Transcript 0:00 [rock music] Well, hi. Welcome on in to another extravaganza here on the Between the Hash Marks podcast. 0:10 I'm Matt Lombardo, joined by my friend, my colleague, my mentor, the purveyor of the Two Deep Zone, Mike Tanier, on this 115 degree day in the Greater Philadelphia region. 0:21 The NFL news might be cooling off, but no sir, not here on the podcast. Mike, what's going on, my friend? Let me make this clear, this will not be an extravaganza. It is in fact 100 degrees. 0:31 [laughs] There is no NFL news. We're here, we're having fun. This is not an extravaganza [laughs] by any stretch of the imagination. I don't have the energy. I, I, I don't have the bandwidth for one right now. 0:40 I'm doing well, but let me ask you this. We're recording on a Monday. Did you watch game seven of the NBA finals last night? 0:47 I, I caught about 47 seconds of game seven, and it was the worst possible 47 seconds, because I happened to turn it on and witness Tyrese Haliburton rupture his Achilles on live television. Mm-hmm. 1:00 And with it, there goes the Indiana Pacers' chances. But you'll be probably envious of this. Yes. 1:06 I, I did somehow, even though it was only 8:30, 8:45 at night, I did manage to sneak in a baseball nap during Phillies-Mets. 1:16 [laughs] I, I somehow dozed off during Phillies-Mets, and I look up and Q- uh, Kyle Schwarber's being interviewed after the game, and I'm like, "Oh, well they, that must be when they rang the bell against the Mets, and that's a good thing." 1:26 So a baseball nap is when baseball puts you to sleep. Yes. Which is in other words baseball. Yes. Because baseball puts me to sleep. S- yes. 1:36 I remember, I mean, fond memories of my, like, teenage years, falling asleep on the couch in my grandmother's sunroom- Oh... of the beach house down the shore, where like it's a Sunday afternoon- Ah... 1:47 the breeze is coming in off the ocean. H- back then, Harry Kalas is calling the game, and you wake up and it's like, "Oh, it's the seventh inning of the Phillies game already. How did that happen?" Yeah. 1:56 And then you walk down and you stroll the beach, and you come back and, and you enjoy yourself the rest of the day. Right. That's beautiful. 2:01 And now you have kids, so it's more like, "I'm exhausted, I'm watching a little baseball- Yeah... I'm enjoying it," and then like, like non-stress hits your body and you pass out. Any alcohol involved? Not last night. 2:10 I think it was just, you know, we took the kids to the pool late in the afternoon. It was like 150% humidity and 89 degrees at 4:00 in the afternoon, and by 8:15 with the game on, I think I was just shot. 2:23 Everybody else was in bed. I'm thinking I'll settle in and watch a great game, and it, it didn't happen for me. 2:29 Well, then fell asleep, and you, and you woke up to the final score, and y- you missed most of the NBA finals game, which was a little bit like, uh, the, uh, the Eagles against the, um, 49ers in the playoffs a couple years, a c- a couple years ago where Brock Purdy gets hurt. 2:43 Yeah. And it's like, well, well that's it for the game, and for the rest of the game you're, like, sort of contemplating that injury, and possibly hearing a little more whining. 2:49 I recognize this was a big injury, but like, h- you know, superstars get hurt, you have to keep playing. Yeah. You know? And fans have to kind of adjust to this. 2:57 I've been hearing some very, uh, 49er-esque Pacer whining this morning. I s- sorry you guys lost. Have you? Huh? Have you? You, you've heard so- some Pacers w- uh, 49ers-esque complaints? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 3:08 It's like this just doesn't even seem fair, and it's like, "That's sports, buddy." Yeah. That's sports, it's not fair. Sometimes your guy gets hurt, you know? It's, It happens to... 3:18 The Eagles had Carson Wentz get hurt in a playoff game a couple of years ago, and we got knocked out by, I think it was the Buccaneers. And it's like, well, you know, that stinks, that's terrible. 3:26 I don't wanna hear it's unfair. State unfair, Lisa. State unfair. Right. 3:30 And the, and the problem comes in the same people who are saying that the injury in the postseason makes it unfair, they'll turn around, they'll complain about load management- [laughs]... 3:39 during the regular season and guys not playing enough, but because they're playing so much and there are so many games, you don't do a great enough job of managing these guys' schedules, the body starts to break down by the time you get to June basketball. 3:52 Right. It's just too much. And you didn't see it years ago, 'cause guys would be just half-assing it through games in December and January, and you're just sort of like, "Okay, that's the way it pl- it's played." 4:01 But now it's being played at a higher level. I don't wanna get into load management and all, but, like, we had the Stan- uh, we had the Stanley Cup finals last week, now we have the NBA finals, and we hit this great 4:12 barrier where until camps- Yeah... open for us. Now, for most fans it's like, well, when, uh, you know, Labor Day, when college football starts, NFL starts, whatever. 4:20 For us, camps start in, like, mid-July, but there's this three-week window where the sports get really kinda gnarly, especially if you're a baseball napper. Kinda meh. 4:31 It gets kinda meh out there in the dog days of summer. Right, right. Now, the Phillies are playing well, so in our area we got a pr- a pretty good team we can follow, baseball is that. I'm gonna hit you with some, um, 4:41 summer sporting events. Give me a spa- smash or trash whether you enjoy them in any way, hate them, interact with them. I'm gonna start with a simple one, the MLB All-Star Game. Trash it. 4:52 A- a- and here's the thing, I was thinking about this. As soon as I got the email that we were gonna talk about these things, my mind went all the way back, you'll appreciate this as a former educator. Yeah. 5:01 I think it was 10th or 11th grade math wrote an entire dissertation on the unnecessariness of All-Star games in general. That this is probably 15 years ago, I was ahead of my time. 5:15 The, the, that All-Star games had lost their luster because you see all the players that you only used to see maybe once a year because there were only, you know, a handful of channels, a handful of games that were broadcast, it's showing your home team and nobody else. 5:29 I don't need to see, you know, Bryce Harper a- and Shohei Ohtani on the same team. I, I don't need to see the All-Star Game. 5:37 I don't need it to be propped up that the winner gets home field advantage in the World Series, which I don't even know if that's still the case, it's probably not. 5:45 But, but I used to love All-Star Games as a kid, 'cause you see everybody in each different uniform and hat coming together, they take the class photo, it's really fun. Right. They've outlived their usefulness for me. 5:56 I am trashing the MLB All-Star Game. And that's all All-Star Games, I guess, for you. Yes. Goodbye. Now, I'm just pointing out you're in 11th grade math class and you're trying to get an A with a hot sports takeOh, yeah. 6:09 There, there, there's nothing unusual about that. I, I was in, humble brag, the, uh, gifted/high potential program in elementary school- Right... which is probably why I'm so 6:19 riddled with anxiety in, in my high 30s, right? This is very- But, but there was a time, and you'll, you will love this. 6:27 I- it's 1999, April of 1999, and I'm debating my best friend in second grade or whatever grade it was, it was probably older than that, probably like fourth or fifth grade, that the Eagles needed to take Donovan McNabb over Ricky Williams. 6:43 And Mrs. 6:43 Colfer, the gifted high potential teacher at the time, came over to us and said, "Guys, you need to get back to building your toothpick bridges because you're never gonna go anywhere in life just talking about sports." 6:56 Well, here we are. 6:56 We get to tell the story on the podcast to thousands of listeners that the hot take discussions date all the way back to elementary school, and f- now, now we're, now we're running a, a, a Substack and a podcast. 7:10 Yeah, yeah. Th- that ending kinda- [laughs] this is turning into therapy a little bit ladies and gentlemen. 7:14 [laughs] You can subscribe and leave a five star review because I think deep down Matt needs it in a, [laughs] in a way that's not just financial. 7:22 But, y- I, I thought you were gonna tell me you were in the math class where they kinda accept anything from you as long as you're engaged. 7:28 [laughs] 'Cause I don't think, I don't think in, in AP calculus, uh, we were, we were looking for hot takes. 7:33 But I would agree with you right there in terms of the All-Star Game, 'cause when I was a kid it was, like, very exciting. Like, "Oh my God, that's Jerry Rice. Oh my God, that's-" Yeah... "Ralph Jackson." 7:41 You would never see these dudes except at the All-Star Game and then maybe in the World Series, that you knew from baseball cards, you know? Right. 7:49 And, and from This Week in Baseball, if you're old enough to remember This Week in Baseball and stuff like that. So this was a, a, a fun thing to see them out there. 7:56 And now, I, I don't know, maybe for baseball fans it's a big deal, but you watch baseball sometimes. I like baseball. [laughs] I, I very rarely fall into the baseball nap, but I do like baseball. 8:06 I do enjoy it, but it just seems like when you need to prop it up, the, your World Series home field advantage is determined by the outcome of an exhibition game, you've outlived your usefulness. 8:17 You've, you're no longer serving the generation that had three channels on TV and a couple of games a week, and you got to see Barry Bonds once a year, right? Like, y- you've outlived that usefulness in my opinion. 8:28 It used to be fun, it used to be a mark the calendar event. Uh, not anymore for me. 8:34 And the original thing that they used to prop up the All-Star Game when it was starting to get less popular, which is now an institution in its own right, is the Home Run Derby. Smash or trash? Smash. 8:46 Oh, so you like the Derby? I will tune in the day before the game for the Derby, 'cause chicks dig the long ball and so do I, right? [laughs] G- g- get myself a nice IPA. 8:56 Uh, the local brewery around the corner has this great, uh, light coffee stout. It's a blonde ale, but it's a coffee stout. It, it, it's incredible. You would dig it I think. 9:06 Pour yourself one of those, prop your feet up, y- you get the air conditioning going, you watch the home runs. It's a spectacle. Give me more Home Run Derby less All-Star Game. 9:18 I guess I do appreciate it in the sort of sense that, like, it's just a random night in July, and it's on and it's brightly colored, and there's home runs, and there's people chit-chatting and joking, and it seems like an excuse to crack a beer, which sometimes, a- as parents, it can be hard to find the excuse to crack the beer, uh, at that ti- you know, on a weekday. 9:38 But, like, I can't tell you who has won, like, ever. No. Like, not since, like, the, the days of steroid heads. Like, I, I, I couldn't tell you who wins these Home Run Derbies. So I- I'm gonna put it on a moderate smash, 9:51 uh, because it qualifies as well, there's nothing else on. But you're a big- Yes... you're a big fan, okay. I, I'm, I'm a big fan. 9:56 I'm not gonna say it's quite appointment television, but as a mile marker of the summer, and as you said, a, a random Monday or Tuesday night in July, I'm, I'm in. 10:07 I will plop myself in front of the TV, I will leave Netflix be for the night, and watch the Home Run Derby. All right, all right. So we're gonna go into the weeds a little bit. 10:15 From something to do at night to something to do in the morning, what about Wimbledon? Moderate trash. Okay. Moderate trash. Because I c- I can't get into the entire tournament. Right. 10:26 But, you know, the, hearkening back again to the grandmother short house back in the day, my grandmother played tennis until she was, like, 85, 86 years old, so she was all in on playing tennis, watching Wimbledon. 10:38 And, you know, 12-year-old Matt stumbles out of bed at, you know, 9:45 in the morning, and there's Gram watching Wimbledon. So you, you pull up in the couch next to her, you're watching Wimbledon together. 10:48 So I, I will check in from time to time, but I don't know that I could name you five professional tennis players who are taking part in Wimbledon this year. 10:58 So, uh, uh, my, my wife enjoys Wimbledon, she enjoys tennis, so I'm sure it'll be on in the house, I just don't know how much attention I'm gonna be paying to it. 11:06 And I think a few years back I was more inclined to get into it. Williams sisters were more active. Uh, there were some, you know, men like Federer and all were out there. Once I watch it I'll remember them. Yeah. 11:16 Uh, well, the, the, the folks who are popular now. 11:18 But you talk about the old memories, and my buddies and I, during summer days, like this was before we had jobs, so like, you know, like 13, 14, we'd all meet at the one dude's house about 11:00 in the morning 'cause I... 11:28 and then from there we're gonna ride bikes, and maybe we'll play Atari, or maybe we'll do, uh, you know, th- toss a Nerf ball around. 11:34 But, like, you knew it was summertime 'cause Breakfast at Wimbledon would be on NBC in his house. And, like, we'd be... h- we'd have our big gulps and we'd be like, "Oh, who... Where, where's this guy? 11:43 We called this guy. Is he, is he there yet? Look, I have a new pack of baseball cards." And we're watching McEnroe versus, uh, Connors, or somebody like that on Breakfast at Wimbledon. So that's a soft spot in my heart. 11:53 And, and you've got a teacher spouse, I got a teacher spouse. The we don't have to go to work today, and you get up and you put on a sporting event, feels kind of- That's cool... that can be gold. Right. 12:05 'Cause- That's cool. That's a cool moment. You pour the coffee, you put on Wimbledon, and, you know, maybe my kids will sleep in past 6:00 AM, you know, maybe once or twice, so we can catch a, 12:16 a, a, a, a few, uh, tennis matches. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so a few sets. But yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll see. We'll see if it winds up on in the house. And I'll tell you one other thing. 12:24 When I, uh, uh-When I was doing stuff at the New York Times years ago, they had me, like, running around New York doing all these, like, unusual sports, and, like, Wimbledon would be on during that. 12:33 And there'd be bars, there'd be, like, tennis bars. Nice. Where they... 12:38 Kinda like the soccer bar, where everyone knows the soccer bar where you can go in and you can get, like, a Guinness at, like, 8:00 in the morning to watch whichever soccer game. 12:44 But there were, like, these tennis bars, you'd get, like, a, a white wine spritzer and a blueber- uh, uh, strawberries and cream, excuse me, and, like, all these sort of fancy schmancy people having a, a morning cocktail in New York watching Wimbledon, so. 12:55 Does it reach the equivalent of Thursday March Madness in these- Oh... tennis bars? Oh, no, we're about three tax brackets above anything that's- [laughs]... 13:04 coming during Th- Thursday March Madness is elite day drinking- Yes... for common people, right? Yes. 13:11 Like the, like, we, we, we're gonna take a half day at work or whatever and at, like, uh, 2:15 we're gonna be sitting in the bar, et cetera. 13:17 No, this is, uh, this is a little bit more like, "Oh, we sent the servants away." Like, that kind of thing at these bars. Right. [laughs] It's still a neat thing. Um, and speaking of European sports, what about the Open? 13:30 Smash. Oh, you're a- Super smash [laughs] A, a thousand times smash, and not just because my golf clubs are looking lonely in the corner 'cause they haven't been brought out in about a year and a half. 13:40 Uh, as somebody who likes to play golf and has been a fan of the sport. But it, it typically happens over my birthday, which is a lot of fun. 13:47 And especially with my son now, he's about to turn three four days before my birthday, I envision a lot of, like, future Lombardo boys golf trips to celebrate our, our birthdays, you know, years down the line, a decade down the line or more. 14:00 But when he was first born, one of my first memories was waking up at 5:00, you know, carrying him downstairs to the couch to feed him, and there's the British Open on TV, and it's, you know, the... 14:14 or his first sporting experience is watching the Open. Now, I was a lot more into it when Tiger Woods was in his heyday and, you know, collecting major championships and actually chasing Jack Nicklaus. I still like golf. 14:26 The interest is fading and waning just a little bit, but as far as summer sporting events that I look forward to, yeah, I'll, I'll set the, I'll set the alarm if there's a good pairing going off at 5:30 in the morning on a, on a Thursday. 14:40 I, I'm in. Lock it in. Oh, my. Oh my gosh. I, uh, when I started turning gray, I started liking golf a little bit and I was like, "Something has to be done. Something has to change." 14:49 [laughs] I gotta go g- go grab my old punk rock albums and stuff like that to just get out of this. So the, the Open's a trash for me. If I find myself watching golf, I start to ask the question, "Who have I become? 15:00 What am I doing with my life? Shouldn't I be mowing the lawn? Shouldn't I be going to the gym? Shouldn't I be writing something? Shouldn't I be taking my wife for breakfast or whatever?" 15:08 I just can't do it with golf, but- It's early. It's, it's an early commitment for the Open. Yes. But you know what's ev- also an early commitment? And this is, uh, this... 15:19 We, we're probably gonna have a di- digression on this one. The Tour de France. Big time digression, because this is, like, you know, I, I'm Kobe-ing this one into the trash. Like, this- [laughs]... 15:30 this, this is like, get it off my calendar, get it off of my TV. I haven't cared about the Tour de France since before we knew that Lance Armstrong was, like, a scumbag juicer. And how many decades ago was that? Yeah. 15:43 So, [laughs] you know, I, I'm out. You could... 15:46 If I wanna see the countryside of the South of France, I'll pop on, you know, the National Geographic section of Disney+ and actually see it, not with people biking through it. Right. Because- I, I am out. 15:59 No, I, I, I enjoy it. I love it. It's three and a half weeks of people riding bicycles for four and a half hours a day from about 6:00 to noon, uh, local time. 16:10 Um, and it's just sort of become a very habitual thing when, when the riding season is done. For my, for me to get up, put it on, now on Peacock, you have to go on Peacock. Yeah. 16:18 There's NFL games on Peacock, too, so it's a, you know, it's a, uh, it's a tax write-off. A- and, and to just watch other people exercise. 16:24 But you're right, because one of the, the joys of it is like, well, I'm, I'm enjoying the French countryside, which is beautiful, and it's, it's, it's like you're watching people bike down a road. 16:33 It could be, it could be Route 73 in New Jersey here for all you can see most of the time. 16:38 You're biking through these towns and you pass the gas station, you pass the other gas station, a bunch of houses that are like, like, like you're just seeing fences, and you go through. 16:45 And now we're back in the countryside again. I love it. I, I don't know... I- i- it, it's a symbol of summer for me. 16:53 Are you breaking out a nice bottle of Bordeaux and, and, you know, pouring the, pouring the wine while you watch people bike for hours and hours on end? And, and, and, and wreck and scrape up their arms and stuff? 17:06 When you say that, now, I, I'm usually sober, uh, during. Okay. [laughs] Um, with a lot, a lot of nice coffee and things like that. Um, you haven't seen a crash until you've seen a bike crash. Oh, I bet. 17:17 Mangled arms and, and, and bones sticking out of legs and such? Oh, a- a- I saw a guy fall down an alp once. I mean, it was really... A- and he, he was okay and everything, but, like, these things are... 17:28 Because you can also visualize, like, you and your buddies biking and, like, crashing it that way, um, and then you realize, well, these guys were going 35 miles an hour when they, when they all hit each other, and, like, 20 guys hit each other. 17:39 Um, it's, it's more entertaining, I think, than any crash you see in auto racing. Dude, when was the last time you were on a bike? Oh, a couple weeks ago. Oh, nice, because I, I, I got on... 17:50 I borrowed my neighbor's bike because my daughter and, uh, the kids next door, they're, they're getting into riding bikes. I hadn't ridden a bike in maybe 15 years. 17:58 Dude, th- that saying, like, riding a bike, I, I'm, I'm not sure that I qualify then. Now, there were no falls, there were no accidents and calamities. 18:06 I was extra careful because, hey, it's not my bike and the neighbor just, next door, just bought it and wanted me to take it for a spin. 18:13 Um, but th- there, there was some wobblage, and you start to go up the hill of the neighborhood. 18:18 I'm not saying it feels like, you know, riding through the French Alps, but I just didn't remember it being that difficult back in the day, that much of a skill riding bikes. 18:27 I guess when you spend so many years not riding them, uh, it becomes less of a, a get back on the horse type of situation.You might wanna see a neurologist, man. It's not that hard. 18:37 How, when did you s- [laughs] Did you have your kid, like, on a c- child seat? Is that, was that the balance issue? No. No, no, no. I, I just hadn't ridden a bike maybe since I was 19 years old. Okay. Okay. 18:49 Maybe that's it, because I will continually, like in the spring and fall, ride my bike occasionally around, go to the- Oh, that's very cool... my little coffee shop and things. 18:56 Like, hey, you get old, you, you get, you know, get very sedentary. Uh, so, but e- but anyway, Tour de France, big smash for you. Bikes in general, we'll put that in the therapeutic bin there with, uh- [laughs]... 19:09 you know, we might have a little trauma. Make similar- Skills we need to practice. Skills we need to practice. We'll, we'll, we'll put a, we'll leave it at that. 19:15 Yeah, when your kids are bigger you'll wanna bike with them a little more, so you probably wanna get- Yeah, absolutely. [laughs] Uh, what about any NASCAR or any racing? 19:23 It, it used to be a smash, but I think it's a trash. I, I, the, the, the sport has kind of lost its luster for me. Mm. Again, I couldn't name you four NASCAR racers. I know that, that the kids love the Formula 1. 19:38 I, I'm not, I'm not that in on F1. Yeah. Uh, I used to always like Daytona and Talladega when I was into NASCAR growing up, and you had the Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon rivalries. Just not my... 19:51 I, it, kind of how you feel watching golf. Yeah. If I find NASCAR on my TV these days, it's like, "What is wrong with me?" Yeah. "What happened to me? Why am I spending hours watching this when I could be-" Right... 20:04 you know, racing the Hot Wheels cars with my son, or, you know, playing tag with my daughter outside, or going to coffee with the wife. Why, why am I doing this? 20:12 So no, it's, it's a, it, it's, it's a hardcore big time trash for me. Well, let's leave NASCAR in the, in the bin there, 'cause I don't think either of us are big fans. 20:20 I know there's a couple of races in the summer that are pretty popular. We're not going into those. Let's really go off-road instead. Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, smash or trash? A big trash. Like, repulsive trash. 20:32 I, I, I can't- It's so- I can't watch people gorge themselves on hot dogs the way that Joey Chestnut does. I just, I can't do it. I can't do it. 20:41 Did, did you ever get in, in, interest in Wing Bowl here in Philly back when that was popular? Uh- I'm embarrassed, but I'm not sure that the interest was because of the wing eating. 20:50 Do, do you not remember what happened at Wing Bowl? Do you not remember what that even- There were wing girls, right? And there was drunks. Yes, the wing girls and the drunks, and the drunk girls in the crowd at 6:00 AM. 21:00 So you would go? You went. I, I'd go for the, I'd go for the ambiance. [laughs] We'll say. I'm trying to build a, a... Okay, so, uh, you, your 21:11 second grade teacher told you were never gonna do anything with your life unless you stopped doing sports takes. You got through math class through sports takes. 21:19 You stopped ri- You s- you would sleep through baseball games on your grandmother's, uh, a- atrium, like- Beach house... beach house. 21:26 You stopped riding a bike and immediately started going to Wing Bowl so you could ogle the wingettes. S- sounds about right. Oh, my goodness. 21:38 And you were- [laughs] This is w- working for a rival, uh, radio station, was it? This is when you were younger. 21:42 This was when I was younger, probably, you know, early college years, like freshman, sophomore year of college. Yeah. It's... I, I, I, I found that I, I would listen to it. I never actually attended one. 21:53 My buddies would attend them. I'm like, "What are we doing? What's going on?" Yeah. Uh, I, I find that gross. I find it gross when somebody says, "I'm going to e- do the burger challenge." What's the burger challenge? 22:03 A- any place that has, like, a burger challenge and we're gonna eat the burger. Oh, right. It happened one time in, uh, Mobile at, uh, what's that place? Lotus? Yes, the Lotus Beer Garden. 22:11 Lotus Beer Garden had a thing where they had the, the burger that's on the... 22:14 They're not Krispy Kremes, they're local Mobile, uh, donuts, and they had, like, they put like two patties and like a, a f- 15 strips of bacon on the thing, and some dude had to eat the whole thing. 22:24 And a bunch of us were watching it, and it just became extremely uncomfortable. Like, why? Why are you doing this? Why? 22:31 And I mean, that, that doesn't even account for dipping stuff in water and stuffing it down your face. I- I never understood that. 22:38 I ne- like, I get the theory that maybe the water makes it easier to, like, get down, but it's gotta be gross to, to eat a, a hot dog in a bun that's been soaked in water. I just, it's repulsive for me. 22:50 I gotta fight off gag reflexes watching it. Yeah. P- people love it. The re- ver- I mean, is there anything more quintessentially American than watching people stuff their face? 23:00 I feel, I, I feel like, you know, I'll see it on social networks and everybody's commenting on it, and then I realize the people who are commenting are the people who comment on everything. Yeah. 23:09 Like, "Oh, I have an opinion on this, and on this, and on this." And I worry that some folks just sort of build their entire daily schedule about, "What can I get attention for thinking about on social network right now? 23:19 Hot dog eating contest, that's it. Sometimes I'm a football writer, sometimes I'm watching the NBA finals, sometimes I care about Formula 1. But right now I'm a hot dog eating contest guy." 23:28 And it's like, uh, hey, think for yourself. Think for yourself. There's other things going on right now that you could be doing besides watching something that's on TV 'cause ESPN put it on. You can watch Wimbledon. 23:37 Doesn't it usually coincide, Wimbledon with the hot dog eating contest? Aren't they usually on in the same window? Wimbledon, the, the Tour de France might be running. Uh, there might be a Formula 1 race. 23:46 Pretty much anything. There's a baseball game on somewhere in the world. Somewhere. Somewhere in the world. There's probably a good movie on Turner Classic Movies. Go watch that. Yes. The sun is shining, go do something. 23:56 It's 100 degrees, but, like, maybe it's not that day. Who knows? I'll give you one more and then we'll c- we, we've, we've really... Wow. [laughs] We, we... A, a mother lode of opinion here. What about the ESPYs? 24:10 Trash for me. Yeah. And because it's, it's, it's contrived. It's, "Hey, the, w- we are ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, but there is no sports going on for this one day a year. 24:22 Nothing else is on the calendar, so we need to create something and have people watch." Well, guess what? I'm not, I'm not falling for it. I'm not falling for your fake award show that doesn't carry any meaning. 24:34 I, I'm not contributing to your lack of creativity for filling a blank window on the calendar. No interest. It doesn't have the appeal of the Oscars. It doesn't have the cool performance of the, the Grammys. 24:48 It, it's just the, a bunch of athletes getting together and getting patted on the back when I thought that's what championships were for.That's what championships are for, that's what MVP awards and everything else are for. 24:58 What do you think they do with the Espy when they win the Espy? Is it, like, that, that the one that they sell on eBay or that they, they give to, like, the ex, ex-wife? Like, what, what happens to the Espy? Yeah. 25:09 May- maybe it's the paperweight on the desk. [laughs] I, I don't know. Do, do athletes need... I don't think they need paperweights, 'cause what do they need paper for? I, I, I don't know. 25:17 It's probably, like, if you're thinking of the trophy case, it's probably, like, tucked away behind the, uh, PA- the High School Player of the Year award. It probably props that up. 25:27 Like, if you're not gonna hang the plaque on the wall, and you got the plaque in the trophy case, the Espy feels like the perfect thing to lean the plaque up against to display your Athlete of the Year award. 25:39 That's perfect, and by the way, to make abundantly clear, uh, ESPN, if you want to hire either of us, we will fluff and glaze the Espys all you want. 25:48 But for now, we are independents, independent voices, and screw those things. By the way, I, I said we were gonna end. Do you remember the lumberjack games? Yes. I do, actually. [laughs] What happened? What happened? 25:59 It was perfect Saturday, Saturday morning entertainment when you get the dudes who are, like, you know- The-... 26:04 chopping down the, uh, r- yeah, standing on the rolling log, and then trying to chop down the tree by moving up, and they're hoisting themselves up to the next level, and chopping it down again. Yes. Yes. 26:14 I had a buddy of mine, one of my best friends was a forestry major in college. He actually participated in something similar to these things, and, and then they're just gone. They're not, not around anymore. 26:25 Did you attend? I didn't. I, I probably should have, but, but I never attended, but I always thought it was kind of cool that he was able to do something like that. 26:33 I didn't know forestry majors actually had to be lumberjacks. [laughs] Like, I thought it was science. It's like, "No, you gotta get the- [laughs]... you gotta get that freaking tree down now." Down now. 26:42 [laughs] Quickly. It's not, it's not just lumberjacks, it was lumberjills. It was a coed competition. Uh, there were the jumping dogs. It was... Mark Malone hosted. Yeah. [laughs] What happened? Why don't we get this? 26:56 That, and remember The Strongest Man? Yes. 26:59 World's Strongest Man, where the dudes would be, like, pulling the, the 18-wheeler with the, the women, like, sitting on the, the hood of the truck, pulling it down the street, and then, like, you know, throwing boulders that are the size of my house. 27:11 Like, what happened to these things? That was actually sponsored by a giant steroid. Like, it was actually- That was it, true... it was actually b- sponsored by Steroid Incorporated. 27:20 I, I don't know, but I have a funny feeling that was one of the issues there, where people were saying, "Oh, we're gonna test these guys, uh, for HGH and steroids." 27:27 And, and after that, they're, like, they're, like, lifting dumbbells because they don't have anything left. But, uh, Lumberjack Games, it was sponsored by Steel and, and, and Troy-Bilt- Yeah... 27:35 and, and John Deere and everything like that. Bring it back. Bring it back. I'll b- I'll buy a new hedge trimmer if you bring these things back. 27:41 I agree, and, and I'll set my TV to it every morning, every Saturday morning with my coffee. It'd be great. It'd be fun. Great way to fill the time. 27:48 W- we have gone completely off the rails here, but you know, our, we let our personalities shine through every now and again, and it's 110 degrees outside, so what, what, what a perfect day to, to look ahead to what we have to look forward to between now and camp opening. 28:02 But you know, it, it is the dead period, and I woke up kind of feeling June-ish, of what the heck are we gonna do for the next few weeks when it comes to the NFL, but there are some big storylines, Mike, that, that, that are worth monitoring, uh, over the next few weeks here. 28:17 There are not. There are not. There are not big storylines. There are not. I know, I know you've got something Trey Hendrickson spooled up for me right now, and Bengals are cheap, not a storyline. That's a storyline. 28:27 That's a storyline. Anyway, I thought we would come up with three things. You're right. I'm gonna steal, by the way. Yes. It's feeling June-ish. [laughs] Yes. June is good for sportswriters, good for teachers too. 28:37 You're feeling June-ish, do not bother me right now. I, I just got done, I'm done The Almanac, I'm done everything right now. I want a couple of days off. 28:45 You're like, "Come on, let's podcast," I'm like, "What are you doing to me?" Um, but [laughs] 28:49 but, uh, feeling June-ish, but I, I said let's come up with some of the things during these doldrums that we're gonna be monitoring. Yeah. Now, these aren't camp stories. That's a couple weeks from now. 28:57 These are things that could be developing over the last couple weeks, and each of us, we're gonna pick three of them. Yep. Yep. Do you want to start with your first one? 29:05 I'm gonna start with my first one, and it is, I'm going off road a little bit with contracts. I think we know there are contracts out there. 29:11 I'm looking at the Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson contract situations with the New York Jets. I know that they just started opening serious negotiations. I think I've talked about this on the pod before. 29:23 I don't care about the 2025 Jets at all, but if the Jets are ever going to be good again, they have to stop taking their high first round picks, who look good in their first and second years, and turning them into these resident malcontents. 29:35 And one way they usually do that is suddenly, like, getting weird about the contract extensions right at the time that this, these guys start to be thinking, "Wait a minute, I need to either get paid or get a ring. 29:44 I know I'm not getting a ring. When am I getting paid?" I want to see the Jets, like, s- maybe 4th of July or whatever, say, "We got Sauce. He's now the, you know, highest paid cornerback or whatever. 29:54 We got Wilson under contract." I know, uh, Jermaine Johnson's another guy they're looking at. 29:58 I'm want, I want to see the Jets show signs that they have a long range plan in place, that they're not just living in the moment and just trying to survive the post Aaron Rogers apocalypse in, in their, in their building. 30:09 Yeah, the Sauce Gardner situation is perhaps the most fascinating contract situation out there, not including Michael Parsons, because of everything you talked about, and because of the fact that Aaron Glenn arrives and you're trying to instill this new attitude, this defense first. 30:23 You know, I, I asked around a little bit a couple weeks ago about Sauce Gardner and what that might look like, and I had an agent tell me that he'd be going for top five cornerback money if he repped him. 30:34 But he, his instinct is the Jets probably want to see one more year, and one year in Aaron Glenn's system, which i- it feels like a mistake when you have a player that's probably top three, top five at his position. 30:49 Mike, the money, i- if you're talking about top five, you're talking about $97 million, Trayvon Diggs type of money, guarantees 33.4 million, all the way up to Denzel Ward at 100.5 million and 44.5 million guaranteed. 31:04 I do wonder if there's a world where Sauce Gardner sets the guaranteed benchmark at 45 million, but the total contract value might come in somewhere around that 85, 90, if there isn't that belief that he's a highest paid corner type of player.Yeah, and when you talk about that extra year, if these are the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Bills, whatever, and say, "We wanna see another year out of you," I think you can sell that to the player. 31:29 These are the Jets. These are the guys who all of their first round picks, it's like a diaspora, they're gone, they go by the wayside, et cetera. You have to engender some trust, right? You gotta tell- Right... 31:39 this guy, it, it's a two-way street with somebody like Gardner right now. It's like, "Well, we need to see another year." It's like, well, he might not wanna see another year out of you. 31:46 Or if he's out there and this team is 0 and 3, 0 and 4, he might start, you know, like, like, kinda getting not with the program. I don't know if he was 100% with the program last year. 31:56 He might start thinking there is no program. I don't think the Jets can play these kind of games with their young talent. They've tried be- in the past, and they've gotten burnt. 32:03 Yep, I agree, and, and it sets the culture when you take care of your key contributors. And I'll go the other way, the inverse of that scenario. 32:11 Let's say that the Jets are one and four, but Sauce Gardner has two interceptions matching his career total. He's playing- Right... lights out. 32:19 Now, all of a sudden, you wanted to see that one more year, now we're not talking about top five money. Right. Now we're, now you're Sauce Gardner playing your way into $101 million as the highest paid cornerback. 32:31 So you're trying to walk a tightrope when the move is probably make your young cornerstone player whole, even if it's not resetting the market, make him whole and happy so it sets the tone for the rest of the locker room that when you step up and you play at a high level, we're gonna take care of you and not leave you swaying in the breeze. 32:51 A million percent agree. What do you have as your first one? My first one, I'm gonna stay in the Garden State. What are the Giants going to do with all of these edge rushers, right? 33:01 Because you bring in Abdul Carter, who by all accounts from people in the building, from people covering OTA practices, looked like a monster during OTAs and mini camp. 33:11 And again, it's shorts and shells, but o- Abdul Carter was the number three pick in the draft. Some people say a top two or three talent in the entire draft. 33:20 But you have Abdul Carter, you have Brian Burns, you have Kayvon Thibodeaux, who you picked up the fifth-year option on. Right. Can you get all of these guys on the field? Mm-hmm. 33:29 Can you get all of them playing meaningful reps? Or if you're Joe Schoen, do you pick up the phone and do you call a team like the Detroit Lions? 33:38 Do you pick up the phone and do you call a team like the Los Angeles Chargers and say, "Hey, this isn't a situation where you're trading a guy on the last year of a rookie contract. 33:46 You have one more year of team control with Kayvon Thibodeaux. He might be more valuable trying to fetch you a third round pick to keep building, or fetch you an offensive guard or a tackle to plug what might be a hole." 33:59 I do wonder if Thibodeaux is on the roster week one, and certainly on the roster by the trade deadline, because you have a strength there, but Thibodeaux might be a luxury piece when you have other holes on the roster you need to fill. 34:12 Yeah, I, I actually lost track of the fact that Tibs was still on the roster. I guess somewhere in my brain I thought, and clearly they traded him to some team I don't pay attention to very often, to the Jaguars. 34:22 They didn't. He's still there. 34:24 Now, again, if you're some kind of contender, if you're like a playoff contender, you say, "Well, we can create NASCAR packages for our front four where we're getting them all on the field in certain ways, and maybe somebody's dropping into coverage occasionally, et cetera." 34:36 Um, that's not the Giants. The Giants are probably going to be trailing, you know, 17 to three in the second quarter of a lot of these games, where you're not even going to... 34:44 The, the opponent's not gonna be in third and long very long. You're not gonna be able- Right... to get these guys out there. 34:49 Um, so y- you're right, but th- this is part and parcel with how the Giants do business, where there's no, like, logic between the fifth-year option for Thibodeaux and knowing Andre Carter was going to be, like, on the, on their trading sh- excuse me, on their drafting shortlist. 35:04 Draft sheet. Yeah. I d- I don't get what they're doing. The thing is, I don't... I mean, the Giants have three quar- four quarterbacks right now- [laughs]... and they all stink. 35:12 I don't understand what they're doing at all. A lot of wheel spinning in East Rutherford. Right, right. 35:18 I, I, I was trying to write up a little thing on the Giants and it's like, well, you know, the, the Daboll administration really ended last year, but it's still going on, too. 35:26 Like, like, I think when he, he went from, like, the vote of confidence to Daniel Jones to benching Daniel Jones to cutting Daniel Jones, I think the, the organizational control, that was the end of it. 35:36 What little there was left was gone. But we're gonna go through this year anyway, see what happens. 35:40 Yeah, the dual mandate with, with disputing goals is gonna be really interesting to watch unfold, because on one hand, okay, if you play Jaxson Dart, you can reset the clock at least a little bit if you're Brian Daboll- Right... 35:52 because you can make the argument for continuity, staying around to coach him in 2026 and beyond. 35:57 But you're probably not winning a lot of games with Jaxson Dart, and you've probably had the season come off the rails, uh, if you're going to Jaxson Dart. 36:05 Whereas if you are trying to win enough games to save your job, you're not getting Dart the Drake May experience of a year ago. 36:13 You're not getting Dart the Bo Nix experience of a year ago, where you're walking into that second year knowing the pieces that you still lack to build around Jaxson Dart to build a contender, because you were too busy playing Russell Wilson so you could go nine and eight. 36:27 You know? Yeah. Like, it, it, it's, the dual mandate just feels like it's not going to work out well for the Giants. It's just which path do they go down, and how quickly do they jump off of it? 36:37 It's amazing how, you know, Mara and the people at the top don't see that, don't see that this is what they've created for themselves. But that's what bad organizations do. Uh, I got my second one here. 36:47 And, you know, r- rest in peace, Jim Irsay, passed away a couple of weeks ago. Unique individual, historic individual in NFL history. Uh, a good guy. People are gonna say he's not a good guy, whatever. 37:00 Well, he's a millionaire, and millionaires are what they are. This guy was a good guy by the standards of NFL owners. Interesting cat, unique individual, philanthropist, et cetera. Brought football to Indianapolis. 37:10 He passed away. The, the, the team now falls to his three daughters, most, uh, notably, Carly Irsay is gonna be the controlling owner. 37:19 And controlling owner, by the way, is a term the NFL uses to say that's the person in charge. 37:23 But-Controlling is the ultimate term here because Irsay, during her, uh, her tutelage to become, uh, her father's, uh, heir, has been walking around last season with a headset listening to everything that's going on, on game day, d- during game day, et cetera. 37:40 Very, very, very hands-on owner here is about to take over the Colts. Irsay was not hands-on. No. No. Irsay had hands on a water bong, let's be, let's be clear here. Uh, a- a- and now his daughter will be taking over. 37:54 Very interesting pre- uh, precedent. We're only starting to learn what... You know, she's been making some quotes about saying, you know, she wants to find out who's full of BS in this, uh, organization, and I'm like, 38:05 m- uh, Ms. Irsay, I've got news for you, it's turtles all the way down when it comes to- They all are... yeah. [laughs] Have you met Chris Ballard? Have you met him? 38:13 Um, but like I'm cur- I wanna just like, like forestall anything, this is not some sort of thing because she's a woman. If Cal McNair was walking around with a headset, first of all, it would be his Call of Duty headset. 38:23 [laughs] Uh, it'd be a PS5 headset. Secondly, y- you're ripping him, be very, very skeptical of it. Same with Stephen Jones, same with any of the other children o- o- of a, of a owner. 38:33 Uh, a- and so that level of skepticism for Carly Irsay as well, walking around, acting like a coach, uh, uh, listening in on plays and things like that. 38:41 I'm, I'm not so sure that there's a precedent or a comparable scenario or situation in the NFL to this. 38:48 I don't know I've ever seen an owner, m- maybe Jerry Jones is that hands-on, and we've seen how that's worked out in Dallas, where we get, you know, as, is acting as the GM in addition to the owner. 39:00 But Jenny Buss with the, the Lakers, really hands-on in the NBA. If she wants to wear a headset from the evaluation standpoint and get a sense for how things are operating, more power to her. Yeah. 39:14 More power to anybody in that situation. I mean, as long as there isn't the two-way headset where you're calling out, "Hey, it's third and two, why don't we run a fake draw screen pass here?" 39:24 [laughs] As long as that's not happening on a Sunday during the game, uh, i- it's her franchise, you know. If she wants to make a more informed decision and that's how she does, does it and goes about it, fine. 39:36 But as you said, it, it's not because she's a woman that you feel one way or the other, it's just because it, it's so outside the box on how owners have acted in the NFL forever. 39:46 Usually you hire your GM and you, you step away and let them run the football side of things. 39:51 But I, I don't have a huge issue here, but, but again, it could quickly deul- devolve into a Jerry Jones too, too hands-on in the decision-making process to be successful. 40:03 And it screams of micro, micro, micromanagement, where you're not even like calling in the head coach after the game and saying, "Well, why did you run that play?" 40:11 But you're sitting there listening to the conversation before the play and it's like, "Well, the coordinator said this, and they said this, and they said this," and everyone knows the big boss is listening in on all the situations. 40:22 You know this, you don't want- Yeah... 40:23 a senior editor listening in on you d- giving an interview or, or, uh, conducting an interview or things like that, because all of a sudden you start getting, we, we've worked for some of these people, you get a- asked these weird questions and things get g- crazy. 40:35 I, I'm not wishing that on the Colts or saying that, that Carly Irsay's like that. Any boss I've ever encountered that tried to be that micromanagement-oriented turned out to be a nightmare. I'm sorry. 40:47 Yeah, it, it's more intimidation than anything else. Right. Right. It makes everybody just be on their toes, and not in like a healthy way throughout the, uh, throughout the game day, week, whatever, what have you. 40:58 What else you got? Yeah. My, my second one here, you know, we're gonna take a little bit of a break here leading into training camp. 41:04 I do wonder, is Kirk Cousins going to be an Atlanta Falcon when training camp, and eventually we- week one of the regular season opens? Because, 41:14 Mike, the Falcons, are they really gonna pay him $51 million to, to be the backup quarterback? 41:18 When you look at how that contract is structured, if they trade him or if they cut him post-June 1, which we're now in a post-June 1 world, they'd create $27.5 million in cap savings this year, while splitting the dead cap money over the next two years, 12 and a half million in 2025, 12 and a half million in dead cap in 2026. 41:39 You have Michael Penix, who you're all in on supposedly, who you're optimistic about in this offense, with Drake London and Bijan Robinson, and Kyle Pitts maybe contributing something, and Darnell Mooney a- as a solid number two wide receiver. 41:54 You have this window now to build around your rookie quarterback, the coveted rookie quarterback window, but you've tied up $50 million more in the backup. It just doesn't make sense. It's very, very Falcons-ish. 42:07 Very Falcons. It's very cover your ass situation, where you realize now you, trade value's not there. Trade value might materialize if there's an injury during camp. 42:17 So without being able to save face by saying, "Oh, we got a third round pick for him," or whatever, which no one will offer, 42:24 the other option is cutting him, and this, the optics of this look horrible for you as an organization. You know, he's, he's a respected guy around the NFL. 42:32 You had one year, or like three quarters of a year with this guy, and you cut him, and you eat all of that dead money, so you look foolish. 42:39 So now you're making a more foolish decision to not look foolish, because if you just keep him on your roster and be like, "Well, you know, he's a backup, he's a mentor, maybe they'll, we'll get two first round picks for him if, you know, whoever gets injured," et cetera. 42:52 Um, a- and nobody's buying it. Nobody's buying it. Everybody's playing chicken with this organization and, and it's very, as I say, it's very Falcons. 43:00 It's not optimized, it doesn't make any sense, and yet they're doing it. 43:04 And, and not to mention, if they decide to cut him and move on now, what purpose would that have served other than saving the cap space against the, the salary cap? 43:14 Because you're doing a disservice to him because he didn't do it in March when he could have latched on- Mm-hmm... with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He could have latched on with the New York Jets. 43:21 He could have latched on in any number of these situations and teams that were looking for either a starting quarterback or a bridge to a rookie that might have paid a premium for such a thing. 43:31 Yet you'd be cutting him before training camps open or during training camp? 43:35 I th- I think that if you're Kirk Cousins, and you never wanna wish injuries on anybody, but if somebody does get hurt for a contending team, that's when the Falcons might gain back a little bit of leverage, where they can call up and say, "Hey, how about a second round pick for, for Kirk Cousins so that you don't fall into the top of the draft versus being a playoff contender?"And, and that's what they're hoping for. 43:55 And I also, I just find it, that's just kinda sad 'cause it involves an injury somewhere, and boring. Yep. Like- Boring... 44:01 oh, you know, we did, well, our q- you know, Baker Mayfield got, well, it wouldn't be in division, it would have to be somebody out of the division. 44:07 Sam Darnold got hurt, and so we're gonna bring in Kirk Cousins, you know? Tua got hurt and we brought in Kirk Cousins. It's like, what is that going to do for you? Now, by the way, the Dolphins can't afford him. 44:19 There's a lot of- Right... teams that wouldn't be able to put him in there and that, and that's part of the issue. But it's like, like, 44:24 this could just turn out to be, "Hey, we got the trade and we want it for a third round pick. 44:28 We're the Falcons, Penix is okay, we're in second place in the NFC South, we stink," and here's Cousins going out to have a seven in 10 season somewhere. Ugh. Yeah. Yeah. 44:37 And I, and I think a lot of teams look at that and say, "What? Well, if we're gonna have a, okay, a eight and nine season with Kirk Cousins, why don't we just roll with our backup? Why don't we roll with Zach Wilson? 44:46 Why don't we roll with whoever's, you know, behind door number two?" And that's why this is in this steady state where we're looking at all this money getting wasted, and like, well, why is it like this? 44:55 And like the answer is, uh, 'cause that's the way it is. That's the way it f- is, yeah. That's- A- a- and, and, and it, and it's really a win-win situation for Kirk Cousins, right? 45:02 'Cause if, if they don't move on, you're, you're cashing $50 million or whatever it is. Right. And if they do move on- Yeah... 45:08 you're gonna get to be a starter somewhere and you're gonna make 50-ish million dollars, whether it's from the Falcons, a portion of it, or the, the team that you're playing for, it's kind of a win-win financial situation for Cousins. 45:20 It's just, from just, from somebody who loves and is fascinated by the process of building rosters and- Yeah... 45:26 how general managers think and how franchises operate, it's just an awful allocation of resources to have that much money tied up in your veteran backup quarterback when you're supposedly all in and trying to build a window around your rookie, y- your second year quarterback. 45:41 I, I'm gonna ask you something, and this came up when I was writing the, uh, chapter for the Falcons for the FTN Almanac. Who, who actually runs the Falcons? S- uh, I, I guess Terry Fontenot maybe. 45:53 Is it, is it own- I thought you were gonna say, is it, is it Fontenot? Is it McKay? I- is it, is it, is it Arthur Blank on a headset? I mean, it's one of these- [laughs] 46:02 It, it's one of those situations where you look at a team and you just wonder how they operate the way they do and how they always seem to, to go down this road and find themselves in these type of situations. 46:11 It's not Raheem Morris. He's not i- do- doing personnel. Every other team, if we say, "Who, w- who does the buck stop with?" You have an answer. It's, it, it, it stops with Jason Licht. It stops with Andy Reid. 46:21 It stops with Gera, with Steven, uh, you know, uh, uh, on the side. It stops with Howie, et cetera. With the Falcons, it's like, eh, I think McKay might actually make the big decisions and Fontenot makes the little ones. 46:34 Arthur Blank makes the really big ones. Ryan Pace is there. If you look, he's still working- Yeah... a job there someplace. Um, and Raheem Morris, all his defensive players, that's probably him and, uh, uh, 46:44 that's how you make decisions like this. Yeah. That's how you find yourself paying $50 million for a backup. Right. 46:49 The buck doesn't stop with any one particular person and everybody can turn to the other and it's like, "Was this your idea?" "I don't know. Maybe it was your idea." "Who do we say?" "Uh, who cares? 46:58 You know, g- go out there." The buck sa- the buck stops in, uh, Kirk Cousins's wallet. Yeah, b- [laughs] It sure does. It sure does. 47:06 So my final one, and, you know, we have to talk about the one piece of news that comes out, is that Shedeur Sanders can't drive 65. It's not good. A- and on the one hand I don't care, and on the other hand- Yeah... 47:19 first of all, this is illuminating, oh, why did he fall into the fifth round of the NFL draft? 47:24 Oh, there's, like, layers beneath the surface of who this individual is, and we're going to start discovering them in the days and weeks to come. 47:31 He's had two traffic violations during a time of year where we should not be hearing anything about anyone. 47:38 So it's illuminating on that element, and it's also, like, watching a little bit of a slow motion train wreck, tire fire emerge where, a- and I don't like seeing a young individual waste their potential, but you're kinda seeing it happening in real time in the public spotlight, and I'm wondering what the next layer of this is gonna be. 47:58 Yeah, th- this is one of these things where, and it's just hypothetically speaking, I, I do wonder if there were more incidents like this in Boulder- Mm-hmm... 48:06 but because you're in the cocoon of Colorado and of Deion Sanders as the head coach, I do wonder if maybe it was just swept so far under the rug- Mm-hmm... that it never got out. 48:16 You know, you hear all the time about the player who racked up 50 parking tickets while they were on campus, but it never- Yeah... 48:23 it never gets out because the program squashes the, uh, the, the university police department from making a big deal about it. But all of a sudden- Yeah... now y- you get out into the world and things like this happen. 48:37 I, I do think it's a big deal both for the reasons of illuminating why he might have fallen in the NFL draft, 48:44 but you start to think about the tragedy involving Henry Ruggs and, you know, the speeding incident and the accident- Right... that killed the woman and her dog. Right. 48:53 A- and these are the type of things that it just kind of, it, it, it makes you stay up at night if you're an NFL head coach, if you're start- starting to see one of your players getting speeding ticket after speeding ticket at, at that level, going 100 plus miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone. 49:09 A- and, and coaches don't like worry, right? Worry and uncertainty goes against the NFL mindset and the coaching mindset and what they wanna see. 49:15 It's why this period between June and August is such a nightmare for coaches, 'cause they're waiting for the phone to ring and wonder why it's ringing. 49:24 I, I, I just have this kind of sinking feeling in my stomach about where this is going for Shedeur, and I don't think that it's great for him or the Cleveland Browns. 49:32 Yeah, and when we talk about, you know, parking tickets getting squelched by the, the programs and all, it's like, well, who cares about the parking tickets? 49:38 Well, on the one hand, nobody, but y- on the other hand, those little consequences help us grow up as people. Yeah. Right. 49:44 Yeah, the speeding ticket you got, like, when you were going 45 in a 25 and you had to pay for it and your dad yelled at you, et cetera, taught you not to speed at a time when you might have thought, "I'm invincible. 49:53 I'm not gonna hurt somebody. I go 100 miles an hour." 49:56 If you don't learn those lessons, you turn into somebody who might be a little callous in terms of the possible consequences of dangerous things you do, and that sounds like something Shedeur Sanders might be dealing with right now. 50:07 10 years ago, I was covering the Browns during this, one, one of the summers of Johnny Manziel.Okay? 50:14 And where we would have these things where they were taking pictures of Manziel at the local bar, and a lot of us were inclined to be like, "You know what? We're hounding this young man because we're-" Yeah... 50:23 "taking pictures of this guy at the bar, and he could be sitting there having a, like, one beer and a sandwich while reading his playbook, and we don't see it when it's on his, uh, uh, you know, on his lap or, or anything like that." 50:33 But usually when it's creeping out like this, there's a reason, and it's not because this person is being mistreated or mishandled. It's because they're make- making mistakes that they shouldn't make. 50:43 In Manziel's case, there were underlying issues, and in Schroeder's sa- case, again, with the Browns, with Berea, with that whole area, it could just be a matter of a maturity issue that could sabotage his career, if not worse. 50:56 Uh, no, for sure. No doubt about it. We're gonna go to my third and final storyline, and it's, it's a layered one. It's, it's three storylines in one. Um, the Micah Parsons contract situation. All right. 51:06 How does that play out? One, does Jerry Jones get ahead of this, and- Oh... by the time we publish this this afternoon, they announce that Micah Parsons signed his extension, which has happened a few times on this show. 51:18 [laughs] But not with Jones. 51:19 Or, or, or, no, or does it drag on to the point where the Cowboys then find themselves having to pay more because Trey Hendrickson reached some sort of deal with the Cincinnati Bengals because ESPN reported a week or two ago that they'd begun talking again? 51:35 Do the Cowboys have to pay more because the Pittsburgh Steelers signed T.J. Watt, and the market has reset itself again, and Micah Parsons' price just went up even higher than it was before? 51:46 A lot of layers to this onion. 51:48 A, a lot of uncertainty about Micah Parsons' immediate and long-term future based on how these talks play out, but I do think that it's one of the bigger storylines because, A, it's one of the biggest star players in the league, and B, it's a premium position with so many other players watching how it unfolds for their own sake and their own contracts. 52:07 Uh, on the one hand, absolutely, it's huge. On the other hand, there's this weird combination of elements with it where we know Jerry's gonna procrastinate to the last minute. We know- Always... 52:16 if he's in a procrastination war with the Bengals, heaven help us all. The sun could go supernova before those two teams combine to make a decision. 52:23 I think somewhere along the way the Steelers just pay Watt, and that, that ends, probably right before the start of camp. 52:28 The third element of this, and I think we've talked about this before, is Micah Parsons is way too chill about his ends. Yeah. Micah Parsons needs to be out there stomping his feet. 52:36 He, every time you interview him, it's like, "Oh, well, you know what? I was, a kid's game, I'm happy to play and I'm still under contract." Dude, get your money. 52:43 You are, you are giving away leverage to the wrong bunch of weirdos here. Get out there- Yeah... to- 'cause if you don't light a fire under them, there will be no fire. You'll be- No fire... 52:54 you'll be l- talk to Dak, he had to play under the fra- franchise tag for multiple years, and you're not a quarterback, so it's not as much money. 53:00 So this could be a thing where training camp starts, it's like Micah Parsons is still under con- is still not under contract, does not get his extension. 53:07 He comes walking in with his shoulder pads like, "Ah, it's all good. Let's play ball." Hey, that's great. If that's the way you live your life, that's fine. Go get your money. It's a dangerous- Right, cash in. 53:16 Yeah, cash in. Cash in. Don't, don't give them more leverage than they already have, right? 53:20 D- don't, don't put yourself in a situation where you're playing on the franchise tag for two years in a row, and then all of a sudden you're going through this same song and dance again, and then you look up and you're a Washington Commander because you signed in a free, as a free agent, right? 53:33 [laughs] Right. 53:33 Like, there, there's just so many ways that this could go poorly for Micah Parsons if they don't get this done, and if you're the Cowboys, do you really want that kind of a player winding up elsewhere three years from now pissed off and motivated to get after Dak Prescott once, twice a year, whatever it might be? 53:51 Here, here, I just thought of it now. You m- you make a trade, Parsons for Hendrickson and Shaquem Stewart. So Hendrickson and Shaquem Stewart, like, show up, kick the doors down a- a- and are like, "Pay us now." 54:02 And Jerry's like- [laughs]... "Okay, okay, okay." 54:04 And, and Stewart throws in 'cause Hendrickson's older and Parsons is better, and meanwhile, Parsons just goes wandering, "Hey, hey, Joe Burrow, hey, Jamar Chase, hey, Tee Higgins. You get paid? No, that's good. 54:13 It's good." Perfect guy to be [laughs], to be with those, "I'll get some sacks for you guys. We're g- you know, we're gonna win a wild card," whatever. Win-win for everybody. Let's go win a Super Bowl together. 54:21 Let's all win a Super Bowl together, and I'll just be happy, and I'll, uh, you know, I'll, I'll eat ramen noodles if I have to, but, uh, I'll have a Super Bowl ring, whatever. Perfect situation for both of those teams. 54:31 Get it done. Get it done one way or the other. Mike, what's coming up on the Two Deep Zone over the next couple days, couple weeks? Oh, I have no idea. Actually, no idea. 54:39 We're in the middle of the Signature Moments, which was your idea. It was a great idea. Is it doing well? You're enjoying it? Are you having fun with it? Having fun with it, yeah, yeah. 54:46 I'm not out there, you know, looking at every little piece of news coming out of Nowheresville right now. 54:51 We right now have the Chicago Bears online, the Detroit Lions will be coming online, and it's a chance to tell the story of the team's entire history with five moments, which is hard, 'cause some of these teams have been around for 90 years, and trying to pick five moments, it's challenging, it's fun. 55:06 Check it out. You'll see that, like, there's old quotes from Sports Illustrated, old clips, all these kinds of things to help you have a little nostalgic tour of the NFL in the summertime. What are you doing? 55:16 We are knee-deep in the grading of the off-season series, which has been a lot of fun, got a lot of feedback in terms of fans reading how their team or rival teams have graded out and the moves that have been made. 55:28 Some heavy hitters coming up, uh, this week and next week, Mike. We have the Baltimore Ravens, big move with Jared Alexander- Oh, big move, yeah... the signing a year ago. 55:37 Uh, Detroit Lions coming up in the next couple of days here, and, uh, the fighting Washington Commanders, who got themselves a weapon for their franchise quarterback. 55:46 So three heavy hitters, uh, coming up over the next week or so in the grading of the, uh, off-seasons, and then I'm gonna be away for a couple weeks, and I have some fun, uh, guest columns, uh, in the pipeline for the time away. 56:02 Brilliant. I love that idea. Is your daughter writing one? [laughs] I feel like you're- Not this time around... lo- hot takes in first and second grades, is it not a chipper off the old block a bit? [laughs] Not yet. 56:14 Hopefully soon. 56:15 Uh, but again, as always, if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe in Apple Podcast, the Between the Hash Marks podcast, subscribe to my YouTube channel @mattbombardo975, and Mike, we're coming down the pike, the, the final week- Yeah... 56:28 of this awesome special that we've done, we've put together. Some great feedback over the months so far. 56:35 If you subscribe to either the Two Deep Zone or Between the Hash Marks, you get six months free of the other publication, and we are automatically donating 20% of the proceeds to The Trevor Project, who do God's work out there in the community helping out our LGBTQ brothers and sisters in their darkest moments and times of need. 56:55 I, I'm really, uh, fortunate and glad, Mike, that we, you able to pitch this to me and we able to make it happen to make a real tangible impact to help our work help people when they need it most. 57:05 We've made a couple of hundred dollars worth of donations to The Trevor Project. I've got another one I gotta make very soon. Wanna get it beefed up a little bit. 57:12 Now, I know most of the people listening to us right now are probably already paid subscribers. Tell your friends, mention it, give us a r- or a shout-out on social network. Let's help build this a little bit more. 57:23 Yep, spread the word. Follow Mike Tanier on Blue Sky, he's @miketanier. You can check me out on Threads, @mattbombardonfl or Blue Sky @mattbombardo. Mike, this was a lot of fun. 57:33 Talk to you in a few weeks and, uh, hopefully we feel a little less June-ish the next time we get together. It'll be July-ish, go Tour de France go. Poccicia, here we go, for the win. Yellow jersey.
