Read A Book, Look It Up

The Chasers, along with Dan K. “The Hockey Guy,” discuss the NHL trading deadline, the movers and shakers, the contenders, and pretenders with twenty games to go in the NHL season. The NCAA Men’s tournament and the NBA’s Power 10 rankings. MLB new DH rule, and ghost runners when extra innings begin. Plus, all MLB active players are in arbitration. The Deshaun Watson deal is discussed along with Aaron Rodgers’ new deal, forcing Davante Adams to sign with the Las Vegas Raiders. #nfl #deshaunwatson #davanteadams #greenbaypackers #ncaamenstournament #marchmadness #nba #mlb #mlbdhlrule #nhl #nhltradedeadline #hockey #baseball #football #basketball #collegebasketball

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I want to let you all know something real quick. We’ll give you the sports world. We’ll get into why I said that here in a second. Let’s start with my main man, D-Dubb. What’s up? How’s it going? What’s good, Kev? We are back better than ever. Our hockey dude is here. Dan, what’s going on? What’s up? Dan is here to talk about all the trade deadline that went down at National Hockey League. We’ll get into that. Last but not least, the D.A., Dorian, what’s good? I’m tired. Long day for D.A. I’m glad everybody’s okay. That little segment I said in the beginning that we’ll give you the sports world. We mean that, D.A. We appreciate your thoughts on what I said and what you said in a TikTok. It’s pretty much a PSA. It goes back to when I was a kid. We used to listen to 1010 WINS in my house every morning before we had to ship off to go to school. They would have a little commercial. They would say, “1010 WINS. You give us 30 minutes. We’ll give you the world.” In 30 minutes, we would get some world news, national news, local news, sports, weather and traffic all within a half hour. When you left your house to go to school, you were prepared for whatever you needed to do that day. You have your umbrella and overcoat. If there was going to be a nuclear war, you hide under the desk when you got to school. You knew what was going to happen. That’s what we try to do. Sometimes we don’t get to it all but we prepare for it all. Rather than come on every day and talk about NBA 2 or 3 teams and the NFL 2 or 3 trades for 2 or 3 hours every morning and call yourself a sports show, it’s bogus. We’re going to try not to do that because that makes no sense to be called a sports show and not talk about every sport. 40 female and 32 male NCAA games happened. We’re not talking about any of those kids that put it out there on the line to get to the Sweet 16. You’re not going to talk about any of those kids? Also, the hockey trade deadline. Also, the MLB Hot Stove League condensed. Come on, let’s stop playing. As fans, folks deserve more but only if you ask some more. You got to demand more. If you don’t want more, you are not going to get more. That’s what that is. I’m out on that note. Fans deserve more, but only if they ask for more. They should demand more if they want it. Click To Tweet That sets us up very lovely to my Dan K. Take it away with the National Hockey League. We’ll start with our Power 10 again. There’s not a whole lot of change. It seems like a lot of the East is dominating. With the top team in the league, Colorado is still wagging. They are about 5 points from breaking the century mark with 19 or 18 games left. They got a chance to get probably anywhere 115 points maybe. Florida Panthers is not too far behind. They got 90 points. We got Carolina with 88. They had a little slide here. It was 3 and 1 in the last 4 and they got a good tilt. They got Tampa Bay. That should be a good game. It was 0-0 at the end of the first period. It should be a good game. After that, we got a gaggle of teams that could be anywhere from 4th to 8th. That’d be the Rangers, Penguins, Flames, Tampa Bay and then Boston. I would say either maybe the Wild or the Predators would fall into that tenth spot. As that list goes, then we transition into the trade deadline. Guess who made the good moves to the trade deadline? The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Why is that? Case in point. Montreal, after making The Finals, struggled massively. Price and Weber have been hurt and haven’t been able to get it going. For them, it’s like, “We got a bunch of these unrestricted free agents coming up at the end of the year. There’s no point in holding onto them until the end of the year. Are we going to sign them? Do we want him here long-term or can we move them for assets and get something back and build for next year?” That’s what Montreal did. They got probably five guys that they dealt at the trade deadline. Kotkaniemi went to the Avs, Kulak went to the Oilers and Tkachuk went to the Panthers. In February, they sent Foley to the Flames. They did well. They moved a bunch of people out that probably were going to cost some money or they weren’t going to re-sign. They’re at the bottom. For them, they did well. For me, they’re one of the winners of the trade. You asked me before we got on about the winners and losers. Are we talking about playoff teams or the league in general? Montreal, Ducks and Kraken who are not going to make the playoffs did well and get the trade deadline to move on. What you’re saying is they did well for themselves to set themselves up? Correct. The Avs got Nico Sturm, Josh Manson and Kotkaniemi from Montreal. They got Cogliano from Anaheim. They already got 95 points to dominate in the league and they solidified for the playoffs. They got a good defenseman in Manson and then you add in Sturm, Kotkaniemi and Cogliano. You can plug into the lineup for penalty-killing. They play the other opposing team’s best players. They got way better. They’re my pick to come out of the West after the trade deadline for what they did. The Panthers in the East did well too. They picked up Chiarot from Montreal. They got Drew from the Flyers. They were pretty much handcuffed on that one because the only place that Drew won the play was Florida and he had a no-trade clause. Philly got the return on him but not quite what they would’ve got if they would’ve been teams battling for his services. They got Hague from Buffalo for a draft pick or something. Florida got it better and is already the top team in the East. The two top teams in East Division got better. The Canes didn’t do anything and they didn’t have to. They got a wagon too. They picked up Domi from Columbus. They extended the guy that they had in the office from Montreal for eight years. The Hurricanes own a four-game. Do you think they needed to make something happen? It’s going to happen. It’s not like they’ve been playing cupcakes either. They’re playing a lot. They’re playing Tampa Bay. They’re a tough team. They played the Rangers. You’re going to go through spells where things don’t go your way. They’re fine. You're going to go through spells where things don't go your way. Click To Tweet They are hanging tight. Even with the four-game losing streak, they’re still holding ground. They’re still holding division point-wise. They got a game in hand. They’re all right. I thought the Rangers did pretty well too. They picked up a couple of guys, more depths guys like Tower Motte and Andrew Copp from Winnipeg. They brought in the defensemen. They figured out what would make them a better team and made some moves to shore up. In the playoffs, it’s every other night for 1.5 months or 2 months. There are going to be bumps, bruises and injuries. You’re going to have half-depth. You’re going to have to have guys that can step in if somebody gets hurt. A lot of these teams did well for themselves. The Penguins signed or traded for Rakell from Anaheim. They gave up Simone and Austin Reese for a prospect and a pick or something. It’s a little much but Rakell’s going to be a good player. Hopefully, he fits in and plays well down the stretch for us because that’s what we were missing. Our top line with Guentzel, Rust and Crosby is pretty set. The problem is he’s trying to find somebody to play with Malkin and that’s been the thing since Neil played for us when we got him from the Predators. Why do they’re having difficulty? Dan is a huge Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Why is that with Malkin? It’s not Malkin. It’s fun in chemistry. He’s a fast player but Crosby’s North-South. He’s not going to go from one side of the rink to the other where Malkin’s more all around the place. They got the lines busted up and they have Malkin, Hyman and Kapanen playing with him. That’s the other thing. Kapanen scored his 1st goal in 16 games. He’s been struggling. He was playing his ass off but he’s not getting the puck luck. We got a defenseman they signed but he’s played four games all season. He was irrelevant. The Flames made a couple of moves. Tampa Bay was the other one that made some good moves. They got Hagel from Chicago which has a good pickup. They got Nick Paul from the Senators, a big guy. They got Riley Nash. They shored up some stuff in Toronto. Chicago leaked what the deal was because they were trying to go after Fleury and Dubas. The GM’s a little bit hot about that. That fell through and that was something that they needed to address. They shipped out McDermott to Vancouver. They picked up Giordano from the Kraken. They signed probably the best name in hockey. Harri Säteri is the finished goalie who won the gold medal in the Olympics. He’s an older guy. They tried to sign him to get depth from the Marlies and stuff. Campbell’s got a rib injury. He’s having an awful year. They brought another rookie guy. I think his name is Callan. In the third game, he had a little bit of a hiccup but for a rookie, he played pretty well. Their biggest need was what are we going to do on goal and defense. Giordano is a good pickup but still, they need more. I don’t see their future too bright when it comes to the playoff. With the other teamster in this division or conference, it’s going to be a rough one for them. Boston made the trade with Anaheim for Hampus Lindholm, which was a good pickup. There were a couple of prospects and some draft picks. They’ve re-signed DeBrusk. I don’t know. He still wants to trade but they got him for the rest of the year. Maybe in the off-season, he gets traded somewhere if he still wants to go. That’s the top ten teams per se and the moves that they made. In the East, it’s set. The eight teams are in the playoffs. Washington is 80 and Columbus has 67. They’re not going to catch them. We were talking about this on the phone, Dan. The Islanders looked like they were waiting a little too late. The league or themselves jammed them up by playing all those away games before the new arena that was built in Elmont, New York was completed. That does the Islanders a monkey wrench. They got into a hole. It’s twofold. They didn’t play great out of the gate. It didn’t help much that they were on the road for all those games. They extended Clutterbuck and gave him extensions. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t trade someone because nobody wanted him. Some of the other guys that could have moved didn’t move. It was one of those deals where it was like, “We played like crap at the beginning of the season. We were on the road for a lot at the beginning of the season and we got behind the eight ball and couldn’t get back. Let’s run it back.” Before that, they made it to the second round or even the conference finals. It’s pretty much the same core. We don’t have any playing games for the NHL. No. Somebody applaud the NHL for doing the right thing. We had this discussion on the phone too where old Warren G said, “They didn’t need to make that first series five games.” No, they did that before. I want you to wait until we got on here. I have my thoughts. You have your thoughts. Dan and I on the phone had a pre-meeting of what we were going to talk about. I told Dan, “The National Hockey League and the NBA, the first round needs to be five games where it’s more exciting.” Dan pounded the desks and disagreed with me. He said, “No, it needs to be seven games.” Dan will come up with his argument and I will come up with mine. Go ahead, Dan. I’m selfish. I want more hockey. 7 games in the 1st round. When you’re playing the best of 5, it’s usually they play 2. It depends on the form of the play. It’s one of those things where the team that’s played well all year and the team that snuck into the playoffs and is hot at that time. If you shorten a series to 5 games, they only got to win 3. It’s a little bit more difficult when you got to win that fourth game. David Volek scored against us after we won the cutback. That was a five-game series. That was probably the best team that we had ever. They bowed out to have probably a lesser team at that time. It got some bounces and things went their way. I don’t like the five-game series. I’d rather have it the 7 to 2, 2, 1, 1, 1 because playing that game is the dumbest thing ever.

Has the Board of Governors or Gary Bettman ever thought about this craziness? I don’t think so. When they had the bubble, I believe they extended the number of teams that were in the playoffs. That’s how Montreal ran the gamut to the finals. When the Board of Governors had the bubble, it was believed that they extended the amount of teams that were in the playoffs. Click To Tweet Dan, you’re the hockey guy. Not cheapening what Tampa Bay did but you’re willing to say that the bubble experience was a different thing. It was different. Would you agree? Absolutely. When you can hear the guys cussing at each other on the ice on TV, how’s that? As a player, I would assume that when you come down the runway and they play the horn and got the music blaring for you, the team coming out and all the fans are screaming at you, that gets you pumped up. You come out of this bubble and you could hear the janitor sweeping the steps. How do you get pumped up for a game? Tampa Bay ran the gamut and beat everybody. The experience was probably different when they won the Cup in front of fans. Hockey’s a game that is great to watch on TV but to go see the speed of the game, how fast these guys are and how physical it is, it’s a different game. I’ve been to baseball games, football games and many hockey games. At a baseball game, I got to eat and have a couple of beers. It’s not high-paced. The same thing with football. I went and watched the Panthers game. I played the Jaguars and it was like, “I will never go to another live football game.” My TV is sitting in front of me.

Where I’m sitting in the stadium and they’re down at the other end of the field, you don’t know what the hell’s going on. You can see the play develop but unless you’re up and above the seats, you can see down in the field and how everything transpired. If you’re down in a lower bowl, I’d much rather watch that on TV. It’s more entertaining. You can follow what’s going on because the camera’s falling where the ball is. You can go to your bathroom. That too. They’re not $17 beers either. Also, $9 hotdogs. To get back on topic, some of the teams that weren’t in the playoffs did well at the trade deadline too. The Ducks got a couple of NHL players and prospects. They got five picks or so like the Kraken. They moved out six guys that they got in that expansion draft and sent them off. In return, they’ve got 34 picks over the next 3 drafts. They got a lot of draft picks to invest in their future. That gives them capital. If they want a trade for somebody, they got all these picks that they can use to pick people up. It’s going to be a patience thing with them because they’re going to have to build from the ground up and it’s going to take them a few years to get that talent and the pipeline, develop them, get them to the NHL and get them to that level. I thought Montreal did well with getting rid of all the guys with expiring contracts and picking up some picks and guys to start the rebuild process for next year. With this trade deadline, usually, there are 3, 4 or 5 impact guys that get traded. In 2022, there wasn’t a whole lot of that. No disrespect to any of these people that got traded. I don’t know that there was any star power like Panarin getting traded, that type of player. Drew’s career is down on some stuff. He would probably be one of those with a big name that got moved, which I thought was cool. Philly had a ceremony for his 1,000th game before they were going to trade him even though it wasn’t his 1,000th game because they knew he was going to be gone by the trade deadline. He wouldn’t be in a Flyer’s uniform to play that game. They wanted to celebrate it before they sent him on. I thought it was cool. It’s a business. They made the executive decision. “We’re going to honor him and do it before he leaves.” Shout-out to the Flyers. That was pretty big of them. Let me ask you this. The Kraken, this is their first year. They went I wouldn’t say all in but with their behavior and moves at the trade deadline, what do you think about them going forward? It looks like they’re getting more picks. What do you think about that? It was 34 picks over the next 3 drafts. We talked about this before with them. They have this expansion draft. They draft the players they think can mesh well. Letang that got picked from the Penguins has had a knee injury. He’s been out for an extended period. That affects him because he’s an energy guy. He’s a bull in a china shop. He plays hard but maybe the chemistry wasn’t there with the guys they put together. They’re 19 and 38 and 6 with 44 points. They know that they’re not going to be a contending team in the very near future. They decided, “Let’s move some assets that people want that will bring us a return so that we can start building for the future.” Just not the draft but the picks because those picks are capital. It’s like, “We want Panarin. We’ll give you 2 first rounds, 2 second rounds and a 5th.” They got them plentiful over the next three years. Those picks are as important for drafting somebody as they are for trading for players. For what they got and where they’re at, they made the right idea with the stockpile and what’s built for the future because you never know. Years from now when these kids start coming up to the NHL level, they may have a hell of a team.

Let me ask you this one last thing and then we’re going to go on to the next thing. Anything like what the Golden Knight did in their first year, will that ever be duplicated again by an expansion team? That was an anomaly but I don’t think so. To have an expansion draft play out of your mind for 82 games and make it to the Stanley Cup finals in your first year, could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? I would lean to probably never but it could happen. That’s the thing. The difference is you put a team in Vegas, all the bright lights, casinos and all that stuff. It’s the entertainment capital of the world. You got the pressure that we got to put a good team on the ice. Maybe they took some more veterans and money contracts in that draft to be good right away. They’re struggling like hell. They got so many injuries. Leonard, Stone and Martinez have been hurt. They got 72 points. They’re on the bubble. You got Dallas, Winnipeg and Vancouver that are 3 or 4 points behind. You got a 5 or 6-team race for those last 2 spots. The one blunder I want to talk about on this draft day and this might be the first time I’ve ever seen this happen, is Vegas has a player who got traded to Anaheim for Moore and Ryan Kesler. It’s the same Ryan Kesler that played for Anaheim that hasn’t played in several years. He hasn’t retired because he is still getting his contract for the injury money. They moved that to Vegas, which in turn helped Vegas because they could put that contract on long-term injury reserve and it buries that money. Their cap comes down. The guy they traded to Anaheim had a ten-team no-trade cause. There is a ten-team he had on the list he can’t go to. From what I’ve read, they’re saying that he submitted it and they didn’t get it from Ottawa. This trade is in limbo. It’s like, “Does he have to go to Anaheim or do Moore and Kesler go back to Anaheim?” It’s in the middle of the arbitrary with the league and figure out what they do. They may avoid this straight and he may have to go back. I don’t know how much I go over the cap for him. That was one of the most unique things that I haven’t seen in a long time. They traded a guy somewhere he couldn’t go. I don’t like the no-trade clauses. I don’t know. They’ve had it forever, though. I don’t like it for either sport. With the no-trade clause overall, you get to pick where you go. You give that to your star players like Crosby and Malkin. There are a couple of others probably in the league who have it but the one I don’t mind is the ten-team. Fleury had the same deal where he had ten-team he could put on a list that he didn’t have to go to and he submitted the beginning of the year. Think of it this way. This dude’s playing in Vegas. They’re going to ship him to California to play for Anaheim. The amount of money he’s making is the same but the amount of money he’s getting taxed on is different. He’s like, “I don’t want to go play somewhere where I’m going to get killed in Texas.” I get that. For the limited trade clauses, I’m okay with that. If the team’s pissed off at you and wants to send you to the worst team in the league, do you want to go there? No. For teams to entice you to come sign as a free agent, they put that bargaining chip on the table like, “We’ll give you ten teams that you can pick that you don’t want to go to play. If we trade you, we can’t trade you there.” That gives the player a little leverage to come to the trade deadline if he doesn’t like it. I don’t think Fleury wanted to go to Washington at all because he’s still a Penguin at heart. They tried to move him to Toronto and that fell through. He wanted to go to play for Minnesota because it’s like inner division so they play each other a lot. He knew they had a good team and he had a chance to win there. The whole no-trade clause, unless I waive it to whatever team you have a deal with, I’m not that great with. It happens but I’m okay with the ten-team one because it gives the players some options of not going somewhere they don’t want to go. I’ll leave it that. We appreciate you, Dan. Dan is always coming through the hockey dances. You’re going to hang out with us. We’ll talk a little bit about some other things going on here. We’re going to segue to the NCAA tournament. Let me tell you something. The Angry One, Eric, is not on with us. He challenged me. He says, “We know that college basketball is not as it used to be with the one-and-done knowing the players.” The mid-majors are the ones that’s been pretty much ruling the last couple of years. I had a good time watching the tournament. I’ll start to say my Cinderella squad here, St. Peters. They told Duke to go home. What’d you say, D.A.? They’re going to get the shit. I know Shaheen. I watched him play when he was a kid. He’s one of the first kids from New York City to go to Elizabeth and play with St. Patrick’s, which is the same coach that’s at Mount Verde in Florida, whatever the hell it is. He’s the guy that started the St. Patrick’s program in Jersey. Shaheen was one of the first kids out of New York City to play in Jersey in Catholic School basketball and build that up. Not to say they didn’t have players there. Kyrie, these guys and New York players started going to St. Patrick’s. For a lot of times, guys thought they were New Jersey guys but those were guys from New York that were waking up early in the morning and getting on the train going right to Jersey City. St. Peters has a good team. I watched them. I talked it over with my son because he is getting further back into coaching and he was talking about the types of players that they had on that team. You got 2 or 3 guys with a lot of bounce and some hard guards. I’ve told this guy since Tyus Edney back in the days like, “Guards win the NCAA tournament.” The last time a big man dominated the NCAA tournament was probably Elijah Hughes. To be honest with you, not even then because Dwayne McClain beat Georgetown without a real big man. As long as it’s part of the rules, I never get mad. They weren’t cheating. Raleigh was not cheating. Everybody doesn’t know what we’re talking about. Tell these young folks to get a book. We can look at everything else on YouTube. Look that up. I’m not spoon-feeding these kids, no more. We’re not doing that. They talk to you like they know everything. Get on the internet and learn it. Get a book. Look it up. Get on the internet. If you want to learn about how Villanova beat Georgetown, that’s what happened. That tournament has always been guard-oriented. I was talking to my oldest son. He’s getting back into coaching. He has 1 or 2 high schools that may be offering him positions. Stop spoon-feeding these modern kids. They know everything, and they talk to you like they know everything. So tell them to get on the internet and learn it. Get a book, look it up, and just learn it. Click To Tweet We were talking about if he had to recruit a college class to come in and coach at a school, depending on what level he was, he was taking over for Coach K. He’s like, “I don’t care. I’m taking two guards from New York City and the rest of the dudes that can jump. Not New York. New York, Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut dudes. I need hard guards from there that could score.” I said, “You’re not telling me anything. That’s what this tournament has always been about. How do you think Shabazz Napier and Kemba Walker won championships on their own?” Name another guy on those Connecticut teams besides those two guys. The reality was a few years earlier, they had a heck of a team out of Connecticut and didn’t win anything. Guards. St. Peter’s, I like what they’re doing. When you look at the numbers of how many kids are in St. Peter’s as opposed to how many kids are in the class at Kentucky, it was crazy. That’s how small St. Peter’s is. It’s in the middle of Jersey City. You could drive past it and not know it’s there. I’d love to see that. I’m like you, Kev. I tried to do my research. Though he didn’t challenge me, everyone did put out the challenge. There are far fewer one-and-done players now than they were years ago. Kids are staying. You may have 1 or 2 at school because it’s become oversaturated and a situation where you don’t even need to be a one-and-done anymore. The kids that can play like that don’t even have to be a one-and-done because you can go straight to the G League. You don’t even have to do the facade of playing in college anymore. You don’t have to put up the facade of, “I’m going to be a student for 1 month or 2,” because that’s all it is. If you go to school for one season to be a one-and-done, you only have to pass your classes for the semester prior to the one you’re playing. If you pass your classes in the fall, that is it. When those classes are over, you tell your teachers peace and your coach hello. When the tournament’s over, you’re gone. Let me cut to the chase with a couple of those for the sake of time. What happened to Baylor? UNC beats Baylor, 93-86. It was a good game. I thought he was about to lose his job. Tell us why he was about to lose his job. They were up by twenty-something points. What happened was the guy with the beard who looked like the Appalachian guy, they gave a tech. He got thrown out of the game, making it for an elbow. I’m not the referee so I’ll say he got thrown out on tech. The coach from Baylor put in three guards. They pressed and Hubert doesn’t have enough bench people. That’s why I thought he was going to lose his job. I was like, “If Hubert loses this, he’s out.” They hung on tight and won the game. Hubert will recruit differently in 2023 to make sure that he has a few more kids on his bench because he doesn’t have a lot of bench help. They almost lost that game. A lot of credit to Baylor for coming back. It was a gutty team. Michigan defeats Tennessee to move toward the Sweet 16. I like what Michigan is doing with Juwan Howard. They make too much of him hugging this dude from the other team, consoling him so to speak, during the shake. It’s like, “It doesn’t matter.” Show him when he’s doing something. I don’t care. He hugged the guy. You don’t know what the relationship between those guys is off the court. I don’t make any comments if I don’t know. I don’t care. He consoled him. Nice job. I still would’ve suspended him for two years. Is Gonzaga finally going to do it in 2022? They defeated Memphis Tigers 82-78. Gonzaga moves to the Sweet 16. They got a favor. I got them on my bracket as winning it all. They never win and finished the deal. You’re wasting money. You could have given me that money. Don’t trust them. They don’t play enough hard competition during the year. You can schedule whomever you want to schedule out of the conference. Though St. Mary’s is probably there. They had a lot of good games in 2022. They’re a good team. Chet Holmgren can play, even though he looks like a tall, skinny scarecrow guy. They got a good chance. We’ll see. They’ve had better teams than this but they get there and don’t play enough hard games during the year to pull it through. That’s all. Don't trust Gonzaga. They don't play enough hard competition during the year. Click To Tweet I like my alma mater, Purdue. They faced some St. Peters. As D said, Purdue’s going to put on them. Purdue’s got a kid that’s 8 feet tall, Kevin. They don’t have anybody in New Jersey that big. Kansas is going to face Providence. UCLA against UNC. That’s a very good game. I’m surprised. For the first time, Miami made the Sweet 16 since 2006. They face Iowa State. Miami’s going to blow Iowa State out. You’re thinking the honeymoon’s over for Iowa State. Miami got too many athletes. They’re good. This is one I’m waiting for too. Shout-out to Mike Mills in his absence. His Villanova Wildcats will face Juwan Howard’s Michigan Wolverines. I think Nova’s going to win. They’re not a better team but they are going to win. You all are going to be shocked. It’s going to be Juwan Howard and the boys. Duke will face Texas Tech. We’ll continue with this. It’s over. Texas Tech keeps dudes to 30 points a game. They get half. They d-up for real at times when Duke’s offense goes away. This will probably be the best Sweet 16 in the last several years. There’s nothing but bangers. All these games are going to be good. You’re right, D. Texas Tech ones, their last 2 games were in the ‘50s. ‘53 and ‘54, respectively. I did my homework. I’m scared of Eric, The Angry One. He says he’ll slash my tires. No, I’m scared of you. I’m doing that shit anymore. I’ve had too many twenty-year-olds tell me they knew what they were doing. I go say we’re not going read a book. It should be a very good Sweet 16 weekend for NCAA basketball. I enjoyed it. Looking at it, it was pretty good. We’ll see what it will do. It will be very interesting. We’re going to segue real quick to one of the trades in the National Football League. We’re going to the National Football League. We didn’t discuss it last time. Chill out. We covered everything else but D.A.’s in a bad mood. Deshaun Watson trade. They changed the terms of the trade. This is from CBS Sports. “To pull off one of the biggest trades in NFL history on Friday with Houston Center, Deshaun Watson to Cleveland exchange for draft picks. When the deal was officially announced by Texas on Saturday, it appeared that they were going to walk away from the trade with 5 new draft picks, including 3 first-rounders. As it turns out, though, the Browns ended up sweetening the pot for the Texans before the trade was officially finalized with the National Football League on Monday.” “The two sides ended up making the last changes to the trade and changes ended up benefiting the Texans under the new and finalized terms of the deal. Here’s how things will break down. Texans will receive three first-round picks in 2022, ‘23 and ’24. 1/3 round pick in 2023. 2/4 round picks in 2022 and 2024. The Browns received Deshaun Watson and the Texan’s 2024 six-round draft pick.” Thank you to John of CBS Sports for that. I will start with D-Dubb. What do you think about the trade with the Browns and the Texans, Deshaun Watson, the whole nine yards? Watson is nice. I don’t know if he’s 3, 4, 5 or 6 draft picks nice to give away that many picks. That’s a lot of picks to give up. If it was me being a GM responsible for a team, I’m not sure if I want to. Where were you when the Cowboys did this with the Minnesota Vikings? I was a kid enjoying the game. Mind you, that was a stupid trade too because Dallas ran off and won Super Bowls off of that trade from Herschel Walker. It’s another stupid trade. They only benefited the Cowboys. Minnesota didn’t get any benefits from that. I’m not uncomfortable with that. Nonetheless, it could work out. It’s 50/50. Deshaun Watson sets the league on fire with Cleveland. Those draft picks for the Texans don’t mean anything as far as Cleveland would be a higher draft pick for the Texans. To me, that’s a lot. The Browns better hope that they get everything that they thought they traded for Mr. Watson. What about public relations? We’re law enforcement people. I’m a law enforcement officer. Put it out there. He was cleared from all criminal charges so he’s able to play. There’s nothing criminal against what he did. Where there is smoke, there is fire. I get all of that but what we are talking about is if there are no charges brought up, he’s good to go. We are only dealing with civil issues and you guys know civil issues. That’s it. We’re talking about money. The victims want money pretty much. Does it look bad when 22 women come at you and allege that you did something while you were laying on the back table back there? It looks bad. One has to say you have to look at the whole totality of what happened. Deshaun Watson was unhappy in Houston and people seem to forget about that. All of a sudden, as soon as he states his unhappiness, we have 22 women jump out from behind the tree and say he did this. I’m just saying. I don’t know if we are ever going to know what happened. It’s more than likely we would not. He’s going to serve his time. He comes back to the NFL. If I’m the commissioner, he’s going to get 5 to 6 games. We live in such a different world. I don’t even know what to say. Sometimes it’s best to say nothing because I don’t want to get our show shut down before we get off the ground.

Get us canceled before we get turned on. That’s all I got to say. Dan, the Browns are in your division. If you all don’t know, Dan is a Steelers fan. Dan, what’d you think about this trade? Fire away. I was hoping we’d be able to maybe land him but looking at it, they gave up a lot for him but at the same time, I don’t know. There are certain positions in football that you have to have to win or play well to have the opportunity to win. One of them is your quarterback. He’s the only guy that touches the ball every play besides the center. I got more questions about why he had to sit out in 2021 and everything else. He’s innocent until proven guilty. Not guilty until proven innocent. He wasn’t convicted of anything. He wasn’t charged. I don’t get why he is going to get five more games. Cleveland is going to get a proven good quarterback. Kelly Smith, Ryan Leaf and any quarterback the Browns drafted before Baker Mayfield in the last years with a number one pick were all trash. Do you want to prove them commodity where you’re like, “I’m going to give up these possible players?” I could have run my team for the next years at a high level. To me, draft picks, I don’t care. Give them away. I’d rather have a proven person in that position. Kevin and I were talking about this. The AFC is going to be brutal in the North and West. We got the crappiest quarterback out of the eight teams. If Baker becomes available and they caught him, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pittsburgh picks him up. Would you like that as a Steeler fan? I wouldn’t mind it at all. Not that I don’t have faith in Trubisky but the fact of the matter is people get hurt. We’ve seen what happened when Ben got hurt the last few years. The doc went in there and won us a football game. Is he even in the league? No. That’s what we have to roll out if our starter gets hurt. Rudolph has been there for five years. He hasn’t progressed or made that step when he gets the chance to start. He gets to play in the preseason. I like Haskins if he could have the time to develop. He played one year at Ohio State and came out. He’s a work in progress. He’s a guy that maybe you put on the practice squad and develop. Maybe he can become a starter. He’s got talent. It’s just he doesn’t have the experience and the fundamentals to play a lot. I would’ve loved for him to get Watson but Cleveland did a great job of getting him. They gave up some picks but did they give up any real players? Cleveland said they wanted an adult in the room. Deshaun is going to be fine. The NFL, at the end of the day, is not a place for morality. It’s a place for winning. Joe knocked the chick out years ago and they cheered for Joe like he’s Julius damn Caesar. No one cares. If he goes out there and plays well, he’ll be fine. As Dan says, you’d rather take a proven commodity than a rookie that you don’t know it’s going to be good. There are a million of these rookies that have been the next guy and he’s never been the guy so I’m not too upset with how that went down per se.

D, where does Baker Mayfield go? What do you think? What happens to him? If it’s not Pittsburgh, which is not, he’ll be a backup somewhere because there are no more starting jobs. Seattle. It would probably be him there because I don’t think it’s the Niners with Jimmy Garoppolo in the division. There’s one other team that’s short a quarterback. That’s what I was thinking. We knew that Pittsburgh needed a quarterback and they got Trubisky. The Browns needed the quarterback so they got Watson. The Texans still need the quarterback but they said that they liked the college kid that they got. They could be lying but they did say that they liked the kid. I forget his name but he played pretty well. Denver got Russell. I saw somewhere that even though the Patriots have Mac Jones, they would be willing probably to pick him up. They’ll back him up. Knowing Bill, there’s one thing that he does not tolerate. At any position, it’s offensive that you give the ball to the other team. I’ve seen running backs that fumble and not play again that game. They’re out. Fred Flintstone is out. I’ve seen receivers and tight ends fumble the same thing. If he’s going to throw the ball to the other team, I don’t think he has a shot there. He can do Carolina because he is better than Sam O’Donnell, at least. I don’t know what happened to Sam O’Donnell. Jimmy G didn’t play enough games in college. What’s the D.A. rule on the college’s quarterbacks? You got to start 32 games. It’s not my rule. I got it from Bill Parcells. If you have not played for 3 years and you only played 1 year of college football, you can’t play pro football. That’s that. It’s because you don’t know enough and it takes too long. You’re talking about Haskins, the only one who played one year of college. It is cool but he’s doing his sophomore, junior year and senior year getting paid for him, which he might have gotten paid at Ohio State. He’s getting paid for them in the NFL because he’s not developed. If you let the kids stay in college a little longer, then they come out to be a little bit better. You got Carolina. The New Orleans Jets re-signed back James. My fear is I don’t know where Jimmy G is going but he better go somewhere. If you let the kids stay in college a little longer, then usually they come out to be a little bit better. Click To Tweet You are all going to run it back with him. He needs to be a running back. That’s what you need to say. He may need to be a running back but he’s going to run back with San Fran. As a running back, not a quarterback. Are you all looking at Baker? No, we got Trey back. You all don’t even know what the hell you all got. I know what we gave up so we better figure it out. What about the Giants? No, we’re going to stick with this. Let me get in as a responder. Thank you, Dan, for being a moderator there for a second. We’re going to do what we do. This is going to be his third offense and all that stuff. There were some flashes of doing something but let’s see if he can play. They show up on this offensive line. I thought Barclay would’ve been traded. It looks like there were no takers on that. Not for the price. That’s the problem there. The Giants are asking a little bit too much because he’s been hurt. He’ll probably go somewhere else where he can get a fresh brand new start. San Francisco. He probably wouldn’t eat. That’s right. He goes out there, helps out on Deebo and runs it back like that. I’m cool with it. If he needs to go, so be it. Running back is a dime a dozen. A couple of years ago when the pun is on before the network was saying that, you were saying you were going against that. What changes your mind? No. The running back is a dime a dozen. You could find your running back probably in this next draft, somebody that you don’t have to pay a whole lot of money for. You get him at the rookie deal. If he balls out, that’s a plus. You don’t draft him number one. It’s hard but it’s not hard. It’s a little bit of common sense. Right, D? Just a little bit. Pay your scouts more money than you pay the cheerleaders and you’ll be fine. The Giants don’t have cheerleaders. Neither do the Steelers. Whatever women you guys are paying, pay your scouts more. How about that? The Giants did add Matt Breida too. He was one of our running backs. Matt can play fast. Brieda’s nice. I like him. We finish up with football here with National Football League. I must have missed it last time because I was too much into partying and BS-ing. It was my birthday. Davante Adams, I don’t know if you all touched it. I think I did. We did. He went to the Raiders. That was fantastic for him in his case because he didn’t just sit there and let Aaron take all the money. It’s because he did. He took all the money. I’m sorry I missed it last time. Aaron Rodgers, I don’t want to hit shit. He made that boy take off. I don’t blame him. You guys are always advocating for the player to get all money. What’s different? I’m not mad. We don’t want to hear any complaints. You took the money. I don’t want to hear anything. I can’t wait. On this show, if you’re loyal readers and you guys follow, you always would hear what D.A. and D.W. say, “I don’t want to hear anything if the quarterback takes the money.” If you look at folks like Tom Brady, people will say, “I don’t have a rich wife like Tom Brady so I need to take all you can.” That’s fine. If you do like Russell Wilson, people will say, “Russell didn’t have this and that.” Russell took the paper. Russell had to make it do with people like us here on the floor, on the show and call them out from the parking lot, “Are you ready to play?” That’s what it is. The National Football League is a hard salary cap sport. There are 56 players on a roster, give or take. I’m doing it for example purposes. If the budget is $250, do the math. D.A. proposed and hopefully, he can get this trademark. The quarterback needs to get their joint and salary cap. Let it not count against the rest of the roster because that’s what’s happened. Aaron Rodgers, we don’t want to hear anything. You got your $200 million. Fine. I’m an advocate. Get your money. Davante Adams said, “You left me with a cigarette.” What’s left? A chicken wing and half a beer. I don’t even know if you’re coming back because you’re going to play this game. You play this game every year. I don’t know if he’s coming back. We got to figure out how Aaron’s feeling. From a negotiation perspective, it puts all the power in Davante’s hands. At the point in time that Aaron Rodgers took that money, the Raiders said, “Your salary cap is $250. You guys are paying this guy $50 every year. That means for the whole team, you only got $200 left and we’re willing to offer you $30.” What the hell? You know you’re not getting $30 in Green Bay. It is cold. Dan, what do you think about Green Bay real quick? I tried to sneak out of here with it but they’re the old nosy neighbor. To me, it almost seems like you are either a team guy or me guy. You are either going to take the money and you aren’t going to be able to get anybody else or you take a little less money so you can keep some people around. These teams spend all this elaborate money on one position. They re-sign there and that’s great. He gets all this money. I said, “They’ll probably win their division and go to the playoffs and a couple of rounds in the playoffs but they aren’t going to win.” They don’t have the money to put the players around them. Who’s going to throw the ball? That’s a maybe. Look at what killed them in 2021, special teams. Had they picked up a couple of people that can play well on special teams, maybe they beat the Niners. Maybe get a coach that could coach it. How are you supposed to win when you can’t have good people in every position? It’s give and take. You spend all that money on him. Where’s the rest of the money going? What is funny is the hold Deshaun Watson thing. He’s getting $230 million. In 2023, his salary is $1,035,000 because he got a signing bonus and they made his first year low. If he does get suspended, they’re only going to take $50,000 instead of $5 million. The next year, it goes up. What’s the cap? It went up in 2022. That’s almost like 1/3 of the cap. No, it’s about 25%. That’s crazy. I like to go into social-emotional stuff with this. I give you two teams. The Patriots are not who the Patriots were. This fucks up the rest of the league. I’ll tell you why. You could be a me guy or a we guy. Most young guys start being me guys and then they turn in into we guys. When they turn in the we guys, there used to be a place that they could go to. It was New England. If you go to New England for a year, take $1 million and win a Super Bowl and then you’re out the door with your ring and career, you’re good. What you did with the Jets the first 20 years when you were taking $80 million a year doesn’t matter to you anymore. When it got to the end, you swallowed your pride. You went to that locker room out there in New England and you won so now you’re good. Now that there’s no New England to go to, it’s going to be bad for everybody. No, there’s the Rams. The Rams are trying to get you for the money. You’re getting paid out there with the Rams. You are not going out there for free. When you went to Bill Belichick, he told you on the way through the door, “I would invest in this and that because there is no money coming here.” If you talk slick to Bill Belichick, he will cut you. Before I go, I got to throw out a few things real quick. Baseball, MLB, which I love. In 2022, we’re going to have what they call the tiny rule. There’s the DH. When the pitcher comes out of the game, he isn’t got to leave the lineup. He can still hit. That’s dope. They can move into the DH and put another pitcher in. He’s probably the only guy in the league that can do that because he can hit. What we call the ghost runner second base dude goes off for another year. That’s awful. I hate that rule. I know what the MLB is doing in 2022, which is cool. They’re expanding the Roosters from the beginning of the season to May 2022 because there was a shortened camp. You could get a few more dudes in there and see what they have. It’s not a lot. It’s two players. For the most part, it’ll probably be two pitchers that you bring up to see what they can do. Doubleheaders will be 9 innings. Raphael Davis’ arbitration got $11.2 million. Hernández is out there with the Blue Jays. He got $10.65 million. I don’t know how the hell Vladimir is only getting $7.9 million. What year is this for Vladimir though? This is the arbitration year. In 2023, it is going to be all Donkey Kong. Know that Vlad is coming for his paycheck. The highest so far has been Josh Hader of the Brewers. He made $11 million in arbitration. Peter Manzo got $7.4 million. Castillo got $7.3 million. Shane Bieber $7.6 million. The Cleveland Guardians, when they said The Guardians, I was like, “That name sucks.” They could have gone somewhere else with that. They still got the Indian demon there for me so I don’t know why they did that. Trea Turner got $21 million with the Dodgers. Joey Gallo got $10.3 million in arbitration. Gabriel Torres got $6.2 million. What are you doing out there in Pittsburgh? You got no arbitration. You’ve seen the movie, Major League. When they come to spring training, he grabs the crew and goes, “Who are these guys?” “I don’t know but they’re still shitty.” The reason we don’t go to arbitration is that anybody worth a damn gets traded before the end of the year. We don’t have to worry about that. It’s Dan’s first day on the show. He said the most classics line, “Football season starts for me in May.” I asked, “Why May?” He says, “It’s because the Pirates are done in May.” No love for the Pirates. I love the Pirates. I hate the owner. If you don’t want to win, sell the team. The Pirates are playing in one of the most beautiful ballparks in the league. There’s no reason to be a triple-A ball club. That’s what they do. They develop players for other teams. I saw one of the preseason games. One of the Pirates was a two-run home run. I’m like, “What are you doing? You’re going to get traded. Stop. Strike out. Don’t be doing this shit yet.” That’s the problem with the game. It’s the whole thing. As a Pirate fan, this has got to be awful. You accidentally win a championship. It’ll mess up the league if they did because then everybody would be trying to win it with no money. Forget some money. We don’t spend any money. How much did you spend in 2022 in the salary cap? They don’t know where it’s supposed to pay them. They’re just here. Don’t worry about it. It’s awful. If you live in the city, you’re done. I look at the Rooster and I recognize five names on it from 2021. Who’s the manager for the Pirates in 2022? Derek Shelton. I have no idea who it is. Let me segue here to the National Basketball League before we get up out of here. I’m giving you the top 10. The Suns are still in the top 10. They’re 50 and 14. The Grizzlies are number two. They’re 49, 23. Miami Heat, 47 and 24. The Warriors Golden State, 47, 24. The Milwaukee Bucks hanging right in there, 44, 27. Utah Jazz, 45 and 26. Boston Celtics playing lights out, 44 and 28. The Minnesota Timberwolves are 42 and 30. 76ers, 43 and 27. They have cooled down since that trade. Dallas has been coming along. The Mavericks are 43-28. That rounds out our top 10. Denver, Cleveland, Toronto, Chicago and the Nets bring it up to fifteen. Can somebody tell the NBA to stop putting the Knicks and the Lakers on TV? We’ve already tried so it’s not going to happen. We need a whole new social media program for that. Get the algorithm going. I was going to say the Rangers won. We lost 7 to 4 to the doubles. The extra point is good. 7 to 4 is not supposed to happen. It’s going to touchdown on you on ice. Phil Mickelson will not be playing in the Masters that are coming up. I don’t know if Phil got an injury, mental health break or some of that stuff that he got caught in here when he said all that crazy stuff. We don’t know. We’ll see. Pray for Phil Mickelson. I’m not praying for any of those rich guys. This was a good spirit of the show. They’re always good. You guys are funny. D.A. yelled at me, “Get a book. Look it up.” You kids go get a book. If you’re around the D.A., you’re talking about, “What is that?” “Get a book. Look it up.” I’m tired of explaining the past because we are of the age and I’m not trying to be disrespectful to you kids when we had to do reports and get an encyclopedia. We couldn’t Google a thing. You would take an encyclopedia because it was holding up your bed so no one could go to sleep until you finished doing what you had to do with the encyclopedia. You put the encyclopedia back so people can go to bed. You write and give your paper in. If you get anything less than A, you get your ass kicked. I’m not trying to hear about, “When was the Big East? How did that happen?” Go look it up. These are true stories by the D.A. I remember D-Dubb and I go to the library and look up the Dewey Decimal System. Please go look it up. I don’t want to hear anything. Villanova against Georgetown championship game, look it up in four corners. We’re on all social media platforms. We’re on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Please like, click and subscribe. Shout-out to all the thousand subscribers and stuff like that. We trying to get a blue picture here. We want to keep rising to the top. We appreciate every one of you. We got some things coming up real quick. We’ll keep you guys informed of what we’re going to be doing. One of those things that we were going to be doing is being able to fill calls. We’ll have a segment where we’ll fill a couple of calls and see what you all feel. Ask your questions. Please inform us about your call and question. Trolls, we got time for you in the words of my man’s star. Bring it. That’s one of the surprises that we’re going to be bringing. We’re going to have some interaction with you and talk about what’s going on. We’re on every major podcast platform like Google, Apple Podcasts and iHeartRadio. Anything with a podcast, we are there. This is a great episode as always. We miss some of Mike Mills and The Angry One in his absence. We miss you, guys. Hopefully, we’ll get you on next time. Parting shots. I’m going to go to D.A. before he says anything else. I’m not a big church dude but my wife is in a car accident. She’s fine. I love her. That’s my best friend. I’m glad she’s good. She totaled the car two weeks after we paid the last note. I love you, baby. Love you, Miss Rhonda. We’re glad you’re well. I’m not laughing at your husband and you. Nope. Part of the reason why we’re on this show is because of Rhonda. She would say to us, “You guys are arguing about all this stuff all the time. Why don’t you all do something about it?” We did something about it. Now we are here. Dan, it’s always a pleasure. You’re my brother from another mother. Parting shots. What have you got for us? Great show. Good time. Lots of laughs. Be kind to each other. Thank you. Same to you. We’ll get up to Pittsburgh and talk to your owner. I hope so. Somebody got to talk to him. Dan is fitting in quite well as you can see. Sell to Cuban, please. He wanted to buy them. You’re the one in the World Series. D-Dubb, what have you got for us? Dan jinxed the Knicks and they are down. How did I jinx them? You’re right, they’re losing, 108-105. I don’t have anything too deep. Everybody, be good. Be safe. We’ll see you again soon. I don’t have anything too heavy. Be cool with everybody. Be kind. Do kind gestures. Respect your fellow That’s all. I miss our people, Mike Mills and James. Look for us. We’re trying to do some bigger and better things. We’ll give you the sports world. We talked about the gamut of stuff here. We going to stick to our word and we mean that. Hopefully, you spread the word. Like, click and subscribe. Join us on this journey because this journey’s going to get better in the verses of Spike Lee. Get a book and look it up. Read. Don’t make D.A. angry. Write a book report.

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