Tuesday afternoon.
We are looking at about fourteen minutes past the hour of two o'clock.
We're a little late today.
We had some fun crosstalk with Sean on this Tuesday afternoon. But as it is every single day, it's gonna have you along for the ride. Spence check, it's me on the mic. That's Porter Larsen beyond the Glass today. Happy Tuesday to you, beautiful day outside, and as it is every single day, it's gonna have you along for the ride.
Jam Pack show.
NBA Playoffs inching closer and closer to May the twelfth, which is the next date that will be interesting for.
The Utah Jazz and Jazz fans.
The Jazz once again for the third straight year not participating in the spring tournament.
Not is the NBA Playoffs. So some fun games last night.
We have four games tonight's well Tonight Slash this afternoon. There's gonna be one game that actually gets going while we're on air and may even be at like halftime by the time that we finish.
So four o'clock today.
On NBA TV, the Indiana Pacers are going to try to eliminate the Milwaukee Bucks. A lot of people wondering if this is the final game. Yannas Sante to Cumbo will be playing for Milwaukee.
Indiana has been.
Very impressive and should they advance, They're going to take on Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who dog walked the Miami Heat last night. They were up by sixty at one point and ended up winning.
By I believe fifty five.
It is the largest single series plus minus in the history of the NBA Playoffs. The Cavs just ran away from Miami. Of course, Miami winning the play in style tournament to get in as the eighth seed, and their reward was just to get smoked by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Donovan's been really good. You know, we'll talk about this
on the show today. We're not really used to as jazz fans here in Salt Lake City, we're not really used to seeing players that played here and played really well here go on to find extreme success in other play This kid is going to be the exception. Donovan's going to be the exception. For all the conversation about the calculated risk and I'm being kind of Nico Harrison that the Dallas Mavericks took by trading a twenty five year old generational superstar Luka Doncic.
The Jazz did the same thing.
Jazz did the same thing and trading away Donovan Mitchell as he was kind of approaching his prime. And now Jazz fans watching this Cleveland Cavaliers team and seeing what Donovan is able to do as he continues to grow. And then last night man great television with the Warriors in the Rockets just Gripping TV. Saw Golden State hang
on at the end one nine to one six. Jimmy Butler did play after all the conversation about whether or not he was going to go, and he had fourteen points in the fourth quarter, hit all twelve of his free throws. Houston as a team missed twelve free throws. As a group, they were nineteen of thirty one. Draymond Green with a great defensive stand there at the end and Jimmy Butler with a grown up ground ass man winning rebound to seal the deal for Golden State.
So move over to the action tonight.
Like I said, there's gonna be a really early tip four o'clock on NBA TV. Is the Bucks and the Pacers also an NBA TV will be the Magic and the Celtics Boston trying to just eliminate Orlando. They're up three to one. Not sure if Drew Holliday is gonna play, not sure if.
It even matters.
Orlando's been pesky, but Boston I still think the best team in the East, although Cleveland will have something to say about it. And then the Pistons in the Knicks return to the world's most famous arena and the mecha of basketball in the heart of New York City, Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks will try to advance to the second round as they lead Detroit three to one. That's been a fun series as well, and then a
lot of intrigue for the late night game. It's eight o'clock on Turner and TNT also has the Pistons in the Knicks, so it will be Clippers Nuggets eight o'clock Mountain time from Ball Arena and Denver, Colorado.
That series is tied to.
Two, and that's been a really cool series, fun series to watch as well. So NBA Playoff Action on the program today will kind of bring it around to talk a little Utah jazz to the prism of what we can learn from some of these teams that have been rebuilding and now we're actually playing games that matter. Get
into some of that on the show. Alex Jensen and the Utah men's basketball staff added a piece yesterday and John much about him, but watching some highlights over the past twenty four hours, he's a really dynamic ball in hand, playmaking guard, which is exactly what Utah basketball did not have last year. College football transfer portal is closed, but we'll get to the latest in the college football world storylines NFL draft, which only saw two local players drafted.
One youth Caleb Lohner goes to the Denver Broncos and Jalen Royals from Utah State drafted. No BYU players drafted this year, but we will get to the latest in the world of college football and if you care about such things, House first, NCUBA all of the legislation we're waiting to hear past to kind of understand what sort of guardrails and guidelines will be in place, so we'll get some of that stuff on the show as well. RSL continues their road heavy April slash May schedule.
As we are about to turn our calendars.
To May coming up, they're gonna be in Vancouver coming up on Saturday, after getting all three points in San Diego.
So little soccer on the program as well.
A lot to do Tuesday Afternoon style of this little old radio program, We appreciate your ears. We'll start things off with Kyle Bonnigura, who covers college football and also soccer for ESPN NBA Daily Assist Style with Tim McMahon on the show today. Kaylan Jones, our old friend who's been with Sports Illustrated and The Ringer.
He's now with Netflix. Netflix has a couple of.
Really exciting sports docs coming up, one on Brett Favre As the trailer was just released today. So we'll bring in our old buddy, Kayln Jones, and then Sam Bruckhouse, who covers the NFL for our friends at Zoomer Sports for some NFL Draft takeaways on the program as well.
So a lot to do.
Kyle Bonneger, Tim McMahon, Kaylan Jones, Sam bruck House, Me Spence Check. Its all of you, the great listeners, Happy Tuesday, beautiful day. And that guy Porter Larson producing the I don't know, man, I'm not sure where you're at with this Warriors Rocket series. But you know, Golden State's probably gonna win it. But this has been gripping television. Last night was a lot of fun.
We talked about it before the weekend. It was probably the series that, from like a a clashing styles standpoint, was the one we're most looking forward to, the one that was a you know, most interesting because you have this changing of the guard that's happening in the NBA.
It doesn't happen overnight. It never does. It's not how it.
Works, but there is a little bit of a changing of the guard, and you see it in this series. It's Steph, it's Jimmy Butler, it's Draymond Green. And yes, I do think they're gonna win the series. But although it's three to one, it hasn't been you know, it's been closer than three to one. All the games have been competitive, the back and forth have been fun. I just don't think the Rockets have quite enough experience for the late game situations in that series.
We saw that last night.
But yeah, man, it's been probably the most entertaining series to watch from a standpoint both of clashing styles of basketball and kind of generations clashing as well.
No doubt, no doubt. It's been a lot of fun, so I say it all the time. Spring basketball reminds all of us basketball fans what this great game can look like when the best players in the world actually care about, you know, doing their job and showing up and playing ball. So Kyle Bondiguerra, our first guest, right out of the gates, we'll do some college football squeezing, a little soccer I time allows with Kyle, but on
a Tuesday afternoon. Before we get to Kyle, courtesy of our good friends at Prize Picks, it is time now for your opening tip.
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season long, All right tonight. I'm going more for Tyree Saliburton fifteen point five points and rebounds.
That feels like easy money to me.
I'm gonna go less on Jason Tatum twenty seven point five points. I hate to say it, but I'm gonna go less on Jalen Brunson with thirty points. I'm going more on Giannis for thirty three point five points, and I'm going more on Nikola Jokic fifty two point five points, rebounds and assists combined. Prize picks. Run your game all season long. All right, A couple quick things regarding the NBA playoffs. I was thinking about last night, and then
we'll get to some college football. Kyle Bonnagura. You know I say often and if you listen to the show. First of all, thank you, hello, how are you?
Second? Of all superstars in the NBA.
They get it done on the road in the postseason, but they also get it done in the biggest moments when the big moments present themselves.
Star players are ready.
So to start the game last night Golden State Houston, Stephan Curry just couldn't get any space because of course, imy U Doka and the Houston Rockets are gonna do everything they can to blitz them. They're gonna do everything they can to get the ball out of his hands, and they're gonna do everything they can to make him a facilitator and not a shooter, because there's never been
a shooter in the history of the game. Like stephen Wardel Curry, Jimmy Butler could not move at all to start the game, and Draymond Green got in a foul trouble, then of course picked up the TECH and then a flagrant won. Honestly, I think that flagrant one should have been a TECH and Draymond should have been ejected. For all the conversation that you hear around pro basketball that
Draymond gets picked on, he very much does not. In fact, more often than not, he does not have the same sort of treatment from the officials that other players do. He should have been thrown out last night. Okay, I'm not a Dylan Brooks fan at all. I'm not sure if anybody is. He's a tough guy to root for. But basically, the three superstar players for Golden State did not get it done to start the game. It wasn't
until the second half and the fourth quarter. For the most part, Steph got it going there in the second that those three stepped up and make game winning plays when the biggest moments manifested. So Steph started hitting shots there in the fourth quarter. He had that massive corner three with about two and a half minutes left to tie the game. Draymond Green had two or three massive defensive stops against shnng Goon out for in shng Gun, the really talented Rocket center who went for thirty one.
Sheng Goon when Draymond was the primary defender, went three of twelve. He was nine of sixteen against everybody else. And when the Rockets had a chance to take the lead after Golden State went up one because Dylan Brooks made a boneheaded foul on Jimmy Butler's corner three, Houston was anticipating a switch, but Draymond called the switch off and guarded Shngun one on one and got the stop.
And then Jimmy Butler got one of that.
Like, you're not gonna see a lot of people talking about big rebounds. You're gonna hear people talking about big shots, big threes, big stops, whatever.
That was a.
Grown ass man rebound from Jimmy Butler to seal to win. So all three of the players for Golden State that are Hall of famers, I mean, certainly Stephen draymondhar My guess is Jimmy will be as well, made game winning plays down the stretch. After the young players kind of
lifted them to start the game. Brandon Pajemski was really good to start the Quinton post Kid came off the bench and knocked down a couple of threes, And when I was watching it, I always try to juxtapose my basketball, you know, my NBA basketball kind of takeaways to what we're dealing with here with the Utah Jazz and watching the Golden State Houston game off the heels of watching the Cavs just absolutely blow the brakes off the Miami Heat just once again made me think back to the
Quinn Snyder, Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles boy on Bogdanovitch, Mike on the Utah Jazz, and really what a calculated risk Danny Ainge and Justin Zanik decided to take by moving on from Mitchell at the age of twenty five, as he was just entering the prime of his career, moving on from Rudy who was in his late twenties, and some of the other pieces. You know, Bogdanovitch was
getting older, Mike was getting older. But what really stings about the Jazz electing to pull the ripcord on that group is they were learning step by step about what you have to do to win in the playoffs.
And that's how this thing has always gone.
Don't forget John Stockton Karmelom did not make the NBA Finals until their mid thirties. They need did twelve thirteen years together before they actually were an NBA Finals team.
Can you imagine in like nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, after the Jazz took the Lakers to seven games in eighty eight and then got smoked by Golden State the next year, can you imagine Scott Laden trading John Stockton and trading Carl Alone because he didn't think they could get it done, because they didn't get it.
Done in their mid to late twenties.
That would have robbed us of the best basketball that we've ever seen here. That would have robbed us of the NBA Finals with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in town. It would have robbed us of the best Jazz basketball era that we all witnessed and we all saw but that Jazz front office. And look, I know it's a different time, and I know conversations like this are complex and nuanced, and we could get into the whole like was Mitchell gonna leave?
Was he done with the entire thing?
Quinn Snyder saying in his press Conference before he left
our market, he didn't see any way forward. I know it's a little bit apples and oranges, but watching the way Donovan has evolved and elevated his game just to be a more comfortable leader and more comfortable facilitator and also more engaged defender under Kenny Atkinson, and this Cleveland Cavaliers group that I don't think will be the Boston Celtics, But watching the Mitchell maturation and feeling like we were robbed of having that here will always make me wonder
whether or not that was the right move. And the dirty little secret and the sad part of the reality of our current NBA team is they are not a Cooper flag away from being competitive. They are not two or three pieces away from being competitive. They are probably four or five roster pieces and roster upgrades away from even being a playoff team.
Like if you're.
Juiced on being a playing team nine or ten seed, all right, that's fine. But if you look around the landscape of the Western Conference, this calculator risk the Jazz took four years ago has not paid near the dividends that anybody thought that it would pay. Some of the draft capital from the Goberian Mitchell trades have I'm in, but the draft selections that I've been made have not popped.
They have not proven to be players that we can rely upon to help this franchise grow back to respectability and competition. And watching NBA playoff basketball this year, unfortunately, has reiterated my belief that the Jazz are a marathon away from even being decent. Utah Men's basketball picked up a transfer portal edition yesterday.
We'll tell you about this new player.
I think there are five roster spots left for Alex Jensen and his staff to fill out. Of course, plenty of time before the season gets rolling. But our first guest on this Tuesday afternoon covers college football for ESPN.
It's been a number of months, but please.
To welcome Kyle Bonnaguera back on the show on a Tuesday.
Kyle, Happy Tuesday, man. How you doing. I'm good. I'm good.
I was looking at your I don't know, Twitter or x whatever calling it. You have not been very active on the socials as of late. What's been keeping your attention.
Everything else that matters? I guess I just kind of found that the more time I spent on social media the less I was getting out of all of it, and I think, you know, if I put more effort into the stores, I'm ready and care more about those sort of things as opposed to kind of caning followers on social media, Like I'm probably better off long term, just like how I feel about the job and just
kind of day to day. So yeah, I kind of just stop seeing the value for the for the role that I do for the newsbreakers and people like that. I think there's still value for that, but when you're kind of doing feature stories and taking on on specific subjects, I just don't think it really adds much anymore.
Everything else that matters.
Was such a great Kyle Bonneger answer that was right on brand, a perfect answer, buddy, all right, I wanted to start today because you're familiar with Dion Sanders and should Or Sanders and Colorado and have covered that program.
And of course I'm not sure if you heard, Kyle because you're not.
On social but should Or slid a little bit in that NFL draft all the way down to the fifth round, and it's always interesting juxtapos seeing NFL Italian talent evaluators to what the media believes is going to happen. And maybe this is just as simple as NFL people don't believe that Shador is worth spending a high pick on, and maybe it's more nuanced and complex than that. I just wonder what your takeaways are from watching shod Or slip all the way to the fifth round.
Yeah, no, I paid. I paid pretty close attention to this. I wrote a little bit about some the so it was part of our kind of draft coveraging leading up to and so I was really curious to see where he went, where Hunter went, kind of where all the players that I kind of paid a close attention to during their college careers landed landed in the draft.
Right.
It's kind of graduation day in that sense, And so I think there's a lot to it, right. It's a it's a very complex issue when we're talking about Shador and why he fell or or why he didn't fall, why everyone just had him wrong and he didn't fall. He just ended up where he was supposed to be. But I think like the prevailing thought that I tend to agree with is, look, if he was worth all the other stuff that comes along with him, if his talent was that good, if he was really at top
five talent. He would have gone there, right. NFL teams would have decided that if he adds wins, right, if he gets you the those results, the things that matter, then you can kind of put up with the kind of the circus that kind of comes with everything Sanders these days. But after the evaluations were complete, they determined and this is kind of where I fell too, is that he really wasn't that great. I mean, there was
a lot of things he did really well. Sitting in the pocket, there was a beautiful ball, took a lot of sacks. I thought there was a lot of stat padding going on. The story that I've kind of told friends over the last few days kind of illustrates kind of why I didn't really view Schedure as kind of a winning player earlier in the year. It was the first game of the year. Actually, I was there in Colorado to play in North Dakota State. It's a one possession game a minute in a minute in like forty
five seconds ago, somewhere somewhere in that range. So you had a chance to just North Dakota State had one time out left, so you had a chance to run the ball three times. It would have taken you down to about ten seconds and you could punt it away the game's over. Instead, on first down he checks to a he checks to a downfield pass, which was just a completely bizarre decision in that game State. And then
on second down they passed again incomplete. So they basically gifted North Dakota State a timeout and a chance in the time of the game where they could have just completely ended it. North Dakota State ends up getting the ball back. They marched down the field, they come up a couple of yards short of a thirty, like a really lengthy drive with thirty seconds left, and end up costing the game. And so I just felt like that moment, for me, kind of illustrated that he was more about
his stats and all the other stuff than winning. And that's just one example, and maybe it's a little harsh to point that out, but I think there's like a lot of examples, like the shows that this kid wasn't really focused on the thing the NFL teams wanted him to be. And so when you're now a sudden, you're not drafting a starting quarterback, You're drafting some guy and compete to be the backup. Now you have someone who's you know, whose dad is, is a a list celebrity.
He generates headlines like few people do in sports and pop culture. He's going to be calling for him to start. That's inevitable, right, We'll see that soon enough with the Browns. And if you're the head coach, if you're the GM, do you want to deal with that for a backup quarterback? You know, probably not, So you know, we can talk about this for days, But that's kind of the kind of where I where I started my thought process and valuating everything.
Sure, do you.
Think his dad did him a bit of a disservice because you hear all these things where it's like, well, Dion used to sandbag interviews too, and it's like, well, he was the best cornerback in the history of football. Like, even if two or three teams were turned off about Dion, somebody was going to take him and somebody was going to sign him because he was just that good and to your point and how you articulate, it was really
really good. Like with all of the questions that just simply surrounded Shador as a prospect, if you remove all the intangibles and everything on the outside looking in, just as a football player. It appears to be pretty clear that out the talent evaluators didn't necessarily see him as
somebody that they were comfortable taking a high pick. And I don't know, I don't want to say wasting on him, but as far as like maybe the example he followed from his father and Dion himself being front facing about he is a top five pick and even at one point alluding to maybe getting involved in harkening the whole you know, Eli Manning situation. Do you think maybe his pops did him a bit of a disservice during this process.
Yeah, completely, I think that's I think that's pretty clear that. Look, there's a lot of benefits to having Deon Sanders as your dad, Right, There's a lot of ways that he's been very helpful kind of shepherded him along his career. But in this case, not only has he Deon Sanders and been very vocal about all those things. I mean, it was just a few months ago where you know, there was speculation that Dion Sanders was going to be
a candidate to be an NFL coach. Right, so I imagine you're the head coach, you have shoud a on the bench, you're losing. He probably doesn't deserve to be in the game. But now you're hearing all this outside. No, now you're probably hearing, you know, should Deon Sanders be the coach? Right? And that's an element that didn't exist
with Eli. That kind of adds to this in a way that I mean, you saw that could be probably saw that the clips of the draft room for the Browns, and they didn't look thrilled to be, you know, having picked Sugar Sanders. And it's certainly possible that was taken out of context, but it's also possible that they were not thrilled knowing that every single day with that guy in the building is going to be examined in a way that it wouldn't have been had he been somewhere else.
And so you you certainly benefit for being Dion's son, but there's a lot of a lot of other stuff that comes with that, and I think in this case, it costs him a lot of money.
So his teammate Travis Hunter goes too.
And another player that you watched, another player that you covered, I wonder what you what do.
You anticipate Jacksonville doing with him?
I mean, a lot of conversation about whether or not whoever drafted him was going to want him only on offense or allow him to play on both sides of the ball, which he did at the highest of levels in college. And he was one of those players, Kyle. Every time I watched it's like, yes, he is one of one. He is a unicorn. He is as unique as any prospect I think that I've seen in a long time. Do you do you think we'll see a
two way situation for Travis Hunter and Jacksonville. Every time Travis is asked about it, he's very clear, salient in front face, and like, yes, I want to play on both sides.
Of the ball.
Yeah. I just wanted to watch a video today kind of showing his arrival in jacksonvilleson the behind the scenes stuff there, and he was talking about how he wants to get the playbook and then he corrected himself and he's like, actually the playbooks plural because he needed offense. And so I think, you know, all the signs indicate that, you know, certainly to start off, they'll work him on both sides of the ball, and you know, use that information to kind of inform what the decision is during
the season. I think it makes sense to let him try both. I don't know if in the NFL he can you know, go go uh go full time both ways. And he didn't start playing both ways full time in college either. He kind of worked himself into that as he became more experienced and more comfortable at the college level too. And that's even starting you know, down down
at FCS. With with with Jackson State. I've discussed this a lot with you know, friends and colleges and you know, you know, other people in the media, just like where is he better? And I think the fact that there isn't really a consensus, that you have people arguing on both sides, is really probably the most interesting takeaway that it's not clear he was. He started as a corner
that was what he got recruited as. But you know, last year he won the Bolitannicop Award as the best receiver, and part of that is just named recognition, and there wasn't the other candidates were you know, Nick Nash from stand State. He's not going to generate a lot of hype nationwide, so maybe he benefited just from from that to a degree, But still he had over one hundred catches something like that for well over thousand yards. Was was
unguardable at times, it seemed. In the Big twelve so's he's probably the most interesting prospect of his generation because he is you said it, he's one of one. No
one else's has been valued in the same way. I mean, you probably have to go back to Dion right to see another guy who got legit run on both sides of the ball, and even that was like packages and ways to kind of use him as either a decoy or to get in the ball like early on, you know, early in to play so Jack Nville's early a team that can use the help on both sides, and it's almost like you got to use two picks with one, you know.
The past couple of years, it's been an interesting kind of situation to antalyze like former Pac twelve quarterbacks who have gone on to do great things. And look, when Jayden Daniels was at ASU.
I thought he was fun, I thought he was good.
I thought and he was almost a ute actually, which is kind of an interesting subplot. But then he goes and wins the Heisman, and he goes and just takes the world of pro football by Storm as a rookie, and I don't know that I thought he was going to be that when he was out in our footprint. And I'll ask you the same thing about cam Ward, who certainly was out of school, you know, well in Wazoo and put up great numbers, but kind of same thing. I don't know that I ever thought he'd be the
number one pick in the draft. He transfers to Miami, of course, has a great year, and he goes one in the draft, and it appeared to be a consensus.
Did that surprise you at all?
What was kind of some of your takeaways watching this journey for cam Ward?
So I think by the end, I think it was pretty clear that that was going to happen. So I wasn't like when I guess the better way to phrase it. My answer is that if you would have asked me, you know, two years ago, if I thought cam Ward would be the number one pick in the draft, you know, they would have been a resounding no. Absolutely not. I thought he was the guy who had progressed to the NFL and have a chance to be a pro maybe
even for a long time. But I think the step foward he took at Miami this year was really impressive, right, I mean, they had arguably the best offense in college football, and a lot of that was because of him. He was he had a lot of really special moments. He sits in the pocket, well, he's athletic enough to extend plays. I thought his decision making got a lot better as he progressed through college football. And I think a lot of people in it's you know, maybe more people are
familiar with his story now. But keep in mind too that he ran the wing tea in high school, so like, this isn't one of those guys who was bred by some quarterback guru in the seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, and and it was essentially a finished product before he
had a chance to really start going. He's someone who had a lot of groaning to do when he got to college because it was his first time in a passing offense, and so he had a chance to do that down at the FCS level with an Eddingcarrentet Word advanced his career at WCu and kind of had that graduate level of education at Miami and really did a good job developing I think, and going back to Shaduur right, I think Kim Ward really looked good in some of
those workout videos that got published between the two and more, he said, I want to be known as a football player. Should We was talking about, you know, let's let's you know, let's cut a song together or something like that, and Cam was very focused on football and football only. So I think all of those, you know, the two progressions there, I think it says a lot about both of those players.
Kyle. I want you to know that I'm a grown up who can do hard things.
So even though you don't tweet out your pieces anymore, I was able to find a couple of them. So I want to ask you about the piece you wrote about Abdul Carter, who a lot of people believe, you know, when we're talking about the twenty twenty five NFL Draft in ten years, this is the dude we're going to be talking about take us through this journey, positional change and what do you think what type of difference can he make for the New York Giants.
Yeah, so he's a really he's a fascinating guy. He's like I had a chance to speak with him quite a bit down in Arizona head at the quarterfinal game against BYU. That's why I did a lot of the interviews for that story. And really quiet guy, a really cerebral guy, and I don't think he necessarily think that When you think about you know, big time pass rusher at a big school, right, you kind of think, oh, this guy is probably confident in brash and all those things.
But he is not that. He is an introvert. You know, he talked to me a little bit about, you know, playing chess and the analytical side of football and those sort of things, but had a really good feel for who he was and how he could impact the game. So the story goes, you know, he started at he came in as a linebacker. You know, he asked for the number eleven jersey, which is you know, we saw him try to do that again this week for Lawrence
Taylor's retired fifty six. So we asked for the eleven jersey at Penn State, which is a big deal there. There's a lot of significance, a lot of you know, all time great players have worn it there. He goes through summer workouts as a freshman. They're impressed by him so much that they go ahead and grant him that request, he gets the eleven, and then from day one he
is he is wrecking havoc as a linebacker. But two years in, he gets to that off season after his sophomore year and he's like, look, I think that can be I was a little bit out of place. You know, he was playing week side linebacker. He does a lot of you know, hand in the dirt rush and edge type stuff, but really thought he should be as a defensive you know, playing and consistently as a defensive end, not dropping into coverage in those sort of things, even
though he was physically capable of doing so. Anyone who watched Penn State, it probably didn't take a lot of time. So if you're watching for the first time, you're like, oh, who's eleven?
Right?
He just every snap it feels like he was. He was getting to the backfield, disrupting plays. You know, his numbers were good, you weren't generational or anything like that. But he affected the game in a way that few players did. And I think that NFL teams had noticed that well before he made the position change, and once he added some weight, kind of got his body to a place where he can be a defensive end at
the next level. You know, it was pretty clear that he was going to be an early pick in a very early last year, and so I had a good time talking with him. His teammates were all very complimentary of him. Coaches raved about him, you know, everyone I talked to about him. You and look, this isn't so unusual, but it was all very believable, and it felt genuine that they really believed in this guy's talent and who he was as a person.
All right, moving over to a little Utah football and look, it is April, so I'm not going to ask you to break down there too deep for August in September, but I just kind of wondering what your confidence level is.
Coach wit is back.
I didn't necessarily cover the will Kyle stay or leave story as deep as everybody else. He simply is a coach under contract, and my thought was he did not want to go out like that.
The spring game was last week Forever twenty two game. I was up there.
I was able to catch up with Kyle and Morgan Scalley and met Jason Beck for the first time. There's a new quarterback in town, and Devin dan Pierre. There's a grip of new players, because of course there is that's not a Utah thing, that's a college football thing. But after a failing and to even qualify for a bowl game and winning five games last year, I do
feel like maybe the pressure is off. You know, last year, everybody, including me and I believe you picked Utah to win the Big Twelve and advance to the expanded twelve team CFP. And you know, there are a lot of outlets that have already done the whole like way too early Big twelve projection thing, and Utah's mid table on most of them.
So maybe taking that pressure off or will help.
But do you have some confidence that you're two in the Big twelve will at least look better than your one for the utes?
Yeah?
I mean there's a there's a very like fundamental way to answer that. It's like, it can't be much worse. You go two and seven, you're probably gonna do better in the conference, right, because it's that the record was that it was. But yeah, but that said, like, I just have never lost faith in Kyle Whittingham as they've kind of had these two weird years. Right, there's a lot of factors outside of his control. That you know,
contribute to that. You're you and your you know, your listeners know that you know probably even better than I do. And so I think with like, with those circumstances, it wasn't that the program was falling apart. The defense was among the best in the country.
You know.
The quarterback thing was such an outlier in terms of how a program should operate. The you know, the fact that they didn't have a capable backup, someone who could step in and win games two years in a row probably alblematic, right, But when you add a quarterback like they did, who's you know, has documented success and you bring his coordinator with him, and so there's no learning curve with the offense. That's a formula that has worked
several times in college football in recent years. I mean, we just talked about cam Ward you know, worked for him at Washington State. We saw it with Caleb Williams at USC. The list goes on, right, and so I think it there's enough reason to be optimistic and confident that they can they can be a contender again in the Big Twelve, if you know, even allowing for some drop up on defense, because that team that that side of the ball was so good. I think the offense
will be a lot better. But at the same time, I think the conference is really improving too. Like Arizona State, their improvement is is was pretty remarkable. I mean, I would say probably takes a step back. Those receivers they lost were really good. I think Colorado with that Trivis Hunter probably takes a step back. But it's such a deep you know, there's so many teams now, right, So it's not like you have to you just have to beat nine other teams, ten other teams. There's just so
many teams who are adding and really competitive. And you know, you mentioned kind of the state of college football. Everyone's new and so Texas Tech has a lot of money and they're anile program. They're bringing in a lot of talent. Arguably the best transfer class in college football if you're into those sort of rankings. And so, yeah, look, do I think Utah deserves to be the favorite to win the conversating Absolutely not. I don't think that would be
kind of ridiculous to say, you're in April. But yeah, look, a lot of teams that have come out of nowhere to to improve significantly, and in Utah certainly wouldn't be coming out of nowhere the tracker who's there. They've had to dip, but there's enough experience and incredibility in that room to allow for a quick return to prominence.
Regarding the future of college football, you know, it is an exercise and futility to try to predict any of this stuff. And we continue to await the final settlement with a house for NC double A, as Judge Wolken has basically given them a couple of weeks to change the roster limits before she will even entertain the settlement.
But I want to revisit kind of your belief about where we could be headed, whether or not there is a pro model on the horizon, whether or not there is this big super conference on the horizon with two conferences that look like the AFC and the NFC, or you know, the Trump administration comes in. Some of the changes to the Department of Education and other departments have kind of changed people's perspective about their belief about what
the future college football looks like. What's the Kyle Bonna gera belief about what the future of the sport looks like.
Yeah, it's I still think it's trending in a direction to where it's like the pyramid will keep narrowing at the top, right, and eventually, just like we saw the Pac twelve, you know, rest and peace go away. I think eventually that same sort of evolution feels like a logical way this could go, right because if you are in the sec right, you're Alabama, Georgia, we all know the names, and you're in the big ten Ohio state, and you know whoever else Michigan, we all know the names.
Are you comfortable sharing equal revenue with you know, with your Marylands of the world, with your Vanderbilts of the world.
You know, maybe, but also maybe not. I think it's completely reasonable to expect those teams at the top too at some point want to want a bigger, you know, bigger slice of the pie, right, or there's another kind of breakoff where these teams all at the top say hey, like, look that you take the top, whatever the number is, pick pick one at random, sixteen thirty two, whatever, forty, and say hey, if we get together, then look at
how much more money we can make. The college programs in university have been operating with that, with that mentality for a while now, and so the idea that it all of a sudden would go away seems you know, I don't know if I'd buy that. There's no logic to indicate why that would stop. We are at a
pro model. These guys are making money. There's going to you know, in one the roster rules are all set, there's going to be a clear path forward on how to manage roster, how to distribute you know, some of the shared revenue stuff that's part of all this all this madness, right, I'm having trouble keeping track of all the matriculations myself, and so once you have these programs
that we're able to pay players directly. Now, at one point, look, Kyle Willeningham was actual talking about it is a couple years ago. I remember like being very clear, like, look, we're going to get there. It's just a matter of when, Like, are we going to get to a point where eligibility even matters? Are you going to say, is the four year eligibility model. We've already seen that pushed and tested in several different ways, whether it's COVID, whether it's junior
college or red shirts or transfers. Right, every it seems like at every turn that players have fought for more eligibility that came out on top recently in the court system. So eventually do you get to a place where you know there isn't a four year eligibility cap. I don't know. It seems crazy that college football would eventually get there, But I don't think guy would write it out either write it off either. And whether that's in five years or ten years or fifteen, you know, it doesn't like
it doesn't matter. Like eventually, I think all those things are going to be tested. And you know, like you said, exercise in utility, there's just so many moving pieces to have a great idea where it's all headed. I don't think anyone can be competent of that other than like changes just going to continue to be inevitable.
Before I set you loose, I am going to sneak in a soccer question, and no, I will not ask your take on the current battle at left back for RSL, but I will ask you we have this young player whose star continues to rise, Diego Luna, who had another brace last week. He in San Diego and for whatever reason, the Olympic coach didn't like him. But Pochettino seems to like him, and he's had a couple of national team
call ups. There's this great, you know, snapshot of Diego breaking his nose and continuing to play and really endearing himself to all the goobs that love the US men's national team, Sam's Army, whoever they are. Do you think there's a chance that Diego Luna will be on the US men's national team for the upcome World Cup here in this region?
Yeah?
No, I think so.
I think there's a chance will be with him this summer. Like, I think there's enough, and I think he like the fact that Poschattino does like him. I think that's probably the best indicator that he has a chance. Like I don't think if I was projecting the roster today, i'd include him on it. But he's his trajectory is rising in a way to certainly you can't rule it out right now. I think just the way he's playing an
MLS has been has been really impressive. He's a guy who actually paid attention to for for for quite a while because I mean, you know, I lived here in the Bay Area, he's from around here. Was actually I believe he was cut by the earthquakes at a really young age, and so he's he's someone that, like you, I heard that story early on. Then he's you know, with El Paso and kind of working his way through USL gets the shot at at RSN. I has really done an incredible job, you know, not letting the early
career disappointment stunt his growth. And yeah, I think it's really only a matter of I mean, enjoy them in Salt Lake for as long as he can, because he's a guy who certainly feels like he should be headed to Europe sooner rather than later.
Kyle, thanks man for the time. I always appreciate it. Have a great week and we'll.
Do it again soon.
Okay, sure thing all right? Thanks Man.
Bonager covers college football sometimes soccer for ESPN. Does not tweet anymore, but you can find his piece pieces up on espn dot com.
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Today. Tim McMahon, Happy Tuesday, sir, How.
Are you otty partner? How are you doing?
I'm good, man, I'm good.
You know, we always have this debate here in State about like who's the best local college basketball player to play in the pros? And it usually it usually involves b YU players and UTAPA.
It's clearly Damian Lillard.
Who played his college basketball Weaver State, just got it.
You know, He's one of our favorites around here.
I wonder what you make if this entire situation, what's next for Dame and what's next for Milwaukee?
Yeah, Unfortunately, what's next for Dame is a long ruling rehab process. You know, I don't know that Dame's going to be able to get back to the level that he's played at his entire career. Obviously, a mid thirties achilles injury is devastating, and you know, the guy's work ethics speaks for itself, certainly his skill. It's a really difficult situation and in Milwaukee, odds are they get bounced tonight?
And then the clear big question will be is this Gianness's swan song in Milwaukee is this when he finally comes to the conclusion that it's it's time for the next chapter of his career. And I think if you took a poll around the league, you would and you get more people to say yes to that question than no at this point. And you know, if that's the case, shame's gonna be a really tough stretch for the Bucks because they have been all in on winning a title
around the honest for a while now. Obviously, the great news is they did hang a banner. The bad news is, you know, they are out their own first round capital until twenty thirty one, I believe, and you know, if you're honest, does indeed decide that it's time to go, They'll make the best deal that they can. But it's going to be a while before the Bucks are going to be a competitive franchise again.
So what are the most likely and who are the
most likely suitors if Giannice is on the market. Obviously anybody would love to have a dude like that, And I do want to say, just for the record, I really respect what Milwaukee decided to do to go all in to try to surround him at any price because Dame is making I think one hundred and twenty million dollars for the next two years, and Milwaukee, unlike don't know Denver, decided that they were going to do everything they could to maximize a generational talent while they had them.
If this is it, you know, and we are in Salt Lake City, we have a basketball team with tremendous draft capital and salary flexibility, I don't I'm not sitting here saying the Jazz are going to make this move for you, honest, but what sort of deal do you expect if Giannie is dealt?
I mean, you've heard a whole bunch of noise about Brooklyn, and I'll be honest, I don't see how that makes sense for either side. I just don't like for your honest Okay, you can talk about a big market, but let's be honest. Brooklyn is the JV team in New York, and well, I don't have to give up a lot of stuff to get him, and they're not close to being a title contender, So that one, frankly confuses me on both sides. I think Brooklyn needs to go through
a rebuild. I don't see how trying to press fast forward to get Yannis in there accomplishes anything, and I don't see why that would be an attractive situation for you, honest, but that is the team that you hear the most. I think you're going to hear a lot about Houston, you know where clearly, Hey, I've got a story come out tomorrow about how Houston is a go to guy and elite offensive bingein away from being a real deal, bona fide title contender. Yeah, be honest, is thirty years old,
still in his prime. Obviously, they'd have to give up a lot to get them, but they've got a lot of young talent, They've got a ton of assets with some of the deals that they've made. To me, the Rockets would be the team, you know, the realistic destination that would make the most sense. But you know, I'm sure there will be plenty of teams that would be interested. And then obviously, the other thing that has to happen is has to the Bucks aren't just going to trade him.
They you know, Giannis has to ask for it, and I'm not certain that he's reached that decision yet.
So Milwaukee's motivation would sound like what Tim because is it when you're if they decide to go this route, when you trade somebody like that, you have so many options at your disposal. You could ask for two or three really good players to keep you afloat. You could decide to go all in on draft capital and cap space and maybe a couple of youngsters, and then rely
upon the future. Because if they are just simply looking to grab a bunch of draft assets and young players and completely go all in on just a tank or whatever, a team like the Jazz does make sense. But if they are trying to stay competitive and maybe even salvage another year with Dame if he gets healthy, maybe they do want You know, I saw some scenario about like a Karl Anthony Townsend mckel bridges in New York.
I have no idea if there's anything there.
But what do you think Milwaukee would be looking for should they deal Giannis?
Yeah? I probably should have mentioned the Knicks. The Knicks have definitely been a team that it's no secret they're hunting for, you know, top level superstar. And you know there's definitely a team that has been mentioned as well. Here's the thing. The Bucks can't go into a like a traditional full fledged rebuild in the sense of a tank because they don't benefit from that. They've either got their picks gone out right or via swap again until
twenty thirty one. So to do a total teardown doesn't make any sense whatsoever for the Milwaukee Bucks because they've they've blown through all their draft capital over the next several years while going all in trying to build around Johnis, you know, trying to win another title with them, and you know, I don't think that's the situation you regret. I mean, you don't get a guy like that very often.
You know, for Milwaukee, it was almost fifty years from the time they lost Kareem until your honest was able to deliver a title for them. But it's put them in a like they're in a really compromised position now because again, typically if you're forced to trade this type of talent, then it is okay. It's like Houston did, it's time to tear down. When they had to trade James Harden and go through kind of a traditional rebuild,
it's start to really pay dividends for them. You can't do that if you don't have your own picks.
Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Good point just while we're in the Jazz space. Of course, I don't think we really can understand what their offseason plan is or will look like until May twelfth, when we know when
they're drafting. But as you and I have discussed, as a result of the decision that Danny and Justin made to move on from the last good iteration of this team and stockpile draft assets and have very clean books, any of the teams that do elect to yard sale I'm using air quotes could look to the Jazz to grab some of their assets and utilize the books to shed salary. Are you hearing anything about what this offseason could look like for the Utah Jazz.
Nobody is under the phrase big game hunting yet.
Tim, No, I don't think it'll be big game hunting. And obviously, yeah, let's be honest, success of this offseason, you're gonna have a pretty good idea, like you said, when you hear the lottery results. But you know they are in a position where they can be opportunistic. They do have several veterans who are on large expiring contracts and would make a lot of sense for teams that are looking to clean up their books. You know they do have a bunch of picks to play with. You know,
haven't said that. I know that the Jets have a very long term view at this point. I don't think that anybody's goal in that front office or even in that building is going to be Okay, let's put the best possible team in place for the twenty five twenty six season. You know, they're trying to be able to crack open a window as a contender, and they're not you know, one move or even one summer away from that.
Nope, they're not.
And they're not one player or two players, three players, or maybe even four players away from being close.
So this will take some time.
Three years now since the Jazz had spring basketball as far as an experience here.
In Salt Lake, So only time will tell.
All right, you reference the Rockets and this Warriors Rocket series has been must see TV. Butler comes back last night, goes for fourteen in the fourth quarter, closing out This Houston Rocket team is going to be a royal pain in the ass. But what are your takeaways from the first four games of Golden State in Houston?
Yeah, I mean the Rockets aren't ready. They don't have the go to guy that you need to compete with good playoff teams, and that's not a surprise. You know, they're young, and they kind of they win with grime. They've been in Medio Grosson's team all season long. A good defensive team, a great rebounding team. But they are one piece, one major piece away from being a real threat to make a deep playoff run.
Kevin Durant, Devin Booker. Phoenix has to do something. A lot of people draw a line between Phoenix and Houston. You think we could see some movement there.
Durant is a possibility. There will be internal discussions in Houston about whether that makes sense, how much would make sense in terms of cost to to you know, in the trade as well as he's gonna have to be a contract extension. I don't I don't know that I would call that likely. I'd call it possible. Booker's not possible. Phoenix is not trading Devin Booker this summer.
So do you think anybody on Phoenix could be a very well, I guess the Brad Beale thing. Uh, he has his own Uh, he's got the no trade clause, so they might be stuck with him. But anybody outside of Booker and Bill available on that roster, then.
Yeah, everybody. Yeah, Now Kevin Durant is going to have to stay on where he goes. He's got one year left on his contract, is extension eligible. You know the team's not going to trade. I would be shocked if a team would trade Kevin Rant as a rental player for just one year, given the cops that it would take probably to get him. And you just haven't talked to people in Phoenix. You know that they intend to cooperate with kat and Katie's representation.
Lakers on the brink of elimination, you know, you're not going to say they're done until they actually are, because they have two generationally special players.
I wonder you know JJ Reddick.
Elects to play all five of those guys every single minute in the second half.
I mean, look, I'm not a psychologist.
I just wonder if that was a message sent to the front office like we just have no depth. We have nobody like I'm going to go with these five players because I don't have any other options off the bench. Lebron didn't score in the fourth, Luca looked gas, Finney Smith had a dunk that was short what were your thoughts watching JJ Reddick simply go with all five of those players for every moment in the second half, and you think the Lakers can get back.
In this well, I mean no question that it was a move that rate of desperation, and it was a move that you know, I thought pretty clearly backfired. And look, there were times last year where Lebron I'm sorry, where Luca had played the entire second half for the Mavericks in the playoffs, but he wasn't coming off the longness in the absence of his career. You know, he didn't have to condition in the issues early in the season that he did this year. And he you know, he
wasn't Bartner's guts out thirty six hours earlier. So obviously you know it didn't work out. It's highly a highly questionable decision, even with the ross that they had. I thought you had to at least get Luca Lebron a little bit in the second half. But you know that that Ryan they need, they need better death than they need a real big man. You know, the Jackson Hayes guy that they played four minutes in a playoff game.
Decided I don't want to see anymore of so I think that they are at least one transaction cycle, perhaps two or three away from being a real title contender in LA. And you know the other part of that, though, is Okay, how much longer is Lebron at forty going to be able to play at this level?
You know, over the past three four months or whatever, after Oklahoma City clearly established themselves as the best team in the West and maybe the best team in pro basketball on a weekly basis, I would ask you to revisit a topic like who's the biggest threat to them?
Is there a threat to them?
After watching what they did to Memphis Round one, I don't think the next.
Round will be easy, whether it's the Clippers of the Nuggets. I don't think it's going to be easy. And obviously the Nuggets you're looking at specifically because Joke was just such a dominant force. But man, the Clippers have been playing as well as anybody for like two months now. And Kawhi looks like the guy who's been a finals at VP twice. You know, he's got that kind of a spring in his step. You know, they do have depth.
They are a great defensive team. You know, they do have a couple other guys who are legitimate shot creators. I think the Clippers are the biggest threat to the Thunder in terms of getting out of the Western Conference.
So that brings us to tonight, obviously, a big game in Denver. Based off of what you just said, I'm assuming you're going to take the Clips to win the series.
But what do you think happens tonight in Denver?
Well, I would take the Clippers to win the series, and I would change my mind if they don't win tonight. And how's that for a cop out of an answer?
Not fair enough?
You know, Listen, the Nuggets did lose the Game seven on their own home court last season to the Wolves. That's unlikely to happen again. However, you know, the Clippers do have a deeper team, there's no question in that, especially like the rough thing had gone off the rails. Any ways, now he's dealing with this foot thing. But you know, like Joker's got to play forty six to forty eight minutes to night and he's just getting the
crap beat out of him. The longer the series goes, I would say, the tougher it is to that guy. And if he's not right, then the Knights don't have a chance.
The potential of a second round series between the between the Timberwolves and the Warriors, and like I said, until Lebron and Luca are dead and done, I'm not going to say that that series is over. But just like, okay, see potentially Clippers second round Minnesota Golden State. And I will give you credit because you actually pointed out Minnesota starting to kind of figure some things out at the
end of the season when they finished really well. And you know, it's been kind of interesting Tim because oftentimes in this Minnesota Lakers series, Jazz fans know that when JJ decides to go small, Minnesota has kind of leaned into the whole, like we can sit go baar and we feel comfortable doing that in the way that Quinn ever did. Now, Quinn didn't have nas Reid, so it's different. Sure, But the potential for that second round series, what do you think that looks.
Like they're gonna be all of the series. And you know, Ant won't be scared. I can tell you that he's been the best player in this series, in the series that that features Lebron and Luca, and has clearly been the best player, But I think more important, or most important, is the fact that he hasn't, you know, like the last game it's going down the stretch, he didn't play hero ball, which he's been guilty of really pretty much
all season long. He started to see that turn a little bit down the stretch of the season, but some of Ant's best plays didn't show up in the box score, you know, but it's his willingness still Okay, you're gonna throw to it me, let me get off the ball, and you know, boom, boom boom. It's it's a wide
open shot for a guy like nas Reed. You know, Jake McGann has been playing off pretty well, so I think you know that like Ant's numbers in his production obviously pops off the box score page, but I think a lot of his growth is stuff that you don't necessarily see in the numbers.
Do you leave any space for Golden State to make this stuff interesting moving forward, something beyond winning this round and maybe even beyond winning the next round.
I mean you have to leave space for it. They've got, you know, dudes who have won four championships. You know, they've they've been awfully good since they've made the trade for Jimmy Butler, who's proven to be a phenomenal fit. You know, Jimmy Butler has willed teams with a lot less talent than this to the finals before. You know, like, I'm not ever going to be a guy who doubts
Steph Curry. You know, Draymond's one of the great playoff kind of complimentary stars, if that makes sense of this generation. So yeah, you've absolutely got to leave space all.
Right before I set you loose.
You know, I'm gonna draw a little parallel here because the big story out of the NFL draft is that George Sanders fell to the fifth round, and the media conversation surrounding the way that talent evaluators in the NFL do their job juxtaposed to the way the media analyzes
prospects has been interesting. And in the NBA draft, I mean, when it comes to the draft, all of us on this side of the equation, you know, media members, you've got to be careful about, you know, going with what you're told from front offices because you're lied to and
smoke screens happen all the time. I wonder what your experience has been like trying to cover the NBA Draft getting information from front office people juxtaposed to the way that the media analyzes prospects, and how sometimes those two aren't even close to aligning.
Can I tell you a secret, go ahead, I don't really cover the NBA draft. Oh okay, I mean seriously, We've got you know, Jonathan Cavoni does that on a full time basis, so does Jeremy Wu. The NBA draft is just days after the finals. I'm not I don't like, I don't pretend like I'm studying these guys. I don't pretend like I'm doing a lot of intel. Once they're drafted,
that's when they've become my responsibility to cover. But I'm fortunate to work in a place for ESPN where we've got two guys who were great at that, who were you know, have great eyes for talent, who also talked to people year round, and these guys can tell you who the best fifteen year old prospects and the Czech Republic are right now. So yeah, just to be real, like, I've got a lot of things that are on my plate, the NBA Draft is not really one of them.
Fair enough, all right, buddy, thanks for the time. Enjoy the game tonight with chat Zoom, Appreciate Your Brother and McMahon.
Fun Night of Basketball ahead and it starts in just about thirty five minutes with the Bucks and the Pacers on NBA TV. NBA TV and TNT have double headers tonight Milwaukee, Indiana at four and then the Magic and the Celtics at six thirty on NBA TV. Early game on Turner is Piston's Knicks from MSG and then Big One tonight. It should be a fun one. Clippers Nuggets Ballerina in Denver, Colorado. All right, coming up on Friday. I'm really excited for this. We're gonna be out in
about encourage you guys to come say hello. We'd love to meet you and shake your hand. We're going to be at the Former Legacy Center. It's a legacy fulfilled. It's the grand opening of the Former Legacy Center. The location is one h nine six zero South Park Road in South Jordan, so Milestone.
That's forty years in the making and it's going to be.
Realized on Friday, May the second, as the Former Legacy Center celebrates the official grand opening. It's a sixteen five hundred square foot community sports and wellness complex. Inspired by Utah's legendary boxing brothers Gene Fulmer, of course, Jay and Don, and it's located in the South Jordan Sports Sports Complex, minutes from the side of the current Former Brothers Boxing gym. The new center honors the enduring former legacy while building
a dynamic future for youth and community wellness. The event is going to run from eleven am to three pm on Friday. Of course we'll be there until six. They're offering tours of the facility. We're gonna have a ribbon cutting ceremony and appearances by local leaders, dignitaries and sports personalities. So again, the ribbon cutting ceremony starts at eleven, so be out there at eleven o'clock on Friday at one O nine six zero South Park Road in South Jordan.
The former Legacy Center will serve as a hub for amateur boxing, youth mentorship, and community health programming, including fitness boxing for women, seniors, and individuals living with Parkinson's.
The Former Brothers, known around the.
World for their success in professional boxing as well as their humble grit, spent decades mentoring hundreds event at risk kids. Retiring after they retired from professional boxing so come on out. We'll be out there really excited for this. It is one O nine six zero South Park Road in South Jordan starting Friday at eleven.
To bring in Kaylin Jones.
Today Kaylen good friend of the show TALX and NFL football some NFL Draft. Kaylen spent time with Sports Illustrated. He was with the Ringer. He's landed with our friends over at Netflix. Hey, Brett Farb documentary coming out on Netflix over the next few weeks.
I think May the twentieth is that date.
Big day because we're giving away golf to Bonneville, my track, my home track, Bonneville, great little munic course here in Salt Lake. It's the ESPN Festival of the Teas powered by the Utah Golf Association. Each day of spring, ESPN seven hundreds is giving away rounds of golf from to of the best courses in the state. Listening to The Down and Dirty with Scott Mitchell from ten Excuse me yeah from ten to eleven, the Sean O'Connell Show from
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that was drafted in the NFL draft. Easy one today, because you know, we want to be kind and we don't want to make you think too hard on the show. First person to text in the lone ute drafted in the NFL Draft, We'll go to Bonneville on us. It's the ESPN Festival the Tease powered by the Utah Golf Golf Association. ESPN seven hundred sports dot com is where
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expected places here in the state of Utah. I feel like Outlaw Distillery is a place that you need to check out.
It feels like it's right right in your wheelhouse.
It might be, it might be I'm dry at the moment. I am at the moment proud of you. But I am as much as anything, very very enthralled with the wild West, the Outlaws. I may know and spend as much time, not now but historically on that is. I do like sports and whatnot. So yeah, it might be done my own.
Maybe we could open like a sports themed wild West joint of some sort.
Oh, there we go. I mean, I just do it. We can just do a remote Outlaw. I'm an idea man, you know this.
I'm just trying to think what that would look and feel like, because you have to have more of a hook than just like come watch sports and talk about cowboys.
Yeah it's fair, it's fair. Yeah, We'll just do a remoted Outlaw. We'll invite everyone there and have some shots.
And towards and go from there. Well, let's chill with the shots. I mean certainly from two at two o'clock. If you're doing shots, you to have a conversation.
You referenced something.
When we were interviewing Kyle bonagera Abduall Carter, Yeah, goes to the Giants at three. And certainly most of the draft experts I've read believe and looked we should acknowledge the Travis Hunter as unique as any prospect.
We've seen it quite some time.
But in ten years when we're talking about this draft, do you think we're going to be talking about Abdual Carter.
I think so. Now I'm not saying you're not going to be talking about Travis Hunter. I just think that the surest thing as far as if you go into an NFL draft and you have, you know, maybe your highest floor, highest ceiling, and where you want that overlap to be the smallest, it's Abduall Carter. I really do think that he is. When you look at the prototype that you want as a current NFL edge linebacker hybrid, right, you look at Micah Parsons, you look at players like
Abdull Carter, yes, out of Penn State. So there's a little you know, there's there's there's a little overlap there, a little where you're trying to separate, you know, the prospect from the fact that he's just a really good linebacker out of Penn State. No, he is a lot like Micah Parsons in the way that he can disrupt a game. Watched him live at the at the Rose Bowl. It's a guy who even back then against Utah was getting a lot of reps, getting a lot of snaps.
I think was their starter even for that game. So I look at him as the surest thing. And you know, if Travis Hunter ends up being what some folks think he is on both sides of the ball, then yeah, that's that's probably the guy you look to in this class.
But I think that is a huge if. Now.
I think he's good, and I think he's going to be productive, but I just I have questions on the ability for a one hundred and sixty five pound five ft ten corner two do those things on both ends of the ball like he did at the college level. I think he'll be productive. I think he'll be a fine player, but to replicate what he did at Colorado.
I just don't see that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, we'll see what Jacksonville does. They need a ton of help. Every time Travis is asked about what he wants to be in pro football, he talks about his desire to play on both sides of the ball. But you've got to have a coach willing to do that. So we'll see what that looks like.
You know, I do find it interesting. We talked about it at start of the show, and you know, I was trying to get a little info from Tim McMahon, who joined us last segment, about what it's like covering the draft, covering the NFL draft, covering the NBA draft. And you know, I'm not in the news breaker space of this industry either, you know, a guy like Adam Schefter, a guy like Sham Shararni, or you know, before he decided to take his job as the GM, a Saint Bonovich,
or of course Adrian Moojanarowski. There was a time in my career, maybe when I was younger, earlier on, I did effort a lot of information and tried to break things here there. It is kind of part of the job to try to get some info and then of course bring it to the listeners. It's an exhausting way to try to do this, to try to do this job. I can remember Chris Mannis who used to join us
pretty consistently for a few years. Before Chris landed at Sports Illustrated, he was with Yahoo and he worked with WOJ before woj went over to ESPN.
And when woj was kind of rising up through the ranks.
Everybody was just like enthralled with how he was able to do what he was doing. And a lot of it is through agency relationships. Because Adrian Wojnarowski I don't think he is anymore because he's not in the space, but he was represented by CIA, and CIA is the most powerful agency really in all of entertainment, not just sports. They have actors, they have musicians, and then they have a lot of people that aren't necessarily front facing broadcasters,
certainly front facing for sure, behind the scenes people. And as a result of those relationships, Woje met a lot of other agents, not just the work for CAAA, but work for other agencies, the Mark Bartelsteins of the World and such. And I asked Mannix on the show, like you work with Woj, what is his day to day like like operationally, how did he go about his business?
And Chris told these wild anecdotes about Woj having multiple cell phones and checking them all at once and then having to be glued to those phones pretty much all day and then glued to your socials pretty much all day. So you can disseminate information when it comes your way.
And then the complicated part of it is trying to dig through the noise and trying to disseminate the information without furthering propaganda that clubs just want you to take to the masses to further a message they're trying to get out there, even if it's not true, and often more often than not, actually it's not true. And certainly in today's day and age of of media where so many teams have in house media that work for the team, and I use media in air quotes like the BYU TV Guys or.
Any you know podcast that is team run.
That's not media, that's your propaganda message that the team wants you to forward that oftentimes isn't true. You just want the public to really buy into the message you're selling. And again oftentimes it's BS and we talked about this a lot on the show.
As the As the As the Public.
What exactly do you want, whether it's sports or politics or whatever it is. Do you only want to reaffirm your the beliefs that you already have, regardless of it's real, regardless of its being propagated by charlatans that are looking for engagement in order to make money, right, or if it's just being propagated by a team that just want you to believe their message. Even though it's pretty easy to see oftentimes what's true and what is not true. But you do have to learn to pay attention in
a different way. You do have to call balls and strikes, you do have to call it like you see it. And certainly a big part of media these days is opinion driven, not truth driven, just opinions driven. And that's
what makes the NFL Draft really really interesting. And that's what makes watching mel Kuiper melt down on television for three days really interesting because it's hard to know whether or not mel Kiper was married to his should or Sanders take, or he was just trying to be part of a TV show, which is what the NFL Draft is. At the end of the day and say what you
want about Shoudor Sanders. He certainly is a story because he's Dion's kid and there was so much attention around Colorado football over the past couple of years, and also should Or was really good. I think one of the things lost in all this is that Shurear Sanders is.
Still a really good football player.
He just wasn't the number one overall pick, and he wasn't a first round pick. He wasn't a first two day pick. He had to wait till Day three in the fifth round. But I don't know that there is an event that brings more more of a dishonest approach from both NFL talent evvaluators and media members then the NFL Draft every year.
Yeah, and you can. You can pull up any mock draft that you prefer.
Dan Brugler from the Athletic who joins us from time to time Front of the Show, is really good at his job. He had Shadora, I think, as the forty third pick in his mock draft. So we didn't have him at one, didn't have him as a top ten, didn't have him as a first round pick, but he had him at forty three and Dan's a really talented you know, a media member who does a really good mock draft and works really hard to get all that information out there, and ultimately everybody's just guessing.
And it does bring this dynamic of.
Media members that have no business analyzing draft prospects but understand how much you want that content. And so it brings about this clickbait feel during this time of year where people just love the NFL Draft and if you're a college football fan, you want to know where the players that you love for your alma mater are going to go. And if you're an NFL fan, it is like the one time of year where hope is out there and what are the holes that the team has?
How many picks you have? How many holes can you plug in the draft? Are you going to see a draft night of tremendous activity and a lot of trades is going to be quiet, Like people love the draft content, and it'll be interesting to see the interest in the NBA Draft coming up June twenty fifth, and we're going to have great coverage for you guys that night. It's going to be Gordy Chase, It's going to be Richard Smith. Looks like we might be out on location. It is
a two day event. Round two will be the next day, on June the twenty sixth, in the afternoon, So there's a chance that we're just going to kind of lean into that on our show the next day, maybe on location.
We'll keep you up to date on that.
But one of the things that I always find fascinating and one of the ways I try to do this show is I kind of have a unique prison because I've been in front offices and I've had a chance to do NBA scouting, and so I've been able to work with and listen to and learn from some of the best basketball minds that you're ever going to find, you know, the Dick mcguires of the world for the New York Knicks, and the Scottie Laden's and the Dennis Lindsay's,
the Arnie Grunfelds. He ed Tapscots and being in those rooms and listening to the way that NBA evaluators evaluate talents and then leaving those rooms and listening to media members try to do the same job, or reading mock drafts and knowing how wrong they are colors my perspective in my prism as far as how I want to cover these things, and ultimately it really leads me to approach it differently because we're all just guessing, and not many of us are willing to say that out loud
because we want to present ourselves as experts. We want to convince you that our opinion is the same opinion you should have, and we want to be right about our talent evaluations, and certainly all of us in the space enjoy being right.
And I've had prospects that I've analyzed where.
I've been completely correct, and I've had plenty of prospects that I've analyzed that I've been completely incorrect about. I was excited when the Jazz draft to Trey Burke, and I was dead wrong.
Right.
We all have prospects that we've analyzed, and we've tried to tried to figure out whether or not their skill set will translate when they take the step up, which is really hard to do because there's a human element to this that oftentimes is ignored, and the human element to the shad Or Sanders storyline, as we talked about with Kyle Bonneger earlier, has been really fascinating for me to kind of study and listen to other people talk about and then after the fact, listen to those same
people try to muddy the waters and flood the zone with misinformation and try to convince you that what they told you last week wasn't really what they believed. It's this entire ecosystem of liars and this entire ecosystem of grifters that really just want your engagement. And it's just so funny how the business has either evolved or devolved simply has changed.
Or progressed, whatever your adjective is.
Where you have guys doing these credible victory laps about the things they got right while ignoring the things that they got wrong and never bringing them up again just to paint themselves as experts.
And all these grifters on TV they do the same thing. You know.
They want to lean into the draft projection that got right. They want to focus on see I told you so here there, and I'm sitting there like, wait a second, I heard you last week talk about four or five
different things that weren't even close to being true. But the difference in the gap between evaluators that work in the pro leagues and the grifters that work in the media has always been fascinating to me, and there are examples across the board and both the NFL and and the NBA, And I just think with this stuff, there were so many football talent evaluators that just didn't think Shador was the prospect that the Melkuipers of the world thought that they were. And I'm not trying to run
down Mel Kuiper. I mean, he's been doing this for forty two years. I think this was his forty second draft if I read that correctly. And the dirty Little Secret continues to be the powerful television executives that have one motivation and one motivation only, and that is for you to tune into their TV show.
They don't give a rip if.
Mel was right about his Shador Sanders' evaluation.
They don't.
All they care about is whether or not Mel Kiper, the TV actor and character put on a good show for you. And the thing is he kind of did right, Like it was kind of fun watching him melt down every time another prospect was taken, every time another quarterback was taken, and it wasn't shauld or melt melted Down clearly wrong about his analysis if you take it at face value. But what was his motivation just to put
on a good TV show? Was he fooled based off of his relationship with agents or maybe even Dion himself. Did he buy into the hype in a way that talent evaluators in the NFL just didn't and therefore brought
his approach on TV for you to be entertained. And it's always fat for me to kind of experience this just from the outside looking in, knowing the way talent evaluation works in the pro leagues, and then understanding the ecosystem of the media and how many dishonest people are out there, some taking calculated guesses and some taking educated guesses based off the work they do, but so many
of them getting it wrong. And Porter, I think you talked about this yesterday when you know ultimately we may be overthinking it. Is it fair to bring up the lack of humility he appeared to exhibit during the interview process, probably, And there are conversations about him sandbagging interviews the way his dad used to, But that's such a false parallel because Dion was generationally special as a talent, so he
could sandbag as much as he wanted. There are going to be talent evaluators that said, Okay, maybe he's kind of an ass, but we still want him because he's that good. Schidora is not near the talent his dad was, so if he followed the example of his father, I think his dad did him a disservice. But this could be as simple as football talent evaluators to work for teams, taking emotion out of it and just saying we don't think he's very good.
Yeah, and it was off air.
I think when I was talking to you and Smitty, you kind of asked my thoughts on it, and I just said, I think everyone is kind of making this a bigger story than it is, partly by design, as you mentioned, the ESPN stuff, the clicks that surround the Sanders family, just in general, like you're going to play into that. But ultimately, what I really thought happened over the weekend, Spence was a mid round quarterback, got drafted
in the fifth round. I thought he could have been a second, third, fourth round pick, but like I said yesterday, that also kind of depends on how the draft goes. Once all those offensive tackles started rolling off the board, it doesn't matter what position you play. You understand that there's going to be, especially if you understand how the NFL draft works, there's going to be a run of offensive tackles. If you're a defensive back, you just got
pushed down the line a little bit. Regardless of how good you think you are where you sit in the prospect room. Sometimes the NFL draft goes that way. Quinn Ewers also dropped several rounds farther than a lot of people thought he would be Dylan Gabriel. You know, these guys are are one quarterback away. As far as where Dillian Gabriel was picked and where Shador was picked, there was no one in between from the quarterback position, even though there was a full round of NFL Draft between them.
So you kind of have to look at how the draft usually plays out from a positional standpoint. You have to look at the fact that, yes, the majority of like actual talent evaluators, not draft analysts, not NFL analysts that are just draft analysts. During the week of the draft, not and I love my guy Tony Jones, Tony thought he that Shador was going to be the number one pick.
That's a basketball guy. Tony and mel Kiper might have been the only guys that I saw that said he would be the top pick in the draft.
And then you have what I.
Think is kind of the casual sports fan who then tune in on draft. We can think, oh, should Or is gonna be a top five pick, right, That's where it all comes from, because I don't really think a lot of the serious people around the draft really had
any expectation of that happening. Thought he might be a second round pick, sneak into the first round maybe, but ultimately, yeah, I think this is a story around the Sanders that is getting way blown out of proportion because it's a story around the Sanders, and because, as you mentioned, Shaudor may have exacerbated and Dion may have exacerbated the slides slide a little bit with how they handled NFL agents, NFL scouts, guys in the front office that aren't necessarily
used to a player thinking he kind of runs the show already, especially when he's not his father, who was the best cornerback of all time.
Well, and also one more thing here.
One of the jobs you have when you're building a roster, as a roster constructor in pro sports is you have to mitigate risk and you have to, you know, mitigate distraction, and you have to eliminate as much of that as you can.
That's in your power.
A lot of it's not in your power, like the one of the variables that you know, the Melkipers of the world don't seem to discuss very much, and one of the variables that makes all this stuff really hard and very complicated. It's why the great scouts are worth their weight in gold is you do not know how an eighteen nineteen twenty like a young person between typically between the ages of eighteen and twenty two.
Sometimes it's a little bit older.
With the new normal of college athletics, it will be older oftentimes, you know, twenty three, twenty four to twenty five. But the point still stands how a young person will react to instantly becoming a millionaire, how a young person
will react to instantly becoming rich and famous. Now, a lot of these young players now are receiving a tremendous amount of wealth prior to entrance into the pros, and I don't think we have enough data at our disposal to indicate whether or not that allows them to land a little softer with more maturity, because they actually already have some money in their pocket and maybe simply just aging a little bit is a good thing before they actually are thrown into this world of tremendous wealth and
tremendous attention. But the highway is littered with the bodies, not literally that's morbid, but of prospects that were highly thought of simply as talent that could not handle the sudden attention and did not know how to handle the sudden wealth and did not have the right people around them to help them traverse that space, and had too many hangers on or add too many family members that needed to get out of debt, or family members that were using you and relying upon you as their golden
ticket to change their lives, which has always been extremely unfair. It's why a good agent is worth his weight in gold. And by the way, didn't have an agent, he hasn't signed one. And yes, he has a father as a mentor to kind of give him the answers to the test. But guess what, the answers to the test this year were wrong. I think he would have done himself a great service if he had outside representation that could sit him down and say, look, I don't give a rip
who your dad is. I don't give a rip about the advantages you've had because of that. You are a talent that has a chance to have a long career in pro football. But if you want that, here's how you have to approach this process. And advice from an outside voice may have changed the entire thing. But it's always interesting when a story like this manifest to listen and read the reaction for media members that clearly are
embarrassed that they got it so wrong. When the talent evaluators that actually work in the industry are the ones that we need to listen to all the time, the problem is we don't have as much access to them as we do with the media members that want to join shows and kind of spout off their opinion and their takes in order for engagement. First game of four for tonight's NBA Playoff action actually just barely tipped off. It's the Bucks and the Pacers. Keep you up to
date on that as the show goes on. Get back to some NFL Draft stuff. Sam Brouckcassuomer Sports joins us. But a good friend of the show stops buying a Tuesday and it's been way too long Kaylin Jones.
Happy Tuesday, buddy. How are we doing.
I'm hearing your voice, man.
Yeah great. Great to catch up with you as well.
And it seems like every time I chat with you, you have taken another job and another really cool job as well. So I need the career update, I need the life update. What's going on with you now?
I mean, I'm very blessed. Man. You know, media is not an eat the industry to hold steeple jobs as a current throughout my career, but I'm currently an associate producer for Netflix is Untold, the sports documentary series. It's been about a year now. I've kept it low key because there hasn't been too much to share. I'm excited because the first round of episodes that was a part
of I really wasn't part of. I was just getting an a with that person in the group who didn't really do anything on the group assignment and got an a on it. This time around had a little bit more of a hand in it, and I'm excited for our episode that's coming out called Shooting Guards about Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Critteninson and in the lot of incident. So we've got a couple more episodes coming up. It takes a few years and.
Make these things.
I'm learning, but it's been a really fun experience so far, transitioning over from journalism to the film space.
Very nice, very nice, Calen.
We are losing you a little bit on the cell phone, so I'm gonna reset quite a little bit of a long question. I'm gonna ask you just move around a little bit, see if we can get a better connection. So Cayln Jones is our guest. He's been a friend of the show for five six years. He was with The Ringer, he was with Sports Illustrated, with the Athletic is now landed over with our friends in Netflix. So what has been so this this uh, this Gilbert Arenas
doctor you have coming up? I wonder what has been this process? What what the process has been like for you? I mean, I certainly will never forget this story. I am beyond excited to watch this and as a lifelong quite frankly, being around the NBA my entire life, somebody who's worked in it and has covered it for quite
some time. Of course, I can remember Gilbert Arenas as a great college player and a very very talented pro and I completely remember when this news certainly came down in the fallout for both Gilbert and Javaris Crittin and what's what's what's the process been like for you guys to make this.
So when I joined about a year ago, the process it already started conducting interviews with Rena and Baris Criton, uh both you know, people close to the both of them former teammates, so to witness the whole incident go down. And then obviously the police departments from Atlanta who with kind of the fallout as far as Varis Critins inside of everything. But when I joined the processes, you know, you have the editor or a couple of editors who are in a base and after you're basically trying to
help them, you know, nurture the story along. You send a few cuts to the big folks at Netflix, they send some notes back. You probably do that five or six signs before you get a final cut and line that process six about a year. It's been really fascinating. But you know, it's really cool, Spence, because you know how it is with media scrums and most interview sessions, you know they're they're five ten minutes and you're sticking a microphone in an athlete space after, you know, a
huge moment. With documentaries, we get the luxury of sitting with subjects for hours and so being able to get fuller context and provide that on a platform like Netflix is really special to be a part of.
All Right, for our listeners that are going, who are Gilbert Arenas and Javar's krittenan? Because it is sixteen years ago, let's revisit it, Kalin, So tell our listeners what went down Christmas Eve two thousand and nine.
Yeah, So, Gilbert Arenas, as you were talking about's talented NBA player, multi time All Stars for the Washington Wizards. He and Javaris Critinton, who was a backup point guard on the team, young in his career, had been drafted by the Lakers, trying to kind of you know, trying to save his career. They during a slight home the two of them got, you know, they were playing cards
on the plane over. You know, there was a debate over who owed who money, and between Gilbert and Javaris it became sort of an emotional showing of manhood and challenging one another, you know how it is with your friends. Sometimes sometimes we have friends who take things a little bit too far. And while they're on there talking about bringing guns to each other, you know, bringing guns to the locker room, and Javars and Gilbert both ended up
following through. Uh, they ended up pulling out guns on each other. And hello, can you hear me?
Yeah, you're you're, you're you're breaking up pretty fierce. Is there is there any way we can get you to relocate or do you? Porter can porter, Porter can call you back if you want, if you want to take a second, we can reconnect with you.
Ah, man, I'm sorry, man, I'm trying to figure out a better spot in the hotel to the uh speak to your prom im in Atlanta. Actually, we're doing some interviews for another episode.
You sound really good right now, wherever you're at, just stay right there, okay.
Perfect, But yeah, the two of them got into a incident showing a manhood calling each other out on the plane. Both threatened to bring guns into the locker room, and I think, you know, uh, we all have friends who take things probably a little bit too far, a little
bit too literally. And of fortunately, yeah, they they brought guns in the locker room and both were suspended given two of the late suspensions in NBA history, essentially ended Javaris Crittinson's career and Gilbert Reer ever really recovered after that, and so what we do is really examine the fallout of it. It's really tragic, honestly, like what ends the pappening in Javar's side of things, and he kind of probably aware of Gilbert Arenas's son, Elijah Arenas, one of
the top prospects in college basketball. He just recently, you know, luckily survived, but there was a car accident out in la where he was trapped in a cyber truck and was able to luckily get out. He wasn't put into an his come up, but he's awake now. And Yeah, we examined their relationship, Javar's fallout. It's a really compelling episode in one of the best untolds I think will ever come out.
Yeah, I'm excited for what is the nature now for our listeners that don't know Javaris critten In a few years later was charged with the murder of Julian Jones, twenty two year old mother of four. He pled guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to twenty three years in prison. It was later reduced to ten years and he was released from prison last year. So, you know, of course, a very sad story for a number of different reasons.
What was the effect of the incident, not the murder the Javaris committed, but the incident between Javaris and Gilbert and the gun incident, What was the effect that that had on their relationship and what is the nature of their relationship today?
Really did sort of pedo things right. Javaris was, you know, personally upset at Gilbert because after the incident happened, after the NBA handed out or at least threatened to hand out the suspensions, Gilbert Renus was. There's a famous picture or infamous picture of him, you know, in the huddle, the team huddle and finger guns at everybody, and you know, Javaris saw it as you know, Gilbert playing around and
not taking things seriously. You know, their their relationship, It took a few years for them the sort of men things. After Javaris had gotten out, they are now I wouldn't say close, but you know they're they're acquaintances, cordial, however you want to put it. They're on good terms at this point. I know that Javaris has been on Gilbert Arenas's podcast a couple of times at this point to discuss everything and kind of you know, air everything out.
But yeah, it's it's in a much better spot today. And as you mentioned, you know, obviously there's a seriously tragic, uh you know, portion of the story that you know, we we do a really good job of getting into. But it's it's a really fascinating story. Like I said, I think it's gonna be one of the best sports documentaries that comes out this year.
As far as you know, we referenced the player that Gilbert was, and you know, he ultimately when you look at from a Macros standpoint, because he was not super highly thought of as an NBA prospect coming out of college, I don't think you can he was a second round pick. I don't think he can really analyze his career as anything other than a massive success based off of expectations. But from a Gilbert Arenas angle specifically, how did that incident kind of change the trajectory of his NBA career.
Yeah, like I said, you know, things kind of filled with out for him afterwards. He wasn't able to return to being you know, the superstar. He wasn't the face of the league. He was literally on the cover of NBA Live in two thousand and eight. I still I'm pretty sure I had that game. He was one of the faces of the league. And after that incident, the NBA did it. You know, it did its job to protect its brand and made sure that you know, he
wasn't necessarily considered a face. For Gilbert, his career tailed off. He ended up playing Memphis Orlando. He was never really the same player, and so for him personally though, I think that and he talked about it in our episode, it's you know, played a role in him evolving and maturing as a man, specifically as a father. He's much more involved in Elijah Arenas's life. Gilbert, like I said,
he's someone who's a goopall didn't take things seriously. That incident helped change him to being a little bit more mature and taking things a little bit more seriously. And like I said, he's ensuring that his son isn't on a similar path to not taking things serious. And I think that's the reason why he ended up not going in the first round during the draft and why he wasn't considered as highly a prospect because he was so talented, but he didn't have maybe necessarily the work at elite
work ethic. Obviously every athlete has work ethic, the elite work ethic to keep him consistently at an all star caliber level. So I think it changed him for the better. Obviously, it's unfortunate that it took that incident, but you know, for his personal life, and we see him now obviously with the podcast. He's still a jokester, but there is a little bit more maturity that comes with the experienced seasons he's had, you.
Know, uh, in in both pro sports and if for honest, in society, the topic of gun control is one that comes up often and people feel very passionate about it, both on both sides of the aisle wherever you stand. Uh And of course when it comes to the NBA or the NFL. You know, oftentimes when a player is caught with a firearm without a license, or you know, they're pulled over and there's a firearm in the car, the leagues come under a tremendous scrutiny to serve as an example for everybody else.
How did this incident, if.
At all, kind of change the perspective or paradigm of pro basketball in the way that they view and handle gun control issues.
Well, the reason why the penalty was so severe the suspension was for the rest of the season. I'm blanking on which season that was. It might have been two and two thousand and nine, but both of them ended up being suspended for the entire season, and poor Javares Crittin, and I mean he was essentially blackballed from returning to
the NBA. And then I think the severity with which the NBA came down was to ensure that, you know, the league itself has had to overcome different types of stigmas, right like before the Magic Johnson Larry bird eras you obviously the league had a crack cocaine issue with its
players and so being able to rescue the league. It's with the bird Magic area and Michael Jordan, you know all that the league was nervous about that NINGU raced when the early two thousands, late nineteen nineties, you had players who the league had the recond with hip hop culture coming to the surface and players expecting themselves that way. So you had different points throughout the league's league history where it's had the grapple with perception outside of perception,
which ultimately affects its you know, final dollar. With that incident, I think they made sure very very strongly that you know, it would not tolerate you know, gun gunplay literally within the flocker room, and so the penalties were super severe, and I think that, you know, how the league handled
it super fascinating for Gilbert. I guess I'm telling the untold part of it here, but Gilbert explained that the League really came down fiercely upon him because he was trafficking guns essentially using private planes that the NBA was providing, because he had guns in Phoenix and he would bring them over to Washington, d C. So using the NBA's private planes, so they He believes that the reason why the penalty was so severe is because the NBA didn't want that to be.
Non When is this coming out? I'm telling you, I am giddy with excitement. This is gonna be awesome.
It's coming out on May six, Okay.
Oh nice, right around the corner.
So you rep, there are some other un and we've had Tony Vai Nuku on the program a couple of times. He's a Utah filmmaker who worked on the Manti Teo documentary. I'm told what what are what are the other projects you have coming up?
Kal?
Yeah, so until that's two more episodes. The episodes that are coming out are based on the social media guy named Liver king uh and then also there's an episode coming out about Brett Farv. Neither of those episodes, I guess, like the Hollywood of it, those weren't done by our
production houses, the production house that I work with. We have a few more episodes coming out in the pipe that regard the NBA, regard Major League Baseball, and the NFL, And unfortunately I want to protect my job, so I can't say what it is yet, but I think that they will also be some compelling stuff. So I'm really excited about what we're working on, even what I'm here in Atlanta working on right now.
Yeah, I've I've loved all of them. I mean, Malice in the Palace that was the first one I saw. Let's see were the other ones we have. I've referenced the Girlfriend who Didn't exist, Anti Taya, and a lot of local ties here, the rise and fall of Van One, I mean I loved and one back in the day, I thought it was great. Uh, there's a ton of great ones. The one on Manzell was really good. I recently saw the one on Steve McNair, So what a cool Uh, what a cool series. Fore you'd be involved in, man,
I think that's great. I wanted to bring you into a conversation we've been having because in your former life, and you're still a very young person, you've just done
so many really cool things. But I've been talking the past couple of days Klein about you know, on one side, you have NFL talent evaluators that actually worked for the league and work for teams, and then on the other side, you have media members that kind of moonlight as NFL talent evaluators and draft you know, draft you know evaluators, and oftentimes there is a massive gap between those two groups, because if you're evaluating talent for a pro team or
a pro league, you have to remove emotion from the equation and simply analyze the prospects you have at your disposal. We're on the media side, especially during the draft cycle, for whatever reason, people want so much engagement that they don't necessarily pay as much attention to the nuts and bolts of analyzing players, and they just want you to engage with their content. Which brings me to this Shitter
Sanders story, which has just been fascinating. Is this as simple as maybe media people getting this wrong and NFL talent evaluators just saying he's not as good as you people think.
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. As someone who was on the media side of it, as you mentioned back in what was it twenty twenty one when we had justin Fields, you know, and I wrote a story that you know, drove a lot of traffic. You know, I'm not necessarily proud of that part, but you know, the narratives that gets stuck with particular prospects is very fascinating. And so you mentioned engagement, and I was thinking about it, and I was talking to a friend
about this with Chador, you know, I was joking. I was like, hey, like I loved him, but I would I don't think he's a first round talent. I think he has a weak arm. I don't I think he's a great prospecting that he's tough as hell and we'll hang in the pocket. I mean, he drists a little bit, but he's willing to sink in the pot and we'll throw over the mill you can't. Those are two traits that I feel like, generally, you know, suggest that you
can last in the NFL. That being said, he doesn't have the biggest arm and he's not the biggest dude, So I'm not surprised at all. I would have taken less than one and a half if I could have gambled on it, even though two quarterbacks win, like with Shador. It's really fascinating that. And I guess drafts in general, right justin Fields drafted there was Trevor Lawrence all time prospect, and we were still focused on the narratives that were
surrounding justin fields. That's why I wrote the article. It's like, why are we talking about the negative about this bad prospect instead of there's other people that we can talk about and same wished the door. We had a show to hey o Tani esque prospect in Travis Hunter who went number two overall. I think that's more dramatic, like there is a one unicle who wasn't selected number one.
I think that's way more compelling to me than you know, a quarterback that probably wouldn't wouldn't have gone first overall in the stronger quarterback class, you know, falling out of the first round. I think it's compelling because you guys know how it goes first and foremost, like college football fans are most rapid and most passionate stand base in the United States. I think the other element of that is the Deon Sanders of it all. Granted I'm young,
I'm only twenty eight. I've covered I was covered at in my previous job. I come to Colorado UCLA game when they were in LA and my assignment was go follow around Colorado, go hang around the tailgates, go watch the game from the stands on the Colorado side. I've been told how massive you know, Deon Sanders, how big of a deal he is, And I understand that, but I understand it even more having been around these people who love and pray, and that's why Shaudor's number gotten fired.
I don't think it's like a great thing, but I'm not surprised. It's their church essentially, people that put on their pedestal, and so a compelling element of Shador being Deion Sanders kid is why we're so engaged and for him to be dropped all the way down to the fifth round, I pray, look, and you guys watch college football. I don't know if he's worse than Dylan Gabriel. I don't think he's a worse quarterback process to some of the other guys that went before him. So that gets
a little funky for me. But as far as him falling out of the first round, I wasn't that shocked or do you think, like he said, the narratives that the media has a run with the negative. The negative narratives are what drives content and attention, fortunately, and I think that's what happened for sure.
I wanted to follow up with this, do you think his dad did him a bit of a disservice because the fact of the matter is Dion Sanders could sandbag interviews all he wants, it didn't matter. He was one of the best, if not the best cornerbacks in the
history pro football. And there were moments where Dion said things like, we're going to get involved where he plays and it might be Eli Manning's situation, and Deon saying he's a top five pick, he should be the number one pick, and you know, maybe the power of Dion Sanders swayed everybody, including Vegas, by the way, did not meet just media. Vegas at one point last year had Shador as the favorite to be the number one pick.
Do you think throughout this whole process, Chador may have been let down a little bit and done a disservice by his dad?
Oh yeah, I think so. I think it's fair to say, like you said for him.
Let's put it this way.
If you and I are running an NFL team and we have a first round pick, we need a quarterback, why would we risk who? Again, he's not no offense, not Josh Allen right now, Cam Newton somewhere where he's supremely physically gifted. We're gonna bet on the traits you don't. Why would I risk, you know, Deon Sanders potentially affecting
our plan? You know, with a first round pick, it's the value is just not worth the risk, and even potentially a second round pick or a third round pick, because then all of a sudden, the conversation becomes about that and that toxicity. If we're being real as opposed to what can you provide for our football team? And does he fit as opposed to does Daddy like where he's going that, and I do believe that that did a disservice to him in terms of where he ended up being landed.
And you know, some.
People have written that both Sor and Deon needed that humbling. If the report's about him purposefully not just bombing meeting and interviews like purposely being dismissive are true, I guess on some level, yeah, he did need this like sort
of reckoning and humbling on some level. But at the same time, you know, I do think that for Shador while he you know, I would love to be in a hus in the sense that I grew up as Theon Sanders kid, but also yeah, with being his kid, you probably have to be on the same You're probably taught to be super confident and super brash on some level. So you know, there's we could go on for like two hours about this. It's really fascinating to me and sincerely.
But.
Yeah, at the end of the day, I do think Dion being a little bit not over confident but brash and suggesting that he would be involved in where Shador lands did cost him. At the end of the day, what you know, upwards of thirty million or whatever it was that people have been able to project.
All Right, before I set you loose, I just looked up some details of the upcoming untold the Fall of Farv, and this is a perfect This is a perfect topic and person, quite frankly, not just player to do a documentary on, because it was such a wild ride as a player that not a lot of people thought highly of when he was a young college player, and ultimately becoming one of the most entertaining the players in the history of pro football to play quarterback, and then the
precipitous fault Caitlin that quite frankly.
Is still going on right in front of us.
So before I set you loose, what can you tell us about the FARV documentary coming out next month?
Yeah, So from the cut that I've seen to just to be fair like I the production house that did make it was our one of our associate houses. From what I've seen, it definitely centers around Jen Surger, the woman who Brett Barre sat the inappropriate text to. He used to work for the Jets, and getting her perspectives is super fascinating because, like you said, it's it's Brett Fire, someone who was one of the most entertaining and quarterbacks
in football. It's fascinating seeing how someone who didn't have power suddenly being in a position where they are elevated. Similar to like we were talking about with the Sanders in Green Bay, Brett Favre was God essentially and for him to you know, have the power that he had as a face of the NFL, it's easy to or not easy to see, but it's it's fascinating to see how he misused that and wasn't maybe not aware, but
using his power for good. I don't know how to articulate that, but it was unfortunate and it is sad because, like I said, he was one of the most entertaining players ever. I love watching highlights of Brett Farre like there's no one who throws a football harder than him.
But at the end of the day, you know where he's at right now and what he's been doing is it's super unfortunate and seeing that the sense in real time we talked to I think that we talked to people involved in the lawsuit, or at least a part of the Mississippi state government who do comment on how unfortunate and sad it is that you know he's been alleged of taking advantage of state funding. So it's a really fascinating doc all things considered.
All right.
Next guest joined us last week to break down some NFL draft storylines.
Now is time to look back on what we saw.
Are Buddy, Sam Bruckhaus from Sumer Sports On a Tuesday, Sam, Happy Tuesday, man?
How are we doing?
Happy Tuesday? It's a Knicks game day here at seven thirty eastern, so we'll be tuned into that, But for now, I'm ready to break down some.
Draft wade a second, Wait a second, are you telling me, Sam, you're a Knicks fan?
I am?
I live.
I live on Third Avenue in New York, so I'm a big fan of the Knicks.
Okay, all right, Well, this is kind of a weird radio situation in Utah where I am the host as a Knicks fan and my producer Porter is also a Knicks fan.
Are you? Are you a lifelong New York Knicks fan?
So?
I grew up in South Louisiana and I was in a zone if you remember all the RSNS, where I could catch both Fox Sports Houston and Cox Sports New Orleans. So I kind of grew up watching vaguely all the Southwestern teams. I grew up between Houston and New Orleans, so sometimes I rooted for the Rocket, sometimes I rooted for the Spurs. Sometimes I rooted for the Pelicans. But when I was in middle school, I started liking the Knicks,
and then I moved up here to New York. So now the Knicks are my chosen basketball team.
Love it.
So I can ask you this, are we as Nick fans? Are we going to get it done tonight?
I'm certainly hoping.
So it seems like we're going to have to have another thirty point game from Jalen Brunson in order to do so. I was in the house at MSG for Game one. I have some real fears about Malik Beasley getting hot at any given point in time, and so I don't want to jinx it. We may have to put Malik Beasley back in the freezer to keep them cold for a little longer, or at least for another game. But I'm hoping we come out with the next victory.
Tell me this, Yeah, you know, I spent my childhood going into midtown Manhattan to Madison Square Garden to watch the next Is there that new York springtime buzz around the next can you fill it in the city.
Oh yes, certainly. They're hosting like watch parties in and around Manson Square gardens. So after a home victory, there's as always people kind of sprinting in the streets to get to MSG to get on the side talk review video, which I'm sure they'll put out at the end of
the series. But there's also people watching. And so I've been again, I'm from Louisiana, so I've been in the house for Tiger Stadium versus Alabama, the New Orleans Saints in the conference championship game against the Rams, and those were pretty crazy. The fact that a game one MSG game even stands up close to that is pretty impressive.
I love it well, Sam, now that I know that you're a Knicks fan. We could do this for an hour and a half, but we will not because we let's talk at the NFL Draft, And of course I'm going to start with the low hanging fruit and the story that everybody's talked about. And you know, we're out here in Pac twelve formerly Pac twelve Country, Big twelve Country.
So we watched Ador Sanders play against the Utes on multiple occasions, and you know, watch a lot of his college games, and I don't know where you had him analyzed. Certainly there is always a big gap between media analyzing prospects and then talent evaluators that work for teams, and obviously that gap was bigger than most people thought, and he slides to the fifth round.
What do you make of the story?
So, I mean, just.
On paper, you can make an argument that he was a day one, day two quarterback. I thought that was pretty clear. If you look at our sumer scores, we have one for accuracy, which on a frame by frame, millisecond by millisecond basis, figures out how accurate players are as compared to every other play that we have in our database. He was by far the most accurate passer at all three levels in this draft class. So he did have a superpower. Typically when you have a superpower,
it tends to translate to a higher draft profile. And then you look at what the consensus big boards, they which have over one hundred and ten media evaluators and people that are close to teams if you are to read arefa Son's consensus big board for example, and they had him as the twenty first best prospect. Typically we see that the floor for those type of players is
picked sixty eight. That was Malik Willis back in the day, and Malik Willis was having you know, there was a lot of weird COVID stuff going on that year and a lot of kind of extinguating factors. Given he was coming from Liberty, a G five school, So with all that in mind, I thought he was pretty certified to be a Day one or early Day two guy. And so it brings up into my head that there was extinguating circumstances. It seems as if there were some interview
things that came up. There seems like there was some fears potentially about you know, his dad wanting to jump into the NFL and whether that could cause like a Lebron and Bronnie James situation where people thought Lebron may want to go to another team in order to play with his son. I think these are very interesting, one of one chances to occur things, and we probably won't see another drop like Shador standers in recent years.
Tell me if you believe I've talked to a few guests about this over the past couple of days. Do you believe that he was done a little bit of a disservice by his dad. I mean, Dion talked a lot about things, you know, such as we might pull on Eli Manning situation, and I'll certainly be involved and dictate where he plays. Now he backed off of some of those comments, but throughout the course of the process, I mean, you hear things like, oh, well, his dad sandbag interviews.
So it's okay.
If Shador did well, no like Dion was generational, you still might be the best cornerback that ever played pro football. Do you think throughout this process Chador has done a bit of a disservice by his father.
I don't know if I can parse that out. I think it may have come down more to the fact that we have eight to nine teams still evaluating quarterbacks on their rookie contracts. Again, that's kind of a one to one thing as of late. That so basically a third of the league is evaluating rookie quarterbacks as we speak, and thus not really in the market for a quarterback on Day one or day two. When you really break it down, the Browns were in the market for a quarterback.
The Steelers were in the market for the quarterback, and the Giants were in the market for a quarterback as well, and the Browns and Steelers decided to go different directions. Obviously, the Browns end up coming back in the fifth round and picking him, so I think it was more of the environmental scan and the real really only to service his dad could have done to him is putting him in a position not to win, given that they were
contenders for the Big Twelve title this year. I can't with any degree of confidence say that Coach Prime did anything to.
Her his son removing Shador from the equation. Give me another player that slid quite a bit that surprised you.
So I got to keep it at the quarterback position. I'm surprised that Jalen Milroe made it as far as he did. Again, the NFL invited him to go to the draft in Green Bay. That indicated to me that there were some league sources, and in that case direct league sources that thought he was going to go in the first round that didn't end up happening. He ends up in a perfect situation as far as I'm concerned, with the Seahawks behind Sam Darnold in a very similar state,
probably as JJ McCarthy was rehabing injury. In this case, Jalen Molroe probably gets to continue playing. I thought teams were going to take a shot on him as early as the late first round or early second round, given that he had some of the highest highs in the draft, and then just some other followers. I think more due to the structural aspects of the draft. Jalen Walker, I was kind of surprised that he made it all the way to the Falcons. I thought he could but beee
a potential top ten pick. But sometimes the draft just plays out as it does. Teams don't necessarily bite on certain premium positions, or if you're a flex player like Jalen walker is, they maybe project you to a different position, the off ball linebacking position in their defensive scheme. Thus the Falcons get to snap him up.
What about the biggest reach the player that was off the board the uent Wow, that seems way too high for that guy.
So I think when you really analyze it very closely, I don't want to call it a reach because I know y'all are out there in raid Her territory. But I personally, if I were asked to recommend what I would do in the first round. I would not recommend taking Ashton Genty at pick six. We saw how it turned out in New York. There was one kind of playoff year that seemed like a fluke where Sakwuon Barkley was able to play well in a Giant's uniform and then it ends up that he is an MVP candidate
in someone else's uniform. I think that's typically going to how be how we continue to see running backs end up in this league, and frankly, that's how it's ended up for pretty much everyone that has drafted a first round running back. It's going to be very interesting to see how the Falcons, the last team to take a running back in that position, approach it after this year, especially if they don't make the playoffs with John Robinson.
But I just think it puts you in a very stressful situation in which Aston Genty has to be this year one of the top five running backs in the league. And there's a lot of good running backs in this league right now. That's asking a lot of a twenty one year old, twenty two year old player.
Away from just individual prospects and more team related questions. Give me some winners, some teams that came away with a good draft over the course of the three days.
So you got to look at the Los Angeles Rams and what they did. They got a first round pick next year for the twenty sixth pick in the draft. That's really we've never really seen that before. Even right before it, the Giants, who I think had a pretty good draft as well, traded into the twenty fifth pick for a lesser price. And now the Rams have two first round picks in which they could potentially replace Matthew Stafford next year. They were not even close to that
scenario this year. And a kind of underlying caveat to this is we think of the Rams with Sean McVay and less Need and Matthew Stafford and Puka Nakua and all these good players as a team that is just a certified playoff candidate. Every year they're over under win total this year is nine and a half. So that indicates to me that they looked at themselves realized that the market doesn't think we're that great of a team. Obviously, we are going to try to overachieve that as much
as possible for all intentsive purposes. They were one play away from the conference championship. But you got to understand, you got an aging quarterback, you had a lot of injuries last year. You have a very youthful defense that hopefully grows another year. But the idea that they were able to get a first round pick for as late of a pick that they had is quite frankly impressive. And then another item. They just came in with the
plan and they almost always execute it. Here's a weird little silver lining that I've been finding about how they liked to draft. Most of their defensive linemen are guys who transferred up from lower levels the FCS, the G five, into a power conference and immediately contributed. I'm talking about Braden Fisk, Jared Vers, Kobe Turner, Byron Young. That's four guys.
They added another one of those guys, Josiah Stewart out of Michigan, previously was a coastal Carolina blew the doors off of our suomer scores.
They had him in.
The middle of the draft. I think between those two moves, sticking to their plan, continuing to have a process, that is why I like the Rams draft.
On the other side, a team that left to scratch in your head after the draft process.
I don't know if.
I'd say scratching my head as much as it was
just kind of all over the place. And the way I described the Cleveland Browns draft is like when you go to the Walgreens or you go to the convenience store and you really just want a single bag of chips, and then you are a single Snickers bar and you bring that up and they're like, hey, you could get two for one, and you're like, uh, okay, well, I guess I'm eating two bags of chips now, and then you feel kind of bad afterwards, but at least you've got two bags of chips for the price of one.
That happened twice to the Browns. I think. I think they were in a position to select Travis Hunter, and the Jaguars just made an offer, as they say and the Godfather, that they just simply couldn't refuse. They, very similarly to the breakdown that I gave of the Rams, were able to get a total another first round pick next year for their selection, alongside moving just a few
picks afterward. I think if they evaluated the situation just on its face, Travis Hunter, a two way player, very shiny, but at the same time, no player has really done a two way thing at the professional level. And then you look at all of those snaps he took at Colorado, maybe a potential for an injury. He's taken more snaps than probably any player in recent draft history. So I
think you take those two analytics, you trade back. It probably has the same inspected value with Mason Graham, who also blew the doors off of our Schoomer scores, has a little bit more predictable position at the interior defensive tackle, but it doesn't have the same taste. They had a potential to get the certified number one consens Big Board player, and because the offer was too good, they end up moving back. Same thing at the quarterback position. They go
get their guy. Quite a bit of a reach if you're just looking at expected draft position on Dylan Gabriel. Then all of a sudden, Shador Sanders is still on the board. It becomes too good of a value to pass up to have those two guys, who I assume they thought were two of the better quarterbacks than this draft on their team. But it leaves a weird taste given they passed him up so many times I think
that kind of makes you scratch your head. It seems like two things where the value the analytics say it was the right thing to do, but you know, it feels a little weird when you end up executing it.
Every time Travis Hunter has asked about it, he's very front facing about his belief that he should be allowed to play on both sides of the ball. Jacksonville hasn't been as adamant as far as what their plans are.
How do you think this plays out?
I think they're going to use them on offense first, Liam Cohen as an offensive player. I don't know if that's exactly what I would do, because I think that a single offensive snap is maybe a little bit more valuable than a defensive snap. So you can put him in on key downs, third downs, first down packages and still get a lot of value and swap them in and out, whereas at the cornerback position he could cut off the entirety of the field on any given pass play.
But from my understanding of what they said in the press conference, going to be an offensive player first and be a package guy on defense. Don't know if that's the way I would approach it, but it makes sense in terms of positional value, and I think that's the way it's going to end up going. I wouldn't be shocked if in three or four years he's just a wide receiver.
Frankly, Jackson Dart grew up about fifteen miles north of where we're talking today, but played his high school football about fifteen miles south at Corner Canyon, and they've had Kwie Iron developing quarterbacks. Of course, he ends up QB two and the Giants trade back in to take Jackson Dart.
How do you think this is going to work?
It's an interesting, you know, play out. I think that the Jalen Hurts comp or at least the Jalen Hurts play style makes sense. He does like to go after his first read and then scramble, very similar to Jalen Hurts. He was very accurate at the short and intermediate levels this year, even though the deep passes were not super accurate, which is what I think separated him from guys like Cameron Ward or like Sanders, for example. But he kind of takes a lot of sacks, so it's going to
be interesting to see how they bring him along. I think the pick and the value in which they got the twenty fifth pick was fine, and I think the way that they approached the rest of the draft made a lot of sense. I think the Giants end up coming out process wise as one of the bigger winners of this draft season. Given they got their guy at quarterback.
It was quite a bit of a reach in terms of the consensus big board, in terms of how people projected this player to be long term, in terms of the expected draft position, where people thought Jackson Dart was going to go, and where you would have to get in order to select him. It really wasn't a reach at all. All together, I think I'm not going to criticize the quarterback selection, particularly when it's a guy who has such a good relationship with the head coach and
the offensive coordinator. So all together, I think it's all right. I think it's going to be good for Giants fans, and I think, frankly for the Giants all together. The fact that you have Wilson, Jameis Winston, and Jackson Dart all under the roof, you probably are in at least safe hands to do better than last year per se and actually get the ball of the elite neighbors quite a few times this year.
I will take an opportunity selfishly, as a lifelong suffering fan of the New York Football Jets, to ask you, how do you think my squad did?
Look?
I liked it pretty down Broadway, which is what they needed. They got a tackle at the right position early on. That's what they needed. I thought that they were going to want to run the ball. Darren Mugi, their general manager, comes for the Broncos, built on a strong offensive line. Aaron Glynn from the Lions also built on a strong offensive line. Then they just made good picks at good positions.
As we moved on. Tight end Mason Taylor good value at the selection, was a very productive guy at LSU as a Riah Thomas, the cornerback from Florida State, kind of benefited the Jets kind of benefited from a swing down. Florida State had a year, a night marish year. Given that those two guys I mentioned earlier, Jared Verse and Braden Fist, ended up being two of the better defensive linemen in the NFL much less college football this year, they take a downturn. I think that was a good
selection altogether. I like what the Jets did pretty down Broadway. Pretty I'm not gonna call it safe, because the draft is never safe, but it seems as if they made good selections at good prices at positions that matter.
A couple of minutes left, Sam before set you loose, so I'll take advantage of the space to ask you about teams that are highly supported here locally. John Lynch used his first five picks on defensive players. What do you think of what the forty nine ers came away with?
I think the forty nine ers have their own separate approach to these things. Typically they will just go ahead and reach and get their guys, which is fine, It's worked out for them, Okay, Just analytically, maybe not the best process, and you put yourself kind of behind the eight ball on having to hit on these players. Here's a player I want to highlight up in Stout out
of Western Kentucky. He was quite a bit of a reach, but then I went and looked at his summer scores and he was excellent blue chip at limiting separation from wide receivers, at covering these guys both in man and zone and press covered. I think the reason why he was not a highly touted prospect was because Number one, he's out of Western Kentucky. Number two, he is pretty diminutive in size. I'm talking five to seven, five to eight. I think he is my favorite prospect from their draft.
Denver Bronco seven picks and the only ute selected was Caleb Lohner, who really danned a name for himself as a high quality basketball player.
Around here. We have a lot of Broncos fans here in Salt Lake City. How do you think Denver did so?
I think they did a pretty good job. You know, you look at what they want to do all the time, and it is attack, attack on defense with Vance Joseph and then build up an established balance offensive passing game for Sean Payton.
John A.
Barren really loved the selet I think this was a guy they probably had high on their board. Did they maybe want to go with another position perhaps, but he just fell and they snagged him up. That's going to be a nasty defense with Riley Moss, Whu Funga the safety, Patzertan the defensive player of the year, and now jo Da Barron slotting in at the slot corner. I'm going to be really interested to see how he mixes in another guy, Pat Bryant, the wide receiver round three. They
really had to need at wide receiver. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was another guy they were a little higher on than most teams. He popped up really well in our sumer scores in terms of getting open and after the catch. I really liked that selection. And then you mentioned Caleb Lohner as well, seventh round pick.
I think it's going to be interesting to see how he can slot in at the tight end position, given that Sean Payton over the years with the Saints was able to find value late in the draft at the tight end position.
Last one, I know you touched on the disagreement you had with the Raiders.
You know when it comes to a perceived reach.
But Dad eleven overall pin and by proximity, that's the closest team dous Sharon saw Lake macro thirty thousand foot view.
How do you think the Raiders did so?
Again, Mike, it's tough. Was Ashton gent one of the most nflready looking players. Yes, so as a result, good pick for them. Everyone thought that he was going to go around there. It's just tough from an analytical perspective to draft a running back guy. I want to highlight Jack besh out of Louisiana. He's an excellent wide receiver, really showed out at the Senior Bowl. I'm going to be interested in how they use him in particular, but just kind of down the line, a lot of needs addressed.
As you said, eleven picks made a guy. I want to highlight Round six, pick four, JJ Pegeese. I'm really interested to see how Chip Kelly utilizes him because here's a guy who was really recruited as a tight end ends up becoming an impact performer at defensive tackle. I wouldn't be surprised if he plays a little both ways.
Ball Sam, Where can people go find your work?
Bud?
Yeah?
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Thank you, my friend, having good week and we'll do it again soon.
Thank you all so much.
Bye bye, all right.
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All right, final segment of the show Today, fun Tuesday show with a lot going on. It's a busy night in both the world of pro hockey and pro basketball, with a lot of Stanley Cup action and NBA playoffs as well, So enjoy that.
Tonight.
I will be on TV with Dave Fox, who has two Pelotons and two Emmys, wasn't on the show today, which, you know whatever, I thought that was kind of the deal.
We'll see you even get him on this week.
But ten thirty five KMYU, we call it five questions with Spence. What was that Prima Donna's excuse for not coming over to do.
The show today.
Yeah, apparently he's got a meeting. Yeah, give me a break, a station meeting that. I'm sure that they need Dave Fox for the decision making, the planning, the producing.
I'm sure he's got a bunch of.
I'm quite sure that they did not need Dave at the meeting at all, but I will be on TV with Dave tonight. All right, we have a new partner on the show. Outlaw Distilling is their name. Excited to partner with them. It's Outlaw Distillery. It's a homegrown grain to glass, nitty gritty whiskey, vodka, ram and moonshine distillery right here on Salt Lake County.
So definitely check out a tour.
You can do a tour which takes about an hour, hour and a half tour. It's a torn a tasting book at outlawdistillery dot com. If you tell them I sent you, They're going to hook you up with a shot glass as a souvenir.
How about that.
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i e. The state of Utah. So go go book excuse me a tour at a tasting with our friends at Outlaw Distilling. More information can be found at this at Outlawdistillery dot com today, so definitely check it out.
All right, Porter, you're somewhat.
Of a nature expert, right, I mean that's kind of in your wheelhouse. You like hiking, you like birds, you like things that are concerned with nature. Yeah, and animals and such, yes and such. Why am I continuing to see a debate about one hundred men versus one gorilla in a fight?
I don't know what am I missing?
I don't know.
Where that's where that's coming from, but I have seen the same thing.
Do you have a hot take? Do you know who would win in this? And it seems like one hundred men should be able to handle one gorilla.
One hundred is a lot and seems kind of unfair. And you're right, you should be able to like a a full grown silver backed gorilla, whether a mountain or a lowland gorilla.
Let's be clear, there are two different two different species.
Both of them are like at least ten fifteen times stronger than an average man, they got big old K nine teeth. But one hundred men, I think you, I think you have to first off, which hundred men. Is it one hundred men that are like Sean O'Connell's black belts, or is it a hundred men that are going to be at the whatever that thing is at the Maverick Center in a few weeks.
Oh the alpha chodes or is it a different thing. If it's a hundred of those guys, the gorillas have a no issue. But if it's one hundred Schan O'Connell's, I'm taking oc. So it's it's a hard debate, I guess, According to Tara Steinski, who's the President's CEO and Chief Scientific Officer for the Dion Fosse Gorilla Fund, because of course, she says, a gorilla would come to the fight posting more physical strength, much stronger jaw muscles, and thick skin
that is tough to penetrate. Male gorilla is known as silverbacks, can weigh more than four hundred pounds, and says they are estimated to be about four to ten times as strong as humans. She goes on to say it's an issue of sheer numbers and not all the one hundred men would walk away alive, but ultimately they should be able to handle it.
There you go, That's exactly what I yeah, what I would expect. But yeah, depends on the men there are. There are a collection of one hundred men that I bet that Gorilla could beat.
All Right, weird online debates, you people, and they didn't need to get a hobby. All right, fun night tonight in the NBA and in the NHL, So enjoy some playoff action porter what comes our way on a Wednesday edition of the show.
On a Wednesday edition of The Drive, Spence will continue the NBA playoff action discussion. Tony Jones stops by the program, Chris com Ronnie stops by. Actually on a Wednesday this week, we'll have c K and Studio for an entire hour, Trevor Sikhima to continue the NFL Draft coverage and reaction, and then oh yeah, it's Dave Fox all right on a Wednesday.
Well we'll see about that because he ditched us today. But I will be on TV. You know what, maybe I won't go do my TV here with Dave tonight if he's don't show up. Yeah, if he's going to do it, to us. Maybe maybe I'll do it to them.
Text him right before the show. I should let him know you're not going to be there.
I should, but just in case, tune in to cam Yu at ten thirty five to check it out. It's called Five Questions with Spence and with that Wheel Saga Night Special. Thank you today to Kyle Bonnegert, to Tim McMahon, Kaylin Jones, and Sam Bruckhaus for any of the sound you may missed from the show today. You can log onto the website, which is ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Make sure to download our mobile app and take us on the go. The ESPN seven hundred app is available
in the App Store in the Google play Store. And then, finally, for what we do in our space every afternoon for four hours, we have a podcast page and if you appreciate and like what we do, we ask that the you support our podcast page by going to your preferred podcast catcher hitting subscribe a rate review all the things they ask you to do.
If you say nice things, give us all the stars. It really helps the show. Reporter.
I'm Spence saying to night and enjoy Tuesday evening. Talk to you on a Wednesday drive as always, cann catch out right here on ESPN seven hundred