Belichick Should Go To Cowboys (Hour 1)

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Bart Winkler in for Zach Gelb. Today, it is great to be with you in normal human hours. If you haven't heard, you can catch me 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern Time on many of these fine affiliates, on CBS Sports Radio, on Sirius XM 158, on the Odyssey app.

Free to listen, free to download. So check us out all day long. Myself included, but also Zach, who I believe will be back in tomorrow.

If not, well, hey, that's why you got to cherish every moment that you have with everyone, really, including Zach. You never know if they're going to be there the next day. Just a very wise thing that I'm going to start the show with today. The Toronto Raptors did not know how long Pascal Siakam was going to be there, and the answer is not any longer. We are going to start with an NBA trade.

I don't know how much we'll actually talk about said NBA trade, as it's another trade involving the Raptors and a team that is maybe fighting to be what I think is that fourth spot in the East. You've got the Bucks. You've got the Celtics. You've got the Sixers, who have been very impressive.

I think those three in some order will be the top three. The Celtics may go through a couple of bumps. The Bucks have gone through a couple of bumps. The Sixers are going to still mis-imbede in games on the road against good teams, and he might not play enough to be the MVP, but he'll play like an MVP, so it's all going to work out perfectly for them, but those are the top three teams.

What it looked like was, all right, two versus three is going to play each other, and that's going to be a battle. And then number one, after they get past the eight seed, although I know it didn't happen last year, is going to play the fourth best team and essentially have an easier path, but now you have the Knicks really coming together. You had the Aggie game the other night, but they're really coming together, and now you have the Pacers, who got to the championship in the in-season tournament, which looked like it was going to propel them to some really big regular season games, and, oh look, it's kind of like a playoff atmosphere early on in the season, and then they lost a bunch of games, but have kind of figured things back out again. It's a long season in the NBA.

I don't think any sport has a worse time when it comes to fans and media and maybe even players themselves of understanding that there are 82 of these things. You know, even in the NFL, if you start two and five, there's a handful of teams that in week eight, week nine this year did not look good, and how are they going to make the playoffs? But there were still half a season left, and they do. In baseball, you know, if you struggle in May, June, there's still three, four months left. In basketball, you lose a game in January 15th, and it's on national television?

I mean, the right people are going to be saying that your season's over, so there's still a long way to go here. The trade sends Pascal Siakam to the Pacers. Bruce Brown, who was just in Denver the other night getting his ring because he signed a deal with the Pacers, they just shipped him right out of there. So now he's going to Toronto. Jordan Warr is going to Toronto as well.

He won a title with the Bucks and has played sporadically. Three first round picks are going back from the Pacers to the Raptors, and then New Orleans getting in the mix, and Kara Lewis is going to Toronto as well. So Toronto's starting this rebuilding project.

I think this is more obviously about the first round picks than it is either of the players, but Toronto's starting a rebuilding project, and Indiana is thinking, you know, we've got Halliburton here. We like Sabonis. We like some of these guys. Well, Sabonis is gone, obviously.

What I meant by that was Turner. We've got these guys. Sometimes I say wrong things to quiz the audience to make sure that you're understanding and to make you feel smarter.

That's one of the charms about me. But we've got a good young talent here, a good young group of guys, and we want to make sure that we don't waste it. And maybe the expectations have hit a little early, so we're going to go ahead and accelerate that a little bit. I think for Toronto, what's interesting with Toronto is this is a franchise that, you know, you say it's okay if you're a fan, and there's no doubt that Toronto Raptors fans would never, like, not have the joy of winning the championship when they did a few years ago. They got Kawhi Leonard. They were struggling to win with DeRozan, so they trade him out. They get Kawhi Leonard there. They win in 2018, 2019. And then, obviously, Kawhi leaves, and the whole thing was like a flash in the pan.

The whole thing was a flash in the pan. They had some years where they were building. They make the trade. They win the championship, and since then, it's been two playoff appearances and just one series win. And it's almost like, if you look back in history, it's almost like it never happened. And I'm not trying to belittle it in any way.

It's a different and weird feeling. You know, a lot of teams in sports, they'll go through the grind. I think why everybody's so poetic about Michael Jordan for a handful of reasons isn't just that he won and then won and then won.

It's that they went through five, six, seven years of battling through the East and those bad boy Pistons to finally get over the hump. We like to see teams go through an obstacle a little bit. We don't like to see teams just buy a title and be the Marlins of both times they won. We don't like to see that. We don't like to see even the Kansas City Royals. Where did that come from?

How did that happen? It's like we want to see these dynasties. As much as we say we don't, we do. And I'm just thinking historically, like 20, 30 years from now, when you look at who won this, who won that, or you're playing trivia, the Toronto Raptors winning that NBA championship is going to stump you a little bit. You're going to be like, oh yeah, you know, I guess we did win the title there, or I guess they did win the title there.

It's just going to be a little different and a little interesting. So very much over is this title opportunity that Toronto had. They were close, made the trade, and then slowly but surely guys either left and then now they've just siphoned everybody off here before the trade deadline. What this is also going to do is once we get to the trade deadline, there will be less trades. And so at the trade deadline, we're going to say, oh, this trade deadline sucks. But some of the trades have already happened. So we're like all crazy about it now. And then we're going to be bummed when the trade deadline comes and things don't happen as much. So NBA trade this afternoon, Pascal Siakam from Toronto to the Pacers, essentially for a bunch of picks. And just to remind everybody, in case you didn't know, Demantas Sabonis is on the Kings. That was just a test.

855-212-4227, 855-212-4227. If you'd like to chime in throughout the show today, a lot of football to get to. We're going to take a look at some of these teams and who's got the pressure, who needs to win this weekend, because there are a lot of teams that are kind of in a good spot. And for fan bases of those teams, I would say enjoy it. There is a completely different experience between being in the playoffs when you have to win and being in the playoffs when you don't. Some of these teams, like I'm thinking of the Texans and the Packers, like they are in a really good spot right now because they were not expected to be here.

So enjoy it. Because what's going to happen is, if you do lose this weekend or whenever, next year then, the offseason is going to say, all right, look at this Texans team. They've got the second year of CJ Stroud, the second year of this coach. There's going to be expectations to win the South again. And then that's going to be the bare minimum. You're going to have expectations.

The Packers now, yeah, the Lions are good in the North, but Jordan Love looks to be the third in a line of quarterback succession. Now there's going to be pressure. Even though it's essentially going to be a lot of the same squad as you have right now, you're still in the period of time where there's not a lot of pressure. So enjoy it. Enjoy this period because the playoffs are inevitably more fun when you have no pressure, maybe like the Royals or some of these Marlins teams.

It's just more fun when you don't have a lot of pressure and everything is like you're pinching yourself along the way. Because if you have expectations, and I'm just speaking as a fan, and I'm sure it's to this degree a little bit in the locker rooms, but when you have expectations, at some point it doesn't become like about the winning. It becomes about we can't lose. We can't lose. We can't lose this series to the eight-seeded Miami Heat.

We can't lose this game to the visiting Green Bay Packers or the Dallas Cowboys. It becomes about you can't lose more than it becomes about not being able to win. And I think when you're in the position where there's not a lot of pressure, you can play more free.

You can play more like yourself and you can actually have a nice run to a championship. So I think there's more teams with less pressure this weekend, including some teams that have already won the past weekend. So I think it should make for a real interesting kind of playoffs. Because when you get a bunch of teams coming in that are like uptight and not sure and kind of playing scared and know that the expectations are so heavy, the games kind of get tighter and the decisions get more conservative. So I think we could open ourselves up for some really good games. I know a lot of the point spreads are leading us to think there's going to be blowouts here and blowouts there. But I think we should be in line for some good football this weekend. We're also trying to figure out who is going where in terms of the head coaching carousel, which kind of cooled down.

Jirad Mayo was announced today officially introduced for New England. So that one was quickly off the books. They didn't even want to mess with that. They had decided that a year ago. And really this whole time that we were wondering about Belichick's future, the Patriots and Robert Kraft knew that Jirad Mayo was going to be the next guy. So as we were thinking from the outside look again, well what does Kraft want to do with Belichick? It wasn't just what does he want to do with Belichick? It was when does he want to go to Mayo? He knew the next thing that he was going to do.

So when did he find it appropriate to go to the next thing? And there's been some reporting this week that the relationship was even more rocky than we would have thought, which I don't think surprises anybody. You've got two guys with those kind of egos in those positions for multiple decades. And then there's the whole Tom Brady aspect of it where Belichick might have thought one thing of him and maybe believes what is told to him, Robert Kraft from Belichick. And then Tom Brady goes and instantly wins a Super Bowl. I think that was without saying the worst thing that could have happened for New England. Because then there's more pressure to develop quarterbacks.

And Mac Jones didn't look like he was ever going to be the guy. And then Bailey Zappi comes in on a prime time game and throws a couple touchdowns. And then you're trying to make parallels to Bledsoe and Brady all over again.

Like you can just do what you did again without any sort of intention. You can't unless you're the Packers, as far as Rogers love. But the Patriots were trying to do that as well and it wasn't able to work.

So they've still got to get over that. And I think that Belichick, who reportedly interviewed with the Falcons last night, and Jim Harbaugh has appeared to interview with them too, I think for Belichick's spot, I feel like the Cowboys is where he should go. I feel like the Dallas Cowboys is the job that would be best for him. Even though you think right away, Jerry Jones, Bill Belichick, I just talked about the ego of Bob Kraft and the ego of Bill Belichick, I think it's different with Jerry Jones.

I think you're looking at two guys who are toward the end of their career that have a narrative that is being written about them that they don't prefer. With Jerry Jones, you have a guy who won a bunch of championships in the 90s as the owner, general manager, executive vice president, director of traveling. I think he's like the third PR guy also.

I think he might even be the one in the mailrooms. He does everything with that franchise, if not him, one of his kids. So you've got Jerry Jones who has these titles and wants to be known as a champion. Maybe that's one of the reasons why he celebrated Jimmy Johnson as late as he did to just, hey, remember us guys? We did this. Remember when we won? Yeah, we do.

That was a long time ago. So Jerry Jones, and McCarthy hasn't been fired yet, and the longer he goes without being fired, maybe he doesn't get fired. But I do think with some of these jobs that are up in the air, the Eagles we'll talk about, the Cowboys, you have such a good free agent class right now of coaches that you have to at least explore that opportunity.

You have to at least think about it. You've got Bill Belichick out there. You've got Jim Harbaugh out there who looks like he is NFL bound.

All of a sudden you've got Pete Carroll out there. You have Mike Vrabel. Mike Vrabel in many other coaching cycles would be the surefire top candidate. But now there's all these other Hall of Fame coaches floating around, and you could be a team that says, no, no, I want a younger guy. I want one of these coordinators, like a Ben Johnson in Detroit. I want a guy who's going to come in, and I've seen these young coaches, and I want somebody with a fiery attitude. I don't want one of these older guys. I don't want the previous generation of football, even though Pete Carroll, I think if you did a body age test on the 32 coaches, might be a top five youngest coach, a guy so energetic and youthful, doesn't seem like that is ever going to slow down with him.

But if you're one of these teams, you've got to at least consider the possibility. And why I think Belichick is a good match for the Cowboys, at least from his perspective, is Bill Belichick had a great career with New England. And then Tom Brady left, and Tom Brady won a Super Bowl, and then Belichick had four years.

He won the playoffs once, but clearly did not make a Super Bowl or have good postseason success. So when Tom Brady steps away, everyone celebrates Tom Brady. When Bill Belichick is no longer with the Patriots, what do people do? They talk about Tom Brady and how Belichick after Brady wasn't the same guy. So Jerry Jones wants to change his narrative. Bill Belichick wants to change his narrative. If Bill goes to Dallas, it's two guys who can change their narrative, two guys who can use each other's history in football to maybe benefit each other, two guys who I think at this point in their career both won a championship so bad that they would be willing to give a little more than they would to the average person. And for Belichick's part in all this, I think it's a win-win. Because if Bill Belichick goes to Dallas, what's going to happen if he wins? If Bill Belichick goes to Dallas and wins, what's going to happen? Jerry Jones could not win for 25 years.

He couldn't get to a championship for 30 years. And then he hires finally Bill Belichick, the right coach, and that's what it took. It took the right coach with this organization that gets all the attention but can never get back to a championship round.

It took the right coach. Belichick saved the Cowboys. If Bill Belichick goes to Dallas and loses, then what's going to be the narrative?

It's not going to be anti-Bill. It's going to be Jerry Jones' operation is such a mess that not even the great Bill Belichick could go there and save it. So I think if I'm Bill, I look towards Dallas. Atlanta? What is the interview with Atlanta?

Did you watch the Super Bowl where I came back to beat you? Why am I even interviewing? You should either give me this job or not give me this job.

If you want to meet me and have a dinner with me and just comp a meal, that's one thing. But what is there to interview? And also Jim Harbaugh, he's still a coach at Michigan, right? He's just taken these other interviews. This is a very unique opportunity for some of these people because you can have a job and still interview.

Everybody else that wants to do a job interview around here, and by around here I mean the world, has to fake sick or take a day off or do it after hours or do it so secretly because you can't have your employer find out. Jim's just out there taking interviews. What's Michigan going to do? Fire them? You want them a championship for the first time in forever.

So very interesting landscape right now. I still expect some changes. The Eagles are a team that they have to. They have to fire Sirianni. The Eagles are a team that has to fire Sirianni.

I haven't checked any internet in 15 minutes. I'm so nervous that I'm missing something. That's how fresh I think that they have to do it. So we'll talk more about that.

It does seem like some of these teams that haven't made changes at least should consider making changes with what's available and also the way that their seasons have ended. So we'll keep that discussion going. 855-212-4CBS, 855-212-4227. I'm Bart Winkler in for Zach today, CBS Sports Radio. CBS Sports Radio, I'm Bart Winkler in for Zach Gelb today.

If you are a Bart Winkler diehard, sorry. You also know that this means I will not be doing the show tonight. David Sheppard will have us covered between 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern time. And I should be back there Thursday night.

I have to adjust the sleep schedule a little bit. But that's all right to come and hang out with Mike Samter and Stu Kovacs. Boys, we're watching that Eagles game the other night while the show's going on. And I thought that the Eagles were going to win just because I couldn't believe what I actually saw was happening was happening. This was a team that was 10-1. And I know there was a lot of discussion throughout the year like, yeah, they're 10-1, but this isn't really a 10-1 team. And I'm like, but they are. They're winning.

They know how to win. I thought that Jalen Hurts was playing very well. Maybe that was a fantasy football-induced problem because I had leagues where I had A.J. Brown, Dallas Goddard, Jalen Hurts, and I was winning a lot.

So maybe I'm just like, oh, my fantasy numbers are good. The team must be good. But then they lost a bunch of games, and it never seemed to get figured out. And as you look back and see some of the stuff with Nick Sirianni, like, you know, making fun of Chiefs fans or the stuff he was doing as he was leaving the tunnel or the game and just how much he was talking the talk before he walked the walk, maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise, but when I saw that game and I saw how bad that game was, I'm still stunned what happened with the Eagles the other night.

I mean, me too. More the lead-up the whole season, how they just constantly just seem to just fall and fall and fall. And there was no immediate explanation. The defense is good. The wide receivers are good. Jalen Hurts is good.

Their offensive line is good. There was no explanation. There wasn't an injury. You couldn't pinpoint what it was that was causing these issues. There was locker room issues, leadership issues, coaching issues.

Nobody really knew. But the way they came out in that playoff game, and Troy Aikman just ripped them all game long, it felt like they didn't want to be there. It felt like they didn't want to get off that bus.

Waiting for the season to be over. And that is such a bad look. I'm not the kind of guy who ever gets on and reactionary. Well, you look so bad in the playoffs. You have to fire Nick Sirianni. I'm not that kind of guy. I'm a believer. Keep Mike McCarthy.

Unless there's something seriously wrong. But the way they looked the rest of that season, the way they looked in that game, how disinterested, how unenergetic and unprepared they were, I don't think that it's Nick Sirianni's fault, but something has to change. And the easiest thing to change is the coach. So while I don't think it's his fault per se, I do think that they probably had to let him go just to make some sort of change. Because the way they looked, that wasn't a team that wanted to play football. Yeah, you look in the second half, and there was a drive where the Eagles were backed up. They eventually were sacked, or not sacked, there was a penalty, but it was a safety. And a play before that, one or two plays before that, Kenneth Gainwell's running around back there, and Hertz is just got, he's like, he's got no interest in blocking and picking up a block for him, and it ended up being a big loss. But I thought even before that, the Eagles did not come out and play like the Eagles.

And it was very interesting to start. You know how much discussion there's been about the tush push, which I know that that's not like the greatest name, but I do prefer it over brotherly shove, while I do think it is clever, I just don't want to call it that. Just like Twitter, I'm not calling it X. I don't want to. Yes, never going to be X. Never going to be a repost.

It's always a retweet. I just, you can't, you can't have, it's a letter, it's a letter. And I'm not going to pretend, I'm not playing along with some guy's sick infatuation over a letter. He's got a fetish over a letter, and we're just not supposed to call it X now? And it's a letter that has kind of a dubious history. It's a letter that kind of represents, like when you see Xs on stuff, you think of like, you know, videos that you shouldn't be watching with your family around or something like that. It's a weird letter to have. If it was Q, then maybe it would be a little bit less weird, but X is easy. Q's not good right now either. That's a good point.

I'm sorry, you know, bad example on that one. Yeah, you can't call it Q either. Yeah, it's like, I don't know where people land on this. I feel like there's, if you're an offensive football, if you're an offensive lineman in football and you're still picking the number 69, it's like, okay guy, that was funny in eighth grade, but let's- It's still a little bit funny. Okay, I mean, yeah. It's funnier than whatever he's got going on with X. So some want to call it X. I know benefits some to call it X. I ain't calling it X, okay? Not happening.

Twitter, Twitter. Anyway, I said that because I don't remember why. I just think I had that burning in the back of my head that at some point I need to rail against calling it X. But I want to go back to the beginning of this football game. Oh, the brotherly show. I want to go back to the beginning of this football game. Monday night. When we should have known it was over. So the Eagles get the ball. They are down three nothing because Tampa had the ball first. So the Eagles get the football. They have the ball at their 25-yard line.

Then they end up getting a first down. They're at the 36. Get a couple of yards.

They're at the 40. Get a couple of yards. They're at their own 44-yard line.

Early in the game, yeah. But it's third and two. It's third and two and they're at their own 44-yard line. Do they have a play that they can get a guaranteed two yards on every time? And if they don't get a guaranteed two yards on, they get a guaranteed one yard on, which then it'd be a fourth and one and they could get another guaranteed yard. Do they have that play? Does any team have that play? Yes.

Obviously, I already used the punch line before the setup. The play is the tush push. The Eagles have a fourth and two at the 44. This is a reasonable spot.

All right. We're not backed up at the 10 here. We're not backed up at the 15. This is the 44-yard line.

Still on the wrong side of the 50, but you're the Eagles. You've perfected this play. No one else can do this play like you. The Giants do it one time and two guys get hurt.

You can do this play. Instead, they go into shotgun and it's an incomplete pass. So maybe Jalen Hurts is hurt more than we think. Maybe the Eagles just didn't want to do it anymore. Maybe they forgot to do it. Maybe they thought, hey, we actually really like this play, but if we do it in a big spot in the playoffs in prime time, because the NFL hasn't talked about it in a little bit. Remember, people are like, oh, we might ban the tush push, but we haven't done it in a while, so now they're not going to remember to ban it. So let's not give them a reason to do it, and then we can still do it next year.

Yeah, yeah, that's what we'll do. The aversion to doing it, I think from the jump, it was like, okay, something's wrong here. The Eagles aren't acting like the Eagles, and I think that was the biggest thing you saw in that game was the Eagles just weren't acting like the Eagles. They weren't, and I know A.J. Brown was out, but they weren't scoring with proficiency. They weren't leading the ball down the field. Jalen Hurts, I think, was taking sacks and throwing the ball away in other situations where he would have tried to extend the play, perhaps.

So I thought that was weird. Then the next drive, they were backed up a little bit, but they were in a third and two again. In a third and two again, third and three, and they went in shotgun again. They have a play that can get them these yards, and they purposely, multiple times, chose not to do it.

So I just don't understand from the start what the intention was. It did seem like, all right, let's just finish this season. We stink, let's get out of here, but you're in the playoffs. You're a good football team. You won 11 games.

You won more games than the team who you're playing. Yeah, they came at the end of the year, the losses did, but I don't understand how you can just give up completely like that. It looks so destined for a Super Bowl rematch for so long this season, and the Chiefs have had their struggles, but they've been working through it the best they can. They at least are trying to work through it. They at least want to work through it. The Eagles just seem like they don't want to work through it. So I don't know what's going on on the offensive side of the ball. The defensive side of the ball was a whole other story, and I really want to, if you ever remember this game or talk about this game, Eagles Buccaneers, whether you're a fan of either or the NFL forever comes up, try not to fall into the trap of saying that the Eagles missed a lot of tackles, because they didn't. Missing tackles means you try to tackle someone, and the Eagles so many times did not.

I mean, they basically put their hands up and let guys run all over the field. Some of those touchdowns were very egregious, should not have happened. It was some of the worst defense that you'll see in football, certainly the worst defense that you're going to see all playoffs, and I'm including whatever happened in Dallas.

There was no effort here for the Eagles. So I think that unfortunately, yeah, he's had success, and this was a winning season, and they were just in the Super Bowl, but what I liken this to is, as a Packer fan, I liken this back to 2014. The Packers' 2014 season, they were in control of an NFC Championship game against Seattle. They were up 16-0, and then somehow, some way Seattle came back, and it was just one of those results where it's like, whatever happened in this game, that game is going to stay with you for a long time.

You're not going to be able to get over that game. And so we've seen it in other situations since then where the Packers never did get over that game, and they eventually fired McCarthy, and maybe should have fired him sooner. The Seattle Seahawks, did they ever get over that fourth down in the Super Bowl when they threw it to Malcolm Butler? Did they ever get over that play? Did they ever get over that?

They didn't. Eventually Pete Carroll, you know, they moved on, and Pete Carroll did better, but they had to trade Russell Wilson. You have to do something. You have to do something. You can't get over it until you get rid of someone, or just like, you've got to wash the sheets here. The Falcons, when they blew that lead, they have not gotten over that yet.

You have to do something. So I think this loss is so bad for Philly. They've got to do whatever they can to get rid of the stink of this loss. And I'm talking fire the coach, trade some dudes, get rid of Patricia.

I don't know what that was. Go full-time back to Kelly Green just to like, you know, tell fans, hey, don't remember that at all. We're a different team now. New uniforms.

You've got to do whatever you can. And I just don't know. I don't know how you can be led by a guy for two months.

This be the final result. I think that things are going to get better in the offseason. So I don't know. The longer Mike McCarthy stays with Dallas, it seems like he might save his job. I still kind of believe that he has been fired, or at least Jerry Jones sent the message. Mike's just not seen his phone since Monday.

But I don't know. I'd be more surprised if Sirianni at this point survived the week than Mike McCarthy. 855-212-4227. It is a busy day. It's been a busy week. It's a busy month.

Thankfully, we have updates to keep you informed. Here's one of them with Rich Ackerman. CBS Sports Radio. I am Bart Winkler. Great to be with you here on this Wednesday afternoon in for Zach Elba today. He should be back in his chair tomorrow.

It is time to ask the pros where you, the listener, gets to ask us, the pros, a question brought to you by O'Reilly Auto Parts. Just tweet your question at CBS Sports Radio or Zach Gelb. You can also tweet me at Bart Winkler Show. Do tweet Zach Gelb though too. It's nice on a day off to then get a bunch of tweets about the show that you have nothing to do it that day. So tweet your questions at all of them. At CBS Sports Radio, at Zach Gelb, at Bart Winkler Show. Use the hashtag askthepros and be listening later in the show when we may answer your question. If it's a good one, we'll pick the best. Thank O'Reilly Auto Parts for all your car care needs.

Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. The Clippers are getting made fun of again. And you know, the Clippers have done a nice job. The Clippers were long the team that was just, why do they exist? They have always been the second fiddle in Los Angeles. They have played in the same arena as the Lakers. So really it feels like they're renting space from them even when they both play a game together.

It seems like somehow the Lakers get an extra home game no matter where the tickets are sold. It's just been bad. Nobody ever wore growing up. Nobody ever wore anything Clippers. It was the team that was bad all the time. They've done a nice job of shedding that image.

They've done a nice job of shedding that image. Now their image is the team that is like really good and you forget about them in a more indifferent way. It's like when the teams are really, really good they're on top of mind.

When they're really, really bad they are too because they get made fun of. Like right now Detroit, Washington, the Spurs all playing bad. The Pistons secretly are playing good.

They just keep losing. But when I watch them it's like wow, this is a decent team. But the Clippers are now that team that like, oh they'll get a playoff spot and then do what with it?

Not much. And then this year could be different. This year could be different.

But then somebody's going to get hurt or they're going to lose in a weird way and it's just going to go back to whatever. But they are trying to change that. So I appreciate Steve Ballmer and the whole Clippers organization for still trying to run from this preconceived notion of what people had of the Clippers. And now they announced that they are as part of their new arena because that's another thing, that's another part of this. They are leaving Crypto.com, formerly Staples.

Again, if I'm still going to call it Twitter, I'm still going to call it Staples. They're leaving that arena. They're going to be in a new arena next year, the Intuit Dome.

And on Tuesday it was announced they're going to host the All-Star Game. It's a $2 billion arena. It's going to hold about 18,000 people. 4,500 of those seats are going to be what is known as the wall on one side of the baseline, on one baseline.

So the picture is like imagine someone shooting free throws and they're shooting into the wall. The wall is going to be 45,000 people, essentially like a supporter section like you see in soccer where one section goes crazy, they've got the big signs, they're doing chance all game. I think this is an adventurous thing for the Clippers.

I think, guys, however, they are starting a little too big. I guess if you're going to build an arena, it's really hard to like, you can add seats on to an outdoor stadium. You can't really add seats on in an arena.

It's an arena. But this seems a little too much for the Clippers right away. Yeah, I mean like if you have a really established hardcore fan base, if you're the Lakers, the actual real team in L.A., or the Warriors, or something that has a really established hardcore fan base, maybe you can pull this off.

This feels like it's going to blow up in Steve Ballmer's face. He kind of wants that passionate crowd and maybe he's trying to force it a little bit too hard. If you have to beg fans to be passionate, and you probably don't have passionate enough fans to begin with, but I just can't wait for the people, the Laker fan or the visiting fan, who's going to take this quote-unquote loyalty test or whatever it is to get that ticket and just rip off his fake Clippers shirt at the first sign of a bad play and have his Lakers jersey or whatever else underneath and get kicked out of the game and be viral from that.

Yeah, because that's part of the wall. The wall is 4,500 dedicated Clippers fans only. So they're going to make sure that if you sit there, you are a Clippers fan. You and your guests cannot cheer for the opposing team. You can't wear any gear.

You may remember that Seinfeld episode where they have the owner's seats at the Yankee game and Elaine's wearing the Orioles hat. You can't do that. And I think you've got to be engaged the whole time. I do like the idea of it. I really do. I think that soccer does a good job. For whatever reason, even in America, soccer, when you go to a soccer game and some teams do it better than others, there's an understanding that as fans, you're engaged in the product. You're part of the product. You're part of the game.

Sure, you have to pay to get in. But you're part of the environment and experience. I don't know that we do as good of a job of that in America. I feel like we're more reactionary fans, and I'm not speaking for every fan base. The fan base I'm speaking the most for, and I'm in Milwaukee, so my fellow Wisconsinites. Wisconsinites seem to have a problem with doing this. This would never, like you think, oh, this isn't going to fly with the Clippers.

I don't know, maybe. I know it wouldn't fly with the Bucks. I know it wouldn't fly in Milwaukee. I don't know that you can, even though there's a lot of passionate Bucks fans, I don't know that you can get 4,500 people each game to be there and be as engaged. There's a little pocket section right now of like 30 fans chanting every game, and people purposely buy tickets away from them because they don't want to be by the noise. They're at a basketball game, and they don't want to be by fans that make noise. A lot of fans go there for like, I don't know, it's like you can't be bothered. You don't want to be seen.

You don't want to have to stand up and cheer. You know, these t-shirt giveaways, some arenas do a real good job with that. I'm telling you, when there's a t-shirt giveaway in my state, nobody wears the shirt. I don't know if we can't fit in it.

Maybe that's the problem. I know I had a hard time squeezing it. I tried to squeeze into the in-season tournament shirt that they gave out. They did give out in-season tournament playoff shirts at a Bucks game, but they gave it out. They want you to wear it.

I squeezed into mine. So I just think like, you watch some of these baseball games overseas too. Japan, just really anywhere in Asia. They do a great job. They're chanting, they're dancing. We just don't do that here as much. So they're going to try at least to have some sort of section where hopefully that blossoms. I think 4,500 is a little tough of an ask.

Maybe you start with like 45 or 450. I really hope it works, because I really hope that sports somehow, and this is going to be a generational shift, but you watch these soccer games in England. Again, you watch these baseball games in Japan, and the fans are an actual part of the experience where here it's like we watch these games like we're in a zoo. Like no, we're not part of it.

We pay just to watch this exhibit. We'll cheer afterwards, but we don't want to do anything else. We don't cheer our team to create a moment. We cheer after a moment, or we boo. We're there to boo you if your team does bad, or if we didn't like your husband because of a documentary, and he passed away, and you're still sad, and we're going to boo you because of it.

That's what we do in America. 855-212-4227. We'll talk a little bit more about my state. I got to do it. The Green Bay Packers still alive? A great excuse to talk some Green Bay Packers. Ryan Wood, Green Bay Press Gazette will join us next. This is the Zach Gelb Show. I'm Bart Winkler.