Knights Are The Golden Team (Hour 4)

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BirdDogs off. We promise you. And that building was rocking. I know our pal Sully, who lives out there in Las Vegas. He was right on the glass last night, and he's celebrating with the team.

Sully looking like a VIP, which he is, in Las Vegas. But that was a pretty cool scene to see last night. And there's no doubt about it, I'm jealous, but you got to tip your cap to the Golden Knights because first six years in the league, they've been the Final Four team four times. And the reason I say it that way instead of just Western Conference champions is because there's that one COVID year where they made it to the semifinal.

There was no Eastern and Western Conference. And they've been to the Stanley Cup final twice. They just hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first time ever last night. And the craziest part about that, and I know, right, it's kind of the nature of the sport in hockey, these coaches just get tossed around everywhere. Peter Laviolet is on like his 30th team now, and he's going to coach the New York Rangers, but a team that's had that much success in such a short amount of time, only six years, they've had three coaches. When you go back to Gerard Gallant, who went to the cup finals first year, eventually they had Peter DeBoer come over from San Jose with the Sharks, and now you have Bruce Cassidy.

Where if you're Bruce Cassidy, you got to be feeling like a million bucks today. Not only are you a Stanley Cup champion, and they had a great regular season, but all throughout the year, you had to be looking and saying, look at the Boston Bruins are doing. Where you get let go there, and they have the most wins and most points in NHL history. And the Boston Bruins were up 3-1 in the first round against the Florida Panthers, and the Panthers came back to win that baby in seven games. And you get the Florida Panthers, and you ended up quickly disposing them, even though their entire roster was hurt in five games. And that's the two things that I admire the most, and I love the most about hockey.

When the Stanley Cup gets handed out, these guys all look like cavemen because they have these playoff beards, and they let out the highest pitch screams ever. So I love that, but the other part that I also love, which is weird, but that I'm just saying I love this, but you just appreciate the toughness of these athletes. The amount of injuries, and I'm not just talking about, oh, a guy was playing with like a, you know, a bruise or something.

I'm talking about serious injuries. To see what players play through, Matt Dukachuk, I know he didn't play last night, but he was an absolute star. He's the best American player right now in the sport. But he's been amazing ever since getting traded to Florida, changed that entire year this season, and he was great.

Just phenomenal. So clutch in the playoffs. He had a fractured sternum.

Think about that. And the coach said he fractured a sternum in game three, and he only ended up missing one game, which was game five. That's the two things about hockey hickey. The celebration with the Stanley Cup, which is great too, and a buddy of mine pointed this out last night.

The NBA, you have a spineless silver out there handing out the trophy, and right away it goes right to the owner. And then you have that like creepy interview with Stan Kroenke, and who was that? Who was the sideline reporter there? Lisa Salters.

Lisa Salters, that's right, where Stan Kroenke is whispering into her ear when he should have been whispering into the microphone. And if that's the biggest problem Stan Kroenke has these days, so be it. Because you have a world championship hockey team in the Avalanche recently.

You now have a world championship NBA team. You own the LA Rams. And not that I follow this, I don't want to pretend to be in the know about this sport when I'm not in the know about this sport.

Because then Peter Schwartz will be on line one freaking out. Is it a soccer team or a lacrosse team that he owns that ended up winning? Lacrosse. So he has a lacrosse team that he owns too.

Yes, sir. That won a world championship? Last year I believe, yeah.

So he's like four now in the last two years, year and a half? Not bad. What a run.

Not bad. What a run. But in the NBA they give the trophy, and in most sports, they give the trophy right away to the owner. I love in hockey, where it's whoever the captain is, come get the Stanley Cup.

I think that's just awesome. And then it's not until the end where like the owners and everybody else gets it. It's a true appreciation of the players there, Hickey.

Football, basketball, and baseball. First person to touch the championship trophy is always the owner. Hockey is the only one, and outside of obviously college sports too, where you get the players right away get to hoist the trophy and touch it rightfully so first. Yeah, it's awesome. You see how happy they are? You get the camera right in their face too. Everyone gets a turn with a cup as well, which is awesome. You kind of pass it around, get your little time to skate around the ice and hoist it up, which looks, by the way, very heavy.

Now I get these guys are professional athletes, but you have to play a long postseason. Stop. I get the adrenaline rush, I'm just saying. It's not easy. That's like a paperweight right there when you're lifting that up. Throw it up over your head.

It's a paperweight, that's what it is. And I also like in hockey too how each player gets a day with the cup. Oh yeah. And you can bring it wherever you want. Where would you bring the Stanley Cup?

You got a day with the Stanley Cup. I could actually predict where you would bring it. Ooh.

I think knowing you. I would take it to the beach. I was just going to say the beach.

Without a doubt. Or I was going to say Lake George. Get him his own Tommy Bahama chair. Not Tommy Bahama chair.

Put him down, sit there. You are bougie. A Tommy Bahama chair, okay.

Look at the beach, Tommy owns the beach. I know, but that's bougie. Big blue beach chairs.

Bougie. Get him branded chairs now. You're paying for comfort don't you? Trust me, I have a ton of Tommy Bahama shirts. I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying.

They last a long time. Give me a break. I've had my beach chair for like 8, 9, 10 years maybe. It's been a while. Tommy, you're a little guy.

You're a bigger guy. I go to the beach a lot though. I know, but if you are a bigger guy and that chair actually has some weight in it, you're not lasting 9, 10 years with the chair if you're a bigger dude. In this day and age, the way everything is made, not just beach chairs, it's where you get anything to last for a decade now with how cheap.

That doesn't happen. Most things are made. So, credit to Tommy, but I get the cup. It's own Tommy Bahama chair.

Sit him down there, put some beers in him and drink out of the cup for a day at the beach. And congratulations to Jonathan Marsha, so by the way, winning the Khan's smite as well. Another tremendous story right there. Let's just hear though how it sounded. Now this game was an absolute blowout, but let's hear the final seconds on the Golden Knights Radio Network as Vegas hoists their first ever Stanley Cup.

The Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup in 2023. Your thoughts, your reviews on that call? I know it's a little bit tough because the game is a blowout, but I need a little bit more oomph and excitement there. I know it's a 9-3 game and the result wasn't in doubt, but you are the play-by-play voice of the Vegas Golden Knights. You gotta be screaming, you gotta be going nuts there.

I like the misfits to champions line, I think that's good, but I would agree. Let's get a little energy, you just won the cup. I know it's 9-3, but you are the champion of your sport, this is it. You're not going to the plush, you're going to win the first round.

It may never happen again. Let's get a little juicy, let's scream, maybe let's channel the Denver Nuggets. We know who their play-by-play guy is. And show a little energy, I'll have to look it up. Gotcha. We gotta have a little bit more excitement there.

Look up that name real quickly because I'm curious who it is. I feel like whoever this is, whenever we played his calls throughout the year, we've talked about how they've been lacking a little excitement. Next time, I'm assuming they'll probably be back. It's been six years, and their first six years in the league, they've been to the final four teams standing four times, to the Stanley Cup final twice. So they won the Western Conference twice, and now they've hoisted the Stanley Cup. I don't think Vegas is going anywhere, and it just kind of shows you. Now you don't need the success of the team to justify the move, and this was an expansion team to be fair. But you know, sport teams, they're going to flock to Vegas. You've already had hockey.

You've already had the NFL. Baseball seems like it's inevitable with the Oakland Athletics, and it appears that the Oakland Athletics are going to be heading to Las Vegas as well. Now, I'll give credit to the A's fans because last night, I've never seen anything like that. You've had fan bases annoyed with ownership and say, sell the team and screw you to the owner. But when you have almost 30,000 fans show up, when the average attendance has been about 8,500 all throughout the year, to prove a point that the passion is still there to keep the Athletics in Oakland, that was impressive.

Let's listen up. This is courtesy of NBC Sports California, where A's fans were chanting, sell the team, during a reverse boycott last night. You heard the crowd go silent and now getting very loud at the Coliseum.

Hogan can't hear with the pitch comm because of the crowd, and now time has gone, things have gotten loud here. This is certainly a new experience in 2023 at the Coliseum. I'll give credit to those fans because if I knew I was losing my team, I would kind of just admit defeat and I just wouldn't even show up and be like bleep you, I'm done with you. That's easier to say because there's an emotional attachment there, and I do feel really bad for the fans that they've had a team and then their team just gets up and eventually they're going to move to Las Vegas.

And I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world, I understand why if you're an owner of a Major League Baseball team or any sport team, why you want to go to Las Vegas, but the entire situation when you hear it unfold, it does seem very slimy. But that was very impressive last night, Hickey, by the A's fans, that they show up and they go nuts. And I've never seen such a hostile but fair crowd where it was just so simple, where you know that there was so much pain and animosity with the folks, the 28,000 folks that were there, and just hearing them constantly chant, sell the team. And then afterwards, I don't need with the trash throwing and all that stuff, but for the most part, that was a pretty neat sight last night in Oakland. You know why you've never seen it before?

Never happened. Because I was going to say, anytime a team moves, usually there's apathy in the market and the fans don't care and they're sometimes even happy to see them go. We've never really seen a team move markets where the fans are still passionate and still care about the team that is now leaving the market.

So that's also part of it. You don't really see a team move when the fan passion is still extremely high. Obviously, it's sad what's going on right now with Oakland. They're being used by their owner, but it's crazy.

Yeah, it's really sad. I will say in recent memory, I didn't love the way that the St. Louis Rams moved. Now it's worked out in Los Angeles. And then also when you had the Supersonics leave Seattle as well, that's a fan base. I feel like there should be an NBA team in Seattle because that's a pretty damn good fan base. So it's just two teams I can think of on the top of my head.

But actually, I'll give you a little Geld family history here. When my dad was working at WCAU radio in Philadelphia, there was talks that the Eagles were actually going to move. And the owner, Leonard Tost at the time of the Eagles, was in Phoenix, in Phoenix, Arizona. And he was looking to sell the team and move the team there, I should say.

And back then, when you stay at a hotel, you didn't use a phony name if you're a person of fame. So he kept on calling the hotels and eventually got connected. And we're like, oh yeah, we'll patch you through the Leonard Tost's room, Mr. Tost's room. Gets on the phone and he's like, Mr. Tost, it's Bob Gelb, WCAU radio. I hear you're in Phoenix looking to move the Eagles. And he goes, Bob, get the F off my phone line.

Hung up. And then they went on the air and my dad was a producer in Philadelphia and they kind of broke the story there. So that's just like one of those things that could have happened. And imagine, Hickey, a fan base's passion of Philadelphia. Imagine if the Eagles ended up moving out to the desert in Arizona. The NFL just wouldn't be right if there was no Philadelphia Eagles. That would have been absolutely crazy.

That would be weird. The Phoenix Eagles? Does that really ring? Philly got to change the name. Got to change the name there. You can't be the Phoenix Eagles or the Arizona Eagles.

I guess we've seen it both ways, right? The Rams kept their name and going to L.A., the Supersonics changed their name. Yeah, to the Thunder. Las Vegas A's?

That doesn't flow. Like Los Angeles Rams just flows, like off the tongue. St. Louis Rams, Los Angeles Rams, there's no difference. The Philadelphia Eagles to the Phoenix or Arizona Eagles.

That just doesn't sound right. The Phoenix Eagles didn't sound that bad just because it's still the P's. Phoenix, Philadelphia, they're kind of similar. The Arizona Eagles sounds better than the Phoenix Eagles if you ask me. But anyway, did you find out the name of the play-by-play guy for the Vegas Golden Knights? The radio? Dan DeUva. Okay.

Let's bring a little bit more energy there next time. Do we have any idea? Did you look up his Wikipedia page or anything like that? Do we know anything about his career stops here?

Not career stops. I know he went to Fordham. Or is it a Syracuse? Hold on, it might be Syracuse. Hold on.

That's a big difference there. Fordham and Syracuse, you'll upset a lot of people in the media world. Oh, both.

I like it. Oh, he went to both? Double dipped? Via Syracuse and Fordham. Raised in the swamps of Jersey. Now he's out there in L.A. Maybe he needs to go to a different school to get that personality up.

Use a little bit of extra personality. He went to the town last night celebrating, so he's got a little bit of something-something. Stogie and mouth? No stoke. Okay, drink in hand?

Anything there? No. No drink. He's in this one picture, and his tie is still tied. He can't be celebrating. He don't have to be drinking and smoking, but... Yeah.

I would have been. After yesterday, that's for sure. It may not be up everyone's alley, which is fine, but you can't have your tie still perfectly done. Like, when I'm at a wedding, I have to get a few drinks in the system. The bow tie or the tie, depending on what kind of wedding it is, it's getting undone. It's coming right off, so...

Anyway, Zach Kilb shows CBS Sports Radio. We will take a break. We will come on back when we do return. A lot of chaos in Buffalo right now. Who's gonna win the AFC East? We'll discuss next.

The ultimate electric driving machine. Take advantage of exceptional lease and finance offers today. You're listening to the Zach Kilb Show. Zach Kilb Show, CBS Sports Radio. We haven't really got any clarity on this Buffalo Bill situation. They're telling you everything's okay.

Is it really though? Because yesterday you have Sean McDermott saying he's very concerned about the absence of Staphon Diggs. Then the agent of Staphon Diggs is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was there Monday and Tuesday. And then you find out that he was there Monday taking the medical exam. Then on Tuesday, he goes on out, has a meeting with Sean McDermott and then also with Brandon Bean. And then didn't practice. Then you have the coach saying, I'm very concerned about that.

Then you have a cryptic social media message being posted. You had Josh Allen, the quarterback of the Buffalo Bill, saying, guys. It's not a football issue right now. Something else. And then today, Sean McDermott is saying, yeah, everything's fine.

We love Staphon. We get to have some conversations, but everything's good now. No practice tomorrow.

Mini camp's over and we'll reconvene back in training camp. Now, Hickey, I think this is about targets. Maybe it's something else. But at the end of the season, he wanted to get the proper targets. And he thought he should have been deserving of more targets. I just want to play you a few audio clips, though, why I have to say.

I got to be a little skeptical, even with what I just said. This was Josh Allen yesterday. Explaining what may have happened and how much he still loves the fun digs. And he was the one that said it was not a football issue. Listen up.

I know internally we're we're working on some things, not football related. But, you know, Steph, he's my guy. I love him. He's a brother of mine.

You know, this does not work. What we're doing here without him. You know, we wish he was in here today and was out there on the field with us. And that's that's not the case. But I've got his back no matter what. So not football related. But then the coach, Sean McDermott, says all is well between him and digs. And he did talk about targets.

He mentioned that. Let's listen up and you be the judge. I feel like we're in a in a in a real good spot. So the rest of it, though, the details of it. Again, I want to respectfully answer your questions, but at the same time, keep those conversations in house.

Now, I feel like it's resolved. You know, I'm not going to get into what we what we what we did and didn't do. Felt feel overall that we take a hard, hard look at the season and review.

And we come out of those meetings with some real truths about what we could have done better. Whether it's getting Steph the ball in this case and listen, getting Steph the ball is an important part of our offense. Right.

That's not there's no reason to say it isn't. I mean, he's the big focal point of our offense in addition to Josh. And so, you know, it's important to get him going. And and the more production he get, he has the more production we have as an offense. You almost wish that it was something other than lack of targets. But if it is, he wasn't happy with the fewer targets he was receiving down the stretch of the season. It just makes me say I got to take a pause in the Buffalo Bills for this year because yesterday, when Bradley Gelber joined us, he made a great point.

This is not a great wide receiving room. You hear the name Staphon Diggs. You know, he's a great receiver. Gabe Davis has made some big plays, especially in that game up against the Chiefs that we all remember from the division around where he had four touchdowns. But he's a solid number two wide receiver. Outside of that, I know they just drafted Dalton Kincaid, who I like a lot, and I thought was the best tight end to this draft class out of Utah. You know, you have Dawson Knox there who's a solid NFL tight end.

But it's not as if you have these great weapons and these unbelievable weapons. And if you get to a point where we've seen this before, problem with wide receiver coach or wide receiver quarterback. Where the wide receiver can easily get annoyed. And then with the pent up frustration and the pent up emotions. All it takes is one game where he's not happy. And then who knows what happens after that?

Because. What happened yesterday was there was a conversation behind the scenes. And either the bills weren't happy with Stefan Diggs and sent him home. Or Stefan Diggs wasn't happy. With the bills. And he left.

Only two things that could happen. There's no way they just sat down, had a conversation and everyone was like, all right, we feel good about where we are. You know, it's the fun digs. Just go on home. Just go. We had a great conversation.

Thanks so much. Here's your participation trophy. You showed up to work on Monday. You showed up to work on Tuesday. You can just go home while everyone else practice.

Nope. And Hickey, that's my concern. I know it's only June, but that's my concern for the Buffalo Bills, because I don't feel any better with how they tried to do their damage control today than I felt yesterday. And if this is if the root of the problem and I do think this is the root of the problem. What happened down the stretch?

All it takes is a. One game, 60 minute game where he doesn't like the targets or the lack of it, or if you go to a little two or three game stretch where they go on a little bit losing streak and then I just don't know how he's going to react to that. Because yesterday from Stefan Diggs to Sean McDermott to even Josh Allen, it was sloppy. There was clearly a disagreement. And Josh Allen may have not been in that meeting.

Right. And it was talked about as McDermott and Bean. And whatever happened in that meeting, the memo didn't get to Josh Allen. Maybe Josh Allen knows something that we don't. Because Josh Allen said, they're saying this is not a football issue. And then Stefan Diggs, who didn't speak today, but Sean McDermott, when talking about Stefan Diggs. He then says.

We're talking about targets. You know, he dropped that little bit there, gave a little breadcrumb there. That's what he did. He just. Through a little treat out there. And I kind of believe, Hickey, that's what it is.

It was an issue with he thought he should have been used better towards the end of the season. And if that's the case, you're one game away. From being right back where we are right now. And that's a good part for the Bills is not a game tomorrow. So maybe cooler heads will prevail here.

But who knows when those emotions pick back right back up? I agree. I think it's about targets. And that's why I think yesterday, Sean McDermott said what he said on purpose. I think he's trying to send a message because it is June. You still have a lot of time for these emotions to cool down and go away by the time the season starts.

But you look at if it truly is. And we are both right that it's about targets. You look at last year, Stefan Diggs had the fifth most targets, fourth most receptions.

There's not a lot of room for for his targets here to get much better. So viewers still six months later upset that you were still one of the most targeted players in the league. And had fourth most catches in the league. And you're that upset about it six months later. And clearly he's not done a lot of work in between January when the season ended. And yesterday when the team reconvened for the first time in a mandatory fashion for practice.

And he kind of held onto those emotions for six months. That's on him. That's on digs. And that's why I think that McDermott said yesterday on purpose. He is trying to shed light on this issue. And he realizes Stefan Diggs is wrong.

And the more attention and the more scrutiny that comes on this topic. Maybe he hopes that unlike what happened in Minnesota, we kind of saw Stefan Diggs get upset. He was traded. They know we can't trade him contract, but also to the top five wide receiver. You're trying to win a Super Bowl.

You're trading that guy. I think you're trying to get through to him of, hey, you're wrong. And instead of getting your way like you did in Minnesota, we're going to work through this.

And we, for the first, I'm not going to kind of pat you on the butt. That's why I still think that yesterday it was on purpose. And although McDermott, I think, is trying to save a little face today in terms of quelling some of the media discussion. By now saying, oh, everything's fine.

No big deal. It was excused. I think he got what he wanted to accomplish yesterday.

But that's where we have a disconnect on this because you only added more fuel to the fire. I don't see what he really accomplished yesterday other than this just looking like a cluster. So Stefan Diggs is not happy, let's just say, with the lack of targets. Sean McDermott yesterday says he's very concerned.

Then today they say all is good. What's going to prevent Stefan Diggs then in week three? If let's say only gets targeted an inexcusable amount of times, like five times or something, you think he's really going to sit back and go, man, Sean McDermott said he was very concerned about my behavior last time I brought this up. Then he's not going to bring it up again? That doesn't seem the way that Stefan Diggs would operate. I'm saying yesterday, a lot of people talked about this topic. Yes. From what I saw, a lot of people were on the side of Stefan Diggs in the wrong. Do you think he cares?

He's still getting his money either way. Sure. OK.

But if you have a lot of people attacking your social media saying you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. Get back on the field. I think that message will get across. He's putting Instagram messages up. So it's clearly getting to him. He's clearly upset about the discussion. But is he going to make him change anything? He doesn't think he did anything wrong.

Fear Sean McDermott, I think it's worth a shot. You got a guy in who has a pattern of behavior of being emotional. And the last time a team had to deal with it, they traded him. Now you try to turn him around. I'll give a lot of credit to the man sitting to the left of me because he was the first person that I heard make this point yesterday.

And then I've seen since other people start to make it as well. You were spot on yesterday with Sean McDermott, where he may have been in the right in whatever happened behind the scenes of the conversation. But to spill that over publicly and say you're very concerned and then it comes out and it was just a disaster. And then today you're like, oh, I don't really look much into that.

And we're all good with the fun digs. That's a bad look for Sean McDermott as well. Asinine is completely and totally asinine. And then again, to follow it up and say, no, no, it was an excused absence. And why are you concerned? Well, I was concerned because he was here any time that it's that a player is not here.

I'm always concerned. Yeah. What are you talking about? Made no sense. You screwed up. You blew this whole thing out of proportion. Now, again, this is not about who's right and who's wrong because it doesn't really truly matter.

Diggs is probably wrong. What's the objective here? To be right or to win a Super Bowl?

Know what your goal is, because a head coach, your job, as much as we want to do X's and O's and all that, your job is to put out fires and make things as easy as possible for your entire team and organization to win. That's your job. You, instead of putting out a fire, you set it ablaze and then you turned around and said, I'm not going to talk about it anymore. And then the next day you said, no, there's no problem.

And all is good, too. It's awful. It's awful.

And you cannot. There are times where you use the media to get your message across. I'm in a total agreement with Hickey on that. There's times where you do this. This was not one of them in my mind. And more importantly, the way he did it was worse. It wasn't where he came out and said it. He kind of went around.

He beat around the bush. If you're going to be passive aggressive, you're always going to be in the wrong in that regard. This situation needed man demand, sit down and talk and make sure that this stuff stays out of the media because now it put a cloud over the rest of your players. It's dumb.

It's dumb in a hundred different ways. And it needs to be taken care of now because the more you let this thing prolong and the more you let this thing fester, the more it's going to be a problem all year long. And again, it's not just digs.

It's not just digs. It's the entire team. Because at some point, if you talk to athletes, one of the first things that they'll say that you don't want to hear questions about.

I don't hear questions about other players. I don't want to answer for somebody else, whether it's their money, their work ethic. That's their job, man. They're an adult. I don't want to talk for them. And everyone's going to be talking for digs.

That's a problem. And maybe Josh Allen knows something that we don't know. But when Josh Allen yesterday, who I have no reason to believe, was in a meeting with Stefan Diggs and Brandon Bean and and also Sean McDermott, that's been reported that those three guys were in a meeting. He then speaks and he goes, oh, it's not football related.

And then you have the coach that I basically say it was about targets, which it's who do you believe? Well, and I think part of it is because I don't think that they're truly talking. Because if Sean McDermott, what he's saying in press conferences makes me feel like he's very passive aggressive. And when they're in the room together, he's not forceful enough to get his point across. There are times where you know the person that you're talking to doesn't want to hear what you have to say. But don't do it in the you know, if you think about no, no, no, no, just say it.

Say it. People don't like to hear the truth, but they'll always respond better to face to face truth than the passive aggressive run around. That stuff never goes over well. And I feel like McDermott's now, I guess, philosophy of talking about stuff is not direct enough.

Biggs may be wrong. Again, it's not about who's right and wrong. That's the situation. But if he is wrong, you still have to come across better than him. And it doesn't feel like they're talking to each other. They're talking at each other. Hickey made an observation about you yesterday once you left.

We weren't talking behind your back. We were just talking about you had a very fiery rant yesterday and you were very animated over this. Now we have to talk about a lot of things and some things you care about that you have to talk about other things. It's like, all right, you got to talk about it, but it just doesn't really get you going.

What got you really going yesterday? Because Hickey said it to me off the air. He goes, I've never seen Marco, who is a very fiery and loud, boisterous person. You know, someone burned some popcorn here in the kitchen. Marco goes goes nuts. Hickey said he's never seen you that emotional as you were yesterday discussing this.

Look, I don't like passive aggressive. And I really I do feel like maybe part of it is because I I want to root for the bills. I want to feel good for the lovable loser. I want to feel like that fan base, which is a really good fan base, deserves that winner to get over the top. And everything that I see from Sean McDermott and the organization with the bills in the last few years, I feel like I've closed the door.

That window that you had open, you screwed up. And it does bother me that you're screwing it up and you're you're you're not focused on the big picture. And I feel like they've lost touch with something over the last few years. And it bothers me because I do feel like that fan base is worthy. McDermott has done a really good job as a coach from where they were to them, making them a consistent playoff team, but about taking that next step. Right.

But there's something about taking a dumpster fire into a contender and taking a contender into a title winner. And I really, truly feel like Sean McDermott's almost begging you to take him out of that role because he's making mistakes left and right that have nothing to do with on the field. That's a problem.

That's a problem. And I don't know if it all started in the final 13 seconds against the the Kansas City Chiefs. Now you're going back three or two seasons ago. But for me and this guy comes on the show all the time.

I'm a big fan of him. But Brandon Bean last year saying that this isn't Super Bowl or bust. I know GMs and coaches don't like that term. Right. But when everyone knows it's Super Bowl or bust and your players know it, too. Yeah.

You guys had an embarrassing loss. It's tough to move on from that. But you just got to embrace that if they don't win a Super Bowl this year, you know, last year when they did it, then it's a failure. And that's like that I thought was a bad message, a failure.

Yes. But I will agree with a GM, a coach, someone inside the organization. Don't walk into a season and say it's a title or nothing. After it's over, you could say we failed to our for our goal. That's true.

But it's hard to walk in and say title or nothing from week one, even though we all believe it. You word it differently. Again, that's what your job is. That's the putting out the fires. That's the stuff that I'm talking about with head coaches, because as much as that 13 seconds and the X's and O's and what the hell are you doing? Let Travis Kelce get run down the field. All that stuff, the kickoff.

Those are things that are a problem and they can rear their ugly head in a big moment like that. But I do feel like big picture with a head coach. His job is to get people in the right positions. His coordinators are one to put into game plan together. And he needs to make sure that everybody's firing on the all cylinders. He needs to make sure his guys are ready to go.

Those are the big picture type things. He's not in the, you know, breaking down the film as much as everybody else is. He doesn't have time for that. But his job is to make sure that he's the right mouthpiece for the organization. You say the right things at press conferences. Now, I'm very concerned. If you let a guy go home, you told him to go home. The next day, you said I told him to go home. It was OK.

But the day before I said I was concerned because he wasn't here. What the hell are you talking about? And you know what's crazy about it? The bills have faced a lot of adversity. And I'm talking about a lot of bigger things away from the football field and also on the football field than just whatever happened here. And McDermott, when handling those things, whether it was the Mar Hamlin situation or other things. Which he did flawlessly.

I give him credit for that. And that's why it was like, what really happened yesterday that you were so annoyed and you get there and you basically lost your cool? You know what? And I think this is part of it when you said what made me angry, because it feels like where it is almost like the child makes the mistake and then the adult afterwards. Well, I got emotional.

Guess what? You're not allowed to get emotional. OK, we all get emotional. We all have our problem. We all have issues.

We are all human in that regard. Guess what? You can't do that. You're the head coach. If you need five more minutes before you go into that press conference to talk, take five more minutes.

Everybody will wait for you. Just go Belichick. Figure it out. But you cannot walk in and then afterwards.

No. Well, you know, I got a little ahead of myself. You're not allowed to get ahead of yourself. Now you got PR people to talk to. You're the mouthpiece for the organization. If you can't figure out how to navigate a press conference that you knew the time that it was coming about a situation with a player that didn't have to be told, all we knew was he wasn't there at practice.

Very simply, guys in-house, we'll talk about it later, but in-house things. You go Belichick. Real easy to handle this one. You screwed it up from the start. Now you're trying to put Band-Aids on it.

And every time you put a Band-Aid on, it almost feels like you don't even know what size to put because you don't know what the hell you're talking about from the beginning. It's just awful. It's an awful look. Who wins the AFC East? That's the poll question today at Zach Gelb at CBS Sports Radio. 4.8% with the Patriots. 21.9% with the Jets. Third place actually was the Dolphins at 12.3%.

The Bills at 61%. Just wanted to put that question out there after this. Staphon, big stuff from yesterday. You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show. Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio.

Just want to play two audio clips for you. How about the captain of the Golden Knights as they hoist their first ever Stanley Cup last night. They've only been around for six years, but it's incredible what they've been able to do their first six years in the league and how much success that they've had. But Mark Stone, he had his third goal of the game, a hat-trick last night. This made it 8-3 in the third period.

Let's listen up to the Golden Knights Radio Network. 6 on 5 attack. For Hickey, high on the right. Into the right circle.

Bennett looking cross-eyed. Stone intercepts. This time he sends it down in a waffle and goes into the goal. It's a hat-trick. And the clincher. Mark Stone, the captain, makes it 8-3 Golden Knights with six minutes to go in the third period. Now I know we torched the final call of the game in a blowout, but Hickey, that was actually a good goal call there.

He could have screened a little bit more, that would have been fine, but for the most part, that was a solid call right there. Good energy. You see, obviously he was fired up.

He recognized the big achievement in the hat-trick. I agree. And finally, let's hear Brian Windhorst, this one, get up earlier. He says Zion Williamson could be on the trade block. The league is certainly wondering if the Pelicans are going to make for the first time truly Zion Williamson available ahead of next week's draft.

You have to get up to that level in the top five. You'd have to consider a player of this caliber. He's obviously had injury history, a little bit of offseason drama recently.

You know what that sounds like to me, Hickey? That sounds like someone in the league the way he worded that. The league is wondering. That someone in the league, like a league source reached out to him and said, Oh, keep an eye on the Pelicans just to kind of drum up and stir up some drama right before the draft. Because outside of Victor Wambunyama, I know you have some other players that are highly projected, but I feel as if you look at the NFL, there's always drama surrounding the draft. When it comes to the NBA draft, after the first few picks, I think a lot of people are kind of lost here.

I would say multiple, right? If you said the league, I would assume he's talking to multiple people on multiple teams where there's three, four, five teams kind of look at the Pelicans and say, Hey, this could be some movement here. And this has nothing to do with the current situation that Zion Williamson's in.

That's not why they would move on. It's because they have a big, fat contract given out to Zion Williamson. And the guy's been in league for four years. And if he plays, you're kind of like surprised at this point.

I know that they want to move up. But I don't expect him to get dealt. I would be surprised, Hickey, if he gets dealt. How about you? I do think he gets traded. You do?

Yes. I feel even more confident. I'll say Blazers. Does that do anything if you're Dame? If I'm Dame, I'm like, that guy's never healthy. I get it, but he's the best player he's ever played with. Now, again, there's a massive injury concern. You're right. He's never healthy, though.

That doesn't make me say, Oh, yeah, now I want to stay. And now we could go win a championship because Zion's there. Fun show today.

Big thanks to Tommy Curran and Alex Myers. Stop and buy. I'll talk to you tomorrow, everybody. We out. Bye bye.