are dug in. They do not intend to trade Myles Garrett. He is part of their plan for turning this thing quickly in 2025. And time will tell, again, you know, who's going to move, because if neither side moves, then September is going to roll around. And the Browns are going to be trying to make that step forward with Myles Garrett sitting somewhere watching the game on the couch. Right, and no draft compensation already turned into human beings, right? I mean, it's and draft compensation that could replenish what the Deshaun Watson trade, they're finally through the other side.

I mean, you're right, there's lots of moving parts. And we'll see when everybody feels it's going to strike midnight. Tom Pellicero here on the Rich Eisen Show. So the first domino do you think that's going to fall?

What do you think, Tom? Free agencies around the corner, the window in which the negotiating window, is that what we're calling it? What's the official phrase? Negotiating window, NFL free agent negotiating window. And that opens, that starts when? Noon Eastern on Monday.

Okay, great. When we come on the air on Monday, Chris, you'll be a busy bee. Cannot wait. We will be live doing our own free agency frenzy, if you will. We need lots of Patriots updates, Tom.

Okay, very good. What do you think is going to be the first domino to fall? Is it going to be a quarterback, Darnold? Is it going to be DK Metcalf? Who do you think it's going to be? What's your guess, Tom?

Call it. In my mind, the story of the off-season is not free agency, just because there are some guys who are going to get paid big money, but it's probably going to be people that average fans or even loyal viewers of your show, Rich, have never heard of. When Dio Odenobo gets a monster deal, when Milton Williams, who granted made his name in the Super Bowl, when he gets a huge deal, when Aaron Banks, a guard, gets $18 million a year, that's probably not going to move the needle a whole lot in terms of the public consciousness. To me, the story is you've still got, depending how you do the math, eight or nine teams who we don't know who their starting quarterback is in 2025.

A lot of that's going to play out even in the next 72 hours here in terms of teams having to make decisions, potentially deadlines being set, because if you're not going to get the guy who might be your top choice, you've got to pivot to Plan B before Plan B and Plan C vanish come noon Eastern time on Monday. So I would say some of the initial dominoes here are going to be what happens with Sam Darnold. The Vikings have an offer out to him.

They have been in talks. They chose not to use the franchise tag, which is probably a pretty good indication that Sam Darnold's market is a little bit lighter than what people have been expecting on the outside. The Sam Darnold decide to go back on effectively a one year deal in Minnesota and, you know, be the guy until he's not the guy with J.J. McCarthy sitting there breathing down his neck.

Does he decide I'm going to go someplace else, whether that's on another one year deal or it's on a multiyear deal? There are several teams that have an interest level in Sam Darnold, but I don't get the sense that there's somebody blowing him away with a monster multiyear contract. Otherwise, you know, you probably already would have had the Vikings pivoting off of that and go into the next thing. So that's one of the big dominoes here, which in turn impacts the likes of Daniel Jones, who would be in all likelihood Plan B in addition to obviously having J.J. McCarthy there.

Another big domino is in Pittsburgh, where Ian Rappaport said it the other day. You know, they've been negotiating with Justin Fields. That appears to be Plan A. Russell Wilson's waiting to see what happens in Pittsburgh. Aaron Rodgers, to a certain degree, is waiting to see what happens in Pittsburgh. And then you've got some other unresolved quarterback situations around the league.

Obviously, you know, the Saints and Derek Carr, he's got a big vesting next week. Are they going to be able to work out some type of a modification to that contract? Do they eventually just bring him back on the existing contract?

You know, those are some of the questions here. And then obviously, you know, the Seahawks have talked with Geno Smith. They're going to do something to that contract.

Is it something that's, you know, to Geno's liking? Those are some of the moving parts that we've got that still have to be resolved here. So the quarterback is a huge part of it. And that's in addition, teams I didn't even mention there, the Titans, the Browns, the Giants, the Raiders, the Jets.

All those teams need starting quarterback answers here. Those dominoes will start moving, I believe, even in the next 72 hours here before we get to free agency. The wide receiver spot, there's not a whole lot there in free agency. With T. Higgins getting tagged, and listen, that could be a tag and trade. There's certainly been interest in T. Higgins if the Bengals are willing to trade him. The odds they're trading T. Higgins and Trey Hendrickson at a time that Assistant General Manager Joe Burrow would definitely not like those guys to be leaving town. I would say it's unlikely that they trade both of those players. In a perfect world, they get deals done with all of them, Trey Hendrickson, though they're just not there at this point. But with teams off the market, your top wide receiver is probably Chris Godwin, who's a third contract player coming off of an injury. But I anticipate Chris Godwin, if the Bucs don't bring him back, is going to do very well on the open market. And then you've got a lot of those older players, you know, the Keenan Allens of the world.

What is somebody willing to give him? It's probably going to be a shorter-term type of a contract. DK is clearly, and I put this out in the initial tweet reporting on his trade request that the Seattle Seahawks agreed to explore, was he immediately becomes the top wide receiver out there at a time that you've got nine or ten teams that are all looking for a number one, or worst case, a number two type of a wide receiver. And so John Schneider, the Seahawks' GM, has been open about it. They're talking to a ton of teams. There are a bunch of teams that are interested in this, but DK has also, he's got one year and 18 million left on his contract. Ideally, he's going to get a new deal out of this, and a new team is going to want a new deal with DK Metcalf in order to give up the type of draft capital that the Seahawks would be wanting to get. So DK could be the first domino in the receiver market. That potentially could even happen as soon as this weekend. But if they don't get the type of compensation they're wanting, there's no reason that John Schneider has to do anything prior to draft week because, again, just like in other situations, you get past the draft, now you're downgrading. You're not getting guys who can help you right now. So whether that's the next couple of days or that's still a month away, we'll see. But this is very real with the DK Metcalf trade market.

And then the third part of this is the edge rusher market. A big one fell yesterday, Max Crosby, or two days ago now. I'm losing track of time. Max Crosby agreeing to a deal at $35.5 million per year on a three-year extension. He's now signed up for five years.

That situation, Rich, was truly edgy. I know it's been out there that the deal came together quickly. They'd really been talking about it, but they weren't there on some things in terms of structure and cash flow.

That came together relatively quickly when his agents went in to Las Vegas. But if that had gone another direction, if they weren't able to get that deal done, Rich, I think we'd be sitting here talking about Max Crosby being another guy who's on the trade market because there were a bunch of teams hovering around and hoping that things blew up there, and they would have been willing to come in and offer a lot to bring Max someplace else. So now, okay, if you want a top-caliber edge rusher, where else are you looking?

Trey Hendrickson led the league in sacks last year. The Bengals don't do many trades, but they're allowing him to seek permission to do a deal. That could be a big domino in this entire thing. Micah Parsons, I know there have been initial talks on a contract in Dallas. If he doesn't get a deal sooner than later, they're going to get calls. I don't know if they're going to do anything with those calls, but if teams are looking at this and saying, why haven't they wrapped him up, at a time that Max Crosby being the first non-quarterback to reset the highest-paid non-quarterback market, Rich, everybody else now, whether that's Micah Parsons, whether that's T.J. Watt in Pittsburgh, whether that's Aiden Hutchinson, Jamarc Chase, of course, in Cincinnati, everybody's going to be looking at this going, why aren't they moving more quickly on Micah? I anticipate they're going to get calls as well, because if you're into that edge rusher market, you're either paying $18, $20 million for Dio Addenibo from the Colts, again, not exactly a household name, or you're taking a swing on maybe some of those older pass rushers who are available, you know, the Matt Judons and Hassan Reddicks and Chase Youngs of the world, those are all, it's a really interesting scenario here, Rich, because again, and I don't mean the discount free agency, by the way, because we'll be doing all-day free agency currency on NFL Network, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but in my mind, the big news that's going to come out of this weekend and then into that early portion of next week, leading up to the official start of the league year on Wednesday, is going to be the teams who look out into a free agent market that's just not that robust at a lot of the core positions, and a draft that particularly at places like receiver and quarterback, you may not be able to fill your needs and go in, who do we trade for, what can we come up with, and then maybe even some things right now, Rich, that are not necessarily being contemplated publicly, the teams might be taking some swings out here in the next few days.

Yeah, and that's always the surprises. And the two minutes I have left with you out of everything that you just said and that remarkable soliloquy setting the stage for free agency is that Micah Parsons will see what happens with the Cowboys and Micah. Why are they clearing all this cap space, redoing DAX deals, CDs deal, 50 million in cap space, if not to prepare for, you know, Parse's deal? What are, you know, I mean, Jerry's like, Stephen's like, we're going to be selectively aggressive.

Jerry's like, oh, aggressive is a, you know, maybe too aggressive a word. I mean, what is, what can you tell me about what's going on in Dallas? Well, Micah's on his fifth year option, so his cap number is the full amount of his P5 salary, which is like 24 million or something like that. So an extension with Micah in terms of 2025 cap space will actually drive his number down.

It will free up more space this year if and when they're able to get a Micah deal done. Exactly. You know, which normally means they won't do that. You know what I mean? Because how many times have we said, hey, this would actually be helpful to do it now? And then they don't.

You know what I mean? So the rare, the rare deal they got done was Osa Odigizuwa, but he also took a deal that in year one paid him 4 million under the franchise tag. It was a very team friendly deal.

Obviously, Osa wanted the security. He wanted him to be a Cowboy. He took that deal.

People can look at that and say, well, you know, why can't Micah go that fast? Well, the difference is like sometimes I remember a GM told me long ago, you can only do deals with the guys who want to do deals. Osa Odigizuwa clearly wanted to do a deal, which is why that one got done for four years and 80 million when two tags would have paid him 55 over two when he could have gotten back out into the marketplace.

With Micah, you know, they have got all the reason in the world for him and his agents to be patient through this thing because there's no rush. Everyone believes that eventually he's going to be the highest paid linebacker. Now, to get back to your original question, why are the Cowboys clearing all this cap space? Think of the number of positions, Rich, that potentially they're going to need to replenish in free agency. Rico Dowdle is a free agent. You're going to have to do some things at the running back spot, which Rico, when he got the opportunities last year, was pretty good.

But they need more. They don't envision him, if he comes back, being the 400 carry back. This is, you're going to need to do some things at that spot. Wide receiver opposite C.D.

Lamb. Brandon Cooks is a free agent. You're going to need to do more. I know they traded the fourth round pick to get the receiver from Carolina last year, Mingo. That's kind of an experiment.

That's a project. They're going to have to do something at the wide receiver spot. You just had Zach Martin retire. So you're going to have to address the offensive line. Defensively, you played with a bunch of young guys last year. You got some free agents like Jordan Lewis, who if he leaves, you're going to have to replace Demarcus Lawrence in the free agent.

So what are you doing with those edge rush response? You're also playing a new scheme now with Matt Eberfluss coming in. That's more of a scheme where you're going to invest in different positions than what you might have been doing in past years with Mike Zimmer and Dan Quinn.

So there's a lot of different spots. They're going to need to do some things in free agency here, as much as, I know Jerry said something along the lines of, we're not going to use free agency to fill our holes. That's kind of what you do in free agency. You don't want to build through free agency.

But if there's spots you can't address in the draft, that's when you do it. That appears to be what they're doing more than anything here. DAX deal is built to every year, tip it over. He's not giving up any money.

Same thing with CDLAM. People misunderstand restructures. They're not pay cuts. You are converting salary to signing bonus, which can be prorated for cap purposes over the remaining years of the deal. That means, Rich, short-term flexibility. It also means somewhere out there, and the Cowboys have dealt with this before, every dollar you spend hits the cap eventually. So you're paying the piper years down the road, which makes clear the Cowboys are looking at this saying, our window to win with this sort of top-heavy roster is right now. How much do they do?

I would anticipate it's more than last year, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. You're the man, Tom. Have a great weekend. And rest up. Hydrate, sir. Rest up.

No chance of that, but we'll be ready to rock. Tom Pelissero, everybody. Good to see you. That's Tommy P. right here on the Rich Isaac Show.

Hey, buddy. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, what's more likely Friday, and then Taylor Twelman will join us right here on the program.

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Northbrook, Illinois. Larry David, you are now the new commissioner of the National Football League. Really? Yes, congratulations. Are you kidding? There you go, congratulations. This is a dream, okay?

I had to quick curve your enthusiasm in a second if this is true. Okay. Okay. What do you do first as the commissioner of the National Football League?

Larry David. Number one, and I really don't care if people like it or not, I'm losing the goalpost. Wait, what? Why are there goalposts?

Okay. Why are kickers, okay, who have, they don't have football skills. They're not football players.

I'm sure they're wonderful people, but they're not football players. Why are they kicking a ball through goalposts to decide games? It doesn't make any sense at all. First of all, goalposts are a relic from the old English rugby, I think.

Okay. You know, when they used to actually run and kick a ball through goalposts, but they don't do that in the NFL. There's no need for goalposts. Wouldn't the game be better without them?

Think about it. Why not just have leaping frogs to decide games? See if a frog can leap through a little goalpost that you set up, okay, on the floor, and if the frog can leap through the goalpost, then do that. Why kick it through a goalpost? Well, it's not called leaping frog ball.

It's called football. So you're saying take the feet out of football? Is that what you're saying, Larry? Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Why, feet are deciding games and they shouldn't. Why should one player, one player with this skill like the guy on the Ravens. Justin Tucker, yeah. Why should this one player who does nothing but kick a ball be deciding games when you have 52 other players who are actually playing, and this one person, this 53rd person, is deciding games?

It makes no sense whatsoever. Ah, the brilliant LD in all of his appearances available on our YouTube channel. Everybody, back on the Rich Asin Show radio network, sitting at the Rich Asin 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. We just showed a clip of Larry David appearing here, one of his many appearances here. Did you see he was sitting courtside last night? Did you see LD sitting there? I did.

Yeah. I did see him. Thank goodness he didn't trip anybody. Thank you.

Appreciate that. He was watching the Knicks. I saw Ben Stiller there.

Spike was there after he came here to be on the Jim Jackson show. And what a game that was. Unreal. It looks like the Knicks had the Lakers completely dead to rights. They were playing some stifling defense. Stifling defense.

Cat overcame some early foul trouble to stay out of foul trouble. OGN and OBE had a huge second quarter. Jalen Brunson doing Jalen Brunson things. But the Lakers came back forced overtime, and in overtime, Jalen Brunson turns his ankle. I mean, that looked ugly.

Deepening an eye and peeled on that. That reeks of like, we'll see Brunson in like two weeks because the Knicks are, at least if they're lucky, Knicks are the three seed. They're kind of, I wouldn't say locked in.

You never know if the Pacers can make a run or the Bucks can make a run. Yeah. Yeah. But the Lakers, bro, every time I'm just seeing them with Luca doing Luca things. And he looks like thinner.

It looks like he's already gotten a little bit more in shape, you know, which is kind of crazy. Not surprising. That's what happens to everyone who moves here. And him and him and LeBron together, you're just looking at it and it's stupid. How the hell did this happen?

I don't think I'm ever going to stop thinking that. Poor management is how it happened. Let's just talk about it.

One idiot did the dumbest thing of all time. It's insane. And it's something they do with every single, we've said this, every generation, the Lakers pull this off.

And hey, you know, I, I know, um, I, I know that, um, uh, you know, others are saying this, but I'd like to add two cents here, JJ Reddick for coach of the year. You got to start talking about it now. Come on. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do. Why? Why not? Because Oklahoma city is 50 and 10. So what?

Who's the coach of the team of the best record? Is that what it is? Is that what it is?

And who's got the MVP and who lost one of the best players for half the season. Right? Yes. Okay. What, what about, what about taking a team? You don't get credit because some GM is a moron and gave you a top five player in the league. First of all, you don't get credit for that as a coach. It's not just that, to be honest with you, you know, obviously you have to changing, changing out Anthony Davis for Luca, isn't just rolling the basketballs out.

But if you want to just, if you want to just even discount that, just, just take that out, which I don't think you should, but on top of it, you know, Dalton connect gets traded. Now he's back. And now the kid is actually, you gotta, you gotta massage that situation.

You gotta massage a ton of other situations. You know, Jackson Hayes is balling out all of a sudden he's like a room protector. He's like blocking shots. And you know, again, I know personal life shouldn't come into the guy lost his house and he's still doing all this stuff. He's also a rookie coach with the fourth best record in the, in the league, supposedly with a guy who's on, on uncoachable because he's the coach of the team.

You got it. So I get what Chris, I get what you're saying about discounting the thunder. When you says, when he says he has to be part of the conversation, I think absolutely the actual front runner is Kenny Atchison who no one saw Cleveland being this good.

And running away with the East and the way they have, that's true. He's minus eight 50, which means that's happening. JJ Redick is 40 to one. The Lakers have 40 wins now. And I don't think anybody saw that coming at this point in time. And I, I, I understand Luke is one of the greats of all time already, but it looks like he's been playing on this team forever already. And it's very impressive what they have done.

Very impressive. But I'm, I'm definitely throwing JJ Redick's name in the hat. Well, I'm an absolute hater and I will never give them credit. Okay.

Okay. Well, I'm a hater and I will give somewhat. I'm giving all the credit in the world because what's happening right now isn't just easy. You know, it does take some coaching and massaging and he's always, he's intense, man.

I mean, you could coach the Lakers to a 500 record. I would disagree with that wholeheartedly. Come on. Wholeheartedly. I mean, you should start with like Taylor's team first before you know, that's Susie's work. Susie's Taylor's. Yeah.

That's true. Uh, eight four four tool for rich is the number to dial right here on the program. Before we throw it a break, I want to tell you about the Hyundai getaway sales event that is going on right now because there you get, it's the best time right now to get that Hyundai car or SUV you've always wanted. Plus every new Hyundai comes with America's best warranty, three years of 36,000 miles of limited complimentary maintenance. If you don't think you can get away with all that, think again, don't wait because this Hyundai getaway sales event is going on right now.

So visit your local Hyundai dealer today. It's a great day for a new Hyundai and, and while we're on the subject matter of, uh, time machines like LeBron, did you see that at one point last night, they popped up on the screen, his stats this year compared to his MVP season of what I think 2012, 2013, it's the same, it's the same thing, but you want to talk about time machine. What Steph Curry is, is he's on an absolute heater right now.

And uh, you know how they call it a heat check? I guess Jimmy Butler was his heat check from the heat because this team, just like the Lakers adding Luca and I think they're 10 over, I believe the warriors are now 10 over since getting Jimmy Butler. They've only lost once since getting Jimmy Butler eight or nine and one. I think last night they're now, they're, they're, they were 10 and one or 11 and one now Curry threw one in from 38 feet, you know, sort of like a, sort of like a, a shot put almost or discus throw. And the warriors are, I know we're joking about it, you know, warriors and Lakers for the Western conference finals.

And I know again, I'm saying JJ Raddick coach of the year, what Lakers warriors, Western conference finals, and I'm sure anybody listening to us in the nation's heartland or diehard Thunder fans are like, okay, total disrespect here. But I mean, at some point they are going to have to eliminate Luca and LeBron or, or Butler, Draymond Green and Steph playing like this. Don't you think they're going to have to, it's not like they're going to or, or the Nuggets.

That's the other problem. They're going to have to dispatch, you'd have to think they'd have to dispatch with two of those three. Well, right now it would be Nuggets, warriors, first round. How fun would that be? And then a possible Lakers, Nuggets, semifinal or Lakers, warriors, semifinal. Okay.

So they might not face until the finals and it's only one of them, maybe based on the current seating, based on how it is right now, I'm cool with this. Wow. Thank you, Joe. This episode is brought to you by Navy federal credit union at Navy federal. Our mission is to help members of the military veterans and their families achieve their financial goals. That's why we offer great savings and investing options like our certificates, certificates come with sky high rates, and some even have the flexibility to add money anytime during your term, whether you're saving for a home, a new car or your future, our options could help you get there.

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We're on the program, everybody, 844-204-RICH is the number to dial to have a conversation with us and we're happy to do it. What's your plans for the weekend? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

A five-year-old baseball. How's it going? Oh, he's a Marlin, right? I saw that.

He's a Marlin. Okay. A team that I can get behind. Is that right? There's only one team that would have a problem with him being right? Yeah. That was last year. That was last year. Last year.

Terrible. I'm glad he's already forgotten it. He has?

Oh, yeah. Well, the only reason why he was a Yankee last year, you know why? I don't know why.

Because he needed somebody who couldn't grow facial hair. Last year, New York was a Yankees town and this year it's not. Oh.

That's the other reason he just didn't probably want to play for the Yankees. Could it be more... Oh, by the way, you didn't respond to the video I sent to the group last night. I was a little busy. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Did you leave the house?

Yeah, baby. He did leave the house. Oh. Do we have those photographs?

I hope we have some. I was out in the streets last night. Yeah, he was out in the streets last night.

Wow. Where did you go? Went to the Grove. O'Shea and I, we got invited to the premiere of the Queen of the Ring movie, which tells a story about Mildred Burke, the very first lady wrestler who became a star in the industry. She went from a single mom working in a diner to becoming the biggest star as a female wrestler in the world. And so it was a really great movie, a lot of wrestlers in attendance. We got to do some networking, got to tell them about the pod.

Some people already knew about us. So it was really dope, man. It was a good night. Sweet.

That's fun. Yeah, so there it is. There he is with his... I thought it was a cane for a second, but it's an umbrella. Yeah, it was pouring yesterday.

Yeah, I know. So you had to look at him, but he's holding it like it's a cane, like he should have a monocle. With him, you never know. I mean, he showed up in that jacket the other day. He might have a cane. He showed up with that jacket and the epaulettes, right?

Never heard epaulettes before. You know, those things on his shoulders. Michael Jackson used to wear that. Did you? What was one of the comments you said that was in our YouTube? This was so disrespectful.

I can't remember if it was on Twitter or Instagram, but one of the comments in one of the videos, they said he looked like the black Captain Crunch. I was like, oh, that's diabolical. That's diabolical. That is incredible. That is incredible. Dude, when you told me that before the show... I told Rich that this morning, he lost it. It's like I got caught by a right cross, man.

That's funny. But we all know, again, regardless of race, it is Cap'n Crunch. Cap'n Crunch. Did I say Cap'n Crunch? It's C-A-P apostrophe N. And what was up with us always eating Cap'n Crunch? Like they would scratch the top of your mouth. Cut the top of your mouth.

It didn't matter. Pour another bowl. It's like sandpaper. Mount Rushmore cereal. Cap'n Crunch. I agree, it's because it had probably an insane amount of sugar. Eight bajillion grams in a box. If it's sticking your teeth and the roof of your mouth, despite it being soggy and milk, you know it had some sort of a nuclear sugar capability. I might get a box on the way home. Is that right? I'd feel sick after, but I think it'd be worth it. Oh my God.

Those sugar cereals, man. All right, very good. So that's your update.

Queen of the Ring. Check it out if you can. That's your update. Oh yeah, fantastic. T.J. Cap'n Crunch. All right, so we're back here on the Rich Eisen Show, everyone.

844-204-RICH number to dial. It is time for Rich on the Pitch, presented by Apple TV Season Pass, which means it is now time for Mr. Apple TV himself to rejoin us on the program. Taylor Twelman back here on the program. Good to see you, Taylor.

How are you? I'm just trying to figure out what the black Captain Crunch's name would be. You know what I mean? I'm trying to figure out who it would be. It would be O'Shea Jackson, Jr., apparently. It would just be me. That's what it was. It would be the Blackton. For sure. Blackton Crunch.

Can we take Taylor wide here for a moment? Just the full thing here. Are you in the messy-mobile? What is this? Like where it's just- I'm in my car and I'm just enamored that you can blur your background so it looks like a floating head. So now I can just be everyone that's watching the show, I can be their nightmare for this Friday night. Just a floating head.

Yeah, I had no idea if there was an actual car with just windows that's messy travels around in and you were able to use it right now. I just don't know. That's what it looks like to me. I just dropped him off at physical therapy after they missed the game last night for Inner Miami. So he's doing well. Thanks for asking.

Oh my God. What is going on in the MLS that we should know about since you and I last conversed a few weeks ago here? Defending champion LA Galaxy.

I gave you a little bit of a heads up and here we are. They've played three competitive games and lost all three of them. It's weird to say it's week three. Is it a must-win game at home?

Rich, it kind of is for them in a weird way. They're dealing with injuries. They're dealing with a makeshift roster after winning last year. And then their bitter rivals, LAFC, who I'll do tomorrow in Seattle, they haven't given up a goal in 360 minutes. So LAFC is motivated by the fact that their rivals, the Galaxy, won it last year. And right now, if you ask me who the best team is, March 7, prisoner of the moment, you're putting LAFC in the argument if it's not 1A, they're 1B.

Okay. Well, I mean, I guess this is the way of the world right now. The 2-0 teams right now with six points atop the standings are Philadelphia and Columbus, which are the two towns that just celebrated football championships of the other kind, professional and college. So I guess they're used to good starts here, if not great finishes. Taylor?

They are, Rich. But Philadelphia is the biggest surprise for me, buddy, because you're talking about the fact that they were in the end of the season and the biggest storyline for Philadelphia is not getting rid of their manager, Jim Curtin, for the last 10 plus years where he's been at the helm. But it's the fact that they've got a 15-year-old kid, Kevin Sullivan, that many people thought they were going to rely on.

And yet at center forward, Ty Berribo's got five Bulls in two games. They are unequivocally the biggest surprise in this league. But this league, similar to the NFL, is built on parity. And so every single season that the bad teams struggle, you can rejuvenate and regroup, for lack of a better way to put it, very quickly. So Philadelphia has surprised some people. Columbus is still very good.

They will be for the rest of the year, but Philadelphia is the biggest surprise. What else do we need to know, Taylor? What have you been enjoying seeing? Again, it's only been a couple of weeks, but walk me through it. Messi's not playing. What's up with that?

And the fact that, I don't know. I don't know the answer because what's weird to me is when you say rotation of the squad and congestion of the schedule, which by the way, doesn't really exist for them, because those guys don't want to play. They don't want to train.

They'd rather play games. He's the only player being rested. Every other player that's being rested or not being played has been said publicly. He's injured.

Yet inner Miami is publicly saying, no, he's not injured. He's just, we're just resting him. Well, that's two games in a row now. You missed Sunday at Houston.

Now it's Thursday. He missed the cocky calf champions cup does he played this Sunday against Charlotte's world cup. Qualifiers are coming up, which it's the biggest talking point of the league because it's a world cup qualifying year. So is this what messy has to do at age 37 in order to be fit for the league or whatnot is that he has to take a week off here or there. But the lack of transparency from inner Miami leaves all of us hanging by thread.

And quite honestly, it's borderline ridiculous if you ask me. So what is, what is your read on it is, is this is what is happening where he's, he's tapping out for a week for more, I guess, nationalistic reasons. I think he is very, he's trying to mitigate the miss a month versus just missed five, six days. Sunday's game will tell me if it's an injury or not because now it would be a full week. If he plays Sunday against Charlotte at home, then this is the new way that messy has got to navigate his career and he's going to have to play through it. If he doesn't play, he's injured and I don't care what they tell you. He's 100% injured because why would you have Lionel messy mystery games?

And so I think this Sunday on Apple TV, there are a lot of eyeballs around the world because if he doesn't play, that means world cup qualifying could be in jeopardy for him in March. And the next trip for you is where you mentioned Seattle. That's next up for you.

Yeah. I'm literally in the car on the way to the airport. I go to Seattle against Seattle, LAFC tomorrow, four 30 Eastern. And then I got Sunday night soccer, LA galaxy must win at home against St. Louis city. What a spot, right? I mean the, the, the crowd at these, at the matches for Seattle are just off the charts.

You know, rich, it's a different world now. You know what I mean? The game day experience.

It's very similar. You and I talked about the four nations experience with the NHL all star game. I love all sports, but the game day experience, you know, it's not baseball. It's not really the NFL. It's kind of college football, but it's a lot like you're on your feet for two hours.

You drink as much as you want. You're loud as loud as you want to be. The game day experience is what captivates all the young people. And that's why they're coming. And that's why Seattle, Portland's LA Cincinnati, also all these markets now. It's the thing to do.

You'd rather go to this game for two hours, be loud, have a great time, go to the bar afterwards versus go watch a baseball game or go sit and pay a ton of money to a football game when you're not really expected to be loud and obnoxious for an hour and a half. So are we, are we direct into Seattle at least, Tanner? We direct it. Yeah.

We're good. Yep. What do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, is that all right? Messy. We all know Messy's not backseat driving Taylor. Absolutely.

Yes. He refers to me as driver there. And then he sees me at the games and he's like, wait a minute. You drove me this morning to get a cappuccino and a latte.

What are we doing? I thought he goes to the Publix just like us, man. I thought he should feed sugar cereals. He's the one feeding his kids cap and crunch. He's the one doing that. We've seen that. Or blap and crunch now. That's a no-look at you. No, his is the Latino catino crunch.

Catino. Oh my God, uh, Taylor of Safe Flight, man, thanks for, for joining and, uh, and giving us the, the, uh, the info on what's going on. So next up for you is you're in Seattle, uh, for Sounders, Seattle tomorrow 4.30 and then LA Galaxy. Yep.

Fantastic. And then, uh, obviously I'm going to catch up with LeBron and see if he's going to yell at me the way he did Stephen A. Smith last night. I mean, are we serious? Are we serious? Hey, listen, don't go, don't, don't just take Bronnie's name out of your mouth.

That's all Taylor. And then you're, we're all good. God bless America. What are we doing now? Anyways? I got to go. All right. Cool message. Right. Take care of yourself. Taylor. You be well, sir. That's Taylor 12 and right there on rich on the pitch presented by MLS season pass on Apple TV. I love that guy, man. So the 2025 MLS season is finally here.

Match this weekend's Sunday night soccer matchup featuring LA Galaxy versus St. Louis city SC 7 PM Eastern on Sunday with no local blackouts or out of market restrictions with MLS season pass on Apple TV. And obviously you could check all that out right here on the Roku portal, driving messy ladies and gentlemen, driving Mr. Messy, right?

So that means messy is the Jessica Tandy of this. Correct. Yeah. I had no idea. I'd be mentioning that today. How could you love doing the show? Fantastic. That's great.

You never know what you're going to talk about again. I said, cause it's an open door policy here. People just come in and say, Hey, do you want fast bender? I said, bring me fast and that's about 25 minutes. Michael Fassbender will be joining us on this program and we've got a great celebrity, true or false with him.

And our number three, don't you dare move. What's more likely coming up shortly. So you missed it because you were too busy hanging with the hoi polloi and the red carpets and it's a, you know, the, the, the, the fancy people.

I ain't never hoi polloi. Nothing. Yes, you did last night. Oh, so you didn't see what I said. No. So Jake Culp of our, uh, Rich Eisen show, social media, uh, uh, he's our, he's our new grand maester. I've met him. Um, you know, of the fabulous known agency.

Yeah. He's an eagle fan. I'll give him a shout outs. But Jake knows again, me and he knows his audience.

That's why our reels are so excellent. He knows our audience. So he knows me, my audience. I got sent, he sent me a clip, um, last night about 20 seconds of Juan Soto butchering a baseball in right field said, I thought you'd like to see this. And so I immediately took that and sent it and I immediately did that Jake did that. Yeah. Okay. And so then I sent it to you guys and said, Juan scissor hands has shown up in spring training. Oh, you're lucky. I didn't see that. Well, I mean, just look at your phone.

TJ. Do you not like seeing texts? Not when I'm, not when I'm staring at Tony storm while you're in mid season. Okay.

Tony storm was behind me. I had more important things to look at. Whoa. Is there any text use you get that you don't see? Yeah. No.

Cause you get so many texts from this group alone. So some things are bound to fall through the cracks. Dude. It was a tough play though. Let's look at this. Please give me a break.

What do you mean? That was a tough play. Was it?

Okay. He's sprinting toward the wall and he has got to extend. That's tough. Chris, can I ask, isn't spring training routine? Chris, isn't spring training the time for these types of things? He didn't get charged with an error for that. Let me explain. Oh, okay. What? Right. Like he didn't drop a pop up in game five of the world series indication.

Like that's an indication as to whether something's an error or not. The official score. Yes.

In a home park. That is the word of law. Okay.

Routine play. Okay. Oh man. All I'm saying to you.

Make me defend Juan Soto. You just did. He lost the ball in the lights. What are we talking about here?

The lights. Enjoy it. It was a line drive. It's going to happen. Yeah. It's going to happen about 40 home runs and 130 RBIs and you getting mad about him running New York all year. Is he going to win gold clubs?

This is going to be great. No. No. But he's not.

That's fine. Alex Bregman will. For who? For second base. Second base. Yeah.

Yeah. Second base. The new Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox.

Of course. Alex Bregman. They should both be in the hall of fame. Who? Pedroia won't make it, but he should be. Pedroia's not making it this coming year? He's probably not going to make it. Why? Injury. Cut shortest career.

So stupid. Juan Soto's going to make the hall of famer. That guy is a hall of famer.

I think so. There he is. Oh my God. Clap and crunch. Put that on a cereal box. That is so funny. On fleek.