Good evening, gentlemen told me today, all right, all right, well
I have I have an all star lineup tonight. I have mister George Ikorn,
who hasn't been We're all you missed last week. You were at the
hockey game. Correct, I've got hockey game and yeah and they and the
Red Wings. Uh yeah, I did a nice job winning that, but
I missed all of you too. Glad to be back on. Good to
have you, Good to have you. And then mister smoking Jeremy b.
Hello, Oh, good evening, everybody. It's good to see you.
Good to be seen. And then mister Ralph, Yes, how are you?
How's everybody? George, Candy and Jeremy and all those out there watching,
how are you doing? Good? In fact, those watching we already
have mister Will. Good evening, everyone, Good evening, Will Hi Will.
So, guys, football, we're down to only two weekends left the
NFL season this weekend Pro Bowl? Are you watching it or not? And
if you're not? What could they do differently to make it more fun or
more watchable or just better? Overall? We are gonna start with mister smoking
Jeremy B. Well. I remember growing up the Pro Bowl used to be
what two three weeks after the Super Bowl, so everybody could heal up,
have a little time to reflect on what was the Super Bowl? The Daytona
five hundred would go do its thing as the granddaddy of every major sporting event,
and then you'd have the Pro Bowl. It would be in Hawaii.
You'd have a better skills competition than this. What's the best catch? Uh,
the tug of war has always been there because that's O line versus D
line. That's the way it's always been and it's a fun thing to watch.
But uh, the strongest arm competition, the accuracy competition and all that,
and it was in Hawaii. It was an honor to get that trip
to go to Hawaii and the extra bonus checks. And they actually played football
then too. I remember they used to hit people. It was amazing.
And they actually did call penalties, not like the penalties the day they know.
They say, yes, even though this is the Pro Bowl, we
do call penalty. Boll Star. You know, we didn't need the explanation
back then because it was football. And if you want to take it back
even further, in my opinion, if you really want to make it right,
you go back to the way it was in the fifties and sixties.
The Super Bowl champion takes on a team of fifty three players made up of
all the best players from every team outside of the Super Bowl champion. Make
it a bonus, Make the winner get so x amount of dollars, make
the loser get half as much. Make it fun again, make the players
want to go. Make it an honor. Not this fan popularity vote they
have now. You almost should take the vote away from the fans because all
they do is look for the big names they know, and they don't look
for the stats, like the way do to vote people into the Pro Bowl.
Okay, mister George Eichorn, your opinion? Are you watching the Pro
Bowl and what do you think they could do to improve it? Well?
I got to watch some of it. Are you kidding MEI there's seven Detroit
Lions. I think Rag now is not going to play, right Jeremy,
So that we would be down to six Lions that are supposed to participate in
the game. And I don't think they'll play either. Oh that's right,
yeah, yeah, So, I mean the Lions are blused. Obviously,
it's a reward for a great season, but I agree with Jeremy. These
contests that they're having and things like that just don't do anything for me.
I know they're trying to appeal to the younger fans and they're trying to draw
maybe perhaps a different audience. And I too, used to love it when
they went to Honolulu, and I know they had to renovate the stadium,
so I'm not quite sure if they're going to go back there. And I
know for a while there that the attendance to drop off a little bit and
they started rotating it and Florida's been having it for quite a number of years
now. But that being said, yeah, there's gotta be more excitement in
it. You know, I go back to the days and you might guys
might remember when the Chicago hosted the All Star Game and it was all the
college seniors would play the super Bowl champion or NFL champion in Soldier Field.
Of course, that went away a long long time ago. But Jeremy,
I think you're on a good track there. I think they got to design
it in such a way that you could showcase more of the Super Bowl champions,
like you said, and then the All Stars from around the lague.
The other thing is is that this is the only All Star Game, folks,
that's not played in the middle of the season. The NHL and the
NBA and Major League Baseball, of course, all have an All Star break
and roughly halfway through the season. And I know that they're afraid of injuries.
Most of the players are, and it's a long season. There are
many reasons why the NFL never wanted to go that way and have a mid
season All Star Game, but I agree something's got to be done. We've
got to make it more exciting, and we've got to come back with hitting
and things like that. I mean, a little bit of contact. Come
on. Easy for me to say, I'm not out there strapping it up,
but I mean I think that they they definitely need to hear improve of
them. So I'm interested in seeing what everybody on our panel also says,
mister Ralph, are you watching what can they do to improve? Well,
I'll tell you what I'm not watching it. I call it the pro Bore.
Now, Okay, I used to watch it back in the day because,
like Jeremy said, and like George said, it was fun to watch
and it was in Hawaii. Okay, Roger Goodell has turned this into politics.
Roger Goodell, the union, and the owners have turned this into a
bunch of politics. Well, well, we can't have hitting because the union
is upset because they don't want their players getting hurt. I get it,
all right. Roger Goodell has screwed this thing up so bad since he's been
commissioner that it's very unacceptable to me, and I don't like it, and
I think that it needs to go back to some old style. I will
be watching the senior pool in the East West Shrine game. I will not
be watching none a lot of Pro Bowl activities. So let's go to the
chat room. Jeremy, you want to read with some of these my thoughts
on the Pro Ball. I haven't watched it in many years. My favorite
Pro Bowl moment was two thousand and eight when Sean Taylor hit on her Brian
Mormon. That was a huge hit. I will not watch for Pro Bowl
anymore. Ever, since they stopped tackling. Bring back tackling. That's why
I stopped watching it. The golf closest pin, stupidest thing that is a
still challenge now it has nothing to deal with football. And then Joshua Burstein
says, where's is the mad Mouth? This is his night off. He
just got done with the Joe I believe, so Joshua, Yes, uh,
the MotorCity mad Mouth doesn't come uppear on this show unless he's asked or
unless he needs to fill in. This is actually my show that he gave
me, and I do it with Jeremy. We do it normally Thursday nights,
and then we do a version. It's just Jeremy and I on Sunday
mornings. So we appreciate you missing the MotorCity mad Mouth, but we have
our own version, you know. So Pro Bowl am I watching? According
to my husband, we're not watching and we're not gonna be watching the super
Bowl. Pro Bowl is a snooze fest. Let's face it. It's just
not what It's not the honor that it used to be. It's is it
really even a football game? It's like football exactly. Yes, well this
year and yes, flag football is growing in clarity, but it's not the
NFL. It's a whole separate So do I like it? Do? I
like skills? I like skills competition, but not what we're doing here.
I like the accuracy. I think they should have running backs. Run and
who's the fastest man in a certain category and who has the biggest leap,
and you know, things that are false skills. Seeing them excel at those
specific skills would be great, But some of these other things no, no,
I can do without. Josha, Yes, I we agree. None
of us think that the Pro Bowl is anything that it used to be,
anything that it's worth watching now the George, you bring up an interesting point
that all the other sports put it in the middle of the season. The
one thing that that us is depending on how many of participating in it would
also mean the rest of the team would be healing because they'd have at least
two weeks to heal up special football. Would that give an advantagement team that
isn't doing as well and it would almost be like a bye weeks. That
would be an interesting concept. And obviously there's there's going to be hits and
you can get injuries, and that's the whole reason why they don't put it
there. Jeremy, for that, I'm sorry. Go ahead, you do
away with the bye week. You have an off week the week before the
All Pro Game, and then you have a week off after the All Pro
Game for all sixteen teams. Yeah, season is going to be longer.
Well no, it'd still be only eighteen weeks. Well yes and no,
because if you look at it, you take the week off or the Pro
Bowl in between with the playoffs, you'll be doing that week off there.
Every team gets a week off or the bye week, but the other teams
play. It stretches it to an eighteen week season already. We give them
the extra week off before they even start the season, after the three weeks
of preseason bull crap they give us. We're no starters up to the field.
I just way they have to go with it. You do away with
the bye weeks. Everybody gets the week off before, everybody gets the week
off after. I mean, you're only having it one week that way,
and then have a lottery drawing us to who's going to be the coach.
That's what you do. I think that it's gonna be difficult because your stars
are going to have to play in that game, so they're going to sacrifice
some of their what you said, Jeremy, bye week time, they're still
preparing, although it's not intense, they'd be preparing for that Pro Bowl game.
I mean there they could work it out somehow in the middle of the
in the weekend week after off, Like I said, that's a week off
that's not prepping the teams. Oh, I got you. Work is the
week of the Pro Bowl, right, So you still get that week off
before. In the week off after, you could run replays of all the
playoffs like wild card and Divisional round on the one week, and then the
next week you run the After that you run the reruns of the previous year's
championship round in the Super Bowl. So my question would be is, because
they've been playing a lot of international games, would you change that Pro Bowl
to an international game and put that over there because the you have the traveling.
Let's face it, that's a lot of times why teams have buys are
after the traveling and coming back from overseas. So could you possibly make the
Pro Bowl an overseas game? Yeah? I think that would require more time
off because, yeah, because that's what the type the players are complaining about
now, especially the ones that play on a Sunday and then come home and
have to play on a Thursday. Yeah, they want to do the bye
week before or after half the time. For those teams, it just doesn't
right, So I don't think overseas for that would work. Maybe if it
was like they decided to do it in Canada to promote football in Canada,
or if they decided to go back to Mexico City, as long as they
got the drainage right for the big Bulls fighting arena that they built built up
to do it the last time. Okay, interesting conversations. I love it.
I love it. That's what this that's what this show is all about.
Getting fired up about something. So we introduced a new segment last week
and it was called My Town and it is where each of us can talk
about either a team that we are currently living in or a team from our
hometown if some of us have moved and relocated, and it might be one
of the only ones for that. But so we are going to start out
that segment and we're going to start out with mister Ralph Williams. Ralph,
what's happening in your town? Well, the Steelers signed Arthur Smith and have
hired him to be our new offensive coordinator. Those of you who don't know
who Arthur Smith is, he was the former head coach with the Atlanta Falcons.
He also was the offensive coordinator for four years down in Tennessee, and
he was around Tennessee before. Isn't an assistant coach quality control coach, you
know? I think he was the equipment manager and whatever what. Tennessee did
a lot of stuff at Tennessee. So I think that this is a good
hire. Steelers need to run the football, they need to have play action
and make it as simple as possible for Kenny Pickett. The only thing I
have a problem with this is is I hope that he opens up the playbook
a little bit more. We do some Donfield throwing and some other stuff and
none of this think and dink stuff. All right. Also, he's supposedly
going to be bringing Mike Munchak with him, former offensive line coach with the
Steelers here, he's coming back if Arthur Smith is to coach, and I
hear Mike Kopka from the Giants is coming with us as a quality control coach
or a passing game coordinator. Mike Sullivan might be staying as quarterbacks coach and
Eddie Faulkner might be staying as running backs coach. But we're going to find
out what Arthur Smith decides to do and we'll see where the Steelers go with
us, as well as far as the Penguins go. They're off for the
All Star Game, and I hope they can retool and get this roller coaster
season out of the way. And the Pirates just signed a couple signed a
guy from Texas, and they signed a couple of non roster invities for their
pitching staffs. So that's what's going on in Pittsburgh. Okay, mister George,
let's go to you tonight. Well, there's a lot that going on
in my town, as you guys know, and Jeremy's gonna talk a little
bit about it too. But obviously everybody's disappointed in the Lions exiting NFC Championship
Game loss. I'm not going to get into that too much. A lot
has been said and read and heard about that. The good news is both
their offensive defensive coordinators are coming back to the team, so that's wonderful news.
And a story that kind of got drowned out a little bit by the
local media is the fact that that Detroit Tigers did something that they normally don't
do. They signed a young man to a contract even six years and this
young man can play second or third, and he has not played a single
game nor made an appearance in the major leagues yet. So I look back
in this and that it's unusual for the Tigers to do that. It's not
totally unheard of. In Major League Baseball. There runs many examples of locking
a young man in from the draft. He's twenty two years old. His
name is Colt Keith, kind of a strange name. Colt is his first
name, lt last name Keith. He had a superb year last year in
the twenty twenty three season in the minor leagues in the Double A Eery and
Triple A Toledo. In fact, he hit more home runs. I believe
that any other Tiger in the minor leagues last the two twenty twenty three season.
It's a bit of a gamble because the Tigers, as you know,
do not have a lot of big names for ours. Spencer Toorko Sen and
Riley Green are two of the other position players that obviously are very well regarded
here in Detroit. But they really broke down a little bit of feeling.
And you know, I'm not going to complain about this too much because they're
using money that hopefully will be well spent. I mean, if they lost
this kid to arbitration or they lost them they couldn't afford him anymore, they
wouldn't. That would be a hopeless situation. So what they're trying to do
is get ahead of the game part in the pund and signed Keith to the
six year contract with eight million dollars with club options for twenty thirty, thirty
one, and thirty two. I believe. So it's a it's an interesting
story in Detroit. I welcome the kid. It looks like they'll be playing
him, hopefully full time. He's going to get down to spring training in
Lakeland in another week or two. So that was my top story in the
old hometown here, non related obviously to our Detroit Lions. Interesting stat for
you, though, while he was in the Double A and Triple A minor
leagues for Detroit, he had a nine hundred ops batting left and right handed
as a switch hitter. Wow, that is a huge boost. Not just
home runs either. I mean, yes, he led the leagues and home
runs for the last two years and the respective leagues he was in, but
he also was leading in doubles and he also even I think he plays fourth
in triples last season, so he has some wheels. He's a five tool
player that's developing his defense, is what I heard. They started bouncing him
back and forth between second and third because of injuries to the mud Hens last
year, so I applaud the move. I think it's a great move because
if they didn't do that and put him on the MLB roster this year,
he'd hit the MLB Rule five draft in June. So that's the big thing.
I wanted to thank you a those are good points, thanks for sharing.
First off, I want to say kudos to replacing the guy who could
get pressure but no sacks as our d longing coach. Since Todd washwalked out
the building after the twenty twenty two twenty twenty three season, we hired the
guy from the Tennessee Titans, Tyrell Williams, who has ties back to Dan
Campbell back when he was the interim head coach at Miami who stepped in when
the defensive coordinator was fired. He had to step up and be the defensive
coordinator. What's funny about Terrell Williams. He's one of the guys that helped
in Domicon Sue clean up his game. Till he wasn't getting his penalty.
Now he's also the head coach at the Senior Bawl for the American squad,
and he's getting working with the guy that I have been scouting for hopefully our
second round pick in the draft, to and Andre Sweat, defensive tackle,
lot of tackles. The kid is six ft four, three hundred and sixty
two pounds. He has been pancaking centers to get to the quarterback and practice
so far, and he's taken on double and triple teams free en up other
players at the same time. You put a guy that big next to Alle
McNeil, your left end doesn't have to be fantastic to make much good.
The only other thing I'm gonna say, while everybody is jumping up and down,
we kept our coordinators. I'm gonna give you some stats that tells you
where they need to improve on offense. It's the scoring per quarter seven point
one, good enough for second in the league in the first quarter, eight
point two in the second quarter. Points per quarter that's seventh in the league.
Fourth quarter eight points a quarter is the average that's third in the league.
The third quarter four point two. It's twentieth. Now let's go to
defense. Four point two points given up in the first quarter. As good
as that sounds, that was seventeenth in the league. Second quarter sixth point
per quarter is what it broke down to when you added it up in the
game. That was ninth in the league. So far. That's not bad.
That's an average of twelve fourth quarter six point four points. That's twenty
first in the league. Third quarter on defense, it ranks dead last in
the league at six point nine points per quarter. Now, if you want
to tell me why we lost the NFC Championship and the other five games throughout
the season, I think the third quarter tells the story. That is where
both coordinators need to improve. The adjustments on defense. When we had a
lead, and of what I've seen throughout, we have they go to this
base defense, back to just the four two five, which you normally is
a dime defense. You have the two guys for the linebackers back there.
It could be an outside linebacker and a middle linebacker or two middle linebackers,
it's whatever combination you want. And then you've got five guys in the secondary
with four down linemen. When you go that route and you don't change that
formation, and you don't swap out players to benefit having fresh legs on the
field, and you don't add an extra blitzer in that third quarter. That
is the downfall in the third quarter. I don't know why, but Ben
Johnson this past season remind me a lot of Jim Caldwell. For every game,
we have a running game going good in the first half, we'd have
the passing game and the play action working in the first half, and then
all of a sudden, we only run the ball three times for the entire
quarter in four drives. There's there's something wrong with that. You don't make
adjustments and change from what works very good. I agree wholehearted and those statistics.
Thanks for sharing those geremually because those are very important. I mean,
you know, I I all the time the third quarter collapse and then,
like you said, that's got to get it. That's got to stop.
For the Lions, it's got to get better. Next year. I'm sure
there will be focused on that, and hopefully the new additions that they'll pick
up through draft and free agency will help as well. Yeah, you can't.
You can't lay an egg in a big game. That's that's the word.
Of problem. You know, when you get to the AFC or the
NFC Championship game, that's the game that you can't afford to make mistakes and
beat yourself. And that's what Detroit did. As much as I want them
in this Super Bowl, but that's you know, unfortunately they had the luckiest
break of that NFC Championship game. Happened when Kendall Vildor was in position to
make the interception and he's a secondary person, not a wide receiver for a
reason, it went between his hands, and of all the luckiest bounces in
the world, it ends up in Brandon Autan as he's jumping over him while
he's falling down, And that was a momentum shift right there. Oh yeah,
yeah, is the biggest momentum shift of the entire game. And once
that happened, it was a snowball effect. It was a as much as
I hate to quote a movie that's fictitious, but it was based off of
something that really happened. You remember the Lockout, and then they did that
movie. The replacements with John Madden and Past Summer all were the announcers every
game, but they use real NFL coaches for the other opponents. They used
real NFL players sprinkled, whether through the regular roster that they had on that
show or the other opposing teams. And prior to the season, the coach
asked the team, what is the thing you're most afraid of? And everybody
is saying the normal stuff, you know, spiders, snakes, this,
that the other, and Keanu Reeves, who was the quarterback of the team,
Jane Balco says quicksand he goes, oh, yeah, you can't move
and bubb blah he goes, and Geene Hagen goes, that's not the type
quicksand he's doing. Tell them what you're talking about, and everybody asks him.
Yeah, Shane, what's up? He knows well Quicksand in sports is
when you have a mistake happened, and you dwell upon it and you try
your hardest not to make another one. You make another one, then you
make another one, and eventually you're up to or your neck and the stress
and the pressure of all those mistakes and you can't even move or breathe.
Yeah, true, that's exactly what happened in the third quarter to Detroit.
Yeah, yep, So Jeremy, let's read what will his town is Charlotte,
North Carolina. My town Charlotte North Carolina has hired Dan Morgan, former
linebacker a lad as GM for the Carolina Panthers and used to play for them,
and hired Dave Canalis, the OC of the Buccaneers, to be the
head coach. And rookie Brandon Miller of the Charlotte Hornets got named to the
NBA All Star Rising Rising Stars Game. And then thank you Ken a little
late but here and I'm glad you're joining us. I smoking Dad. Okay,
So my town, I'm not gonna go with the town I live in
because we all know I'm not as big give a fan down here as I
am with my beloved Wisconsin teams. And I know that's to the chagrin of
some of you. But the Green Bay Packers had what I would say a
much improved end of the year where nobody thought they would end up. Kudos
to them. Nineteen of their twenty two starters from the game they played with
the forty nine ers are signed for next year. We'll be back. One
of the big ones that they need to, in my opinion, sign is
Aaron Jones. He is our running back. Not only is he our running
back. He is Jell the excitement. He's the guy that gets the locker
room going and all of the guys together and hyped up. And from what
I've been told, he is just a re the good guy that helps all
of those young rookies. You need to sign him then, because, let's
face it, the Milwaukee Brewers let Josh Hater and traded Josh Hader years ago
and let him go. He was that same guy in their locker room,
tanked at the end of the season when you needed him most. Now,
the Packers also have five picks in the first three rounds. Yes, I
know Detroit has more, but they still have five. Oh, they only
have four. Okay, we have five in the first three rounds. And
because we shipped Aaron Rodgers off to the Jets, we have more cap space
available now too, so we have room too if we want to trade some
of these picks or anything like that, we can. It gives flexibility.
And I know Ted Thompson was not one about going out there and signing free
agents. He really fel you had to draft and build from within. Gutenkurst
He'll do either. And there have been some moves that maybe people have questioned,
but they've really turned out, like look at this team now. The
big news of today obviously has to be my Brewers and them trading Corbyn Burns.
And there's a lot of people out there saying, oh no, we're
tanking the season the way we're tanking the season away. The Milwaukee Brewers play
in a small market, medium to small. I don't care. I love
my Brewers, but it's a smaller market. They don't have the deep pockets
that the Yankees do, and some of these other owners they have to make
the most out of what they have. Corbyn Burns is going to be a
free agent next year, so the only time his trade value is high is
going into this last year, or maybe if he's having a really good year
in the middle of this year. But you can't bank on that because what
if all of a sudden he gets injured or hurt. So right now is
the best time that you can trade him. So for all you were fans
that are thinking that this is a horrible trade, this gets you something for
him now. And we got three prospects. One is a draft prospect,
two were young players. I can't fault them because they have to do what
they have to do to make the team relevant and relevant now. They also,
from what I've been told, renovated and have this brand new big scoreboard
out in seven field. So I'll be exciting to see the new digs out
there. I don't know when we're gonna be out there, but I can't
wait to see it. So those are the two big things. I mean.
Obviously, Doc Rivers now is coaching Milwaukee Bucks, but right now he's
oning too. In the Pastuc Rivers, Wow, Rivers, the guy that
goes places to have playoffs die. It made one play one team that's made
it to the finals he's coached other than the superstar team that was the Celtics.
I don't follow NBA that much, Jeremy, but I haven't heard of
any there is. He's what six and ten I think in the in the
playoffs. So he's not having good record. Was with the Boston Celtics.
Yeah, six, six and ten. You're talking about the playoff series.
Yes, not his one lost record, but the series that he coached Jack,
Yeah, that's in his playoff career as a coach. He's six and
ten, and four of those wins was when Boston won at all, Right,
Right, four rounds of yess yep. I don't know, an you
don't know what. I just don't know. I just don't know if he's
the answer. But that's beside the point. I mean, the Bucks made
the decision and that's the direction they wanted to go. I think it's crazy,
but we'll see. I agree to a certain extent. I think it's
a homecoming for Doc Rivers because he did play for Marquette. He does have
a banner up in the rafters. There is that the only reason why you
should bring a guy back. No, but he has experience and maybe that's
what this team needed. Now, let's face it, this team traded away
their defensive player of the year, so our defense has really gone down.
So maybe Doc can reinsurge that defense. That's, you know, a big
part of what we need. My question is in the n B, a
is a head coach as influential and as has as much. How should I
say that influence influence as like an NFL coach? No? No, no,
because different different thing championships. It's so different in the NBA than what
it is in the NFL. And I'm just saying the NBA, you've seen
an influx of coaches from college to pro and be just as successful. And
then you've seen the ones that go college to pro and flop. There's no
in between with them, it's all over the place. We've seen them be
successful. Look at Eric Spolstra, pat Riley looks like a genius. Keep
in him there. They make the playoffs every year, they make a deep
run, they get close to the conference finals every year. So kudos to
him. He he found his guy and he didn't need Lebum to stay there
the entire time to do it. The difference I think with the NBA in
the NFL, Jeremy, is the fact that you know, the NFL,
you have some prima donnas, but you don't have as many as you do
in the NBA and the NBA. No matter who to coach is, you're
gonna have a bunch of prima donnas there that are just And that's one of
the reasons I stopped following and even talking about it. Well, the NFL
is more of a team sport, though teams like exactly the quarterback doesn't do
it all by himself, whereas, let's face it, forward or a guard
he could dribble the ball all the way down and take the shot and be
done and then go back on defense. So you really could do more of
it yourself. So I think it's more of an individualistic team, yes,
or individual sport than it is than NFL. So do I think they need
the same coaching? Probably not, and they're not drawing up I don't think
the same schemes like an NFL coach with the offense would do, or the
same with the defense. So does the coach matter as much? So it'll
be interesting to see what happens with Doc and how far they get, because
let's face it, there's still a team that should be rooted to go far
in the playoffs. Now we'll see if that happens. I want to say
congratulations, Candy. Last week your Packers did the amazing thing. They aspired
Joe Barry. Yeah, now they've former Boston College head coach Jeff Hanley.
And when you look at the Boston College defense in their division, which isn't
really a superpower by school, it makes you wonder if he's going to be
the guy or not too because that was one of the bottom dwellers and defense
in their com prince. So I hope he's good for you, I really
do. He can't be worse than Joe Berry, that's all I got to
think. Well, he was the defensive coordinator here at Pitt for a little
bit, and uh he was okay when he was here, and you know,
yeah, but then now and he got out of Boston College because he
said he's tired of the NIL and the transfer portal. It burned him out,
and it's burned out all these coaches anyway. Great, yea, most
school like the boosters to have the big money to support the high NIL to
get the upper end players. Yeah, the bigger schools can because they have
better boosters. Yea, say what you want. It's just a way for
the boosters to be able to pay these kids to play football for colleges.
Is exactly what the NIL is. Well, Penn State has seventy million dollars
every year and their budget budgeted for NIL. Pitt, on the other hand,
has a committee out here called Insurance for one two and that group goes
out in a solicit money for the NIL. They go to Canada at the
games with a little cop out there saying donate or whatever. I don't know
what they do. They're at the games. I haven't been to one in
a while. But what I'm saying is I'm told they're they're you know,
they have a little desk set up and they're saying, please give us donations
to help with the nil. Okay, they're doing that. They're going not
getting boosters whatever they're doing, and that's all Pitt's doing it. But Penn
State hasn't in their budget seventy million dollars, right. I think that's the
same with a lot of the big Power five school Yes, that kind of
money in their boosters club, in the alumni fun and stuff like that.
That's what I'm getting. At all these smaller schools, You're either going to
see them rise to the top and get better boosters and better sponsors to be
able to compete, or you may see them start to dwindle and do away
with some of the major sports because they won't have the money to compete to
compete. Right. Yeah, that's true, very true. So I will
say that on Sunday, and I know Sunday was a football game day,
but before the football games, I had the honor and privilege of going to
the FAU men's basketball game and I got to take pictures which meant I actually
got to sit on the court and to take pictures. Now, when I
tell you this was one exciting game, I can't tell you enough. I
don't think the score ever varied more by more than five points towards the North
Texas team, but FAU hit a winning shot with point five seconds left on
the clock to win that game. I think they were ahead by me for
maybe three minutes of the whole game, but yet they found it in them
to win. And like I said, it was a seesaw battle back and
forth getting close either tie game or down by two. But it was just
it was my first college basketball game in a while, and the excitement.
And I'll tell you, FAU plays in what is arguably probably one of the
smallest stadiums out of all of college basketball. But I'll tell you the excitement
level in there and then the fans, that's what makes the difference. You
don't have to have a big stadium. In fact, I was talking with
one of the announcers for the North Texas game beforehand, and he was telling
us how some of the schools are actually starting to downsize some of their gyms
because they don't aren't drawing the big crowds, and so when they have a
smaller stadium, the crowd is more involved and it gives them more of a
home court advantage. I mean, look at you a UAB the Blazers,
that small little thing you have seen. Power five schools get intimidated and lose
that UAB Because the cheering section looks like it's right on top of the basketball
hoop. You can literally make out faces through the clear glass. It's funny
to see, but it actually is an intimidating factor. It no more intimidating
than it is where the people using the thunderclappers at the Pro Games, when
the guys are trying to make shops. It does affect you for the away
team any movement like that, it can track your eye away. Well,
we don't have any problem at all here in Detroit because the University of Detroit
Mercy Titans are oh and twenty three talking about it. There's plenty of available
they played Robert, you would block off seats candy here at University Detroit.
Ellahan Hall on the Dick by Jel Cork. I have to say, though,
George, I do remember covering Jacksonville a number of years ago before they
got better in the Trevor Lawrence and all of that, and their upper bowl
they would actually cover with a big tart that had a big Jacksonville logo on
it, so it didn't look like they were seats that weren't there. But
they did that because they weren't selling the tickets. So I understand not having
as many fans in the sands. Yes, yeah, that's talking about doing
that for football got here because they only draw not even forty thousand fans to
a game anymore, and the only time they sell out is if we're playing
like Tennessee, Notre Dame or somebody like that, or West Virginia or Penn
State. We haven't sold a game ont in the last couple of years,
I don't think. I mean, we've had some good crowds. Akrosure Stadium
seats about seventy thousand people. So they're talking about putting tarps over the over
the upper bowl and all that stuff because they don't really draw that well.
And when I worked there in the past, they didn't draw that well.
When we were in the Big East, we had to give our tickets to
have people come from the upper bowl. They actually will give us free tickets
to handle people to come down from the upper bowl and sit in the lower
bowl and fill it in for TV. Well, the Detroit Shock of the
Women's Basketball Association too did that and they covered up the top part of the
Palace of Auburn Hills obviously the same stadium that did Detroit Pistons used. So
the teams have done that before where they've had large parts. That does help
a little bit. The quickly goal the college football ball on December twenty sixth
at Ford Field, you'm deck, the second deck, whatever you want to
call it, that was all empty. But they didn't have the money to
obviously put tarps over a huge deck like that. So I've seen those things
happen before, Ralph, when they put those tarps up, and it's not
bad. You know, It's one way to make it look at a little
bit. Cozier, I agree. Any other topics anybody wants to bring to
the table, well, I just wanted to share one thing, Candy.
I didn't chime in when you guys were talking about coaches. The thing is
is that with championship teams, you always have a leadership situation. I can't
remember how many times they would say Michael Jordan is running that team, Bill
Jackson's running that team, Michael Jordan's running that team, or Isaiah Thomas is
running the Detroit distance. So all I was going to add to that discussion
about coaches that yes, the coach is important in the NBA, so are
the superstars. The superstars that drive that winning team, that drive that championship
team, as we all know, have a huge say in the lineup and
the game plans and stuff like that behind the scenes, because people wouldn't be
making those kind of comments if it wasn't true. Chuck Dailey was a great
coach, Don't get me wrong, I love them here in Detroit, but
Isaiah Lambert and Mark cguire kind of were the three that kind of ran that
Piston team, and Michael George Middle and Scottie pipping those guys in Chicago.
So anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there. You don't have
to respond, but I just wanted to also add that a lot of those
coaching teams use senior leadership on the court in other words, and superstar players
too. I agree. And let's face that Milwaukee wants to keep Giannis happy,
so I know that Giannis had talked with Doc Rivers before and everything like
that. So they really want to keep him happy because they want to keep
seeing good quality basketball and he's he's made a good home in Milwaukee and they
embrace him, and he is so far has embraced Milwaukee too, so hopefully
they can keep it up. Anything else, guys, No, I'm good,
I am good, good, good. Well that's gonna conclude this episode.
I'm gonna take take you around the horns. You guys can let everybody
know how they can get a hold of you or find you on other shows
besides this show. So let's start with mister Ralph. Oh. Yeah.
You can find me on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Toombler, and
you can also find me on I have my own YouTube channel and I'm also
on Twitter acts excuse me as well. And I have a radio show on
Tuesday nights called Sports Corner Radio Show with Me Ralph Williams and Smoking Jim Fraser
and from four to six pm on Biaber County Radio and also on Wednesday nights.
Now, I have a neot show on Block Talk Radio, and I
have three shows on block Talk Radio. And you can the Dollan at five,
six, three, nine, nine ninety three seven four zero, including
tomorrow morning at ten thirty am the External Bum Show with Me, Scott Morgan
Roth from the South Florida Tribune, and JT. Todd from Draft four one
two. Okay, I before I get to Smoking Jeremy B. I have
to say I had the privilege on Monday night of coming on his show.
And the reason why I want to say kudos to Smoking Jeremy B is because
it was his one thousandth episode. So kudos to you, Jeremy, and
thank you for inviting us on your show. I had privilege and had a
great time. Oh it was my pleasure to have you. I mean,
you guys are a big reason on why I'm here and why I have so
many shows. I think I've done more shows than the entire cast of Big
Bang Theory. But anyway, if you add in all the South Florida Tribunes
and all the other guest appearances I've had over the past two years since I
created my channel, and the ones that I did even before I created it,
if you added up all my shows, I'm almost a two thousand right
now. And now I'm doing eight shows a week during the season, and
five shows during a week during the odd season, just on my channel alone.
That's a lot of work. And people don't realize because if you haven't
produced a show and coming up with your own topics and come up with the
guests and the lineups for each show, you do not understand the amount of
pre and post production work there is. And so my hat's off to everybody
who's done their own broadcast, done their own broadcast, done own radio show,
because you know what, I know how much work it is, and
I know what type of grind it is. Thank you, share me,
appreciate it. Eddie grinds from here in Graham Blank mentions my mom's dog.
But you're not as good looking as Benny. No one here is as good
looking as that cute little puppy. Takes me ours, share me to do
my radio show notes ours. But you know, coming up with the topics,
it's real easy. You get a headline, that's the easy part.
The topics are the easiest thing to come up with. You just look at
NFL News Today or Detroit Lions News today and boom, you take your top
three headlines. As long as it's not the room. I like being a
fact wall show, not the rumor base show. So I try to stay
with the one who should we trade for? Or who should we sign?
And who should we do this and who should we do that? No,
I look at what are the team's biggest needs in the next off season,
and then I'll formulate my own hypothesis about by looking up who's available, doing
the scouting reports and everything else, and coming up with the plan that I
think the who's our team the best money wise, cap wise, fits culture,
all big things in Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes world. That being said,
so kudos to Candy Scott and Ralph I know you guys produce your own
shows. I know you do your own content, your own intros, all
that stuff. Kudos to my friends from the Lions Villain Squad who invited me
to be a part of their network because he does the intros for everybody shows
because he's got the copyright for the music and stuff like that. But my
channel, I'll start there. I'm gonna work in reverse order. This time
is Kneecap Biting with the MotorCity Lions. Can check us out there on YouTube.
I also air into Twitter, Facebook to the MotorCity and Decat Fighters page.
Also into the Lions Villain Squad. You can also find me on Twitter
at Smoking Jeremy Beyond Next and then you can find me as a guest sometimes
on Talk Sports with Micro or Mike. You can find me on Roar of
the Lions UK. Sometimes you could fight me. You never know who's gonna
add me. I've been on different sports shows, across Sideline Sports, across
a numerous other places that I shall not be named because well I don't talk
to them anymore. I don't know why they're lost. Then there is the
South Florida Tribune. It's not only the YouTube channel, but it's also dot
com where I'm a writer for the MotorCity Tribune with the great authors such as
George Eichorn himself there, who has his own book which I have over here
on coffee table somewhere. And there's Scott Morgan Roth And the logo's not there,
so I can't really touch lessons from the microphone. Is that what it's
called? Yeah, there it is. That's the one I'm talking about up
there over there by Candy. Go to Amazon check it out. And on
top of that, while you're watching us here on YouTube on the South Florida
Tribune channel. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share, get this out
to all your sports fans. Because you notice we touched a little bit on
baseball. We touched on some basketball. We touched a lot on football because
guess what, the season's still going. It has the fewest games, but
the longest season. It's ridonculous because it goes because once the Super Bowl's done,
a couple of weeks later, we start talking about all the stuff with
the scouting combine and everything else. And don't forget the bull game that I'm
the happiest to see is the one that's played Saturday, the Senior Bowl,
which is basically the all star game for college Okay, George, how can
people get a hold of you? Well, you can find me, as
Jeremy mentioned that the South Florida Tribute under the banner Motor City Tribune at the
end of every column, I have a link if you care to purchase Detroit
Sports Broadcasters on the Air. It's a book I published several years ago,
and Scott'son and Ernie Harwell, George kel Van, Patrick, Ray, Lane
Lolld great announcers in Detroit history. Also, you can reach me at Yahoo
at gi corn at yahoo dot com or on LinkedIn. I am on with
my name George Corn on LinkedIn and also on Twitter, I use a name
that's not too familiar, but sand g Sports just like it sounds, and
then the number ninety nine. You can reach me on Twitter and find me
on the one hundred eight Stitches show, find me on the Sports Exchange,
find me on fire Up, find me on Punnit's punted. Wherever Scott and
Candy need me, I'm I'm there and happy to help out and really appreciate
the opportunity to be on your shows. Well, thank you, thank you.
And I have to just have to add that George and Scott have been
working together for over forty years in the media, so in some shape or
form, whether it be on the radio or writers or on our YouTube station,
and he writes for me forty three so we really appreciate obviously, and
don't give it. I appreciate Jeremy, I appreciate Ralph, but George was
actually in our wedding as well, so George is a good friend besides being
a cold for George. There, thank you, thank you, so yes,
yes, yeah, thank you, appreciate it. You're watching. Yeah,
so Sellth Florida Tribune YouTube channel like it, share us with everybody,
comment, come and watch our shows pretty much. You can find us Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday nights, Sunday mornings. We have Inside the Pigskin.
If you like football, we have one hundred and eight such as Baseball Talk
if you like baseball, Sports Exchange if you like all of the sports.
Because you never know what sport we might be talking about. He talks about
everything. He's even talked about corn hole on Sports Exchange. Yes, I
said corn hole. We all of our broadcasts are also on podcasting, so
if you like to listen to podcasts, you can hear any of ours on
there. Scott is now reintroducing his MotorCity Man Mo Show, which is the
one on one interview show, and he interviewed Bokrouch this week, which is
one of the guys that does our YouTube on our YouTube channel on Inside the
Big Skin. He's based out of Seattle, and he talks about his playing
days and what he's doing now. So go check out that show. Go
to our website www. Dot Selth Florida Tribune dot com. You'll be able
to see some of my pictures that I've taken be able to read what Jeremy
wrote about pretty much most of the time about the Lions. And then he's
got a little link to his channel too, so you can always click and
watch his stuff. George, like he said, he writes, he also
has a link for his book. Go buy his book. Scott wrote a
book, Scott to my husband. He's the one that's been in the media
business for over forty four years. His book talks about all of it,
not all some of his experiences, because he's had so many that one book
wouldn't It wasn't enough to hold it. But he even has pictures because he's
interviewed the likes of Tommy Lasorda, Mohammad Ali. The book talks about that.
The book has some pictures in there about some of those. Go check
it. Check out the book. It's available on Amazon or on Kindle.
Let's see what else. Oh n GBN TV is the newest and latest.
It is going to be a streaming TV station and we are our Sports Exchange
is going to be picked up on that show on that streaming TV. It
is gonna be on Amazon, It's gonna be on Roku TV, It's gonna
be on all Android devices. It's gonna soon be on Apple and we're gonna
be broadcasting live on that station. So you want to go out and check
out that. That station is really designed to entertain, inform, educate,
especially men in their forties, fifties, and sixties, because we're trying to
reduce the suicide rate. And that is the highest rate of suicide in that
age group in men, So we're trying to support them and give them something,
give them an outlet, yes, mister Jeremy. And in that age
group, it's highest among veterans. Yes, please make sure you support your
veterans. Suicide Helpline hotline can be found online. All you gotta do is
search it. If you need somebody to talk to, they're there. If
you know me personally, reach out, I'll talk to you. I've faced
my own demons with that. Many of us here has faced way more than
most people realize, and we can handle it. We can. In fact,
if you go to soult Florida Tribune, Scott just recently wrote an article
about suicide and the NGBN TV and it's a very touching story. So I
encourage everybody to go to www dot Sulflord Attribune dot Com and read it.
Well, guys, it's been an absolute pleasure. I want to thank Ralph,
I want to thank George and Jeremy, and I want to thank all
the people that were in the chatroom. We appreciate it. Without you people
in the chatroom, we wouldn't keep doing this. We never reason. So
thank you for being out there and thank you for commenting. And catch us.
You're going to catch us Sunday morning. I don't know set a time
yet, but watch watch for it. We'll advertise it ahead of time and
then catch us next week. You can find us every Thursday night, normally
around nine thirty. Thanks everybody in enjoy the Pro Bowl. If you're gonna
watch, yeah, but in your bowl. Thanks guys, have a good
one. Good Bye,