The Fellas with Jason Fitz & Jason Martin discuss The End of Cinderella in March, Stephen A. vs. LeBron James & MORE!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio, You're gonna hear
so many people tell you that Cinderella's are dead and
that the future of college basketball is bleak because we
don't get these dramatic stories with these schools we've never
heard of in players we don't know as they run
through the tournament, and the tournament is a result, is
not what it used to be. You hear that a lot,

(00:23):
But I'm here to tell you, I think it's a
great thing that Cinderella is dead, not the actual character,
but Cinderella's within March madness if they're dead, and it
means we continue to get basketball like we got last night.
I am here for every single second of it. It's
a Fellas on Fox Sports Radio on a Saturday morning,
hanging out with you. I am Jason Fitz hanging out

(00:44):
with Jason Martin. We're hanging out for me. The lot
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Tyrack dot com. The way tire buying should be. If
you're tuning in and you're sitting here thinking, oh my god,
that every time either Anthony or I aren't on the

(01:05):
air together, somebody thinks we got in trouble. And that's
not the case. That all. Anthony's with his kids on
a tournament this weekend, so he's not able to be
here and stepping in the legend. Jason Martin, my friend,
how are you doing. There's been a minute since we've
gotten to hang out. How's life, brother? Life is good.
Life is good. Dad of two, still in Nashville and

(01:26):
pretty much nowhere else I would rather be at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
And all the years that we have known each other
and our paths have crossed, they've never crossed on the
air before, and it's gotten the wildest part. Yeah, it's
kind of unbelievable. So when I had this opportunity thrust
to me yesterday out to meet, We're like, oh yeah, absolutely,
get me up at three thirty am. Give me set.

(01:49):
I've done the fellas with Aunt before. I've even done
it with the great Lincoln Kennedy in years past, but
never with the Great Jason Fitt. So I am super
geeked up and excited for the next four hours.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Dude. Like the first thing I thought when they said
that you were coming on. I was thinking, man, Central
time on the fellows, that that that hits a little differently.
I'm not gonna lie like we're talking about early am
in Nashville. And Yeah, the funny thing is j Martin
and I have known each other for a long time
and we get to make that joke that people make
all the time, like we've known each other since you know,
Nashville wasn't what Nashville is today. So it's a it's

(02:25):
an incredible it's incredible that we're gonna spend the next
few hours hanging out. And you know, the great thing
is as we start the show, you know, I was
sitting here a few hours ago because one of the
glorious parts about my job with Yahoo Sports is that
I get to react to all of the college basketball actions.
So as we were wrapping up our reactions, you know,

(02:45):
three hours ago to last night's action, I kept thinking, man,
this is gonna be a fun morning. And it's a
fun morning to me because the NCAA Tournament is just
this year firing on all cylinders, and I hear people
complain every single time I turn around to hear people
complain that well, there aren't Cinderellas and do this thing
is too chalk and the answer we keep hearing and

(03:07):
jamar the thing for me and Anthony knows this too
from when we're hanging out. I love to at least
reference TV ratings because I think they matter. Like there's
context to TV ratings when they're down, there's context to
TV ratings when they're up. But they are a part
of the equation to what people are watching. So you know,
we'll get into a little bit of Lebron and stephen

(03:28):
A today. And I had somebody asked me yesterday, is
Steven A even relevant? And you know, there's a ton
of numbers that show why he is, you know. And
so as I watched this INCAA tournament, it's interesting to
me that the first round ratings is they came in,
were through the roof historic. In some levels, you start
looking at the actual fact, not the cool thing to say,

(03:49):
which is, oh my god, I want to see Cinderella's
If you look over the years, in fact, the most
Cinderella run to a championship I can remember was Butler
taken on Duke. We all remember that game. It's probably
what fifteen years ago at this point, but one of
the lowest rated championship games in history because we love
the concept of Cinderella's as a society, and we love
them early in the tournament because we love drama, and

(04:11):
that's just true. But once we get into this level
sweet sixteen, Final eight, Final four, what we really love
are great brands of basketball playing great games. And my god,
we got that last night. Like, I don't know how
you can look at what we saw last night with
the outcomes of these games and the wild finishes and
not feel like the tournament isn't as healthy as it's
ever been this year with the games that we're getting. Look,

(04:34):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, I don't know if I've ever run this
theory to you before, but I've said for a long
time that what you think you want is not what
you should actually want. And when it comes to the
Cinderella is one of the greatest Cinderella games of all
time was basically perfectly scripted out, and it was Duke

(04:56):
in Central Florida a handful of years ago when Taco
Fall was there and Zion Williamson was there, and Central
Florida did not win the game, but they had them
down to the very last second and then lost. That's
perfect because you get both. You get the drama with
the team that you're not expecting, but you get the

(05:17):
one that's going to provide the best basketball and yes,
certainly the best business in Duke continuing to advance. And
so because of Nil and my partner Aeron Torres, who
I host with every Saturday night right here on most
of these very same Fox Sports radio stations. I mean,
he nailed this from the beginning, as he should, considering
his college basketball acumen. And he said, look, because of

(05:40):
the transfer portal you're looking at, For example, Florida Atlantic's
best three players playing on big brands, a few of
them still playing right now. As a matter of fact,
you had like John L. Davis playing for Arkansas, for example,
but you got one of them on Florida and all
this so it's become the Cinderella Killer because and Will

(06:01):
Wade pretty much let the cat out of the bag
when he took the NCA or when he took the
NC State job. But what he said about McNeice was, man,
I'm just happy for these kids. I'm happy for these
guys because they're gonna be making money playing somewhere else.
Next year. He just came right out and said it,
So we're gonna have to get used to this. I
think I think it's time to sacrifice to Cinderella's And yes,

(06:21):
the tournament. I think when you say NCAA tournament, most people,
especially most lay people, are most just casual sports fans
are immediately going to point to the first couple of
rounds that Thursday and Friday. I just think the Thursday
and Friday are gonna be different going forward. But as
a result, we're gonna have a much higher level of
basketball being played with teams that have relevancy, have recognition

(06:46):
and all that, and I think people are gonna have
to get used to it. My bracket right now, I
have the entire elite date. I have all of them,
and I'm not really taking a bow because I imagine
a lot of people do, because this is the chalkiest
chalk that ever chalked. It's one versus two, one versus two,
one versus two, and one versus three, And honestly, Fitzy,

(07:07):
that's just that's what I want when it comes down
to it. As a sports fan, I'm excited about every
single one of the matchups that we are going to
see and to your point, what we got last night, Man,
those were some compelling, dramatic finishes that inbounds play that
Houston pulled on Purdue. We're gonna be talking about that

(07:28):
one for a very long time. We're gonna watch that
one many more times throughout the course of our lifetimes. So,
I mean, that was great. That was just great entertainment
at the expense of Cinderella. But honestly, I'm okay with that.
I can go to I can go to an app
and watch an animated Cinderella. I don't necessarily have to
see that on my basketball floor when we get this

(07:49):
deep in the tournament.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
And that's a huge part of Look, I understand that
the appeal, especially in the gambling society, right like we
love game after game after game. The first weekend in
the NCAA tournament's pretty undefeated in just the incredible part
of it. I think what people are confusing with Cinderella
is dramatic, chaotic endings. So whereas in the first weekend,

(08:14):
because we got so many outcomes that just weren't it
wasn't close, right, we just didn't get those buzzer beaters
all over the place. But last night. You reference for
anyone that didn't see it, Houston Purdue pretty perdue by
the way, put up a much bigger fight in that
game than I thought they would. Houston. It comes down
to the wire, it's tied at sixty each, with about
three seconds left, Houston inbounds the ball in their own

(08:38):
end and the inbounder got lost like they just they
didn't cover them. Quick pass back to him, tip in
as the we get to point eight seconds left. So
basically a buzzer beater. Absolutely incredible. So we're not sitting
here complaining because we got a great game. In fact, also,
you know Michigan State was in a just a dog
fight with Old miss that came down the wire. So

(09:00):
we're not complaining because we got a great game. And
that's just part of this theme here is that you know,
even Auburn Michigan was down to the wire. It looked
like Michigan might have a shot to pull the upset.
So some of what you mentioned earlier is that you know,
it's it's the same principle. We get these dramatic games
with dramatic endings. And you know I used this analogy

(09:21):
a lot, but years ago the NPR back in the day.
For anyone that doesn't know, Nielsen ratings were done by
a survey that was mailed out, So they just asked you, hey,
what do you listen to? And you check the boxes
and that's how they decided what was popular and what wasn't.
That's how they took people at their word basically, and
NPR got fine ratings back in the eighties when people

(09:42):
were surveyed because you know, you like to tell people
that you listen to the news and smart radio and
all of these things existed. Then they gave everybody these
little like pager looking devices that they wear that actually tracks.
And the very first year that those pages were put on,
ratings plummeted for NPR. And the first reaction was, well,
my god, like, what's happening? Why are people not listening?

(10:04):
And then they realized that, like frankly, people say they
listen to smart things, but they don't. How many people
are say you know, oh ah, I read books, No
you don't. You watch TikTok, and TikTok summarizes the book
like you're not. Most people are not truly sitting here
in a book club that's actually reading books all the time.
It's just that's just being real, and nobody wants to
be honest about that stuff because it feels like you

(10:26):
want to be sure that people perceive things a certain way.
I think at the end of the day, that's a
lot like the tournament. Everybody talks about wanting these cinderellas,
but the reality of it is, if we got a
championship game there was two schools nobody had ever heard of,
and it was to you know, a group of players
that nobody had ever heard of until the tournament started,
the ratings would be trash. History has proven that over

(10:48):
and over and over again. And you know, I fought
the good fight when I first got into covering sports
and my very first show in Nashville, my co host
at the time Braiden Golf, and who we both know,
Braiden was the one that said no, no, no. I
sat on there and I said, I want cinderellas. I
want total chaos, and Braden, you know, came in and said, no,
you don't like you. If you look back at the ratings,

(11:08):
it never works. So I did. I spent days looking
at every piece of ratings information I could get, and
this is almost ten years ago, and by god he
was right. Like if you looked up and down the
history of it, the games in the Sweet sixteen, Elite eight,
Final four, and Championship that involved non traditional brands don't
rate as well. We all love to say we love
Cinderella's what we love is drama and we love everybody's

(11:30):
bracket to be busted. But when it comes time to
actually watch these games, we want see Duke North Carolina.
That's it, be real, that's what people want.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
That's right. Look, I mean we can simplify it and
just say this. There are people right now in their
cars or wherever they happen to be listening to us.
I'm welcome in wherever you are that are saying, oh,
come on, guys, what about Ali for Ruchmanesh and all
of this other kind of stuff. It's like, let me
just let me just tell you, brother, you want is

(12:00):
the story you don't want. You don't want the game
you wish that you could have the storylines coming out
of that those guys, And look, I agree in terms
of some of the stars that were made in the
tournament that you would never hear from again necessarily, but
who had their one shining moment, who had that moment,
had that weekend run, or that big shot that knocked

(12:23):
out the big dog that they can talk about forever
that we'll still remember. I understand that. But the problem
is those guys then advance and have to keep playing
sports like they have to keep playing basketball at the
expense of the team that you knew who was going
in and not even just from a rating standpoint, it's
just I can't get excited about Northern Iowa versus Richmond

(12:50):
in the ille eight. I just can't do it. It's
not that I won't watch it, but that's because I'm
a hoop ed because I'm a sports fan obviously, or
I wouldn't be on these airwaves right now. But speaking, yes,
that blue Blood Final four that we had a handful
of years ago, that was heaven to me because that's
exactly what you want because your eyes told you something

(13:11):
all the way through the season, and that is that
X school, Y school's, E school and A school were
playing the best and you know what the best conferences were.
And then they get into the tournament and because it's
a one and done scenario and anything can happen, and
there's pressure and neutral sites and all this other kind
of stuff. Weird things happen in the tournament. I don't

(13:32):
think weird is the best way to determine your champion.
And I think that should one of those Cinderella's then
end up actually winning the thing, I mean, or do
we really believe that's the best team in college basketball?
I don't think so. I think, put with truth serum,
you're still gonna say the team that got knocked out,
that had all the stars that we're gonna be watching

(13:53):
for years in the NBA, was the best team. The
best team doesn't always win, but I do think I
think that the lack of Cinderella's here does give us
a sense to whoever wins, it's we're gonna feel like
they have earned it, and we're gonna feel like they
have gone through a worthy tournament to prove it.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
He's Jason Martin, I'm Jason Fitz and some fellas on
Fox Sports Radio, and look, we're gonna break down a
lot of the football stuff that everybody cares about. We
got Aaron Rodgers to get into, we got all sorts
of Lebron drama to get into. But we're not done
with the tournament. Because coming up, there's one thing that
this tournament is missing. I would argue it's actually a
great thing, but I think it's also hurting it. I'll

(14:33):
explain what I mean when we come back. It's Fellas.
I'm Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
So Fellas on Fox Sports Radio on Fox Sports Saturday.
Jason Martin hanging out in for Anthony Garot. I'm Jason Fitz.
Tractor Supply knows that a winning season takes practice, teamwork,
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(15:14):
Tractor Supply for Life out here, and be sure to
check out the Tractor Supply Fox Sports Radio Bracket Challenge
at Foxsports Radio dot com. See how our hosts, including me,
are doing with their picks and who the top ranked
listeners are. The listener with the with the best bracket
at Fox Sports Radio wins a twenty five hundred dollars
gift card a tractor supply. Absolutely incredible. Jason Martin, you

(15:35):
said earlier you have all of the Elite eight. That's impressive.
I will be honest with you. I missed two of
our Elite eight. One of the games I thought maybe
for the first half last night, I had a shot.
I just want a little chaos, So I took Michigan.
I thought was underseated to figure out a way to
beat Auburn. But let's face at, Auburn looks now a
lot like they looked, you know, a week and a

(15:57):
half before the end of the regular season, taking out
that three of the that they lost at the end
of the regular season, So not surprised to Auburn found
a way to survive there. I also I took Saint
John's all the way to the championship because I just
I thought, you know what, bully ball ugly, maybe maybe
they can get a little bit of magic there. And
Saint John's early exit, so I got I got that

(16:17):
tragically wrong, which is absolutely killed my bracket, my friend,
but it it makes me think of something. Part of
the reason I did that is because you know, men,
I love chaos, and as a lover of chaos, part
of what I wanted was, you know, a villain final.
I just thought, you know, the chance to have a
villain coach versus a villain team Duke Saint John's, like
that just felt like the perfect villain v villain story.

(16:40):
But as we've gotten into this tournament, it's really hit me.
The thing this tournament kind of misses at some level
is the easy team to hate, Like our our Elite
eight at this point you mentioned it earlier. We've got Auburn,
Michigan State, Duke, Alabama, Florida, Texas Tech, Houston, Tennessee. Now
it's easy to hate Duke. We all hate I understand,

(17:00):
we all can easily hate Duke. But Cooper Flag is
like the anti Duke, great player, He's really easy to
root for, Like he's likable, Like there's even a likability
to the villains. What this tournament is sort of missing
to me that changes some of the I don't know
fire people have when they watch it is who is
the country just universally rooting against in this.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah? So it would have been Connecticut, right, Yeah, because
Dan Hurley right, And that's why I love Dan Hurley
For college basketball, you have to have a Dan Hurley,
just like you had to have, you know, any number
of villains in any sports. There does need to be
somebody to get to be able to rally almost everybody
against because they're so good, they win all the time,

(17:46):
and they're just irritating. So, yes, I am describing the
New England Patriots during the Belichick era, but like all
of those, it is it is noticeably absent. And look,
that was one of the problems honestly with Jay Wright's
Villanova teams when they were dominant, is they weren't that
easy to hate. They really weren't. The only thing that
bothered me is they wouldn't stop taking threes, and I

(18:06):
was getting tired of watching all of that, and then
everybody else trying to duplicate it. But Jay Wright's not
controversial in the least. It's almost impossible not to like
Jay Wright. So you look at these coaches. What kind
of meat is on the bone here? And the answer
is almost none. Now you do like whoever wins, You're
gonna feel good for them that they won, that they

(18:29):
were able to in some cases get there finally and
get the job done and maybe get that monkey off
their back or in some get back for the first
time in a long time. And then like John Shier,
he's a duke. But is there anything John Shyre is
doing that's particularly villainous. No, there really isn't. And to
your point about Cooper Flag, the most villainous thing to

(18:49):
me about him is that he wears the shirt underneath
this jersey, because for some reason that feels very dukeish
in the wrong kind of way. Like I was watching
and I think that's just me nitpicking fish. I'm just
kind of like, all right, what is it about duke
that we can pick apart here? It's not really anything
that I'm seeing. Ah, Cooper Flags undershirt, that's it. That's
the thing. That's the thing that he that's the thing

(19:11):
that just kind of stuff. Can I get behind that
and find it with Nope, still can't hate it because
I'm watching him play basketball and not only be dominant
but somehow also be unselfish at the same time, let
the game come to him being an ultimate competitor, clearly cares,
clearly loves ball, all of that. So it's just like
I got nothing, man, I got I got absolutely nothing. Like,
whoever wins, whoever loses, I'm gonna feel bad for the

(19:33):
teams that lose, good for the teams that win, because
all of them have reasons to like them.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
I mean, Okay, the shirt under the jersey question number one, Like,
I think the problem I have with that is that's
that's big boy status. You're only allowed to do that
if you're like, shirt under the jersey is what you
wore as a kid, if maybe you weren't as comfortable
and you weren't body confident enough to just go with
the jersey, like I was a fact kid growing up,
so like I wore the shirt. I think that's what, Like,

(20:01):
that's a natural thing if you're Cooper Flag, it doesn't
make any sense because you know, like if you were
going to be big boy under the jersey like or
shirt under the jersey, you got to be like a
truck of human being like that, then we allow it.
I don't think we allow it in this issue. And
it's funny because you mentioned Duke and heck I've already
gotten a tweet. It's like, oh, you know everybody hates Dukes.

(20:22):
That's true. Look, I grew up in people. Most people
that have listened to this show.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
No.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I grew up in Vegas as a kid. I went
to those UNLV running Rebels games as a kid, I
saw Larry Johnson and Stacey Augman in person. And the
first true sports moment in my life that made me
cry and just it just hurt my heart and depressed
me for weeks was Duke upsetting and undefeated UNLV team.
That was a team that I thought was gonna win

(20:51):
a national championship, but it just did not. I couldn't
conceptualize as a child how it didn't happen. I still
hate Duke to this day. I think there's no team
in sports that I dislike more than Duke basketball. That
being said, john Shire, all he's done is the impossible.
How do you how do you replace coach K and
make people forget that you've replaced coach K? Like you know,

(21:11):
Alabama football would kill to have this sort of a
result from the replacement of a legend. The Patriots would
kill to have a result of the replacement of a legend.
All John Shire has done a former player, which is
also an extra level of pressure to this is step
in and seamlessly put Duke back where Duke needs to be.
And then you've got Cooper Flagg, who isn't Christian Latner,

(21:33):
Like he isn't one of those yep, just adam to
the list of white guys that Duke have the people, hey, Like,
it's just not Cooper Flagg. So I have a hard
time finding this particular Duke team. Not Duke basketball overall, easy,
easy to ride Duke basketball, but this particular version of
Duke basketball, I don't know. It seems there's an actual
I can't believe I'm saying this, j Mart. There's a

(21:54):
likability to this version of Duke basketball. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
And look, I grew up on Tobacco Road. I'm forty six,
So I mean I went to school in the nineties,
graduated in ninety seven. You know, went to the ACC
Tournament Classic in ninety five with Tim Duncan and that
Wake Forest team beating North Carolina. So I'm like, I'm
ACC born and bred, old school ACC and so I
know what Duke ate looks like. I also know that

(22:21):
after they won the national championship in ninety one and
in ninety two, sorry to bring back the semi final
loss that then led to a final that was nowhere
near as interesting our class the next day in I
guess it would have been middle school and then into
high school. They actually brought TVs into our classroom instead

(22:42):
of teaching that day. We rewatched that because it mattered
that much because Duke basketball was just on the come
up at that point. They had gotten drugged. Remember that
fits like, yeah, your guys lost at ninety one, but
in ninety it was an embarrassment.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
One of the yeah I mean was seventy three.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh, it was just a schalalacking of the highest order,
and so they came back and won it. So there
was all kinds of storylines there. But yeah, like through
the years, Duke became the evil Empire. They became the
Yankees at the end of the at the turn of
the century, they became to me, honestly what the Golden
State Warriors sort of became, but they certainly became what
the Patriots were, and they had that aura about them.

(23:24):
I think now it's just kind of all right, so
how long is that gonna last? Is always going to
be there just because Duke is always going to be good.
I mean, they brought in a general manager who knows
what he's doing when it comes to or knows what
she's doing. I think when it comes to bringing in
the right talent, making sure that you are on the
cusp of where college sports is headed and not being
left behind, which is what's happened at North Carolina. And

(23:47):
so they're gonna have to get on that train pretty quickly,
whether they want to or not. But when you look
at Flag and guys like that, like they just look
like they're really good basketball players, they don't have like
the thing I think, the one thing that Cooper Flagg
just doesn't have that all of the aforementioned dudes did.

(24:08):
He does not have the wine jen, He does not
have the complain gene. He just goes out there in
balls he doesn't have. He also doesn't have the annoying
The most annoying duke player of all time to me
is Steve Wozahowski. And the reason why FITZI is because
he slapped the court every time down when they would

(24:28):
get over the timeline, he would stop, go down with
both hands and slap the ground on defense and I
was just like, dude, you are insufferable, Like you make
me want to drop kick something into the sun, Like
it's just outrageous. Cooper Flag gonna do any of that,
like there's nothing about him to dislike. And look, honestly,
that was true a handful of years ago when Zion

(24:49):
and that team were there. Like Zion at that point
is kind of infectious. You didn't really hate on him.
You kind of wanted to see him get beat just
because they were so good. But it wasn't a like
a ability issues. So Duke's had a couple of these teams,
but boy, college basketball could certainly use them being more
villainous right now. But I think it's just the jersey

(25:10):
itself should be enough for most of America to still
probably root against them, but maybe in the back of
their heads they're doing it against their will.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
And you're right, he's Jason Martin, I'm Jason fitz It's
Fox Sports Radio. The way you say that is really
well said, because there you can't change generational dislike, you know,
and that's that's gonna be wired in most of us.
But it just feels a little different. And I couldn't
help but even watch last night as I was watching
SPARTI get the win and think about the fact that,

(25:42):
my god, there's the ability for tom Izzo to be
with the team for as long as he's been and
just become so beloved, is I think really special, right,
Like we mentioned Hurley, and I think Hurley. The lack
of Dan Hurley in this tournament, it does sort of
it takes away the ability to galvanize against one player

(26:05):
or one coach or one story. And you know, frankly,
as guys like Izzo or the opposite, it's easy to
galvanize everybody together and root for him. You know, when
you've got Iszo sitting at the podium and talking about
the transfer portal and how he doesn't care and he's
gonna worry about the team that he's got and people
that are loyal to him. Like these messages just seem
to resonate with people. And I can't help but look

(26:27):
across the board and think that a lot of these
guys are just easy. You watch them on the sideline.
It's the coaches that are left. The players are the left.
It's it's hard to find that easy story to go against.
And so many of these players, as you mentioned in
the in the beginning of this, have risen from a
mid major process to where they are now. Like that's
for me, that's wildly easy to root for too, Like

(26:48):
I love it when kids get paid. I love it
when kids get the opportunity to live their dream at
a higher level. I love it when kids get the
opportunity to go out and shine in the tournament. Right.
And some of these guys that you know might be
playing at a school like lipscumb one year could be
the next year if they have a good game, just
a good game in the tournament, even in a loss,
because suddenly a year later find themselves playing for a

(27:08):
school like Maryland and have a much different platform and process.
So like the amount of things that are easy to
root for, like I think, I can't stress this enough.
This is all beautiful and amazing and great for the
sport and part of what I love. I just we
cannot deny a simple fact that the best Batman movies
are not defined by who played Batman. They're defined by
who played the villain. And that's just that's true in sports.

(27:31):
We want the best villains because it gives whether you're
rooting for the heel or you're rooting against the heel.
Either way, the heel is what keeps bringing you in
over and over and over again. You can't have a
hall Coguin unless hal Cogan has somebody he's taken down.
And that's that's part of what this tournament doesn't. It
has beautiful basketball and great stories to root for. I

(27:51):
just don't know that right now we're as fired up
in some ways because there isn't an Andre the Giant
that everybody wants to see. You know, body slammed.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, look, I mean you're speaking my language. Obviously. I
worked in per wrestling for ten years and wrote about
it for far longer than that, and I've said many
times that there's a reason why the heel has the
champion has the championship seventy five to eighty percent of
a calendar year throughout much of history. Right now we're

(28:20):
kind of in a different landscape because of television and
because of how things are done, But generally it's because
what you really want is to watch Stone Colt Steve
Austin go after the championship. That's what you're paying to see.
You're paying for the chase. Once he gets there. You
don't really want to pay to see him hold it
for five years. You want to see him get knocked

(28:40):
back down in an unfair way so that then he
can begin that chase again and you can get behind
him and feel like, when Steve Austin wins that title,
you won it with him because you were with him
every step of the way. You overcame all of that stuff.
You saw all the underhanded tactics and all the things
that they tried to do, and you guys overcame it together.

(29:01):
That's the exact same thing that you're laying out here.
I do think that we're I think we're watching this
tournament more unless you have a dog in a fight.
Like my wife is a giant Tennessee fan, so obviously
she has a little bit more passion directly for this
than do I at this stage of the tournament. But
I think we're all watching this with more curiosity than

(29:24):
we are some kind of defined rooting interest. We're curious
because the level of basketball time. We want to see
how this shakes out. But I don't know that we are,
just like I can't tell you overwhelmingly at this stage
who I would like to see win it, Like Rick
Barnes is a super nice man, Kelvin Sampson a super
nice man. You talked about Izzo and we could go
down the line, and it's true about all of these guys,

(29:46):
and it's just kind of like, we're gonna find out
who wins this thing. But I don't think that I'm
gonna be sad that any one of them does win it,
whoever ends up getting it in the end.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
You know. I was at the season five for Connecticut basketball,
the home home finale at Its Stores in Connecticut. I
was at the game and I watched the introductions and
they went to the whole team, and the whole team
it was fine, like the guys that you would think
got a little bit of a pop. It was fine.

(30:18):
Or the arenas packed right. And then as they were
about to introduce Hurley the letters Yukon that they had
wheeled out onto the middle center court, the flame started
firing up from Yukon and there were literally flamethrowers on
the back of everything. The lights start spinning and the
announcer introduces Dan Hurley, and I'll save your ears from

(30:40):
trying to yell the way the announcer yelled. But it
was the longest, most drawn out, insane introduction I've ever
seen for a head coach, And I mean it was
one of those he holds the word Dan for at
least thirty seconds and screams Hurley and the crowd goes nuts.
And I kept watching it thinking, man, there's a re
like the villain of Dan Hurley has become something that

(31:03):
Connecticut fans love to get behind and the rest of
the country loves to hate. And as you talk about it,
it makes me think more and more if anyone's ever
followed pro wrestling, or you know, even if you don't,
there's a truth to it. When they wanted Halcogan to
become hal Cogan, the most important part of it wasn't
just Hulk. It was making sure that there was a
villain everybody could get behind that was taken down. And

(31:24):
by taking down that villain, it absolutely made Halcogan's legacy,
right like, and that's what they do every time, Like
there's got to be an iron chic for Hulk to
take down, right There's got to be. There's a reason
that Sergeants Slaughter at one point became a bad guy,
right because it helped bring up the good guys. And
it's interesting if this exact same outcome was happening throughout
the tournament, but Dan Hurley and Yukon were still in it,

(31:48):
there would be so much attention paid to who was
finally gonna take down Who would humble Hurley would be
the great conversation everybody would be having, because the villains
the best villains. Man. When you're in the corner of them,
you love them like this. Take Connecticut loves every ounce
of Dan Hurley, and I've been hard on and I

(32:09):
think rightfully so the way he's acted through the course
of much of this season, and I've been loud about it.
But you know, when I meet up with my buddies
in Connecticut, they don't appreciate that because that's their guy,
you know. And it's just interesting because you go across
the board, like I think you're right at Tennessee, people
are not galvanized about Tennessee basketball the way they would
be about Tennessee football, negative or positive. Say Michigan State,

(32:31):
we go up and down these these these schools. It
just doesn't have that same push because it's not as
easy for somebody to say, that's the guy I hate,
that's the guy that sucks, that's the guy I want
to see lose.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
That's right, he'll sell tickets and they always will. And
they also generally are not humble about the way they operate.
That's why you dislike them. You usually don't dislike this
subtle guy that's in the background of the shot. They're
usually showman. They usually have a charisma to the something
that at the same time you dislike, you also kind

(33:06):
of wish you had a little bit more of in
some ways because it's bringing them success and that's what
Dan Hurley is and to me, that was the greatest
thing about college basketball this last couple of years, is
him elevating to that role. Yes, I agree with you.
The antics, the things that you complain about. Those are
the things that we would never we would never even

(33:27):
be able to consciously feel it. But they're good for us.
It's good to see that kind of stuff because it
gives you something. It gives you this emotional resonance, and
it just makes you tune in a little bit closer
and put a little bit more of a snarky grin
on your face. The one or two times that that
guy gets has come up.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
And it's well said by you. Coming up next to
the Fox Sports Saturday Live from the Tyraq dot Com studios,
we did get villain versus villain in the NBA, and
I think maybe everybody. He's in the wrong. We'll explain
what we need. What I mean coming up, he's Jason Martin.
I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with the other fellas. I'm
Fox Sports Radio. It's the fellas on a Fox Sports

(34:09):
Radio Saturday. Fox Sports Saturday. I'm Fox Sports Radio. I
don't know, y'all, it's early, okay. Be sure to check
out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. There's a ton
of great videos from many of our Fox Sports Radio shows.
Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube and you'll see
a whole bunch of video highlights from our shows. Be
sure to subscribe so she always have instant access to
our Fox Sports Radio videos on YouTube. I'm Jason Fitz

(34:31):
hanging out with Jason Martin. And for Anthony Gargano, want
to wish cousin luck is a kid's got a tournament
this weekend, so always want that. You know, kids, kids
and tournaments is a huge part of his life and
we're really happy he gets to do that this weekend.
So you know, bummer that we don't get to hang out,
but MVP status for Jason Martin getting up early, like
j Mart's in Nashville, it's particularly early there. The funny

(34:55):
thing is that there's a period in both of our
lives where I can only imagine that the answer to
getting up at three am would just stay up. But
you know, hey, I respect that that now. You know,
all of a sudden you start looking at the clock
and think, well, you know, should I go to bed
at nine BM? The basketball action last night was a
blessing end a curse because anyone that fell asleep you
missed some incredible endings. But also the action didn't until

(35:17):
about one in the morning, which still in an at
my core bothers me like, I'm not smart enough to
have a solution, but I don't love tournament games in
the sweet sixteen ending at one am Eastern time. There's
got to be a better solution somehow.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, look, I agree with you. I just for the
East Coast. I don't know how the kids get to
see these moments. I know I wouldn't have Dad had
me and mom and Dad had me a bed none
nine thirty maybe ten on Friday because of TGIF, because
I had to see just the ten of us before

(35:52):
I went to bed, and then maybe I could talk
them into the first segment of twenty twenty but that
was about it, tournament games ending at like one am
Eastern time. You're right, I don't know what the fix is,
but there does need to be feel it feels like
there needs to be something like we need to respect
the fact that kids need some kind of boundaries in
their life, especially the younger children, and the fact that

(36:12):
you've probably had ten eleven year olds up watching that.
I don't know that that's the best fits.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
I don't know what you do about it, but those
games are ending so late, and of course, first world
problems for me because of that. I'm on like two
hours of sleep basically because of that. And my youngest,
who turned one a week ago, apparently has multiple teeth
coming in. And so yeah, it's rough man. The wife

(36:41):
at present, at least the last time I saw her
was in a recliner with the baby because we just
could not actually put her down last night and we
finally just gave up. So this is what we're rolling
with here, So I know, Look, I get it, man,
that was very, very tough for Purdue to deal with.

(37:02):
I'm just saying that I have it worse right now.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Hey, man, I don't know teething baby is like that
seventh layer a hell, like I can't imagine so like
that that is, and you know, just turning one means
you're not getting any regular sleep anyway, like it is.
It is alarming. What we always talk about the beauty
and I don't I don't have kids. I won't, I
won't pretend to know what the process is like, but

(37:27):
we talk about the beauty of it. I also, I
see it so often in my friends, like the first
you know, eighteen months. It's just you see the impact
it has on everybody trying to figure out how to
how to live and do right by a kid when
nobody's getting any normal sleep. It's just it's crazy. Like
we all know you've got a coworker or whatever that
gets cranky when they don't get the right sleep. And

(37:48):
then you add the development of a child. And I'll
go back again to a mutual friend that told me
years ago, the toughest part about having a kid is
that you're trying to keep something alive that has no
interest in helping you. Like that's just that's that's what
you're trying to do is help it thrive, and that
that child has no interest in helping you with any
of that. It's a battle. And look, I'm not again,

(38:08):
I'm not gonna pretend I'm smart enough. The one thing
I will say is that I watched it an interview
years ago or not years ago, months ago with a
studio executive that works in film, and they were talking
about a project they turned into Netflix, and Netflix returned
it to them and said they wanted a different edit
because it wasn't second screen friendly enough. The movie was

(38:29):
too complicated, you had to pay too much attention. I
think we have to understand that right now, especially for
people that are under the age of let's say thirty,
you're second screening everything. People are on their phones while
they're watching TV all the time. I mean, I have
YouTube TV and they offer me split screen opportunities. I'm
just surprised that it isn't more beneficial for college basketball

(38:52):
to stack these games on top of themselves and at
least like, give me two games at once. I don't
think that's asked. Just give me two games at once,
I'll split screen. It used to that I'd rather have
that than sitting up at one am when everybody's falling asleep,
trying to keep their eyes open for the last game.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, I'm looking with you, Like, I mean, now that
you can do these multi options where you can watch
three four games at the same time on one service,
whether it's Max for this tournament for example, or I
think X Now you can actually do it as well
during the tournament, I can do it that way. And look,
if it's my squad plan, then I'll go full screen there.
But outside of that, I'm cool watching it differently.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, that's my Sunday rituals. Like the Raiders are always
on one TV by itself, and then you know, I
wheel out the other TVs they're all split screen to
get me some of the things that. Yeah, I mean,
that's that's we're not going to talk about that, Like
I mean, now, I'm amazing we haven't gotten into some
rivalry conversation that see, look at that two adults cooperating
and getting along with each other. Maybe two villains could

(39:50):
learn to do the same and stop acting like children.
Explain what we need to mean next on Fox Sports Radio.
Listen to Fox Sports Radio Radio. I'm just stunned sometimes
at the amount of attention we're paying to something that
just doesn't matter at all, and maybe even talking about
it makes me part of the problem. I'll be the
first to admit it. But at some point, I guess

(40:12):
my question is a simple one. Why do we care
so much about Bronni At the end of the day,
What difference does Bronni make to most of us? And
why is this the thing that seems to have everybody
worked up? Somebody somehow make it make sense. It's the
Fellas on a Fox Sports Saturday on Fox Sports Radio.

(40:33):
I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with Jason Martin and for
Anthony gar Anthony Gargano, I'm gonna learn how to talk
this morning. We're broadcasting live from the ti rack dot
com studios. Ti iraq dot com will help you get
there an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection,
over ten thousand recommended installers. Tire rack dot com The
way tire buying should be. Jmar you know I have

(40:53):
a long history. I worked at ESPN for years. I've
worked on Steven A shows. I've been around Steve, I've
been on First Take, I've done all these things. There
is an element for me that watched over the last
couple of days with this lebron Stephen, a battle that
has sort of taken over so much of the way
we talk about the NBA. A. I laugh at it.
B I think it's all kind of stupid. And see,

(41:16):
I'm waiting for the adults to show up, because like,
this entire thing blows my mind because so much of
it is about Bronnie James. And I guess, at my core,
my question to you, my question to everybody, my process
on this is a simple one. Like, at the end
of the day, if Bronnie James doesn't belong in the NBA,
who cares? Through it all? If the Lakers used a

(41:38):
second round draft pick on a kid that you know
they only drafted because his dad's one of the best
players of all time, and you know, one of their
most important players currently, their most important player currently, So
they wasted a draft pick, who cares? If he's getting
in the NBA for a couple of minutes a game
and he's not deserving, who cares? Like, through all of this,
it's not like they're sitting here putting his face on

(42:01):
billboards and trying to build a team around him that's
gonna suck for the next ten years because they did it,
Like the So what they draft somebody that maybe doesn't
belong in the league. Why are we losing our minds
over this? Why does this become such a polarizing conversation
on whether Lebron james Son belongs in the league.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
I think you just gave the keyword there, polarizing, And
it's not because Lebrony. It's because of lebron. The reason
we care is because Lebron James is polarizing, seemingly increasingly
so as a matter of fact. So everything he does
then gets put underneath the microscope in a different way.
And there is nothing, at least for me, there is

(42:45):
nothing that gets my eye more than someone taking credit
for somebody else's work. Like I've even had nightmares, literal
nightmares about somebody taking credit for somebody else's work, and
a lot of times it would be mine in that case.
It's just it's always driven me nuts. It drives me
nuts in fiction when somebody takes credit for somebody else's work.

(43:06):
And in some respects, that's how this feels to me,
because Bronnie didn't deserve it, he didn't earn it yet,
and I feel like we were robbed at the opportunity
to see whether or not he ever would have been
able to do that on his own because he was
born on third base and he actually was able to
steal home essentially, and there was never even a throw.

(43:29):
In fact, there might have even been a ball on
the field at that point in time for him to
score that run. And so it just feels, it feels
so phony and so artificial, and because it's Lebron everything
is magnified. That, to me, I think is probably why
we care so much. It is not because we dislike

(43:50):
Bronnie or anything Bronnie has said or anything Bronnie has done.
It's because we all have functioning eyes and we know
he's not supposed to be there yet. And I think
that's generally where all of this comes from. I can't lie.
I read the stories. I get into all of this
from that perspective, and I've railed on the Bronny situation,
but I always rail on it towards Lebron, never towards Bronni.

(44:13):
It's not about him. That's the thing that's kind of
baffling about at all anyway, is we're not talking about Bronni.
We're talking about Lebron by proxy of Bronni. Like through Bronni,
we're actually criticizing Lebron James. And that's the that to
me explains why the why to your question, the reason

(44:35):
we care about bronni is because it's Lebron.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
I think there's an I hear that. I also look
at all of it and say, this isn't Marvin Harrison Junior,
Like this isn't a superstar that's supposed to be coming,
Like this is a fringe guy that may or may
not really belong in the league. And how often do
we even talk about those guys like, yeah, maybe he
didn't deserve to be in the NBA, but or the
G League or whatever anybody think. But we're talking about

(45:03):
you know, ten day contract type thing. It's yeah, he's
taking a roster spot from someone else. Well, if the
Lakers choose to give up a roster spot, I mean,
how often do we see CEOs of companies, owners of businesses.
They integrate their kids. It's what they do. And we
see this in all walks of life, like nepotism is
real and everybody that sits there and says this is terrible.
I guess my first challenge is if you had the

(45:24):
opportunity to do the same for your kid, like I'll
go back to my music background for I don't really
watch American Idol, but I saw all the clips of
Brian Latrella, the Backstreet Boys, his kid Bailey is in.
He made it on this season of American Idol. Do
we really think that Bailey's deserving? Or you know, is
it an accident that Brian happened to be at the
taping and happen to come in and sing with this kid? No? Like,

(45:47):
did he take a spot on American Idol from some
other kid that might be more deserving? Probably? Like, would
we judge Bailey's music differently if he wasn't, you know,
the kid of a Backstreet Boy? Probably? Like that stuff
happens all the time. For me, there's this element of
it where we're freaking out and I saw somebody say, well,

(46:07):
it's about the tweet. You know, the fact that Lebron said,
you know his kids better than some of these guys
he's watching right now in the NBA Breaking news parent
overestimates child's athletic ability and feels like he should be
at a spot he doesn't deserve to be in like that,
That's also normal. At some point, Lebron's doing what most
dads would do. Like he's being an AAU basketball dad,

(46:28):
Like he doesn't have a realistic perspective of what his
kid's talents actually are and he's trying to force the issue.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Okay, how many parents do that?

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Like in all business, whether we're talking about CEO's parents
or music kids or sports kids, like your parents think.
My mom and dad were the exception. My mom used
to always remind me every single time I picked up
a violin as a kid, which turned out to be
how I made my mark in society for a long
time for anyone that doesn't know. And my mom was
the first to step in the room and say, if

(46:57):
that's the best you can play it, put it away.
You're not that good. She was the opposite of most parents.
I think most parents are sitting there overestimating their child's capabilities.
I think we need more parents in all of life
that will look at their kid and be like, I
understand it's your dream to be a singer, but you're
not talented. I wish more parents were like that, but
they're not. So I what's Lebron doing that most dads

(47:21):
wouldn't do. He's using his platform, his opportunity, his leverage
his career to try and make an easier path for
his kid. Like that feels like parenting want on one
to me.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Okay, so that's true, but that doesn't mean we have
to condone it and past that. I would also say,
we never see the plank in our own eye. We're
always looking at our neighbor's eye. We can always give
somebody else advice that we're not gonna take. We can
always tell somebody exactly what they should do in their
love life while we have no significant other to speak of,

(47:52):
or why, or while our marriage is falling apart due
to infidelity or any number of other things that are
going on. Like, it's very easy for us to take
that view from the outside and say here's what you
need to do, and then when it gets into your
own house, when it gets into your own situation, you
behave differently in that case. At the same time, that's

(48:13):
human nature too, and so when we see this happening,
we know something's wrong here, just from from from a
standpoint of does it matter in the grand scheme that
Bronnie James got that draft pick instead of somebody else
when he could have gone undrafted then been brought into
the g League, or however they ever wanted to do it. Ultimately,

(48:35):
like the actual thing that happened isn't a big deal,
it's everything else that surrounds it past that. But I
do think that again, just because it's something that is
normalized in our society doesn't necessarily mean it should be condoned.
And if you're Lebron James, you have to have the

(48:59):
self awareness to know that people are going to come
at your neck about it. They just are, and you
have to be able to react to that in a
way that indicates, yeah, I knew the slings were coming.
I knew that this was coming. I took this, I
took this on. Doesn't mean you have to say, yeah,
I knew. I agree with what you're saying. But he
couldn't have been dumb enough at this stage. I don't

(49:20):
think he could have been naive enough not to see
this coming. And it's his reaction to the criticism of
the obvious thing that is taking place that has made
it a much bigger story. And I felt sympathy for
Brownie throughout this because I don't know that he ever
had a choice in this matter, and this has robbed
him again of the opportunity to grow in front of

(49:42):
our eyes. Problem was what we saw in college wasn't
that great. And I'm not sure where he was going
to play because Lebron was going to be such a
focal point behind the scenes, maybe a power broker wherever
he went. There were a lot of schools that weren't
going to be interested in Bunnie James whatsoever had he
stayed in college. So Bronnie's existence is completely different than

(50:03):
all of ours just because of how all this is
set up. But again, I think it is all magnified
because it's Lebron James and it's not you know, Steve
Blake's son or something like that, when Steve Blake was
playing in the league or somebody that's more of a
mid level player. I think it would be different. Like
Marvin Harrison Junior. To your point, I mean, he earned it,

(50:23):
Shador Sanders, wherever it is he's going to be drafted,
he has earned it. There are guys that are out
there that completely deserve it, and you can see it's
like they have earned it and they came from that family.
That's an outstanding reality. And then it's Bronnie James and
you're just kind of like, how bron is this to
do the thing we know is kind of shady and

(50:45):
then get angry when you're called shady. That to me
is where it's kind of left the rails.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
I hear that. I also think. I mean, we've been
talking about college basketball all morning. How often do we
see coaches who have a roster spot somewhere on there
college basketball team for their kid. It's obviously not good enough,
but like we get into the last three minutes of
the game, and is I was gonna put his kid
in for Michigan State. Like we watched that happen and
people weren't sitting there saying, oh my god. Now I

(51:12):
realized that you could say, well, that kid may not
even you know, the scholarships aren't an issue for that
kid whatever, but it's still a roster spot. Like it's
I feel bad for Bronnie and all of this because
he's the one that dam Ivy doesn't damned if he
doesn't like agree. I do know people that were around
Brownie in the draft process. I don't pretend to know
anybody in Lebron's camp, but I did have somebody that

(51:34):
I trust that covers the NBA draft tell me that
there were least considerations of not even sure that Bronnie
actually really wanted to play in the NBA. It's just
what was expected of him his whole life. Like, so,
you know, the very things that we're talking about. He
got drafted because of his last name, and he got
drafted because of his dad. Like it's possible that that's
the thing that not only gave him the opportunity but

(51:56):
also will haunt him forever, Like I don't know, you know,
so I feel bad for Bronni in this, But this
it's interesting to me because there's a way that all
of this could have been handled. And you know, obviously
drama feeds the NBA. We know that drama feeds the NBA.
But coming up, I don't think Lebron's the only person
in the wrong here, so is Stephen A show's a

(52:16):
lot of the media in it. But there's a way
that all of this could have been handled that actually
would have helped Bronnie, that would have ended the entire conversation,
that would have changed the entire situation. I'll tell you
what it is next. It's the Fellas on Fox Sports
Saturday on Fox Sports Radio. He's Jason Martin. I'm Jason Fitz.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot Com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
It's interesting when everybody uses a microphone to have an argument,
but nobody actually talks to each other in that process.
And I don't know why to very successful, very rich,
very accomplished people can't simply figure out a way to
sit in the same room and get things figured out.

(53:06):
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one hundred dollars gift card detractor supply Jason Martin, Jason
Fitz hanging out You, coming at You Live from the
tiraq dot Com studios and look, I think it's interesting again.

(53:52):
I will always qualify any conversation about ESPN in general.
I will be clear, ESPN changed my life. I have
nothing but love for so many people there. The opportunity
to work there absolutely changed my platform to change everything,
and so I don't find joy in ESPN versus ESPN drama.
But that's essentially what's become part of the norm and

(54:13):
is continuing to happen is Lebron James doesn't go on
First Take, or doesn't even go on Steven A. Smith
or like just a one on one show, which, to
be very clear, ESPN absolutely would have blown up their
entire day lineup and just put the two of them
on camera together if either of them had wanted. Instead,
passive aggressively, Lebron goes on the Pat McAfee Show for

(54:33):
an hour of friendly interview because we all know Pat's
not going to push anybody. And then steven A uses
first take to respond, and I feel like I'm going
to go back to our wrestling analogy earlier Jason Martin
is to me, this feels like so WWE. This doesn't
even feel like it's real life. This does not feel
like the best player in the NBA taking on or
one of the best players of all time in the

(54:55):
NBA taking on one of the biggest media personalities of
all time. This genuinely feel like the lead up where
you're watching Monday Night Raw and everybody's chirping at everybody
and nothing's actually happening. This is like two kids in
the schoolyard saying my dad can beat up your dad,
like nobody's talking to each other. Lebron could have just
called steven A. Stephen A could have called Lebron, the

(55:16):
two of them off camera could have worked it out.
But instead they're both using, by the way ESPN, which
benefits from all of this, to continue to blow this
thing up, and don't I don't understand what the end
goal is, Like, I don't know if you're Lebron, why
you think this interview is gonna change anybody's mind. And
if you're Steven A, why you think coming out and
making factually inaccurate statements and looking like an idiot as

(55:38):
you talk about it is going to change anybody's mind either.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Look as somebody who wrote a whole lot of wrestling
angles and watched them play out, I could spot a
work a mile away, and when I watched this, the
initial confrontation just seem like a lucky accident. For a
pro wrestling booker, it's just like, oh, man, we can
do something with this. You take something that's real and

(56:02):
you craft it there and it becomes a marketing thing.
Not a giant fan of Michelle Beadle, but she said
basically what you just said, that this whole thing feels fake,
And I one thousand percent agree with it because it
certainly isn't hurting Stephen A. Smith, it's benefiting him. And
I think here's what I think. I think it has
become a rap battle. And I don't mean Kendrick Lamar

(56:25):
and Drake that's a real battle, like that's a different deal,
but like a rap battle in terms of a competition
that's taking place between two rappers that don't really hate
each other, like this is a bit different. This is
I just don't believe the angst is legit. I think
now it's just one upsmanship, like the whole boxing video
and putting that on there. If you're Lebron with the

(56:47):
smiley moojis, and of course stephen A has his platform
to go on TV and say what he wants to
say day after day after day. I think it's just
like it's a whole lot of stuff that's happening around
us that just shows sort of the tabloid fixation of
modern culture, and it's sort of just kind of swirling
the toilet bowl. The thing that I'm left with though,

(57:11):
and I don't know how many people have mentioned this,
is if I'm Lebron James or if I'm watching Lebron James,
I want to see him in this. I'm not saying
this specifically to raise Eyre, but shut up and dribble,
man Like at this point, I just want to see
you finish your season, like I want you to be
focused on the goal right now. If I'm a Lakers

(57:33):
fan and as an NBA guy, I really don't care
about Steve Nash co hosting your podcast. I really don't
care about this beef with Steven A. Smith and you
being on social media and all this other kind of stuff.
I kind of just want to see you go win
a championship. I kind of want to see you and
Luca and Austin Reeves and whatever it is that the
Lakers have at this point. Like as you're doing this,

(57:54):
you're losing to the Chicago Bulls. Like these are things
that are happening in real time. This is the thing
that you're mostly paid to do. So I look at it.
It's just like I want you to go win a title.
I want you to care about the thing that a
whole lot of other people care about you for doing,
especially the ones that are wearing your jerseys, buying your sneakers,
all of that other kind of stuff. I want you

(58:16):
to put forth that kind of effort. And I'm not
suggesting that he's not giving fourth full effort. But all
you're doing is creating a narrative for people in our
industry to come after you when you come up short.
And we know these people, Fittzi, We've met them, we've
been around them. We saw it like is the Infamous

(58:36):
Giants cruise with Odell Beckham Junior and Victor Cruz and
those guys like years and years ago, Is that the
reason they lost the following week? We will never know,
but you also won't be able to prove it wasn't.
And so when you do all of this, you'd better win.
And I don't know that they're going to and you
can't tell me that there's not at least a couple

(58:57):
of percentage points focus lost in all of this for
Lebron James playing this game.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
It's I love the way you said that, and it
just makes me think, like, look, I don't I don't
care about the legacy conversation so many people do. I don't.
I don't care about the legacy conversation at all because
I don't. I don't think that you can change people's
minds on those things. I do think that history remembers championships, right.
History is not going to remember beef between Steven A.
Smith and Lebron in ten years, Like nobody's gonna sit

(59:26):
here and say, oh, but that was the year that
they had the beef about Bron. He Like, No, nobody's
gonna remember that. They will remember whether or not Lebron
won a championship with this Lakers team like that, Certainly,
if he doesn't win a championship, then this becomes a
season that will be forgotten, right or wrong. And if
he does win a championship, it'll be a season that
gets talked about forever, right or wrong, especially when you

(59:46):
compound it with the Luca and trade that it went
down this year. So to that point and to that end,
there is there is something here that does actually matter
far more than any of this conversation. And you know
you mentioned Lebron having a podcast. Let's be clear here,
he could have said everything that he said on McAfee
on his own podcast and it wouldn't have caught the
same level of attention, right, Like this is this is

(01:00:09):
both both of these men are using ESPN to further
a platform where they don't really have to talk about sports.
They just have to talk about the shows they're on
and the drama that they're in. Like that's what they
get to do. And I had somebody yesterday hit me
up and say, man, like, who even watches steven A anymore?
And this is I'll give you. I'll give the world
real information. When I was at ESPN, steven A had

(01:00:31):
a contract that paid over twelve million dollars a year,
and I had a boss at ESPN informed me that
steven A made more than the value of that contract
per year for ESPN just on YouTube clicks. So just
on YouTube clicks, he was making more than twelve million dollars.
First Take is the most profitable show, or was at
the time on ESPN. So I'm not even including the
First Take money. Steven A just got a new deal

(01:00:53):
for one hundred million dollars right over five years. According
to reports, twenty million dollars a year he earns. By
most people's estimation at ESPN, whatever you get paid, you're
supposed to earn a little over three times that for
the company. So he's earning the company sixty to seventy
million dollars a year. So for anyone that says Stephen
as irrelevant, no he's not. He's a huge part of
how ESPN makes money. If anyone sits there and says,

(01:01:16):
who even watches this chunk? A lot of people do.
And then when players come out and complain about the
way the league is covered, I would just remind you
the daily TV numbers are studied by executives at ESPN
every day, so they know exactly the second people to
out to get up. They know exactly the second people
too out of First Take. If true NBA content actually sold,

(01:01:38):
if people truly want comes back to what we talked
about earlier with what do people really want with Cinderella's
If people were really craving deep dive coverage of the
how and why of the NBA, they would know that
and it would be covered. The fact is part of
the reason that this continues to happen is that First
Take knows the minute that stephen A talks about Lebron,

(01:01:59):
people will click on it, people will watch it, people
will flock to it just just wanting to see steven
A's response to Lebron approaching him. The courtside put up
huge numbers for First Take because people flock to see
what steven A gonna say in front of the mic.
So all of this becomes such a massive win. And
for anybody listening that since there it says, well why
why why? The answer to the why for everything steven

(01:02:22):
A does and everything ESPN does is very simply money.
And the problem isn't steven A. The problem is in
the ESPN. The problem is people consume this, so you know,
the holier than thou approach so many have about the
way the game is covered. Stop watching because realistically, at
the end of the day, as long as people go
to their TVs to see what steven A has to

(01:02:43):
say about Lebron, ain't gonna stop. So to your point,
that's part of why this all feels like a work
to me, Like Lebron is winning because he's getting his
message out and because more and more people are paying
attention to what he says on it, which when you're
a billionaire is an important thing. Steven A is winning
because the ratings are up on all of this, and
the company's making money, which only increases his value. The

(01:03:05):
only people losing are all of the rest of us
that are sitting here watching two grown ass men act
like children.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Yeah, but look, we have rubberneck syndrome in this country
and in this world. Like you want to compare the
NBA to something to me right now, it's kind of
the Royal family. That's not something I care about, something
that a lot of people do care about, But more
than anything else, what does the Royal family do? Like
you're listening to us wherever you are what does the

(01:03:31):
royal family? What is the function of the royal family
in Great Britain right now in twenty twenty five, almost
no one knows because it's the afterthought. It's everything else.
It's who's in, who's out? What did Megan say? What
happened with Harry? What did Fergie do?

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
All of this kind of stuff. But that's what it is.
That's why it's on People magazine every single week. It's
like a universe that it's almost like a constant reality show.
And that's what has become The NBA games are pass
The most interesting things that have happened in the NBA
in the last five to ten years have all centered
around where X star has gone, how many stars have

(01:04:12):
demanded a trade, the Lucatory being like a prime example
of all of this kind of stuff that's more interesting
than anything we've seen on the floor this entire season.
And this is just another function of that. So when
you say everything is about money, I mean that's a
million percent right, like everything. If this thing wasn't actually

(01:04:34):
profitable for ESPN, they wouldn't be covering it. That's the
same way, and that happens in pro wrestling too. They
look at quarter hours, oh Man, two hundred thousand women
in the key demographic tuned out during X match. If
that happens consistently, then the participants in X match are
going to be scrutinized and potentially pulled put on a

(01:04:54):
pre show or put on earlier in the night. Something
is going to change. There is a reason why the
hottest segments on a pro wrestling show are always at
the top of the hour and usually bridge from the end.
There's a reason why a lot of those programs started
having overruns so that you didn't change the channel at
the top of the hour. They would change their commercial

(01:05:14):
break to make sure that they were on the air
during the intro of everything else that was going on.
There's a whole lot that goes into this, and steven
A knows it, and steven A is playing his role,
and he's playing it beautifully. And look, I'm guilty too,
And I don't mean as someone who would do the
same thing necessarily, not that I haven't ever, but I

(01:05:35):
get caught up in this too. I've been over steven
A in terms of like really being interested for a
long time, I claim. And then I go to the
website and I'll see Steven A's face twenty times on
that website telling me there'll be some headline underneath about
what it is. He said, I'm like, all right, well,
let me see what I can do. And this is

(01:05:55):
the Howard Stern effect, FITZI this is and he used
it in private parts. The reason why Howard Stern became
Howard Stern is because the people that loved him, loved
him to death, couldn't get enough and listened to it
all the time. And the people that hated him listen
to him twice. They recorded it and listened to it
multiple times so that they could raise up their ire

(01:06:16):
something like there's a reason why we sit around at
doom scroll and there's a reason why you go to
YouTube and you look for you don't look for the
great stories on YouTube. Most of the YouTube business is
by going after somebody breaking news in a negative sense,
criticizing this movie, criticizing this video game, criticizing this athlete,
burying all of this kind of stuff. It's all the

(01:06:38):
exact same thing. So that's what we're seeing playing out
right now in this feud, at least from the media side,
from the ESPN side, it's all about the money. It's
all about this tabloid society, and it's all about the negativity.
We get down with this, we say we don't and
then we can't help but click to see what it
is that Kendrick Perkins is gonna say that's gonna tick

(01:07:00):
us off that day that we can then go tell
our boys and then we can all say, yeah, Kendrick Perkins, man,
what a numbskull. But all we've done is lined his pockets.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
And it's funny. The first time I did first take,
I remember the production meeting and I was doing it
with Damian Woody and there were like four or five
topics in a row that they went to Woody with
and he's like, I don't know, it could be and
they kept laughing. They're like, that's not the show doesn't
work that way. We have to find something that you
have a powerful stance one way or the other on.

(01:07:29):
And it's like, is that real?

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
And I'll never forget what he's sitting in the production
meeting being like, that's not the way the world actually works, right,
Like it's so rare to have this huge, polarizing, you know,
opinion one way or the other on it and you're right, Like,
think about for anybody that when you tune into most
reaction after a game, how often is it, oh my god,

(01:07:52):
what a great win and just what a statement by
this team? Most of the time it's how did this
team choke? What's next for this team now that they've lost? Like,
we spend very little time celebrating wins, but we sure
spend a lot of time celebrating and over analyzing losses.
That's just that's true, and it's part of the methodology. Again,

(01:08:13):
it's all studied. And I love your wrestling analogy to it.
I'll go back to the music business that I cut
my teeth and for so many years, Like when you
write songs in Nashville, or at least when you used to.
I haven't written with anybody in years. But when you
write songs in Nashville, they track the analytics. They know, Okay,
it's got to get to the course in the first
forty seconds, and it needs to be this tempo because

(01:08:34):
that's what people are listening to. And you know, these
are the topics that work. Like, this is all studied,
it's all at some level science because ninety nine percent
of the time it's the old like, if you want
to create art, you have to create commerce first. Commerce
has to fund art. So what gets lost in this conversation,
I think a lot of times for NBA players that
sit there and hate the way the game is being covered,

(01:08:55):
and Lebron's using his platform now to speak loudly against that.
What he's forgetting is that if we truly just covered
the nuts and bolts of basketball, less people pay attention
and less people will talk about it. Like when I
was doing radio five days a week with ESPN and
the Denver Nuggets were about to go on their first
championship run. We went to our bosses and we said, hey,

(01:09:15):
should we start booking Nuggets guests so we can start
breaking down the Nuggets? And we got laughed at and
they're like, no, nobody gives a damn about the Nuggets.
Like talk about the Lakers because that's what's studied, and
you know, while people roll their eyes to that concept,
and you get so I have friends all the time
that will tell me why is get up talking about
the Cowboys in the middle of February, And well, the

(01:09:36):
answer is is more people care about the Cowboys today
in March, more people will watch a Cowboys statement segment
on TV, then we'll watch anything about Oklahoma City. That's
just fact. So like at some point when you start,
you gotta understand the way chess is being played if
you're gonna have a comment about the game. And that's

(01:09:56):
the thing that I think players have gotten so fed
up with the way their sport is covered without realizing
that if it was covered the way they want, the
coverage would not get the eyeballs, the sport would not
get the attention, and through time, people casuals, which is
a huge part of what actually supports all of these sports,
or just casual fans will not give a damn. Their
eyes glossed over and they don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Yeah, I mean that's right. And I think the other
thing is just we all live in this place where
we have a very myopic view. We feel like whatever
it is that we are is what everybody else is,
Like the world is just kind of what we see
it as the way we view the world is the
world as it really is. And so we don't understand

(01:10:38):
when NCIS is the number one television show for fifteen
years because we don't watch it and we don't know
anyone that watches it. And I'm just giving an example here.
Nothing against in cis. But then you look at the numbers,
it's like, how who are the people that are watching this?
They're real people, is the answer. There's a ton of
people that listen to what I would consider to be

(01:10:59):
garbage music, but there's a whole lot of them that
sell out a bunch of venues and buy a bunch
of albums despite what I think is a lack of
talent or a lack of morality or whatever. It's it's
all completely irrelevant. So that point is dead right. Like
I'm a Thunder fan, Like that's my team that has
been forever, and so I look at it, well, forever
as long as it's existed. But you look at all

(01:11:21):
of that and to say, I don't talk a whole
lot of Thunder on the radio, because why are we
not talking about the NHL. The NHL is almost always
fun when you watch it in person. Even when you
watch it on TV, it can be fun, but nobody
actually watches it. If you give coverage to that, it's death.
It's like digging your own grave. In sports radio. You

(01:11:42):
gotta feed you Your point about commerce is exactly right,
Like there is no, there's no thing to talk about
if it isn't making money, and there's no vehicle in
which to talk about it from if there is no money.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
I have a very good friend for years that got
a master's in acoustical classical guitar performance. That's what he
got his master's degree, and he lived in Europe and
traveled through Spain just playing flamenco guitar. One of the
most talented people I've ever met, and at some point,
at one point in his life, he just took a

(01:12:18):
gig playing the simplest country music you've ever heard for
a major artist, and it was so beneath his skill
set that so many people turned around and they were like,
why would you ever do this? You are one of
the more accomplished at what you do. You are one
of the best in the world. And he kept looking
at it. He's like, Yeah, I make more money to
play four chords every night that I can play in

(01:12:39):
my sleep than I will ever make and I want
to support my family. At some point like that's just
it's real. Maybe the business I grew up in. Jade's
my perception of it. I can't tell you this for
the best pregame show every weekend. Be sure to tune
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(01:13:01):
the biggest games. No better place to prime you for
the tournament games than right here. Tuned to Countdown, presented
by Bett MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning, right here
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. Chipotle may
be figuring out who the next quarterback is going to
be the Cleveland Browns. I'll explain what we mean next
to se Fellas, Jason Martin, Jason Fviitz hanging out on
Fox Sports Radio. Sofellas live from the ti iraq dot

(01:13:25):
com studios. I'm Jason Viz hanging out with Jason Martin
and bar Anthony Gargano. I'm gonna tie this to quarterbacks eventually,
but first I got to give you a hot food.
Take j Martin, unless they're a sponsor of this show,
and which guess I take all this back. Chipotle's wildly overrated,
like Chipotle's fine. It's fine, like it's fine. I don't

(01:13:47):
think it's any different or any better than any other
you know, Mexican place with yeah, oh my god. Yeah, Chipotle,
like Chipotle is one of those institutions people people absolutely flocked. Like, Frankly,
if I had the choice between the canteena menu with
Taco Bell or Chipotle, I'm going Taco Bell. And Chipotle's

(01:14:09):
got these massive fans. And it's kind of like In
and Out Burger, Like In and Out Burger is just
a burger, and it's fine. I get it. You're in California,
you love your in and out Burger, Okay, relax, like
it's fine, but you live in Nashville. Like when what
a Burger's opened up in Nashville, you would have thought
that it was Gordon Ramsey coming out and actually cooking
in person in the parking lot for people. They lined
up for hours for the dang things. And I'm like, y'all,

(01:14:31):
it's just a burger, like Chipotle is just a Mexican
bowl with some rice. Guaca is extra. That's where I
stand on it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Yeah, and the case is not very good, but anyway, yeah,
I mean, Kirk Cousins likes this double chicken that's the
one thing that we know, and I'm with him too,
like the cell with double chicken, no rice, just all
straight up protein, no carves. That's that's kind of my
thing if I'm gonna go there, but I've been there
less than five times. About life, it's just I kind

(01:15:02):
of think Chipotle is sort of just the place that
is mentioned, but is also sort of side eyed. Like
I think when you find out that Kirk Cousins goes
to Chipotle, like the reaction is mainly, man, you can't
go to somewhere better than Chipotle in terms of money,
like you like where you nothing wrong with Chippotle's food,
but also nothing particularly like stand out about it in

(01:15:24):
terms of it being special. And I think that was
more of the reaction. So when you said it's wildly overrated,
I was just kind of like, now, In and Out
I get it, Like In and Out is rated super highly.
My wife and I went to California and we had
In and Out five six years ago. We're told it's
going to change your life. Spoiler alert, life not changed.

(01:15:45):
It was not bad, but it also was not memorable
enough for me to even remember what it tasted like,
Like there's nothing about it that's stuck with me other
than the experience of having gone to in and Out
Burger and then when what Burger role into Nashville. As
you've just mentioned. Yeah, let's just say most people are like,

(01:16:06):
so that tasted like anywhere else? Yes, yes, yes it
did that. That's why I didn't wait in line for
three hours for it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
And I got to tell you that there's a reason
it's not called what a chicken like the chicken sandwich.
They're just not. Yeah, it's not. It's avoidable, I think too.
And this all ties into for anyone that's confused. Kirk
Cousins was in Ohio at Chipotle. People took some pictures
and that leads everybody to thinking that Kirk Cousins is

(01:16:35):
going to be the quarterback at the Browns, and you know,
because he was in Ohio. Now, I will say I
was in Florida a couple of years ago in the summer,
and I walked by Kirk Cousins. I didn't suddenly think, Oh,
I mean's Kirk Cousins just signing somewhere in Florida, Like
maybe he was just in Ohio. Maybe like that was
just going through like he is a he's you know, Michigan.

(01:16:55):
He's a Holland of Michigan, dude. So, like the Midwest
is obviously a place he he loves. So it's a
place that he has history and like maybe he's got
family and all that. Like we don't allow any of
those things to happen. It just suddenly means he's got
to be the quarterback of the Browns. And you know,
I'm here to just loudly say, I don't think there's
any chances that this happens. And I gotta be honest,

(01:17:17):
I don't think there's any chance that this happens because
I don't think the Falcons are going to let him
go anywhere. And you know, Charles Robinson with Yahoo Sports
for our show Inside Coverage, pointed out that people around
the Falcons continue to say Arthur Blank looks at sunk
in costs, like my guy went out there and gave
Kirk Cousins a ton of money. And you know, yeah,

(01:17:38):
we saw some good games from Michael Pennix Junior at
the end of the year, but there's no assurance that
that's who Michael Pennix Junior actually is going to be.
There's no assurance that Michael Pennick Junior is suddenly going
to walk in and immediately be a Hall of Famer.
And also not for nothing, Like if you get rid
of Kirk Cousins, you're gonna have to get another Kirk Cousiny.
You got to have a backup in today's NFL. So like,

(01:17:59):
I just don't see any reason at all why the
Falcons are going to let Kirk Cousins walk away.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
No, I don't either, And I mean I think they've
it's through twenty seven. And doesn't he also have the
right to reject a trade too. I think he has
no trade. He has a no trade rolled in it
as well. I think it's kind of a shot at Ohio.
That's how I read this. I was just like, so,
there's no other reason he would have possibly wanted to
be in the state of Ohio if it weren't that

(01:18:28):
he was part of this discussion with the Cleveland Browns. Like,
what a shot at the state of Ohio, home of
our vice president. Like no reason to be in Ohio,
home of the national champions as a matter of fact,
in college football, the Ohio state bucket. No reason that
you would pot why would you want to be in
a stinkhole like Ohio. He there must be. He must

(01:18:49):
be on his way to Cleveland to be the Browns quarterback.
That is a major leap. And if I'm in Ohio
and I am disgusted and I feel completely offended now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Also, like, even if he's in Cleveland, the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fames in Cleveland can'ton Orio is not
far from there. Maybe he's hanging out the the NFL
Hall of Fame, the Christmas Story House right outside of Cleveland.
Like maybe it's just maybe it's super into Christmas. Like
there's just a million logical things that don't involve the
Browns or Deshaun Watson. And all of this comes because

(01:19:21):
there are so many quarterback questions that just simply haven't
been answered for the Browns. And frankly, the more I
talk to people leading up to the draft, the more
I'm convinced that the answer is not there. Nobody knows
what the Cleveland Browns are going to do. And as
much as we're trying to make it, Kirk to the Browns,
this is the beginning of a long process. I'll explain
what I mean when we come back. He's Jason Martin.

(01:19:42):
I'm Jason Fitzwor hanging out. It's the Fellas on Fox
Sports Radio. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio. As
we inge closer and closer to the NFL Draft at
the end of April, it's become abundantly clear. Two things
stand out. Number one, I don't remember the last time
a number one picking team with the number one pick
that's likely a quarterback. Was this forgotten? And number two,

(01:20:06):
I don't think anybody in the league actually knows what's
going to happen with the second overall pick, and that
could create chaos like we're not used to seeing at
the top of the draft. It's the Fellas on Fox
Sports Radio, broadcasting live from the tyrack dot com studios.
Tierrack dot com will help you get there in unmatched selection, fast,
free shipping, free road hazard protection, over ten thousand recommended installers.

(01:20:28):
Tyrack dot com the way tire buying should be. I'm
Jason fitz hanging out with Jason Martin. We're really the
Jasons on Fox Sports Radio this morning. I kind of
like that, like, well, just our parents were both unique
in our names, because you know, Jason is such a
unique no, it's common everybody everybody's name Jason, but we
got a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
On it was Yeah. So Jason and Josh were the
two most popular boys' names when I was born in
nineteen seventy eight, and my parents just thought Josh was
even more prevalent, so they went with Jason, but they
they wanted to be popular. I've always thought our name
was kind of strange. It's kind of weird when people
say what's your name, and I'll say it, And it

(01:21:04):
always felt like it was kind of child like because
you didn't hear many adults with that name except Jason
sever on Growing Pains Alan Thick's character back in the day.
So now it's like this name that adults have, but
kids kind of don't. There's not as many kids with
that name anymore, but there's people in their forties and

(01:21:25):
fifties a lot of them. So it's I've always felt
like it's a weird name, but it's actually super common
and right for people of our age.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Yeah, it was. I was born in seventy seven, so
we're basically the same age, and Jason was the second
most popular name in seventy seven as well. My parents
always stood by the fact that they didn't know anybody
that had a kid named Jason, So like my mom
had no idea that it was a wildly popular name.
That just didn't occur to them at that point, which

(01:21:56):
is only funny because you're right, and you know, everybody
calls me fit, but that's happened since sixth grade because
there were six Jason F's in my sixth grade class,
and like, what what do you do? So we all
became known by our last name. Like the first band
I was ever in in Nashville that you know, never
made it, nobody ever heard of us. There were three
Jason's in that band, and like we all went by

(01:22:17):
our last names because like that's just it becomes such
a populard. You're right, like I've always call you j
Mart Like it's it's funny. It's it's funny how most
people in our age group that are named Jason are
not actually called Jason. I've never really been much of
a j Very few people have ever called me Jay.
Have you was Jay a big thing for you?

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
No, there have been a few, and it always feels weird.
It's just kind of like, now you gotta go with
the j Martin, Like if you if you j Mart
is sort of the thing that everybody has always called
me Ja. Like my dad who passed away this past July,
he said he would try to say the thing that
he thought everybody else would say so he would be

(01:23:01):
in line. So he tried Jay and it didn't work.
And then he tried Jace and that also didn't work.
But anybody that's ever called me Jay just hasn't known
me very long, but they're still trying to sort of
be in So I don't ever stop anybody from saying it,
but it always just kind of gives me that twitch,
that little just like, wait, is that no, no, no, no, no,

(01:23:23):
Jay is a different name that Jay Wright is Jay Wright.
His name is not Jason Wright.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
You are so right that it is. I've got I've
got a couple of friends that I consider pretty good
friends that every once in a while will call me Jay.
And I realized in those moments, I'm like, yeah, you know,
we don't know each other as well as I think
we do, because it's there's a familiarity. It's like it's
what somebody's calling you, but they don't know you well
enough to know that nobody calls you that. It's the

(01:23:51):
wildly interesting part of being named Jason I get. I
know you guys tuned into Fox Sports Radio this morning
to get a breakdown the name of Jason really is
riveting stuff. We'll get to the draft and fear out,
we'll get back to the NCAA tournament, as we had
some great results last night. We've been talking a lot
about this this morning, but the draft is on so
many people's minds, especially when we talk about quarterbacks. And

(01:24:13):
you know you're in Nashville, and I'll start here. I
don't remember the last time a team was picking number
one overall that needed a quarterback, and there's quarterback likely
going to be taken. I'm pretty convinced that the Titans
are going to take cam Ward with the first overall pick.
And I don't feel like anybody's talking about it. Like
we know, the Titans don't move the needle nationally. Not
a lot of people just tune into or care about

(01:24:35):
Titans content. So I don't think that there's this bias
against the Tennessee Titans. I just think that people understand
the indifference. So I didn't expect this to be this resounding,
resonating pick for a lot of people, but it does
feel like it's sort of invisible. I feel like right now,
the way the draft has talked about, it's just it's
pretty forgotten that the Titans have the first pick and

(01:24:56):
that cam Ward is likely to be that quarterback, not
Shador Sanders.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Yes, so the Titans became the thing you really don't
want to be in, sort of the non it market,
and that is kind of boring, like there's just not
anything interesting there and there hasn't been for a few years.
I mean, look, there's a reason why Terrek Henry became
a bigger sitar of the minute he got to Baltimore.
And there's a lot of people in this city. To
hear me say that, nerve would be upset to hear it. Look,

(01:25:20):
the Titans mean a lot here, don't get me wrong.
But from a national perspective is how we have to
view it, and the cam Ward thing, it also just
seems like it's foregone conclusion because the way free agency
played out, clearly the Titans were not in the market
for any of these other guys, and they've brought in
cam Ward again and they're sort of indicating that it's
going to take a lot more if you want to

(01:25:40):
get that first pick. So either they're playing eight D
chess or they're going to take cam Ward at one,
and I just assume that's what they're going to do.
Sanders Man, you got me. I assume, Like I continue
to just think, if you're the Giants and he's there,
I don't think you have the luxury not to take him.

(01:26:00):
Until you have a quarterback. I don't think you have
the luxury not to take one in any draft. That's
why I disagreed with the Giants the year they took
Saquon Barkley instead of a quarterback, because Sakuon Barkley is
a luxury purchase. It's not a necessity at that point
in time. If you don't have a quarterback, then you
can't go and buy the great other thing until you've

(01:26:24):
got a nice house, or just until you've got a
roof over your head. You can't buy a Lamborghini. And
that felt like a luxury purchase for the Giants at
that point in time. So I ask you, fits like,
do the Giants have the luxury of not taking a quarterback?
And does Brian Dable have the time in his job,

(01:26:45):
the luxury the leash on his job at this point
not to take a quarterback and run with that, because
I know you paid Russell Wilson, but I don't think
that means as much as any That doesn't mean anywhere
near as much as it would have four years ago,
and I'm not sure it means anything in twenties twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Yeah, Look, Russ is making what twenty one million dollars ish,
He's going to be the starter probably while they develop
whatever they're gonna do. If they draft quarterback, it would
likely be Shador or Jackson dart Right, and so if
it's either of those guys, there's probably a little bit
longer runway before that person gets on on the field.

(01:27:24):
The Giants are a tough case study because they're not
aligned in their timing and by that, like, I think
this was one of the problems I had, I said
loudly last year for the Bears when they were getting
ready for the draft, is that you had, you know,
sort of a lame duck coach that may or may
not be there. You're drafting a quarterback, you have different
guys on different timelines. I don't like that. I want
my GM and my coach to be on the same

(01:27:45):
timeline from day one. I want the quarterback to be
on the same timeline with all of them from day one.
I think. I think it's tough to have success otherwise.
So it's the daybole part of this that really complicates it,
because if your argument is, well, we need to get
a quarterback and develop them, I don't think the Giants
are going to win a lot of football games with
Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston, either one as their starter.

(01:28:07):
I don't think they win a lot of football games
with a rookie quarterback as their starter. So that just
leads me to Brian Dable getting fired. Like I actually
think the answer to this question would be much easier
if the Giants had hired a new head coach this year,
because that starts the clock all. Like hire a new
GM that hires a new head coach, start the clock
all at the same time. The hardest part because I

(01:28:28):
agree in principle that when you need a quarterback, you
have to take one. But what do you do with
that quarterback? Like if your scouts and your GM just
look at the board and say, man, I don't think
this guy's it, then can you afford to waste the
third overall pick and the draft on a quarterback that
you don't believe is him. Like, that's the tougher, the
tougher part to me, Like, if I'm a Giants fan today,

(01:28:50):
I actually kind of hope and pray that cam Warden
Shadoor Sanders go one and two because I don't think
Shadoor is it. I don't so if the organization can
avoid that pitfall, I don't think that's the worst thing.
But it's similarly to everybody getting fired and next year
you're gonna have to draft quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
This is what's kind of unbelievable about the whole Giant scenario.
Recognize this, everyone listening. Daniel Jones is better than what
than any option the Giants are going to have on
the field this year. Amen. The Daniel Jones before they
let him go is better and would be better for

(01:29:28):
Brian Dabele in the short term than either Russell Wilson
or Jamis Winston or a rookie shoedor Sanders. Probably. However,
the idea of winning a lot of games. If you're
Brian Dabel, do you have to win a ton of
games or do you just have to show the infancy
of that development? Do you just have to show. Yeah. Look,

(01:29:51):
remember before I all of a sudden for good how
to coach. I also was with Josh Allen during his
formative years and helped turn him in into the Josh
Allen that we're seeing now. And that's why I got
this job in the first place. And it just hasn't
worked out so far. But look at who I had
at quarterback. If he comes out there and you see

(01:30:12):
growth from the quarterback from week one to week last,
is that enough? Or if you see growth from week
six to week last, is that enough. The larger point
that you made about Caleb and the Bears is right.
I thought they were insane not to let Eberclus go
before last year. I don't think whoever the coach was

(01:30:33):
coming in was probably going to be opposed to taking
Caleb Williams at number one, but at the very least
having him after we already knew not really an offensive
guy in the first place, but there was no competency
there at all, and there was nothing special about it,
and you ran that back as opposed to bringing in
somebody that could have immediately started to develop Caleb on

(01:30:56):
the NFL level while he was on that rookie contract.
To me, was incredible organizational malpractice by the Bears, and
that's the worst thing that you can have as an
organization right now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
I think at this point what you do is you
set your young quarterback back, you force your young quarterback
to learn a new playbook going into year two. It
creates total chaos. And that's why all of this gets
particularly interesting for Chador coming up. What all of that
means for Cleveland, because I've talked to people around the league.
I hosted the show yesterday with Yahoo our NFL Insider,

(01:31:30):
gave some real insight on what Cleveland situation actually looks like.
And y'all, it's complicated. I'll explain what I mean next
to Jason Martin, I'm Jason fitz It's the Fellas. I'm
Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
At the end of April, the first pick of the
draft is going to come in pretty quickly, as soon
as the lead will allow it. They're like a little suspense.
I think I think cam Ward's gonna be that pick.
The Titans are going to take care of that, and
that's gonna lead us to the second pick in the draft.
And I can genuinely tell you that right now, I
don't think a single person in this industry anywhere truly

(01:32:18):
knows what the Cleveland Browns are gonna do. And that
feels unprecedented. It's some fellas on Fox Sports Radio coming
into a live from the tiraq dot com studios, Jason
Martin in for Anthony Gargano, hanging out with me. I'm
Jason fitz JAMR. I was talking to some of our
Yahoo people and we were trying to break down some
of the draft and this is interesting. It's wild to me.

(01:32:38):
I mean, I've had people around the league tell me
that there are teams that believe that Shador should and
will be the second overall pick, and then there are
people around the league that believe that he's more likely
deserving of being a second round pick instead of the
second overall pick. Right, so nobody seems to know. But
in talking to Charles Robinson, our NFL insider yesterday on

(01:32:58):
our show, he made it clear that, Hey, the Browns
seem to like this chaos. They like the fact that
nobody knows, and b it's true that nobody knows, Like
there is an element of the Browns right now. They
could take the best player available, They could trade down
if they can find a trade partner, and then maybe
look at one of the quarterbacks. They could wait until
the second round. They actually have the first pick in

(01:33:20):
the second round because of the way things are slotted, Like,
I think it's interesting to me that we're sitting here
with the first overall pick. I think fairly presumptive. We
know that's gonna happen the second or overall pick, and
a team that financially needs a quarterback and doesn't have,
like who's going to start for Cleveland? Can he Pickett?
What are we doing right? So they don't have any
other real option at the quarterback position. They need a

(01:33:40):
rookie contract at the quarterback position. Yet nobody can conclusively
say that Shador is going to be that guy that
has to say something at this point that we don't
know anything.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
Yeah, the Browns are used to not knowing anything at
the quarterback position. First of all, we've gotten that experience
now for not on thirty years, with a couple of exceptions.
But I think because of your Deshaun's situation and the
fact that a lot of the league is kind of

(01:34:11):
not interested in helping you out of the situation that
you're in. The rookie contract thing matters, So I would say,
if you're the Cleveland Browns, you've got to be sure
in your mind that should doors not it, or you know,
Jackson Dard, whoever it is that's sitting there is not it.

(01:34:33):
If you feel there's even a twenty five to thirty
percent chance, like you know, he could be it, then
I think you got to do it, because I don't
know what your other option is at this point, based
on the way the chips have fallen and where you
find yourself right now. If you know he's not it,
then you don't take him like that's it, like the

(01:34:54):
only And we talked about this as a related to
the Giants, and it's true, like I think you have
to take a quarterback until you have one, but that
doesn't mean you take one you know is not one.
Taking a non quarterback over a quarterback you absolutely don't
believe in is a completely different animal. If they believe
it all in shoudor if they think there's a decent

(01:35:16):
possibility here if they listen to some of those people
within the league that do buy into Shador and what
he could do, then I think you have to pull
that trigger. You have to go ahead and say, yep, okay,
we'll bring him in. If not, then either you take
an obdul Carter, who is probably the best overall player
in the draft if you're just looking at what he

(01:35:39):
can do on the field. You take the guy that
you think is the best and you marry him to
Miles Garrett, who you just paid, and you go try
to win on defense and figure your quarterback situation out
going forward, or you try to take a haul for
somebody that's willing that does think Shador could be the
guy and is willing to go in and set that

(01:35:59):
rookie clock. So I think if you're if you're Cleveland,
that's that's really it. And in terms of what I
think they're going to do, I know I get paid
to have opinions, but my opinion right now is that
anybody that says they know is a fool which you
let off with.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
And it's it's wild because this is how you end
up with an Aaron Rodgers type situation with the draft.
Like I I wouldn't be surprised at all, and it
would make total sense for your door to go number two. Overall,
That's fine, I totally I sort of expect that that
will happen, simply because my mind can't wrap around not

(01:36:38):
trying to get a different quarterback that isn't named Kenny Pickett.
That's it's being honest. But the flip side of it
is if they don't like if that's an indication of
how the league actually feels behind closed doors about him.
I mean, we could be looking at a fall, and
if we're looking at a fall, that just becomes really
interesting because there are teams that need quarterbacks. But the
question is, you know where do they take? Like the

(01:37:00):
Steelers right now don't have a viable quarterback in the room.
We'll see what happens with Aaron Rodgers, you know, but
the Steelers, even if they draft or even if they
signed Aaron Rodgers, the Steelers don't have a future at
the position. The Rams don't have a future position. Like
there are certainly places that you could look around and say, hey,
it makes sense, and you have to wonder how much too,
what we saw last year for the Vikings is seared

(01:37:23):
in people's minds. I think teams are starting to rethink
the way they approach the quarterback position. And the fact is,
it's not about having a rookie or a veteran. I
think it's about making sure you have somebody. I mean
you smartly said earlier, Daniel Jones is better than much
of what the Giants are likely to have this year.
I as a lifelong diehard Raiders fan, I have listened

(01:37:43):
to Raiders fans for years just sit there and say,
Derek Carr is the worst, Derek Cars the worst, Derek
Cars the worst, And then you watch a season of
Aidan O'Connell and Gardner Minshew and you're like, man, this
team would have been better with Derek Carr. Now this
is where immediately fans come and say, well, you're not
winning a super Bowl with this guy. Look you don't.
At some point. This is not a loser's mentality. This
is a realistic mentality. What you need is proximity. This

(01:38:07):
concept of can't win a super Bowl with that guy, well, okay,
if you're gonna If that's the judge the line with
which you judge every quarterback at this point, I guess
everybody other than Mahomes should just be given up on. Like,
it's tough to win super Bowls, so all you can
do is get into the proximity to win super Bowls,
and to do that, you have to have a consistently
playoff caliber quarterback, you know, and that's just to be real,

(01:38:29):
Like there was a period where people said that Peyton
Manning couldn't win the Big Game. So I hate these
playoff narratives we have around quarterbacks. I think at some
point there is value to having a quarterback that is
at least good enough to keep you in the conversation.
And what happens is fans and teams get frustrated with that,
and then they want to, you know, get rid of
that guy and then go back to the well well,
I mean at this point. The Steelers another great example,

(01:38:52):
Like they didn't just wake up one day and say, well,
we don't have Big Ben anymore, We're going to be
just fine. Like the Colts certainly lived through a couple
of generations of having a lot of quarterback answers. Now
they have no idea what they're doing, Like this concept
of I'm gonna get rid of the guy I have
and then just find one in the draft. There are
more draft failures than there are successes. So hell, I
don't know the right answer. I just know that if

(01:39:14):
you were even if you're split, ty goes to the dealer,
then then the split sends you to Schaduur. But I
just I don't know at this point. So it's tough
because I think there are gonna be plenty of teams
that have left without any real answer at the quarterback
position and no idea what the hell they're doing, And
that's the most hopeless feeling you can have in the league.

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
Yeah, No, that's right, And it's a tough go if
you're a, for example, a Colts fan, and I was
gonna use that example as well. It's just year after
year after year, it's like, all right, we've got Philip
Rivers and then we've got this, and we've got this,
and then it was Matt Ryan and they're going to
bring in this veteran for a year. We know it's
in a long term solution. Eventually we're going to fall
into our next long term plan. And I honestly think

(01:39:54):
that the Steelers have become the Colts since Big Ben
and Big Ben kind of hung on a few years
too long, and they hung on and didn't plan for
his successor, and as such, you know, they have dealt
with kind of thin pickings when it comes to what
they were going to have at the quarterback spot, and
so that that that really is it, Like there's I
think I remember talking to a former NFL scout a

(01:40:18):
couple of years ago, and he said that twenty five
percent is the hit rate on first round quarterbacks in
terms of guys that you wouldn't say are complete failures
in the NFL. This is a dude that did that
for a living, and he said, yeah, our hit rate
as a league is about twenty five percent. That ain't high. Fits.
I'm not a math guy, but that's not high. That's

(01:40:40):
one out of four in the first round. Mind you,
we don't even talk about whatever's happening in some of
these other rounds. And yeah, you're gonna have the diamond
in the rough. But the reason why you call him
a diamond in the rough.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
Is because there's a whole lot of rough.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
So there's a whole lot of things that aren't diamonds
that are surrounding it, which is why the diamond stands
out in the first place. So it's not. This is
not some very easy game to play. It is difficult
to figure out who the guy is going to be.
There are, as you said, many more failures than there
are successes, and once you fall into quarterback purgatory, it's

(01:41:15):
a rough spot to be in. The one thing I
will say to that, you can't win a super Bowl
with that guy argument. One thing that does get annoying
is constant mediocrity and always being just good enough not
to be in position to draft the replacement. But even
if you do get in position to draft the replacement
and you think it's a can't miss, sometimes it turns

(01:41:36):
out to be Trevor Lawrence. And that doesn't necessarily mean
that Trevor Lawrence is a bust. But compared to and
you know this, compared to what we thought Trevor Lawrence
was going to be, and what we were told Trevor
was going to be for a year before the year
he even came out in the draft, that has not

(01:41:59):
worked out. So even having the high pick doesn't necessarily
guarantee anything.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
I mean, look around the landscape. Joe Burrow obviously a
number one overall pick, so that certainly is a that's
a feather in the cap. But then look at the
rest of the quarterbacks that we're talking about that you know,
Lamar Jackson not a first overall pick. Patrick Mahome is
not a first overall pick. Like, we're not even talking
Top five with these guys. Josh Allen not a first
overall pick, like Jalen Hurts not a first overall pick.

(01:42:27):
You just keep going up and down the list. Like
this concept that well, I got to get my quarterback
first overall doesn't necessarily work. There is a consistency to
organizations that draft a guy and develop a guy.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
That's just the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
Like I will always say that the most incredible thing
that the Buffalo Bills did was they shut out the noise.
I remember sitting in the room watching smart NFL people
breaking down the inaccuracies of Josh Allen after his rookie
year and talking about the fact that, man, you just
can't fix these issues. And they fixed these issues right.
They didn't listen to anybody else's noise. They put consistency

(01:43:04):
around him, they built around him, and they let him flourish.
Like Lamar Jackson was given the opportunity to develop with
a coaching staff that has been wildly consistent. Patrick Mahomes
was paired with a incredible head coach and a starting
quarterback that helped develop and didn't play basically at all
in the They resisted the temptation to play him in

(01:43:24):
the first year just because they wanted him to have
the opportunity to develop the right way. There is something
too stable organizations draft quarterbacks and allow them to grow
into stable quarterbacks. The problem is most teams picking at
the top of the draft suck. And when you are
not good top to bottom, you are constantly changing everything
and every time you make change. I mean, when Trevor

(01:43:45):
Lawrence was drafted, my comment on our live stream that
I was doing for ESPN that year was that the
Jags would fail Trevor Lawrence before Trevor Lawrence failed to Jackson,
and I think they did. And I think that the
Titans are more likely than not to fail cam Ward.
I think, you know, the Browns, if they draft shador standers,
are more likely than not to fail chador standers. It's
just just what's what bad teams do? You know? There

(01:44:08):
is this element like my beloved Raiders stink because they
just frankly, they don't have any hope most years without
without a quarterback. And so you look at it at
some point and say, hey, it is such a difficult
position to answer. When you get the answer, any remote
version of the answer, man, you gotta find stability around

(01:44:28):
that guy. And that's just tough to do for bad teams.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):
Yeah, and look, it's not I would say, it's not
even that. It's what bad teams do. It's what bad
organizations do. It's what the front offices do. It's what
the decision makers do. It's less about the jimmies and
the Joe's on the field failing the quarterbacks. It's more
about the decision makers and the ones that would put

(01:44:53):
I don't know, a college head coach with a bad
reputation in there with your first overall we're back and
assuming that that was going to work out, for example,
just just as one. So I mean, I think that's
I think that's largely it. I mean, if do you
believe in the ownership in Nashville, I don't know. I'm

(01:45:13):
definitely side eyeing that and have been for a handful
of years now. And so I look at that and
it's just like that might be your cam Ward point
in a nutshell. Bad organizations end up doing bad things
and doing things that are detrimental to talented guys as well.
So I mean, I definitely think that there is something

(01:45:33):
to that, and so to that end, the Giants are
kind of a bad organization. The Browns are arguably the
worst organization, not just in the NFL, but maybe in
all the pro sports, or certainly have become that. Well,
you know what, the Dallas Mavericks exist. So I might
have to pull back on that at least for a minute.

(01:45:54):
But I mean, that's that's really it. Like these organizations
are going to continue to make just off decisions. I
don't think that you go take the wrong guy just
kind of circling it back around. I think you take
your guy. Though, if you think he's your guy, you
move helen high water to try and make it happen.
Sometimes you're not gonna be able to get high enough

(01:46:14):
to do that, depending on where you find yourself. But
you got to take your guy. And if there's somebody
out there that believes in your door and really believes
he can be their guy and they don't have a quarterback,
then you do everything under the sun to make him
your guy. And maybe you're gonna have that opportunity? I mean,
who knows, I don't know. I mean, do you have

(01:46:36):
a sense at all, like if he gets past those
first couple of picks, is there gonna be a precipitous
fall here? Are we gonna have the the old green
room set up, which probably won't happen in this case
because he won't be there, But are we going to
have that set up where well, when's he gonna go?
And we're still waiting on it going into day two?
Is that is that an actual possibility in your mind?

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
I don't think he makes it to day two, but
I think if he doesn't go in the first three,
it gets really precarious after that. I don't think the Raiders,
as much as people want to put Shadoor with the Raiders,
I don't think that's real. The Jets just you know,
maybe the Jets bring him in behind Justin Field's like,
maybe that makes sense, But it starts to get really

(01:47:21):
iffy there, and then you got to ask yourself, like,
if you're Kellen Moore, do you prefer Jackson Dart if
you're you know there there again, New Orleans I think
is in the quarterback market they pick ninth in the
draft right now, and then you get into the Steelers
are obviously in the quarterback market they picked twenty first.
I think the Rams are in the quarterback market they
picked twenty six though, Like I think if a fall

(01:47:43):
actually happened, you would see a team like in the
mid teens trying to trade down for somebody that wants
to trade up to get Shador. I do believe that,
But I also like, let's go back to the fact
you and I both spent a lot of time around
college football. And I'm not going to say this is
fail proof, but I will say that you can get
a sense of a lot of these quarterbacks if you

(01:48:05):
just listen to the smartest minds in college football talk
about them. And I've said this for years. So the
conversation around CJ. Stroud, I was there in person on
the sidelines for his playoff, just absolute showing against Georgia,
and I remember a couple of the guys that cover
the game well looked at me and said, man, he
just made himself a lot of money because he answered
the last question is he willing to be the athletic

(01:48:28):
guy he needs to be? And he answered that I'm
not surprised. I don't think anybody that really covers college
football is surprised by the success of CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:48:35):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
Maybe nobody thought it would be as historic, but I'm
not surprised by it. If you go into last year,
ninety percent of the people that cover the game had
an understanding that Caleb was going to be successful, that
Drake has a really good chance of being successful, And frankly,
everybody loved Jayden coming in. Like it's just if you
were talking to college football heads, not NFL heads, but

(01:48:56):
college football heads about Jaden and Daniels two weeks before
the draft. They were telling you, dude, this kid is
this kid is special. I was at the National Championship
game when Joe Burrow was absolutely lighting it up, and
I looked at one of our analysts at the time
and I said, why are we not talking about him
the way we talk about Andrew Luck And everybody said
we should be. And so sometimes when I try and
figure out these quarterbacks, the opposite side of it, I

(01:49:16):
was trying to dig into Will Levis and figure out
what was real, and every college football media person or
quarterback guru I talked to, he said, no, it's not.
Will isn't a pro and you know, Zach Wilson's same thing,
Like some of these busts that we've seen, even justin fields,
people were like, man, I don't know, there's some real
questions Bryce Young. I talked to people around the Alabama program,
and I think Bryce still has a real shot. But

(01:49:38):
there are people around the Obama program that would tell you, hey,
he struggles to figure out communication to the offensive line
and blitz pickup. That's really going to hurt him in
the NFL. What do you know? First year he absolutely
got murdered on that stuff. And I say all of
that because if you talk to college football gurus right now,
they those are some of the people that are looking
at the cam Wards and the shed Or Sanders and

(01:49:59):
the Jackson Darts and saying, man, I'd wait till next
year's class. Like it's not just mock draft people on
Twitter or you know, mock draft personalities on ESPN and
everywhere else that are trying to get clicks. Like I think, smart,
smart college football minds are looking around saying, hey, Cam,
could Cam could have something? I don't see it. The
rest of the way. It's gonna take a lot of development.

(01:50:20):
So that's why my mind keeps going to maybe the
best case scenario, like if somebody falls to the rams
and gets If one of these quarterbacks falls to the
Rams and gets two years sitting under Stafford with Sean
McVay as their head coach and then comes out, I'm
not gonna be surprised at all if that guy successful.

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
Because he was putting a better situation. Yeah. I mean
that that point about just being around college football people
as long as we have and seeing it and having
it defined for you right there in front of your face.
Jane Daniels is a perfect example of that. That team

(01:50:58):
around him, Like what he was able to do with
that team at LSU in his last year proved a
whole lot about him. And the problem for a Bryce
Young when you're hearing around the Alabama program that he's
struggling with blitz pickups and his offensive line communication is
he's probably going to a team with a garbage offensive
line because one of the key things that happens for

(01:51:20):
a first, second, third pick is the O line is
trash and as a result, quarterbacks are running for his life.
So you bring in a rookie with a bad O
line who at that point in time, also is not
good with communications with the offline offensive line and struggles
with blitz pickups. You could have seen that coming from

(01:51:41):
a mile away. I didn't. I believed in Bryce Young,
but I can understand why there would have been detractors,
for example, in that case, and why you would be
looking at some of these guys differently. And I'm with you.
Outside of cam Ward, I just don't see anything. And
cam Warden, I'm not sure what cam Ward is going
to be, but I do think that there's a possibility there.

(01:52:01):
But I've just heard way too many people that know
a whole lot about this that just don't see it
in Should Doure And I see him as a dynamic
college football player and an incredible athlete, an incredibly confident
guy who is going to run into some serious adversity,
maybe for the first time ever when it comes to

(01:52:21):
He's going to run into that level where he's not
the best player on the field anymore. And what is
going to happen in that moment when the high school
athlete that you watched in your high school wherever you are,
who you were, like, Man, that dude is going to
be Michael Jordan and then he ends up playing for
some directional school and then never gets drafted, never even

(01:52:43):
gets sniffed, and you never even hear about him after
his second year in a school that's never even heard of.
That's what it is like. Once you eventually you hit
a level where everybody's as good as you are, and
then you find out how good guys really are. And
that's I think where the Shador Sanderson is. It's just
there's a massive boom and bus potential there. But at

(01:53:05):
least I think maybe there's a higher floor for cam Ward,
which is why it's an easier pick to make. Just say,
there's a lot of fundamental stuff about him that could
make him successful in the league.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
And it's not an accident that Carolina invested heavily in
their offensive line for year two of Bryce Young and
then bally through the season he started to play like
we thought Bryce Young might be able to play. None
of that is an accident. All right, we're talking about Schadur.
Chadur in Colorado, Colorado, back in the news today with
huge college football news that actually influences the entire landscape

(01:53:39):
of college football. Updated update you on it next. He's
Jason Martin. I'm Jason fitz so Fellas on Fox Sports Radio.
So Fellas on Fox Sports Radio, coming at you live
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(01:54:01):
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(01:54:22):
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(01:54:44):
top of your screen. He's Jason Martin. I'm Jason fitz
to Jason's hanging out on the fellows on Fox Sports Radio.
Jmart five years, fifty four million dollars. Okay coaching contracts
for funny money. We all know their funny money, and
everybody can be bought out of anything, but Colorado made
a substantial investment to make d one of the highest
paid coaches in college football. I'm not surprised by the move.

(01:55:05):
I think it also is a statement. You know, you
got to get ahead of keeping d unhappy. But I
don't want to get it twisted. Man. Like we were
just talking about Shador. It's not that long ago that
everybody was sitting here saying, well, Dion's gonna leave for
the NFL for sure, so he can coach Shador. And instead,
Dion has done nothing but make it clear he's pretty
happy where he is. There's a lot of pressure on

(01:55:25):
him this year to have the same result without his
kids on the team, right, Like, so, I think this
is a fairly substantial moment for Colorado saying, Hey, this
wasn't just about a couple of years of Shador Shiloh
and Dion. This was about, you know, cementing our football
program moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:55:42):
Yeah. Well, I mean Colorado said it's a no brainer
because we talked earlier in the program about you know
what it is when it comes to business and money
and how that dominates the discussion both on television, but
it also dominates everything happens in sports as well, and
Colorado is never going to be as much of a

(01:56:03):
marketing tool and it's not going to be as relevant,
and it's not going to be a talking point without
Dion Sanders. We weren't talking about Colorado before Dion got there.
And it's not that there's not somebody else out that
maybe you could bring in that could turn some eyeballs
as well. But there's something to Dion. There's something to

(01:56:23):
that that brings more people to watch the games but
also to pay attention to what's happening during the week.
So on the Colorado side makes complete sense even before
a game is played. But you're right, what we've seen
from Dion is an ability to win at a smaller
level with great talent, like a Travis Hunter, for example,
and then the ability to slowly, well not really slowly,

(01:56:47):
more rapidly than you would think, turn around this Colorado program.
But now Shadur is leaving, and also the Heisman Trophy
winner just left as well, and so Dion he may
have to take a step back before he's able to
take a step forward. I guess we'll see. But the
question is how happy is he going to be if
there is, you know, a couple wins less this year

(01:57:08):
than there was last year, and then what if that
sticks around for another year? And even if Colorado fans
are fairly satiated by that, they're satisfied by that because
they're used to so much worse, how much fun is
that going to be for Dion? That's the question is
when they're really bad, how much is Dion gonna want

(01:57:28):
to be around during that timeframe? Or is that when
maybe another job becomes more enticing if it's I don't know,
his alma mater, or if it's something in the NFL
that makes sense, I don't know. But the other side
of that is how many jobs are gonna come calling
if that does happen, and they do take a step back,

(01:57:51):
So you're right, like I think there's definitely some pressure
on him to prove who he is without some of
the guys that have been with him from the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:58:01):
And it's interesting they have a five star quarterback, Julian
Lewis Juju. Everyone tells them Juju committed. I got to
spend some time with Juju last summer at the Rivals
five star camp, and there's a group of quarterbacks coming
into college football that are incredible. He's one of them.
So obviously they get a home run replacement for Shadure.
But I love when you're talking about sort of where

(01:58:23):
Colorado is for Colorado, the university and for Colorado fans.
The question is at what point do do the expectations recalibrate?
Because you mentioned earlier the worst thing to be stuck
in is this level of mediocrity where you're always you're
not bad enough to move up in the NFL drafting,
you're not good enough to win a Super Bowl. Well,
the question is when you pay fifty four million dollars

(01:58:45):
to a coach, are you going to be happy with
second place in the Big twelve? Or are you going
to be happy not making the College Football Playoff? Like?
Is that the new line in the sand for Colorado football? Now?
I don't think necessarily this year it will be. I think,
you know, Colorado fans still have a pretty good understanding,
But I don't think five years fifty four million dollars

(01:59:06):
buys patience. And it's amazing to me how quickly the
Bengals fans are living this right now, right like they
sucked for an entire generation and now they're sitting here saying, well,
how are we going to win a Super Bowl? Like
it's not good enough, you know what I mean. So
the question just becomes what happens for Colorado moving forward,
not just for the program, but also for the expectation

(01:59:26):
the fans will have. Speaking of expectations, we had high,
lofty expectations for this year's NCAA tournament. After last night,
it is clearer than ever that those expectations are being
met and this poises itself to be maybe one of
the best tournaments of all time. I'll explain next on
the Fellas Fox Sports Radio. You're listening to Fox Sports
Radio Radio. Every single number one seed is still alive

(01:59:51):
in the Elite eight. Three out of four number two
seeds are still alive in the Elite EIDs. In fact,
the closest this thing we've got to a Cinderella is
a three seed Texas Tech team that nobody's surprised to
see where they are. That's the sort of tournament we
have gotten so far. That is the madness that March

(02:00:12):
has given us. And if you love college basketball, or
even if you're just tuning in as a casual watching
it go down, it's great for the sport. So fellas
on Fox Sports Radio, He's Jason Martin, I'm Jason Fitz.
We're broadcasting live from the tiraq dot com studios. Tyrack
dot com will help you get there an unmatched selection,
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(02:00:34):
ten thousand recommended installers. Tiraq dot com The way tire
buying should be jamart I often make the case that
big playoff moments spectacles are not for the diehards, Like
the diehards are gonna be there no matter what. And
if you are a massive college football fan, you're gonna
watch the college football playoff no matter what it gives

(02:00:55):
you if you're a massive baseball fan, you're gonna watch
the World Series, no matter what it gives you. In fact,
I cover a lot of women's college basketball too, and
so if you were around that sport, you're gonna watch
march madness on the women's side, no matter what it
gives you. But march madness in the tournament isn't for
the diehards, because the die hards are always gonna be there.
It's for everybody else to flock to it. And that's

(02:01:16):
why I think it's important no matter what the sport is,
we're talking about that in the biggest moments, you get
the best games, not just the best drama leading up
to it, not just the best storyline Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
But when you actually tip off, you need great basketball.
And I'm sitting here right now with Sports Center on
the TV in the background as we do this, and

(02:01:38):
I'm watching the highlights of Ole Miss Michigan State from
last night. I'm thinking about an epic ending for Houston
last night, and I'm thinking about the quality of basketball
that we saw over the course of the night. And
I don't know how you can say that it's not
a massive win for college basketball to get the best teams,
the biggest brands, the biggest programs, all showing up and
showing out in this tournament, all the way into the elite.

Speaker 2 (02:02:00):
Yeah. I mean, look, we said this off the top
of the program, and it's just true that while the
tournament the madness is all about Cinderella, what we ultimately
want is what we have right now. We want these brands,
we want this talent let And I said this to
Aaron Torres, my partner on Saturday nights. I said this

(02:02:23):
to him towards the end of the regular season. I said,
I don't know where it is, but I'm really really
excited for this tournament this year because I've caught myself
watching more college basketball than in the last handful of years,
where I've just been kind of pulling other directions. Again,
I grew up on Tobaco Roads, so the college basketball
was everything, and it just the sport hadn't felt the

(02:02:43):
same for a while, but this year it just felt
like the level of play from a number of teams
was so much higher, Like the games were better, there
was more drama involved, but there also just seemed to
be more talent, and so I wanted to see this
tournament because I felt like there were a number of
teams that I felt like could win it that would
be deserving champions, and Torres, to his credit, came back

(02:03:07):
and said, yeah, the level at the top is higher
than it's been in many, many years. The bottom has
fallen out, and that's what we've seen. And here's the thing,
whether or not it's kind to say as a sports fan,
I'm okay with that, because as long as the top

(02:03:28):
is great, we're gonna be okay. As long as we've
got something to root for, as long as we've got
the top flight athletes playing guys that we're also gonna
be able to see and say, man, what's that guy
gonna be on the next level. But at the same time,
even a guy like you know, Jenni Broome, who I
don't know what his NBA future is going to look like,

(02:03:48):
but what he has done this year at Auburn, for example,
it just creates a level of interest and curiosity because
you're watching what you know as you're seeing is just
this is very high level basketball being played in all
of these games, and it's just it's a joy to
watch because that's what we watch for right. We watch

(02:04:09):
because sports is our superheroes. Superheroes aren't real, but the
closest thing that we really have to what a superhero
could do is what we see athletes do. And we
get to see them on the highest level and guys
that we know are really great at this. You can't
give me enough of that. You can force feed me

(02:04:30):
that forever, and I will voluntarily just say you keep
it going. You don't have to force it, just keep
bringing another one to the table. Just like Ron Swanson said,
I'm on parks and Recreation. I want all the bacon
and eggs that you have. That doesn't mean a lot
of bacon and eggs. I mean all the bacon and
eggs that you have.

Speaker 1 (02:04:48):
God, I love that. And there is this I keep
thinking about sort of what this all means for college
basketball now moving forward. And I hear people when they say,
you know, nil and transfer portal killing college sports. That
feels like yelling get off my lawn to me. We
see right now for the elite programs. And I you know,

(02:05:11):
when I was prepping the tournament this year for Yahoo,
our editor came in and said, I need your cinderelic
because they were building graphics. So who's the Cinderella pick
we're gonna put on your graphic And I said, I
don't think there's going to be one this year. I
don't see anybody lower than a six that even has
a chance at making it through. And they gave me
a little bit of grief for there and kind to
pick somebody to me. This year, it stood out that

(02:05:34):
the top twelve teams in the country, the top ten
teams in the country were clearly better. Now you have
depth because of that, Like you have all of this
conversation about the transfer portal Nil, well, you do have
schools that are able to build deep rosters, which is
an incredible thing, and you have players that are playing
together in a way that I think it's fun to watch.

(02:05:55):
We hear complaints constantly about what modern basketball looks like
in the NBA. I don't feel that the college basketball
game looks anything like that. So I find myself for
the first time in a long time, not really worried
about whether Jenni Broom has pro prospects. I just really
like watching the way that Auburn plays basketball as a team,
and I like how with these games you still have

(02:06:17):
such a need for running set plays and set offenses.
It feels that the game feels electric to me at
this point. And so you know, frankly, when I look
around and think about the bottom of it, I don't
I just don't care as much. Like so, if all
of this is bad for the prospects of you know,
you know, using a Nashville example of Belmont basketball, ultimately,

(02:06:39):
how many people really care? And that's just being blunt.
And I know Belmont fans, all three of them are
gonna be to hate to hear that. But at this point,
you want to have a successful basketball team, the great
news is you can. Like I'll go back to my
UNLV days growing up. If UNLV really wants to have
a juggernaut of a basketball team, all they need to

(02:06:59):
do is find the right donors that are willing to
spend the right amount of money. It's much cheaper to
do than it is football. There's less players, so you know,
you got to spend the money the right way. Obviously,
teams like Baylor and Kansas didn't do that this year.
They spent money, but it didn't work. But I love
the empowerment of all right, you want to be relevant
in college basketball? Cool raise the money. Like it's really simple. Now,

(02:07:20):
you want to be great in college basketball, find the
donors that will pay for it. If you can't find
the donors that will pay for it, then you won't
be great in college basketball. And that's that's really up
to you. Like, look in the mirror. You want to
figure it out, figure it out.

Speaker 2 (02:07:32):
Yeah, I think there's something to that. I think there's
also something too, you know, you don't have to worry
about as much Jani Broom and what he's gonna do
in the NBA because he has the opportunity to actually,
you know, get paid. He has the opportunity to this
thing that we've enjoyed watching him do, this thing that

(02:07:53):
has made his university a good bit of money, can
actually benefit him without him. Yeah, maybe he's not going
to make the nine figure contract or something like that
in the NBA, but he's actually making something now off
of his skill at this level. And I think that
that changes the game as well. Now is it the
same college athletics that used to be? No, And I'm

(02:08:15):
still a traditionalist in a lot of ways there, but
there's a difference between really kind of wanting the upsets
at the early part of the tournament and then the
results of those upsets after the fact. In a vacuum,
the upset is great, The upset is fantastic in a vacuum.

(02:08:35):
Unc Wilmington knocking off Maryland the year that they won
the championship under Gary Williams and that Wan Dixon, Lonnie
Baxter Drew Nicholas team, that would have been an incredible finish.
But in the real world, Nicholas hitting the walk off
three and walking off that floor and then Maryland going
to finish it as the juggernaut that they were that year,

(02:08:57):
that was better. We got to see Maryland go through
the rest of that tournament. In the moment, the Wilmington
win would have been incredible, But we're not about one moment.
We're about an entire tournament. There's other games that then
have to be played after the fact, And I just
don't believe that the vast majority of people watching are

(02:09:19):
going to be nearly as invested in Loyola Chicago as
they are in Kansas, in Kentucky, in Duke, either for
love or hate reasons. But it doesn't matter. It all
turns green in the end.

Speaker 1 (02:09:33):
Well said by East Jason Martin, I'm Jason fitz It
is at the very least something you have to be
aware of that your final four, your championship game, your
biggest moment. There are so many people that don't watch
your sport otherwise other than that one moment. And look,
one of the most popular narratives of all time is

(02:09:54):
whatever generation we're in, Saturday Night Life sucks. That's what
everybody says, like, oh, it was better when I was
a Kain, We all know that. Like, so when I
was a kid, a little kid watching like the Dana
Carvey years, which were transformative to me, my parents are like,
oh it sucks now, it was better, you know. And
then when I was watching the you know, the next
ten years later, I'm like, I don't know this. I
like the Dana Carvey, John Love It's pel Hartman cass

(02:10:15):
better and then the Will Ferrell people looked at the
next generation said it started like this happens every single time.
The one of the funniest things to me now is
you have all these people coming in and saying, Saturday
Night Life sucks. I haven't watched it in years. Okay, Well,
if you haven't watched it in years, then how do
you know it sucks, Like I just the reality of
it is. Now you get one or two minutes and

(02:10:37):
somebody's gonna make a sweeping generalization on the quality of
your product overall. So a championship game between two cinderellas,
it's not particularly great basketball, but was a great story. Man,
all that's going to do is feed a narrative that
college basketball is broken and it stinks. A championship game
like we have the shot at getting this year. Like
if you tell me that we're getting Duke versus Auburn,

(02:10:57):
or Duke versus Michigan State, or you know versus Florida,
that's so good. You tell me we're getting that in
the championship game. You know what we're getting not only
a great story, but an absolutely incredible basketball game. And
I do think that at some point, for the longevity
of the narratives around the sport, that absolutely has to matter.
We've talked a lot about the everything around it, but

(02:11:18):
coming up, there's one real reason why who the best
team in college basketball is is wildly clear to me.
We'll tell you about it next. It's the Fellas on
Fox Sports Radio. He's Jason Martin, I'm Jason.

Speaker 3 (02:11:29):
Fitz Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports
Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR
to listen live, So Fellas.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
On Fox Sports Radio. Jason Martin sitting in for Anthony Gargano.
I'm Jason Fitz. Shortly after the show, our podcast will
be going up. If you missed any of today's show,
be sure to check out the podcast. Just search Fox
Sports Radio wherever you get your pods. Be sure to
also follow, rate and review the podcast. Again. Search Fox
Sports Radio where you get your podcast, and you will
see this show posted right after we get off the air.

(02:12:07):
It's because producer Breed does absolutely perfect work Rihanna and
then obviously Mighty Mark doing God's work on the show.
We'll get back to the NCAA tournament a quick second,
but I got to give Mighty Mark a shout out.
We were talking about baseball earlier, Mighty Mark, our level
of excitement as we are now in like Opening Day
has happened. And by the way, the numbers on opening

(02:12:28):
Day were pretty staggering. It feels like the world might
be paying attention how we feel in Mighty.

Speaker 4 (02:12:31):
Mark, very happy, love baseball is mine number one. So
I'm just happy just to see. I love the strategy and
this the head games of baseball. So I'm a big
fan of baseball.

Speaker 1 (02:12:46):
As a lifelong diehard Dodgers fan since they won the
World Series last year, because that's really when I became
my lifelong diet. I gotta find a winning team to
root for somewhere the Dodgers four and zero at this point,
you know, they won a World Series. Like look, well,
I mean, look, if I'm gonna pick a team, you know, jamar, Like,
I've lived my life just getting kicked in the no
no places by my beloved Raiders, Like, I gotta have

(02:13:08):
something positive to root for. So if I'm gonna hop
on a bandwagon, and I'm definitely gonna go bandwagon hopping,
why not the Dodgers.

Speaker 2 (02:13:14):
Well that's fine. If you don't have a team, you go,
you go right ahead and you grab that. I mean,
I'm a Braves fan and have been since I can't
even tell you, probably nineteen eighty two, somewhere in that
neighborhood when I started scoring games with my dad. We're
owing to right now. It's all right. We got a
tough start like we gotta we gotta deal with San

(02:13:35):
Diego in their building, and then we got to play
four against the Dodgers after that fact to start the season,
and bullpen's my Dodgers, You mean my Dodgers gohead your
Dodgers of six months?

Speaker 1 (02:13:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:13:49):
Have you even pulled the tags, the price tags off
of the merchandise that you have bought yet?

Speaker 1 (02:13:54):
No, I'm waiting until the World Series merch goes on sale,
and That's what I'm gonna buy, so that that's even
like a look I'm frugal, right, I'm gonna buy World
Series merch and then wear that around it and parade it.

Speaker 2 (02:14:04):
I know.

Speaker 1 (02:14:05):
So I've been torn on this because I grew up
in Vegas as a kid, and the Dodgers actually were
the baseball team in the area, pretty pretty locked in.
But baseball was never a big deal to my family,
And so it's funny I decided a couple of years ago,
I really want to pick a baseball team and make
that like a passionate thing for me. I want to
deep dive into it. But I root for anything that

(02:14:25):
comes through Vegas, and I keep waiting for the either
the A's move, which I think is going to fall
apart and not actually happen, or an expansion team to
come to Vegas, which is also going to lead to
bad baseball. Either way, I feel like I'm really setting
myself up for an abject disaster. But it's hard for
me to get too aligned into anything when I presume
that you know, the city that I love going to

(02:14:46):
that you know, I still consider like from my childhood,
my home. You know, Nashville and Vegas are the two
cities that define me, and neither has a baseball team.
So you know, I feel like it's it's a little
disingenuous to take up a leaning towards team when I'm
gonna jump ship just in a couple of years when
my one of my cities actually gets a team.

Speaker 2 (02:15:06):
Yeah, I get that, I mean, but I mean, you're
gonna get the Aes, right.

Speaker 1 (02:15:11):
That's what. Maybe I'm just hoping that I don't somehow,
maybe that's the Maybe the reason I'm not picking is
because there's just no reason to pick the A's. I like, again,
I already deal with one awful team in my life.
I don't need to deal with too, especially baseball season,
because then you're getting kicked in the no nos every
two days, Like every two days. It's like, there we
go every year. It's four game series, so I'm gonna

(02:15:32):
get kicked four times this week. It's just that doesn't
sound like fun.

Speaker 2 (02:15:36):
Well, I mean, I will tell you though, once you
pick a team, it is fun. Like I mean, I
follow the Braids very very closely. I listened to him
on the I get the I have the d MLB
radio app so I can listen to the radio feed.
And then of course we I live in a place
where I can actually watch all the Braze games. Thankfully,
even though these antiquated blackout rules have got to go

(02:15:56):
in all sports. We gotta make this. It's twenty twenty five.
We got to move on. But yeah, like, if you
deep dive into it and you actually stick with it
and maybe even pick a podcast or two for your
favorite team, it does help. It really does, and you
start to care more about the league writ large when
you do that as well.

Speaker 1 (02:16:14):
So I'm you're asking me to listen to like you
want me to watch three, four and twenty two games
and listen to a podcast about it, Like it's most
too much of a time investment for me.

Speaker 2 (02:16:25):
Come on, Well, look man, it's seven days. The Braves
are opening up with seven games in seven days, so yeah,
there's always something. But I mean the podcast recap would
be like thirty minutes or something like that, and hey,
there's only so much Lakers talk I can tolerate. Like
there's there's only so much Dallas Cowboys talk that I

(02:16:45):
can tolerate personally, So I go to my fandom when
I want to move on from that spot. Like I am,
I am wired a little bit differently in that I
want to listen to my Daily Hammer podcast and I
want to, you know, do those things each to stay
up and also just because it's just kind of part
of being a fan. I want to know what's going on.

(02:17:05):
I also want to understand the game a little bit better.
And to that end, this year, I picked up MLB
The Show twenty five and I also picked up the
Japanese Baseball Game for PS five that was released in
the winter, and I like, I'm like all in, I
want to care even more this year about baseball. I

(02:17:26):
wanted to kind of become something that can always be
on in the background of whatever is going on. I
don't know how much time you can actually sit and
focus on any one thing, but baseball is a great
second screen experience.

Speaker 1 (02:17:38):
Yeah, and the video game portion of this, like I
shout out to that, like it really helps with the prep.
The number of times that I've found it's it's And
I laughed because I realize I've used that for years,
you know, for hockey in general, Like you can just
go out and play the NHL game and get a
real sense of you know, you'll forget if you especially
haven't paid attention. You're like, oh, this guy's on that. Okay, yeah,

(02:18:00):
I got that now. I found myself when I bought
the college football video game, it was like, oh, this
is so nice. It's such a better way in my brain.
My brain responds to prepping that way far better. Just
being able to listen to what feels like a broadcast
while I play a bunch of fake games with a
bunch of different teams gives me a better sense of
who's where and just helps me with basic pronunciation and

(02:18:21):
all sorts of Like there's a lot of prep that
actually comes from the video game version of this. So
I love it, And look, I'll be consistent as you know.
You know, I got my start in radio. Was it
the one or two five the game in the ESPN
station in Nashville that was the flagship for the Preds.
And the thing that I struggled with the most there
as a hockey lover. The thing that I struggled with

(02:18:42):
the most is how do I give meaning to a
regular season hockey game in November that, you know, it
just doesn't mean that much. You know, it's just, if
we're being honest, the third line, defense and pairings in November,
I don't care. And so that the struggle is real
for marathon seasons, especially because so much of the work
we do is in football. So you know, just trying

(02:19:04):
to find the space to care about college basketball, even
a sport that I am passionate about, but it's hard
to be passionate about college basketball. And you know, November third,
when I've got sixteen and NFL games to watch and
at least a dozen college football games to go over,
it's just I find my brain doesn't have the equity
in it for it sometimes. So you know, it's it's

(02:19:26):
consistent for me, whether it's college basketball, hockey, or now baseball,
that it's hard to pay attention early in the season.

Speaker 2 (02:19:32):
To me, Yeah, well, look, the reason why is because
there's so many games, Like, it's different, Like you have
to pay attention to the NFL because everything is razor sharp.
It's all about wins and losses and nothing else. And
past that, it's seventeen games. It's completely different than one
hundred and sixty two or even eighty two. When you
look at something like hockey or when you look at

(02:19:53):
the NBA, it's a much bigger piece of the pie,
so you have to pay attention. College football is the
best example. College basketball is issue. They only play, you know,
thirty ish games a year, depending on the school, But
it's hard to get invested in a game in November
when you know both teams are gonna end up in
the tournament in the end. Anyway, Like, because there's so

(02:20:14):
many teams that are allowed into the postseason tournament, most
of the regular season games don't have near the impact
as they once did. If you've got sixty eight teams,
Induke and North Carolina play, there's a rivalry there, so
you pay attention to it. But ultimately, no, generally speaking,
Duke and North Carolina are both going to be in

(02:20:35):
the NCAA Tournament this year. It might have been a
bit different, But that, to me is kind of the
challenge for college basketball. But yeah, like when you get
to the early part of that, you have to make
the choice. You have to willfully choose that you are
going to stay up and pay attention to what's going on,
even if it's just reading an article because you can't
watch the game that day or whatever it is. You

(02:20:57):
have to actually make that decision and make that time,
and you have to understand that it's going to be
a journey along the way, like you're reading a very
very long book as opposed to a quick magazine or
something like that, or just just some article somewhere. It changes,
it changes, and that's why college football in the NFL,
to me, reigns supreme. One of the biggest reasons is

(02:21:19):
because of how few there is, like there's so much
less of it that each game feels like it means
so much more.

Speaker 1 (02:21:27):
And to that end, you know, when you start thinking
about the even the proposal that apparently is going to
get some at least some conversation this week of going
to eighteen games, even going to eighteen, and you know, heck,
if they eventually go to twenty, that's still such a
different inventory, you're not surprised by a football game. And
when I first got to ESPN, one of the pieces

(02:21:50):
of advice I got for covering the NBA was, man,
start playing fantasy basketball because it really gives you a
sense of who's doing what well. And it was great advice.
But the number of times I would log in and
be like, wait, there was a game last night, Like
it's so at some point, if we're being honest, most
of us, like in anybody listening, even if you're the
biggest NBA head in the world, Like if you're a

(02:22:11):
basketball junkie, most of the time, you're not sitting there
in your brain thinking a team that I don't watch
very often that I'm not that super passionate about has
a game tonight because it's a Tuesday. Like It's just
your brain doesn't work that way. So it was it
was surprising to me. We're so programmed to know, Man,
it's Sunday, I gotta have my lineup in by noon,
or man, when there's a when there's a European game,

(02:22:33):
they tell you over and over and over again, Hey,
got to have your lineup in early. Make sure you're
checking your lineups when you're playing fantasy basketball, it feels
like you have to check it, you know, a couple
of times a day, every single day, and it's a
huge under it. It's an investment to follow basketball to
that level. I can't even imagine playing fantasy baseball.

Speaker 2 (02:22:51):
Yeah, like, I did it once, right, I did it
in an insane way. I did a fantasy baseball league
once with these guys, and they were going to do it.
I didn't know how serious. We fielded an entire roster,
like I'm talking an entire bench, everything, like down to
the line. I did this in football too, where it
was an entire fifty two man roster of fantasy football,

(02:23:13):
and that was completely different and it took months to
draft and all sort of stuff. But the point about
baseball is like you can set your lineup at the
beginning of the week for that entire week, your starters
and all that other stuff, but you still have to
pay attention because guys take days off, or this reliever
is actually going to be sent down an option down

(02:23:34):
to the miners. So there's all sorts of other things
that are then going on at the same exact time,
and it's like, I don't have the time for that.
I realized that, like I wanted to play Fantasy NBA,
but I had to bail on it because I simply
could not pay attention in time. I would miss the
cut off deadline three days a week and it would

(02:23:54):
just put me so far behind the eight ball. It's like,
what am I doing to myself? NFL I can actually
handle this. I cannot handle.

Speaker 1 (02:24:01):
Yeah, And that's amazingly, you know, especially because Yahoo does
so much work in fantasy sports, and you know that's
where I do a lot of my work with Yahoo
with fantasy football. I host a couple of shows there.
And it's funny. I found myself even this year getting
into some very complicated fantasy leagues and I don't like it.
Like I want fantasy to be at its core, fun

(02:24:23):
and kind of brainless, you know. And I know that
that's asking for a lot, but I just fantasy football
at its base should be good trash talking with your buddies,
you have a draft together, you have some food, everybody
enjoys the process, and then you trash talk in your
group text the rest of the year. And it's a blast.
When you start to get to these like convoluted rules

(02:24:44):
on rosters and limits, on different things and you start
looking at it, even the one of the keeper leagues
I'm in, it just gets so complicated that I look
around and I think, guys, this, I want fantasy football
to be a release, not fantasy football to be a
pressure fild thing that I have to sit here and
like obsess over and try and figure out what the
policy is. And you know, a certain in one league

(02:25:07):
where it's just every every weird, nuanced rule that you've
ever heard of is put into one league, And I
find myself about halfway through the year not invested in.
I'm not doing anything with the league anymore because it's
just a pain in my butt, you know. So I
want fantasy sports to be fun and engaging and kind
of simple, And it's almost like playing Madden on rookie modes.

(02:25:28):
Sometimes you just want to have the joy of an
easy Madden game. You don't want to necessarily have the
wild competition. That's That's kind of where I've gotten with
fantasy Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:25:36):
Well, look, I mean I feel the same way. It's
the same way about all entertainment, right, Like, there's a
reason why popcorn blockbusters make a lot of money. There's
a reason why because people want to go watch Top
Gun Maverick. They want to go watch I don't know why,
but some of them want to go watch the Michael
Bay Transformers melt. It's Transformers movies and things of that nature.
It's exactly the same way with TV, like I got

(02:25:57):
to be in the right mood to watch mad Men,
but I'll watch The Office all day, or I'll watch
Parks of rerec all day, or I'll watch this show
because it's something that again it's a release, it's not
something that's gonna be so super dramatic. I've got to
be in the right frame of mind for all of that.
And I kind of look at that in the same
way when it comes to fantasy. The more complicated fantasy gets,

(02:26:21):
it feels great on the surface, like, oh man, we're
gonna be in depth and we're gonna have all of
this stuff going on. It's good. Then you get to
like week four and you're like, man, this is a drag,
Like why am I doing this? There is no reason.
There's no light at the end of this tunnel. There's
no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow,
outside of maybe the fifteen bucks that I'm gonna make

(02:26:42):
from this Like I thought I was doing this to
have fun with my boys, and now all of a sudden,
I've got massive spreadsheets everywhere. God bless those that do
it like God bless those that really get down with it.
I am just not. I can't get down into the
minutia anymore. I don't have time. My daughters are not
going to allow that at four and one years old.

Speaker 1 (02:27:03):
God yeah, And I'm just not. I'm also not going
to invest the podcast time that it takes to do
some of that too, Like I'm just being ho like
it is. It's so funny to me because you're a
thousand percent right, like I'm the same way with TV shows.
I don't like to have to work to catch up.
So there are there are huge TV shows that I
just I missed, probably because I was sitting on a

(02:27:24):
tour bus for a lot of the beginning of certain shows.
And it's hard to watch tour bus TV sometimes, like
you got twelve people on a bus one TV. You
never know how that's gonna play out. So I missed
the beginning of a lot of shows. And once, like
you know, I tried to sit down and watch Breaking
Bad and this is where everybody tells me I have
to watch Breaking Bad. I hear you, guys, but fine.
I watched like one episode. I was like, this is

(02:27:45):
dark and heavy, and I don't really feel like watching
this right now. And then everybody says, well, you just
got to get through the first season, and then it's great.
Well I sit there, I'm like, I just don't necessarily
in my life usually have the time to carve out
where it's like, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm
gonna suffer through the first ten hours of this so
that I can watch the next forty hours. Like I'm
not gonna put fifty hours into that. But if I'm

(02:28:06):
being fair, like while I'm making breakfast today, when we're
not like, I'll put an episode of bar Rescue, one
that I've seen one hundred times in the background because
I just want the background noise. So it's funny, there's
a difference between background noise entertainment, whether we're talking about
sports or TV or the same. Like, I was a huge,
huge wrestling fan, as we've talked about when I was
a kid. It was everything to me, and then I

(02:28:28):
fell off like so many people do. And it's hard
for me now because to tune in, I'd have to
reinvest in all these storylines and watch long enough to
figure out who's who and what's what. And I just
don't want to put that much work into almost anything
at this point. So it's funny that they're just I
cap a lot of my entertainment, even sports entertainment. I
cap on is this easy? And does this require as

(02:28:50):
little effort as possible? Because I will watch the same
TV show a million times just to not have to
put any effort in.

Speaker 2 (02:28:55):
Look, that's right. I mean when you used to look
at the what was the most watched stuff on Netflix?
Almost two It didn't matter what month you looked at
at the time, it was Friends in the Office, it
just was it was always the time. And I used
to have something a concept called The Red and the
Blue Show, and I kind of looked at it like
Red is sort of a harsh color, kind of that's

(02:29:18):
your drama and all this, and Blue is just kind
of cool, calm, collected, just something very very easy. And
so that point about watching the same episode one hundred times,
I love the idea. And I do this all the time.
I'm in the kitchen with a video I've seen ten
fifteen times that I'm actually you know, I can recite
as it's going on, or I can I can put

(02:29:40):
on Steve Austin versus Brett Hart from russell Mania at thirteen,
know exactly what's happening without even having to watch it
while I'm making a sandwich in the kitchen, Like that's
that is how a lot of things are done. And
even when the sandwich in the kitchen is I've got
my phone on the couch, or even I'm studying or
doing something like that on the couch and have that
on in the background. That's where it works. We have

(02:30:03):
grown into we don't have a ton of attention span.
We like to have a lot of things done for us.
Like I can't find anything in Nashville because I have
GPS and as such, when that thing is out, I
can't move four streets away and know where exactly I am.
As opposed to when you know, you and I were

(02:30:23):
in high school and we had to know everything, or
we had to understand how to read a map. The
kids today don't even know what a map looks like.
They've never had to look at one in their entire life.
So the more that you ask me to do at
forty six, the less I'm inclined to do the thing
you're asking me to do.

Speaker 1 (02:30:41):
Man, Like I was a pizza delivery kid for a
little bit in high school. And let me tell you, y'all,
Like now, that sounds like an easy job. Back then,
like I didn't even have a map in the car,
so i'd have to like i'd have to look at
the map of the city. It was in high school.
I was in Booie, Maryland, so i'd have to look
at the map of Bowie and I have to write down, like, Okay,

(02:31:02):
this street to this street, to this street, and get
you your pizza within like whatever, twenty minutes, or or
like you got your money back.

Speaker 2 (02:31:08):
Whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (02:31:09):
The number of times I got lost I hate because
I have no sense of direction. I hated that. It's
my least favorite job I've ever had. Should have been
the easiest. I was stressed every night because I couldn't
find a way around. Now you just plug it in ways,
But you're right, like I can't even I drive to
the same gym every single day, and the first thing
I do when I get in the car is I
just hit ways and it tells me how to get
there like I have gotten to in Nashville is a

(02:31:30):
great example. Every time I'm in Nashville hanging out with friends,
my first thought is like, don't make me go to
any new restaurant because like it's overwhelming, there's too many decisions.
I'm just gonna go to the same place that I've
gone to all hundred times because I can't make the
decision on something new. It's all pot like it's too much.
I don't want to think that much. I don't want
to think that much. Okay from not wanting to think,
by the way, which is a tremendous, tremendous segue. Tractor

(02:31:54):
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Check out the Tractor Supply Fox Sports Radio Bracket Challenge
at Fox Sports Radio dot com. See how everyone's doing
with their picks and who the top rated listeners are.

(02:32:17):
The listener with the best bracket at Fox Sports Radio
gets twenty five one hundred dollars gift card to tractor Supply.
You cannot beat that. So coming up next the Fox
Sports Saturday Live from the ti Raq dot Com studios,
Jmart's gotten every single team in the Elite eight. So
he's gonna tell you who's gonna win it all. Obviously
he's the one. Look my elite I only got six
out eight. He got all eight. We'll tell you exactly why.

(02:32:38):
It's pretty easy to see who the national champion is
going to be. I say that not knowing. If we agree,
we'll figure it out. Next He's Jason Martin on Jason Vinz.
It's the Fellows on Fox Sports Radio, jaymart Every week
we close the show with this song, one of the great, great,
great great songs of all time. If you want to

(02:32:59):
love well, you're welcome to if you know, if you're
feeling like the funny thing is this is my favorite
part about It's by the way, it's Fellas. I'm Fox
Sports Radio. I'm Jason Fitzi's Jason Martin. One of my
favorite things about you Christmas music is that I'm super
into all Sinatra era stuff. But the best part is
that then it remains on my preset dial like across

(02:33:22):
my radio, so because those Christmas stations inevitably change over
to normal stations afterwards, I end up with the Frank
Sinatra station and Forties Junction on Serious XM, both being
a regular part of my programming for about six months.
And I'm telling you there's something about being stuck in
traffic and just listening to Frank that makes things a

(02:33:42):
little easier or like, you know, you're just you're you're
kind of angry at the world. One day you turn
on the forties Junction and you got like forties big
band music playing in the background. Ah, I'm telling you
it's good for the soul.

Speaker 2 (02:33:52):
Brother dude, the most relaxing thing you can do. I
discovered this with my wife a few weeks ago. To
your points, sometimes you just got to have the crooners period.
But on YouTube you can search this out. But there's
like long just playlists of nothing but instrumental music, various
moods and all this. But one of them that's become

(02:34:14):
seemingly popular because I or maybe it's just on our
feed now is Gramophone era music that's coming from another
room or radio music that's coming from another room from
the forties or from the early fifties, and so it
sounds like they're upstairs listening to the crooners, listening to

(02:34:37):
big band, listening to that kind of thing, Ella Fitzgerald,
whatever it might be. But you can sort of barely
hear it. You know what it is, and you can
home along with it, but you're downstairs, like in front
of a fireplace or something like that. You want to
talk about relaxing. That is relaxing, Like it's not in
your face, it's not even loud. It's like but you

(02:34:59):
know it's in the house, like that feeling of the
Christmas music that's downstairs while you're in your bedroom upstairs
and you can hear Dean Martin or whatever like that,
or Bing Crosby, Like think about that all the time
on like a ten eleven hour loop. YouTube has that
for you.

Speaker 1 (02:35:18):
And inject that into my veins. For the best pregame show,
by the way, every weekend, be sure to tune into
Fox Sports Radio's Countdown presented by bet MGM every Saturday
and Sunday morning nine am to noon Eastern that's six
to nine am Pacific. If you're not great at the
bath thing. We will count you down to all of
the biggest games. No better place to prime you for
the tournament games than right here. Tune into Countdown, presented

(02:35:38):
by bet MGM, every Saturday and Sunday morning right here
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. So j Mart,
you had all eight of the Elite eight teams on
the bracket, correct, I'm just gonna throw this at you know,
on the count of three, we're both gonna say who's
going in the championship and we'll see if we agree.
All right, you ready for this? It's one, two, three,
and then we go one. Okay, two three?

Speaker 2 (02:36:00):
Dude, Florida.

Speaker 1 (02:36:01):
Oh god, we know that's my final though, Oh Dukee,
Florida's your final?

Speaker 2 (02:36:05):
Okay, Okay, I feel good about this.

Speaker 1 (02:36:07):
Okay, Okay, how does how does Florida's top you know,
the best I don't want to say. I mean, Cooper
Flag's clearly the best player in the country. And a
team that has a ton of depth. I mean, your
guests is as good as mine. I mean, Duke is
playing really well, and they're playing really well as a
team right now, and you've got guys that can take

(02:36:28):
over the game, but they are playing as a unit,
and I think that actually not having Cooper flag for
a couple of games actually galvanized them a little bit
more to play team ball because Cooper wasn't going to
come back and play hero ball anyway, That's not his style.
So they've actually played his cohesive unit this year with
some veteran guys and then some of the younger guys,

(02:36:48):
and Shire has has done a masterful job of putting
them together. I think it just comes down to I
felt like entering the tournament, Florida was playing the best
basketball in the country and they were doing it in
the best conference in the country on top of that,
and so that carried a lot of weight from me.
I think Walter and Company or just they are equipped

(02:37:08):
to beat anybody. But I think that if we get
Florida Duke, which I think we will, then man, what
a championship game that should be. Like your question, I
can answer the same thing. It's like, how does Duke
stop what Florida can do to you? On both sides
of the floor. We're going to find out.

Speaker 2 (02:37:26):
But I hope that's the matchup we get because I
think that ultimately, what are the two best teams in basketball.
I think you could easily have said Duke was the
favorite entering the tournament. And I think the same things
true of Florida.

Speaker 1 (02:37:37):
Yeah, and Florida has just gotten so hot on top
of all of it. Like I thought they were really
they were, I don't want to say like robbed, but
I didn't love the fact that they were the fourth
of the number one seeds. I think the way they
went through the SEC tournament, they deserved better in that process.
And I think the most interesting team that I can't

(02:37:58):
figure out the Florida. The ceiling on is so vastly different.
In the Elite eight to me is still gonna be
Michigan State. And what's funny about Michigan State is that
they can't shoot the three consistently from the outside at all,
but their efficiency inside is like in field goals in
general is absolutely incredible, and they're great at the line,

(02:38:19):
and they're deep so across the board. They got a
few different guards that can create issues, but most importantly,
they just wear you down. When they run with any
level of pace, they wear you down. So what's interesting.
They don't wear you down like physically, they wear you
down like you gotta be able to run with them,
and then they just keep going to depth. However, in
their sweet sixteen game, almost really had them figured out,

(02:38:40):
and that's the first time they've taken on that sec
sort of size and that defense, and it throttled them back.
So I don't know the best of Michigan State can
win a championship. The worst of Michigan State could lose
by double digits to Auburn.

Speaker 2 (02:38:53):
Oh yeah, for sure. I've got Michigan State in the
final four, though I did have them beating Auburn in
this game, but it could go either way. I think
Auburn gonna have to shoot the three wheel. That's one
of the things Old Miss was able to do in
that game. They got hot early, so that's that's gonna
be their key if they're off from distance. I think
Michigan State beast.

Speaker 1 (02:39:10):
Yeah, Michigan State's perimeter defense best in the country. They
should be better. But slow start, Sparty, I don't know
if you can survive the slow starts that have hurt
them for a long time. Jamar, it has been a
blast hanging out with you man. Thanks for getting up
so early to hang out with me this morning. I
appreciate you, my friend.

Speaker 2 (02:39:24):
Oh man, it's been awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:39:25):
Men, We appreciate you hanging out with the fellows. Stick
to Fox Sports Radio all day long and enjoyed the
tournament action.

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