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. The Volume. What is going on, everybody? John Middlecoff, 3NOW Podcast. Hopefully you're doing well out there in the streets. Let's see if I still know how to podcast. Your boy is back. We're back again, recording a little podcast after a week. You know, a couple years ago, it would have been a nice little vacation week. Who knows? Maybe it would have gone to somewhere. I guess I live in somewhere sunny, but Hawaii or something. now I just sit and hold a baby and watch the Olympics so get three hours sleep so life has changed but sports is not so I'm going to lead today's show with the USA Hockey situation that was just I watched so much Olympics over the last week and watching that game this morning and watching all the games this week with the hockey team sports is special man that was really really cool this is the combine week we will be going to the combine for a couple days, rubbing elbows with the people. Coach Reed, I was texting him. I said, Coach, come on the podcast. I said, John, I will not be there. I'm on an injury reserve. So Andy will not be on the show. He got knee surgery. But I think we got Veach. I sent out a million texts to GMs, efforting coaches, so we'll see what happens. But we'll have a lot of content coming from the Combine. But I want to dive in with some general thoughts on the Combine. And then one of the big stories last week while I was not doing shows was the Bears moving to Indiana. So some thoughts there we will dive into as well. And that'll be the podcast today. We'll do a big mailbag for tomorrow. At John Middlecoff, at John Middlecoff for tomorrow. I think I'm going to record that actually right now. But fire in those DMs. We will do mailbags. They're not going away. We are going to buckle back up. At John Middlecoff is the Instagram firing those DMs. And you guys know the drill. subscribe to the podcast wherever you may listen, Spotify, Apple, and obviously all the videos, they live on a little thing called Netflix. We appreciate everyone watching. So let's just, let's dive in. This is a hockey show. Let's dive into USA, baby. Like if you're listening to this, I'm sure we can agree. Like we're big sports people. We like sports. I grew up loving sports. It was honestly the only thing or one of the only things in life I could remember. Like I could go to class. I couldn't remember anything the teachers told me through college. I got a graduate degree. I don't remember much, if anything, I've ever learned in a classroom. Yet if you told me, especially when I was younger, peppered some guy that played in 1993, where did he go to college? I knew it. How many yards he had. How many home runs he had. You know, I love that stuff. And when it comes to sports, like, I am an equal opportunist. Now, I don't like hockey as much as I do football or golf. But I treat it a lot like the UFC. I don't watch the NHL, though I do chime in in the playoffs. I don't watch the UFC, but I couldn't have any more respect for the people that participated in it. Their respect level for me is a 10 out of 10. And like many of you, I watched every minute of this USA hockey run. And I was glued. The Hughes brothers, the Kachuk brothers, Obviously, the momentum from the All-Star Game format of last year, which was incredible. All these same players that were on those teams was just freaking awesome. Then you factor in USA across their jersey. You factor in that we got to take out, potentially, if we could make it there, Canada, who some players in the tournament on other teams that play in the NHL considered this Canadian team like the greatest team ever assembled. In fairness, Sidney Crosby got hurt a couple games ago, but they got the best player in the world in Conor McDavid. They got the next Conor McDavid, Celebrini, whose dad is the Warriors athletic trainer. I'm from Northern California, so I'm definitely more into Sharks now that he's on the team. But let's face it, most people thought we were going to lose in this game. And this is what makes sports so powerful. Because of my wife, I watch a lot of Bravo, whether it's Southern Charm whether it's Summer House our guy Wes who I met at the volume party who's on Summer House who's really fucking cool and is now becoming a big star on that show to Love is Blind I mean we have been dialed into that show these all have scripted elements to them I mean there are moments in all these shows that's like this isn't raw and real this is fake and in fairness they're in the business of getting the most people to watch it's entertainment and ultimately sports is entertainment it. But there's a purity to it. And there was, and we've seen it recently, like Sam Darnold several years ago was one of the laughingstocks of the sport of football. Whether it came to getting mono, I think as a rookie, to I'm seeing ghosts, to people just generally thinking he is not a good player. To several years later being the starting quarterback for a team that won 17 games and the Super Bowl. And now Sam Darnold before Josh Allen, before Lamar Jackson, two guys that are going to be first bout Hall of Famers, he has a Super Bowl before those two guys. Like, you can't make that stuff up. You couldn't write that stuff in sports movies. And then you get this group today who, one, I don't quite understand. You know, all these games have been in the middle of the day, like one o'clock mountain time for me, which is late in Italy. in Italy, and I get there's a time change, but for some reason, this game kicked off at the crack of dawn. Anyone that has a young child, you don't get much sleep. You're going to bed at like three o'clock in the morning. It was hard to get up for, but found a way to like kind of groggy watching it on my phone the first couple of periods. Then you kind of wake up and watch the stretch of the game, but it was just something that so many people in my life that I would not consider hockey people. I don't have that many hockey friends. I honestly don't know if I really have any. My wife would be on the extreme end. Her brother and herself and her dad, they were season ticket holders. Well, they weren't. Their dad was. To the San Jose Sharks, they grew up going to these games. They love hockey. The first time, I've only been to one hockey game in my life. It was when the Phoenix Coyotes, they played in downtown, or they played at Tempe, where ASU plays. It's literally ASU's club hockey arena. It sees like 4,000 people. and I got up while the action was going on to go get, either go to the bathroom or get a beer or whatever. My wife, like, you cannot get up. I'm like, what do you mean? And they wouldn't let me get up because in hockey, it's not baseball, it's not basketball. You can't just get up whenever you want. You can only get up and go to the concourse, to the bathroom, whatever, when the action is stopped. And I was like, I didn't even know these rules, but you couldn't help but get behind these guys, their emotion, their strong connection to each other, and the pride they took in their logo. And let's face it, you know, I love football, but there's no, flag football is going to be in the Olympics. It's not real football. And I know flag football has expanded. A lot more people have interest. Like, it is a completely different game than what we watched during the fall, right? Baseball, basketball, all these other sports can play their same game in the Olympics. It's pretty cool. And basketball forever, like when I was a kid, the dream team was created. They beat the shit out of everybody. Other teams were waiting in line to get Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson's autographs. To now, 20 years later, we lost some Olympics. To the last Olympics with Steph and LeBron, there was like, that was incredible theater. And this is an issue the NBA has. When the people involved in the entertainment don't care, you can't expect the consumer to care, right? It's one thing football has built in. Football, when you watch a football game, for the most part, right, obviously you get blowouts in games that aren't close, but for the most part, every team, especially in the NFL and high level of college, is giving 100% their full effort. No one ever disputes with college football or the NFL that players and coaches aren't doing everything humanly possible Monday through leading up to the game to get ready and then during the game laying it all on the field. It's why I think it really resonates with so many people. Obviously, the inventory factor, there's not as many games, but when you turn on the game, everyone is just laying it on the line. It's why UFC has become such a rocket ship. When you watch these fights, you're like, these guys, they are just crazy. To get in that octagon, the level of effort you have to put in just preparing, let alone the craziness in which you have to get in there to even attempt to win a fight. And that's the one thing hockey has. Jack Hughes, who scores the game-winning goal, is interviewed after. He's missing a tooth and bleeding. He just lost in that game. That's the thing everyone, we'll dive into the combine and draft prospects. Part of this dude at Kansas who keeps tapping out of the games, one of the things I keep saying is this is not football or hockey. Like your likelihood of getting a major injury, especially as a smaller player, it's one thing as a big, is kind of slim to none. And especially when you're getting judged against all these other guys in your class who are just playing balls to the wall. It's why if you watch BYU, if you watch that kid at Arkansas, if you watch Boozer play at Duke, you're like, God, these guys play really, really hard, which I think we all really respect. You look at this NFL draft class. We watched Fernando McDoza. We watched the two defensive linemen at Miami. You're Like, these guys, until the season ended, just fucking gave it all they had, which you have to respect because winning and losing, obviously, is very difficult. The margins between them are very, very slim. But you watch today and you just watch a group like that. That was pretty special. I don't know what else to say. It was just a pretty cool, really cool, genuine moment. And I just thought it resonated with a lot of people. You can tell online because, one, we weren't supposed to win. two this is not our sport i i put this out on twitter earlier this week i kind of hate that's actually a pet peeve of mine when people say that like i tweeted out like no one cares but i was thinking this that's probably a better way to put this earlier this week when i'm trying to you know console my child from screaming where you could hear him from 10 miles away not because we're doing anything just because he's a baby and they scream and the problem is they can't really communicate so you don't really know what's up but that's the story for a different day is that this hockey team, this group of guys who all seem like I'm Googling them all between 25 and early thirties to be everything we've always wanted. And I don't pretend to be a soccer guy, though. I respect the power of the sport. I saw someone put out on Instagram within the last week that the power of the global sport, because clearly Raj, I mean, he's sending people to Australia. The Niners and Rams are kicking off there potentially on Wednesday, which I do understand why they're going to have to play a game on Wednesday because of the calendar and the laws. They're not going to be able to play on Friday, week one this year, but they want to get two games before the weekend. So they're going to cheat the system and go Wednesday. So they said, might as well send them to Australia, but clearly they want, and listen, the bad bunny situation, Roger wants to go international. He wants to go global. There was a reason he would rather go with bad buddy than like Morgan Wallen or Metallica. He'd rather resonate with other people in other countries. That is their next big, I've been saying this forever. Roger Goodell wants to have a package where they're playing all over the world every single week. That is clearly a stated desire and goal from the league office right now. Whether we agree or disagree, whether it's going to work, only time will tell. But the old adage in business, you're either growing or you're dying. and like I think he'd be the first to say it's going to be hard to add more domestic fans he's probably right and I think a lot of casual people would go you guys are printing money you don't need to get any bigger that's not how businesses think it's like how do we grow how do we incrementally grow and back to the soccer thing is I guess there was a soccer game like Man City might have played Liverpool or somebody and uh it might have been Sunday morning of the Super Bowl and 750 million people watched. Like 150 million people watched the Super Bowl 750 million people watched that game And I think Roger you know forever is like Roger trying to screw Adam Silver I don think Roger Goodell thinks about Adam Silver He completely irrelevant to their operation I think he goes, how do we become closer to soccer in the EPL? And again, whether that's possible or not, I don't know. But part of what makes the Olympics cool is like this global operation. Now, hockey is a little more specific to certain countries, right? Canada dominates. in theory some like eastern european countries should dominate and obviously we've gotten really good and we haven't won the gold since 1980 when nhl players weren't even there but watching the pride and the joy they had in and then there's just i said this about sam darnold there was a human interest level story in sam most of us could relate to it right he failed stumbled now most of us can't relate to like millions of people watched his failure, right? And I guess indirectly made fun of him. When we stumbled, maybe our family knows, maybe the people we're working with knows. It's much more of a kind of controlled environment. But I think that resonated with a lot of people. And then you went like, is Sam a good guy? Is Sam the type guy that most people I know would want to be friends with? And the answer was like, always yes. So I think a lot of people just gravitated like Sam Darnold's just a fun story to root for. He is a relatable individual. And you watch these guys, that moment, like you can't make up the situation that happened with, I think it's Johnny Goudreau. I might be messing up his name, also known as Johnny Hockey, who died in one of the worst tragedies you can ever imagine, right? Hit riding a bike with his brother the day before his sister's wedding while he has two young children. And it turns out his wife was seven, seven months pregnant. I just, I can't even, even before I had a child, you, that story is just, that hurts every single human I will ever meet to their soul. Died riding a bike the day before his sister's wedding while his wife is pregnant, while they also have two young children with his brother. And he obviously was a star American hockey player. By all accounts, he not only would have been on this team, but he was close friends with all these guys. And then they win the gold and his best friend, his teammate who happens to be on this team, grabs his kids, brings them out to take the picture with his jersey. I don't get those reactions and those feelings inside me in many walks of life, right? Most people, like you don't have a kid every day. You don't get married every day. You don't go on the best day of your life most days. You don't have devastating things happen to you most days. You don't even have that many things that happen outside of your world that really emotionally move you most days. I mean, you just don't. You know, especially if you don't live on your fucking phone and let the algo create madness in your brain. And you see this and you go, damn. That's something that just, words can't even describe it. But you know when you watch it, the feeling you get inside. And that's what I think this, what happened with this team. Was like, man, that was really, really cool. And I think sports is still one of the last kind of areas in society where it just draws so many people from so many different walks of life, from so many different beliefs, from so many different economic statuses, from most of us that you're listening to me, I'll probably never meet you. Yet we all sat there and watched these games and had a similar reaction. No different than Canada being devastated by losing the game, right? That it draws all these people in a country that live on opposite ends, of 3,000 miles away, they're all pulling in the same direction. Now, Canada pulling for their guys is more like us pulling if the NFL was a global sport and we were represented in the Olympics to play football. That's not the case. But I just think that was awesome. It really was. And I couldn't get enough of it. And I'm glad that the way the timing of this worked out with my day, hopefully many of your days were able to experience that run because that was really fucking cool today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor hard rock bet florida sportsbook i know it's tough when no football makes me sad but like the song says i bet i will survive with hard rock bet there's always something every single night. Oops, hockey, so much more. Plus all the great same game parlay, live betting and player prop options you're used to. And did you know that Hard Rock Bet is the official sports betting partner, the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic? So they know their basketball. 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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. 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? 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And when he ran the Senior Bowl, I remember talking to him. The thing he was always worried about, and he lives in New York City now, but forever he's from Fairhope, Alabama. And the small town, that area, it means a lot to him. He was always worried that they were going to move the Senior Bowl eventually to Los Angeles, to SoFi Stadium. And it still might eventually happen. Jim Nagy, who then ran the Senior Bowl after Phil is now the GM at Oklahoma. So, and by all accounts, the senior bowl, the talent they get is not quite the same. I don't think it's necessarily long for Alabama. I'd say the same thing about the Combine. They desperately wanted to move the Combine to a bigger city, specifically Los Angeles. And there was a lot of pushback for the league. It's really one of the most unique places I've ever been to because you can stay at most of the hotels, whether it's the Spring Hill Suites or whether it's like, I don't think they have a Four Seasons in Indy, but like the JW Marriott, which is probably the nicest hotel, to all these, you never have to go outside. So even in the heart of winter when it's freezing cold, it's all connected by these walkways and this convention center that leads right to the football stadium that you're all kind of under the same cocoon. It's just an incredible city to operate from a logistical standpoint to run this event. and there was a major pushback and they were able to keep the event in Indianapolis, which I'm glad. It's a city that I don't go to very often and I've only been to for the Combine. But whenever I'm there, someone asked me recently, like, what's it like? Is it a cool city? I'm like, yeah, I always really, really enjoy it. It's clearly kind of a small, bigger Midwestern city that is just very, very easy to operate. But the keys of this week, which has changed a lot, right? A lot of teams, I just read a story today, read a story to be strong, saw a headline that the Jaguars will not attend. You know, the Rams do not attend. Kyle Shanahan, I'm sure, will not attend. A lot of people have chosen Sean McVay will not be at the combine. Now, John Lynch will be there. I don't think Les Snead goes. A lot of GMs go if their coaches don't go. No one with the Jags is going. And I think the Jags, like the Rams, they believe there's this bias. Kyle Shanahan just doesn't want to go, thinks it's kind of pointless. He just zooms into the meetings. Listen, I think there's value there. And I want to go through some of the things that are valuable. One, the most valuable thing in the immediate is your GM and your front office going to gauge the market. How much are players on my team that are free agents going to cost? Because these agents are going from team to team, finding the market, finding the number, and then knowing how much higher with that number can we go. So the number one thing of the free agents that are on your own team that you want to keep, how much are they going to cost? What the price And can we afford to keep them based on our salary cap Or if we can do we need to manipulate some stuff so we can resign them To me that the number one thing And then the guys that are not on your team that you would be interested in signing how much are they going to cost? So you can gauge, do we have enough room to sign them? Because by now, you've targeted the good teams. It's hard for some of the teams with new coaches, a lot of moving parts. But if you have a team that everyone, you know, the Packers, the Niners, the Rams, all your front office and coaching staff is returning. You have spent the last month plus determining these three or four guys are number one targets. Well, how much are those guys going to cost, and can we afford to have them in our salary cap? And if we can't, can we manipulate some guys that are on our team, move some money back, and figure out a way to keep them? So to me, it's all about, in a couple weeks, free agency hits, setting that up. And then factored into that, if you are teams interested, a lot of these new teams, you know, whether you're the Dolphins, the Harbaugh, the Ravens, all these teams have new coaches. So are there, were there players on the staff or excuse me, on the roster, even if the GM, you know, Joe Shane is technically just a college scouting director now, but you know, do we have guys on this roster that are not going to fit? They might be good players, but are not going to fit what we want to do on offense or defense. Because if we do, we're going to be interested in trading them. So that gets out this week. Hey, these five players, we're open to trading. And then you find a market or, hey, we'd be interested in these three guys. Would you be interested in trading them? How much are they going to, like, what do you want for them? And then clearly the big name guys, everyone's going to be asking about AJ Brown and everyone's going to be asking about Max Crosby. And there are probably other, several other players that we will find out over the course of the next week that are also available for trade. what's it going to cost? Obviously, Max Crosby, I was texting with a pretty accomplished coach over the course of the last week, and he's like, I'd be a little stunned if they traded Max Crosby. They just elevated the defensive line coach, who is Max Crosby's boy, to the defensive coordinator for the Raiders. And a lot of people around the league think that's a sign they're going to desperately try to keep him in their good graces and keep him on their team, which, don't blame you, He's one of the best players in the league and very well respected. But I think they're going to treat this like an NBA player, like a Giannis, of like, well, what would it cost to get him if you would entertain trading him? To me, A.J. Brown thing's a little more complicated. He's a little bit of an older player. Now, when he's on, he's still elite, whose production's dipped a little bit the last couple years, and he's really, really expensive. In a league where you can find wide receivers kind of easily, now maybe not to A.J. Brown's level but could I sign two guys sign a guy and draft a guy for way cheaper than trading a second round pick for a $32 million guy so I do wonder if that thing's if A.J. Brown ends up going for less than you would think a player of his status and talent would go for where on the flip side I think if Max Crosby was traded my guess would be you'd get multiple first round picks. And if I was a team, the Bears, the Lions, the Bills, those type teams, the Eagles, I would have no problem giving multiple first round picks. Still risky. And this is football. Guys get hurt. He's a little bit older. He's finished the last couple of years injured. But I would have no problem making a very aggressive bid to land Max Grosby. He's that good. He's that serious. He's he plays that hard. He's that dominant of a player. I can't even imagine if you put him on a good team what he would look like. I mean, he's played on one of the worst teams in the league over the last several years and is clearly one of the best players in the league. What would he look like on a team that's winning 12 to 14 games that has help around him? I mean, it would be pretty scary. It would kind of look like Micah Parsons this year on the Packers. It's like, holy shit, this guy looks good. Okay, so we got that out of the way. To me, the second most important thing is just meeting the draft guys. And this is where the Rams and the Jags guy, Gladstone, They feel this creates some bias. At the end of the day, you are acquiring human beings. And while your scout, whether it's the SEC scout, your West Coast scout, whoever, has met these guys. Maybe your college director has met these players in an all-star game. Or when they've gone to the school. Your GM and your coach have never met these guys. Now, what can you make in a 15-20 minute interview with the player? Obviously, you've got to take it with a grain of salt. but I do like meeting other individuals if I'm going to be in the business of using a high draft pick on them. That kind of matters. And also meeting a guy, if you have some questions, what does he do when we, when we ask him something that maybe isn't that comfortable? And it doesn't have to be, Hey, remember when you got a, your second DUI at 19 years old, it could be a simply something like this is what we saw on tape and it really bothers us. What do you have to say for it to see what he answers. And I think there's value in meeting people. I think we would all agree in this world. I mean, several years ago, it's like no one's ever going to meet in person again. Everything's going to be zoom business travels done. It's like, no, actually it's not. I flew across the country last year to help land deal and it mattered and it worked. Why? Because talking to people face to face will always have value, at least for the foreseeable future. And I think that's no different when it comes to football, just like it's no different in whatever business we're in. And I think meeting these guys initially really matters and laying the groundwork of a relationship that you can build on and see if this is something you'd be interested in. Because for as much as you are drafting the player to put on the pads and make tackles and throw touchdowns and catch touchdowns, you are signing the player. This goes back to the James Pierce situation. No one, and I repeat, nobody in the NFL would have said last year at this time, James Pierce couldn't play football. That guy is like, holy shit, this guy's a big time talent. In any draft, he's a top 15-ish talent. But we're not comfortable with the guy. But with those type players, I want to get to know the guy. That's the business we're in. To do the research, to do the detective work, to do the vetting of the human being. It's not that complicated. So I can never get on board with these guys not valuing the combine, when it just comes to meeting the guys. Two, or excuse me, the second part of the draft prospects, and you could argue this is equally as important, at least with anyone that has question marks, is the injury information. The NFL differs from baseball and basketball. Like in basketball, these guys don't give out injury information. I remember, listen, I grew up a Sacramento Kings fan. The top prospects still to this day, like withhold medical information from the Kings. It's like, yeah, we're just not going to give it to you. Why? Because we just fucking think you're a joke. I mean, that's why. In the NFL, these guys go to the combine, and they go to a medical check where every trainer, every doctor is there, and they get full-on physicals. So sometimes, you know, a guy's never been injured. He's never had an issue. And then something comes up. And before, this has also saved people's lives. They found situations with regular heartbeats. there have been countless examples of that and this is also where you get into kind of weird territory where one team and their doctor will go we have this guy as a medical red flag we do not think he will last more than two or three years and so that team, like what are you supposed to do as a GM or a coach? you just got to listen to your doctor and then you take him off the draft board and then all of a sudden that guy has a 10 year career makes a couple Pro Bowls and you're like, well we really like the player and our doctor told us not to do it And there's nothing you can really do about that. That's the subjective nature of this time of year. I mean, most famously, it potentially derailed Nick Saban's career in the National Football League. The Miami Dolphins team doctor failed Drew Brees on a physical. The Saints clearly did not. How'd that work out? Not worked out for Saban, at least in college, but not in the pros. so I just think that the medical information during this time of year is extremely important and every team is it's one of the biggest priorities of the combine uh and last but not least and I think this is diminished over time the on the field work you know Belichick's big thing always was, now you could hit him on drafting as he got older, but we're not signing guys to lift 225 pounds. We're not signing guys to run the short shuttle. We're signing guys to play football, right? So the underwear Olympics gets some pushback, which I understand, though there are some basic metrics that you need to be able to do to excel in the NFL, right? You can't be a 4'8 corner. That ain't going to work. I don't give a shit what defensive scheme you run. Right? So obviously there are some basic metrics that you run. The biggest part of the on the field workout, whether it's the 40s, whether it's some of the, the short athletic testing, whether it's the jumping, whether it's just some basic open field movements, it's comparing it to previous drafts. So when I say, hey, this wide receiver reminds me of Zay Flowers, or this guy reminds me of Fletcher Cox, or this guy reminds me of whoever, well, we can put their tape against each other, and then we can put their physical metrics against each other. I say it all the time, it's a lot like real estate. The physical testing determines your market value in the draft. It does not determine if you're going to be a good player or a bad player. It just determines what I have to pay for you. So if you run a really slow time as a wide receiver, you're probably not going to go super high. So I still might really like you. Can I get you in the third round? Puka Nakua, Devontae Adams, I can get, I don't have to draft in the top 50. Devontae might have been, I think he was like 55 or whatever, but that's my point. Keenan Allen ran a 4.77. Did that derail his career? No. Why? Because he can get open. DeAndre Hopkins probably couldn't run a 5.040 right now. Doesn't matter. elite contested catching guy. So I think a lot of guys, like one of the stories right now is Fernando Mendoza is not going to throw at the combine. Don't blame him. He just played 16 games. He played one of the most important four game stretches in the history of college football. Beat Ohio state, beat Alabama, beat Oregon and beat Miami. Every team in the league watched every single snap of those games in terms of their scouting department. Like you've seen enough And you've seen over the body of work of this year, he's been a multi-year starter. He honestly doesn't need to throw. And one of his big things, I will throw. I'll just throw at the pro day with my guys. Don't blame them. A lot of these guys, if some of the Miami guys, if some of the Ohio State guys, I've seen these guys play a lot of games. The film is what matters. And as long as they do that at their pro day, it's like, I don't have a big deal with it. I don't have a big issue with it. And if some guys don't want to do some open field workouts and want to do individual workouts with teams, that doesn't bother me either. The world has changed. It used to really bother teams. I think it bothers teams way less and less in 2026. So there's still a lot of value with the Combine. There's still a lot of interest with the Combine. I think the Combine has become a lot different for teams. It used to be a grind. It used to do workouts. Once the workouts start, like Thursday through Monday, they would start bright and early, and then you'd be interviewing guys until like 11.30, midnight. I mean, they were long days. Now the interviews, I was texting with a buddy. I'm like, what's the schedule now? He's like, it's way easier. You get interviews closer to the morning. You get some of these workouts in the afternoon when you kind of zone out because all that stuff's taped anyway. So I just think the combine is kind of morphed. And for my own personal interest, I hope it stays in Indianapolis. But if I was a betting man, it's probably not going to be in Indianapolis long-term. Can I tell you about my new friends, Z-Biotics? Let's face it. After a late night with drinks, I want to bounce back, and I want to bounce back fast. Z-Biotics is a pre-alcohol probiotic drink that is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It's been invented by PhD to tackle rough mornings after drinking. You have one before you start. You have a few cocktails, you hydrate during, and the pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. 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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. 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. 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. 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Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. another big story is the Chicago Bears and for those of us that don't live in the area or know the area when you just see the Chicago Bears are going to move to Indiana like I don't know if I didn't listen in uh in geography but I'm like damn they're gonna move a long way away and then you hear people break it down it's technically like 30 miles from where they play now but when factor in traffic, it's like an hour drive, and depending on where you live, it could be a couple hour drive. It's like, okay, it's not as crazy. But when I was in radio, we had the Raiders. And an enormous story during that period of time was the relocation of the Rams, the Chargers, and the Raiders. And my overall take is, as a fan, it is exhausting. It is an exhausting situation as a fan. Now, the Raiders, even looking back, I was biased because I was in business with the Raiders. I didn't want them to move, so I rooted for them to stay. Though, big picture, you would much rather be, from a financial standpoint, in Vegas than in the city of Oakland, especially when you factor in there's another team that takes up all the resources in the area, given it's the 49ers. And the Warriors had left, and then obviously the A's had desperately been trying to leave forever. And you think they've pulled it off. They're currently playing at a AAA stadium in Sacramento. But the point is, like, every team left Oakland. The Raiders weren't alone. The Rams had been stolen from Los Angeles. So when, you know, back, I remember Joe Buck getting so mad. It's like, the only reason you had the Rams is because you took them from Los Angeles. They weren't technically your team. San Diego, I wish they would have stayed in San Diego. financially from knowing people around that organization. It was the right economic move. And this stuff is all about economics. This situation happens when there are two variables. And I ultimately got fired for this because, well, this and I used to piss Mark Davis off because I used to, their team was terrible. I did the post game show and I used to be like, this is awful. But they used to get really, really mad when I would come on air and talk about how stupid the move was. Like they wanted me to be like an activist, push propaganda. And I was like, I shouldn't move to Vegas. Now, if I removed my emotional attachment to the, at the time, all the people in my life were like, it's a no brainer move. It was a no brainer move. And financially, the Raiders are way better off now than they were when I was around them. And they were in major, major economic trouble. The bears are on a higher level because they're in a major, one of our biggest cities in America that has unlimited financial capital in terms of to invest in the team, sponsorships, suites, like they will have no problem printing money. But like the Raiders situation, like the Bengals situation, their owners do not have liquid cash. And whenever I see people online of like, we do not give billionaires tax breaks. There's a big difference between a David Tepper who owns the Panthers. I just saw a headline that Steve Cohen made more money last year than any other hedge fund in America. Steve Cohen, profit was $3.4 billion. David Tepper was right behind him at $3.2 billion. That has nothing to do with the Carolina Panthers. He made $3.2 billion in his side business. Well, he'd say probably his main business, but maybe the Panthers are his main business. But you know what I mean? David Tepper is a money printing machine. You see this with Steve Ballmer. There is no amount of money that's any issue to the guy. Hell, he hates that there is a salary cap in the business that he's in now in the NBA because it neutralizes his ability to outspend people, right? And so when you look at the Bears, their family does not flush with cash. Stan Kroenke, we had Al Guido on, and he was talking about the cost of making these stadiums. And he mentioned there was a $6 billion stadium. You know who paid for that? Stan Kroenke in cash. Maybe not all cash, but he paid for it. All. Stan. But that's his. He owns that himself. He rents it out to the Chargers for a dollar a year, which isn't a hell of a deal, but it's Stan's. Why? Because he has an ungodly amount of money. When you want to build one of these stadiums and you're someone like the Raiders seven, eight years ago, they needed help. They could not do it on their own. Not because they're these filthy rich guys that are hoarding all this money. They don't have the money. They can't do it. And whenever I see people, if you can't afford to build a stadium, you should sell the team. That's a great mindset and theory. No one thinks like that. And the McCaskies definitely are not selling the team, at least for the foreseeable future. So if they're going to build one of these stadiums, especially in a place like Chicago, it's going to be expensive as shit. and they do not have the cash to spend three, four billion dollars, which I'm sure that's what it would cost in Chicago. When you factor in the unions, when you factor in all the red tape, when you factor in the building costs, it would be astronomical. It was like the 49ers when they built in Silicon Valley, which they got a lot of shit for because the stadium was much closer to the city. They could not build the stadium on their own. They needed help. And Santa Clara gave them that help. They gave them a lot of money to help build the stadium and 49ers split a lot of the profits with them. Why? Because the Yorks did not have the money to do it. So these situations are only possible to get this weird twofold. The owners don't have money and you get to these politicians that are just kind of wacky. And Chicago politicians like Oakland politicians are big on our taxpayer dollars, are not going to go toward a team, which listen, okay, but are you going to lose the Chicago Bears? Are you going to lose the Chicago Bears? Like, is that going to go on your watch? The Chicago Bears leave? Because I've seen this song and dance before. They might leave. If you do not help them, they might leave. And that goes on your watch, which is okay. Just do it. Just deal with it. And here's the thing is the NFL, they were like, I remember in Oakland, we're not dealing with Libby shaft. We would never do business with this human being. So we're not going to like get into this war of fucking power. Fuck you. We're out. And that's how that operated. And I could see Chicago going like this too with, I saw the mayor, the chubby billionaire, JP, whatever his last name is. One of his big things was like, you know, we've talked to them and our, we're big on affordability. So if we do help you, we got to make these tickets. So he's trying to determine what they can sell tickets. It's like, this is never going to work. This is, they're just at an impasse and this thing could get a lot uglier before it gets better but here's what I know if I'm Roger Goodell I gotta have the Chicago Bears in Chicago so we gotta figure out a way to make this happen and I googled it the Bears the McCaskies own 80% of the Bears which is obviously a large chunk uh do they have to sell some percentage to help have people come in and get them kind of like the Raiders did with uh Brady's crew of super billionaires I don't know but if I'm Goodell, I just can't have the Bears be playing in Indiana. I just, I really can't. So I wonder when the league gets involved, which I would imagine will be relatively quick before a ground's ever broken. But I've seen it before. I would not just like, I don't think some of these reporters are doing like propaganda for the Bears to go like, this is real. Like, I think we're far enough along. Like, yeah, this is real. Like, this is real. They don't have the money to build in Chicago or in downtown Chicago, which is ideal whenever you're in one of these major cities to put a stadium down there. But if you don't have unlimited cash, it is not financially viable to do it because you don't have the money. So I think these situations take on a life of their own. And I think the situation's got a chance to get a lot weirder, right? I know several people that are associated with the Big Ten. like Kevin Warren is not exactly viewed as some like genius deal maker. Obviously the people, the politicians in Chicago are not exactly viewed like Warren Buffett when it comes to fucking handling money. So you got a lot of different moving parts here. I, my bet would be this situation's going to get a lot more bizarre before we ever get, Oh, they've just figured something out all as well with Chicago bears. My take is the Chicago Bears got to play in Chicago. Chicago Bears got to play in Chicago. I don't think that would change. The Kansas City, Missouri thing, like moving across, that's not as weird. Chicago Bears got to play in Chicago. Now, whether that's in the suburbs or whatever, I'm not as caught up on that. I'm not as bothered with the 49ers playing in Silicon Valley as some people. At first, it was like this kind of stupid. Over time, it's like, I get it. It's a longer drive. You're coming from Sacramento, candlestick there. It is what it is. Some people like it. If you lived in San Jose, it's great. It's way closer. So buckle up, I guess, if you're a Bears fan. The Volume. 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.
