me? What's going on, everybody?
BT unleashed in the house on this snowy Monday.
A little fancy intro. J Rod, BT Unleash.
Can you hear me? Well, hopefully you guys can.
I know you can't. I like it.
J Rod, he told me there's more to come.
By the way, he's actually building out that song.
So hope everybody had a weekend, whatever you can make out of it.
Obviously, a ton of football. We'll get to it all.
We'll hammer in the comments here.
We'll go for about an hour and 15.
Got a couple of really good things for you.
Yeah. And the first thing, too, that I
find really interesting. Right.
So the Giants just went through this obviously with Horrible and
all the previous coaches they had before him, you know, The
Jets, which I'll get to much more extensively in a moment,
and their charade circus of, you know, procession of, of of head
coaches. We talked about these coaches
like if you get the right coach, if you get an elite coach right,
you're going to, you know, win, you're going to win big.
Well, the crazy thing is that yesterday, both 2 and I mean 2
Super Bowl winning coaches. So they've already proven that
they can crack through, had egregiously bad moments that
cost their teams probably a chance to get to the Super Bowl.
Certainly in like in the case of Sean Payton, you know it, you
could you first of all, you've got to know the weather is about
to really, really change, which you did, which I think is fun
for TV. It's fun to watch all this
nonsense like, well, you got to play these games in a Dome.
It's not fair. The other team had to deal with
it as well. It's called football.
That's called being outside. It's called elements.
I had no issue with that. But Sean Payton, they jump out
to A7-O lead with Stidham, which is amazing in itself.
Geez. And then they're, you know,
really short, tight red and 4th down and and they go forward and
instead of going for the three and obviously going up two
scores at that .10 zip against the young quarterback, albeit a
very, very good quarterback, Drake May, who eventually was
able to use his legs. You know, he goes a little
aggressively there, doesn't work out.
And instead of 10 zip and seven nothing, they lose by three
points. So Mass and and to Sean Payton's
credit, he owned it after the game.
But but and go Tony Romo, who I think is 1 hell of a really nice
guy, but God almighty, he is awful on these games.
He's terrible. The contrast between Brady and
Romo like Romo sounds, it's really tough to describe what
even sounds like anymore. It's just very strict.
The whole dynamic with Jim Nance, it's almost like they
trust each other. It's goofy, it's just a little
weird, whatever. But Romo's defense, he nailed it
like he was on a right. There's, I don't know about this
Jim, you got to go for it. He was right and they didn't get
it. And then you go to McVeigh here
now, different spot, different circumstance.
I think a bit of a different call given the moment because at
this point you down 4, there's about 6 minutes to go in the
fourth quarter. You go for it on 4th and four or
fourth and five. Stafford incomplete.
Now the thought is, and I myself, I was thinking field
goal. I know why McVeigh was doing
that number when you got Stafford #2 you know, Darnold
and the Seattle Seahawks offense was moving the football.
So if you take the three, you still down a point.
There's no guarantee that you stop them there.
So I, I understand the mechanics of the thought process, but it,
it just seemed like the more prudent play would have been
take the three, cut the deficit from 4:00 to 1:00, get a stop
and then obviously have a shorter field to go with
somebody who can bang at least a 50 yarder on turf and, you know,
win the game on a field goal. I I don't understand.
Well, I do because it's analytically driven.
I guess I should say I don't agree with this pension for just
leaning on numbers like sometimes these these great
coaches, Peyton champion, Sean McVay champion, who knows, I,
Mike Grable might do something in a couple of weeks that's a
breaches and a greach is blundering the Super Bowl.
Or Mike McDonald, who has been terrific as a young coach for
Seattle. He might do something where
we're like, wow, you just cost your team a chance to win the
Super Bowl. I'm not saying that they're
robots and that they should never make mistakes, but I feel
like too often, even best coaches, they fail to calculate
what they're watching. Like it's one thing to be
beholden to a statistic or a trend or some analytical
direction and advice because there's, I mean, matters number,
pardon me, numbers matter and, and I agree with that, But I, I
do think when there's something in front of you, you've got to
have the adaptability to change on the fly based on the Intel
that you have. Think about this too.
It's it's very similar to say, all right, say, say you have a
guy like say you have a guy like Dominguez who was not hit well
as a righty. He's done pretty well as as a
lefty hitter. And obviously they've got to
sort that out for the Yankees, right?
And maybe he gets it at that. Maybe he's in the middle of a
nice three-week run where he's hitting 290 is a lefty and maybe
a game or two. We actually, you know, he's in
the game and they bring it a lefty and he's got to hit righty
and he shows a little penchant. OK finds his righty stroke.
Well, what's the smart thing? You know, are you going to then
bench him against a tough lefty because he hasn't shown a great
ability in terms of a big like a big swath, a broad swath here to
to hit right-handed? Or you going to react to this
little three-week binge where he's feeling himself and he's
hot and the numbers are backing that up and your eyes telling
you that maybe he's turning the corner and maybe he's able to do
something righty that you didn't think that he was able to do
based on the small amount of evidence he's giving you so far.
Like, that's what I mean. I don't, I don't even know if
that's the greatest example. But like, there's too many
coaches that just react to, you know, the the broad, the broad
direction, the broad numbers. Well, you know, sometimes you
got to cut through that and you've got to know now whether
it's my quarterback, whether it's my defense, whether it's
the weather, whether it's the officiating, whatever it might
be. And I thought both coaches,
which is absolutely, colossally messed up.
And it's amazing too, right? Think about this.
I want to debunk an NFL narrative here.
All right? And then we'll get to Darnold.
We'll get to The Jets. We'll get to Aaron and Glenn.
Oh boy, wow. Think about the two coaches who
are coaching in the Super Bowl here.
All right, Mike Vrabel is a former player and a defensive 1.
And obviously McDonald is a is a is formerly A coordinator couple
of years with the Ravens, former defensive coordinator for Jim
Harbaugh at the at the University of Michigan.
And we know that his background is obviously rooted in defense.
And if you think, and this really applies to The Jets, I've
heard this a lot. And not just The Jets, but I, I,
the noise is louder with The Jets, as you can imagine, right?
You hear this a lot when the team's looking for a new coach,
you got to find that young hot assistant, that young offensive
minded assistant coach. And then, you know, ideally you
find that that young offensive assistant to pair with that,
that young top five drafted quarterback and you marry them
together and boom, you go and win.
Well, it's funny because Rabel's defense, McDonald's defense,
Donald's a transient nomadic, He's got a nomadic NFL existence
who's bounced around team to team to team to team.
And you know, Drake Mays is the one component.
So the four components, the two coach the and the two
quarterbacks, one of the four, 25% actually fits the model that
most of you and by the way, to an extent me on occasion
subscribe to. So it's not really rooted in
reality. It's rooted largely in
perception. Now, the numbers are a little
different and the names and the backgrounds a little different
in the AFC. So check this out.
You go to the AFC, right? And I'm looking at the seven
playoff teams in the AFC. Why are these things fogged up
and the, and I'm going to go to the seven teams in the NFC very
quickly, right? There's a a much bigger
disparity in the AFC favoring offensive background coaches.
But it does go to show you that a lot of the things that that
you hear and are kind of pre programmed and rotely stated
without giving much thought isn't necessarily true.
Which is why I always, I always encourage you to be an
independent thinker, not just take what's force fed to you,
whether it's sports, whether it's politics, whatever.
Learn to think for yourself because a lot of the stuff they
tell you is bullshit. All right, AFC, right.
When I say that, I mean everybody.
Broncos offense, Peyton got it. We know about Rabel defense,
Pats, Liam Cohen did a great job with the Jaguars resuscitating,
you know, a young quarterback who was a little all over the
map. Trevor Lawrence, offensive
background. Obviously, now the Steelers made
the change here. Mike Tomlin, defensive
background. D'amico Ryan's three straight
playoff appearances. If his quarterback was well, now
you want to make the case that maybe if he had an offensive
coach, the quarterback would be better.
But that's three straight really good years.
That Texans defense, not the Broncos, the best in football.
D'amico Ryan's defense, I know he was just fired.
All right, McDermott defense and then the Chargers horrible
former NFL quarterback. So in the AFC, the seven playoff
teams, you got offense, defense, offense, defense, defense,
defense, offense. Interesting.
Now the NFC is very different. Seven teams, one has an offense
or defensive background. That's the guy who's going to
the Super Bowl because you look at Ben Johnson and what he did
for Caleb Williams, great hire Bears offense.
You look at the Eagles, I know they've been a mess, you know,
very erratic in terms what they put up.
But Super Bowl champions, say what you will about Sirianni,
offensive background, Panthers, Dave Canales, really good young
coach offense, McVeigh offense, obviously Shanahan offense and
for the Green Bay Packers offense.
So you know what, what does it mean?
I mean, maybe a little circumstantial, whatever.
You know, maybe if McVeigh plays it a little differently, maybe
we don't have two defensive coaches in the Super Bowl, as I
talked about. I think some of the mistakes
that both coaches made yesterday, you know, maybe maybe
if they if McVeigh coaches a better game, it it it isn't
quite, you know, what we have here, but it is what we have
here. So anything that you know, has
been told to you and you have pretty much just, you know,
taken, you know, chapter and verse, not necessarily true.
Now, let me just get something off my chest here with Sam
Darnold. First of all, the yo yos out
there, the oversimplification of some of these Sam Darnold jet
takes. I mean, I tell you, there are so
many people out there that just really don't know what they're
talking about. Like they just lack creativity,
they lack substance, they lack intelligence, they lack depth.
The amount of dumb tweets out there.
Oh, let me tweet this and they look how witty I am.
Look what I'm going to put out there and I read this stuff and
I'm like not even remotely funny.
Like and I'll give you one of the things that's the problem.
I got 2 pairs of glasses and one of them that's the right one.
The other one is a little, a little bent and a little brand
new. It wasn't feeling feeling right
going on the Dome. Anyway.
Everybody thinks they're a stand up comic, Sam Donald.
The other Jets ruin them. So the easy thing to do with Sam
Darnold, by the way, who I am so happy for and played such an
amazing game, man, Sam Darnold was phenomenal.
And if you've ever had that oblique or that intercostal or
that RIP strain, I mean, you listen to the pregame stuff.
I mean, he wasn't even throwing shots down field in practice.
I mean, this guy's been basically rehabbing who knows
how many needles he took to numb the pain.
Like that is a very invasive, you know, very tough thing to
everything. Think about it, everything that
you do in terms of throwing, I don't know what side it's on,
but it really doesn't matter. We're trying to escape the
pressure. You just, it's a quick turn.
Like that is not fun to deal with.
I remember that happened to me playing golf years ago, right?
One of my many injuries, which I won't bore you with, but took a
swing. I'm like, I didn't.
I didn't really feel right. What had happened was that I was
playing quick little Side Story was playing lefty because that's
what I play. It was a lefty batter in in in
baseball and I didn't start playing golf until after
college. So naturally I grab a club and I
start playing lefty. Anyway, after about 3 or 4 years
I'm playing whatever could hit it off the T, but a mess
someday. 80, eights, 89 some days 90 sevens all over the map.
Nothing, Nothing really good, but I could hit it pretty far.
So I take a swing of my my my back's not feeling right.
I wind up having back surgery. But in my crazy competitive mind
back then, I'm saying, well, maybe if I try to play, this is
true story. Maybe if I try to play right,
right golf right-handed, the way the vertebrae stacked and the
pain, maybe it won't hurt as much.
So anyway, I start playing golf righty out of nowhere.
Literally out of nowhere. And because I wasn't used to the
swing and I'm still swinging like a maniac, I'm in my early
30s. I basically tear my intercostal
muscle right. And I remember driving into work
going over speed bumps and it felt like somebody was plunging
a knife into my basically right below my heart.
That's how much that injury hurt.
So for Sam to go out there and you know me, I'm just trying not
to Shank a ball on the tee in front of everybody.
This guy's trying to elude the fenders and, you know, spin it
in there between a linebacker to safety and get his team to the
Super Bowl. Massive balls by Sam Darnold.
My God. So I am incredibly happy for Sam
Darnold. I think he's an awesome human
being. I think he's I always knew he
had talent. You knew it.
You knew that Darnold had talent.
The first game that you watched him as a Jet and he knew that he
had stones. The first game that you watched
him as a jet because the first play that he ever made, first
play from scrimmage Monday night.
Remember, they do the two games on Monday night.
Monday night, Ford Field, Jets, Lions pick six.
I'm like, what got my my son who was at that point was 1 1/2.
I don't know whatever he was sitting on.
I'm like, Dad, don't look, buddy, we got our next
quarterback here. Yeah, This is the guy that's
going to win you the Super Bowl. This is the guy that's going to
give you everything that daddy hasn't had in his lifetime.
First play of the game, pick 6. But then look at the look at the
the box score. Look what he did after that.
He had a great game and he actually had a pretty good
rookie year. And he showed some visible signs
even that last game out in Buffalo.
There's one play, like I think it's late in the game.
He just runs around. Like I think he ran 47 yards
combined, like moving left to right.
And he finds somebody out, maybe Jeremy Kerley, wherever the hell
it was. So you knew that he had talent,
all right. And I think you knew that he was
like emotionally reliable and he wasn't soft and he wasn't like a
diva. He wasn't into the wrong stuff.
He was a football player that if he got in the right spot, he
would have a chance to be to be good.
I mean maybe not like this, not saying I thought that, but he
could at least be functional and with the right coaching and all
the other stuff better than that and maybe like a top 15 ish
quarterback more towards 15 obviously than 10.
Well, if you want to beg on The Jets with those witty tweets
about all this is The Jets and the only The Jets could ruin the
San Darnell. Don't you think somebody like
Carolina or San Francisco and especially Minnesota has got to
take more of a dent for this than the New York Jets?
I mean, what are the reasons why The Jets had to move on from San
Not well shouldn't say had to elected to move on from Sam
Darnold was because of the contract.
When you draft somebody as they drafted him third overall, you
got a big, big, big rookie contract and then that fifth
year option which you either exercise or you don't.
And once you do that, you're going to have to give him big
money. But if you don't think he's the
right guy, why would you do it? Really?
Why would you do it? So I understood it at that
point. I did.
So not that I fully exonerate The Jets, of course.
If The Jets have this offensive line for Sam Darnold or if The
Jets had Garrett Wilson for Sam Darnold, I promise you Sam
Darnold would have been a little bit better and Sam Toner
probably still have The Jets. But he went to Carolina.
He sat for the most part, he went to San Francisco.
It was a mental, you know, revival, mental rehabilitation
and exercising of all the demons that plagued him from his first
spot with the dysfunctional loser Jets.
But really, the team that's got to get smacked around here is
Minnesota. I mean, he won 13 games with
Minnesota. He threw 35 touchdowns with
Minnesota. They willingly elected to say,
Nah, we good go in a different direction when let's see 892 win
5 fewer games and their four quarterbacks that actually took
snaps this year, not 1234 quarterbacks had 18 touchdowns,
which is almost half of what the guy had that they told to leave,
what he did for team that you know.
Oh, yeah. By the way, is in the same
conference. So I get it.
It's an easy narrative. The Jets mess everything up.
The Jets are a joke. Yeah, The Jets, that's our joke.
This is one thing that's not funny to me, and this is one
thing that is not really, at least for me, I'm not going to
leave at their doorstep. The Carolina Panthers had him in
the building, had a had a chat him on, basically no money.
I mean, just no, whatever. And then the Niners had him on
low muddy and the Vikings had him on low muddy, you know.
So I just think it misses the mark.
I think it's easy, but I also think it's very lazy.
I don't think it's very funny. Now, if you want to get on The
Jets, there's obviously a lot to get on The Jets.
About what? What an absolute clown show.
I swear to God. I have tried my best to stay
positive with this team. I really have not.
Not like positively or or positivity where it it's just
not applicable at all. Like I'm not going to be
delusional and say things are good when they're awful.
That's never going to be me. But I'm also not going to be the
guy, as I've chronicled many times, hence the whole
unkillable speech. I'm thinking that was born out
of never going to die, never going to give up, never going to
say, all right, hey, I did. I'm done here.
Just take me away, Jets. They'll never do it.
Like I just don't subscribe to that.
That is a loser mindset. That is somebody that just walks
around predisposed to thinking that nothing favorable can come
their way. And that's not me.
That's not now to be rooted in, you know, head in the sky
positivity. That's not the right way to go
through life either. Somewhere between, right, you
know, react to what you see when it's bad, say it when it's good.
Say it. When it's somewhat positive, say
it. When it's egregiously bad, yell
it and scream it. All good, all good.
But as much as I try to give these losers the benefit of the
doubt, you just can't because every time they do something,
it's Dumber and more stupid than it was the previous time they
did something dumb and stupid. And here we are.
So The Jets over the weekend, right?
They basically fired everybody except the head coach.
So they bring in Aaron Glenn and nobody really knows the extent.
I believe it was strongly rooted in Woody.
I can't quite prove it. I've heard that, but I can't
fully prove it. But I have heard that from
people that I do trust whatever that Woody's hand was very heavy
and getting Aaron Rodgers out of the building.
All right now I believe also that Aaron Glen subscribe to
that. To what extent I don't know, but
I think he wanted to start over, which by the way, I I kind of
understood like where you going? Like even if you had a 10 win
season with a 41 year old, that a 42 year old Aaron Aaron
Rodgers like you just going to be back to square one in year 2.
So which by the way, think about what happened to Brian Dabel.
Brian Dabel's first year with the Giants was really good.
They won nine games. They won a road playoff game.
Daniel Jones gets the money and Jess Aquan with a big year and
all this stuff. And then it gets progressively
worse and worse and worse. And I remember saying with Sal,
we talked about this a lot on the fan.
Like, you know, man, maybe it would have been a little
different if he came out and he was like three wins or four wins
and incrementally get to 6 and 7:00 to 9:00.
And then eventually you have a full roster, you know, your
fingerprints all over the franchise.
Well, now it's different. And maybe that was Aaron Glenn's
philosophy. And by the way, it's not, it's
not really a bad one. It's really, I get that like
when you're that bad for that long, it's not going to be a
Band-Aid. It's not going to be some stick
em or spit or glue or rubber. And let's take the Wrecking Ball
kind of like the Mets did to their core.
Let's start over. Let's build up a foundation
rooted in offensive line play, running the ball, discipline,
culture, etcetera. So, you know, Macro Lee, if that
if, if you will, speaking, I, I agree with it.
OK. But that doesn't mean that we
can't go back. And, you know, look at some of
the things that he didn't say. I may have agreed it with it in
real time, but it doesn't mean that he was right now.
I did not like the Steve Wilkes hire for a minute one.
Find it, look it up. I don't know anybody that did.
That's the greater challenge. Find somebody that lauded the
Steve Wilkes hiring. Did anybody find that?
Nobody, Right. He's the 1st to go.
And it was a big hireright big hire.
And it was an unmitigated F. It was a flat out, straight up
failure of the highest order. A truck as bad as it gets right
now, you got to find the DC. But then over the weekend, now
everybody else is out. All right, so since Wilkes was
shown the door, now you got to find a quarterback coach.
You got to find a passing game coordinator, you got to find AD
line coach, a linebacker's coach, 2 defensive assistants,
whatever the hell that means, and an assistant to the
defensive backs. So you basically got to retool
the entire coaching staff. Who knows what Angstrand's role
is going to be? It might be a little different.
OK, so I don't understand what they're thinking here.
And I am somebody who got on, whether it was the fan when I
was still there or the early like Unkillable doing the Sunday
postgame reactions. I'm getting on the air in the
same office saying I'm going to bring back Aaron Glenn for
second year. I'm going to run him back
because they had just they had no talent.
I mean, their backups were starters.
They're taxi players who they should have been on the taxi
squad and originally were were backups and then based on
injuries, forced into starting roles in too many spots.
Like, what do you expect? You got an undrafted
quarterback. You got nothing.
Garrett Wilson hasn't played in seven weeks.
What are we doing? How can you judge somebody who's
got no weapons around him? So I was trying to be fair to
Aaron Glenn. But now all this and now the
tweets and the tech start coming in AG EJ Bertle 2.
The bigger joke about The Jets was we all thought that Joe
Douglas was a genius because of that one trade.
Yeah. I mean, listen, Joe did some
really good things. I appreciate the text there.
Thank you. Joe drafted a couple of good
players. If Joe would hit on the
quarterback, Joe would have been a phenomenal general manager.
I mean, Joe actually did a lot more right than he didn't.
Now I think that Muji is going to be very good as I've said, so
I'm not just going to turn this into like 1 sweeping demolition
of The Jets. I like the general manager.
I do, I like their offensive line.
I I know they've got a bookend on the left side in fashion.
Oh, they got a bookend on the right side and Armand Membu,
like they have made some picks there.
They got a #1 receiver. They got a young interesting
tight end. Like they got a couple pieces.
They got two first round picks this year, 3 next year, boatload
a second round. There's $73 million in cap
space. I'm not just going to again,
take the lazy train and just shit all over The Jets because
it's easy to do. What I'm telling you is I'm
absolutely confused by the inconsistency of this.
And This is why The Jets this right?
This not because they're cursed, not because Joe named it said
we're going to win. None of that.
The reason why The Jets are The Jets is because their owner is
clueless and an idiot pertaining to football stuff.
And he allows he allows the people that he hires to do dumb
things over and over. Now you look at Robert Kraft.
What does Robert Kraft do right? Well, first of all, he creates a
dynasty number one. And then, you know, as dynasties
Peter out, ask the Yankees from the mid 90s forward dynasties.
Obviously, you know, they go away, whether it's the Celtics
back of the day or Toronto Maple leaves or the Canadians back
then, whatever. But Lakers of the 80s dynasties
always die. They elevate, they ascend, then
they just dominate, then they die.
It's it's called the world, right?
The cycle, the cycle of dynasties, the cycle of life.
But the Patriots, they hire somebody Mayo, they give them a
chance, all right, They look right away.
They're like, Nope, not it. And behind the scenes as Rabel's
using The Jets for leverage, pretending he's interesting in
the interest in The Jets job, which I wanted Rabel.
Now I was OK with Aaron Glenn and he was on my list.
Mike Rabel was the guy. Go look it up.
That's the guy that I shouted about.
I wanted Rabel because you win 11 games with Ryan Tannehill.
You could come coach my team any, any day of the week.
I'll take you any day, right? So the Patriots can transfer
them to The Jets. They evaluate after one year,
they say now this is untenable for our standards, you are gone.
But before they do that, and you know how this works, cuz you got
to have connections. Connections in life are a good
thing. Whether it's business, football,
anything, you need connections. And Woody's got none.
And to me, that's the ultimate issue.
I'll get back to him in a minute.
But Robert Kraft pivots and is able to gather information.
Get us. Hey, Mike, you want to you know,
would you want to come back here and coach, I'm not saying like
nobody's told me that. That's common sense.
That's how you do it. It's how smart people operate,
right. So they get the answer before
they fire Mayo. Hey, Mike, if we if we fire, if
we move on from from Mayo, you coming like we can't be holding
the bag here firing this guy. You going to The Jets and us not
really knowing what to do. So that was all done and that
was all unlocked before they actually fired Mayo and
introduced Mike Brabel, step one.
Now look at him two years later after back-to-back miserable
seasons, going to the Super Bowl.
Where is The Jets? The New York Jets have an awful
season. Matter of fact, the worst month
in terms of point differential disparity in the history of the
NFL, not the history of The Jets.
Like when you talk about the history of The Jets, that's
generally bad enough. Anything outside of Joel Namath
that's referenced about The Jets is not good.
So that's not a statistic guys, that illustrates how bad The
Jets have been based on the vadnais of The Jets.
That is a statistic that illuminates and further
illustrates how bad The Jets were in December against every
other team in every other season in every month in the history of
the NFL. Not just The Jets stat, that's
an NFL stat. Think about that.
So contrast that to what crafted and now look at what he did.
Yeah, that would go alright, we'll give another shot, which I
was OK with, as I said, because of the circumstances.
Now he had a bad year, but I wanted like the the recycling in
the constant. You know, you're gone, you're
gone, you're gone. There's no stability, no
culture. Like if you're going to talk
about culture in a non nebulous term, like, oh, you know, I was
sitting at a yes, it is who had a press conference.
Welcome to the Welcome to The Jets head coach press
conference. Now we are after culture.
Like, you know, all these people who have the word culture and
like, yeah, like it's just I culture.
You know it when you have it, you know when you don't, right?
But the the chance for culture to root and then actually
prosper is basically non existent.
When you keep whacking people, you just you can't do it, right.
It's the same like same. I'll give you an example, same
with radio, right? You have a team that you think
two people that you think could be good together.
And you know after six, 7-8 months and I actually think me
and Sal are pretty good example of this.
Because if you look at our last year together versus our first
year, it, I would say it was night and day because I think
they were really good moments in the first year as well.
But like year 2 just took off and just became an incredible
show, just a very different great show.
They were great moments the first year, but there were
things that we were working through and figuring out.
It's called real life, right? So, you know, if you don't give
something a chance to prosper and to go through some growing
pains, I'm not a big fan of that unless it's just untenable.
Like if it's on immediately untenable, like if somebody has
no professionalism, if they're always late to work, if they
don't show up, if they don't do their homework, whatever it
might be pertaining to whatever craft it might be, then that's
different. Like, not that you are now
poisoning the building. You have to go now.
You gots to go now You can't leave.
Now you must leave. You know, to reverse the quote
in the movie right now, you can't leave a great soundtrack
to just comes in, closes the door, click, we got trouble
here. Those bikers get their face
kicked in. So I just don't understand how
the New York Jets are an appealing destination at all.
And I really want to know how the revamping of the coach, even
if it's Wayne, whatever you know it's going, it's going to be AI.
Guess it's going to be a decent name.
But for at least for the defense coordinator.
How are you supposed to attract quality coaches when Aaron
Glenn, if he has one bad game in Week 1, his flame, his seat will
erupt in flames immediately. That's the problem at 15 years,
Jay, we're we're so doomed with Glenn.
Football's basically dead. If you're a Jets fan, McDermott
sitting out there waiting now. All right, I get that.
Appreciate it. But I don't think that you're
doomed with Glenn. I think you're doomed with
Woody. What is the problem?
Like it all funnels uphill, you know what I mean?
It really all funnels uphill. So we could talk here and we can
think about, you know, whether it's a Darnell, whether it's a
Geno before that to a lesser extent, you know, whether it's a
Joe Douglas, maybe it's a Robert Sala, you know, 2 point O watch.
He'll probably be better than he was with The Jets.
You can almost book that. So to me it's not an Aaron Glenn
problem. Now he might not have the
shoulders that are broad enough to actually work around that
looming figure of losing that Woody Johnson is forever and has
been until dispelled like Woody Johnson is an owner is a loser
period. Like that's I'm not trying to be
mean. That's not personal as an owner,
he is a loser literally based on his record loser and as bad
about as big a loser record wise as you could possibly be in the
NFL. Now, what you can do is you
could scream about coaches and GM getting fired at or retained
or whatever. You could and, and there might
be change. Sometimes teams react to that
noise. Owners don't react to you
banging the the door down for them to, you know, sell the
team. So I don't really waste a whole
lot of energy on Woody except to say he's awful.
And as long as he's here, I believe any success that The
Jets have will be #1 intermittent, cuz you'll get in
the way of any success early. And I think it will be kind of
by accident and like good fortune, you know, I don't I
don't know that The Jets I don't think that The Jets will unless
Mooji is even better than I think.
And that that's possible. Like, you know, if if he just
does something that is completely unexpected and
maneuvers somehow the draft and uncovers a quarterback or maybe
it's Ty Simpson, whatever at whatever pick, or maybe he uses
a second round pick, maybe not even the Colts pick, but maybe
he does something that changes the fortunes of The Jets.
All right, I'm going to leave the door open for that because I
believe in his a valid is evaluating talents and I believe
in some of the moves he's made already.
He's been bold, he's been proactive, he's shown a a nice
sense of, of modern, I get modern adaptability and and
modern aggressiveness in the NFL.
Like he's a younger GM who's willing to deal and not just
sitting around while I've got the I've got the, you know,
second pick and I've got the 16th pick and nothing else I
could do. No going to go out there and
look at everything and see who I like and if there's something
out there that is very, very bold and some might not be
willing to do, but I believe it's best for this team.
We're doing it, you know, so I don't understand what I do.
But this is not the problem here with The Jets.
Like, how are you supposed to attract good coaches?
And I just said this before, but I need to get back to this
because this is the reality of where The Jets are.
The coaches. Yeah, you'll have a coaching
staff. What good coach?
What credible coach is going to willingly say?
Meaning when I say willingly, meaning you've got other
options. And if you're a good coach and
you're a credible coach, you got options.
Like The Jets aren't the only team that's calling, but why in
the world are you going to hit your wagon to that circus where
let's say The Jets lose Week 137 to 1040 to 13 that day, Week 1
hot seat already. He's on the hot seat.
And when I say hot seat, I mean flames to the ceiling Week 1 and
you're going to say, yeah, that's a place and I'm going to
go willingly work when I could go here and work maybe a lesser
role, maybe 5070 thousand bucks less, maybe $100,000 less,
whatever the pit might be more, whatever.
But I'm going to go to the do a healthy building with a
reputable coach and say if I'm on the offensive side of the
ball with a young quarterback that I can help.
Or if you're defensive background, you know, with a
good pass rush, maybe a good cover corner, with a good
linebacker that you know that you can mold, you're going to go
to The Jets. You're going to opt for that.
When you have options. No, when you don't have options,
you are. But people who are desired
generally have options. Generally, especially in the
coaching ranks when there's so many different positions, you
can create a position consultant.
Think about what Rabel did. Mike Rabel did it last year when
he was fired. So it's it's very depressing and
it's depressing for the wrong reasons.
Not that The Jets are cursed and they'll never win because of Joe
Name. It's guarantee that it's
depressing and it seems hopeless because the owner is lost.
No vision, no connections, no authority, no clue.
He's awful. He's awful.
That's what's going on with The Jets.
I mean, I'm happy for Sam Darnold.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting a little
softer as I get a little bit older.
I think he's an awesome young man.
What the hell did Sam Darnold do to US?
Well, I'm going to root against Sam Darnold.
Yeah, I'm going to root for the Patriots.
Go get them pets. Yeah, I'm going to root against
the guy who was drafted by The Jets, who I really like the
night that they drafted him and I really liked for the first
year or so. I'm going to turn on the kid
because and and I'm going to root for the Pats.
I can't remain agnostic. You can't hope that nobody wins.
Somebody's going to win the Super Bowl.
Let's go, Seattle. Let's go, Sammy.
All right. At TRIPWIRE 5590.
Let's see here. I can't help but feel The Jets
are doomed, especially when you see these other teams hiring new
coaches and The Jets are stuck with Aaron Glenn.
Well, they're not stuck with Aaron Glenn.
They are electing to remain married to Aaron Glenn because
what you could easily do. I know it's a little late in the
cycle, but this is what I mean. If The Jets like if Woody, if
Woody had NFL connections, right?
Think about. And I hate to do this because it
just further illuminates how lost and said the team that I
inexplicably all those years ago decided to root for.
Like a loser, like an idiot. I wish I was a Giants fan, but
the Giants have had this horrendous run.
But when it was time to bunker together, what happened?
They coalesced, right? John Mara, Chris Mara, Tish, Eli
Coughlin, even Dabel, the guy that you fired.
You think Robert Sala would say anything nice about the New York
Jets? You think he would?
Would you? So they coalesce and as a unit,
as a force, as a central force in the NFL, like a figure that
was always respected big time, the brand was diminished.
But God, Eli, not to mention Gifford annoyed.
Why a Titto? Come on, man.
Parcells, Coughlin, Eli or Strahan Banks, you name it, do
what was Phil do this all day, all day, right, Hostetler
stepping in and winning a Super Bowl.
What do you got for The Jets? What do you what do you have?
They got your name it. And that's pretty much it.
So when it's time for The Jets to coalesce and to get out their
big guns and line them up to try to do something big and
something that will ultimately change the like the direction
and the trajectory of the team. Who the Hell's Coleman to speak
on the virtues of The Jets? Vinnie Testaverde.
I love Vinnie. Vinnie's going to call.
He's played for 9 teams. You know, Adam Gase.
Maybe Adam Gase could pick up the phone the hell out of here.
So they're not doomed because of Aaron Glenn.
They're doomed because the owner, unfortunately, is
incredibly wealthy, and that wealth enabled him to permeate
the NFL family. But his inability to understand
anything about, I don't mean third and seven blitzes, I'm
about constructing a healthy building.
Is 00. Woody Johnson?
No clue. None.
So if I thought that Woody Johnson could make a call and
have a conversation with Sean McDermott.
Hey, Sean, listen, we weren't going to do this.
We didn't know if he would get fired.
What do you think about coming? And if Sean said I'm interested,
I want to come and fix you guys. You fire Aaron Glenn today, you
fire him right now. But that dope won't do that.
He's not even thinking about doing that.
Instead, he is allowing somebody who won three games and whose
team was inept 95% of the season, 90% of the season firing
all the coaches he willingly brought in one year ago.
You can't make this up, man. You really can't at keep it
simple. RCBTI.
Remember when Leon has made Pete Carroll A1 and done coach?
Yeah, probably because of the fake spike that was 94.
So so he went in the Iron Coat site.
History is not in our favor. Making guys one and done well.
I don't lean on that. That's an interesting historical
reference. I appreciate that too.
That was ironically Aaron Glenn getting burned on the fake
spike. That was Boomers team.
That was Pete's first year. Jets were really good and then
they went winless in December and I think it was O15.
I don't even think it was O 14. I'm pretty sure they were O15.
They were a lot to be a playoff team.
I thought that team was good and then lost, lost, lost, lost,
lost. They're out.
Carol's gone. Yep, that was 94.
And then Kotide comes in and Rich goes 3 and 13.
So the regression continues. And then the next year they go 1
and 15. And then Parcells comes in nine
and 7:12 and 4:00 AFC Championship.
And think about the staff that think about the staff that Bill
Parcells brought in. Think about the staff.
I think Belichick was there, Weiss.
I mean, think about some of the names on that staff.
And now think about some of the names, some of the scraps that
Aaron Glenn is looking through now to try to save his job and
to resuscitate a franchise. You know, it's like this is so
you guys ever get the like the rotisserie chickens right from
the supermarket? Well, I don't know.
For some reason, like my wife has this aversion, like even
when she gets steak any like veal, she can't eat anything on
the bone. But she's from Texas.
I mean, I don't care how big the bone is.
I'm eating it. So it's my job when she gets it
and I'll buy it sometimes as well.
But it's my job to take all of the meat off of the chicken, the
chicken off of the bone, right? And I put it in a little
separate pots. The kids could eat it, whatever.
Now as I'm doing that, I'm also eating, I'm also eating some of
the good juicy stuff because when you get it, it's still a
little bit warm because it's got the, the, the lamp on it.
And there comes a point invariably when you get down to
the core skeleton of the chicken, right?
And there's not, not a whole lot to eat.
And you got a nice big bowl of of of chicken for the house.
And then you're like, I'm still hungry.
I'm like, you trying to like whittle away a little Is that is
that meat F bone skin? Throw it out and you get very
little, little teeny tiny pieces of meat.
But you're looking hard. It's like he's like a scavenger,
right? That's what he's looking.
That's that's what he's trying to do with his coaching reboot.
I mean, how is this going to work out?
And without a quarterback and let's listen, whether it's Malik
Willis and we've already talked a little bit about the
quarterback options for The Jets and we'll do it more extensively
getting into the draft and all that stuff.
Not necessarily today, but like, does anybody think that The Jets
are going to just transform themselves into a 10 or 11 win
team next year? Now, I'm not saying that they
they can't be a lot more competitive with a couple of
good draft picks here. I think they could be because
the old line is good and at least you get a chance to be a
functional offense. And if the defense is a little
bit better with some of those picks and free agency, yeah, I I
do think that The Jets could take a nice step in the
competitive direction. But until that happens, man, I
I, I, I, I, I don't, I don't know how we avoid catastrophe in
the first month of September if it doesn't go well immediately
for Aaron Glenn coming up this season, 2026.
I mean, again, if they lose ugly in Week 1, it's on.
It's already on. I am in the I'm in and I'm like,
my faith is dwindling by the moment with the staff stuff.
But while I was never all in on bringing Aaron Glenn back, I
certainly need more just to give him a chance.
I do think he's a good football man.
I do think he's a leader of men. And I want to give that a chance
to root, as I've said a couple of times here.
But this is just so disheartening because now it's
like, man, oh man. You look at what works in the
NFL and let's face it, what The Jets are doing, what The Jets
from the process of doing is completely counter to what
generally works in the NFL. It's absolutely nuts here.
What's this all about? This was about, I don't think
you just dropped one in there as well, but keep it simple.
I see AG bringing in right to mentor Engstrat.
All right, Yeah, I mean, I've seen that a little bit as well,
we'll say. So you think you think you're
making the firing of their since it's a big deal that it needs to
be? No, I don't think so because
what it does, I appreciate the text there, but I don't think it
changes my point at all. But I think it only reinforces
it. I'm not saying that you can't
get a good option out there, but although I do think that the
percentages decrease dramatically when you have a
coach going into Year 2 on a hot seat, as hot as anybody.
Just go to, you know, go to go to any website, Google any
engine and type in coaches on the hot seat entering next
season. Who's hotter than Eric Glenn?
Who? So the fact that, you know, he
already constructed a poor staff year 10 for one, in terms of the
record. Oh, for one, in terms of really
did he cleaned it up a little bit at the back end, but
certainly the first couple of months was a mess dealing with
the media, which is a big part of the job here.
Dabel always kind of kept his his wits about him there, even
when things were going wrong. Dabel never sweat Dabel never
chirp back. Really Dabel, I thought
presented himself in a way that I know he was burdened inside
because he's a competitive guy, but he didn't let the media see
that. Whereas you know you, you had
the antagonistic approach by Aaron Glenn, which is good if if
you're winning and when you're not, when you get in smoked as
as he was in the second-half, it comes across as very hollow and
very feeble. So he didn't hire the right
staff. He didn't win and he didn't
really deal with the media very well.
So what did he do? Well, I mean, it's a very short
list. He really didn't do much.
A special teams was very good. There were fewer penalties, you
know, not an incredible amount, but you got to start somewhere.
And and I do appreciate that. And I don't just gloss over that
or ignore that like some people do.
Is they just bury Aaron A-Z. I'm not saying that.
And when The Jets, you know, when they entered the season,
they were ready to play football, which tells me they
had a pretty good training camp because they should have beat
the Steelers early. You know, really outside of the
Bills in the Dallas game, The Jets were incredibly competitive
up until really after the Browns game.
So well. So they win before the yeah,
they win. Before the bye, they win after
the buy and that's where things really start to implode.
But that's where the injuries and the trades with Q and sauce.
So I, I just try to be fair and react to you know what he's
trying to coach and weigh it all the good, the bad, the stuff
that I'm not really sure about and put it in a blender and hit
a button and see what comes out and what comes out as a hot
mess. Because right now you're now
asking him to go and hire people.
I, I just don't know why they would want to.
Why do you want to work for this guy?
I, I, I don't know, you might love Aaron Glenn, but how do you
believe in him? It's a stable situation, you say
if you live in Chicago or out West or Indiana or down South,
you're going to move your whole family to Florham Park to coach
for Aaron Glenn's Jets. That instability, I'm going to
pass. I'll do a little TV for a year
or I'll be a consultant and I'll go somewhere I've got a chance
to stick at Land Corleone. Thank you for that, buddy.
What's going on? All right, How long is the Aaron
Glenn timeline if he doesn't win in 2026 to give him a new
quarterback if he might not be here in 2027?
Well, listen, first of all, thank you for that.
Appreciate you hopping in there, Don Good stuff.
I would think that anything that The Jets do from a quarterback
point of view would be with the intention of finding the right
guy independent of who the head coach is.
Like you're and I think this is pretty basic stuff.
You're not looking at the at The Jets quarterback possibilities
and saying, well, this guy looks like somebody who can flourish
on their Aaron Glenn. I don't even know what that
means. I mean the the offense or what
is it? So you're just looking for
somebody who's Got Talent and you're looking for somebody like
Drake May who you know, a new coach comes in.
Yep, I want to work with that guy.
Yep, that guy's good. Yep, I can win with that dude.
Yep, your job as a so that's number one, so it's not
dependent upon Aaron Glenn and what's the timeline if he
doesn't win? Thank you, J Rod, you can get
that down. Thank you very much, buddy.
What's the time look at J Rod on top of it, my man, if you if he
doesn't win in like he's not going to get into November.
I mean, if The Jets are not, I don't even know, honestly.
No, I don't have the schedule yet, so I can't even play the
schedule game, which I would if I had it.
Like if The Jets are, you know, one in six, I mean, one in five
O and four. And it's ugly.
He's getting fired early. Eric Glenn will absolutely be
the first head coach that's fired and he should be at that
point. So no, you're not doing anything
to save Aaron's job. And you know, that's one of the
things that we spoke about. It was a common theme for the
Giants situation when they elected to bring back Joe Shane
and Brian Dabel. Like, all right, man, you know,
are you are you are you going to run Jackson Dorton to the ground
to save you job or blah, blah, blah.
And you know, those are dynamics that you don't really want
hovering over team anything, anybody that Muji drafts while
he wants his guy to succeed because they came in together.
Muji's distinguished himself more than Aaron.
So I would think if Aaron Glenn is fired during the season or
right after the season, and at this point, take your bets
collecting them right here, that he will be well, then I would
also collect bets that Mooji stays because I think Mooji's
pretty good. I think that he's viewed as more
of an asset. But then then Aaron, because
he's earned that so far in a small sample.
But then again, you never know what Woody Johnson's thinking.
So I could think that it could be the practical football
thought by people who actually know football.
And then you got Woody and his Dolby Football theories and
nonsensible and nonsensical football thoughts and irrational
moves. Who knows what he's going to do?
I, I really don't know. I'm just telling you what I
would do. So we got a little bit on the
some of the coaching mistakes from yesterday with Peyton and
with McVeigh. Definitely rooting for Sam
certainly debunked the the thought that you have to have a
young, hot offensive coach like that's who you should be looking
for. And you have to marry that that
young offensive minded coach with a with a top quarterback
prospect. You get to and win a Super Bowl.
Well, I mean, again, if you just tuned in, look who's coaching
this weekend, McDonald defense, Rabel defense, Darnell bounce
around what, half a half a dozen, basically half a dozen
teams at this point. And Drake May is the one who
does fit that model. So a very interesting weekend.
I don't mind snow games. I know it certainly takes away
from the playbook, but man, there's something so appealing
when you sitting there and you just you can't even see what
like where's the first down mark or what?
Where are they? Are they at midfield?
Are they at get their own 40? Did they cross midfield?
You know, balls popping loose out of players hands because you
can't get a good grip. It's just it's really it.
It's amazing. I mean it just brings you back
to when you play football on the street when it snowed, that's
the first thing we would do Couldn't wait.
I'm not saying it's just fun for those guys.
I mean they're playing for their livelihoods, but I wouldn't
money and prestige and legacy and all that stuff.
But I would imagine on on certainly from a defensive point
of view, you probably relish that.
You don't think an offensive lineman you think he minds being
you know, seeing all that snow? I don't think so.
What else do I got? Yes, The Jets situation is
awful. I got one really, really, really
quick New York Knick issue or item All right, so the Knicks be
I was in I was and I got something on Pitino.
So I was in Cincinnati over the weekend.
I did not get a chance to watch the the Knick game obvious I was
following when I got on the on the St.
John's plane. I was able to see, you know,
what was going on and Knicks win could win.
Interesting though, you know, as they beat Philly, Knicks have a
world of issues still. Knicks are not going to win
anything with this group. I don't care what anybody says.
And what I find interesting about this is that the two
players that I'm most down on, like the two players that I want
off the team, Cat for sure and Mikhail Bridges more and more
and more think about how non how much of A non impact they had as
the game went on. Cat played 16 minutes 16 and had
six fouls and Bridges was 3 for 16 and shot one for 9 from 3
point territory. So now the Sixers aren't the
Thunder or or Denver whatever, but pretty good, got some talent
and the Knicks have not been playing well.
So you certainly not going to thumb your nose at any win.
But how about Mitch? How about Shamit, my guy?
Shamit, you know, I love him. How about dudes playing well?
I mean, maybe there is a way to salvage this, but they still got
to make a trade. Like there's just there.
There's just no evidence that it's going to rectify itself
here with Kat and with Mike Brown and his usage and the
things he's not good at. And then, you know, and I talked
about this extensively a week ago.
If you guys are new to the pod, go and find it on the on the
YouTube page there. It's right there.
The the national media was parachuting in strongly.
I know Ramona Shelbourne, Shelburne, you know what I'm
talking about. A good reporter, not trying to
mess her name up intentionally. She's good.
She had a good report that some of the Knicks were very unhappy
with Mike Brown hugging Draymond after what went down with CAD,
grabbing his ankle, tripping him and all that smack that he's
been talking all these years. No kidding.
I mean, what did I say? That's common sense.
Now she's got the report. I told you that six days ago.
So there are issues that are not going to be resolved with the
New York Knicks, right? One of them is Cat and is is
pension for dumb fouls and sloppiness.
And the other one and he's soft at times.
And the other one is Michael Bridges, who simply is not the
guy that we thought we were getting.
Not that we thought we were getting Scottie Pippen, but did
anybody else think that Bridges was at least just a little bit
better defensively? A little bit, you know, and I
know that OG escaped some of the heat and he played well the
other day too. But at least OG plays with like
a tenacity that he doesn't chirp, doesn't talk smack, but
he bodies you up and he plays hard and he dunks and he like he
just plays with a vengeance, like a controlled vengeance, a
controlled rage and inner fire that I appreciate.
So I'm not looking to get rid of OG.
Bridges, do whatever you want and you get rid of him.
Cat, do whatever you want, get rid of him.
So I just thought it was interesting the Knicks finally
had a good win and, you know, two of the guys, especially Cat.
But if you're really no basketball, you did not absolve
Bridges from any sort of blame. I think everybody just kind of
parachutes in lazily and pounds on Cat.
He's an easy target, like the big kind of goofy center, you
know, who we perceive to be a little soft, whereas the other
guy who plays every night, the NB as Iron Man, kind of escapes
any sort of criticisms. No, what not for me.
I think Bridges is soft. I think he's just a different
kind of soft there. So that was interesting.
And I get to get a win. I just don't think it changes
much. I really don't.
I don't think it changes anything, as a matter of fact.
So that is that for there. I mentioned St.
John's, Willie under score, 185 BT Where do we listen to you for
the St. John's broadcast?
All the best from Downtown Brooklyn.
I actually lived in Downtown Brooklyn, not far from Montague
St. Thank you for that.
It was my first apartment right out of college and the only
reason I was able to afford it was because my best friend, his
dad, owned it. And you want to talk about a
score? I mean, his dad and his dad's
brother bought brownstones in Downtown Brooklyn and like I
think the early 70s, I think certainly 70s, I think it was
the early 70s, maybe mid either way that owned the whole
building and we had the top floor and I think we paid 300
bucks a month. Oh my God, that was right out of
college. Man attended bar.
I was interning at WFANI was trying to get into the business.
So I know Downtown Brooklyn pretty well.
I got, I must have gotten towed. I must have had my car or
somebody else's car towed at least five times when I lived
there for about the year and a half that I lived there,
couldn't park and I had no money to pay for a garage.
So, you know, you come home, you, you know, you want to get
on with your night, you just park the car wherever you park
the car, you get home in the morning.
It's not there. That is an unsettling feeling.
But where do you listen to Saint John's?
We are now on the radio. So last couple of years we have
not been, which I thought it was a major disservice to, to the
school and the profile and they were trying to get on, they were
trying to get on the fan, as a matter of fact.
But you know, there's a relationship which I got and I,
I respect and I, I get it with Rutgers.
So there was some conflict there.
But I know that at one point they were trying to get
something done and it just didn't work out.
St. John's used to be on the fan.
I used to, used to listen to him on the fan all the time.
So now it's 880 and it's 1050 ESPN or 10:50 AMI don't know if
it's still ESPNI know 880 is ESPN 1050.
ESPN used to be ESPN when I was there.
I don't think it's still ESPN might be Deporte's.
Whatever it is, it's 1050. All right, So it's it's either
on 880 or 10:50 and then it's still on the varsity app, which
by the way, is really, really good.
So what you hear coming out of your speakers in the car with me
and Mink, you will also hear on the varsity app, which is
terrific. So if you're not in the area or
if say, you know, because I know the AM signals, signals a little
spotty in certain, certain spots to be redundant.
You know, the app, it's free downloaded, stream it right into
the car. Boom.
Good. Like until we got on the radio,
that's how my kids would really, most of my son would really
watch the St. John's game.
He wanted to hear dad calling the games.
And we weren't on the radio for a couple years, which was
driving me nuts. Good to be back on.
So he would watch the game on TV and he would just put the app
on. So that's really good.
But yeah, that's where we are. So one more thing, and I'm going
to do this a little bit more extensively at some point
because I think there's so much there, right?
And by the way, J Rod, any more comments that pop in, whether
it's about the NFL, The Jets, obviously Arnold Super Bowl
match up, debunking the NFL narrative about offensive
coaches, a little something on the Knicks, the Johnnies,
whatever. I mean, you can just fire them
up. We're going to go a little bit
more here. So over the weekend, as I
mentioned before, I'm in Cincinnati, OH for Saint John
Xavier. Now, back in the day, I used to
love this. I used to travel all the time.
So the previous configuration of the Big East, whether it was,
you know, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, you know,
obviously Syracuse and Pit, like I've been to all those venues,
Miami back in the day, and I loved it.
Like that's when I was younger. I was single, I have no kids and
I could travel and really the reason why I was able to do it.
This was the biggest impediment not I could still travel as I
traveled this weekend with with a family.
But for a long time Saint John's radio games were on with within
the family of the station that I used to work at.
So when I was at 10:50, ESPN Radio, Stephen A, you know,
Michael, Don Greedy and goal Mike and Mike in the morning,
Colin was there that that that time stamp, right.
Well, St. John's was on either 1050,
either, you know, on the main station or like I think radial
Disney, which may have been 560 or some other subset of the
company. So it was easy to justify, Hey,
St. John's is going to Notre Dame.
Can I make the trip? Yeah, because the game was going
to be on our station. And you know, I was, I was doing
night shows and for the most part, I wasn't really full time
in the day part yet, like 1:50 like or whatever, like I was
with Jody Mack or Stephen A. So I would travel all the time.
I travel now for the NCAA tournament.
You know, I'll drive down to Philly for Villanova, I'll drive
up to Providence, do a Rhode Island game.
I'll obviously go out to Seton Hall, do Seton Hall games.
But it's just now it's easier. I'd make my own schedule now.
But that which is why I traveled this weekend, but the last bunch
of years I've not been traveling and man, I miss it.
It is awesome going to these other venues and the Cintas
Center is absolutely fantastic. It's fantastic and I always do
was good. Matter of fact, the last time I
was at the Cintas Center, which is Xavier's home was 2015.
And I mean that's jeez, that's so long ago.
And they won and that was I remember right.
She Jordan hit a massive 3 late and I think Jamal Branch, if you
remember you were a big St. John's fan, had a big steal in a
bucket and that was the win that kind of punctuated St.
John's resume. They needed a quad one Rd. win
and they got it and it now the metrics kind of split or or
tilted favorably. Saint John's got in the big
dance and that was the first NCAA game I ever did.
So that one meant so much. They lost.
Of course, the San Diego State won it done.
But it was awesome because, you know, I started doing these
games in O3O4 when Mike Jarvis was the coach, and then all
those years with no tournaments, it really meant the world to me
to finally sit there and go to an NCAA tournament.
I really did. So I'll never forget that 2015
game. So anyway, it was a fun weekend.
St. John's was down a bunch.
They found a way to win which which was amazing and and now
Saint John's is like they're going to be ranked that should
be coming out in 2 hours. Their numbers are great.
There are five seed right now moving up big win, but bigger
picture. All right, let me just get this
in here real fast. Robert Huertas.
What up Rob BT just a baseball mansion sort of change for
football. That's all right.
I was going to do a hot stove anyway.
When you do when you do hot stole news play gathering proud
song, the gathering crowd song from this week in baseball as
the opener. Listen, there's certain things
like certain songs you can't play based on trademark stuff
and and all that. So I've got to be careful.
But man, oh man, I I I mean this week in baseball, Oh my God,
I'll give you a little aside here, very quick aside.
I know I always say that I'll give you a quick aside and then
nothing I say is ever quick. I can't help it.
I can't help it, but I'll try to make this quick.
So I want to get back to Pitino. So anyway, so baseball, when
this week in baseball would come up, you'd hear the theme song.
I would be in my basement watching that, right?
And I remember we had just put down the tile and it was, you
know, it was very modest. You know, if you live, you know,
the homes in in Brooklyn, not the brownstone that my buddy's
dad owned. I mean, the homes that the home
that I was in, it's like home, home, home, home, very close,
you know, a little tiny driveway, you know, just just
average homes, right? The value now is ridiculous.
But back then just nothing fancy at all.
A little teeny backyard. I told you about the basketball
court, the dead trap where you had a dunk because you couldn't
take jump shots. That was my my yard, the
basement. I guess my dad finally came up
with a few bucks and start. And because what I most of the
years it was like a boiler, like you go down there.
It was scary. Like I when I was like 5-6 years
old, I wouldn't want to go down there.
I was scared to go down. It was there was no lights,
there was no bathroom, just as big as boiler and like hammers
and wrenches and I don't know whatever else was there.
I didn't really go down there. Too much.
I didn't even want to go down there and play hide and seek.
It was I was, it was scared right?
Anyway, they put down this tile and they start to refurbish the
basement. Nothing fancy.
But now we got a little TVA little bathroom perfect like I
loved it. That's where me and my dad
watched all the knit games and all the baseball and stuff.
It was pretty much our man cave. My my sister very rarely went
down there. It's just me and my dad and my
mom will watch a movie down there sometime.
So when baseball and this weekend baseball would come up,
the theme song, Oh my God, that I love it, I would actually run.
And the reason I tell you about the tiles because it was so cold
down there and the tile was so slippery.
And back then I had those feeding pajamas because I was
young, you know, like, you actually just dig in like a
whole uniform and your feet are covered not with socks, but that
look, you know what I'm talking about.
A lot of kids still have them, like the onesies, I guess is a
better way to put it. But they would slid so
perfectly. So I would be like Pete Rose
sliding. And as the montage of this week
in baseball is going sequentially through, I am
emulating each player. Not like Dwight Gooden's wind
up. I remember Steve Garvey running
a front round first base when he when he hits first base, when he
hits the home run of the World Series for the Dodgers in 84.
I mean, I, I know the entire sequence.
Donnie, of course, right. Oh my God, Mike Schmidt, when he
hits his 500th home run and he starts doing that little dance
before he gets down the line. And I would do that over and
over and over with that background.
But for, you know, purposes of of this, I, I, I can't just use
that without permission, But that would be absolutely money.
All right, That wasn't as long as I thought it be.
So Rick Pitino won his 900th game this weekend, 900.
Now, when you look at this, and I've said this before, but I
want to try to substantiate just a little bit.
All right, you think about, all right, who's the greatest coach
of all time? You really, it's obviously a
subjective exercise, but when you really think about the
names, there's really not that many.
And listen, I could rattle off four or five without working,
looking down the notes. I want to be sure I don't miss
anybody. Of course, you can go Wooden,
Coach K, that's everybody's top 2.
But when you look at them, you you have to understand what I
think elevates Rick Pitino to possibly the number one spot.
All right, possibly. Let me flush through it here.
So John Wooden, all right, generally for the book, the
pyramid of success, you know, 10 titles, 12 years, the godfather
of college hoops, right coach K5 titles, most wins ever.
I think it's 12102. Dean Smith, UNC, right, a couple
of the championships, Adolf Rupp back in the day, University of
Kentucky 4 champions now pre segregation.
So it's you got to measure that. You got to throw that in or, or
when things were still segregated.
Bobby United, Indiana, three titles, undefeated and 76.
Roy Williams, three titles, Kansas UNC.
Those are the names that generally if you're having a
conversation and people understand the history and they
know about the game, they will throw that name out.
Those those are the names. If you don't hear those names,
it's a conversation you should just check out of.
Now, to be fair to the conversation, I know you've got
to also throw Jim Calhoun out there with three championships.
Jim Calhoun three, I think you've got to throw in there at
least. Again, just have the
conversation. Jay Wright with two
championships at Nova and think about who knows what he I mean,
he's young still just checked out.
He's like, I'm done with this nonsense.
Tom Izzo, great coach. Denny Crum with a couple of the
championships at a bunch of Final Fours.
Louisville great Bayheim, ton of wins.
I think Bayheim underachieved more than he should have a great
coach, but we'll throw Bayheim in there anyway.
When you look at those guys right, you know Wooden was at
one school, Coach Ki know he was an army, but primarily one
school. Dean Smith, one school.
Adolph Rupp, one school. Bobby Knight, 2 schools.
Texas Tech, but mostly Indiana. Roy Williams 2 schools, both
blue bloods. UKUNC and then obviously
Calhoun. I know he went in coach D3 after
that and Northeastern before UConn, but UConn, Jay Wright,
Hofstra, but pretty much Villanova is old Michigan State
and behind Syracuse and Denny Crumb, Louisville, right?
So when when I when I ask the question who's the greatest
college coach of all time, I'm not looking at like
championships. I'm looking at context, right?
And when you incorporate the context of what I'm about to
incorporate, you can't tell me. Rick Pitino doesn't have a seat
at the table for the best coach of all time in college.
You can't tell me that. So #1 longevity.
And if he now some of the issues he created himself, like there's
a reason he had to go to Greece. We understand that, right?
But think about the years, couple of years after Providence
coaching the Knicks, right? Couple of years and he was good
with the Knicks. They made the playoffs after a
down lean run with Hubie Brown, etcetera.
Early, you know, couple of years into Patrick's career, if you
don't really know the timeline, if you're too young, but he made
the playoffs his first year with the Knicks, right?
And set the Knicks up to be very good eventually when Pat Riley,
even though they were coaches after him, that came in like
that was the core, right? So if he didn't coach the Knicks
for a couple of years, two years, if he didn't coach the
Celtics for a minute, if he didn't go to Greece, Rick Pitino
would have the most wins of any coach, right?
So, but that doesn't even matter.
Like if you want to tell me Coach K's the greatest college
coach of all time, I respect that.
I'm not here to downgrade others.
I'm just here to properly position where I think Rick
Pitino should be. And I think it really depends.
And this is sometimes frustrating to me when I had
these conversations, like some people are so bottom line and I
was doing this the other day, like whether it's an Aaron Judge
or a Stockton or a Barkley or Ewing or a Malone, like can you
be an all time. I'm great without a championship
ring is validation. I believe that you can, but many
of you don't, especially if you're a quarterback, right.
I didn't win. I didn't win.
You're such a bottom line assessor.
I don't I don't really just go to that.
I incorporate many other elements and and different
criteria to help me get to my answer.
Now, I don't know the answer to this, but I think it's very
fascinating. Do I think that Mike Schefsky
could have gone to five schools and had the success that Rick
Pitino did at all those schools? I don't know the answer to that,
but I know that Rick did it all right.
I know that Rick Pitino did it. So I think that Roy Williams
could have bounced around and and gone to a moribund Big East
program like St. John's has been forever.
And I know Nils helped clearly, but and and elevated them the
way Rick's elevated St. John's.
I don't know. But I know that Rick has, you
know, Bobby Knight went to his second spot at Texas Tech, was
competitive. But you know, where they.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I I don't know that he's doing
it beyond that. I think he had an expiration
point on how he coached and he wasn't very adaptable.
The thing about Rick. And he's always, always talked
about that. What's Jack saying here at Jack
Benstead? Jack Benstead got a quick story
for you talking about college ball.
My uncle used to coach Pitt and Navy back in the 80s and 90s and
his name was Paul Evans. Evans, who was the coach at
Pitt? Was it Meyer?
Why do I have that name to pull? Either way, nice coaching
family. I love it.
That's why. And the 80s nineties biggies was
was the stuff of legends, the requiem for biggies.
You have to see it anyway. Like what makes a great coach?
Well, all right, how many championships do you have?
I'm not saying you can't, you can't start there.
That's fine. It can't be the only thing that
you look at. How many wins whatever.
To me, I think, and I've always said this, I'm consistent with
this might not be right for you, but it's right for me.
Adaptability and there is nobody that has adapted more and one
more and and like and one on on such a grand scale at so many
different places so many different ways during so many
different iterations of the sport than Rick Pitino has.
Are you telling me that if Bobby Knight was coaching that he put
up with this nonsense the transfer port of the get.
It's no way the way he was wired, he couldn't do that, you
know, And this is not the shade John Wooden, But you know #1
everybody thinks that, you know, John Wooden was all the UCLA
squeaky clean. Let me tell you something about
UCLA. Read some books, all right?
Educate yourself about the history of this stuff if you
want to pop into the conversation.
Because UCLA and John Wooden had a money guy as well.
They had a money guy who was handing out money the old school
way, which is part of the reason why they built up the roster the
way they did. And when you built up the roster
the way they did, that's part of the reason why you win 10 titles
in 12 years. Now, that's not to say that his
team first mantra, his, his, his, his unwillingness to be to
compromise certain virtues. Like I believe in most if not
everything that John Wooden was espousing, like the principles
of leadership and all those things that pyramid of success,
which I have read. I believe in that for sure.
But that doesn't mean that he would do what Pitino has done.
Like we can only theorize. We can only guess, right?
But with Pitino, he's done it. That's why I think it makes it
so interesting. Dean Smith, Dean Smith's had
some of the greatest players in the history of college
basketball. And Dean Smith was a gentleman.
And Dean Smith was a pioneer in the sense that if you know about
college, bet like now, I would not want to watch this, nor
would I want to play here, like under the system.
But Dean Smith created the the four corners offense.
Just spin the ball around the corner, keep it away like hot
potato, you know, no shot clock, kill the timer.
I mean, does that sound fun? Yeah.
We're going to go out there. We're going to pass it all
night, and we're not going to look the score a ton.
Now that that's an oversimplification of what Dean
Smith did, clearly, but you got Jordan, you had Worthy, you had
Perkins. Think about all these players
that he had won two championships, all right?
Now, 2's better than one and one's better than none.
Could you make the case to Dean Smith?
And at that point, when you were the head coach in North
Carolina, they were probably 567 teams you had to fend off for
the top players in the country. You had to fend off Coach K
maybe for a year or two in the ACC fend off Maryland, maybe one
or two teams out West. Not Gonzaga then, but like a
UCLA, all right, maybe UNLV when when they were doing what they
were doing when with, with Larry Johnson and Stacey Albin and
that crew, you know, maybe a beheim, you know, for a couple
of years in the Big East. But it, it's a short list is
what I'm saying. When you're a blue blood, you
get whoever you want and a 2 championships is great, but it's
not like it's, you know, 345, you know, Bobby Knight's not
adaptable. Who knows about Adolf Rupp?
I mean, you've heard horror stories about Adolf Rupp as Rupp
as a human with certain things. I, I never met the man.
So I, I don't, I don't want to label him something there, but a
lot of people said it. I, I don't know.
And then Roy Williams, you know, was phenomenal.
There's no doubt three titles and he went to two blue bloods,
Kansas and UNC and he filled big shoes at UNC.
That's not easy. So you can points there.
But Rick Pitino, think about this guys.
I mean, you go to Providence, it was a nobody.
You get to the Final Four, all right, You win national
championships at Kentucky and Louisville.
When you go to Kentucky, you're on the you're a step away from
the death, the death sentence where they like SMU football,
where they pull the plug and there is no basketball.
He goes there within a couple of years, championship goes to
Louisville, Louisville's down championship.
And by the way, he won very differently at Kentucky.
It was more about offenses, at Louisville, more about defense,
more grinded out adaptability. Who was the first coach to
really embrace the math behind the three-point shot?
Rick Pitino, innovator. Not to mention pressing and
trapping and playing 94 feet of defense.
Rick Pitino was up there as well.
So you talk about that, you know, you go to St.
John's and before that you go to you go to Iona.
Now Iona, I don't give him a ton of credit for what he did at
Iona, only because Iona has had some really good teams over the
years. It's not like he went to the Mac
and he took over my school like Marist, which is doing well this
year and has a really good coaching coach done, but hasn't
been to the NCAA tournament since Rick Smith's in 1987.
Like if he would have gone to Marist and taking them to a
bunch of tournaments like he did Iona, I I think I'd have more
elevation there than merely going to Iona and then kind of
getting them back to where they were.
Not that not that far or not that long ago, but still he did
it. And then you come to Saint
John's. You come to Saint John's and at
the press conference, I mean, you want to talk about getting
chills, man. And I believed it.
But even when I heard it, I'm like, man, that is some bold
stuff right there. How?
Because I've lived it since O3 being part of the fabric of the
of the school, being part of the broadcast team.
So I've seen all the bad hires, I've seen the lack of budget,
I've seen the antiquated facilities.
I've seen it all, man. And that's why I'm so happy for
St. John's, right?
I've seen a school president who didn't value basketball at all,
right? I lived it.
They weren't always doing
charters. Like, trust me, I, I lived in,
he's out there at the press conference and he's like, go
ahead, we're going to Saint John's can be back in the big
way, I guarantee it. I'm like, man, this guy's got
stones, man. And I, I kind of felt that like
he's, he's going to do it. I was pumped.
And I told you he was going to be the coach before that really
happened, by the way, I didn't know that.
But Saint John's had to get to a place as a university Catholic
background where they had to, you know, swallow some of those
maybe Catholic virtues that that we know.
And they did. And you know what day if you're
a Catholic, you also believe in forgiveness and repentance.
And Rick's talked about that. So that's just a little Side
Story. Who else has won so many
different ways at so many different places like Rick?
Now, if you think that the height of greatness is just the
the absolute number of championships, well, then you
might think that Bill Russell's the greatest basketball player
that ever lived. I don't I think that's I know
it's Michael Jordan. You know, I think the seconds
Kareem with six MVPS and six championships.
If you think that, you know, championships or the end all be
all, well, then you might think that Yogi Berra had no
disrespect to the yokester, but that Yogi's the greatest catcher
of all time. I don't.
I think that's Johnny Bench. You know where Yogi won a lot
more. Now, Yogi was with Mickey and
Whitey and great players, but Johnny Bench was with the Big
Red Machine, so he also won. But he didn't win like Yogi.
Nobody did. One of the biggest winners, one
of the greatest winners in all sport.
So it all depends what you value.
To me, the greatest indicator of somebody who's the best at what
they do right is when you take your skill set, whatever it is,
whatever outlet it might be, and you take it somewhere that is
either down or has a totally different philosophy.
And basically overnight there's progress and then very shortly
thereafter there is high levels of success.
And that is Rick Pitino. Now, that's not to downgrade the
other ones, But again, Bobby Knight didn't really do it.
Dean Smith definitely didn't do it.
Coach K definitely didn't do it. He didn't have to.
OK, John Wooden didn't do it. So when people say it's John
Wooden, it's Coach K, I'm I'm not here to refute their their
greatness. I'm here to contextualize
Pitino's and I'm here to get him in the conversation.
I'll give you an example, right? So I'm going to take Mike
Francesa. So think about when Mad Dog left
right when Russo left the fan and goes too serious many
people. I was even curious like man,
what's Mike going to be without Mad Dog?
Because as much as MM was the authority on on so many things
and had so many kind like he he you knew he was always connected
to Steinbrenner. So you knew what he was.
You knew what he said about the Yankees was on point.
Same with the Mara family. So you knew what he said about
the G men on point. You knew we had a relationship
with the Garden on point. So like Mike's background and
prowess and connection to high level decision makers and teams
just gave it an element of realness and, you know, made the
show a must watch, right? But it was dog, in my opinion,
who always brought like the wackiness and the
unpredictability and just the zaniness and the volume.
And like, I left more dog than I did Mike.
I learned more from Mike than I did dog.
But I that's why it was one of the best combinations, if not
the best ever. You had this wacky, loud, crazy,
irreverent figure in in Mad Dog who also knew his stuff.
I'm not trying to say it didn't, but he was just a wacky
combination of everything, an entertainer.
And then you had Mike, who certainly thought he knew it
all, didn't but do a lot. And now you fuse that together.
You got a home run. And when Mad Dog left, I'm
sitting there saying, all right, but I'm, I'm curious what Mike's
going to do with without him. And Mike was still number one.
I know that Kay beat him that last book beat him once.
I get that. But Mike continued to be #1 or
as he would say #1 #1 I bet you had a blast on the snow blower
this weekend as well. Number one, number one, number
one, number one, number one, number one without Mad Dog, you
know what I mean? So that showed his adaptability
and the game was changing a little bit.
And as Rick has adapted to different schools with different
budgets and different conferences during different
times, when the three-point shot was first introduced, when teams
kind of cheating under the table, you know, a couple of
bucks here and there to, hey, you could transfer without
penalty in terms of the portal to, oh, we can straight up pay
you now. We can do it legally.
Like he's been there for everything.
And even Mike was transitioning from when he got on the air or
whatever year was, I don't know, 89 whenever he actually started
full time at the fan. Like there was no social media.
And when Mike retired, social media was a monster.
And he still managed to maintain that number one grip atop the
sports radio landscape. That's adaptability.
Now I maybe the better example would be I think that that's a
good example, but maybe a deeper example would be, let's say I
know it's not apples to apples, but like let's say Mike went to
Detroit and was doing afternoon drive in Detroit and as a non
Detroiters, he's he's a New York guy coming in, he's doing
afternoon drive. Is Mike number one?
I mean, does he have numbers like Valenti?
Now Valenti's a New York guy. So the maybe the answer would be
yes. I don't think you I don't think
he would be. I think it would be different.
I think he sounds too New York. I think what he cares, even
though his football knowledge is great, but I mean, actually he
he does know a lot about national stuff too, but certain
markets are very territorial. So maybe he would do well, but
he wouldn't quite do as well as he did at the fan.
Or if you went to work in Washington, DC, afternoon drive
there, it might be a little bit different.
So I just think that that's really important to the
conversation. I think there's too much of how
many championships would you do this, that boom #1 And it's
worth restating here. If, if now he brought this upon
himself and he's owned it. You know, Rick's talked about
being more humble as he's gotten older, right?
And he, he would have the most wins in college basketball.
If he wouldn't have it, maybe we wouldn't have them right now,
maybe by the end of this year or into next year.
And he'd certainly stick around to make sure he got the number.
Like if he didn't go to Greece, they didn't coach the Knicks and
the Celtics. I mean, how many more wins is
that you're talking based on on his math?
Let's see. I mean, that's at least, I mean,
I'm being conservative. 20 wins a season times 5 or 6.
You talking about 120 more wins. So automatically 9 hundreds of
1000. Now you're knocking on the door.
And it's probably more than that.
So anyway, I thought it was a really, really cool time.
It was fun too when we got on the charter after the game.
You know, Rick is the energy that he has is amazing.
You know, there's some boosters on the plane and the weather was
so bad, obviously in certain spots that like Grant Hill, Andy
Katz, they did the game for TRU TV.
They did it nationally, I think. I think Grant was telling me he
was supposed to go to Boston to do a game to do a Celtics game
for for national and he couldn't get there anyway.
Saint John said they come on our charter and you see, Rick, I
mean 73 years old, just coached his ass off tight game,
energetic on the sideline walking up and down the plane,
you know, talking to Grant came over to said hi to me, you know,
and I'm small talk, but I don't I'm hey, Congrats, coach.
All good. Hey, man, good stuff today.
I don't need to talk. I'll I'll I'll I'll bend your
ear when we shoot the TV show this week.
Go. You know, I'm good and but he's
just walking around just up and down the plane and watching him
operate is it's amazing. And then we're getting off the
plane. They had this big box Adidas
made shirts. Actually, I have it right here.
They made these shirts. So they gave every everybody one
of these as you're getting off the airplane to to commemorate
Rick's 900th win in college hoops.
Just a really good weekend. And there'll be more of that
stuff at some point. I think that you guys will will
challenge that. I'm not saying definitively he
is the greatest coach in the history of college basketball.
I am saying definitively he is absolutely one of the greatest
college basketball coaches ever. And I will say this definitively
as well. I got one game to win.
I have one game to win. I'm taking him.
I'm taking him now the other guy that I would really consider is
like I wouldn't take. I wouldn't want Beheim to win
that game because he's lost too many big games.
You know, I would seriously consider Jim Calhoun as well.
And obviously Coach Ki Mean. That goes without saying.
I'm not trying to get nuts here, but I think Calhoun was a
master. I really do.
Calhoun was great. You know, the other thing too is
like, and this is what's amazing about what Rick's doing, one of
the things that Rick does best, and you talk to people that have
Donovan Mitchell says this all the time, like when when he was
at Louisville, Rick really worked on his his release like,
and just I'm talking about something as subtle, like maybe
you're here, suddenly you're here, it's an inch out and he
just a more accurate shooter, all the mechanics kind of
streamlining that stuff. What Rick really sells the
program, every program he's ever been at is player development.
So you come to me. And this is before he could pay
kids millions. I'm going to make you millions
because I'm going to make you better.
And to this day, to this day, you know, during the week
they'll do before their team practice, they will do
individual sessions in the morning for like an hour or two
with Rick Pitino. Their head coaches don't show up
for that. And if you think about what what
I believe outside of like IQ and all that stuff and presents and
you know, cachet and all that stuff, and he's going to, you
know, make a fan base excited because he's just got that
character and that that presents.
I think Rick's greatest, greatest characteristic as a
coach is his player development aspect.
And now with the rosters changing every year, one of his
greatest strength, what I perceive to be his best strength
is minimize. Because back in the day, you get
a kid as a raw freshman, tack 10 lbs on them, bust his ass every
day in personal, you know, development sessions.
And then, you know, by a sophomore, he's playing a little
bit more and then by junior bang, first round pick, if he's
got that kind of upside right. And if not senior year, he's all
conference averages, 1314 points a game, big contributor to a
team that gets to the Final Four.
But when the rosters always changing, yeah, you're getting
players better during the year. But then it's a whole new
roster, which is why I think a lot of Zubi's success is
obviously attributable to to Rick.
And, and that's the anyway, it's just fascinating to look at it
and based on the fact that, you know, it's a symbolic
achievement #900 Congrats to Rick, Congrats to Saint John.
Really good. And it's, it's fun.
And, and I want to bring that up a little bit there.
What do we got here? What's that?
What is this? What's this, what does this say
at Rod Power 78? I think everybody on the first
take laughed at the dog, not with him, especially Stephen A
wait, so they're laughing at dog, not with him.
I disagree. I don't agree with that.
Now I can't I can't prove that. I don't think they're I mean,
that's it's an interesting read. I think that if you're on set,
well, I think it depends who you're on set with.
Like there's certain people on some of those shows that take
themselves a little bit too seriously when it comes to
football knowledge. Like, all right, come on.
We're not splitting the atom here, man.
But I think if you are have a little bit of an entertainment
value in you, you know, and you're not just XS and OS and
just about, you know, societal issues and you could have a
little fun once in a while. I, I think that I think you love
Mad Dog. I think you're like, look at
this absolute nut job, banana psychopath.
No, I think they're laughing with them.
I mean, I can't prove that. I don't think that they're
laughing at them. That's just my that that's just
that's my opinion at Golf News. At Golf News.
Or I'm gonna assume that that's Rhode Island there.
Yeah, up there. Piece.
OK. I still root for Patino.
Not over PC. I thought he was gonna go back
to Providence College at one point, somewhat recently, too.
Before the Iona job. Was that before Iona or before
saying no, It was before the Iona job.
There was a thought they were going to bring him back there.
I still, I still root for Rick. Not over PC, But other than
that, he always talks glowingly about his time in Providence.
He does. So good for him.
He is the GOAT. Yeah, I can respect that.
I mean, Kim English has his hands full up there.
My God, they're a disaster. Providence is a mess.
Cooley was down, what, 2021 points he went in there.
He won that game. Providence is a mess, but
Providence is a good job for college basketball, you know,
and Father Shanley, who's now the president at Saint John's,
like that's the thing too. Father Harrington, who was one
of the former presidents at Saint John's, didn't care about
basketball. And if you're a Catholic school
with no football budget, I know Villanova's got a football team,
but I mean, a, a, a big visible high money presence, high dollar
presence, you better have alignment.
Like to me, in terms of just fiscal, whatever, you better
have a president who knows the importance of of college
basketball. You better have an AD who aligns
himself with that philosophy. And you better have a head coach
who the AD knows to what I got to get out of the way a little
bit here, like a Patino, like some of these big names where
the coach is bigger than the AD in certain respects and the
president understands that you make money by spending money.
So it's not, it's not a coincidence that Saint John's
profile changed when they brought in a president who
values and understands the value of basketball versus others
Prior to that, that that simply did not.
So that's been a big problem at St.
John's for a long time. Thankfully, that's that's gone.
Let me see if anything jumps out here.
Let's see here. Pitino.
Yeah. There you go.
There. Let's see them with bike it out.
What's OK? What's this here at Jack
Benstead. under score. Benstead.
What up, Jack? Quick story to tell you as you
were talking about college ball. My.
Oh, I I read this one. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that that popped up before.
J Rod, by the way, is very quiet today.
Like, you know, things aren't popping up as fast.
What is he shoveling? Did you hit the shovel yet this
weekend? What?
What are you doing there, J Rod, hold on.
I can't hear you. Hello, hello.
Gotcha. What up, man?
Haven't hit the shovel yet this weekend.
I mean, I guess I don't even have to shovel anymore that now
that I'm in like an apartment building.
Yep. Just yesterday, feet deep in the
snow, couldn't really leave the place.
It was snowing inside of our hallway.
What? Where the hell do you live?
Just like a Bushwick apartment building, but there is like some
crack in like a, a ceiling glass.
So there's just like piles of snow in the are you?
Serious it. Was funny, yeah.
Wow. Well, I'll tell you, I took the
easy way out, although I, I haven't, I haven't seen them
yet. This is actually starting to
worry me a little bit. So my wife said she knows how
much I love to shovel. And I've talked about shoveling.
I enjoy it. Like there's an art to which you
got to take shifts. You got to have the salt, you
got to have the spreader, you got to know, you know, you just
got to understand what you're in for and you got to embrace it.
And when I say embrace it, that means pour yourself a little
drink, crank out the music and do it the right way, right?
So, but this is different. I mean, this is this is
different. This is I so, but I was going to
do it and I was prepared to really deal with it.
And I'm like, this is going to be such a bitch when I get home
eventually Sunday, Monday can be a massive problem.
So she text me while I'm in Ohio with St.
John's and I guess somebody on our street hired somebody to
come and actually plow. And yeah, like certain homes are
doing this and it's like $1.50. Oh, it isn't cheap.
I'm like, I'll pay 350, plow it. I got so.
But he's not here yet. So not a problem is now it's a
little if this guy doesn't come, I got a big problem because now
it's getting a little sleety, which means it's getting a
little heavier. And then what happens?
The real issue as the plow at. Well, there's the individual
plow that I'm hoping will come and I'm going to pay him and do
it. And then there's the plow that I
pay for with taxes that come through the streets that push
all the the slop into my driveway as it clears out the
street. And now that's heavy and now
that's sleety and that's icy. So if this dude doesn't come,
I'm going to have a miserable day and I'm going to be pissed.
Going to do you have one of the electric ones going or just the
shovel? Shovel.
So yeah, it's going to be a, it's going to be a tough day
shovel. So you're hoping maybe this guy
comes after the town plow comes so that he can clear out the
snow that the town plow then left?
I think, yeah, well, I think the plow town is done or the the
town plowing. The plow town.
What I think that that's a new that's a new sitcom plow town.
I think the town, the town's done because it's done snowing.
So I think they've done all their plowing.
So anytime he wants to get his behind over here and do do his
job, I mean, he's welcome. He's welcome to come.
I can't drive anywhere. I can't.
I want to go to the store. Like, I can't sit in here.
I can't, I can't, I can't stay here for 40 hours straight.
I mean I got even if I go get gas, go get the Gatorade.
Got to leave. Somewhere, dude, just got to
just got, you know, just got to stretch the bones a little bit.
Kids are home from school, you know, probably tomorrow.
No school, man, I would think so.
They're so soft. They're wait till you wait.
Now it's a little different in the city.
Like they do virtual. Just give the kids the day off.
Like I don't understand this and I'm not getting on educators at
all, but I don't understand some of the I love them.
I love what they represent and without it we got problems
right? But I just think that if it
snows like this, don't make kids sit in front of a laptop.
Let them go out there and have fun.
What are we doing with? Time.
I mean, learning today I don't even like, at least when I was a
kid, it was always snow day, snow day, snow day.
So I never even really got to experience like the later high
school, middle school, remote learning kind of snow day sort
of deal. But though that was the best
kind of day ever. You wake up, hot chocolate, put
on your snow pants, hit the hill, hit the town hill because
it's sledding. What's better than that?
Yeah, we didn't do a lot of sledding because there was, we
were all flat. So you're in Bush.
So I was in Flatbush. You know, we had a park, but you
know, we'd go there and play basketball and baseball, not
really for snow. We would just play football in
the street and it will be violent, I mean concrete.
And we were. And we would play hockey in the
street without snow. And now imagine this the, he got
a, you know, a fairly narrow St. and he got these cars that are,
are lining, you know, the street, right.
So when we play hockey and I was not a good hockey player, I, I
was terrible. I was like the one sport.
I was not, I'm gonna say the one sport I wasn't good at, but it
was the sport I was the worst at for sure.
Not a great skater, not great aptitude, didn't watch a lot of
it. So it wasn't really that good
anyway. We would play in the street and
the cars with the boards. So we would actually check each
other into the cars. Oh, my God, dude, you grew up in
a different way. Different.
Yeah. Grew up in a different era, man.
So I like today's show. What you think?
Yeah, let's get a little. I'm going to start having you
and I got stat boy. I'm not going to have you, like,
come out with mistakes. I'm going to need a little bit
of a grade after each show. And I want you to be honest.
A through F1 to 10, whatever the, your scale is there, I want
you to grade the show based on contact content, based on, you
know, maybe diversity of content.
So before we bounce, before we call it a wrap here on a snowy
Monday on BT Unleashed, what is J Rod's grade for today's
session? I'm going to hit today.
I'm going to go like a 8990 like AB plus A minus.
I think that's pretty good. Well, yeah, for me it was
pretty. Good a minus kind of deal.
I'm going to say today's episode I think great diversity.
I thought I really liked how you kind of had the two segments
jets in the beginning boom, big Patino push later like it built
upon kind of the weekend of content you were pushing out in
terms of the Saint John stuff. That's right.
So yeah, I mean, and I thought like also, you know, just in
terms of engagement, I thought people were were really getting
engaged with like especially the Patino talk and especially the
the basketball coaching. So I think, I think it's great.
8989's A Little Light. 8990 Yeah, I.
Mean if you're gonna say 8990, just say 90 and because you
would need 40. 92919091. Think about the difference.
I mean, it's literally one point.
Hey, would you get on the test? I got an 89.
Would you get I got a 90. Think.
I think about how it's. Big difference it.
Sounds think about how you present that to your parents.
Hey B, what'd you get on that math test?
I got a 89. Oh, actually, 89 would have been
great math. So let me think something I was
good at. Hey, would you get on that
spelling test 89? What?
You know that spelling test 90? I mean, I usually got hundreds
in spelling, but you understand the difference Like, yeah, yeah,
just the way you present the 8989.
So threw me for a little loop there, but it's all good.
I gave you the, I bestow you upon you, that official power of
grading. So if it's an 8990, we'll try to
make a little bit better tomorrow.
Tomorrow's 100. We always try for 100.
We always look for that. Now tomorrow, I don't know.
I don't really know what we'll do tomorrow.
I got to figure out how to see how this day goes.
Obviously, they're not going to start banging out Super Bowl
content tomorrow because Super Bowl is for two weeks.
But I'm sure they'll be a little more residue on The Jets, Jets
high rings, maybe a little more. I'm going to do a little more at
the hot stove tomorrow. That's something I do need to do
with the Yankees and the Mets. Is that a wrap?
What's about grade grading them out, giving them their official
grades for the baseball hot stove?
So J Rod's going to get out the shorts.
He's going to have four of those today.
He's going to pump it all out. He's doing a great job with
that. Build out the graphics.
They look really sharp. They look really good Jay.
I'll catch you tomorrow brother. You can ZAP yourself out now.
Really good work. Look at him right on .2.
No, like as you can hit the button.
It's the man I know he's going to hit the button.
Jay Rods ready to work. Jay.
Rods ready to roll. Jay Rod sent me a text by the
way, I'm not going to read it because that's between me and
Jay. He sent me a text.
I was on the plane on the tarmac hoping that I would get off to
get off the ground there. And Jared sends me this
incredibly well thought out plan and structure vision for the
show. And I'm like, man, that's just
further validation. I hired the right guy.
I'm not going to get I'm not going to read it.
But even if I did the word just very intelligently written and
the points of focus we're so on point.
Exactly what I'm thinking. So we got that synergy.
He's going to get that rap song going as well.
All right, J Rod is going to start pumping that out for you.
Have a great Monday. If you're going out to shovel,
get it done. You know, good luck to you.
Of course, for a little something, get the music going,
take your time, watch your back, use your legs when you do it,
watch your back. Don't just bend over, use your
knees. Get into it and I will see you
tomorrow. Have a great, great Monday.
Catch you tomorrow at 10 right here, BT Unleashed.
I'll see ya. This is unleashed, are you
listening? Can you hear Can you hear me?