is on you. Hear me, hear me.
Hear me on everybody, BT on leash with you on this Friday
got a big show for you pumped up lotsy.
I am absolutely jacked today. So for me, the challenge today
is to make sure that I don't burn everything now because 8:00
tonight I'm going to be in the middle of the biggest college
basketball game of the year and that place is going to be on
fire. St.
John's and U Conn, the number three Huskies, they won eighteen
straight. St.
John's riding an 8 game win streak.
So I was looking at the secondary ticket market
yesterday. One of the I saw tickets for
$540 in the two hundreds, kind of like behind one of the
baskets at the Garden. So I mean, the city is on fire.
We obviously have the Super Bowl.
Got something for you. I think you'll really like this.
I'm going to get a it's a little it's kind of sounds odd at the
beginning, but I think it'll all come together.
I think you guys really enjoy Leon Rose where he schools
Brian, I'm going to kind of juxtapose that.
I think you guys will love it. Let me start with this.
So when WFAN did you guys know this?
I had, I had a choice. I could just kind of chill.
I can relax. I can wait till after the
holidays or I can really just roll up the sleeves and get to
work and start digging. And you guys know which route I
took. And for a little bit more than a
month now, I've been saying and I've been doing the and living
by the mantra click by click and brick by brick.
And the click by click is on your end.
The brick by brick is on my end. That if I handle the brick by
brick, then the click by click will come.
OK. And if you go back to that early
show, I was in the basement, as you know, the Wi-Fi wasn't that
great. It was a little fuzzy.
I didn't have this microphone. I didn't have this beautiful
webcam, which is very clear, although it does show, you know,
blemishes and some wrinkles. I'm like, yeah, oh, man, maybe
cameras too good. Yeah, go back to the old camera.
Anyway, I, I told you that as, as we start to implement stuff,
right and as we start to grow the brand, the BT Unleashed
brand, there's going to be things that I'm going to be able
to roll out. Matter of fact, I just had a
text. My good buddy Mike was setting
up the entire backdrop. I told you last week they came
to measure it. It's being printed today and
it's a it's massive. It takes up the entire wall.
So it's not like you just printed up something from, you
know, from bottle Microsoft Word or something.
It takes a while, but it's it's being done today and then
they're coming next week and it's going to be installed
officially. So I won't have to tell you
anymore. Hey, it's coming.
Hey, it's coming.
That is coming next week now. Great news for you.
And I got to tell you, man, I, I, I'm really, really proud of
this. I am really truly proud of this.
I think one of the and I don't, I don't mean this in an arrogant
way. I truly don't.
But when you do what I do for a living and you, when you do what
I've done for a living for a long time, creating compelling
content, getting you guys to react, getting you guys to
think, get you guys to, you know, to, to feel whatever I'm
pushing, even if you disagree, just to kind of feel me and, and
feel what I'm about. That's been pretty natural
because that's what I've been trained to do.
And that's really what I was born to do with the end of the
day. This communicate, provide some
thought provoking content, get you guys to get into it and,
and, and really just pique interest, right, that stuff.
Well, some, some days are more of a challenge than others,
admittedly, because sometimes there's huge stories, sometimes
there's not. And I love the process of
getting in the weeds and coming up with something unique to
provide that compelling content. That's on me.
All right, And I will take that to the end of the earth and I
will just, I will roll up my sleeves and I work all day to
provide that stuff for you guys. And I think that, you know that
the thing that you can't necessarily control is getting
other people to see that vision. And what I mean by that is, is
actually having people to jump on board and sponsorships
because let's face it, I'm not doing this for fun, even though
it is fun. I'm doing this to pay for my
mortgage, to put away more money for the kids, for college, to
pay for cars, to pay to live, to basically function.
So without any source of real revenue stream, this show goes
nowhere. And there's always 1 pioneer,
there's always one person, 1 champion that really believes in
you first. And they see the vision and they
want to get behind the vision. And this is something we've been
working on for a while. So I would love, I am, I am
honored. This means the world to me to be
able to welcome the BT Unleash, the first sponsor of the show
here. Sullivan Propane is officially
on board. And by the way, guys, Yep, give
it up right there. Absolutely, absolutely a big
moment for the show. My buddy TJ McManus, his entire
law firm, great people, big Saint John's fans.
We did some work on the fan together and they said, you know
what, we got you, we believe in you, we want to roll with you.
And they didn't sign on for months.
They didn't sign on for two. They signed on for all the 2026.
And I am incredibly thankful and I will go to the end of the
earth to reward them for that faith because I, I think that's
the toughest thing to do. I, I really do.
You can come out here and you know, you have a sick looking
studio and you can have compelling thoughts and you can
have a great producer, which I do in J Rod and great listeners
and, and, and people who follow me no matter where I go.
But if I can't monetize stuff, then this thing goes away.
So thank you Sullivan for pain. It's going to be awesome.
Now we rolled out the official stuff on Monday, all right.
And what we'll do is every Monday we will do 3 burning
questions. So they're going to sponsor that
segment and what I'll just basically dive into the weekend,
I'll find a couple of things that I find really interesting
things that we need answers to. Could be the NBA, could be the
gangs, could be the Mets, could be the NFL Draft, whatever it
might be, could be the US Open, could be the masters.
Like it's going to be a very broad spectrum of topics, very
diverse. So we'll do that Monday and then
every Wednesday they will also sponsor the Johnny's report.
And I wanted to roll that out with.
Listen, we've been working behind the scenes because when
you talk contracts, you talk illegal stuff.
You got to it's not just, hey, you know, give me give me a few
bucks and you support the show. It is a real process that that
we've been cranking away on day and night and I am really,
really thankful for them. So that again, that without
being overly repetitive, means the world, man, you know, I'm
going to reward you, you know, I got you guys and your faith in
me and what we're doing here. It is just it, it, it's, it
emboldens me even more to just keep going and to keep building
and to keep making this, this platform as big and as powerful
as it's going to become. This is, this is the early
stage. Like I've always said, I like
it. It's when you build the house,
right? You know, before you have the
fancy, you know the doorknobs and you know all the beautiful
furniture and the light fixtures and the beautiful ceramic
island, you know the tile and the backsplash and all that
stuff and the sod and the deck and whatever you might do with
the backyard tile wise, right. You've got to have a strong
foundation and Sullivan propane is now officially a part of this
this early foundation and I'm absolutely pumped, welcomed
aboard. Fantastic.
All right, let's get to the show now.
I mean, I, I got to be honest, like I, and I've heard this so
much and I may have bought into it for a second, but it's just
old and tired at this point. There's two things that are
bothering me about the Super bowl #1 and you've heard this.
Oh, there's no buzz. There's no buzz in the Super
Bowl. I got news for everybody.
The buzz is the Super Bowl. We have become such prisoners of
these narratives, these stupid, mundane, generally useless
conversations and debates, right about specifically about the NFL
and Goats and legacies and about the NBA, Goats, LeBron, Jordan's
championships. We've become so single minded,
right? Chasing answers to stuff that is
largely nebulous and very opinion driven.
OK, I know that Tom Brady's got the most Super Bowl wins.
Does that mean he's absolutely the greatest quarterback of all
time? No, I mean, it's really just a
debate point, which listen, at times I find that interesting
for sure, But at times it's overkill to me.
It's really it's it's lazy content.
I saw something this morning and I'm not going to call the show
out because I I know people on it and and I like them, right?
And they're good at what they do.
And I get it. You got to provide content when
you're talking football every day and you're at the Super
Bowl. I saw a segment before which I
quickly turned off. If Sam Darnold wins the Super
Bowl, is Sam Darnold elite? I mean, right away we're going
to the elite conversation, is Eli elite, is Jalen Brunson
elite? Can Aaron Judge be a lead
without a World Series championship?
Like the bottom line validation that people are looking for with
these moments of these games. It's real.
I really, you know what I think it is.
I'm just going to be totally blunt.
I think it is people being lazy and no longer being able to just
watch games and react to games because everybody and listen,
I'm a prisoner of it as well. Of course.
I mean social age, social media, all that stuff, technological
age. Like everybody's on their phone.
So nobody really just sits there and watches a game and processes
a game and digests what happens during the game and then gets on
the air and talks about it. Now, to be fair, that's also
kind of 1990s Mike and Chris, you know, WFAN and other
templates that obviously took it from the fan.
I, I know that there's an expiration point on that, but
the thing that drives me, we go from A-Z immediately.
There's no buzz. What?
What buzz do you need? It's the freaking Super Bowl.
Sit down with some friends, have a couple of beers, suck down a
couple of wings, put down a couple of bets, root for who you
going to root for and watch the Super Bowl.
What is so hard about this? There's no buzz.
It's always a referendum on some
big grand historical context or conversation and it's lazy and
it's tiring. So I don't really engage in
that. Now I have, I have been to a lot
of Super Bowls, right? And I enjoyed it.
I, I, I really did right. But Radio Road to me is a
colossal waste of time unless you're a big show that is able
to carve out and and I'll try to take you inside for a moment,
like what radio role looks like. And by the way, I've been on
both sides. So I'm not disparaging one or
the other or trying to elevate one or the other.
I'm merely pointing out the differences when you go to the
Super Bowl. So in some massive convention,
Convention Center, this one obviously in San Francisco.
And of course, the game is about 40 miles away in Santa Clara
average stadium. You know, they're very, you
know, when you think about California and the just the,
the, the surge of technology Levi Stadium is, is getting
largely, you know, benign. I'm, I'm just, and I've been
there a few times. Either way, you go to the Super
Bowl. If you do what I do for a living
and you're affiliated with a station or a network, right?
And you, depending upon how large the affiliation is, you're
either off by your own, like if you're on TV as well, or you're
in the middle of this massive mass of radio andyouknow.com
humanity. And it's just literally folding
table after folding table after folding table after folding
table. Oh, there's the afternoon drive
from San Francisco. There's at the new drive from,
you know, from from Charlotte. There's the afternoon drive from
Detroit. There's the morning show from
Boston, there's the show from Philly.
And I'm not saying it's not fun. Like I really did enjoy going.
I'd see a lot of people that I know, a lot of people that I
worked with having worked around the country earlier in my
career. And it's cool, like you go out,
you go to AI. Remember I was at one party.
It was the was it the EA Sports party or the Maxim party?
EA Sports, because I don't think Tim Tebow would have been at the
Maxim party. I would have been there and I
was, but it was it wasn't that party anyway, Tim was at, there
was definitely EA Sports. And I remember on the balcony,
little Side Story, little swipe. You guys swipe when you look at
a date. I swipe when I'm looking to just
jump into a different part of the story that I think you'll
enjoy. Then I'll get back to the main
story. So we're at this big.
It was in Indianapolis, right? I forget the name of the joint,
but it was huge upstairs balcony.
They had obviously Madden and like Tebow was there.
I remember seeing Cam Newton. I think Julio Jones was there.
Brady was there. Every big name was there, right?
And we're hanging out. I'm there with my old, old
producers when I'm working in San Francisco and all of a
sudden at like 12:00 at night, Snoop Dogg hits the stage.
Snoop Doggy is banging out the hits.
So the parties at the Super Bowl are Tremendous, right?
But the interviews so they will take let's say I'm trying to
think of a loom and everything Anthony Munoz is the name that
always pops up right? Anthony Munoz former teammates
with Boomer Zeissim champ, great great play, great player, one of
the great offense 11 of all time.
So somebody like Munoz will go from table to table to table to
table. You know, city to city to city
to city with APR person and he will have a talking point joint
pain, knee replacement. I don't know, something for
impotence, whatever he's pushing, right Vitamins, you
know, certain drink for creatine, I don't know.
And all right, you get the plug out of the way, then you talk
football for a couple of minutes, then you move on to the
next. And honestly, I find it so
boring. It's so boring.
Now, when I went with Tiki all those years doing the national
stuff, it was a little different because we were up.
We were aside from that massive radio humanity, which I have
also been a part of. But we had the TV component.
So it was like Jim Rome would finish up his show, then me and
Tiki would go on the same stage right after it.
So our show was simulcast on TV and we, whomever we wanted,
like, you know, whether it was Brett Favre or Dan Marino or Cam
Newton when he was playing, when he won the MVP.
I mean, you talk about the biggest names rolling through
the TV sets and you get a little bit more time and there was less
limitations. And it was generally a meteor
conversation. But like the whole Super Bowl
thing, to me, it's, it's just played out, man.
I've got no interest. Well, I don't need like
storylines to gravitate to, to enjoy the game.
I'm going to enjoy the game, although I do have a few
storylines for you obviously, but I don't need that to get
sucked in. It's the biggest game of the
year. It's just well behind St.
John's, UConn today, of course, it's it's the biggest game of
the year. It's the biggest spectacle.
It's the biggest worldwide, excluding some massive soccer
World Cup event in the entire world.
And with somebody like Bad Bunny.
Now when you get international artists, you get, you know, it's
obviously grown and grown and grown.
I'm sure you guys told the story yesterday.
You got an NFL game in Australia next year.
I love Australia, I hate the concept of that.
I think it's idiotic. I mean, this is going to sound
very territorial and probably like that up like an American, I
don't know, block headed American.
I've always said this, it's our sport.
Like it's our sport. And to take a home game away
from great. I mean, Packer fans have had a
game taken away from them at Lambeau to go play some game in
Germany or in London. Like what are we doing?
Like there's got to be an expiration point on how much
we're willing to give other people our game.
I mean, I'm all about sharing in the sandbox here, but not to the
point where you get more sand than me.
And I know that some people are bothered by that.
I don't really care though, because that's, that's genuinely
how I feel. And I've been saying that
forever, even now if you want to take like some regular season
NBA game and go to London, like I know the Nets have been fine,
okay. But to take like 1 of 17 home
games in the NFL where each game basically feels like a season.
I think it's at the service to the American fan.
So the entire NFL experience has morphed into, I don't know what
it's morphed into. And if you allow the nonsense to
bother you, you're going to, I think your enjoyment is going to
be stripped away a little bit for the game.
Let me start getting some texture.
I want to finish the thought on on why I don't need the buzz and
why those whining about no buzz really sound like dopes here.
Ridgefield, CT. I've got a buddy who's a die
hard Yankees fan but roots for the Pats.
What, because he says they're a regional team.
Any thoughts for this confused individual?
Well, yeah, Brandon, I appreciate that.
Thank you very much. Shout out to you.
This guy might be he might be beyond help.
I mean, I'm certainly willing to help people.
I'm all about humanity. But if this dude is that
confused, I'm assuming he's a grown man.
He's not a kid. He's an adult.
And if he's latching on to the Patriots because he's a Yankees
fan and that that like the the regional aspect, I think that
that guy's beyond salvation. How am I going to help that guy?
I mean, you know, here's what I root for.
I think many of you are like me. I root for the Yankees, I root
for the Knicks, I root for The Jets, never with reward, but I
root for The Jets and I root for St.
John's after that. And then of course with golf, I
root for certain guys like the Scheffler and Nicholson.
He was playing the Tiger, of course, when he came back.
I'll gravitate to certain individual stories there, maybe
even in tennis once in a while, you know, stuff like that.
But then the next thing that I root for is storylines.
What I what I deem compelling and interesting and obviously,
like, I want to see the Mets be relevant.
I want to see the Giants be relevant.
I don't care about the Nets. They mean nothing.
But like the the other baseball team, the other football team,
because now it produces content and it it drives the machine,
which I'm all about. But is this guy a Jet fan now?
I wish you would have, I wish you would have clarified if he's
a Jets fan, I'm I've got to assume he's a Giants fan.
If he's up in Connecticut. And I can only deduce this, I
could be wrong. If he's a Yankees fan and he's
rooting for the Pats based on, again, the, the, the regional
aspect of it, there's no way this guy's a Jets fan.
And if he's a Jets fan, he's not a good one.
And if he's a Jets fan, he's not.
He's a Jets fan I can't hang out with because I can't relate to
that guy. If you're a Jets fan, you're
rooting for Sam Darnold 100%. I mean, the Patriots stop.
I just and watch Patriots will probably all good, although I'll
give you my pick at the end of the show here.
I'm sure the Patriots will find a way to win.
And if they don't win this year, they'll get back next year or
the year after it, eventually win another one, and then just
going to reboot the dynasty. Minus Brady, minus Bella Chick.
I can tell you what's coming. I can tell you what the next 10
years of my football life is probably going to look like, but
no way in hell do I want the Pats to have that moment.
There's no chance, you know, I can't stand Kraft.
I can't stand the path. I do like Drake May and I do
like Mike Frabel, but I'm not going to root for him.
Yeah, that's a weird one, man. So really guys, just to just to
wrap up that thought about really what the Super Bowl has
become like we've been programmed to, you have to talk
about the Super Bowl. Oh my God, the Super Bowl.
And I'm talking about like Monday of this week.
The hell am I going to talk about the Super Bowl on Monday
for? It's not till Sunday.
I'm not going to talk about it on Tuesday unless there's like a
story or an injury. I'm not going to talk about it
on Wednesday. I'm not even going to really
talk about Thursday. It's Friday.
I'll talk about it a little bit. And when I talk about the
laziness, right, that is permeated sports and, and not
all of you listen, anytime I speak in, in broad generalities,
obviously I'm not talking about everybody, but it is a growing
faction of you where you you just can't help yourself.
And you know, you, you within a phone call or text or a
conversation with your buddies, you know, invariably very fast,
you're going to hear GOAT legacy, no buzz.
You're just going to hear that. Like, I've got no interest.
I'm never going to be that guy. It's not interesting to me when
I want to talk about that. I'll have somebody on the show
that knows a whole hell of a lot more about football than I do.
I'm not wasting my time. On this show.
Nor did I do it on the fan or in other spots.
Even when I was at the Super Bowl, I wouldn't talk about it.
Like unless I had a guest on. I am not on a Wednesday before
talking about third and seven blitz tendencies from Mike Rabel
or McDonald. Stop doing it now.
Here's why I actually think it. It is interesting.
By the way, at KJ 7457 KJ what's happening, buddy?
Appreciate the pop there. BT what's what sports movies do
you have to watch anytime it comes on TV?
God, that could derail the entire show.
I mean, there's a couple that I stick with.
Obviously, if I if I want to laugh, which I which I do may
anything with Major League is phenomenal.
If I want to think or get touched emotionally.
I love the natural with with with Robert Redford feel the
dreams, you know. Hey dad, you want to have a
catch? Honestly, hand to Bible as I
just said that I actually felt a a twins of emotion right there
as I just said that. Hey dad, you want to have a
catch? Yeah, I mean I still cry when I
see that Hoosiers. I watched that the other about a
month or so ago with my son for the first time.
Blue Chips is a great movie with Shack and Penny and Nick Nolte.
There's a couple of good golf movies out there.
I mean, obviously you talk about Sandler tin cup, sure.
Or or a Sandler or tin cup with with Kevin Costner.
There's a lot, I mean there's a lot of great.
I think there's a few underrated ones.
Like I happen to like Cobb. It's it's a really under the
radar baseball movie. Cobb with with Tommy Lee Jones,
eight men out, the Black Sox scandal, phenomenal league of
their own. I thought was phenomenal about
the the Women's professional League with Tom Hanks when the
men were at war. Was that World War Two?
Yeah, that that would have been World War Two.
Yeah, that was in the 40s. I'm pretty sure.
Anyway, there's a lot. Appreciate the question.
So here's what's going to happen this weekend.
Sam Darnold is either going to punctuate one of the most unique
runs to a championship. And let's face it, unless
somebody has like 3 sacks and A2 defensive touchdowns, if Seattle
wins, Sam Darnold's going to win the MVP.
So not only will he punctuate this very nomadic road to
football, immortality, fatality, I mean, you want to talk about a
transient path. Last four years has been on four
teams. But I, I, you, when you listen
to people talk about Sam Darnold, you would think that he
was drafted in the sixth round or he was Mr. Relevant or he was
not drafted at all like he was the 3rd overall pick.
He was supposed to be good, you know, So I'm really happy for
Sam. Every time Sam's had a chance to
just throw a little jab at The Jets, a little dagger, a little
needle, he abstains. That's because Sam was right,
was raised the right way, because Sam's a class act.
And that's why I'm rooting for Sam.
Even if they were playing anybody other than the Patriots,
like, you know, my, my Patriot, you know, bias, obviously not in
terms of pick, not about like who I think is going to win.
But I'm not like rooting, yo. That's where the bias comes in.
Even if they weren't playing the Pats, like I'm going to actively
be rooting for Sam Darno. Like generally when I watch the
Super Bowl, I'm rooting for my bets to pop.
Like, what props do I have? What do I have in the first
half? What do I have in halftime?
Adjustments. Coaches make adjustments.
We make betting adjustments. All right, what's the adjusted
spread? What's the second-half spread?
But the Sam Darnold story to me is enough buzz to get me through
the week. Like I, I, I get, I don't need
these mundane, just like regurgitated lazy, just
narratives that everybody reaches for.
It's old. I can't stand it.
And then that's why I don't engage in it.
The other thing too, that's very interesting here.
I mean, you know, one of these coaches, man, is, is going to be
a first time Super Bowl champion.
Now Vrabel's one as a player, Vrabel had a lot of success with
the Tennessee Titans. Couple of playoff games, couple
of, you know, 10 or 11 win seasons with Ryan Tannehill.
Look how we turned around the Pats.
Like that's why I wanted The Jets to hire him and McDonald.
Like if McDonald wins, you're talking about a guy.
Mike McDonald was the last head coach hired in the head coaching
cycle. Think about that.
When he was brought in by Seattle.
The last one, so is everybody else was checking their boxes
and doing their homework and going through the routine, the
Zooms, the in persons. Yeah, yeah.
The agents throwing out nonsense, trying to hype up
their guy. Seattle was the last team to say
that's the guy that we're going to settle on.
Look at McDonald's defense. That defense is ridiculous.
I mean, as much as we talk about Sam Darnold, who's been really
good certain games, he's been great.
But that Seattle defense has really carried Seattle most of
the season, as many of you know. So if McDonald wins now, you
talk about a young coach who wins right away.
And now, not that I really feed too much into this, but it's at
least a byproduct of an of an interesting conversation.
Is he in the early stages of becoming one of those great
coaches? I mean, think about this.
Let's say McDonald wins Sunday and never wins again.
And but he coaches for a long time, makes a lot of playoffs,
you know, a lot of 10/11/12 win seasons, you know, but never
gets back or maybe does get back but never wins again.
Basically he's John Horbaugh or Mike Tomlin.
But if he wins that second, I know you got to win the first
before he win the second. But now that puts you in a
different, more exclusive conversation, much like a, you
know, a major winner in golf, Like a lot of guys have won.
A lot of guys, you know, pop through at the PGA Championship,
which is kind of a random major. You know, generally that's the
one where like, wow, that dude won.
Or you go back to look at history, Wow, how did how did he
win? What happened to him?
Like that's the event where that usually happens more more so
than the The Open Championship or the US Open.
We're certainly a Masters. But you know, when you win one,
all right, it's kind of viewed as an anomaly in certain
regards. When you win two, well, now you
carve out a very different path. So I'm very interested in the
Super Bowl. I'm just not interested enough
to just bombard you and, you know, just hit you over the head
with these stories that are manufactured.
We got the game coming up. Going to sit down, going to have
a couple drinks, going to stuff my face, going to have a couple
of bets, going to be with a couple of friends, going to be
obviously with my family and watch Super Bowl.
That's it. But this nonsense, My, my good
God, I saw it this morning. If Sam Darnold wins, is he
elite? Like, why do we have to jump
right into that? And why the hell are we talking
about that before it even happens?
I mean, what if Sam Tardo goes out there and throws 2 picks,
coughs one up, puts one on the turf with a fumble, get sacked 3
or 4 times, you know, hits on 53% of his passes and Seattle
scores 13 points and gets hammered?
Like what a waste of airspace we just had there.
So that's how I generally like, I just gave you as as honest
assessment of the Super Bowl as I can give you the the amount of
fluff and the it's just then you get guests on.
You got to like, you almost have to give him the courtesy lab,
that guy that was good. Meanwhile, you're bored out of
your mind. You're like, when is the show
over? Honestly, not because I want the
show to end because I want this procession of boring guests to
end. You know, and like that's one
thing that I've always guarded against, whether I was in San
Francisco doing afternoon drive or with tiki doing, you know,
Nashville afternoon drive. Like we're not bringing on a sea
let seat, like we're not going gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas,
gas. All right, Jim Harbaugh wants to
come on, amazing. Aaron Rodgers wants to come on
amazing. Brett Favre, Tim Tebow, Joe
Montana had them all. Marino, great, fantastic.
Come on in. But like, if you're if you're
the 17th best wide receiver in the NFL and you got some PR
person and they're doing their job, I'm not taking a shot now.
Like you're pushing him now. We're good, we're good, we're
good. And then you see all the
picture. I got to laugh at this too.
And again, not that I've never done this.
I have right. So I'm kind of calling myself
out as well. But like, you do a picture, you
do an interview, and then of course, you get the requisite
picture. Hey, can we get a picture before
you go? And of course you post it to
social media. You have your arm around the guy
or you got a good pose. Look who I'm hanging out with.
And like, like, dude, the guy came on your show because he got
paid. He didn't come on your show
because he finds you incredibly interesting or because he thinks
you've got an amazing show. He literally went on your show
because that week his PR guru constructed a list of 30
interviews that he's going to do to sell product XY or Z and he
going to do the dance, you know, and he going to say the same
thing every interview. The one thing that I I took a
lot of pride with and and I thought we were very good with
this is getting this made me very proud when this happened.
When you make national news at the Super Bowl, because the the
the dudes go with everybody. But when they clip something
from your show, because you were just better at crafting a
conversation and getting them to open up on something that you
know the world finds interesting, That's that's where
you make some noise and that was always a good challenge.
All right, so let me give you a little something on the Super on
the on the MVP. All right, I don't get too
wrapped up baseball MVPI always love.
It's just different. It's more, it sounds weird to
say that it's like more revered than the NFLMVP.
But I just feel, I don't know. I feel like it is, you know, the
NFLMVP is always going to be a quarterback.
That guy's going to always win 13 games.
You know, very rarely is it somebody that comes out of
nowhere like like like how Raleigh almost beating Aaron
Judge, not that he didn't have a good year the the previous year,
but you know what I mean? It's just I find the baseball
MVP more interesting. The NBA.
It's, you know, two or three guys, you can pretty much put it
in a hat and a year and just jiggle it up and say, all right,
this, this guy's probably going to win and they usually do.
But the NFLMVP whatever. Honestly, I did find this one
fairly compelling counter to what I usually think.
First of all, the bite the, the, the vote was very tight, 366 to
361, which is one of the closest votes in decades, in decades.
And I think it should be. Now if you told me the Drake May
1, he didn't. Stafford did 366 to 361.
I'd say that makes sense. I got no problem with that.
OK, to me, this really was a coin flip.
At the end of the day, when when you see 46 touchdown passes to
31, when you have a 5th A + 15 touchdown disparity favoring
you, you're going to win. Now you want to dig a little
deeper. You can make a very good case
for May, which is why the vote was only 5.
You know, 5 votes apart. Led the NFL in completion
percentage, had a better passing rating Drake May did than
Matthew Stafford. Higher yards per 10th means you
throw the ball down field a little bit more.
I mean, Stafford doesn't run at all.
I think he had two rushing yards.
I think something like that. And Drake May is a real threat
with his wheels over 400 rushing rushing yards ran a bunch in and
Drake May also won 14 games compared to 12.
Now the the Rams have been a very, very, very stable, very
good recently crowned champion as well.
So to me, when I think about the word Most Valuable Player or, or
you know, or the letters, the acronym, however you want to
frame it, I, I look at a little different and, and I really wish
that it would be this way more. We've gotten away from this.
It's more about stats, But to me it's very simple equation.
If you take player X off a team Y, which team is most adversely
affected? OK, to me, that's a great road
map to get to who's really the most valuable.
I remember, right. So this is way before like this
onslaught of club and travel baseball, this explosion of
youth sports. But you know, I'm really into
obviously. But when I was coming up, it
was, I mean, I played on a travel team, but I played on a
good one. But the the team might might
like my church to my school team one through 8.
They had these awards and I loved it.
Awards night was always great. They would have the MVP and they
would have the most outstanding player.
And in my mind, I wanted to get both.
And I still have a lot of those trophies in my parents attic.
My God, I got to show my kids that someday.
And you know, to me, I don't know if this is what the manager
really thought The I don't know if he gave it that much thought,
but you know, I've got probably four or five of those MVPS at
home. Does that mean that the other
guy who got the MOP was better? No, it doesn't.
It doesn't mean the stats were better, but there was some sort
of demarcation there, right? I almost wish we and we have the
offensive player of the year. So I guess that's the little
separation there. But Drake made me elevating the
Patriots from a moribund, floundering 4 win team this
quickly. Doesn't that under score the
absolute value of him? Now I can hear the other
argument where you take Matthew Stafford off the Rams.
What are they? Well, let me ask you this and I
don't know the answer. It's a rhetorical question.
I I don't know if you put, I mean, let me think of a league
average quarterback. This is probably not the year to
throw his name in the hopper, but maybe take another year from
Tua. All right, take Tua and put Tua
on the Rams. What are the Rams?
Put 2 on the on the on the download.
They can't get rid of them. Put the put 2 on the Pats.
What are they? Probably kind of the same thing.
Is there any elevation either way?
I don't know because both defenses are really good.
So it might equate to a very similar result minus the Gordy
stats, but the team win totals probably in the same
neighborhood. If you put Drake May on the
Rams, may be a better way to look at it.
And you put Stafford on the Patriots, it's probably pretty
similar. Like that's why this was a very
tough boat, 366 to 361. But again, you just see that
#4646 touchdown passes and that that jumps off any website that
jumps off Matthew Stafford's amazing love them.
Drake May's amazing. Love them.
It's going to be really interesting to see how Drake May
handles the pressure Sunday. I think he'll be fine.
I think he's coached up. I think he's got a slow
heartbeat. It's going to be very
interesting to see how Sam handles the pressure, and I
think Sam too will be fine. I think we got a good game, a
tight game, and I think we got a fun game at the Broadway Blue
225 and MVP over 162 was far meaningful, more so than an MVP
over 17. I've got no problem with the
NFLMVP process. All right, I get it.
You don't have to have a problem with it, but I would like to
know why you believe that it's much more important over 162.
I actually think it's the other way because in think about this
in Major League Baseball, you could have a bad Juan Soto had a
bad start to his first Met season.
Now Juan Soto, Juan Soto's ultimate numbers weren't where
they were the year before with the island talking about power
average OPS. They weren't where they were
with the Yankees when he was with Judge and doing damage
because he got off to a rough start and he wasn't very clutch
whatever for most of the year. So some of those numbers were
adversely affected, but he still got there statistically.
But if if Matthew Stafford and I don't know what the exact like
it's it's never going to be apples to apples.
But let's say Soto or you know, a great hitter in baseball has a
month and he hits two O 3 and he's a power guy, nominal power
OPS 720, which were great players awful.
You know, the the team can still win because you're not as
dependent on that one guy. You just not.
I mean the one example might be counter to that, the Yankees,
which is one of my real issues with the Yankees because God
forbid if Aaron Judge doesn't smack 55 home runs and driving
$1.30, whatever it is, and hit 320 and OPS over 1100 win the
MVP. The Yankees to me, even with
their great pitching potentially when they get back healthy,
Yankees look like an 8384 win team.
So he's probably the one example counter to what I'm talking
about. But imagine Matthew Stafford
having one month or Drake. And I know that there's slight
fluctuations, but I mean, a month that is commensurate with
whatever the baseball example would be of a really down month,
you know? So let's say you play four
games. I mean, I guess you could play
5, whatever, but we'll save the standard four games in a month.
And Stafford goes, Stafford goes, 7 picks, 3 touchdowns.
How many of those games are they winning?
How many games are they going to win?
But conversely, how many games did the Mets win when Soda was
over 4? How many games do the Yankees
win even though they they depend on him over 162?
Yankees still win games when Judge doesn't hit a three run
home run. I mean, Jazz might hit one,
Christian might hit one, Rice might hit one.
You know, you can kind of spread the wealth a little bit here.
So I would disagree with your text.
I get it. I appreciate you weighing in.
I don't, I don't really feel the same way, but the, the MVP
voting is something I very rarely get into.
I thought this was a little different #1 the, the tight
nature of it and I do find it compelling enough to bring up.
So hopefully you guys enjoy that.
If you want to jump in, by the way, start getting those Super
Bowl picks in. I'm going to be reading a bunch.
I'll give you mine at the end here.
We'll take care of that. All right, so I gave you the
Stafford stuff. I gave you the obviously the
McDonald, the, I mean, one of these coaches going to be on a
because they're both young, going to be on a trajectory to,
you know, really, and I hate the word legacy and it's it's it's
overused, it's misused, it's lazy, as I've said, but it is
applicable once in awhile. And whomever wins on Sunday is
going to be set up to have a legacy that's going to get
separation from his peers. So I do find that really, really
interesting. All right, before I get to this,
I think you guys are like it. I really do Little Leon Rose,
Brian Cashman contrast and everything.
Let me say what up to my Guy J Rod, J Rod Friday night.
What's going on here J? Rod, what's up?
What's up? How we doing?
How's my How's my connection looking right now?
Well, I mean, your connection's good.
I don't know how you look, but your connection's good.
Go on. Why did?
You think he's a little fuzzy? Yeah, I just a little bit since
I'm since I'm from the work from since I'm calling in from the
work spot, it might be a little. Off.
You're good. You're good.
Oh, you know what? I meant to ask you.
So I was watching, I was watching the show yesterday just
kind of as I said, I'll go back. I'll look at some of the
messages, take some notes, try to tweak some things and, and
you know, fix some things that maybe you guys can't see, but
things that I want to, you know, work on and implement and all
that stuff. And I've noticed now your work,
you probably don't have it here. You were, you drink water a lot,
which, which I do as well. I, I, I just bang back water
left and right. Already had two bottles this
morning and you were drinking out of a very weird cup.
It always looked like a little like a little baby pot.
What the hell? So this.
Is this is like a very, I'd say Gen.
Z sort of thing. People my age love the Mason
jars. Like that's like their big sort.
Of is it really? Yeah, like.
People just love drinking out of just like.
The huge uh oh, uh oh. Thick glass and.
There he goes. Got you.
You actually chopped up for a little bit.
I you froze for a SEC. I got you the Mason jar.
Like something you find in, you know, if it, if you're, if
you're, I don't know, one of the characters on Little House on
the Prairie or exactly there's like syrup in it.
Yep, that's where it's it's like when you go to the thrift store
and they've got the little beans or the little pasta in it.
Exactly. One of those listen, if you tell
me Generation Z Gen. ZS got a little old soul to him,
I'm all about it. That's good.
I like. That's hope.
That's hope for the future. There we go.
Yeah. Thank you, J Rod, thank you.
And by the way, how excited are you about our new sponsor,
Sullivan, The pain, How come on? I mean, it's it's beautiful.
You know, maybe lead into some things down the line and, you
know, more, more sponsors, more support.
Always great to I feel like get that first one really down.
Hammer it in, and only more to come.
When it rides a no doubt about it.
All right, Jay, check out those texts.
Let me know what's coming out. Pop some good ones up there.
We got big. Look at him right on right on
spot. Pop him up.
He puts him up. I mean, see, when you get a
young guy like J Rod, right? I'll get to this text in a
moment. Victoria, hang on.
Get a young guy like J Rod, what you have to do?
You got to mold him properly, right?
And it's an equal balance of letting him know the
expectations, right? And this is this is big point.
Just serious business here. But also give him that freedom
and that latitude to show who he is and have some creative input.
So I am very happy now. He also didn't need a lot of
molding because he's good at what he does.
Otherwise I wouldn't hired him. All right, I've worked with him
prior, but at the molding of J Rod, I I'm I'm very I'm very
happy the direction that J Rod's going into he gets it.
He gets the BT brand. He's he gets the whole social
media thing. He understands all this stuff.
He's got a good loose, easygoing personality.
And I even told him right, I told him not today, but where,
where it matters, right? Or where he thinks he can do
this is if I say something that's wildly outrageous, by all
means push back, you know, but make sure you have your stuff
buttoned up there. J Rod.
We don't want exposure for the whole world to see.
So I would, I would strategically place that, that
combative, that little, you know, the first time you come at
me, make sure you got things lined up, brother.
Make sure you got things lined up.
All right. This one's from Victor's Garage,
5814. What up, Victoria?
BTI grew up going to rolling roast every Saturday with my
pops. What's the BT go to?
Roast beef or cheeseburger and fries and let's go.
Nick's always. Let's go.
Nick's. Victoria.
Thank you very much. Brooklyn's in the house.
Yeah, that was actually my first job.
That was my first job. If you know Roland Roaster,
maybe a a better point of reference if you guys know
Sheepshead Bay. I was talking about Ginger Rose
where I used to get my hair cut like the the flat tops and the
lines put in the head and all that stuff back in the late 80s
and early 90s and even a little bit past that.
But there was a diner across the street, which has been gone for
a long time that I go to after. And Sheepshead Bay's awesome.
That's why that's the first place ever went fishing.
So we go blue fishing, we go weak fishing, which back then
there was a lot of weak fish in the waters.
I don't really see as much. Obviously fluke and flounder and
stuff like that go on the big party boats, bring a case of
beer. Oh my God, just get after it.
Awesome. But when I was younger, rolling
roaster, I guess. I was a freshman in high school
and I got a little freshman. Yeah, I think it would have been
a freshman got a little. So maybe a sophomore got a
little summer job. And I was bussing tables at
Roland Roaster and it was hysterical because a lot of the,
I was young, I think I was 1514 or 15.
And a lot of the people, basically all the people who
work there outside, like the managers and the bosses, they
were all young. They all went to Kingsborough,
which is a Community College right across the street.
If you know the area, you know what I'm talking about.
And they would, they'd be, they would, they'd get off the, I
once said that they'd get off the air, we'd get off our shift.
And, you know, they would hang out, you know, and I would want
to hang out. I'm like, I want to hang out
here. Oh God, kill a piece of the
action, you know, 14 year old BT and I'll never forget way before
phones, Mom or dad had to pick me up way before I could drive.
And I was too young to take a couple of buses there because it
would have been, you know, a complete pain in the ass.
Anyway, one night I'll never forget, I had no chance with
her. I mean, she may have been 20, I
was 14. Whatever I was enamored with,
I'm like, Oh my God, she's beautiful.
She didn't pay me any mind. But anyway, I remember them all
hanging out on the car, you know, like the T bird, whatever
they had out of some, you know, tricked up souped up car with
the tinted windows and the music, you know, Stevie B
blasting, probably doing a few things they shouldn't do, if you
know what I mean. And I'll never forget.
I guess maybe I don't know how I was supposed to get home because
it wasn't the bus. I I guess it was my mom.
But maybe that was one night I was taking car service home,
maybe because all I remember and I was late, evidently because I
was hanging out, I wasn't doing anything.
I was, you know, 14. And I remember just seeing from
about a block away on Emmons Ave. my mom walking toward the
car. And, you know, she didn't
embarrass me in front of any everybody, thank God.
But when I tell you, when I, when I, when I, when we kind of
turned the corner, I, I think I got AI used to have curly hair.
I got a little, little little twist of the hair, like don't
ever do that again. Like I was just, I was pushing
the envelope like you do, you know, she came to get me.
And when, when you have an Italian mom, as I do, thank God,
still with us and and healthy and amazing and awesome.
When you have that now it, it, it's all the good, the meals,
the warmth, the love, the traditions, but the worry, much
like a Jewish mom. They, they say Jewish and
Italian moms very serious in this regard or, or very similar
in this regard. They worry about everything.
I mean everything to the point where you almost can't help it
coming into your world. And thank God my dad didn't
worry about anything except school and respect and sports,
everything else like whatever. So thank God I got that balance
because my mom would shoot. So you're going to get
kidnapped. I mean, you talk about.
Oh, man, I remember. You know, if if me and Sal were
still together right now, he would be chiming in too because
I know his mom was the same way. Like, just they worry.
They worry because they love you so much.
But yeah, I don't even know what my favorite food was there.
I love the roast beef. And there was something where if
you would go to rolling roaster and I think if I was a million
years ago, I think if you either wiggled your finger or I don't
touch something touched your nose or said some word, I think
you got free cheese on the fries.
If I remember that right. Shout out to rolling roaster.
First job and phenomenal food. Awesome Brooklyn staple at I
guess that's an L dash Bosox dash L.
What's up there? I wish I knew your real name,
but there you go. What up BT big fan, die hard Red
Sox fan as well. Watch every the Yankees game to
sort of hate watch, but I love the listening to you and Sal
appreciate that man. Keep up the great work love of
the new show. Go Pats.
I will let you say that last part.
I will not say that part, but I will say enjoy the Super Bowl
and I will also say I'm jealous. I'm jealous.
I like it's not even hatred. I mean like it is, but it's just
it's jealousy. It is jealousy and sometimes if
it comes across as hatred, it's just rooted in jealousy.
Understand that. Like I'm jealous of how you
build a franchise, how you always find the quarterback, how
you always have a great coach, had great stadium, great fan
base, got no problems up there. The one thing that I would
question this is kind of odd is that you tell me that you hate
watching. I I know what you mean there.
You hate watch something, right? You indulge in something that
you hate and it satisfies some weird part of your fandom.
Understood, but you tell me that you always hate watching the
Yankees, but the Yankees and the Red Sox play a lot at the same
time. So if the Red Sox are playing in
Baltimore at 7:10 and the Yankees are playing at home
against the Rays at seven O 5, who you watching?
That's a little kind of not congruent on the timeline there,
but I think I know what you mean.
Good job. Thank you, buddy.
How about rape? 6531 Greenpoint here.
It's where my grandparents were. I'll tell you.
I'll tell you a quick Greenpoint story the moment.
Congratulations on your first sponsor.
Yes, thank you, Sullivan. Excuse me, Sullivan Propane, my
good buddy TJ McManus. I'll see him tonight at the St.
John's game, massive St. John's sponsor.
They signed on for the entire year and I was so proud to
unveil that and let you guys know about that this morning
when we start the show. Any thoughts on BT Unleashed
merch? I think it will be great to rock
ABTU hat or a hoodie. It's so funny you say that, Ray.
Thank you very much for that, bro Appreciate that.
Let me just write down Greenpoint so I don't forget
Greenpoint. All right, So yes, yes, we have
actually said it's not public, but we have taken the steps and
and this is one of the things that I I mean, when I talk
about, you know, brick by brick, click by click, doing the work,
building the foundation things that you can't even see yet.
Like you don't, you don't know what it took to get this
sponsorship to secure that, that belief in them to, you know,
literally pay me to talk, you know, to incorporate them within
the show. I mean, that's, that's a deep
amount of trust that that I will never be reckless with.
I mean, profound respect and gratitude.
That goes without saying. But it's an arduous process.
And we're in process with others as well that aren't quite closed
yet, but we believe will for sure eventually.
But they're #1 they're our first one.
So that's phenomenal. Never get you first, right?
So I think that with the merch, we have that set up again, not
public, but we have created a shop here.
We have concepts and you've seen the logo before, obviously.
So whether it's hoodies, I don't know if I would actually do a
baseball cap that I guess I could.
I was thinking more skull caps. I think that's a little bit more
of the BT Unleash brand there. I think you guys would dig that.
You know, like with dark, obviously, like a dark wool hat
and the BT Unleash logo, obviously some hoodies, maybe a
couple of golf shirts. We've got to see, we've got to
see what the demand is. I think, you know, the last
thing you want to do is to invest all these resources in
something and then have the entire, you know, store, if you,
the digital store sit there and collect dust, I do believe
there's going to be a demand for this stuff.
I do and just buy your, your, your text right there.
I, I think that I'm on to something to what extent I don't
know. But yes, that from a creative
point of view, from a logistical point of view about finding the,
you know, the, the, the relationship to have this stuff
made, it's already done like that.
We already have that stuff. So now it's just a matter of
actually doing it. And it will come maybe by the
start of baseball season, maybe earlier, actually.
But yes, absolutely on the radar and very quickly about
Greenpoint. I was in Greenpoint pretty much
every Sunday, my grandma's house and grandpa, right?
I used to love going there, man, I used to love going there.
They used to, and even, even when I'd go there, my mom would
be worried because the, I mean, my God, I was just worried about
everything, as I said, but I would want to go in the backyard
and they didn't have a yard. It was an apartment.
So I'm, I just remember it was like some trucks were parked
back there. I, I don't even know why.
I mean, it wasn't like part of a business, but there were
definitely a couple of trucks and there was a, there was also
like a concrete wall, which for me represented Yankee Stadium,
so always brought my myth. And I really didn't sleep over
there much unless my parents like had a, a wedding or went
away, which they didn't really do because it didn't really have
the means to do it when I was young, quite frankly.
But when we would sleep there and my grandfather would worry
and my grand like all the Italians would worry and I would
just throw the ball off this wall and I'd pretend I was, you
know, Ron Guidry. And then like Mattingly and
Sunday meals were the best. I mean, the neck bones and
obviously, you know, the pasta, the meatballs and the, the salad
after you, after you have all that stuff.
That's an Italian tradition. Absolutely awesome.
And it's funny too. My grandfather, right?
I, I tell you, this is funny. He used to call him Little
Louie. No longer with us.
God, God, rest is so great guy. Great guy.
Lived to almost 80, got to see a lot of what my sister and I
account not professionally, but certainly high school and for my
sister early in college a little bit.
So he was around a long time, which was a blessing.
Same with my grandma who lived to 94, which was even better.
She got to see even more. Anyway, my grandfather will wake
up. You want to talk about old
school Italian? He would wake up every day.
Now I don't have a hair in my eyes, will shave it, but full
head of hair, not one Gray. Didn't dye it, didn't dye it
right. Would wake up right, slick that
thing back in the mirror. He'd had the little tiny Italian
mustache, like from Goodfellas. I mean, they call him Little
Louie. Like he really could have been a
Goodfellas, but he wasn't. He wasn't connected and he'd
have the, the, the white, you know, T-shirt sleeveless with
the gold chain in the cross hanging and he'd shaved.
You never have stubble except the Mustang shaved everyday.
And I remember one time, is it Grand Ave.
My grandmother used to love going to OTB.
She bet the horses. My grandmother was amazing.
Like she introduced me to wrestling.
She really was the one and I used to watch wrestling when it
was on a midnight on Channel 9 back like Morocco.
Snuka Backland was the champion. That was my first four range WWF
right after brought him. I think Bruno was commentating
at that point and then Andre and Big John Studd and those guys,
the Samoans, Fuji Saito, like that was my entry into WWF.
It was because of my grandma and she used to love to bet the
horse. So she loved wrestling, which my
dad hated, and she loved the horses, which my dad also liked,
right? So if I would stay there, which
was kind of rare, we'd go to Grand Ave. or even Jackson Ave.
I forget where OTB was. Anyway, she'd go into OTB and my
grandfather hated going in there, but he also hated when
she went in there. Cuz let's face it, at that
point, it's pretty much all men, everybody's smoking.
I mean, it's, it's a smoke shop and it's gross, right?
And he just, I understand like if my wife's going in there and
there's 300 people in there and there's one woman, I'm not
comfortable with that. Nothing's going to happen.
But the language, just you, you don't need it, right?
So anyway, Long story short, before I get back to the Rose
and the, the Cashman stuff, he, I'll never forget any talk like
this. Then smoke, then just just,
that's how he spoke. And he goes, I said, you know,
Papa, I have a dollar. I want to get some candy, so I
go next door to the candy store at OTB.
He gives me a dollar. I come back out, I give him
change. He goes give me change and I
give him a penny. He goes, I'll never forget this.
He goes, Jesus Christ, how much candy do you need?
But you got so mad, how much can a penny you would?
And he just launched into this tirade.
He was so angered by the fact that I don't know if it was the
candy that I was about to consume or the fact that I only
gave him 1 penny back. I really don't know.
Oh my God, Greenpoint. Love it.
All right, so good job by Leon Rose yesterday getting Jose
Alvarado. Love it, love it.
Love it. Told you Giannis was not going
to get dealt or Giannis not Giannis.
Giannis was not going to get dealt.
Didn't Now this sets up before I get into Rosen Cashman.
This sets up to very two very obvious routes.
The Knicks either win the championship and they never
pursue Giannis, or they don't win the championship and they go
full bore and they get them this summer.
Now, I didn't think it was going to be dealt.
I don't think it's very smart to make decisions when you're under
pressure. I've often said like a clear
mind clarity presents you with the best opportunity to make the
right decision. When you're rushed, when you're
fumbling around, when you got to do something cuz there's a time
restraint, you're generally going to be sloppy.
So I did not think that it was really wise for the Bucks to
make that move now and they didn't.
Now, I do think that they'll revisit it this summer, although
maybe you leave the door open slightly that maybe they are
able to get another superstore to play with Giannis and then
maybe that changes Giannis's mind.
Whatever. I do think eventually he's off
the Bucks. And I do think if the Knicks
don't win, the Knicks will get him this summer.
Didn't think they'd get him now, didn't think he would be dealt
Now this summer, different story.
So a couple of things here. Number one, you've got to really
appreciate the way Leon Rose does business.
There's no like there's just no noise around the Knicks.
There's never like I'm hearing this or you got this issue like
the Deuce McBride injury, which sucks that that's a devastating
injury. He's been playing really well
and I love him. And the problem with Deuce now
is that he's he's becoming, he's got that injury prone tag, been
around a couple years, had a couple of injuries here.
He's had a lot of interruptions in his play and it's kind of
stumping what what could be. You know, I'm not saying an all
NBA career. I don't mean that at all, but
like an incredibly valuable, useful role.
Like think about when Leon Rose signed him.
I think it was three years, $13 million that came out of
nowhere. And that was before he really
started to pop as a player. They knew he knew very wise
early investment, right? Rather be there early and pay
less than late and pay more. That's business one O 1.
And I really think that like if, if Deuce is playing 25 to 27
minutes a night, I think that Deuce McBride winds up getting,
you know, 80 or $100 million contract from somebody at some
point. I think he's that good because I
think if you give him that money, even if it's not the
Knicks, he's going to go wherever he would go with the
intent to play him 313233 minutes could shoot, you know,
could defend and he's no nonsense and he's all basketball
and he's low maintenance. So but but about Leon Rose,
like, you know, you hearing ankle that you know little
maintenance, like they knew the severity of this.
But the ability to keep that in house speaks volumes about how
the Knicks are run right now compared to contrast the two how
they were run for so many years when it was just an absolute
circus where everything was out there for public consumption,
problems, issues, agendas, right, all that stuff or
discord. So Leon Rose acts very
stealthily. Stealth.
That's a tough word to say. Stealth Lee.
There you go. You almost have to break it up.
Stealth Lee. He's done that very well, and
that's one of his M OS now. Good job pivoting to Alvarado.
And I say that because if the NBA community knew that Deuce
was really jacked up and just about to hit the surgical table,
well, now the ability to negotiate from a position of
power is weakened. And maybe you don't get Alvarado
or maybe you've got to give up Shaman, which they asked for.
And Leon Rose rightly and smartly rebuffed, right?
And he was able to keep Shaman, who's playing great, playing
fantastic shooting, being up. I've always been a Shaman fan.
You guys know that. So that's just operating with a
championship, you know, like the culture for the Knicks is really
good and I and I'm proud of that.
It's good to see. Now I want to incorporate
Cashman here. All right, Think about another
thing that Leon Rose does very well is that he doesn't double
down. When Leon Rose makes a mistake,
he very swiftly moves on and the pivot is almost always a
productive one. It really is.
So whether it's, I just wrote and I mentioned, I mentioned a
few of these the other day, but think about these and I'm not
going to expand on it because it doesn't matter.
It's in the past, but it does illuminate how Leon Rose
operates. And then I'm going to get into
Cashman and contrast it right, because that's one of my biggest
issues with Cashman. I wish he did this like a Leon
Rose. So you give 48 that ridiculous
four years, $80 million extension Cook, but didn't
workout, couldn't play the see it bench gone right, moved on
very fast. I mean, this is a lesser mistake
for sure, but giving Randall the big money when he did off 1 all
NBA season, a little bit of a rush to the party, but
eventually Randall's gone and I think the Knicks became better.
Maybe not champion. I don't think they're going to
win the championship this group, but more championship viable in
my opinion, then they would be if they still had Julius Randall
smart pivot, quick pivot, right, Brianna Campbell Walker was
early and that was I mean that's just he just come play and boom,
quick pivot bang got rid of him. Then you extended RJ Barrett
probably earlier than you needed to and let's face it, puts up
some numbers. But or and and RJ Barrett was
interesting early and I liked him.
He he's going to be 1/3 or 1/4 option on a on a really, really
good team, probably 4 on a really good team.
He's good. That's it.
But they paid him like he was really good and like was maybe
on the precipice of stardom. Quick pivot there, passed on
Tyrese Halliburton in the draft, gave up a protected first round
pick for Cam Reddish. But then he was able to spin all
those things. And those are that's 123456,
that's 6. And there's others. 6 mistakes,
varying degrees of mistakes for sure, but was able to quickly
maneuver. And by the way, unlike Cashman,
he's got to do it with the restraints of a salary cap, with
a salary cap sport hard caps and, and real stuff that you've
got to do rather than just luxury tax threshold wish, which
if you're willing to blow by and eat mistakes, you can.
Now we get to Brian Cashman. So what?
And I've always separated Cashman from Aaron Boone.
Not because I, I know Aaron, not because I like Aaron.
Even before I ever talked to Aaron Boone, I always had
distinct separation between the two.
I have right? And Cashman's biggest issue is
he's stubborn. It's the biggest problem.
He sticks with his players too long and he's really too
inflexible with his vision. Like he it's almost like he does
something and then he tries to prove to us that he's right
rather than take it on the chin. Quick pivot, boom, bye, bye.
You're out of here. I messed up a little bit.
I'm going to take it on the chin.
I'll own it. But I will now do something that
I perceive to be a better move that will strengthen the Yankees
and invariably put them in a bit of better position to win the
championship. He just doesn't do that.
I mean, he kept running out. Donaldson stamping still on the
team. You know, gamble wasn't like
forever, but even that was a bit of an issue.
Aaron Hicks. I mean, this is a regurgitation
of all the things that bother me and you by extension, about
about the Yankees and about Cashman here.
But I thought it was a good time to insert it here because think
about this. Leon Rose, what?
Look at how he operates. And the Yankees, by the way, are
pretty quiet as well. Like you hear about the Yankees.
I'm not just trying to bag on Cashman unnecessarily.
He does a lot of good things, and the Yankees are always a
good team. But I wish that Brian Cashman
had a little bit of that, that honesty and that, that not even
sensibility, but just that, that awareness that, hey, if it
didn't work out, it's OK to swallow your pride because if
the next move works out, nobody's going to be bagging on
you. The reason Cashman gets pounded
in the court of public opinion. I, I hasn't won since all nine.
That's the easy stuff. But I think when you get into
the that's the macro, when you get into the micro layers here,
it's the stuff like running out Donaldson or not really ever
having a third basement or not having a suitable fielder or not
really having a viable lead off man or not having great
protection, always consistently behind Aaron Judge or not really
ever having a first baseman. I mean, see that those are a lot
of issues. I mean, think about that.
So I find it very interesting where, by the way, he also
overvalues his prospects, probably to the point where if
he does want to move on from somebody, their values diminish
where what you could have gotten back for that player is no
longer there. Now I see something yesterday
who had it? Was it Heyman and may have been
John Heyman who said that he believes or was reporting.
And if it's not John, I apologize.
I'm not trying to, you know, throw this on his doorstep.
But I thought it was John. That Dominguez is going to start
the year in triple AI mean, what are we doing?
I understand that you got to play to get better.
Jason Dominguez is a Major League Baseball player.
I can't say that about Spencer Jones and I won't because I
haven't seen him do it. I've seen Dominguez be a viable,
productive player, hit 260 ish, steal 20 bags, hit ten home runs
and Oh yeah, by the way, never really play.
Now you want to tell me it would be different if he starts in AAA
and he's in center field Like that might be a little different
or they exclusively have him hit lefty and say, you know what?
And maybe that's part of the plan here.
So I want to, I don't want to be unfair.
We're going to beg the right side.
He's an above average lefty hitter with patients, with pop,
with wheels. Let's just have him be a lefty
and let's let him face lefties as a lefty hitter rather than
try to push the envelope as a righty where that aptitude and
and that ceiling is not very visible.
All right, if there's a greater plan, all right, maybe I'm open
to it here, but Dominguez is a Major League player.
That's all there is to it. And when I saw that, I'm like,
what? So you got Leon Rose who makes a
mistake and says, all right, I messed up, I'm moving on.
And you got Cashman who makes a mistake and hangs on for dear
life. Hangs on for dear life.
And and I really, I'm going to use the word again.
Now, I'm not trying to get personal.
This is never personal. I like Brian.
I invited him on the show hasn't responded yet, but I invited
him. Make no mistake about it the
other day when he said I challenge anybody to, you know,
say that this is the same team or this is not a World Series
championship type of team. I challenge anybody, but I
challenged you. I invited you on the show
respectfully challenge you haven't heard back yet.
All right, So it's never personal.
I don't want anybody to think that if it's personal, you'll
know. But I really don't play in the
weeds with that. I I I think that's petty.
And even, you know, if even even if you look at my career, I
don't have radio wars. Like I don't get to that
nonsense. It's bullshit beef.
Radio beef. I'm gonna have radio beef with
some dude on the air. What?
Like if there's really an issue, come talk to me.
We'll flush it out. As men, we don't have to talk
about it on the air. Like, I'm not into gossip.
I'm not into beeps. I'm not into radio.
Never have been, never will be. It's boring, it's infantile,
it's petty, and it's a waste of their time, in my opinion.
Now, others are very good at that and and they enjoy it.
I don't lean into it and I never have and I never will.
So I'm not that guy that that attacks, I'll get nuts and I'll
let you know how I feel about certain things, but it's never
personal. I do want to, you know,
reinforce that. But I'm going to use the word
again. The man is stubborn.
He's not stupid. He's not lazy, all right?
He's not unfit for the job. He is stubborn.
And when you're stubborn, you generally don't evolve, whether
it's as a human, whether it's as a husband, whether it's as a
dad, whether it's as a Co worker, whether it's a content
create, as a content creator, radio, TV, whatever might be.
If you don't evolve, then you just not getting better.
And while others are evolving and they're getting better,
you're getting lapped. And, and I do think that there's
been many times where, from a philosophical point of view, the
Yankees have been lapped here because other teams have gotten
better at what they used to be great at drafting, developing,
getting the best players in. No one went to get rid of
somebody. That's all things that they did.
Don't do it anymore. And, you know, I I I think it
would be unfair not to incorporate Hal here.
I mean, yeah, All right. You want to tell me.
I don't know this to be true. And I don't believe this, but at
least leave the window open a little bit here as a
possibility. You want to tell me that the
reason why Hicks was here for so long and maybe even like a
Pavano or Kobe Ellsbury or even Stanton to Stanton.
Stanton is not lumped in with those guys, but to a lesser
extent Stanton Donaldson for sure.
You know 9000 different first baseman they've had that really
don't work third base left field.
All the things I've talked about.
It's because how is the message from above is Nope, I'm not
eating that money that remains on so and so's deal.
All right, that's that's that's a little different, but I really
don't believe that that's the case.
Like I believe that Brian Cashman really thought that
Aaron Hicks was worth buying out the years of arbitration.
And when you when the Yankees very they only do it, they did
it with Seve and they did it with him.
So they don't really do it. It's not a common practice for
the Yankees. So when the Yankees do it,
Cashman is going to run to the top of the mountain and hold on
for dear life to be proven right.
When what you're really doing is hurt is you're hurting your
team, you hurt your team. And it's the exact opposite
approaching Leon Rose. He tries to strengthen the team,
he tries to push the team forward.
And that's one thing about Dolan, who's been very quiet
last couple of years. And I appreciate that.
If there's something awry, hey, I'll cut, get rid of him, I'll
cut the check. Want to fire this guy?
Move on. You want to cut this guy, move
on. And really, what else can you
ask for from an owner except to let the people that they hired
do their job and cut the checks and stay out of the way?
And really, if the Dolan era didn't get off to such a bad
start, and I know there's other elements to it, the Oakley
incident, I get it. He doesn't really project a
whole lot of personality. You see him sitting courtside at
the Garden like this, he looks miserable.
You know it. If he projected maybe a little
bit differently early and the Knicks had a little more success
early rather than us hating what was happening with Isaiah, Phil
Jackson and everything in between, I think Dolan would be
revered because he's everything that you want.
Like think about contrast that to Woody.
Woody cuts the checks, but Woody can't keep his his his grubby
football fingerprints off the product.
He doesn't know what he doesn't know.
And that's very dangerous. Whereas, you know, Dolan does
that. And and I think that for the
most part, how does that for the most part, how does that?
So I think anything from a baseball point of view, I do
think that I've got to leave that at Brian Cashman's doorstep
because I think how let's his baseball people do their job.
I really do at MO cage Eli for the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, he'll get in eventually. He'll get in.
He's going to have to wait. I mean, what do you want me to
get up here and start stumping for Eli?
I mean, didn't get in the first year, didn't get in the second
year. Shouldn't I mean, Drew Brees
should get him when he when he like he did.
You know, guys like that get in and I was watching.
I had first, was it first? No, I had to get up this morning
for a little bit and then they got some stuff I just had like
is Sant Arnold kid if he wins, he going to be a lead.
No, I'm I'm good change the channel.
But I generally like a lot of the guys on the show there and I
love Bart. Like Bart's a great dude.
I did TV with Bart Scott. I watch him the jet stuff on
S&Y, you know, with Willie and the crew after the games does a
good job is good guy man with Barts.
I really like Bart actually. I got to get bored on the show
here. I will.
I'll reach out to him at some point.
And they were talking about Eli and he's like, listen, you know,
you never he said what I what I have always said you never had
to worry about Eli and in that regard he was never one of the
top five quarterbacks in the NFL.
So listen, I get it. You stumping for your boy, two
time champion, 2 time Super Bowl MVP class act, you know, as
class as it gets. And I know he's got a lot of the
numbers, the passing yards and the touchdowns, but I'm not
going to reset this whole thing. But you know, Eli Manning will
get into the Hall of Fame. He will and he should.
He eventually will be coronated a Hall of Famer.
But anybody who's out here saying Eli was great or Eli, you
know, week to week or year to year was one of the best
quarterbacks in the NFL, you're flat out wrong.
You just straight up wrong. It's not even close.
I mean, Eli Manning never received AI did this the other
day, never received a single MVP vote in his entire career.
Now, I don't need you to win the award, but I mean, if you're a
Hall of Famer and you listen, most Giant fans have the proper
perspective, but some are off the map.
Just I mean, just get them back in the insane asylum here
because their reeds are so off base.
If you are one of these Giant fans, there's no if you're not a
Giants fan, you're not pushing Eli's an all time great.
You're acknowledging he's going to get in only the Giant fans
because of the, you know, the sentimentality and the, and the,
the closeness and the, the, what he did for you, which I get, you
know, you're going to carry that, that cross from a little
bit and maybe push it a little bit too far.
Nobody else is saying Eli was great.
Only giant fans. And I really do think that some
giant fans overstate who he was. I mean, you can wind up in a a
place with the legends of the game, but don't tell me based on
the circumstances, but don't tell me in real time that you
were ever a legend of the game. You weren't.
You led the league in pick three time picks three times.
You know, you won the same amount of games that you lost.
I'm not saying it's all your fault, but come on, man.
I mean, Matt Ryan wanted to be paid.
Eli never got a vote. I mean, look at some of his
years and I'm not here to bag on Eli, But you brought it up.
So I'm, you know, in touch on it here.
What else we got here? Yeah, I got the the Cashman
roast up. I think that that's really
interesting. I really do.
At Rod Power 78. What's up, Rod?
All right, BT ask BT. How would you feel if St.
John's was paired with your? That's a good question.
I've gotten this before. I've never really answered it.
How would I feel if St. John's was paired with my alma
mater Marist, who's in fourth place in the Mack in the first
round of the NCAA Tournament? My God, that is that's a great
one. Now, the chances of that ever
happening are minuscule. That's not going to happen this
year. Because even if St.
John's like beat UConn tonight, like, look, they're 22 right
now, right? Uconn's about a point and a
half, two point favorites, as they should be, right?
If they if, if St. John's wins tonight and even if
they run the table and win the regular season Big East
championship again and win the Big East champ, which would mean
you're beating UConn also beating them up at stores.
Like that's a lot to I don't think that that's all that's
going to happen. It's not going to sweep UConn.
I don't and then beat UConn. I don't think in what would be,
you know, the regular the championship.
I just that would be a lot. That would be a lot for me.
But even if they did that, I'm not sure.
I don't think they get a one seed and where Marist is based
on the Mac, although Coach Brady, Coach Dunn, who I'm good
friends with has done a great job up there.
Rockaway guy played at Archbishop Malloy.
Love Dunn, reach out to him, you know, encouragement.
You know, I went to the Saint Peter's game in Jersey City.
I took my son and a few of his buddies about a month and A and
they lost about a month and 1/2 or so ago just to support
Marist. I love marriage, you know that.
But if they ever did play, and I will answer the question and
you're gonna hate the answer, I don't think that they would play
because the only way they would play is if Maris got in, which
is possible. They're one of the better teams
in the Mack for sure. So they could win the Mack
Championship this year and get the automatic bid.
They're one of the three or four best teams.
There's no question about that. And they're on a nice run.
They got a good coach, play defense, could score more than
they usually do, right? But Saint John's to play them
would have to be a one seed. I don't think they'll be a one
seed this year. You know, if Saint John's is a
right now, they're about a six seed.
I do think that they will get higher before it's all said and
done. I think Saint John's will wind
up maybe a possibly a low for a high 5.
And at that point, like Maris wouldn't be you wouldn't play
them in a 512 game or a 413 game.
Who would I really root for? You're not going to like this
and I'm going to reach for something here.
Hold on a SEC. You're not going to like this.
You're definitely not going to like this because I, I wore, I
wore, I wore these colors, man. And I wore these colors with
amazing pride. Like Marist means so much to me,
so much to me. You know, wasn't a great player,
We weren't a great team. But man, having that logo on my
chest and, and the other uniforms and script and, you
know, that battle with my boys that I love that I'm still
friends with to this day, still support the program, baseball
and football, women's hoops as well.
St. John's, St.
John's, because #1 before I ever even knew about Marist, St.
John's was there. And St.
John's is a big reason why I'm the sports fan that I am.
The connection to Coach Carter, second, rest in peace, the great
Chris Mullen. Like if St.
John's was really down and I don't know if I love basketball,
I don't know, Like, it was the perfect time.
I had just started playing CYO and CYO back then was amazing,
you know, really tough and really competitive.
Played with a lot of guys who played college basketball, great
high school players, Bishop Ford, Xavarian Xavier Mcclancy,
Holy Cross, like it was on and St.
John's was great. Mulden was the first round pick,
you know, Wooden Award winner, St.
John's, Georgetown. That, that fire and that, that
perfect combustible synergy, I really think is a large part of
the reason why I decided to do what I do now.
And it's different. It's more intimate with Maris
because I, I played for them. I went there.
I've got my degree that I'm very proud of from a great university
hanging on my I'm looking at it right now, you know, but the
other thing too is St. John's, if they play and then
say if St. John's wins, well, now I'm
deeper in the NCAA tournament and I'm working like even if
Maris were to win, like I, I, you know, just just based on the
limitations and IL, they're not going to the final four.
We're like one of these years with Rick.
I expect St. John's to pop through and get to
a final four or released an elite 8.
And that's something I want to do.
Like I've called a couple of NCAA tournament games.
I finally called the win, you know, last year and then a
second round loss against Arkansas up in Providence.
I want to be at the Sweet 16 calling games with Mink.
I want to be in the middle of that.
I want to be at an elite 8. I want to feel that like I
that's something I really, I want to say I need it because
I'm thankful for what I have and I've had a chance to do some
great things. But there is a part of me that
does need that. Not even validation, just to
scratch the itch. Like I needed to see St.
John's win a Big East regular season championship.
I needed to be in the broadcast booth and actually see St.
John's cut down Mets and be on the floor, which I was during
the celebration with confetti and the trophy and the
commissioner and Gus Johnson out there interviewing Rick when
they won the Big East tournament.
Like that's I've watched the Biggies tournament my whole
life, you know, and the last time they had won and it was a
long time ago. So, yeah, it's a hard answer.
It's a tough question, but I would say St.
John's. I feel guilty saying it.
I I really do. Sweet Lou, Punta Gorda, What's
up there? Sweet Lou?
BT did you finally get around to watching the Rambo series?
You did. Tell me about that.
You're missing out if you haven't.
You know what? No, I haven't.
Just going to be totally honest with you that came up with me
and Sal were still on the fan. And it's funny because like nut
jobs like we love Rocky, we love Rocky music.
We you know, I love Rocky five. He doesn't, you know, there's
other things that he likes more than than me and vice versa.
But with our affinity for Rocky is about as high as anything
that you could have affinity for in terms of sharing is from from
a former radio partner, right? And you would think because we
love Stallone and we love Rocky that we would have gotten into
Rambo. I never got into it.
I really, and I think I would appreciate it a lot more now,
even though I played a little GI Joe when I was young, again, it
was more about being in the street, although I did play with
the Star Wars figures all the time.
I love that I had the Millennium Falcon, I had the Dagobah
system. I had the, the Hoth, the ice
thing like that, that the little tiny fake ice thing, the land
speeder. I had it all.
And I used to take the Star Wars figures and take like thread for
my mom's sewing kit and like tie it around their their ankle or
their not their head, their arm and like hang them from, I don't
know, like my fan in my room, like Princess Leia and then hot
and Luke without a cup cup and save them.
So I love this up. But and I did have some GI Joe
figures, but I didn't play with him as much.
I wasn't as into GI Joe as I as I was Star Wars.
And I know the GI Joe is not Rambo, but it's kind of the same
genre. And I didn't find that very
interesting when I was young. I don't know why I think I would
find it a whole hell of a lot more interesting now.
So I know that you said that and it's something that I would like
to do. I just got to find the time and,
you know, when is that time going to come?
I'm not sure. It's certainly not going to come
tonight. Jay, Ron, let's get it up.
You know what time it is, little Johnny.
'S Yes, Sir. St.
John's, UConn at the garden. Let's get after it.
Yeah. I mean, I'm going to watch it.
Well, I mean, what time is it on?
I'll get off of work at six. It's on 8.
It's on at 8:00. We're there, We're there.
All right, all right, so I'm going to get a little Johnny's
and UConn talk here at this point.
Then we'll start wrapping things up for the show here on this
Friday. The the St.
John's UConn game tonight is it's it's the hottest ticket in
sports right now. I mean, there's not going to be
a game out there that's going to be at least up until the even
UConn for me, even UNC and Duke, it just doesn't have this juice.
I mean, you got 18 straight wins.
Huskies are 22 and 112. I don't want a Big East.
St. John's won eight straight.
They're 17 and 5:10 and 1:00. And I really didn't know which
way St. John's was going to go.
I've, I've talked about this, like when they lost some of
those, that Auburn game, that Kentucky game, the Providence
game, last time they lost there at the Garden, I did the game
with bank. I remember leaving the Garden.
Like man, this, this might not be the right crew.
There's something off whether it's chemistry or I, I don't
think it's talent, but it's just, it ain't working.
And since then it's worked. Dylan Mitchell's a starter and
and obviously St. John's's front court is
phenomenal here. So I cannot wait for this game.
And I mentioned the top of the show there, the secondary
market. So not all of them, but I saw a
couple seats over $500 in the two hundreds at the Garden
tonight. It's on National T, it's not on
FS1, it's on Fox. So you got Gus, who is the best.
I got to make sure I say hi to Gus.
I love Gus. Jimmy Jackson.
That's the team. Massive games, the A-Team and
you know, I'm, I'm trying to get a sense of.
I'll give you a little prediction.
I won't I won't predict the game because I do the games here.
I do think that's that UConn slightly slightly better and I
do think they should be favored. And you got to respect the 18
game win streak and Hurley's champion two time.
He's phenomenal. And so is Rick.
It's it's just going to you know what it is.
There's something about these these two and they respect each
other. Like they've talked about it
openly. Rick respects him and Hurley
respects Rick. There's no question.
But there was something, I don't know if inflamed this the right
way, but let, let's put it this way, just use common sense.
If you're Rick Pitino, who was indisputably and for my money,
he's he very well might be the greatest college basketball
coach in the history of college basketball.
All right. But if he's not number one, he's
certainly on the short list. OK, Wooden Coach K Jimmy
Calhoun. Yeah, a few others, 8 OfferUp.
But I've I've, I've done this recently, I'm not going to do it
again. But Rick is there.
And for me, he's number one, right?
But it's subjective. I get that.
But if you're Rick and you're in your early 70s and you have that
place in the game and you just won 900 and he said that he'd
love to be healthy enough. And he said it's in God's hands,
which I think is a great way to put it.
If he wants to get to 1000, he wants to coach a couple of more
years. He wants to finish and get St.
John's a championship and all that stuff.
Like if you're him, there is a, there's a level of pride and,
and territoriality of, of you holding on to, to what's yours.
And that is the general thought that you're the greatest coach,
certainly coaching now and for many in the history of the game.
And you're protective of that. And you respect Danny Hurley.
But he's young and he's coming for what what you have, or at
least you think he's coming for what you have, right?
And let's face it, Danny keeps winning.
And I think events eventually Danny's going to go to the NBA
like Rick did. So I don't know how much longer
Danny will coach at UConn. He's flirted a few times already
with the Lakers, as we know. But if he coaches long enough,
he very well might win four or five championships.
And at that point, he surpasses Rick just in terms of, you know,
level of accomplishment. So Rick is protecting his turf,
you know, the old dog, the old guard, right?
Then he got the young pup and not the Danny's 30, but you
know, the younger pup who's already got, you know, 2
championships and a ton of moments and is generally thought
to be and he said it himself when he was when he was blasting
the ref. He's like, I'm, you know, I'm
I'm I'm the greatest bleeping coach in the game.
Like that was that was that was wild.
He's like basically show me some respect.
I'm the I'm the greatest epic coach in the game.
He's a wild man. Like he is absolutely bonkers.
And Rick is more controlled, probably comes with age, but
they're both fiery. They're both great.
And they're what, 150 miles apart, whatever it is.
And they're both now chasing the same thing in the same
conference. So there is there is an energy
there. There is a friction there, even
though there is outward respect. They both said it, but they're
both chasing the same thing. Rick's trying to hold on and,
and keep climbing. And Danny's trying to discard
him and say, and I say this respectfully, all right, old
man, step aside. It's mine.
It's my show. And when you had that energy,
much like an old WWE champion who's hanging on, you know, you
can respect the guy who, you know, is getting the push from
the company. But you know, eventually you're
going to have to lay down for the guy and he's going to have
to pin you. And your shoulders will be on
the mat and that other guy's going to lift up the trophy.
You know, not that you can't win it back at some point, You know,
it's scripted. So anything can happen.
But at that moment, you lose your place.
And Rick is as prideful. He's become more and more humble
as he's gotten older, which I think is a great any very, very
common quality. I think for a lot of people as
you age, you become more humble, which is great.
He's definitely been very, very outward about that.
You know, he's learned he's become more humble from mistakes
and asked for forgiveness and, and I respect it, but make no
mistake, Rick is an assassin. Rick is a killer and he is
looking to to slice Danny Hurley in half tonight.
And Danny Hurley is looking to slay and slice St.
John's on the Garden floor tonight.
It's going to be amazing. I can't wait to get there.
I wish the game was earlier. Like it sucks I got to wait till
8:00 here, you know, at JT Bombers, BT it's imperative
Mitchell and Hopkins bring the ball up the court tonight.
Tomorrow he's going to be a problem at St.
John's. Needs to defend the three.
Let's go. Yeah.
The other thing Saint John's needs to do.
I got to start making some layups here now.
They they're doing a lot of good things with this winning streak,
obviously. Thank you for that.
I appreciate it, JT, The the evolution of St.
John's with Mitchell in the starting five in their front
court has allowed them to hit a level that, as I said before, I
didn't really know if it was necessarily there.
Listen, St. John's, the good thing about St.
John's, and you can't say this about every good team, they
don't have to hit a ton of threes to win.
Like it helps and they've got a couple of like Jackson could
shoot, Sannon could shoot. I I thought he'd shoot better,
but by trade he's a shooter. You know, if you leave Zubi up
top open, he'll stick a few. Same with Bryce Hopkins.
Obviously Sellers I think is the best shooter on the team, but
they're not relying on that. And I thought that the pole
game, which I was worried about as a trap game.
I thought that that to me was, was part of the problem.
Like I, I was worried about that game where, all right, you know,
if you're looking ahead to UConn and you're on the road, it's not
a great environment, easy to kind of be lulled into a
competitive game. And then if you look it up and
it's 234 points either way against the tough to ball team
at home, well coached ball team and a physically tougher to ball
team. It's not the doormat that they
were basically for the last however many years they're
they're they've gotten a little bit better.
And I was worried about that game.
And if you go back to that game, St.
John's couldn't make a shot early and they wound up leading
by a point, I think it was 2726 at the half because of their
defense. And that.
And UConn can obviously do this as well.
But the best teams in the country, they don't need to
drop, you know, 12 threes to play, play their style.
If shots aren't dropping early, their defense could keep them in
the game before eventually the numbers kind of, you know,
gravitate to the means and eventually you start making some
shots because good teams do. Now, one thing that's it's odd
because they're very good around the rim and their front courts
great. They just missed too many
layups. They got to start putting some
of these bunnies down. Saint John's needs to make more,
more easy shots. And I mean everybody.
Dylan Mitchell's missed a couple.
I think Bryce Hopkins has been probably the the biggest culprit
of them all. Even Zooby's missed a couple of
stick backs and really right at the rim.
And I don't understand why now Zooby more than Bryce will raise
up and flush it. And when you flush it, you're
not missing that. Mitchell's a great athlete, but
he's not as tall as Zoobie, so he's got to have a little more
space. And Hopkins is more, he's a good
athlete, not a great athlete. He's more like some girth and
and you know, carve out some space.
Nothing. He can't dunk, of course, but
he's kind of more going up some pump fakes in traffic.
And I guess that's why you miss some layups.
If that happens tonight and they miss some bunnies and they don't
hit any threes when they don't defend the three, they'll lose.
I mean, it's that simple. It's that simple.
Now, if they lose tonight, from a Saint John's perspective, it
really doesn't hurt them. Matter of fact, you know, if
it's a very close game metrically because of where
Utah, Utah, because of where UConn is in the NET rankings and
in the rankings and all the other numbers that matter there.
I matter of fact, I think you could elevate them a little bit.
Like right now, St. John's around 23 NET ranking,
they're thought to be a 5 or a six seed.
They're 22 in the country in the rankings.
If Saint John's loses and they don't get whacked, I don't think
anything changes. I think they're still ranked,
maybe drop a spot or two depending upon what happens.
But I don't think they'll be unranked if they lose, you know,
a one or two possession game to U Conn, right?
And they're underdogs. So that I think that would
validate that. And if they win, if they win
tonight, I would have to. I was thinking about this view
of my buddies have asked me, hey, if they beat, if they beat
UConn, where do you think the John is will be ranked on on
Monday when the AP poll comes out in the coaches poll.
I would say with a now with a resounding win, which I don't
expect. That's one thing with with with
a tight close win. I think St.
John's would go from 22 to about God.
I think there's a chance they jump double, double spots.
I think that they could get bunted right into the top 12 or
top 13. I don't think that that's overly
ambitious if they win tonight, because I think they're under
right now. I really don't think that they
should be closer to like 2019. I think that they, they are on.
I, I think that they were over ranked to start the season at
#5. I think they've been undervalued
a little bit the last week or two.
But if St. John's wins tonight, you're
inside the top 15. You could book that.
And I think there were a couple of spots better than that.
So it's going to be absolutely, absolutely bonkers.
It's going to be wild. So nice diverse show for you
today. Oh, let me let you know guys,
let you guys know about this. So if you're a fan, Jimmy Fala
from Fox across America, hysterical.
His story's awesome. Now, Jimmy, Jimmy's a fun.
He does politics, but he is funny, right?
And he was, I think he's no, he's a Long Island guy, but he
was driving a cab for a while. So you want to talk about a regs
to riches story. He he is, he's a man.
He's funny as hell. So they reached out, they
invited me on today to talk about I know we'll talk about
the Super Bowl and it was a big Yankee fan.
We'll talk some baseball. I know his son plays football.
So we'll do a little youth sports.
So that's today it is 1:00 PM Fox across America.
Jimmy fella, you guys want to check that out.
By all means, go and do it. Looking forward to that and with
that, with that mind, maybe I'll do a couple of texts before I
get out of here. But let me hit you with the
Super Bowl. Let's go there, J Rod, hit me
up, buddy. Who is going to win the Super
Bowl? What's the score going to be?
What's going to happen flashing up?
I'm not for. You.
Oh, you're not looking for me. I need.
You now I need what? You know where we go.
You know what we need, J Rod? I'm going Seattle in a relative
route of the Patriots. Now that you can keep it up
there, Jay, that doesn't mean that I don't have great respect
for the Pats. That doesn't mean that I think
that the game starts and it's 20 to 3 Seattle.
I actually think it looks more like a route than it really is.
I think Seattle might score late and kind of get that from 2417
to 3117, and it looks worse than it is.
I just think now Seattle's defense is great.
The Patriots defense is terrific.
Obviously May is really talented, young and young.
Donald's talented and he's he's on a, just a, an amazing run
here. I and they're both great
coaches. The fan base will probably be
pretty split. You know, a lot of Pats fans
going to make the trek out there.
In terms of proximity, it's easier for Seattle fans to get
down from Washington, which is a beautiful state by the way, just
gorgeous state topography. It's gorgeous.
Washington is beautiful. So you, you move down there, you
get to California rather than coming across the country.
So I think it's going to be maybe, you know, 50-60, forty
Seattle fans somewhere in that neighborhood maybe.
But I do think Seattle wins. And I do think that Sam Darnold,
even though I think the defense turns over may once and either
leads to a score or a short field that leads to a score, I
believe Seattle wins and I believe Sam Darnold will be the
MVP. And now we can get my boy J Rod
back in there. J Rod.
Much to the chagrin. What's up?
Of J Rod, who know who he's rooting for Sunday, of course.
Disagreeing on this one, but you know what?
We'll see how it plays out. I'm going to go, I'm going to
go, I'm going to go. Pats, 2117. 2117, you know
what's funny? Yeah, OK.
I do think it's going to be a battle and I think it's going to
be a real four quarter game. I don't think it's a snooze
fest. I don't think anybody pulls away
except maybe late, which is what I said with Seattle here.
I think that the as I was really pondering my final score there,
I almost went like 2017. I was thinking more low scoring
than I wound up eventually going, but I said along 3117
you've got a a score in the different team than me.
Your score is more in the ballpark of what I was initially
thinking, but it's going to be a blast.
Now you going back home to watch the game with your pops, you
hanging out with buddies? What are?
You doing? Yeah.
I think I'm just going to have some buddies over either at my
place, go out some like Boston fan kind of guys and we'll watch
the game. We'll get locked in.
I'm jealous, man, I'm I'm so jealous.
So you know what sucks about being AI mean?
You know what sucks about being a jets fan?
Everything can get me besides that.
Like when they do get to the Super Bowl, I mean, I'm, I'm
going to be too old to go nuts. Like, I mean, I'll still like.
Hey, you never know, maybe it'll like bring some, bring some
vigor to you. You'll go.
You'll go wild. Hey, I can pick my spots.
I mean, if you saw my my Instagram post over the weekend,
you know, I'm a fire pit guy. And I mean, I shoveled, I
shoveled the path just to be able to go stand out there, you
know, with my buddy who lives, who lives down the street.
Great. Yeah, I need my fire.
I need a couple of drinks. I need a little bit of whatever.
I need one. I got unplug a little bit.
So you're not the only one having fun.
The difference is you can walk in at 3:30 in the morning and it
provided, you know, you don't have worked in next day, you
could sleep in. I got to get up.
I got to deal with the kids. I got real life responsibility.
But not that you don't more real life responsibility.
And then I'm going to feel like shit if I go too hard.
I'm going to like, if you drink at that honestly, that that's
why those seltzers are money. You have a couple of those
seltzers, you feel great. You're #1 they're fun and you
don't feel hungover. But if I was to have, you know,
like I used to pound beers back in the parking lot when I had
Jet season tickets a million years ago, or, you know, right,
even before the kids were born, like I was really into Scotch,
right. I still like Scotch.
But, you know, one or two, if I suck down four or five scotches,
which I have at some points in my life, I mean, you, you need a
spatula to just scrape me out of bed the night I can't move.
Yeah, you'll be having. That I'm, I'm, I'm sure it gets
brutal, honestly, that's why, you know, you got to stay away
from those sugary drinks. Keep it, keep it, keep it chill.
All right, J Rod, I want you to have a good time, man.
You know the other thing, too. I've seen a lot of this.
I should stay there so we know who you look like.
You look like a few people. You look like a few people.
You look like most prominently. Who do you look like?
Mr. Gatton Matarazzo, Mr. Dustin from Stranger Things.
Yes, yes, Dustin J, Rod and, you know, brothers from another
mother or maybe brothers from the same mother.
I mean at that point. Honestly.
I don't know, but what we're doing is so my nephew is an
actor and he's a very accomplished.
He's younger, was he 14? And he's been in a lot of stuff.
I was in one of his movies. He was the star Rally Caps,
which is now out on Prime Video. If.
You guys got to check it out. You got to check it out, man.
Just a quick aside, if you guys are looking, somebody asked me
before about my favorite movies, my favorite baseball movies,
like what's a baseball movie that when I see it, I've got to
stick with it. And if you're and I, I gave you
a bunch, if you guys are looking for a good movie, maybe before
the Super Bowl, going to be cold out again this weekend.
And it's wholesome. There's not a single curse.
There's not a single, you know, there's not a moment with any
sort of sexual innuendo or content like that.
It is a wholesome movie about baseball and then obviously core
issues of growing up and stuff. It's almost like Stand By Me.
If you think it's a little bit of Stand By Me with it's got a
great soundtrack and baseball's the backdrop and it's awesome
anyway. My nephew who's a great kid and
a great actor, his name is Carson Veneer.
He's done a lot of great things legitimately not like, oh, he's
trying to be an actor. He's an actor and he's
phenomenal. He's a great kid, more
importantly. So he was in Stranger Things.
He was on, I forget how many episodes, but he was in a couple
of seasons. So he knows he knows him.
So we're going to, we're going to get, I'm going to call him
Dustin for this. We're going to get Dustin on the
show and we're going to have a three Screener and I'm going to
be in the middle and you and Dustin.
Oh my. Goodness, I can't wait.
Listen, hopefully he's got some ball knowledge.
I'm sure he does. It's going to be like, have you
ever seen it like the Spider man meme?
And it's like the 2 Spider man literally just like that.
But yeah, if we can get it done, This has been genuinely years in
the making for my life. So.
Oh. We will, don't worry.
Now let me ask you this does does that work for you with the
ladies? I mean, that's got to be honest.
It's got to be a good conversation starter.
It's a good conversation starter.
I just don't know if he's the best comparison.
Like I just don't know if he he's been the best.
Like oh man, you know this kid looks like the guy from Stranger
things. Oh wow, he's a he must be a real
looker, like, but always been a great conversation starter and
really like, I mean, I'm sure I'm about to go out to work
today and get it at least three times.
You get it that much? Oh my God, at least once a day,
every single day of my life. It's it's insane.
Wow. Yeah, You know, I never, I never
really got, I'll give you a couple.
I got 2 when I was younger. And then I don't think either 1
is going to resonate with you. I don't think that you'll be
like, Oh yeah, I can see that. And then another one more
recently, right? Well, Jason Statham so far.
OK. Yeah, yeah.
A little bit, right. I've gotten like a a slimmer
version of the Rock, which I don't.
I don't really see whatever. I mean, you bowled and Bruce
will. OK, yeah, you bowled.
I get it. But what I used to get when I
was younger, two things you used to get, Jeter.
I know that that sounds crazy, Jeter.
I can see it. Really like when I was tanned
'cause I get really tanned during the summer.
Got a little? Jeter yeah, yeah.
Like especially like the younger when his face was a little like,
slimmer. At the bottom, I yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I would get a little Jeter like in college, whatever.
And then especially when I started really going short with
there not like this, but like shaved.
And then I, I don't even know if you'll know the name.
You ever hear the name Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the
Block? Oh yeah, I mean, I've heard the
name for sure. Yeah, he's got he had like the
real curly hair. I think he was I was he I don't
even I think he was. He had the really high voice.
He was a very good. Most of the guys couldn't sing
him and I think Jordan or. He could sing.
One of the other the night, one of the night brothers was like
the main, I don't know, but he could see he could hit the high
note and all the girls in my neighborhood loved them.
And but even though some of them said that I looked like him,
they didn't love me. I and I I had that curly hair.
You got to I I got to find the picture.
I don't really, I don't get it that much.
You know, like a doppelganger. Oh, you look like this guy.
I I don't know if I would like being you and getting that all
the time. It's not great.
I mean, I don't, I don't listen. I don't hate it, but you just
hear it and you go like like there's nothing else to say
because it's like, so what's funny is when I was on Boomer
and Geo like a year ago or whatever, I just did like 10
minutes with them when I was in the in the studio.
What? The heck?
What were you talking about? I don't even remember that.
Bull crap. Like it was like 5.
It was like 5 minutes. We talked about this like Geo
was like, hey, you ever get you ever get like you look like the
kid from Stranger Things? And I was just like, I was just
put in like this awkward position where I was just like,
thank you. Like I don't know what to say.
Well, OK, so this is a little little devious here.
I don't know if I would necessarily recommend this, but
maybe the problem is you're not using it to your advantage.
I'm not just. I'm not pretending to just well.
Hear me out for a second. Hear me.
Out. Let's hear it.
Let's hear. It you're at a bar and somebody
comes up to you. Oh wow.
God I love you on Stranger Things.
Just go with it dude. And just go, Yep, I've only
gotten a genuine somebody believed it was me one time it
was at a concert and they were like, did they fly this kid out
to play the. Bass did they?
Fly Dustin out. And I was like, no, so it's
funny. Oh, man.
All right, bro, enjoy it. I'm going to sign off here in a
second. I might try to get a couple of
let's see if anything pops up. Get some scores here.
A lot of you were picking Seattle 31 to 3.
Brooklyn born. Come on, man.
Lenny 31 three I bet anything it's not going to be 31, but
then again again, that's when Seattle's defense is playing
downhill and when they got a lead I mean, again, it's not
going to be 31 free point taking.
You like Seattle, you like Seattle bigs here.
Obviously, if you're betting you're going to lay the 4 1/2
points that's fluctuated a bit. I can check this morning it's
right around 4 1/2. So you like Seattle.
All right, all right, what else? We Dustin, we got a little bit
of this Happy Friday, BT back to you guys here some more Seattle
Johnny's Yep. You know, I I know St.
John's played Alabama. Understood.
That was a good game didn't win.
I got that boy, people really jump into this dust and stuff.
It's absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing.
What else? Here, let me see here one more
thing. What is this?
Why is that not popping up? There we go, John, 62834 BT
pods, fire all the hard work you really put in shows love the set
up. Great things to come.
J Rod's a great addition. Now that's how you end the show.
Thank you very much, John. I appreciate that.
Good stuff, man. Yeah, If you guys just miss it,
I'm going to wrap it up. Welcome and sincere gratitude
and thanks to Sullivan Papain, who is the official first
sponsor of BT Unleashed. They start Monday.
All right, we've got a segment every Monday. 3 questions that
I'll answer coming from the weekend.
Some real pertinent stuff all around the the sports spectrum.
Could be local, could be national, could be whatever.
It really doesn't even have to be sports.
It can be something that I just find really interesting.
And then every Wednesday, the Johnnies report.
So they have signed on for the entire year.
Hopefully I get a chance to run into my buddy TJ McManus
tonight. He's a big St.
John's fan. The entire, well, maybe not the
entire Firm, but the Firm is a mess.
Massive, massive St. John's contingent of fans there.
So, so that's how I actually came in touch with them.
They are big St. John's supporters and by
extensions and by an extension supporters of what we're doing
here. So phenomenal to be able to
announce that I got a text right before I got on the show this
morning. They are officially, it's being
printed now and it's a big process again.
It's not some little tiny logo. It is the entire wall and it's
being printed and takes like 2 hours.
Just the fabric and and all the colors, whatever it's being
printed today and then they're coming next week to install it.
So next week will be the last, the last week here as I spin you
around a little bit that you will get to see, you will not
see any of this stuff here. You will not see any of that
stuff there. You will not even see sadly the
Don Mattingly jersey. What you will see is the massive
BT Unleashed logo which I cannot wait to unveil.
So I don't want to just keep talking for the sake of talking.
Have a great week and everybody thanks again to Sullivan for
pain. You know what that means to me.
Thank you everybody, enjoy the Super Bowl, be safe, get out
there if you get a bet, be smart, don't be stupid.
And what you really shouldn't do in terms of betting, which I
learned my lesson a long time ago, what you probably don't
want to do is at halftime when you got 5 drinks in you or have
whatever in your system, don't just start hitting buttons and
just start betting. You know, understand what you
want to do. If you want to bet, have a
couple props, understand what you like, do your research, be
smart, you know, don't don't let a wager amount that you probably
shouldn't do affect how you enjoy the game.
All right, And then after the Super Bowl, they start to get
the dribs in the, you know, little dribbles and a little
stories here from Tampa, from Port Saint Lucie, little Yanks,
a little Mets. Once the studio was done.
I've got a long list of guests that I'm going to roll out.
I had Sal on the other day, which was awesome.
Going to have Stephen A he's already committed.
Can't wait to do that. And I don't even look at it as
an as an interview. It's going to be a conversation,
going to be free flowing. I'm like also Michael K.
Michael, what do you think about the Yankees rotation?
I've known Michael for 20 something years.
I was at his wedding. I used to work at the same
station as Michael, love Michael.
So when I have Michael on, we'll have a conversation.
Don, the Greg is coming on. Obviously you don't want to get
Alex Rodriguez on Aaron Boone, Rick Pitino conversations.
It's kind of waiting. I told Sal, I said, listen, no
offense, buddy. I said, you know, you're my guy.
I don't need the studio to look fresh to have you on the show
for you and I to do what we do. The other ones when we start
bringing out the A Listers, when the A listers start coming in,
which they will, we got to look tight with the studio.
So have a great weekend, enjoy the Super Bowl.
I got Seattle, I got Darna winning the MVP.
Go Johnny's. The Garden will be on fire
tonight. Can't wait to see you at the
Garden if you go in. Have a great weekend Monday at
10 right here on Unleashed. We'll see you.
This is on leash, are you listening?
Can you hear me?