Welcome in to the newest edition of the Just In Time Sports Podcast.
I am your host, Justin Jackson.
In this week's episode, I'll be discussing the NFL as training camps begin to open.
I'll be discussing the NBA, some quick hitters there, I'll touch on college football, and
then we'll have our best for last.
Now, as always, don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe to the Just In Time Sports Podcast
on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to like, follow, and turn on your post notifications for all Just In
Time social media for your breaking news, updates, and highlights.
Now as always, don't forget to sit back and get ready to learn something.
Welcome into the show.
I'm so excited to be with you guys on a Friday afternoon as we've gotten used to recording
these things.
This will be one of the few podcasts all year that you guys will hear pretty soon after
I record it.
I mean, it might be one of those instant upload things, like as soon as I finish, edit it
and upload it situation.
So the news will be current, the information will be current.
You won't have a delayed reaction like you guys sometimes have if I record the night
before and upload it the morning after.
Test that.
And a third.
But of course, you guys heard in the intro what we have in the NFL, including my full
schedule predictions, is when I spend way too much time, about an hour, hour and a half,
picking every single game through the season.
We'll get into that more in just a few minutes.
Of course, we'll have the NBA, we'll have college football, some basketball news as
stuff is moving around, and then we'll have our best for last.
Everything is always a timestamp.
So if you're a football person, you stick around here, your NBA, jump a little further
in, your college football, jump a little further in.
And then of course, best for last is going to be on Shohei Ohtani.
So if you want to hear a little Ohtani awe and wow, jump into Shohei Ohtani.
But as always, we're going to start off with the NFL, which is usually our block, especially
when the NFL season is in, it is the NFL.
Training camp is open.
And of course, there's usually highlights.
There's always some unfortunate injuries.
This time, there was some very, very incendiary comments, which is not typical this time of
year, at least not from coaches.
So we're going to jump right into the quick hitters with some injuries before we go into
the main purpose of this A block.
And that is, he started off with Jalen Ramsey, a Miami cornerback, Jalen Ramsey suffered
a meniscus tear.
He underwent a full complete repair actually today.
Few hours ago, actually underwent surgery and it was a full meniscus repair that would
not come out until at least December.
So unfortunate for him, he was that big acquisition his off season after getting Tyreek Hill last
off season, his office when he got Jalen Ramsey this off season to solidify the defense opposite
Xavier Howard and the rest of that Miami Dolphins team, especially on that defense and he's
out till at least December.
Reportedly, he was guarding Tyreek Hill on a pass route, went down grabbing at his left
knee.
Now Ramsey is not financially incentivized to rush his recovery.
He's fully guaranteed this year and he's fully guaranteed next year.
He renegotiated on his way into Miami.
So he's not financially incentivized at all to rush back.
You see some guys, oh, they're in a contract year or this is the last year they're guarantees,
which in the NFL is a contract year or this is the last year where like next year is a
$2 million guaranteed roster bonus.
So they rush back trying to show they're healthy so they don't get released and have to renegotiate
a contract and everything.
He's fully guaranteed this year and he's fully guaranteed next year.
So he's in no financial incentive to rush back even in the slightest.
So it'll be very interesting to see what Ramsey ultimately decides to do.
He's tweeted out his end of the season push is going to be legendary.
So he's planning on making his return this season.
He's a baller, he's a gamer.
He's not one of those guys that I would say, okay, he takes the whole year to come back,
make sure he's fully healthy for next year.
He's not one of those guys.
If they say he's clear for week 10, he's planning week 11, you know, like he's ready to go.
He's going to obviously going to work himself back smartly.
He's not going to rush it.
But at the same time, he's going to be back this season.
I would be highly shocked if Jalen Ramsey does not play this season.
So again, full meniscus repair for Ramsey.
Expect him back around December ish from that repair.
Cincinnati Bengals underwent the scare of a lifetime and Joe Burrow was escaping the
pocket outright.
I have it posted on my socials escaping the pocket outright.
Came up lame, starts limping around the field.
He immediately goes down.
Obviously everybody in the state of Ohio, especially in the Cincinnati area collectively holds
their breath because Joe Burrow is on the ground.
He ended up being a calf strain, one of those things where it looked a lot worse than thankfully
it was.
But he goes straight down and people are just absolutely terrified.
You know, it gets to the point where we came out, it was a calf strain and the people,
the Cincinnati Bengals had to to the social media message out like, hey, stop offering
us your calves.
That's not how it works.
It's going to be fine.
Jamar Chase right after practice.
Well, they came right out.
Zach Taylor right after practice came right out and was like, hey, you know, no worries.
He'll be back.
He's fine.
Jamar Chase stated right after.
No, no, no, he's good.
We have this thing where we nod to each other if we're okay.
He gave me the nod.
So that was definitely helpful for Cincinnati Bengals fans to kind of take a deep breath.
Like I said, understandably, they were nervous.
And when any time you get a franchise quarterback scrambling out of the pocket and understandably,
there's nerves.
Like I said, you get him scrambling out of the pocket.
He goes down.
It's a non-contact.
You always hear about, oh man, non-contact is the worst because that means the body just
gave out.
It's not a situation where he gets hit and twisted and turned and then he's on the ground.
It's just the body quit, which of course strikes fear in the heart of every single Bengals
fan or every single Joe Burrow fan.
You know, he's an LSU alum just like myself.
I definitely want to see the guy healthier than planned.
So seeing him go down like that, especially non-contact definitely shook the nerves a
little bit.
Like I said, it was a quickly reported right after that, that he was able to be diagnosed
quickly with a calf strain.
So kudos to Joe Burrow there for dodging what again, appeared like a very serious injury
at the point of attack.
Like I said, your guy scrambles to the right, fairly natural movement, no real pressure
because of course it's the quarterback in his training camp and then he pulls up lane.
So a lot of nerves went through a lot of people, but he's diagnosed with a calf strain.
He'll be fine two to four weeks.
He wasn't going to play in the preseason anyway.
This is kind of confirms he won't even think about seeing the field and it'll be keeping
very light.
He should be ready to go for a one or a reason why he shouldn't be.
And then we got to the news, the bombshell news, the news that kind of dropped on everybody.
From the sky, basically.
I've never seen this happen.
This is one of those things that as I read it, I almost was waiting on the, oh, it was
off the record that came on the record or a recording that somebody got off a locker
room.
It felt like when Antonio Brown recorded Mike Tomlin speech in locker room, he went on Facebook
live in the middle of Mike Tomlin's post game speech from like behind a locker and
like recorded Mike.
It felt like something where two friends, Sean Payton and the reporters are friends
and they get to talking and the guy just asked him a question and Sean forgets to say off
the record.
And then the guy records it and prints it the next day and Sean has to immediately backtrack
everything.
It felt like one of those moments.
Now Sean did backtrack some of it this morning, coach Payton for the Denver Broncos.
He backtracked some of his inflammatory comments about Nathaniel Hackett this morning.
Pretty much said I was the first guy I saw, first questions I saw really early in the
morning.
I barely had anything in me.
I just, he said he just started talking to guys, a friend really good at his job, kind
of give him the week, week.
They kind of ease me into it kind of thing.
He said, I got comfortable.
He even mentioned one time, he said, I kind of had my Fox hat on and not my Broncos hat
because Sean Payton was an analyst booth where you're, where you're critical.
And that was one of the things recently retired players had, they had to toe that line or
reaching retired coaches, whatever, had to toe that line of I still have friends in this
business.
I still know these people.
I still may want to come back, especially players.
Like I still want to come back coaches.
I still may want to come back.
Right.
So I can't be overly critical.
How do I be critical?
And he's like, Oh no, it's my job.
Like, um, I remember Charles Barkley, the reason him and Michael Jordan fell out.
It's because he said something about Jordan's ownership and him enjoying having cool sense.
So it's that thing where you got to toe that line of, I still know these people.
I worked with him.
I coached him.
I traded him.
I released him, you know, that sort of thing, that balance.
So he said he had his Fox hat on and not his Denver Bronco coach hat.
And he let Nathaniel Hackett have it.
Holy crap.
I've never like everything I thought I saw.
And, you know, I think I know for all pretty well.
I'm a high school football coach, defensive coordinator.
For those who didn't know, um, I watched the games closely.
I analyze this stuff.
I break it down.
I care about it with you guys.
Like I thought I saw stuff and stuff just wasn't adding up for me.
But to hear Sean Payton absolutely is excoriate him.
My God.
I mean, he blamed him for everything.
And he didn't even blame him for too much on the field stuff.
It was stuff like they couldn't get pre-snaps.
They couldn't get the call.
And they were twin at the pre-snaps.
And it was both sides of the ball.
He blamed the parents for us at the gym and the president and everybody else who watched
it happen.
He said everything I heard and Nathaniel Hackett did, we're doing the exact opposite.
He said, watch how the Jets go down this year.
He was saying he saw the Jets.
He said he seen them just before and watched them put together the dream team.
He said he was a young assistant with the Giants and watched them put together the dream
team.
And he was wondering, Oh my God, how are we even going to compete with them?
And they won like nine games.
He said, watch how the Jets go down this year.
I mean, it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew all across the USA
today on the record.
It was absolutely insane.
I mean, I was just sitting there like, I agree, but good Lord.
First of all, let's get that out of the way.
I think the Jets are going to win nine games this year.
Wait, what do I have them at?
I picked every game this year.
I have the Jets at eight.
I'm sorry, eight games this year.
Let's just get that out of the way.
Secondly, Nathaniel Hackett is not very good at coaching.
I don't know why the Jets, if you're going to go get Aaron Rodgers, can you just keep
Mike LaFleur because Matt LaFleur is the head coach of Green Bay and Mike LaFleur runs
a similar system, they're brothers, I felt like that was an after transition.
Maybe I was wrong.
Apparently I was wrong.
They got rid of Mike LaFleur, brought in Nathaniel Hackett, brought in Aaron Rodgers.
Ironically, the Denver Broncos reportedly only hired Nathaniel Hackett because remember
the Aaron Rodgers sweepstakes 12 months ago?
They were trying to get his office of coordinator from Green Bay as the head coach of Denver
and then bring Rodgers from Green Bay into Denver.
The problem was Denver, Green Bay either wasn't sold enough on Jordan Love or wasn't fed up
enough with Aaron Rodgers, kept Aaron Rodgers another year, Denver pivots Gugas Russell
Wilson.
They probably, if they go with Russell Wilson, would have hired the Seattle Seahawks officer
coordinator to the head man of Denver and then bring Russell in.
Because they were trying to avoid what happened to me with Peyton Manning.
Peyton Manning came from Denver, Tom Brady too.
Peyton Manning came from Indy, went to Denver, tried to run whatever system they had in Denver
for like a week or two weeks.
Didn't last long.
And then he's like, okay, we're doing this my way.
Put his system in, taught it to the coaches basically.
This how it's run, this how it's set up.
When this happens, it's usually curve boom, boom, boom, boom.
Because even at the high school level, once you know a system so well, the quarterback,
like I said, even at the high school level and the team should go, okay, it's third and
seventh.
We usually run boom, boom, boom.
It's third and sixth.
It's second and eighth.
We used to go boom, boom, boom.
Okay, we're trailing down 14.
This is the sequence of plays.
Like you should have it in your brain.
So Peyton knew it so well, he could coach it, he could run it.
Peyton was running no huddle before anybody was running no huddle pretty much and consistently.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, touchdown.
You know, so Peyton put it in.
Tom went to Tampa, running Bruce Arians, no risking, no biscuit, gunning, gunning.
They're struggling.
Tom's frustrated.
They're struggling.
They have a bye week.
They said Tom comes in, puts in the Brady's offense, puts in the offense he just running.
They take off winning the Super Bowl.
Because again, I could teach you what usually happens.
Now you can add your own wrinkle and add your own spice to it, but I can teach you the plays,
I can give you the playbook.
I can teach you what usually happens and they kind of molded it.
They took the language their left foot was running already and molded it into Brady's
language and what it's supposed to look like.
Bam, you win the Super Bowl.
Why didn't the left foot get the head coaching job after that?
Instead of top bowls?
I don't know.
But damn, you win the Super Bowl.
So last year you took Russell Wilson and put him in the Anarajah's offense, but Nathaniel
Hackett was running the show.
Nathaniel Hackett sucked the call in the plays and he sucked the game management.
So as a head coach, hear me out, as a head coach of a football team, you had to make
a choice between giving up game management decisions or giving up play calling decisions.
As the head coach, the only choice there, no bullshit, sorry for my language, the only
choice there is giving up play calling decisions because you're the head coach.
You have to game and team manage.
That is your choice, period.
That's the only option you got.
I can't help you any further than that.
I really can't.
He hires a game management coach.
So why are you the head coach?
At that point, you're an offensive coordinator with a fancy title because you're not game
managing the game because the guy in your ear is telling you what to do with game management
decisions based on I'm sure analytics.
If you're not managing the game and you suck at play calling, what are you doing?
By November, a few weeks before he gets fired, he gives up play calling.
So he's not game managing because he's a game management coach.
He's not offensive play calling because he gave that up trying to kick start the offense.
And of course, he's not defensive play calling.
He's there collecting a check.
The GM goes and then they fire Nathaniel Hacker.
He's 4-13 and he's canned or 2-13, something ridiculous, 4-11, I don't know, but he's
canned.
Update, Joe Burrow is expected to be sidelined several weeks due to his calf strain.
Let me just do what I said, I said he should be ready to go by week one.
Several weeks, we're about four weeks out from the regular season.
Again, he should be ready to go by week one.
And actually, I had a brain cramp.
We're about six weeks out from the regular season.
Calf strain is anywhere from three to six.
So even if it's one of the worst calf strains that could be a pure strain, he'll be ready
to go for week one.
It probably took about four weeks to have two weeks to get warmed up, get back into
the flow of the offense.
It's his offense.
So get back into the flow of the offense and he'll be ready to go by week one.
But anyway, so back to the Denver Broncos, you shoved Russell Wilson, Square Pegg into
Nathaniel Hacker the round hole.
Nathaniel Hacker was useless.
He's fired.
That's how you even get a Sean Payton.
I mean, what he said was true, but I think you never heard it.
And then you've gotten ex-Jets, an ex-Broncos current Jets player, offensive lineman.
So he was working with Nathaniel Hacker then.
He's working with Nathaniel Hacker now.
He said, oh, something along the lines of you're going to realize, or he's saying this now
because he realized what he got himself into.
But you're going to see basically, you know, basically like, you know what you got yourself
into now, you're going to realize what you're saying.
It's not because you realize what you got yourself into.
Call Sean Payton a bum and to hashtag Bounty Gate, which, okay, take out the Bounty Gator.
Sean Payton is a PJ Williams, Miss Tackle in the NFS championship game against the Vikings
or NFS.
What was the second round?
Because the Vikings seem to play the Eagles of a title game.
That's a Nick Folso bowl.
And then the following year, he has the infamous Rams no call in the NFS title game to play
the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
So he's not a bum.
He's also in another NFS championship game with his first year on the staff because that's
the year they got Reggie Bush, Drew Brees, everybody came together.
They lost to the Bears in the NFS title game in Chicago because Reggie Bush has the famous
long run out running Brian Erlich to the end zone from like 70 yards away in the snow.
It was insane.
That's the NFS title game as well to play the Colts in the Super Bowl.
That's the year Payton wins the Super Bowl.
His first one.
He's not a bum.
So know your history before you call Sean Payton a bum.
But I think what Sean Payton does, he said it.
He said people know I'm savvy in the media.
He was smart.
He excoriated the past coach.
He excoriated the past culture.
Basically announced to the world, it's a different culture, it's a different team.
Those guys who were hacking loyalists are now jets.
They got those guys out of here.
They're not here anymore.
So big, big major kudos to Sean Payton for having the gall to do that.
It's not something you would ever see to me.
I thought you would ever see from a big time head coach.
But I think Sean Payton is speaking with a sense of invincibility.
He paid me about a hundred million dollars to come out of retirement.
I was fine as a Fox analyst.
I was making good money.
I paid him about a hundred million dollars to come out of retirement.
Probably even pick up the phone.
You handed me a situation where I got a team pretty much ready to go.
A couple pieces here and there, maybe a standout at running back, maybe an offensive lineman,
possibly a linebacker, but they're pretty much ready to go as far as they're ready to
go win.
Now they're in the division with the Chiefs.
That's a pain.
And the Chargers now, that's a pain.
But other than that, they're ready to go compete for a title right now with a real head coach.
It would depend on how much left for Russell Wilson, but I believe in Russell Wilson.
So I think they're ready to go compete.
And I think Sean knew that and he needed a culture.
He's thinking this is my last job.
I'm not taking another job after this.
I'm going to go back to Fox after this is done.
I'm done as far as I don't need to capitulate to anybody.
I'm never going to hire Nathaniel Ackett.
I don't need to capitulate to anybody and bow down to anybody because this is my last
job.
I'll go in the booth right after this.
Anyway, five minutes, two years, I'm going in the booth with a hundred million dollars
richer.
So that's something that I think he spoke with the level of impunity and immunity because
he knew that he didn't have to deal with the consequences of, oh man, I may have to call
the Jets for a job.
You know what I'm saying?
Or I may have to call friends of whoever for a job.
I don't need that.
George Patton's friends.
I think it's George Patton's friends who was the last GM of the, no, he's the new GM of
the Denver Broncos.
But you know, like I may have to call Woody Johnson's friends to get a job.
Like nope, Robert Salas, nope, not at all.
Hackett's friends like, no, it's my last job.
So with that level of comfortability and level of security, he spoke his mind.
I'll say he was sleepy and people when they're sleepy, usually can't hold back as much as
they want to so that true feelings come out.
But that's how he felt.
I'm sure that's how a lot of people felt.
He got in one of the worst coding jobs in the history of the NFL.
I agree.
It was bad.
It was God awful.
And so Sean Patton spoke his mind and I respect him for doing it.
The NFL running back market is the same.
Saquon Barkley basically took the same contract he could have signed two months ago or assigned
a month and a half now because instead of a one year, 10.1 fully guaranteed franchise
tag, he signed a one year, $11 million up to $11 million contract with 9 million fully
guaranteed up to 2 million of incentives.
He basically the same contract.
He can make 990 grand more.
I don't get it.
But with this, with the contract set up with the CBA, how the CBA set up, once you didn't
negotiate that longterm contract in that window with that deadline with the deadlines, they're
going to play on the tag.
They're going to play on the tag.
There's a much lesser known rule that says you can sign a new one year contract.
So basically on the tag, you can just up your tag number.
So if you get offered, I say $10.1 million is the running back tag.
I make Saquon negotiate a new, he basically got a 990K raise.
Good for him, but he probably could have got that deal in a month and a half and not have
to deal with camp or pre-season or anything.
Show that we weren't ready to go.
Or he can negotiate it some big one year, 15 million deal.
You know, Saquon could have ran the risk once the tag is offered, it's there.
They can't really pull your tag once it goes past the deadline.
So he could have ran the risk of the Giants open the season.
I have their schedule in front of me, Dallas at Arizona.
So they're probably going to win the Arizona game, but at San Fran at home Seattle.
If he was willing to sit out the first month, I have them in that stretch going two and
two, but let's say they go one and three.
And pretty much based on my rules, they're going to win.
They could very well lose Dallas with one.
I think they beat Arizona.
I think they lose Seattle.
They lose San Fran.
They lose Miami and lose the Buffalo.
So let's say he had the gall.
That's with him.
Let's say he's tied to sit out and that happens to them.
They start off one and five.
Oh my God, we need Saquon.
Here's one year's 18 million dollars with a no tag and a no whatever, whatever, whatever.
I thought I wanted three, no tag, no franchise tag clause and I know, um, whatever, just
you're totally free after this year.
We just need you back.
One year's 18 million dollars.
Please come back and save us.
Please say, go on.
Now you got your power back instead by not getting a no tag and not getting whatever.
You're basically in the same spot you were in last year and you now you have to report
to camp and do what they want you to do for the potential of 990 grand more.
The downside is there's a potential for 990 grand less.
I got on under or really a million dollars less.
I don't understand what the benefit of this was.
Now Josh Jacobs is holding out, but the team's going to go to him and say play on 10.1 or
what gave the Saquon do.
The exact same deal Saquon got.
Like, but Jacobs is probably going to say, shit, that's my options anyway.
I might as well wait until week one and sign and then come in the building week one and
play ball.
Like that way he's then don't have to worry about camp and the other stuff.
Um, he's not under contract, not under a tender.
So the running backs coming together, um, Darwin cooks talking about it.
The group chats now there was reported Derek Henry's in it.
They're all trying to come together and get their market back up.
Um, Nick Wright made a hell of a point.
Like the reason why there's going to be more and more quarterbacks coming in.
So that mid level quarterback point is going to plummet.
The league guys going to be the league guys, but that middle of a quarterback market is
going to plummet less and less people going to be running backs.
Which means that running back market is going to get hired because it's going to be less
of them there.
It's going to be less replacement level players to make the, even a top guy, 80% of him is
not going to be available for a 10th of his money.
And that's going to take five, six, seven years.
These guys may not be able to benefit from it, but that's basically what's going to happen
to the running back market.
So it's going to swing back up.
So the big man is coming back in basketball.
It's going to swing back.
This is my just take five, six, seven years for it to come back to a running backs are
valuable again, because you can't get, you can't go from league leading Russia to a thousand
yard back for instead of $10 million.
You get it for $1 million.
Like Isaiah Pacheco was the starting running back for the chiefs last year.
He made 970 K or something like that.
I don't think any, any leading Russian, any football champion for the past 10 years has
made over $1.5 million for that season.
Like, so when that stops being the case, let's say it might take five, six, seven years before
that seventh round pick and that first round pick really not that far apart.
Then the money will swing back up because you'll be more valued and then it'll ebb
and flow just like anything else.
But to the highlight of the eight block, it's when I pick literally every single game.
I print a schedule out, I print a schedule grid out.
I got this one from print your schedule, print your brackets.com.
They had the 2023 schedule every single game.
And so I was able to pick them all as I sit down and spot by an hour, turn everything
off.
I have automatic rules.
You split your division.
You win every home division game, you lose every real division game.
Unless you're a god awful team, you usually, that usually happens.
You usually anywhere from two and four to five in one of your divisions.
Sweep senior division are rare.
Losing every division game is rare.
You usually land between two and four and five and one.
This also gives room for games that I pick incorrectly to kind of balance stuff out.
So everyone starts out the year with three wins.
Everyone starts out the year with three losses.
And that takes away the common opponents in your division.
And then you just go from there picking games.
So if there's a green check up here, there's a black check at the bottom.
So on and so forth, they balance stuff out.
Like I said, literally everything in the game gets picked.
It takes about an hour to do it properly.
And so how the records stack out, we're going to go team by team and how the playoffs shake
out.
I'm not going to go to the playoff bracket.
When I redo this again, probably right before week one, that's when I'll go through how
I see the season going.
But this is kind of an early prediction.
Kind of your early first week of training camp sort of prediction.
Oh, Trey Turner, speaking of training camp, Trey Turner for the Saints suffered a ruptured
ruptured.
He's out for the season.
I can't think of his injury right this second.
Ruptured quadriceps.
He's out for the season.
He was signed this week in New Orleans native LSU players.
He's been in the league about nine years.
He was signed this season.
So BC's home rehabbing is the positive.
I know he really wanted to put on his hometown black and gold.
He was on a veteran minimum deal, expected to compete for a starting position.
Ruptured his quadriceps.
He's out for the season.
But back to the schedule.
So in the NFC, we're going to go NFC, then AFC.
In the NFC North, I have the Lions at 10 and 7, the Bears at 8 and 9, the Packers at 7
and 10, the Vikings at 9 and 8, Lions with another division.
In the South, I have the Saints winning division at 9 and 8, Falcons coming in second at 6
and 11, both the Panthers and the Bucks going 4 and 13.
In the West, in the NFC West, I have a three-way tie for first.
Ultimately, the 49ers win off tiebreaker.
But 49ers at 9 and 8, Rams at 9 and 8, Seahawks at 9 and 8, Cardinals at 6 and 11.
For the NFC East, I have the Eagles winning it at 12 and 5, Cowboys at second at 11 and
6, Giants third at 7 and 10, Commanders fourth at 6 and 11.
They're still in their post-Dan Snyder bliss.
In the AFC North, I have the Cincinnati Bengals winning the division at 12 and 5, Baltimore
coming in second at 11 and 6, Cleveland coming in third at 10 and 7, Piercebury bringing
up the rear at 7 and 10.
For the South, I have the Jaguars winning it at 11 and 6, Titans coming in second at 9
and 8, Texans coming in third at 7 and 10, Amphanage just standing the Colts.
Bringing up the rear at 4 and 13.
For the West, I have the Chiefs winning it at 12 and 5.
The 1 second, I have a two-way tie for second between the Chargers and the Broncos.
Chargers coming in second due to tiebreaker at 10 and 7, Broncos coming in third at 10
and 7.
The Raiders bringing up the rear at 6 and 11.
And then for the AFC East, I have the Bills winning it off tiebreaker against the Patriots
at 10 and 7.
The Patriots get 10 and 7, the Dolphins and the Jets are tied for third.
No one cares who finishes third.
At 8 and 9.
Which goes into the playoffs.
The NFC will be your number one seeded Eagles getting the bye.
Two seed Lions, three seed 49ers, four seed Saints, five seed Cowboys, six seed Vikings,
seven seed Seahawks.
With the AFC going Chiefs getting the bye with the one seed.
Bengals at number two.
Jags at number three.
The Bills at number four.
Ravens at number five.
Chargers at number six.
And seven seed New England Patriots.
So that is how the playoffs would shake out.
It would be a very nice stacked playoffs especially at quarterback.
Which quarterback and head coach, how you win in this league.
It would be a stacked playoffs is that was how it would shake out.
Like I said, this is my initial predictions.
I'll do one of these right again the week one preview show.
Or at least the week.
That week there's an off week between week three of the preseason and week one.
But probably when I do it again, it will be my big prediction show.
Which when I did pretty much all the NFL show.
That'll be when I do the schedule again.
When I update the schedule again, I do the playoffs, I do the awards.
All that will be the NFL preview show.
And that show usually hits the week between the last week of the preseason.
There's an off week and then week one of the regular season.
That off week is when that show will come out.
Up next we're gonna shift to the NBA and talk about what's going on with the association.
Welcome back into the show.
And now we're going to do a little some quick hitters on the NBA.
Sorry about the long A block.
It's almost NFL season.
I get excited.
At one point we're gonna be doing 45, 50 minute hour shows just on the NFL.
So again, I apologize for the long A block, but I wanted to get all that information in
there.
There's a lot of good stuff that's happening in the NFL, so I don't want to talk about
that.
But shifting over to the association, the Boston Celtics broke the bank.
They did it.
Which I said this a month ago, maybe more.
Maybe on the last show before the break.
I said, hey guys, they got no choice.
I didn't live up to that.
But once Jalen Brown qualified for the super max, that was the end of the negotiation.
Once he became an all star and he qualified for the super max, that was it.
304 was shocking.
I thought the number was 296.
Cause that means Jason Tatum's number, I think it's 340 something or something like
that.
I thought the number was 396.
It was 296.
I thought it was 600 million being the two of them.
But regardless, or maybe Tatum's 320 something, but regardless, once he became super max eligible,
that was the end of the negotiation.
Because unless there's only two things that happen at that moment.
Once he became super max eligible, either you trade him in the off season.
You don't pay on a contract.
You just trade him.
A la the Marcus cousins with the Kings.
The Kings didn't want to pay Boogie.
They decide, okay, we're going to trade Boogie before he gets to the point.
We're going to trade him before he extends.
Because he was going to extend in New Orleans before he got hurt.
And then everything went off the rail.
But before we were going to extend them, we're going to trade them.
So either trade them a la Boogie cousins, risk playing it out.
And the off season comes and he has signs for the higher number.
Or you don't offer him the super max.
You offer him literally anything else.
And he says, screw you either trade me or I'm walking in for agency for nothing.
Like that was your options there.
You had no other no other weapon to fire.
Like, no, it's not my like, I got all these bags, all these tricks in my bag, and I got
all these guns in my host rock and fire all these bullets in the gun.
That was it.
You had three super max trade or risk him walking out the door for nothing if you don't
offer him said super max.
So they paid him five years, $304 million.
He's currently the highest paid player in the history of the NBA in a singular contract.
The last year the deal is projected to be about $69 million.
Now, this feels to me like when Mike Conley got paid, Mike Conley was the first person
to go over 150.
He signed for five years, 150, I think $4 million.
I was not even eight, nine years ago.
He was the first person to go over 150 and people lost their minds.
Oh my God, I can't believe Mike Conley is the highest paid player in the history of
the NBA.
And this, that and the third people lost their everlasting minds.
And then in two years and no one cared because we started players started going north of
200 comfortably and no one cared about my comments.
150.
I think it's gonna take a minute for Jalen Browns 304 to get like took the like Mike Conley's
150 guy.
But like Shade Gilgis Alexander on the projected pace may cost $400 million on his contract.
Luca Tatum, those guys are going to be Luca things, break it through 50 Tatum is going
to be 330.
Like John in three, four years is going to extend for his super max more than likely.
Zion, if he's healthy, he's going to extend for a super max.
Like Brandon Ingram is an all star ish level player.
If he gets two all stars in this contract, he's going to be super max player.
Like there's 303, 300 and eight, nine years ago.
Oh man, I wasn't even that much.
But at the moment, he's the highest paid player in the history of the NBA and the single contract
and he can't go left.
And everyone knows it.
Like I said, it was one of those things after the finals, Arthur the series, I was saying
like, man, that's a decision because you know that the people in the NBA are openly saying
he can't go left.
I was like, I would struggle sleeping at night paying a guy that much money knowing he can't
go left.
And because of this new CBA, you're stuck.
That's before poor lingus.
I'm like, you're stuck pushing.
You're stuck in the second tax floor.
You really can't improve your roster at all.
And you've got a guy who can't go left and Brown.
You've got a Jason Taylor who's going to pass Brown as the highest paid player ever.
So you're going to have the two biggest contracts in NBA history on your roster because you're
the first team to ever have two full super masses.
I'm not the 25% super max like 30 35% super max, they're going to have two of them.
Like that's insane.
And then poor Zing is just extended for like 30 ish million dollars a year.
Like that is insanity what they're doing in Boston, but they're doing the same thing
in Phoenix.
If you're going to be in the second tax floor, shuff past it.
Don't don't consider it.
Don't think, oh, we got to stay right around the bubble.
Once you're in it, all those things apply, whether you're one penny in it or you're
$30 million in it, you're still under the same penalties.
So you might as well, like I said, if you're going to go into that second tax floor, shove
past it.
So it used to be teams weren't willing to pay the luxury tax.
I'm not going to pay the luxury tax.
It's just, it's cost prohibitive.
You mean you'd pay it from zero to $4.99999 million.
But like once you got past $5 million, teams won't pay that repeat.
So if you were barely in it one year, you were getting out of it the next year before
you pay the taxes, all the other stuff.
Now with the new CBA and how much money people are bringing in, it's the second apron now.
So I go in the first apron, especially if I'm competing in the playoffs every year,
I get playoff revenue.
If I'm a team that can push a little bit, a couple of rounds, I'll definitely go into
that first level.
That second level, I better be winning a title.
If I'm in that second level three years, I better be in the finals, two of them and
have at least one ring.
Other than that, I spend a whole lot of money for no reason.
And so people are making decisions about what to do with salaries.
Boston decided we're going to go into the second level.
We're going to just fly into it.
It doesn't matter.
Phoenix, Matt H.B., a new owner, new money, new ego wants to win.
Screw it.
Let's go into the second luxury.
Let's go into the second tax floor.
Go as far as we can go in it.
How you have basically four max contracts.
Now none of them are super maxes or none of them are the 35% super max.
But you've got basically four max contracts.
You just decide I'm going to go into the luxury tax.
I don't care.
So kudos for Isabea and whoever owns the Celtics for deciding we don't care about the luxury
tax.
Where is it going to go into it?
Now Boston did make a luxury tax-ish move by letting Grant Williams walk.
That was a luxury tax-ish move.
It was going super, super insane in the tax.
But they could have easily matched his offer and kept Grant Williams too.
That's also a personnel decision.
They got a hell of a first round pick back.
That 20-30 opportunity to first round pick from Dallas may be a hell of a pick because
that's probably post-Luca and definitely post-Kyrie.
So that could be a beautiful asset for the Boston Celtics.
But again, that's also cleaning up the log jamming big man.
Because if you had Grant Williams, Robert Williams, Chris Stats, Poussingas, some of
them wasn't going to play.
And because of Joe Mazula's offensive tendencies, it was probably going to be Robert Williams.
Because Grant Williams has a much more developed offensive game.
So then what we're going to do with Robert Williams is it's time for him to extend.
He probably wasn't going to resign or you're going to offer him peanuts and he's going
to walk away anyway.
So it was one of those situations where you probably made your best decision for your
roster.
But at the time, it was like a tax, a luxury tax-ish move because Grant Williams was signing
for 54 with the Dallas Mavericks.
Got him to make a full mid-level exception guy.
So that's a move Boston had to make.
I kind of like what they're doing.
Obviously, I think it's pretty obvious now Brogdon is the starter.
Brogdon, Tatum, Brown, Poussingas, Robert Williams probably starting five.
That's a tall, long starting five.
Four of them are capable of hitting jumpers.
So you're going to have the key.
Oh, Derek White's also there.
Derek White, ball Derek White could be your starter too.
So Derek White, Brown, Tatum, like that's still a good lineup that they can deploy,
especially if Hamasula wants to score the ball.
Dame Watch is officially on.
Pause.
No one cares at this point because the NBA is frozen until somebody makes a move because
these salaries are ridiculous.
And all you're doing is creating strife for your organization, yourself, and the organization
you're trying to go to.
So kudos to Dame Lilla for that.
James Harden as well.
The Clippers have had what they call unserious talks, or it's being called rather, unserious
talks with the Philadelphia 76ers regarding James Harden.
They're unwilling to part with the assets to get Harden.
The Sixers are unwilling to give him away.
And even if they were willing to give him away, you've got to clear Caspades out to
get James Harden.
That's the problem.
Like, that's the issue with opting in and going for that.
You know, trying to negotiate a signing trade, you see the issue.
Same thing with Dame.
You have 170-ish million dollars left on the contract.
That's oh, I'm sorry, 200-ish million dollars on the contract.
I forgot he signed for that at Supermax.
200-ish million dollars left on the contract.
It's really hard to trade.
Like, very hard to trade.
Especially when you've got so many teams pushing against that second level of the cap.
That is, it's hard to make these deals, man.
It's pretty impossible, especially when teams are looking and saying, I'm not about to
gut my roster for one player.
That makes it really hard.
Especially when that team already has a couple of stars on it.
So we'll be definitely keeping our eye on both, all three of those situations.
Boston, Portland with Dame, and Philadelphia with James Harden, hoping for a resolution
soon rather than later.
But up next, we're going to shift to the Big 12 and discuss what's going down with conference
realignment.
Welcome back into the show.
I think the only thing moving more than the NBA is college football.
For the second offseason in a row, really, we've had major realignment news.
It started off with Texas and Oklahoma speeding up their exit from the Big 12 instead of coming
to the SEC in 2025.
They're coming in for the 2024 season of football.
Now Colorado is one of the teams replacing them in the Big 12, led by, I'm sure, the
popularity with Deion Sanders arriving in Boulder, Colorado.
Colorado actually being a former Big 12 school, they are going home.
The Big 12 commissioner released a statement, a la Michael Jordan, for immediate release
from such and such and such with the quote, they're back in regards to Colorado returning
back to the Big 12.
And they leave the Pac-12 up a creek without a paddle because they have no media deal.
They've lost UCLA, USC.
Now they've lost Colorado and they are quickly losing their talent that exists in the conference.
Oregon, what's Oregon going to do?
Oregon's been linked to the Big 10.
They were trying to jump in the mix when USC and UCLA were going to the Big 10 because
Oregon feels like a Big 10 school, very academic West coast.
Now that's not a Big 10 function, but very academic.
They've got cold, wet weather.
They've got a bunch of cool uniforms.
They're a Nike school.
They've got a rich alumni, a la Phil Knight.
They've got players.
They're good at baseball.
They're good at football.
They're good at basketball.
I'm sure they can probably get a hockey team put together quickly, sooner rather than later.
And so I think Oregon's going to jet.
I think Oregon would be attracted to the Big 12.
Now that's a hell of a travel.
That means officially Big 12 will go coast to coast.
I believe the Big 12 has UCF coming in in 2024.
That'd be great for a TV deal because then they can say we can play at 11, 2.30, 6 and
9 Central time.
That obviously translates that to Eastern and whatever time, but they can play in all
four time slots if they end up getting in an Oregon because then you can say, okay,
Oregon hosts, then they can play Pac-12 at night style at 9 or 10 PM.
And then if UCF hosts, they can play at 11 or 12, you know, and you play it literally
all throughout the day.
You could recruit all across the country.
Like it would be a great for the Big 12.
They'd pull off my American conference theme thing where one conference goes from coast
to coast.
They play all through the middle.
They play around the outside.
They just play.
They have a team all across the country.
Now a pain in the basketball, but in football, you gotta get on a plane either way.
So what's a one hour flight or two hour flight?
Oregon at UCF would be incredibly interesting.
UCF at Kansas is going to be fun.
Some of these matchups are going to be quite interesting, especially in December where
you get a kid from Central Florida.
Now he's playing at Kansas late November.
It's snowing sideways.
So that's going to be a very intriguing matchups.
But the Pac-12 needs to do something.
Now the Pac-12 offered two relief bouts and they did nothing.
They originally had an offer reportedly from the Big 12 to combine conferences.
They said no.
Back on the Big 12 knew they were losing Texas and Oklahoma.
Basically take your top six, my top six, we come together, make one conference.
Or your top seven, my top seven, whatever.
We come together, make one conference.
I don't know what they were going to call it, but that was, that was the crabby patty
formula that was tossed out.
The Pac-12 said no.
Then the Pac-12 put their foot in their mouth last week by saying, Oh, we got Deon and that's
going to be the big kahuna, a big fish for our media negotiations.
And then Deon's Audi 5,000.
So I don't know what the Pac-12 is going to do.
They have no media deal.
They're three biggest brands.
Well, they're two biggest brands and their biggest star are now leaving the conference
in 12 months.
I mean, what are you going to do if you're the Pac-12?
I don't know.
I mean, I think the Pac-12, probably 10 years ago, this was going to come down maybe more
than that, maybe 12, 13 years ago when conference realignment and the super conferences became
a thing.
Somebody was going to die.
We all thought it was going to be the ACC or it was going to be the big 12.
That the ACC, the SEC, the big 10, the Pac-12 would morph into the Pac-16, the big 16, the
ACC and the SEC.
And then the big 12 would just die.
It looks like the Pac-12 is going to be the die.
The team is going to die because that's just, there's no way to answer here.
I think the SEC is holding for now.
Maybe they go into Florida.
Maybe they go call in Miami or something.
I think the SEC is holding for now.
I think the big 10, unless they add Oregon, I think they're probably holding for now.
Oregon's got to get out of the Pac-12 because they'll be carrying the meteorites and that's
just not a good mix for them.
Stanford could be a big 10 school.
Academic, smart, they're good at a lot of sports.
Not really good at basketball right now, but they're good at a lot of sports.
Not academic and they're smart.
You can see Stanford going big 10.
Maybe Oregon goes big 12.
But I just can't see some of those bigger brands sticking around the Pac-12 and watching
it die.
Maybe the WAC takes the big Pac-12 spot, but the Pac-12 has the Rose Bowl.
There's so much convoluted stuff here.
Under the Pac-12, I call the WAC and I say, let's come together.
Under the Pac-12, we become the Pac-14 or Pac-16 or whatever when it gets to the Rose
Bowl.
That would be the thing I would dangle in front of smaller schools.
You win, you're in the Rose Bowl.
So they're going to have to do something because right now it looks like the transfer
portal is open and the Pac-12 is getting absolutely robbed.
So they're going to have to figure something out.
Otherwise, they're going to be a conference without a power or a team in it.
But up next, we're going to shift to our best for last, which is going to be a quick
discussion on Shohei Ohtani.
Welcome back into the show.
And now we're going to talk about the freakish at this point, Shohei Ohtani.
I'm not going to go into what he's doing on the season.
I don't, that's talked about enough.
I want to talk about what he did yesterday.
What he did yesterday should be illegal.
They had a double header yesterday and that's all I want to talk about.
Then we're going to end the show and we're going to wish you guys a happy weekend and
whatever.
I'm going to move on with my life.
Yesterday they had a double header.
Shohei Ohtani pitches the first game.
He has a 111 one hit complete game shutout.
He finishes the game, complete game by himself.
I got it, rest.
Less than two hours later, he's already hit two home runs in the second game.
That's ridiculous.
That's like if Patrick Mahomes decided to throw five touchdowns or Aaron Donald gets
four sacks and then throws three touchdowns.
That's absolutely absurd what he's doing.
Never seen anything like it.
The angels pulled him off the trade market.
It's going to be an incredibly interesting for agency to see what happens.
I think the Yankees are going to throw a blank check out.
I'm going to say sign here.
So it is going to be very interesting to see what happens with Ohtani's free agency.
The angels are about two games out of the last place of the wild card.
So they end up not making the wild card and they lose Ohtani, not trading him.
It may end up being one of the biggest gaffes in sports history because he would command
probably three current major league players and five foreign players easily on the open
market because you get Ohtani, you're contending.
If you're a Yankees, if you're a Yankees fan, but if you're a Yankees, if you're a Rays,
if you're Orioles, if you're Dodgers, if you're Astros, like you're one of these teams that
are in the contention, you just need a superstar, Shohei puts you over the top.
Think about an outfield when Shohei's playing the field of one call, one stand, Aaron Judge
and Shohei Ohtani.
Who's beating that?
And he's in the rotation now.
Him and, oh, I can't think of the guy's name.
The pitch, Gary Cole are the two aces on the Yankee staff.
That's the kind of thing that he's going to command in for agency.
I thought the angels should have traded him.
Highest person, highest bidder wins, but we'll see what happens.
But that is all we have for today.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your weekend.
This is your host and owner, Justin Jackson, signing out.