Hour 1 – NBA All-Star Tanking, Chris Simms

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau Podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh, my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You are listening to The Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio. Oh, nobody loves love the way I love love. Hour one on this Thursday. Fritzie's here, Seton, Marv, Paula, yours truly, and of course, the backroom guys. Stat of the day is always brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cards of the program. First hour brought to you by True Green. Don't waste another weekend doing your lawn care yourself. Partner with the official lawn care treatment provider, the PGA Tour, and get a golf course quality lawn the easy way. Sign up at TrueGreen.com, then sit back and relax. Poll question, play of the day, stat of the day, all of that forthcoming. Good morning if you're watching this program, which you can do on Peacock, download the app or the NBC Sports Network. And good morning to iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio, and over 400 cities that carry this award-nominated program. Chris Sims will join us on loan from NBC Football Night in America as we look at the offseason with the quarterbacking positions and who's going to try to fill those voids with free agency or the draft. So Chris will join us in 20 minutes from now. Chris Mannix covering the NBA. We'll talk about tanking. And also the All-Star game coming up this weekend. This is not going as scripted for the NBA because I thought the world versus the United States was a wonderful approach, maybe a last-ditched approach to have a little bit of competition with the All-Star festivities. But now you've got a few players who won't be playing in the game. Kevin Durant was asked a question yesterday. I'll give you the question and his answer, and then we'll talk about it. I saw you saw the rosters were revealed and said you're on that old heads team. Do you think the old heads will compete and try to win the whole tournament here? You should ask the Europeans, the world team, if they're going to compete. I mean, because if you look at Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic now, let's go back and look at what they do in the All-Star game. Is that competition? So we haven't questioned what they've been doing, but we're going to question the old heads and the Americans. But these two dudes out there, Luca and Jokic, they don't care about the game at all. These dudes be laying on the floor. They shoot from half court. But you got to worry about the old heads playing hard. I can read between the lines, bro. Oh, Durant. He's funny. He's funny. He's feisty. But, you know, it's a fair point. He's saying, hey, we play hard. They don't. but the reason why Joker doesn't play hard in the All-Star game is that's not his style. The All-Star, the way that's played, up and down dunking, that's not his style. Luka, that's not his style. So he might single them out as not playing hard. I'm going to guess if they are playing this weekend in the All-Star game, they will play hard because they're playing for their country or countries, and I think you'll see a more spirited. I hope it is. And I'm not asking too much. It's not going to be the way it once was. But I would like to see some competition, and maybe we'll get that with this format. We're running out of ideas when it comes to the All-Star game. And it's not mandatory or the future of the sports at stake. You know, it's like the Pro Bowl. And I said that for years. They don't want to play in it. When it was in Hawaii, you wanted to be awarded the opportunity to go to Hawaii with your family. and oh, by the way, we'll show up, run through a couple of plays. Hopefully we don't get hurt. That's it. You just wanted the designation of being a pro bowler. With the All-Star game, do I want to see them go out and maybe make it like Olympic competition? I'd love to, but it's not going to happen. So maybe you get something that is a reasonable facsimile of a pickup basketball game. Yeah, Seton. Yeah, I think the first problem is trying to make this mean something. Yes. That's the first problem. So already we're starting from like a deficit there. But do you think the NBA did enough to get the format, the tweaks to the format out there so people understand what this All-Star game is going to look like? Because it is significantly different. Well, you have three teams. You have two teams from the United States, and then you have the world team. Right. And then what? You basically play like 12-minute quarters in like a round-robin kind of thing. Yeah. I don't even understand it, Seton. Well, I don't think it's complicated to understand. I just don't think that people know that it's changed that much. Well, that you have three different teams in the quarters. Even then, I'm going to tune in and go, okay, maybe explain this to me a little bit further. But I thought when you have three teams and you have one game, but try to combine three teams into one game, and it's the All-Star weekend, and then you have the Rising Stars, and now we just found out that Cooper Flagg is not going to be playing in that. this isn't going as scripted. And then you've got the commissioner who is going to be under fire this weekend about tanking because these teams, they're not hiding it anymore. It's like, yeah, you know, we're going to play our starters until the third quarter when that ends, and then we're going to sit them down. Hey, we might win, we might not. But it just feels like it's, well, it's not a growing concern. It's a concern here. and I can't imagine what David Stern would be doing right now if he was the commissioner. Maybe it's not fair to Adam Silver, but David Stern would not be putting up with this. But I don't even know what you can do. You know, all the media rights, I think it was a total of like $70 billion over the next 11 years. They're swimming in money. They don't know what to do with all the money that they're making. And if I'm a player, and let's say I applied this to Larry Bird. Larry Bird tried to eke out a 10-year career, back issues, and he had to retire. What if Larry Bird played today, and he did have a back condition, and I could maybe get 14 years out of Larry Bird instead of 10? And maybe he played 65 games. Wouldn't you want that? Do I want Steph Curry to be able to play longer? Do I want Kevin Durant to be able to play longer? LeBron James to be able to play longer? And the answer is yes. I don't think the NBA cares about us if we say the following. Well, I go to one game a year. The NBA doesn't care about that. Now, we do as parents where you say, oh, I want to bring my kids to a game. But the NBA is worried about filling up the seats every single night. They want repeat customers. They want the people who are going to show up. And then you've got the TV money as well flowing in. But I don't know. If I got Commissioner Silver in a private moment and said, hey, if you're looking at the longevity of great players, like Cooper Flagg, he's going to have load management at some point in his career. They all do. Now at 19, you can run all day, but he gets to be 26, now seven years on those legs, and then maybe you're going to have load management. It happens. But if I can extend Cooper Flagg four more years by limiting him, and maybe he's only playing in 65, maybe 70 games. It used to be a badge of courage. You wanted to play as many games as possible. Charles Barkley won the MVP of the All-Star Game, and he played on a stress fracture. He shouldn't have been playing in the game. Imagine Michael Jordan breaks his foot and then comes back, and you know you're going to play the Celtics who are going to beat you in the playoffs. They never would have let Michael Jordan back in today's NBA. They just wouldn't because they'd say, that doesn't make any sense. We're going to sit you down. We're going to get into the lottery. We're going to tank, and we're going to be better. So the philosophy has shifted. I never, ever worried when I tuned into a game if the stars were going to play or not growing up. It was a great luxury. And about 10 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, it all changed. But I understand it from a player's perspective. If I can imagine if you add four more years to Steph Curry's career, that maybe it would have ended at 36. it's over $130 million by just being economical, smart, taking care of yourself, getting your rest. And I know we don't like it, but we're in a completely different world. What it was like when we were growing up. Bill Russell played every game, and Bob Cousy played every game. Yes, but in today's NBA, they're looking at this from a business perspective. The NBA has business and entertainment, but the player is thinking about, I'm going to sit out. I mean, look at Giannis. He's had a cafe. I don't know how serious it is, but he's been out for a while. And we don't even blink anymore. We're like such and such isn't playing. Like Kawhi. I'm always surprised when Kawhi's playing. Be like, oh, Kawhi. And Kawhi's having an unbelievable year. He is. Yes, Marvin. But also, you got to put this on the team also because they're protecting their investment. Because these guys are making so much money. Hey, this guy has a stress fracture or he has a bad calf. They're not going to throw him out there. Hey, let's keep him out here an extra two games. I know. I get it. I get it that this is, it's business. It's our entertainment, but it's their business. Yeah, Pauling. You know, you're completely right about it. It's like a ship that's going one way, and you can't turn it around. But if you look at what most fans think of it, they compare it to the NFL, and they'll always compare the NBA, which is considered not as rough and brutal as a sport, fair to say, and they sit out all the time. And football players, they can't sit out because they have fewer games. But if you look at the ratings of the NBA Finals the past 15 years and load management, they match each other. The Finals keep going down and down and down compared to a generation ago, and that's a real problem. Yes, Eden. I think from the team perspective, too, though, I think it's important to remember that when you're the team, and yes, you're protecting your investment, but no one is bigger than the team. The team is going to keep going on after all of these people retire. After Larry Bird, there's always going to be another Jason Tatum, and then there's going to be another guy. There's always going to be another guy that comes down the pike, and that's what teams are thinking about. This one guy is not bigger than the team. I don't really care who they are. They're not bigger than the team. LeBron James is not bigger than the Lakers. Yeah, but you want to extend them. You want them to play four more years. Definitely, you want them to play four more years, for sure. But also not to the point where the team feels like we need you more than you need us. We'll settle on a poll question here. Chris Sims will join us. We'll look at some of these quarterback situations here. And, man, there's some wild things that are out there. And, you know, they're not really reports, but it's kind of a – what was the word you used, Paulie, where we try to get around saying it's a report? Linked to. Oh, linked to. Joe Burrow is linked to. Yeah, I know. There was an article. I don know if it was on the mothership but it talked about Joe Burrow and being linked to other teams and you going okay wow And I said to Fritzie all right read it to me And I said where the Joe Burrow stuff He goes, well, no, it's like the second part of the article. Yeah, I had Trey Hendrickson about Colts, Cowboys, what teams he's going to go to, and then a little blurb towards the end is like about Joe Burrow. And Joe Burrow's not going anywhere. He's their franchise quarterback, but. Like, what is that? Yeah, Paul. It is from Yahoo Sports. Bengals already have Trey Hendrickson replacement lined up amid Joe Burrow trade rumors. As if they go together at all. And then you read it, and then they say the Bengals aren't trading Joe Burrow. But it's that link, and then you click on it, it's clickbait. And they got me. They got me. That's where you want to respond to somebody. You want to yell at somebody. Like, hey, stop that. You're better than that. But no, you've got to click on. Yeah, Paulie. A big thing in journalism air quotes these days is say link to. In lieu of saying there's a report that Trey Hendrickson is being pursued by blank, blank. Like if you said today that, you know what, would be a great place for Joe Burrow to be the Miami Dolphins, they would use you and say, link to the Dolphins. And they'd tag it to Dan Patrick when you're not reporting. That would be good, though, if Joe Burrow went to the Dolphins. You just aggregated yourself. They were all in on him. But, you know, it was weird that we had heard that leading up to the draft. They were going to offer like five first-round picks for Joe Burrow in Miami. And then, of course, the Bengals took him. And then it came out like earlier this year that the Dolphins were trying to get Joe Burrow at the draft. I'm like, this is old news. They did. They desperately wanted to get Joe Burrow. And now you've got Tua. Maybe you don't even have Tua. So we'll talk to Chris Sims about a lot of these situations here because they're fluid. You're not quite sure. We know what the Raiders are doing. But after that, is there a quarterback that somebody's going to go all in on and say that's our future? Because I don't see that. The parade yesterday, it was great to see. Probably 800,000 there. A beautiful day there in Seattle. They're feisty. The Seahawks got that chip on their shoulders still. Don't come at us and don't be saying something about my quarterback. Sam Darnold is like, hey, thank you for believing in me. There weren't a lot of people believed in Sam Darnold when they brought Sam Darnold in, to be fair to the situation here. If you go back to when Sam was going to Seattle, it's not like it was, oh my gosh, we got Sam Darnold. It was, wait, we got rid of Gino and we got Sam Darnold? A lot of people said that. A lot of people said that. All righty. We'll get a poll question. Play of the day is coming up. Stat of the day is always brought to you by Panini America. We're back with Chris Sims after this Dan Patrick Show. Be sure to catch the live edition of the Dan Patrick Show weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. Stugatz here. I have a podcast empire. It continues to grow. And I have brought it here to iHeart. I'm also doing a live radio show from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern because my wife wanted to kick me out of the house. 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Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth. Until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. It's an all-out manhunt for John OJ. Every search and rescue team in L.A. County has been called in to help. Within days, tips started flooding into the sheriff's department. The rumor around the drug scene was that a deputy was taken care of. Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert? Or of a cover-up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department? A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance? I wouldn't do it alone. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seaton, poll question, first hour. What are you thinking about? Well, I'm sort of workshopping here, Juan. I just got to get the right number of letters to fit it in. But would you rather more games per season but less seasons or more seasons but less games per? Yes, Paul. Okay, I see where he's going. How about you could have a superstar player on your favorite NBA team. Ten years, he plays 80 games a season. or 15 years for 65 games per season as an average? If he's staying on my team? The whole time. Oh, yeah, then I'm going to take the extra years. Even though you get to see him less? Absolutely. The time that I really care about seeing my superstar player is in the postseason. And if that leads to postseason success or availability, absolutely. Will I miss 17 games that he wouldn't be playing in during the regular season? Yes. But if that means I've got four more, five more opportunities to win a championship, absolutely. Chris Sims joining us on loan from Pro Football Talk Live. He's co-host with Mike Florio. Also was there working the Super Bowl for NBC Football Night in America. Do you think we'll ever get to the point where there is load management in the NFL? No. I don't think so. I don't. I mean, it's just, you know, the league is so close. One game is equal to five games in the NBA or ten games in the NFL and Major League Baseball, right? So, no, I mean, I think the only time you get to load management is with certain star players. Maybe if they have some injuries and teams that are smart bring them along the right way. But, no, I don't think that's ever going to be a thing in the NFL. Then explain to me what the Raiders did with Max Crosby, or is that tanking? Well, I think that was more tanking. I think it was that, maybe more than anything. It was tanking. He was dealing with a little bit of injury. Maybe they're saving himself from himself. But, yeah, that's not a load management thing there. The Max Crosby situation in general is going to be fascinating here as we go into the offseason, right? Because you usually sit there and go, You don't trade a player of the caliber of Max Crosby and do that, but yet this is one of those where you can look at it and justify it a little bit or at least go, I could see them doing it. He's 29 years old, as we know. Hey, there's a formula in the NFL. Most defensive players hit 30. Teams don't want to give them big contracts, new contracts there. And the Raiders have so many needs on their football team. Wouldn't be shocked if he does get traded this offseason. He's one of my favorite players because he wants to play and he plays hard. Right. But if I'm the Raiders, I absolutely trade him. Yeah. You know, I hate giving up on that, but I can't bring in a rookie quarterback with a rookie head coach and not have a good offensive line. Yeah, no, I hear you there. And you've got to wonder, Max Crosby's getting to a point of his career where, yeah, I don't know if he wants to sit around for the next two years and be a part of the rebuilding process. So, yeah, I'm with you there, Dan, in a lot of ways. All right, let's look at some of the quarterbacking situations. What's the biggest question mark you have? What team? What quarterback? Well, I think the obvious one is probably Pittsburgh a little bit, just as far as where they go. A playoff football team. We've got no idea who the quarterback is going to be. I mean, Aaron Rodgers, Mike McCarthy. It didn't necessarily seem like it ended the most perfect way when it was in Green Bay, and now here they may be thrusted back together. And then off of that, yes, do they bring them back, but is he going to understand that the quarterback of the future is not on the roster of the Steelers? So if they bring him back, is he going to be okay if they draft Ty Simpson in the first round? And then if they go 2-5 to start the year, is Ty Simpson going to be in, and is he going to be able to deal with that? So that, to me, is probably the most intriguing one. I haven't thought about it as a whole as a league here yet. I'm still kind of transitioning out of Super Bowl mode here, but I think that's the one probably I'd still pick if you let me think about it even more. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the Vikings situation, too. Yeah, right, right. That's going to be tough, no doubt. They're in a spot. They really are. Because as we talked about last year, their team was playoff-ready, maybe even Super Bowl-ready. I do think if Sam Darnold played on the Minnesota Vikings last year, yes, they would have gone to the playoffs, definitely. If they got to the Super Bowl, I don't know about that. But, yeah, they're in a spot where they definitely have to bring somebody that's tried and true and proven to a degree. Not only because if J.J. McCarthy gets hurt, which is becoming a thing, and if he doesn play well you got to have a guy there that can at least come in in those scenarios and hold down the fort a little bit but I also think you need a guy there to kind of have the hot poker next to J McCarthy every day a little bit to be like hey you got to be good today You got to be good today You got to be good today. This guy's coming. He's practicing. He's a pro. He knows how to practice and look good in front of the rest of the football team. And I do think there's value in that for young quarterbacks. If I said you had to extend one, Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud? Gosh, I would have gone no-brainer, C.J. Stroud, right, before the playoffs or the end of the regular season. Like, no-brainer. But what happened here, Chris? Yeah. I mean, it was questionable towards the end of the regular season. You know, I've had people go, oh, they think his concussion in the middle part of the year was still affecting him. He has been in some different offensive systems. But, man, he really lost his way towards the end of the year. Lost his way with decision-making, feel for the game, the proper type of throws, forgetting what his team was. I mean, I said to Mike Florio before, and I think this is why we were kind of talking about the Patriots and maybe there won't be the biggest bullseye on their back because of how the playoffs and Super Bowl went going into the next year. And I made the comment, yeah, I mean, hey, the Chargers game was underwhelming. The Houston game, you kind of felt like if C.J. Stroud just kneeled on the ball the whole game, Houston probably would have won the football game. Just kneeled on it. Every play, first, second down, third down, kneel on it. Defense will set us up for a field position at one point. We'll kick a field goal and win the game that way. I'm joking, but I'm not joking. It was that crazy. It was that bad. So I sit here now, I guess, giving the edge to Bryce Young, but don't feel necessarily great about that. I mean, I know Carolina went into the year going, hey, we like where we're going, but we don't have our quarterback yet. We don't really know. We don't think we got the guy. We don't have the guy. Now, he played better definitely. How do they feel about that? I'm sure they feel better, but I wouldn't sit here and just go, oh, we're just golden at quarterback with Bryce Young. I'm not ready to say that yet. You know, the draft is kind of sparse with what we think will be franchise quarterbacks, but I'm wondering about Mac Jones or Malik Willis. Feels like they could get that kind of, I don't want to say Sam Darnold, but they could get that, hey, we've gone through the washing machine a couple times. Maybe now it's our turn. Now we're at an age where we can handle this. Yeah, no, I think Malik Willis is a superstar, right? I would think he is the crowning gem of guys that's going to be out there as far as free agents that you can get, no compensation, trading, any like that. Why wouldn't Pittsburgh go for Malik Willis? If I were them, I'd be looking at that. You're exactly right. I mean, Malik Willis has proven. I mean, he's got special talent. He has a special arm. He's got special mobility. He knows how to run the offense and do all of that. So, yeah, you know, he's a great story here. And, again, another story of, like, we looked at the draft and, you know, again, I was a Malik Willis fan coming out. And it was like, okay, yeah, I know Kenny Pickett can play in the pocket and he's very good in the meeting room. And I'm so sick of that damn dumb discussion all the time with some of these quarterbacks. And I'm going to go, oh, yeah, how did that meeting room and in-the-pocket work for you, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia Raiders? How about the guy that has a ton of talent and can make game-changing plays and just needs a little polish and needs to be coached a little? And that's where the league misses out on guys like that. Do you like Malik Willis more than Jordan Love? It's closer than I ever thought it would be, right? And I'm really a Jordan Love fan. I mean, again, I'm the one that was like, Jordan Love, I think, is going to be better than Tua when he was coming out in the draft, right? So I'm with that. But Malik Willis, I'm not going to say he's better than Jordan Love right now. I will say that I think he shows more potential to be a greater player than Jordan Love. That's what I would say right now. But I've got to see a little bit more before I say he's better than Jordan Love. And he's $40 million cheaper. That helps, too. But he won't be $40 million cheaper after this offseason. That, I think, will change. What about Mac Jones' future? Well, Mac Jones is, first off, shown that he's capable of being a starting quarterback. We know that, right? And the guys like Shanahan and McVay and the Ben Johnsons in the world, the guys who have these unbelievable, intricate, hard offenses are always going to like Mac Jones, just like Shanahan and McVay love the Kirk Cousins of the world and those guys because they can handle all the tricks that they have to offer to make the offense look tricky and awesome, right? So that's where there's always going to be love for Mac Jones. Now, he can't carry the team. You put him on crappy Jacksonville for two years ago with all that was going on there. Yeah, he's not Josh Allen or Lamar or Mahomes or just, hey, get on my back, guys. I'll get us through this time period here. No, he's not that. He needs system. He needs help. And when he does do that, you can see he can play at a high level. But at the same time, I don't think the 49ers and Shanahan are just going to give him away. and not only do they have to be blown away by the trade, but the 49ers, as we know, are good. And with healthy, there might be a Super Bowl team. And knowing my buddy Kyle Shanahan, I don't think he would leverage the future of the team and get rid of Mac Jones unless he's very comfortable with who his backup quarterback is. And I don't know if he's there with Curtis Rourke, right, who came off the ACL injury coming from Indiana and being there and being that guy to hold down the fort if something did happen to Brock Purdy. We're talking to Chris Sims, Pro Football Talk Live co-host, Football Night in America analyst, and his podcast, Unbuttoned. If Mac Jones was Seattle's quarterback this year? Yeah, okay. I mean, they'd be in the playoffs for sure. Oh, okay. So you're not saying they would still have won the Super Bowl? No, I'm not going to go there. I think Sam Donald's talent is better than – there's a reason Sam Donald was the No. 3 pick, and people thought he was going to be the slam-dunk No. 1 pick, really, if you go back to that time, right? People were shocked that it was Baker Mayfield. Everybody thought, Sam Darnold's going to Cleveland. He's got better physical ability than he gets credit for. You've heard Josh Allen talk about how Sam Darnold spins the ball. It's a perfect spiral that spins tight. His arm's a little more explosive than people realize. You saw on Super Bowl Sunday, his movement and getting out of trouble a few times was kind of special that way. So I do think he's capable of making some plays that maybe Mac Jones isn't capable of making. Let's go back to the Super Bowl. And it felt like, and I said this a couple of times on the show, if you said to Patriot fans beginning of the year, you're going to the Super Bowl, but you're not going to be competitive, would you sign up for that? And the answer is, of course, yes. Yes. But, man, it really feels like morale is low after the way they were beaten. Your first-round pick at left tackle gets, you know, man-handled. Drake May didn't look good through the entire postseason. So now handicap the Patriots going into next season knowing you have this Super Bowl loss hangover. Yeah, I think they're still going to be really good. They still got a lot of room on their cap space, kind of like what you alluded to. I mean, they were playing with house money. The fact that they got this far is incredible. I don't think they're going anywhere. I think they're going to continue to be a really good team. Now, I mean, can they get back to the Super Bowl and go 14-3? I don't know. They're going to have a first-place schedule next year. And if you look at the teams they're going to play next year on the road and all that, it's like, whoa, okay, whoa, yeah, it ain't going to be the same. And I think, yeah, morale is down because of, like, what you talked about. They didn't play very good football in the playoffs. I don't want to use the phrase they lucked into things, but things certainly with C.J. Stroud's play, the way Stidham, the Broncos, the snowstorm, yeah, that definitely helped out. And I think to your point, too, and to me, the biggest story going into the game was that the guy that was one vote away from being the MVP was historically bad in the playoffs, like historically. And same with the left tackle. And then we got to the halftime of the game, and it was like, whoa. Again, the guy that was one vote away from being the MVP, historically bad in the first half of the game, made one real throw in the first three quarters of the game. He stepped up and threw a deep curl route to Stefan Diggs in the first quarter, and I would say that was the only throw he made in the football game until the touchdown drive to make it 19-7 to start the fourth quarter. That's crazy when you say that out loud, right? And that's why I think morale's a little down overall, and they were dominated in the game, and it just didn't look good. But they shouldn't be down for long. It just should be about the game, and the future's bright for the New England Patriots. Yeah, but why didn't they make adjustments? You've got 30 minutes at halftime, Chris. Yeah, right. Well, here, here. So here am I. I really, I watch the game on film, and, you know, this is what I do, and the podcast and Chris Sims on Button and all that. First, I think the Patriots, they knew they weren't the better team. I could tell you in the pregame warm-ups that they knew they weren't the better team. I said this to Rodney, Devin McCourty. You went to either side of the field. The Seahawks were out on their field like, we're about to show everybody today. It felt like the Patriots are a little bit like, I hope we play our best game and maybe we can pull it off. That's kind of what it felt like on the field on Super Bowl Sunday. And I know Rodney and Devin McCourty kind of felt the same thing. To the point where you're like, Seattle's so psycho. Rodney Harrison was like, I hope they don't run out of energy before the game's over. And I was like, Rodney, Devin Witherspoon could not sleep for five nights in a row. He ain't going to lose energy today. I was like, they're young and full of it and they're ready to go. But I do think the Patriots went in the game knowing that they weren't the better team. They knew they had to take chances on the defensive side of the ball, which is what you saw early on in the game, right? I mean, Sam Darnold threw some passes, and you're like, whoo, oh my gosh. I mean, they were going to go for it on that side of the ball. And I think they knew between the shaky play of their quarterback and how good Seattle was that they were just hoping to muck the game up, make it ugly. Oh, it's 9-0, so what? We'll put a drive together, make it 9-7. maybe Sam Darnold will make a mistake and now we go up 10-9 and now it's 13. That's what I think they went into the game thinking that was the only way they were going to be able to do it. But the fact that they couldn't run the ball at all then kind of shift the onus on to Drake May and the passing game and the pass protection and a bunch of other things that went along with it led to some really tough sledding in that department. It's an 8-hour pregame show and you have a rundown meeting where you get all the analysts together. But at what point do you look at the rundown and realize that Rodney Harrison is going to question Tony Dungy's Hall of Fame vote? Was that scripted, that that was in the rundown? It was, I think, kind of thrown into the rundown, and I'm not privy to all these conversations, but I think it was thrown into the rundown when the Hall of Fame made the most egregiously stupid Tropic Thunder decision in the history of their Hall of Fame with not putting Bill Belichick in with the most obvious should-be first ballot Hall of Famer ever. So then it was like, whoa, we've got to talk about this. And, of course, Rodney and Devin being from the Patriots and all of that. And then, yes, throughout the week, people started to question whether Coach Dungy definitely did that and all that. So, yeah, I think it kind of came organically, and Rodney wanted to question Coach Dungy on that situation. And I didn't get to see the segment in totality there, but it sounded like it went pretty good, even though Coach Dungy didn't quite answer the question all the way. Should he have answered the question? Well, you know me. I mean, I'm a big mouth who says everything. So, you know, yeah, he should answer the question. I would have liked for him to answer the question. By not answering, isn't he answering the question? He answered it, right. By not answering it, he answered it. Exactly right. I would have called Rodney for targeting. I would have had to flag him on that. Well, I thought Rodney might go harder. You know, I thought, you know, Rodney, as we all know, like Mike Tyson, at times can be like a pit bull on the loose, and you're just like, uh-oh, he's in that mode, watch out. And I was kind of hoping the pit bull might get unleashed during that interview, but he kept tame there and, you know, stayed on leash, I guess. Thanks, as always, for joining us the entire season. and we'll leave you alone for a little while. All right, just for a little while. You know, we got draft and free agency to talk about, so you know I'll be game for that whenever you're down. Thank you, bud. All right, thank you. Tell those jerks I said hi. Hey, jerks, he says hi. Chris Sims, Pro Football Talk Live co-host, Football Night in America. His podcast is Chris Sims, Unbutton. Play of the Day, up next. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsportsradio.com. And within the iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts China Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. It's an all-out manhunt for John Audier. Every search and rescue team in L.A. County has been called in to help. Within days, tips started flooding into the sheriff's department. The rumor around the drug scene was that a deputy was taken care of. Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert? Or of a cover-up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department? A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance? I wouldn't do it alone. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh my God. The play of the day. Leonard left side, got it! We're going to play it and play it. This is the play of the day. Check this out. Clippers find Kawhi. Looking to be the hero tonight. Leonard down the left alley. Spins at the free throw line. Right elbow jumper for the lead. Puts it in with two seconds left. Kawhi Leonard is lethal here in Houston. And the Clippers up for 104-102. Two seconds to play. 19 of his 27 came in the fourth quarter. Kawhi scored at least 20 points in 33 consecutive games, a career high. Those aren't consecutive games that he's played in, though. That's courtesy of AM570, the Clippers radio network. That's your Play of the Day. Play of the Day, brought to you by, they've been doing it for over 40 years, helping you find the right tires for how and what and where you drive, shipped fast and free, backed by free road hazard protection, with convenient installation options like mobile tire installation, tirerack.com, the way tire buying should be. There's a stat, a graphic that's making the rounds this morning. It goes like this. 2004, the Eagles lost the Super Bowl. 2005, the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl. 2006, the Bears lost the Super Bowl. 20 years later, the 2024 Eagles won the Super Bowl. The 2025 Seahawks won the Super Bowl. The 2026 Bears... Dot, dot, dot. Why would you do that? Let's put collectively our salaries on it right now. What kind of odds would we get? What's the payout on that? Can we find out the Bears' odds of winning the Super Bowl? It just sounds like 100%. We just found them out. Paulie, you feel good? I don't like it said aloud. I like quiet, simmering hope. If that's a word, a phrase. Seton, update the poll results, please. Gosh, that's the best. I'm all in. I'm all in on that. I'm a sucker for crap like that. Would you rather a player 60 games for 15 years or 82 games for 11 years? It's basically 900 games. One of them is 902 games, but it's basically the same thing. Right now, 68% of the audience would rather 82 games for 11 years over 60 games for 15. Oh, no way. I want you ready for the postseason. If you say you're going to play 60, but you're going to be ready to go for the postseason, I'll take that. If I got 14 years of that, absolutely. Do you have the Bears odds? First of all, I want you tired and banged up and dragging in the postseason, clearly. The Bears' odds to win the Super Bowl next year, you can get that for a round, and Dylan is checking other places, 25 to 1. Okay. Should we throw a grand on it? So what does that mean if you put $1,000 on it? $25,000. You get $25,000? That's a good chunk of change. That's not enough. What? Let's put $100,000 on it. Get it! Let's put $100,000 on it. You're talking to the wrong room of people. Yeah. That's your other group of friends. Vince in Austin. Hi, Vince. What's on your mind today? Hey, guys. Good morning. What an awesome, awesome interview yesterday with my homeboy, Drew Brees. I'm from Austin, Texas. He's from nearby Westlake. He went to Westlake High School. I went to Travis. My freshman OC was Ron Schroeder, who left the next year to go to Westlake. He became a legendary football coach in the state of Texas. He started us doing the four wide, no huddle, the shotgun snap, and drove us crazy because we ran the power eye. And we had no idea what we were doing. But heads off, man, he represented himself well yesterday. And what a great career. And good to be associated with that, man. All right. Well, thank you, Vince, opening up your scrapbook there. We've waited a long time to tell that story on the show. Yeah. I got to get an opportunity to tell the four wide, and we ran the power eye. This is my window right here. Now's my turn. Rich in Chicago. Hi, Rich. What's on your mind? Hey, Dan. How are you today? Good, bud. Good. Good. Hey, you've just seen J. Stroud two days in a row, and I think you're just wrong. His offensive line is ranked 27th in the NFL. He's got no skilled player that's ranked in the top ten in any category. He's got two seconds to throw to nobody open. and you guys are just wrong about your assessment. This isn't my assessment. This is a team has to decide if they are going to do something with him. You saw Drake May got his team to the Super Bowl. You trying to tell me he's got skilled position players? You trying to tell me he's got a good offensive line? And C.J. Stroud, they traded away one of the best left tackles in the NFL and got nothing for him. They got a second-round pick and a couple third-round picks. They have paid zero attention to the offense over the last three years. Okay, but do you think I'm the only one bringing up C.J. Stroud, and are you going to extend him? Yeah, absolutely. He's one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. So I'm the only one bringing up, is there a question of extending him? You, Sims, who's just bad, the one that surprises me is Golick. I thought he would know better. And Darnold is the perfect example. He goes to the Jets, the worst franchise in the history of the NFL, and people are saying he's a bad quarterback. It's like they can't put two and two together. The Texans were a playoff team the previous year. Tell me the additions they've made to their offense besides Stroud. Yeah, but why aren't you yelling at the Texans? This is malpractice then, Rich. The people that incorrectly put the blame on C.J. Stroud. Well, he does take some blame, don't you think? He looked horrible. He couldn't hold on to the football. I mean, those are some of the worst games that we've seen in recent memory for a quarterback. Now, you can bring up the offensive line, but he was fumbling the ball. He couldn't hold on to it. Listen, he did not play well. But to say that there's some doubt about his future over that is... You're going to give him $55, $60 million a year moving forward. Give it to? Would you give it to Bryce Young? No. That's comical. Okay. So who else would you give it to? What are they going to do? They're going to go back into the draft? Is that what you're saying? No. Maybe you get him for $35 million. Maybe he realizes that he's not getting $60 million. And maybe you do salvage something here. But you want to give him $60 million? Go ahead. I wouldn't. I wouldn't give Bryce Young $60 million a year. But that'll be the going rate. If you really love him, you think he's a franchise quarterback, hopefully they build around him. You pay him what he's worth, and you don't beat people over the head for things that they are out of their control. You're going to leverage him because they've got a crummy offensive line. You're going to leverage his ability to make money because they've got a crummy offensive line. Well, you then pay him $60 million. Good luck with that, Rich. I'm glad you're the president of the C.J. Stroud fan club there. This isn't personal. You just got to stay in your lane. Yeah, I know. This isn't personal. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.