Ty Dunne Would Be Surprised If Anyone Signs Aaron Rodgers (Hour 2)

So my guy Ty Dunn on Radio Row, one of the best NFL writers in the business. Make sure you check out his website, golongtd.com, and now joining us on behalf of Golong, talk a little NFL offseason. With us no longer having football with us with games to look forward to is the great Ty Dunn.

Ty, appreciate the time. How you been? What's up, man? Great to see you down there, Enola, on Radio Row and out on the town as well.

Briefly, we were ships passing in the night, but we made a point to make it happen. It's always great to put the face with that voice, man. That booming football god of a voice that I've heard for many a year. I appreciate that.

You know, it's funny. For a second, I'm like, where did I see Ty Dunn out? And then I started to remember it because when you get to New Orleans, I remember seeing you at Media Row. I now remember when I did see you when we were out. So appreciate you jumping on board.

Let me start you off with this. Let's go with Rodgers. I feel like for the last few offseasons, Rodgers has been the biggest storyline. We know that the Jets are going to let him go. What does your gut tell you right now where Aaron Rodgers is playing football next year?

I like the way you framed it because it's a gut feeling. This isn't based on specific conversations with execs, with coaches, because I think all that's going to happen next week in Indianapolis. We'll all get a clearer picture of the situation, Zach, but I think this is Bill Belichick in quarterback form. I think that he probably wants to play, wants to start, wants to make money, and I'll be surprised if a team gives him that opportunity. I don't know how a GM, a head coach, how an owner can see what happened in Green Bay, can see what happened with the New York Jets and allow Aaron Rodgers to nuke your building in the same form and fashion. Is he really going to want to start for a team at quarterback and just play quarterback? I'd be shocked if that's the case for somebody that we've seen the same storyline play out again and again and again. It's bringing the buddies, whether they're coaches, whether they're players. It's pseudo-GM, assistant GM, assistant to the assistant, GM Dwight Schrute-esque.

I don't know. It's so obvious at this point, right? It's not just one of us kind of trying to explain this to people from conversations behind the scenes.

It was on full public display. Even though there are a lot of options out there at quarterback via trade, free agency, the draft, I don't know why any team would do it. So you think he's getting shut out completely is what you're saying?

It's a gut feeling, right? I think that it's Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick is the greatest coach ever and nobody wanted him to come in and completely take over a building, right? You bring in Bill Belichick. It's not just to coach the team. He's going to want to have some personnel control. We saw how his drafts ended there in New England. He left Elliot Wolfe with bare cupboards, really. There's a lot more that goes into it than just saying Aaron Rodgers is a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback.

Of course he should start day one. You're bringing in a lot more than that, just like you're bringing in a lot more than just Bill Belichick coaching your defense, coaching your team. I don't know. Maybe there's a desperate owner out there, but Woody Johnson, not one of the best owners, to put it mildly. So he was duped. The Jets were duped.

I don't know who will get duped again. So I only have two destinations where I would actually want to see him. One would be Pittsburgh and then if the Rams actually move off of Stafford, which I don't fully believe, I'd be okay linking up McVeigh and Rodgers for a year out in LA.

How about those two spots? I think Rodgers would probably love to go out there to LA and play for the Rams. I don't know why Les Snead and Sean McVeigh would want him though. And you're right. That's where I'm at right now with the Matthew Stafford stuff, too.

I get it. You've got this young defense. When they actually had draft picks, they drafted really well. Jared Vers is a beast.

I mean, Kobe Turner across the whole D line. At the same time, like you have one of the best quarterbacks in football. You're really one Jalen Carter sack away from getting to and probably winning an NFC Championship game and getting into the Super Bowl. I'm kind of stunned that they just can't figure it out.

Maybe there's something else there that we're not privy to. I think that he gut feeling again probably stays with the Rams, probably cooler heads prevail. They get to a number and the Steelers. Yeah, we all saw the wink and a nod during that Packer Steelers game a few weeks, a few years back.

I don't know, though. I think Mike Tomlin is too smart to and has been through too many retreads, too many mistakes. Post Ben Roethlisberger really hanging on to Ben Roethlisberger a season too long. They've kind of figured out how this thing can go wrong at quarterback.

Via draft picks veteran pickups. It feels like Aaron Rodgers is just in that but I don't know what the Steelers do at quarterback, but I would really be surprised if they talk themselves into Aaron Rodgers pushing them over the top in a division with Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson. You never know, right? You never know. Maybe these defensive coaches think all I need is a quarterback who with some pelts on the wall to get over the hump, but I think that maybe we're reading a little too much into that that image in it.

And I think it was like a CBS game a few few years ago, right? I think I don't know if there's anything there talking to tie done when you get to Sam Darnold. I don't think he'll be back in Minnesota.

They're going to JJ McCarthy. That's my feel on it. Placing Sam on a team is not easy. But what do you feel right now with Sam?

You're right. He played himself into the opportunity. I know it ended terribly, right? He did turn into that pumpkin like everybody thought he would at various points during the regular season. Think back to that Jacksonville game.

That was ugly, but they win that game and man, he was gangbusters for about a month and a half. He proved that he warrants the opportunity to start to get one of those middle tier contracts that we've seen, right? I think Baker Mayfield is in that in that in that bucket.

Daniel Jones got a lot of money. Maybe it's that kind of contract that a team can talk themselves into when it comes to Sam Darnold, even though it ended so poorly. The Raiders come to mind. I would just be kind of shooting from the hip.

I don't know. The Giants would be intriguing. I would really love to see Sam Darnold get with another really bright offensive mind because Kevin O'Connell is one of the best, if not the best at schematically just layering an offense. There were options all over the field and Sam Darnold ran that thing beautifully. Yes, he had Justin Jefferson.

Yes, he had Jordan Addison. But let's give Darnold some credit to he played really good football last year. I think that sour taste in our mouth is warranted, but people will remember what they saw most of the season selfishly. I would love to see a coach like Brian table work with Darnold and see what they could do together.

I don't know if that's the fit, but I think if he's with a really good offensive mind, maybe it's not what we saw in 2024, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he warrants whatever that deal is 40 mill a year. Ty Dunn here with us. The first two picks of the draft and I'm sure we'll get more clarity next week or you'll have different takes because everyone gets in the same room.

People start to talk and loose lips and all that stuff. I do think one of Tennessee or Cleveland will end up taking a quarterback and I think Cam Ward will be the first quarterback taken. Who do you lean right now?

Is it Cleveland or Tennessee taking that quarterback in your opinion? I thought you were going to bring up Abdul Carter and I was going to have to storm off the set. Warren Sapp. That by the way to kind of like Rick radio row all week. There's so many interviews and there's so many headlines the fact that you and Warren Sapp had that moment and it just freight train plowed through all of the headlines says a lot about you man. That was a great interview. Great back and forth. I've had a lot of I've had a lot of arguments on the air and that was the dumbest one because it was it wasn't contentious.

You would think the first 10 minutes. We loved each other. We were having like a fun conversation going back and forth smile and laughing and then I'm just like, all right, where's Abdul Carter? He just said the three players and he's like Abdul.

He's like one last time Pence. They produced a good rap pass rusher. I'm like, I don't know some guy by the name of Micah Parsons. It's like that's there's beef between Sapp and Parsons.

That's what I learned after that conversation. Exactly. There's something else there and I promise I'm not filibustering because I do love Cam Ward. I'm not I'm no draft expert, but I just just from what I've seen and the people I've talked to he's got a game that that's got some pop to it. Like he's got a big arm. He's got some mobility. You can I feel like you can talk yourself. He reminds me of a poor man's Ben Roethlisberger.

That's what I keep on going back to a cam board. I like it. That's a great cop and hey my Syracuse orange. They took it to them. So, you know credit where credit's due to the orange in Central New York, but I feel like both of those teams need a quarterback. It's just when do you pull the trigger and my mind immediately goes back to here in Buffalo having the chance to draft Patrick Mahomes. The owner loves Patrick Mahomes, but they don't want to rush into it with a new coach.

The new coach wants to try to win now build a culture push it down there. I'm not saying Cam Ward's got to be Patrick Mahomes, but I feel like the Titans kind of changing things at the top or Brian Callahan in his second year new GM a lot a lot of change there. They might be thinking let's just see what the quarterbacks look like next. There's no guarantee that you're going to be in position to draft the top quarterback next year and and it could be some paralysis by analysis and they'll be thinking about all those guys at the top of the draft when it comes down to it. You've got a shot to take a quarterback and usually those teams take the quarterback. I don't know why they wouldn't right unless you just absolutely love Carter or love Travis Hunter.

I don't know. It doesn't seem like there's that one sure thing in in this draft so that 10 tends to make you think they'd go they'd go quarterback there in Tennessee. So so you think they're going to take Cam Ward one? How about two and three then with the Browns and the Giants?

How do you think that the next two picks shape on out? Oh, man, not now. You got me mock draft and I always promise readers if I ever do a mock draft just you know, shoot me to the cornfield cancel me forever.

I can't stand up but let we're only doing a couple pics. Yeah, so we'll let it slide. Well, don't worry. My next question is are all the rest of the first round. Don't worry. I'm going to make you do 32 picks here on X. I love saying like here's mock 13.0 and then I just linked to like a Jim Croce video from 1973.

Just Rick Rick Rick rolling with operator. I you know what the brapping the Browns. What are the Browns going to do a quarterback? I don't think that they so I don't think that they or the Giants can just wait and hold their breath and hope they get their quarterback in the draft like they're going to do something like something's going to go down in Indianapolis.

They're going to have conversations around the league and you know cover their bases. Maybe they do what Atlanta did last year. Maybe not to that extreme, but you sign a quarterback and you draft I think that they'd like to double up. Maybe they can package Deshaun Watson somehow into a Myles Garrett trade and then sound like they want to trade Myles Garrett, but anything can happen there in Indianapolis.

I that seems high for Chidor Sanders, right? Like you don't want to just take a quarterback because you can take a quarterback. Maybe the Browns just I mean, they just need talent everywhere. Maybe they just take whoever's the best on their board. Maybe it's Carter.

Maybe it's Travis Hunter. I don't know and the I think the Giants have to do something before the draft right like you're really hoping and praying if you don't do something free agency for the Giants. It's going to be interesting because last year they were hoping to get a quarterback and they didn't like the guys that were available.

They got shut out and they just had to run it back with Daniel Jones. So you're probably right. They may have to double dip where you get a solid veteran and then hey, if your guy still there at three, you also take him as well. Then you try to figure it out. You mentioned Myles Garrett tie done go long td.com.

Make sure you check it out. So I think he'll get traded by the conclusion of the first round. I know that the Browns don't want to trade him right now, but that's also be going to change.

They really have no leverage here. I keep on going to five teams commanders bills Lions Eagles Chiefs and I think you get a good bidding war there. Who's the one team that stands out really over the rest that you feel? I don't want to say confident, but you know, you look at them and you end up saying, okay, I could see Myles Garrett being on that team next year. I think you just nailed the timing of it too because it doesn't really benefit Cleveland in any form or fashion privately publicly with anybody in the media to Telegraph that. Yeah, we will deal Myles Garrett, but at the end of the day, you're not competing for anything anytime soon. You're wandering aimlessly at quarterback.

It makes sense to trade him to reset to restart to get what you can and you're right. There is a market for him. There's going to be a good three, four or five teams that will be willing to trade a ton of draft capital for Myles Garrett. Look, he's, I don't think this is a Von Miller situation.

Like we saw that in Buffalo. They gave a lot of money to Von Miller and, and maybe he would have been everything they needed if he didn't tear his ACL that first year. He was playing really well.

He had like seven or eight sacks and he tore that knee up. He's not that old, right? He's not at that point of his career. I think he's still in his prime. He just won defensive player of the year in 2023.

So what does that mean? Two first round picks? Would a team really go three first round picks? You might see a less need F them picks kind of move from a GM.

And why not? If you're, if you're Washington and you've got Jane Daniels and you've got that window of opportunity with his contract to go for it. You should write, you should, you know, that, that defense, they need a lot of pieces, but Myles Garrett is about two or three of those pieces. And one, we just saw it in the super bowl. You get a pass rush when you don't have to blitz, it makes everybody else look better, right?

That's going to be the big swing. Teams are going to try to just do it. Vic Fangio did not blitz at all. If they don't have to and, and have four guys that annihilate the offensive alignment across the line of scrimmage, old school football.

That game brought us all back to what football really is. Myles Garrett makes that happen for you. If you're the commander, he is going to help everybody. So yeah, I think if you're Washington, you're absolutely putting in the best possible offer you can. I think Buffalo would love to, but I don't know if Buffalo is in position to make the kind of offer that Washington can.

So, so why not? So I'm just like looking at this, I have confidence how he will do whatever it takes. I think Veatch is obviously going to be in every conversation. I think Adam Peters is going to be the most aggressive team here with the commanders. The Bills and the Lions to me, though, are the most intriguing because they're so close and this could be the player that puts them over the top. So why do you feel like the Bills may not be in position to do so? Well, they definitely have a little more flexibility this spring versus last spring. They ate Stefan Diggs's money last year.

It does. They're not out of the woods. I'm not sure exactly how much cap room they have, but it's not, it's not a lot. And they've got Terrell Bernard up for an extension, James Cook up for an extension, Khalil Shakir, if you want to pay him. So all GMs like to pay their homegrown guys if they can. And hey, I'm with you.

I think they should just try to win now. You got this window with Josh Allen. He's the reigning MVP. Why wouldn't you try to add that kind of threat on the other side of the ball?

I don't know. I tend to think Brandon Bean's a pretty honest guy. Like in a world, in a profession full of BSers, he usually shoots straight at the podium. And after the season, in so many words, again and again, he repeated, you can't think that you're one player away. That's a dangerous mindset.

You can't be obsessed with one team like the Chiefs. That's a dangerous mindset. I think they are going to try to treat that roster, like he says, a chemistry experiment and tinker where they can. They don't want to get in a position where you gut your draft capital and you hurt your salary cap and two, three years down the line, you're completely starting over for a year and then you ruin a year of Josh Allen's prime.

I think he's scared of that. Now, what the Bills should do, Zach, is actually take a chance on some red flag, quote unquote, character risk players. It's a really close team.

The bonds are tight. But at the end of that first round, early second round, it'd be nice to see them take a chance on somebody who trickles into that range that maybe teams are passing on. They never do that. It might be time to go that route and find that player. Yeah. And just don't trade with the Chiefs this year.

Don't do that in the draft because they should be done trading with the Chiefs in the draft. He is Ty Dunn from golongtd.com. Ty, always great to have you on. Appreciate it. Anytime, Zach.

Thanks so much, man. There you go. Make sure you check that out. Once again, golongtd.com and subscribe to get all of the latest insight from Ty Dunn.

He does a great job covering the NFL. Well, come on back. I'm going to pivot here and we're going to continue to piggyback off of the Myles Garrett conversation. I gave you the five destinations. I'll rank you those five destinations from least likely to most likely to go land Myles Garrett when we come on back.

All right. We just had Ty Dunn on and he kind of poured some cold water on the possibility of Myles Garrett going to the Buffalo Bills. He just doesn't think that Brandon Bean's going to pull the trigger on this one, even though Ty thinks he should and I think he should as well. So I'm just out of curiosity out of the teams that are in the NFL, right? 31 other teams that are looking to trade for Myles Garrett.

If we do power rankings in terms of who's going to be the most aggressive and who's going to who's also realistic. And if you had to rank those five teams right now, where you think that he's going to end up getting traded to. I put together my five. I'll look at the odds here in just a second. But Stu, I'm curious who your five are as well.

Then we'll compare notes here. OK, so first I have the commanders, second Lions, third Eagles, fourth Bills, five Chiefs. OK, we have the same five teams, but in a different order. Now, the latest odds on DraftKings on where Myles Garrett is going to be playing next year. One commanders at plus 300, two Eagles at plus 450, back in Cleveland at plus 500. I didn't even think about that, but I think he's getting dealt by the end of the first round. Buffalo fourth at plus 550 and the Lions fifth at plus 650.

Do you want to take a guess here, Stu? The next three, the next three highest odds to go get Myles Garrett, according to DraftKings. I'll say the Cowboys are up there.

You know what? The Cowboys are not. They're at plus 1800.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Has them tied for eleventh because you have the Patriots, Rams, Chargers and Cowboys at plus 1800. There's one team that we both named that was not named in the top five. That's Kansas City. The Chiefs, yeah.

Yeah, at plus 1400. But there's two teams in front of them. Two teams in front of them. Both in the same division, too. Packers and Vikings?

Close. Packers and Bears. Packers at plus 1200, Bears at plus 900. Yeah, Bears are interesting.

The Bears are intriguing, too. Now, we don't know if Caleb Williams is the guy. Like, you look at the commanders, Jayden Daniels proved in one year that he could be the guy. Caleb Williams, you could blame it on coach, you could blame it on himself. Wherever you put the blame on, the jury is now out on Caleb Williams. We got to see what's going to happen. But you pair him with Ben Johnson and you would expect that he has to be better than what he was last year and the team has to be better.

But I've seen crazier things. You don't want to set a city and send a city into a frenzy. You go put Miles Garrett and have him trade to the Bears.

There's a lot of pressure there for multiple reasons. One, you get Miles Garrett, okay, you have your cornerstone player on defense and you have what you think is your cornerstone player on offense in Caleb Williams. But two, if I'm a team like the Browns, I'm good with trading them to a team like the Bears. Now, I don't know if Miles Garrett will be on board because the Bears to me are nowhere close to winning a Super Bowl. But Stu, if I'm a team like the Browns and I have to trade Miles Garrett, if you're getting back two first round picks for Miles Garrett, the odds of those picks being good in the first round if he gets traded to a team like the Lions or the Chiefs or the Bills are not good. You know, you're going to be picking late 20s, you know, in the 30s, right, early 30s, right, 30, 31, 32, somewhere in that range.

They get anywhere from 26 to 32. You go to the Bears and the Bears do what they've done for, I don't know, the last two decades. You know, I know they've been in a few NFC Championship games, they've been to a Super Bowl, all that stuff. But for the most part, the Bears are picking pretty early in the draft. And even if they get Miles Garrett and let's just say the Bears still be the Bears and they always be the Bears, you could end up getting better draft capital than probably anywhere else that you're going to get him to where Miles Garrett may. And I don't know if he would, but he may sign off on the Bears, maybe he wants to take a chance at a team that's young and up and coming. Yeah, and you look at like the Browns, like you had Miles Garrett and okay, maybe like two years ago, they traded for Deshaun Watson and you're like, okay, they have something here. You never know. Caleb Williams might not be the guy and just because you have Miles Garrett doesn't make you a contender, clearly.

So that could be trouble. And also, we talk about this all the time, right? You don't need a Ph.D. in football to figure this one out.

The game is one of the trenches. The Browns have had Joe Thomas on the offensive line, right, already in the Hall of Fame, and you've had Miles Garrett. And at least with Miles Garrett, they got their act together for a little bit, right? You know, they had that one year where they made the playoffs, they made the playoffs twice with him. You know, they lost that one year in the wildcard round to the Texans and the other year they beat the Steelers before they lost to Kansas City. We had Henny, was it for the Chiefs that ended up coming in?

No, it wasn't. Who was the backup quarterback for the Chiefs that came in? Was it Matt Moore? No, it wasn't Matt Moore. He came in, he threw that out route, five yards to Tyreke Hill.

What the heck is that? Was it Chase Dan... No, I forget who it was, but Mahomes got hurt. They're playing the Browns in the division round. And he threw that five-yard out route on the Eric B. Enemy play call along with Andy Reid, and you found Tyreke Hill to go win that game. I believe it was on fourth down. So let me know if you end up finding the name, because that's the one, to me, I forget who the backup quarterback was.

Mike Dude, too. I want to say it was Henny. Yeah, so back in 2019, Matt Moore was the backup, 2020 was Chad Henny, and 2020 was Blaine Gabbert. Oh, so maybe it was Chad Henny, then. Yeah, it's probably one of those guys. No, it was then Chad Henny. So I was right.

I don't know why. For some reason, I said Chad Henny, and I'm like, yeah, it's not. Yeah, he threw that out route, which is crazy. And then Mahomes ended up coming back, and they beat the... did they beat the Bengals? They lost to the Bengals. I think they lost to the Bengals. Yeah, they ended up... no, they beat the Bengals. Then they beat the Bengals in that AFC Championship game. Because that was January of 2023, where Henny replaced an injured Mahomes. And, you know, oh, no, that was the divisional round. He came in twice, remember? Henny had to come in twice, because Mahomes got hurt. I think the first time, the one that I'm talking about originally, was 2022.

And then the second time was 2023. So there's your Chad Henny conversation on the Zach Gilb show on the Infinity Sports Network. But anyway, when you get to the Browns, going back to them, Miles Garrett and Joe Thomas have dominated the trenches, and what has it really led to?

It's kind of wild. Alright, here are my rankings. These are the latest Zach Gilb show, top five destinations for Miles Garrett that I think are going to be the most aggressive in their pursuit, and also have a chance of happening. In at number five, I think it's the Buffalo Bills. I feel like the last few years we talked about the Bills being in on some big names, whether it was Saquon Barkley, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey. We've talked about them adding big names. Now, they did add Von Miller, but that was Von Miller up there in age, and then Von Miller suffered a big injury for the Buffalo Bills, and he's never had the same explosiveness. So I don't know if it's just not in Brandon Bean's DNA. I think he should be all in and being willing to risk that capital to go try to win the Bills their first ever Super Bowl, and I do think Miles Garrett could be the missing piece. But I don't know if Brandon Bean's going to match that energy. So I put Brandon Bean of the Bills in at five. Four, I think Veatch is in on every deal.

He leaves no stone unturned. I think they'll place a call. I think they'll make an offer, but I don't think it's going to be rich enough for the Browns to trade Miles Garrett to the Chiefs, but I do put the Chiefs in there at four. Three, I actually had the Detroit Lions. I could see Brad Holmes, right, comes from the Rams tree, just saying bleep those picks and trades the picks and say, hey, this is my core.

This is my group. We drafted so well. We have a good team in place. We're right there. Two years ago, NFC Championship game, we blew the lead. This past year, we were the best team in football, you could argue, in the regular season.

And then in post-season time, we just laid an egg. We need one more piece. We're getting Hutch back. You have Hutch on one side, Miles Garrett on the other. That's more than enough on defense, with the way that our offense, even without Ben Johnson, sells a high-octane offense ability with Jared Goff, Jameer Gibbs, Amunras, Sam Brown, Sam LaPorta. And you just go all in, and you say bleep those picks, and I could see Brad Holmes doing it. But two and one, the Eagles right there in the penthouse, the Eagles' Howie Rosebun has been a wizard when it comes to trades, and you've seen the long list of guys that he's traded for, whether it's in the draft, the wheeling deal he did for Cooper Dejean, right? You know, somehow Jalen Carter landed to him. You saw the deal that they got in free agency with Saquon Barkley. You look at the A.J. Brown trade, a first-round pick for A.J.

Brown, you do that 10 times out of 10. Howie Rosebun has been a wizard when it comes to trades, and now he's playing right in a luxury palace, where even if he doesn't get this deal done, he will still be viewed as the best team in football entering next season. I could see Howie really saying, okay, I'm already cemented in NFL history, but I could go down as one of the greatest executives of all time, where right now I'm viewed as a legend, but I could go down as one of the greatest executives of all time if I go win a third championship, or maybe even more than that if you end up getting Miles Garrett. And at number one, I think it's the commanders.

I think the commanders will show the most desperation. You have a rookie quarterback, right, just finishes rookie season on a rookie deal, so you have that low salary for four or five years if you want it, depending on when you're going to extend them. You have Terry McLaurin all locked up, good to go. Maybe add another offensive weapon right there on that offensive side of the ball, but defense, that's where you need help. You need help on the defense, you're fine last year, right, got to an NFC championship game, but you don't want to regress this year, you will get Miles Garrett. You know on offense, for the foreseeable future, Jaden Daniels is your guy, and then for the next three to five years, Miles Garrett is your guy on defense, and you would look at one of the craziest rebuilds that we've ever seen, where the commanders were laughed at for the last 20 years, and then you get Daniel Snyder out, right, you have the first year together of Adam Peters, I know second year for Josh Harris, but Adam Peters and Dan Quinn with Jaden Daniels, and boom, they got to an NFC championship game, you go get Miles Garrett, you could not only get back to that NFC championship game, it's not crazy to say that maybe you're in the Super Bowl next year, and you end up winning it.

So I would say right now, the top five destinations I think most realistic, and who's going to be the most aggressive in their pursuit of Miles Garrett, one, commanders, two, Eagles, three, Lions, four, Chiefs, five, the Buffalo Bills. Zach Gelb's show, Infinity Sports Network, Dr. Brandon J. Erickson is going to join us on the other side to try to make some sense of what's going on, unfortunately, with the form of a blood clot that was found in Victor Wambunyama's right shoulder. We'll talk more when we come back, update time first. Here's Zach. Alrighty, this portion of the show is sponsored by Hyundai.

Hyundai helps protect you and your family on the road. We put your safety first and everything else second. Let's go out to the guest line right now. We need to react and get a little bit of a medical opinion here to the Victor Wambunyama story, as according to Shamshirani, he has a form of a blood clot in his right shoulder. He's going to be out for the season, and the Spurs believe this is an isolated condition, so we bring in Dr. Brandon J. Erickson, who's kind enough to join us right now. Doc, I know it's been a while. Appreciate the time. How you been? Zach, good, man.

Just down here in Clearwater at spring training now, so interesting to see this today. So when you see this from Victor Wambunyama's perspective and also a medical perspective, you know, for people that aren't really familiar, right, with all these medical terms and everything, just what do you think this kind of means for Victor Wambunyama when you look at it from afar? Yeah, so take a step back and kind of run through what it is. So they said it's a blood clot in his shoulder, so blood clots can happen in veins, they can happen in arteries. His sounds like one that happened in one of his veins, kind of the vessels that bring the blood out of your arm back to your heart. Clots can form for different reasons. Sometimes somebody has a trauma, clot can form. Sometimes you can have an underlying condition in your blood that causes it to be more likely to clot.

We've seen that, right? Chris Bosh, Serena Williams, they can sometimes have some clotting disorders, but the bottom line is he has a clot that's obstructing the blood from coming back. They have to try to get that clot to break up, and so what they do is they give him some medicine that basically helps to break that clot up and to prevent new clots from forming, because if that clot were to break off and go back, it could head back to his lungs and cause a problem.

So you just explained it, right? They're hopeful that this is an isolated condition, and they'll give him the medicine and we'll see what happens. How early can you tell if this is going to be something that's going to be lingering, or if it will just be one incident here? Yeah, so he's going to have a whole bunch of blood tests now. He's going to get tested for all kinds of clotting factors and issues that can cause his blood to clot, and as long as he clears all those and they come back negative, then you call this a clot that probably happened from some repetitive trauma, him twisting his head or getting hit in the shoulder, and so they'll keep him on blood thinners for probably three to six months. They'll rescan him. If everything looks good, they'll take him off the blood thinners, but it's going to be something that he'll have to monitor going forward.

Yeah, I remember, I forget exactly when he got diagnosed, but Christian Barmore of the Patriots had blood clots. We thought he was going to miss the entirety of the season. He eventually came back towards the end of the year.

When do you kind of get the green light? You know, what do you need to see until maybe, I'm not saying Victor Rumbunyama comes back and play. They already say he's out for the year, but he could resume like basketball activities. Yeah, so you want to see that one, you do a scan, make sure the clot's gone, the blood's getting back to his heart okay, so that's step one, and then step two, you want to make sure that no new clots are forming anywhere else. They'll probably do a battery test on him to make sure he's not forming clots in his legs, because to be honest with you Zach, the shoulder's not a common place to have a clot form. Usually they form in your legs and then they break off and they go back to the heart there. Having them happen in the shoulder is actually not very common, so he's going to have this looked into a little bit more than most.

So I want to ask you this, I know we were exchanging a few messages about it. I remember reading this article on February 1st that Victor Rumbunyama was out with an illness and he said it was mainly just allergies. They came back a little bit earlier, a week ago from the date of that article, from a trip in France where they were playing, and since then, even before we found out the news today, he was questionable for the game because of an illness. This mysterious illness and allergies that happened from a trip back in January when they came on back and he started experiencing, could this be connected where maybe this is how it starts, you just feel under the weather and then eventually you get testing done that determines hey, you actually have a form of a blood clot in your right shoulder? Yeah, it definitely could have been, and it's a hard thing to diagnose, I'll be honest with you, because it's not something that pops into the front of your head of thinking a healthy, active NBA player has a blood clot in an area where you don't usually get them, so all the credit to the doctors there that diagnosed this, but you're right, it could have been an issue where you had this clot forming, blood wasn't getting back to his heart the way it normally does, so it's pooling in his arm a little bit, lactic acid builds up, causes him to feel fatigued a little bit, has these allergic symptoms or just feels a little bit run down because something in his body was going on, thankfully they found this before it led to a bigger problem.

How do you find it, just wondering? Because if someone says hey, I had this illness, I had these allergies, I don't think right away you're testing for blood clots, but how do you eventually find it and determine it? Yeah, it's a hard thing to do, so in the legs and the shoulder we use an ultrasound, and what they do with the ultrasound is they kind of push on your blood vessels and they make sure that they compress, and they can also check the flow that goes back and forth in the blood vessels to make sure it's flowing at a normal rate, and it doesn't have any big blockages that are there, so they probably started with that.

If there's an issue where that doesn't pick it up, they can inject some dye and do a CAT scan and basically watch the dye go through all your blood vessels and see if there's a blockage anywhere. So I'll also ask you this because you also said Dr. Brandon J. Erickson is here with us in the Zach Yelp Show talking about the Victor Winbyama situation, you said the shoulder is more rare and it's usually in the legs, does that mean it's more dangerous if it's in the shoulder, just wondering? No, it's a good question, it's not, because they go back to kind of the same spot, so it's not that it's more dangerous, it's just that it's honestly much harder to diagnose, so it was a good pickup. So how do you kind of determine, I know we talked about the next step forward, but I'm just curious here, the spurs through Shams say that this is an isolated incident, do they really know?

Like you don't really know yet, right? Correct, so they probably have scanned his legs because that would be the first thing that you would do if you picked up a clot in the shoulders, you scan his legs and you make sure there's nothing there, so they probably don't have any clots in his legs, if that's what they said, but they probably haven't gotten the testing back on whether or not he has some clotting disorder in his blood, so you'd be hard pressed to come out really quick and say that. Gotcha, before we let you run, I know you're in clear water as you're part of the Phillies medical staff, a team physician I think is the proper title, I went to Temple, I'm not a doctor here. So how about the essentials of spring training, because we see more injuries really in baseball with how much they make the pitchers throw and the speeds now, this buildup period in spring training, I kind of can't stand it because of just the fact of I always just fear people are going to get hurt this time of the year and I just want to get to the regular season, but how essential is really spring training for baseball players? So you're right in the sense that people get hurt in that initial time that they come back, but if you got rid of spring training, you'd probably just see it happen in the regular season rather than spring training. Actually the spring training buildup is pretty important, so whether you're a pitcher or position player, position player you got to build up your soft tissue pliability and your hamstrings, your quads, you don't wind up pulling up lame, but from a pitcher perspective, that UCL, that ligament on the inside of the elbow, you're going to get hurt, that Tommy John ligament. If you just go back and start to throw it 100% without having kind of ramped yourself up and warm that ligament up to stretch it out, the risk of you tearing that ligament is very high.

We ramp these guys up, we have them throw 60 feet, 120 feet, they throw some bullpens at low effort, then they throw higher level bullpens, then they throw a live VP, then they start to throw in games, and the hope with that is that we get that ligament to start to be stretchy, their shoulder ligaments to get to be stretchy and really don't increase their risk for injury. So you're right, it's annoying and it takes some time and it's kind of painful, but without it, the risk of injury for those first couple of weeks of the season would go way up. Last thing I'll ask you, I'll just bring this up, because I know you played for Notre Dame, you had to be very happy with their football season, right? I was pretty happy with it. Obviously the last game was pretty disappointing, especially after the way we started and then couldn't seem to stop them for a while, but give them all the credit in the world for fighting to the end and I think the future's bright as it stands out on this quarterback battle. I'm excited that we don't have a transfer coming in. We have some guys that have been there for a little bit because the transfer stuff, I don't know what your opinion on it, Zach, I'm curious what it is. I don't love the transfer portal stuff in college right now without having to sit out and so I think it's kind of changing the game a little bit and I'm excited that we have somebody that's been there for a couple of years and then is going to come through the system and get to play. Yeah, it's worked both ways, right? Look this past year, Will Howard, transfer quarterback, Riley Leonard, transfer quarterback and both of them were in the national championship game, but it's one of those situations where it's made it a 365 day out of the year sport because we cover it now as if it's professional football.

Yeah, and you have to because everybody, it's just kind of crazy how fast things change and how much money is flying around, so we'll see how it goes over the next few years. Well, Doc, we appreciate it. Dr. Brandon J. Erickson, appreciate you giving us some insight and trying to clear some things up that I just have no clue how to explain to our listening audience. No, thanks for having me, Zach.

You got it. There he is, Dr. Brandon J. Erickson on The Zach Gelb Show on the Infinity Sports Network. So what I take from that is, right, with blood clots, it's usually in your legs. This one is in his shoulder and from here on out, you just hope that it isn't something reoccurring. You know, it's one of those things where now they're going to give him the medicine like he said, and you hope that this is it. So that report from Sham Sharania, once again, was Victor Rambunyama has a form of a blood clot in his right shoulder.

He's out for the season. The Spurs believe this is an isolated condition. So that's their hopeful, wishful thinking that this is a one-time thing, and then it's going to go away. But I think the timeline of this, and, you know, Doc said good on the doctors for eventually finding it out because, right, you have a guy saying, all right, I'm coming back from France after what, they played two games there. And it's, oh, I don't feel well. Oh, it's just allergies coming back to the U.S. Oh, you know, I'm under the weather. And I remember reading that story, and that was in early, that was February 1st from NBA.com.

And I know that that trip was towards the end of January, and I'm like, okay, I didn't think much of it, right? If the guy's saying he has allergies, if the guy's saying he has an illness, you know, who am I to question that? And then the other day, when you see that he may not play up against the Suns because of this illness, I'm like, how long is he being sick for? You know, if, you know, we go back to February 1st and illness, allergies, you know, you get allergies for a week, like, I think we all get them, right?

When there's pollen out there, yeah, I get it. But for that to be a month-long thing and then it comes out today, oh, he has a blood clot in his right shoulder, I got to think and write, Doc didn't rule it out, that it could be connected, that that was the initial discomfort, and he just thought, oh, it's a headache, or oh, it's allergies, oh, it's just body aches, oh, it's an illness. And then it's like, no, the doctors were able to detect that it ended up being a blood clot or a form of a blood clot in his right shoulder. And I reached out to doctors and we brought him on today because, you know, I could speculate on sports when it comes to speculating on medical things.

That's above my pay grade. And I will quickly sound like a jackass if you give me the ability to speculate on medical things. And I just said to him, hey, Doc, question, so when he's been dealing with this mysterious illness and then saying it's allergies for a bit, could this be related and they just figured out what it was? And he right away, as you heard him on the air say a few moments ago, absolutely could have been when you have an upper extremity blood clot, it often restricts the return of blood which can pull and cause some of those symptoms.

So it kind of makes sense. And I guess good on the medical staff that they were able to identify it, but the whole thing just sucks if you look at it, right? Guy was awesome, met the hype in year one, became an All-Star, right, in year two, is on the verge of becoming the face of the league and now, you know, you hope it's just an isolated incident, but it turns into one of those things where no one really knows what's going on.

Now, we've seen players before have blood clots and be able to return, but you hope obviously not just for him getting back on a basketball court, I don't want to be selfish, but for his life that this is just one thing, right, freak thing, it happened and then you move on. But I hate to be the doom and gloom kind of guy, but I can't sit here and tell you that's definitive and now, when you look back, right, I think you read the Shams thing at first, he's like, the Spurs believe this is an isolated condition. Like, I read that at first, I'm like, oh, it's an isolated condition, you know, you just get the message, you follow it. The Spurs believe, believe, you know, I could believe this piece of paper is purple, right?

It's white. So, they believe that this is an isolated condition, that's what I'm basically saying, that's what they're wishing and hoping for and we'll have to have more tests to figure it out. Alrighty, Zach Gelb Show Infinity Sports Network with Mike Tomlin and Aaron Rodgers being able to coexist, we'll get to that on the other side. Coming on back with more of the Zach Gelb Show Infinity Sports Network after these short messages.