Hour 2 – Dodgers Aren’t Ruining Baseball, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo

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Speaker 1: You are listening to The Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio Our two.

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Speaker 2: On this Meet Friday, Dan and the Dan Nets, Dan Patrick Show, Christopher mad Dog Russo in a couple of minutes, a Meet Friday, Chicken and sausage, Gumbo, seafood, gumbo and corn bread. Who has it better than we do? Stat of the day brought to you by Panini America. The official trading cards of The Dan Patrick Show. Backstabbing in Betrayal are the name of this game. The all new season of the Traders head back to the Scottish Highlands for a murder mystery competition like no other. The Traders streaming now only on Peacock each seven to seven to three DP. Show operator Tommy sitting by, He'll take your phone calls. And Seaton's got the honors with the pole. Question for hour two.

00:00:49
Speaker 3: Our one we had up there, which game is most likely to be a blowout?

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Speaker 2: Right now?

00:00:53
Speaker 3: Seahawks forty nine ers, followed by Bears Rams. Last place in that's the least likely to be a blowout would be Broncos Bills. Okay, this hour we're putting up if you could only watch one this weekend of those same games.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, and we'll have the most must win game of the weekend that'll be coming up, and who had the best weekend sports? He's Christopher mad Dog Russo you can listen to him on Serious XM Channel eighty two. You also see him usually on Wednesdays on First Take with Steven A. Smith. Let me start with the Dodgers Dog. Good morning, Dan, good morning, Good morning Dog. Dodgers decide they need another big ticket item here Kyle Tucker going there to the Dodgers. Your reaction is, well.

00:01:40
Speaker 4: It's terrible for baseball. I'll start there. I mean, how many guys you're going to have them signed? Diaz? And I'm not saying for the Dodgers's it makes some sense. They probably needed an outfielder. They had some issues as a closer last year, so there comes to Daz. But this is this is ridiculous. Their payroll last year with insurance was over five hundred million, and now they add two guys in one's making what eighty million or seventy million and Diaz and he's making sixty million and an average salary in Ducker. I mean, the Dodgers theoretically aren't doing anything wrong. They're playing by the rules, but the rules have to change. I mean, this is getting to be a joke. I mean and I this is going to in a lot of ways. You can make an argument this helps Manford with the lockout discussions and the contract with the CBA for next year, which obviously concludes I think on December first, it's it's right after the season, and this is now going to be a major sticking point these owners. Now, how am I supposed to compete when the Dodgers And again the Dodgers don't do anything wrong, but the rules stick. And you know they gave Otany all that money, but it's all deferred. So he's making basically ten million dollars a year, so they can defer it, which gives them the best player in baseball at an incredibly low price, which means they can do anything they want. And everybody else did the same exact thing. Play in LA winning team, great organization, good Weather have a chance to be in the World Series every year. Who wouldn't defer all the money? The problem is it doesn't work as far as the basis of the sport is concerned. Because half these teams can't compete. Why would anybody think they can win the NL West next year with the Dodgers, And who cares what the Dodgers do between April first and October first. You know, once the postseason starts, at the team to beat. Last year, they had a bad year for them. They won ninety something games, were they won ninety five games, and they still won the World Series. So it makes the regular season obsolete for LA because they're gonna make the playoffs. Then they have the best players. So once they get into the playoffs, despite the impredictability of baseball postseason, they got a hell of a chance to win. You can't tell me it's good for the sport that the Dodgers, who have won two championships, been in the playoffs, won fifteen sixteen years in a row in the last five years, gave Feenland twenty five million to Yamamoto, gave Sasaki two hundred million dollars, gave Otani a fortune, and now they give Tucker a fortune and Diaz a fortune. That's not good for the sport, and the overall riding theme of its LA bad for baseball.

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Speaker 2: If you include deferred payments, the guaranteed salary for the Dodgers this upcoming season is two point one billion dollars.

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Speaker 4: Wow, that's amazing. Good job, Dan, I don't even know that. I mean, how are the Pirates supposed to compete with that? I mean, how are the Knales and the Guardians and the Reds and the White Sox. I mean, how are they supposed to compete with that?

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Speaker 2: Baseball Once then well you got Tampa Bay.

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Speaker 4: How they solved the problem, How they solved the problems gonna be hard.

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Speaker 2: Tampa Bay seventy million, yeah, Miami seventy six million, the White Sox one hundred and two, Saint Louis one o two, Washington won twenty, Cleveland one thirty one, Minnesota one hundred and fifty four million. So these include deferred payments, guaranteed salaries. But I don't know how you could get everybody on the same page with this. Chris Players Association's gonna fight it. They want these contracts. I mean, I don't know if these owners, I don't know what you can do.

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Speaker 4: I agree with you. I remember, let's also say this, the guy who runs the Players Association of Scott Boris. It's not Tony Clark, it's not Bruce Weber. Weber might negotiate. It's it's Boris. They don't doing anything without Boris's approval. And Boris is an unbelievable good agent who last time I had this major fight, everybody on the executive board were Boris clients. I think they had five or six and they're all Boris got. You got Matt Shirz, who on the phone called Boris to see if he agrees with what they're doing in March. The whole thing is that, listen, baseball. This is what hill kills baseball. It's great in the postseason because you never know, the best team doesn't always win, But as far as the regular season is concerned, it's gotten to a situation where it becomes obsolete because you know, certain teams are just going to be in the postseason barring its catastrophe. One of those teams now you know the Yankees, and you know teams like that, and one of those teams definitely now is LA And it's bad for the sport. You know, a lot of fans are gonna be annoyed, and I don't know what you do to solve it. You're right, you know, Manford's done a great job because he's been a Commission that has not lost a regular season game since he was involved in negotiating these contracts in the mid nineties, So he has that on his legacy. So you know he's not gonna want to lose games next year. But he's also in a situation where he's got to do something. So we shall see.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because with the NFL you can go from worse to first. We've seen those success stories.

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Speaker 4: I do that in foot we can't do that here.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the NBA, we've seen success stories.

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Speaker 4: They had a would pick look at the Spurs.

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Speaker 2: Different champion what the last five or six years. So you go into a season you give the NFL gives you hope, Absolutely it gives you. Carolina Panthers fans at the beginning of the year, you're probably thinking, Okay, we're in a bad division. Can can we win this division? And the answer is yes. You look at the Bears. You know where they were where they are. I mean you could have the rise and the fall Detroit up then down. So to say to these teams, you're gonna have an opportunity to at least compete for a playoff berth, I mean, that's what you want as a fan you want hope. Now there's certain franchises where you go, no, we expect to be in in the NBA. You want hope, you want to go, Hey, I believe in the team, and I'll continue to go out and support it. You know, if you're a Pittsburgh Pirate fan, you go out one day, you go to see your pitcher. That's probably it. It's a great ballpark, but you know how many times are you going to see those games? But if you're playing in big games, now, all of a sudden, you're buying it. You know, the Reds make the playoffs. Now you're going out to watch a season, not just a couple of games.

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Speaker 4: Watch the Dodgers get schoobl too.

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Speaker 2: I brought that up this morning. I go, that's who I thought that they were going to be getting somehow, Someway.

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Speaker 4: And he's going to leave and you know this arbitration issue with him. Yeah, it's a major problem. I mean, last year the Bears going to make the playoffs. This year they're in a divisional round. You made a good point of our Carolina. They won the division and they get a home playoff game. You know, Denver last year barely made the playoffs. Now the under the one seed. Seattle last year didn't make the playoffs. Now to the one seed, you have so many advantages from that standpoint. Was it normally six in and six out in the NFL, six teams every year, and you know that they you know, have a short schedule. Now you need the quarterback. Without the quarterback, you're not gonna win. But you have ways to get the quarterback. You can draft one. You can be bad at the right time. You know, Perty was the last pick in the draft they found in right, I mean, you can get the Qbam Josh Allen wasn't the first pick. You can get Nicks wasn't the first pick. You can get the quarterback by Little Lucky somehow, a free agent, a trade well you know Donald, I mean he was a trade Seattle they won. You can get the quarterback. In the NBA. You got to get the great player. You know Wen Byama, you know David Robinson, Duncan. You got to get that great player, the transformational player. There are ways to do it, but you got to get that player. But it doesn't have anything to do with money. I mean, you know, it might have something to do with the market, but Sacramento was good for a long time. The Spurs won some championships, so the small market can win. And in baseball, it's really about three or four teams and that's the and that's the unfortunately, thinking about baseball, it's got a great playoff system. The playoff system last three weeks. It's done. It's not a slugout four month process where they play best of sevens where you know who's gonna win beforehand like the NBA might have. You know, it's the games are unpredictable because there's no guarantee the best team's gonna win. So that makes it fun too. You know, the Great Baseball Game, as you know, Dan, you're a great baseball fan, Game seven Toronto and Dodgers. How great a game was that? You know, it gives you incredible trauma. But the problem is is baseball has become over the long period of time too much dominated by the big market teams. And I don't know how you solve that problem. I really don't. Without a strike, Without a.

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Speaker 2: Strike, he's Christopher mad Dog Russo, host of mad Dog Unleashed on Serious XM Channel eedy two and also you'll see him on First Take what's holding up John Harbaugh and the Giants.

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Speaker 4: Hasn't officially signed it yet. Yeah, I don't know. I don't have the answer for you on that. Maybe the money for the assistant coaches. This is a move the Giants had to make. This is gonna happen. I mean, you know, I don't think it's gonna fall apart. Harbor and Mara, I guess really had a great sit down. They had a great dinner a couple of nights ago. And the Giants need him. I mean, you know they've gone the assistant route, whether it's you know, Dable Judge, you know Ben McAdoo. It just it's been a disaster. They have to bring an established coach. Harball is a good coach. I mean, he's not a great coach yet got a chance to be, you know, hall of fame. I wouldn't say Harball is a Hall of Fame coach by my standards, I wouldn't say he's a Hall of Fame coach.

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Speaker 2: Is Tomlin?

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Speaker 4: You know he's gonna be in the Hall of Fame. They're gonna make it. But by you and I standards, do I consider Tomlin right this second a Hall of Fame coach. I don't now that's me. Now, he's gonna make it because they vote, you know, they vote six candidates a year, and you know they Coriel made it. He never won a championship, Cowers, anyone won Super Bowl. So he's he's gonna get in. But obviously Marve Levey's made it. He's got one hundred and forty three wins and four Super Bowl losses. You know, George Allen's in. He never want to think so they're gonna make it. But do I consider Tom and her Harbor myself, as a football fan a great all time coach.

00:11:31
Speaker 1: No, I don't know.

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Speaker 4: When I think of the great all time coaches, I'm thinking Paul Brown, Belichick, Lombardi, Gibbs, Welsh, A Walsh, Parcels. You know, I'm thinking along those lines of you know, that establishment group, Shue Litt, Landry, those kind of guys. And I don't think that myself, that Tom and her Harbor are on that level myself. But I'm a small room guy. You're a small room guy. A lot of people put all these coaches in. I mean, Bill Coward to me is not a Hall of Fame coach, very good coach. So I consider him a Hall of Fame coach. Two Super Bowls, he's one and one Hall of Fame where, Wow, he's a great coach. I don't consider him that, but he's in the Hall of Fame. So they put a lot of guys in who I wouldn't put in, and Toman and Harbor are sort of on a very good category right now, and Harbor and Toman will have a chance to get to that next level. I mean, you think Dungee's a great coach, very good? Is he great in your eyes? Then is Tony Dungee a Hall of Fame coach?

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Speaker 2: Well, he was also a great defensive coordinator as well. That Tampa team that he had that Gruden came in one, you know, Tony Tony was helped in building that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he's an interesting case. Do you think you think George Allen's Hall of Fame coach?

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Speaker 2: No, he's in the Hall of Fame.

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Speaker 4: I know you think Pete Carroll's going to make the Hall of Fame?

00:12:55
Speaker 2: Yes you do? Yeah?

00:12:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, I'm not sure, especially now.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: It is the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so they're not factoring in USC.

00:13:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: I don't forget us, but I'm guessing.

00:13:11
Speaker 1: See.

00:13:11
Speaker 2: I think the thing is is you're trying to compare today's coaches with yesteryear, and that's it's hard to do that and come up with a Hall of Fame coach. Because these guys were established, they didn't have to worry, you know, about all these other things that today's coach has to deal with getting to two Super Bowls? Like Sean Payton. Is Sean Payton a Hall of Fame coach?

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Speaker 4: He's been in one Super Bowl?

00:13:35
Speaker 2: Not yet, he's probably going in. Is Mike McCarthy hall of Fame coach? No, he's got the same resume as Sean Payton.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't put Peyton in.

00:13:46
Speaker 5: No.

00:13:46
Speaker 4: Okay again, I'm a small room guy. I want greatness. I don't do. I think Sean Payton's a great coach. He's very good. Great Parcels is a great coach. Is a great coach. Three super Bowls, three different quarterbacks, Phil Walsh, that's a great football coach.

00:14:06
Speaker 2: Brown.

00:14:07
Speaker 4: Those are the sort of guys who.

00:14:08
Speaker 2: Has more pressure, either player or team. The most pressure this weekend in the NFL.

00:14:16
Speaker 4: Not San Francisco, Seattle, Buffalo so banged up. And I heard your thought with Josh Allen. He's great anyway, I probably you know, it's weird. I might say Stafford with the Rams. You can't say there's any pressure on Houston. You can't say there's any pressure on the Patriots. The Bears are a young team. You can't use them San Francisco. Somehow we're in this spot Seattle. You know, maybe Sam Donald, maybe Donald because he needs to go out there and you know, sort of undue last year when he didn't play very well in the postseason. I don't look at Denver young quarterback Alan. I think he's accomplished plenty anyway. I know people bring Alan up because there's normal homes and Burrow and Jackson. I still think Aland's got plenty of time to win a Super Bowl. I think this is an important You know, the Rams had a great year and then they kind of stalled. They were not great last weekend. I think there's some pressure on End and I think there's a lot. I think there's some pressure on Sam Donald. You know, and in a weird way, you brought up an interesting question because I don't know if there's a clear cut well, he's got to win, you know, I don't know if they You know, if Lemore was in this spot, i'd say three and five in the postseason, maybe i'd put him in that category. I don't know if I have anybody right now in the last eight in that category where they look that they have to win. I don't know if I have that right now.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: Good to chat with you. Good at best, Glad you're feeling better.

00:15:44
Speaker 1: Thank you, Pat.

00:15:45
Speaker 4: You had a rough week. See hickups, kickups, never get them, never get them.

00:15:50
Speaker 2: Wait, you had the hiccups.

00:15:51
Speaker 4: Which led to some issues and I was in bad shake for about fifteen hours. If I had a missed first take after a division around, you know it was.

00:16:01
Speaker 2: Have a good weekend. You're too big, thank you. That's Christopher mad Dog Russo had hiccups and they led to something else. All right, Well, take a break. We'll update the poll results more of your phone calls as well. Take a break back after this Dan Patrick Show.

00:16:19
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00:16:59
Speaker 2: Talking some baseball with Christopher mad Dog Russo and he worked for MLB Network. He had a show on for probably a decade, High Heat. And you know, we look at the Dodgers. Dodgers didn't do anything wrong. In fact, they're doing everything right. They're reinvesting, they spend the money. Did they find a loophole? Did they get Otani to take deferred money? Yes, But keep in mind they're two outs away from losing the World Series last year. We make it seem like, oh my god, foregone conclusion. They're going to win the World Series. They're two outs away from losing the World Series. If the Dodgers lost the World Series and they signed Kyle Tucker, how would people react? Would they be reacting the way they're reacting now and that's this is the end of the world as we know it. They'd be like, yeah, well they lost the World Series. They went out and spent money. Twenty of thirty Major League Baseball teams reinvest less than half of their revenue into player salaries. So that is a bigger problem to me. Twenty out of thirty reinvest less than fifty percent of the revenue into player salaries. Stat of the Day brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cards of the Dan Patrick Show. That is somebody running a successful business. That's all it is. Now. Can they catch lightning in a bottle? Maybe make the playoffs? Yes, But for the most part baseball is top heavy and I don't think it's going to change because the Players Association will fight this. They're not going to say, oh, let's bring down salaries. Now. The owners, if they get together and say, how do we fix this? How does the commissioner help in fixing this? I don't know if you can. The Dodgers are going to continue to spend, they reinvest, and you look at the revenue that they're making. You know, when I looked at what Otani was going to make I remember saying he could get six hundred million dollars, and we had a couple of baseball amazon there say no, there's no way. I said, yes, he's probably getting six hundred million dollars. Now all of a sudden, we don't even blink. If somebody gets five hundred million, you're like, okay, it's going right. But Otani was global. That's the difference. Soto is not global. Kyle Tucker's not global. I mean, there's only a couple of players that move the needle, Aaron Judge global, but there's very few of them. And the Dodgers got the most unique athlete in sports, and he plays, you know, around the world. People who aren't even interested are that interested in baseball? Not even Dodger fans tuned into watch him play in the World Series. They watched him. They wanted to see him hit, they wanted to see him pitch. The fascination is similar to Tiger Woods. You might not have been a golf fan, but you were going to tune in to try to understand what is the hype all about. You may not understand golf, but you understood watching somebody do something that we had never seen before.

00:20:27
Speaker 6: Yes, mar and I go back to the term I created wife famous, where my wife has no idea about major League Baseball at all besides maybe Derek Jeter in nineteen ninety six. But she knows the name Shoel Tani and she knows that he pitches Andie hits.

00:20:42
Speaker 2: She was like, do people normally do that?

00:20:43
Speaker 6: That's what she asked me during the World Series when he had that unbelievable game where he hit three home runs he struck out ten. Yes, like do people don't normally do this? I was like, one person might do this, but they might not do both.

00:20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta look at Pittsburgh and you know, Pittsburgh has to look at this and go Paul Skemes his going to be here for how long? Two years? And it's unfortunate that you know, La de la Cruz, wonderful player with the Reds. Is he going to be there? No, it's just supply and demand. How much can we pay you? And that team's going to pay you more. You know, Toronto's spending a lot of money and once again they were two outs away from winning the World Series. So baseball it's not going to be fixed. But they're in a seven game series. Say if baseball was a one game playoff in each series, that's when you would get the anybody can win this if it was March Madness, like instead of seven games. Over seven games, the best team usually wins. But we went to seven games with the Dodgers and the Blue Jays.

00:21:55
Speaker 6: Yes, Marvin, but like March Madness, you want to see Cinderella's only up to a certain point. Like I want to see the Dodgers and the Yankees no offense. I'm really not trying to see the Royals in the Diamondbacks go at it in the Fall Classic and most people aren't.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if I go back to that Kansas City Royal team with Brett Saberhagen and George Brett, we did want to see them. They were great. I mean, those are They had Hall of famers on that team. That was a great team. Now they couldn't keep that team together now. But there are times when I love Cinderella stories only if Cinderella wins. Like I hate when Cinderella goes and they kind of disrupt everything and then all of a sudden, you go, all right, Lobb City only got to a certain point here or Northern Iowa like all of these, you know, teams that come out of George Mason, come out of nowhere in March madness. Butler, I want to see you take it all the way. But you're right, and I say this, every March madness, what happens. We want to see surprises, We want madness until we want to get the real champion here. We want we want the blue bloods to play for a national championship here. You know, you can't have these little schools get in here. They're going to ruin everything.

00:23:16
Speaker 6: Yes, Marvin, but when you were talking about the Royals, that was the eighties where you had big time stars that you could name. But in twenty fifteen when the Royals won, I couldn't name anybody off of that team. So maybe that's a different generation where you had talents.

00:23:31
Speaker 2: The baseball meant more back then. That's all. It's just everybody's kind of looking for, you know, the scraps that the NFL leaves behind. Everybody's kind of navigating of how do we get where's our piece here? How do we do this? You know, college football expanding, March madness expanding. Everybody's kind of saying, all right, what do we do with our product that we can still have an impact here. College football playoffs ratings were pretty good with a lot of the bowl games. I don't know about, you know, the previous two games, certainly the Indiana blowout. There. Ratings will probably be good for the national title game. And keep in mind, Indiana was a Cinderella story three years ago, two years ago, and here they are now. We expect them to win the championship. But you know, sports is ever evolving. Sports that were really popular and then all of a sudden, you know, boxing and horse racing. Man, those are the great sports. Nobody cares now it didn't you know, you got your window and then you know, we move on. But I think with baseball, I hope that they're able, and I think this commissioner has done a good job. But I don't know if you can solve this by saying, let's put a salary cap on this. I want to make sure these other teams, franchisees, owners spend the money they don't spend the Dodgers spend. They should be rewarded for spending. There should be a minimum that you have to pay. Some of these owners just say that's all profit. Man. I'm not sharing it. Brian in Knoxville, Hey Brian, what's on your mind?

00:25:18
Speaker 5: First time caller, longtime listener five ten, two fifty in reference to this In reference to the the deferments, why can't there be a cap on these defirmers keep this more competitive? I'm not sure I agree with your take on it. If they take in five hundred million dollars that they should spend three hundred and fifty of it. I mean, like you said, they're businessman, and I'll hang up and listen.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it depends on what product you want on the field, that's all.

00:25:50
Speaker 7: I mean.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: It's your team, your stadium, your fan base. If you don't care, I mean, then why the fans care. There's certain franchises that care, and they have the money to spend. I want the teams that don't spend money to maybe spend money to have a better product on the field or sell the team. P in Florida, Ip, what's on your mind? Hey, P Man, I don't know what happened to Pee? What's the uh? Our fly is open? Let's go pee? That was Austin p when they had Fly Williams. Yeah, leading scorer in the country, our fly is open. Let's go pee great rally and crime uh seatan, would you update the poll results from the first thirty minutes of this second hour?

00:26:58
Speaker 3: Sure will, And you know this is actually interesting. We have up there first hour, we did the game most likely to be a blowout, the game that was most likely was Seahawks forty nine ers, the game that was least likely was Broncos Bills, and then we put up there if you could only watch one this weekend. Bears and Rams is in the lead with that, and so Broncos Bills is also tied with that.

00:27:24
Speaker 2: Okay, So I.

00:27:25
Speaker 3: Think it's interesting that Bears and Rams is sort of going back and forth as the game that's most likely to be a blowout, and people are also most interested in watching that one game, and then on the flip side, the one least likely to be a blowout, people are most interested to watch that game.

00:27:43
Speaker 2: You know, it's tricky when you get to this point where you go, I know who the Patriots are or I know who CJ. Stroud is in the Texans Patriots.

00:27:53
Speaker 3: Texans has been in last place in both of those polls.

00:27:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one. I don't gamble anymore. But I it feels like too many people love the Texans to pull off the surprise, and that that's where it gets kind of tricky because you're like, it's like people really fell in love with the defense. Yes they did this past week. It's like they just noticed the Texans had the best defense in football, Like, damn, oh, that's right, Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter. Yeah, they they've been doing this for a while. That front four. Yeah, I know a lot of Front four talk this week. That's where you're like, they've been doing this. It's just nobody's watching. Nobody's talking about the Texans. Nobody watches the Tech No, they don't, they don't.

00:28:42
Speaker 5: Uh.

00:28:42
Speaker 2: Only the only time you watch the Texans is usually that Saturday twelve twelve o'clock game, the first game of the playoffs, and it's always that's the Texans time slot. And you know what they would have been in that time slot had they not played on Monday night, they probably would have been a Saturday game, first game right out of the box for the playoffs. Yeah, Paul, the.

00:29:03
Speaker 8: Texans gave up two hundred and ninety five points this season. Only one other team in the NFL gave up under three hundred points this season. Who wants to guess one other Denver NFC team is the hint? Who wants a shot.

00:29:23
Speaker 2: Marvin the Rams?

00:29:25
Speaker 8: Nope, Rams gave up three forty six Todd Atlanta, Lanta, they gave up four eleven. You get they gave up four hundred one points. I respect it, But Tampa, Tampa gave up four hundred and eleven points. Seeing you clean it up?

00:29:45
Speaker 2: How about the Eagles? No, the.

00:29:49
Speaker 8: Eagles did well three twenty five. Your Seattle Seahawks gave up two hundred and ninety two points.

00:29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should have gotten that one. We should have got the boom. The stat of the Day brought to you by Panini America, the official official trading cards of the Dan Patrick Show. Sunday Night, it'll be Matthew Stafford and the Rams against Caleb Williams and the Bears. Oh oh boy, oh, could we be in the NFC title game? I believe Divisional Round Sunday six Eastern on NBC and Peacock. When we come back, who had the best week in sports? We'll talk some football Chris Sims in the final hour, and we will give you the most must win game of the weekend. All of that forthcoming.

00:30:41
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to listen live.

00:30:52
Speaker 2: Who had the best week in sports, tod I'll start with you.

00:30:56
Speaker 6: I am going off the board with the Clippers, and we make fun of often as many four straight wins, including the Pistons last Saturday in Detroit. They're going for five straight at the Raptors tonight.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: Uh, let's see see no' connor.

00:31:08
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say to Houston Texans defense, they're certainly on everybody's radar. Absolutely dominant performance against the Steelers. They essentially got Mike Tomlin fired, well, step down, but out of a job. They may have retired Aaron Rodgers, and they're going into New England looking like a force. That's a hell of a week, Marvin, best week in sports.

00:31:31
Speaker 6: The Patriots defense they had success against Justin Herbert Millon Williams is looking like Aaron Donald two point zero. Good week for them.

00:31:38
Speaker 2: HM the immovable object against the irresistible force there with these two defenses, apparently, Paul.

00:31:45
Speaker 7: I will go.

00:31:46
Speaker 8: Niners quarterback Brock purty little national reminder that he's got some playing ability and he's kind of back. He's one of those guys you question after the big contract. Looks like it's full steam ahead once he has a healthy team.

00:31:56
Speaker 2: And I was talking to Chris Russo about which team or player has the most pressure. I think Sam Donald probably has the most pressure because everybody is waiting for him. Is he going to be the Sam Donald we know? Or is this going to be the new and improved Sam Darnald. And you have the number one seed, you have home field advantage, you have a ticket to the super Bowl. All you have to do is take care of business at home and try to play as close to mistake free football as you can. But you have Josh Allen. I don't look at this and say, boy, the window is wide open. Yes, these other quarterbacks aren't playing, but I don't think this is a great Buffalo team. And you've got to win three games on the road, and then if you do, you get to go to the Super Bowl. Josh Allen doesn't need to prove to me about winning in the playoffs. He performs in the playoffs, and as RG three said yesterday, wins aren't a quarterback statistic. Now I disagree. I think it is it should be, but you know he's saying, hey, you can do everything possible. That doesn't mean you're going to win the game. I understand that, and he's put his team in position to win. Lamar Jackson has not, and that's what we're waiting for with him, Sam Darnold were waiting to see. Is he going to be a big time player?

00:33:21
Speaker 6: Yes, Mark Well, I disagree with rg TH from this standpoint. When we talk about quarterbacks, we talk about what you did in the playoffs. It doesn't matter. Oh, man, he played great, but your team lost. This is a results based business, you know, and you have to show up and at least get your team to a win in order to be considered a great playoff quarterback because people aren't going to look into the stats like that, like, man, he played great against the Chiefs and a loss.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: Well, I think they might do that for Josh Allen because his postseason stats are pretty amazing, so they might give him, Like I don't know Dan Marino's postseason stats. I don't know. I don't know Joe Montana's postseason stats. Know that he won super Bowls. You know Roger Staubach won a Super Bowl and I think he threw for one hundred nineteen yards and was named the MVP. Okay, Bart Starr didn't have great postseason numbers. He's a Hall of Famer. Bob Greasy like, I don't know what his postseason numbers are. All we know is did you win a Super Bowl? That's it. But hey, your QBR was one twenty eight. I couldn't care less about that. I just want to know. We've seen Sam Darnold in a couple of playoff games and because of him, his teams didn't advance. Now we want to see what he does home field advantage in a game that they're favored by a touchdown. But I'm trying to think of anybody else under a lot of pressure. It feels like Sean McDermott is. It just feels like that, whether whether he is or not. RG three said yesterday, if Buffalo doesn't win that game, he thinks Sean McDermott is gone. And Shan's been there I think nine years. I mean, that's an eternity now in the coaching circles, like Andy Reid, what do you he's a no one's going to be putting up numbers like that. At least it doesn't feel like that. And you know, here's another side topic here with the Green Bay Packers and Matt Lafleur, and that deal's not done yet, and that is kind of weird. You go, Okay, what's holding this up. Matt Lafleur wasn't one of the higher paid coaches in the NFL, and he probably wants to be compensated, you know, far more than five million dollars a year. But you can't go in there after a bad loss. If if he wanted to negotiate a halftime of the Bears Packers game, that would have been a great time where you just walk in. I'm keeping an eye on some of these situations here, you know, is there another opening that could emerge. I talked to somebody yesterday who said Mike Tomlin's not coaching any time soon. So Mike Tomlin is not He's let I believe everybody. No, he's not coaching, not anytime soon, and no guarantee that he's going to go into TV either. But the Matt lafloor with the Packers, you know, you don't want a lane duck coach where it's the last year. All of a sudden, you lose to the Lions and the Bears, and then you go to a press conference and then they say, you know, are you coaching for your job? Like then it becomes a distraction. They're either going to keep him or they're going to move on. But I thought John Harbaugh for some reason, I thought that was in play. And then somebody said to me yesterday about Matt lafloor with if Green Bay doesn't want him, Pittsburgh would love him, or Atlanta would love him, or Tennessee in previous stops would love him. So this isn't done yet. This whole coaching cares and we can't even get Harball under contract yet. It just feels like there are a lot of moving parts here. And is there a team in the playoffs who could move move on from their coach? Uh Lucas and Texas, Hi Luke, welcome back, Hey End, Good morning, Good morning. Two quick NFL things.

00:37:10
Speaker 7: You guys were talking earlier about the Preachia Bowl with the Bengals and Chargers. I still think the craziest stat I've ever heard is that the Chargers, in consecutive games in Miami and then in Cincinnati faced a difference in air temperature kind of feels like temperature of at least one hundred and thirty five degree. Yeah, it's insane when you think about it. But this weekend, you know, you've been asking lately of the guys, not really what is going to the headline going to be, but what is the story or conversation going to be. My theory the Bear secondary and defense overall is a little bit shaky. We know that Matt Stafford loves to zero in on one receiver in a game. I think the discussion is going to be he has either since in the Bonsey Adams somebody of the Hall of Fame, or in Puka Nukua he is well on his way only three years in to a Hall of Fame career. I think that's the discussion that's going to become out after this weekend's games.

00:38:01
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, all right, thank you, Luke, have a good weekend. Who had the worst week in sports? Marvin? I'll start with you.

00:38:09
Speaker 6: I'm gonna go with the LA Lakers. They had man, They're won in four in their last five games, and the whole Rich Paul hypothetical. Austin Reeves situation did not help well.

00:38:19
Speaker 2: I think Max Kellerman, who's the co host with Lebron's agent, came out and said, if the Lakers really want to win, they'll trade Luka Doncic because he doesn't play defense. Okay, I don't know who you're getting for Luka Doncic. Like, if we're gonna do these, you know, silly local radio show, I'm we're gonna trade if you know Luis Soho for Mickey Mantle. You know you're like, I'll hang up and listen. The Hornets beat the Lakers one thirty five to one seventeen. Horne's got some scores, but you're giving up a hundred in thirty five points.

00:39:01
Speaker 6: Yes, mart LaMelo Ball looked like he was at Chino Hills last night. I know, like he's one of those like you said, he puts up. Never question his talent, but his ability to be the best player on a winning team.

00:39:14
Speaker 2: No is my thing. Yeah, I don't. I don't want him. I mean I like watching him. You know, first time I saw him he was a freshman in high school, and I said he's the best out of the Ball brothers.

00:39:25
Speaker 7: Uh.

00:39:25
Speaker 2: But no, I think he's more of a hey, look at me kind of guy, not a look at us kind of guy. So yeah, but he was he was dancing, he was dribbling, he was shooting.

00:39:39
Speaker 5: Uh.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: Chris in California. Hi, Chris, Hi.

00:39:44
Speaker 9: Dann thanks for my call. Yeah, a longtime listener, third time caller, five nine one thirty five. Okay, thank you so much for at the top of the hour pointing out that the Dodgers are not ruining baseball because there are plenty of owners who are not making the investments that they should be making in their team. And Marvin, I'm a huge forty nine Ers fan, so I hope that after the game we are celebrating. And Paulie, please your bears need to kick out the Rams. Thanks so much, guys, have a great weekend.

00:40:17
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Chris.

00:40:18
Speaker 8: I'll make some calls.

00:40:20
Speaker 2: Coming up top of the hour. We'll go over the other candidates who might have had the worst week in sports. Marvin gave us your worst week in sports. We'll get to Paulie Fritzy Seaton as well. Also, Chris Sim's on loan from Football Night in America will join us and the most must win game of the weekend, and Todd does Rhyme Time, NFL playoff rhyme Time.

00:40:43
Speaker 7: It's a mix, the mixed bag.

00:40:45
Speaker 2: Some of them are NFL related, all right. Two hours in the books on this meat Friday. One more to go with Fritzy Seaton, Mark Paulie, Yours Truly and the backroom guys.