Rescuing Russell Wilson (Hour 4)

Alrighty, hour number two of our radio program. It is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. You can think O'Reilly Auto Parts where your car care needs get guaranteed.

Low price is an excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. The Sweet 16 does commence tomorrow night, but coming up on Friday we will have the Princeton Tigers in action as a 15 seed up against Creighton. That game starts at 9 p.m eastern and now joining us is the associate head coach for the Princeton Tigers and a pal of mine back from my days when I was doing local radio in the Princeton area and that of course is Brett McConnell. Coach, really happy for you guys. Congratulations, how you been? Good to catch up with you. Zach, Zach, doing great man. We miss you in Princeton, but really awesome to be on with you tonight and we have a lot to talk about. We're all very excited with the run we're on and hoping to keep it rolling. Well, don't give me the coach's answer here that you guys are all focused on on Creighton. I want you to just kind of recap the emotions and the run that you guys did go on to get to this point of beating the Sweet 16 on Friday night.

Yeah, yeah well first Zach let me give you a little bit of perspective okay. So we just had dinner. We went a little late. Our flight was a little delayed. We just had dinner at Vincenzo's like a really big time spot here in Louisville. I'm sitting now on the bus.

I went out to the bus a few minutes before the guy finished. It's all leather bucket seats and you know everything has stepped up a little bit right. Like everything feels like okay it's the Sweet 16 now and we're being treated really good. There's a buzz around campus.

There's a buzz around the guys. It's been incredible. I don't even think we can quite, the perspective on it will be different here in a month or so, but we're riding this wave man. We're riding this thing out. We're enjoying it.

We're having a blast. Of course our focus is on Creighton, but there's room and time for us to have some fun with it too and I think the guys are all soaking that up. When did it feel real? Because I know as a coach and players you guys are like robots where it's you win and you're on to the next one and it moves so quickly. When did it feel real where you said to yourself wow we beat Arizona and then we beat Missouri and now we're gonna play in the Sweet 16? Yeah well you know the second that Arizona game ended I was, I actually was in the locker room.

I pulled my laptop up and I'm watching Missouri film. Like it's a really quick turnaround and that was you know just what had to be done in that moment and sitting in the locker room you know an hour or so before the Missouri game we're about to give our our little pre-game talk go through the scout one final time and I'm in the little offshoot of the coach's locker room and I think it was Kansas Arkansas or one of the other NCAA tournament games is up on the screen and I'm not really paying much attention I'm trying to get ready for Missouri and of course I just look up for a second and on the bottom line starts to scroll like upcoming games. Number seven Missouri versus number 15 Princeton second round and I'm like oh my gosh like that's up like it you look up every once in a while you get a chance to look up and see where you're at see what's going on and then after the Missouri game to see you know social media to see tv to see sports center like I mean every single media outlet covering us talking about us going to the sweet 16 and you pinch yourself you look at the coach next you're like this is really happening like it's been incredible it's been awesome and it's still different moments hit me still now you know I look up and see something that you know 15 Princeton taking on Creighton like is really is really special. And you guys are a confident team now you're respectful but I remember talking to you after the Arizona game and you talked about how you guys matched up well against Missouri where does this confidence come from with this team because I know you guys are 15 seat I know you guys come out of the ivy but it feels like you guys belong here and your players don't think the moment is going to be too big for them. No well I mean you know you gain confidence from these last these last two games of course right like to beat Arizona to beat Missouri um not much will faze us going forward but Zach we got really good players we got really good players Toson Awoma was ivy league player of the year in 2022 I think I think his teammates felt like maybe he was deserving this season of being back to back he ends up you know having a chip on his shoulder and getting conference tournament most outstanding player uh Keishon Kelman I mean could play anywhere he could be a defensive end in football he is a big guy what a specimen so so you have those two guys kind of on the front line they match up well with with these high major teams Cade Pierce freshman had 16 rebounds you know last time out I think he had seven or eight on the offensive end he's the Zach I think he's the third leading rebounder in the NCAA tournament right now it's like Oscar Shibue is number one somebody's two and Cade Pierce is three a freshman from Chicago and then Langborg and Alaco in the back court a senior and a junior they've seen it all like Peters comes off the bench draining threes Martini is tough as nails Davey and Lee is a ball handler for us to relieve pressure I mean we feel really good about the fact that uh talent wise like we're not the the prototypical mid-major like we feel like we can stack up with anybody our guys are really confident um we feel battle tested so uh we're not gonna be phased I don't think here by by anything uh coming up and I thought the Missouri game was more impressive than the Arizona game because it's one thing to get one win and then right it's the 15 seed and we saw last year with Saint Peters they run all the way to the elite eight but then people just expect you to stumble the next round you guys didn't only just beat Missouri you dominated them coach like you ran them off the court we felt really we felt really good uh about our performance there and and um you know Zach I'll say this too because as good as that Missouri performance was and we feel like we're capable like that that you know we felt like hey if we get if we get guys playing playing well at the same time like we feel like we're capable of that and we're at our best the Arizona win we did that shooting four of 25 and we've got a really good three-point shooting group and so you know to be the two seed usually the recipe for these underdogs to beat uh a higher seeded team is to you know shoot the lights out shoot above their head and and we shot four of 25 in that game so I think two really really good performances um for us and and uh we hope to keep that momentum rolling Brett McConnell when I looked at the Fairleigh Dickinson win against Purdue Tobin Anderson did not let Zach Edie breathe on that court in this in the second half for you guys up against Arizona with their bigs you held them to what as a team uh five points in the final like eight or nine minutes and no points in the final 445 what was the approach defensively up against Arizona in that first game well you know credit to our guys we were really really really physical inside I mentioned Kelman I mentioned Kate Pierce Zach Martini off the bench were really physical those two guys are really big for the Pac-12 I mean they're they're really big uh two physical guys inside we also mix double teams we double teamed all year and we double team just about every time when those two guys touch the ball um it's it's uh it was really effective and we mixed the double team on and off against Missouri and you know we'll have a game plan for Creighton but we were really really good at our double teams um and sorry Zach the guys are getting on the bus and we have a tendency uh with this team right now when when they get on the bus after a win or a good meal they tend to get pretty loud and rowdy and uh we like them having fun so apologies if it gets a little louder over here no it sounds good to me Brett McConnell here with Dusty assistant coach for Princeton Princeton gonna be playing in the sweet 16 as a 15 seed Friday night up against Creighton um you talked about some of your youngsters Blake Peters though you talked about the bad shooting against Arizona he made three big three-point shots and then he was just unbelievable from three up against Missouri um take me a little bit through more about Blake Peters because I've been impressed with what he's been able to do off the bench for you guys let me tell you Zach it is the least surprising thing to everyone in this program that Blake has shot the way he shot the last two games I mean we have the utmost confidence in him he's had games with four and five threes this season if he has an open look everybody on our bench thinks it's going in um he's an unbelievable shooter he's been that way since the first day he stepped into our program he was that way in high school um it's what he does it's what he does the moment doesn't phase him the the situation the time on the clock like he feels like if I'm open I'm getting it up and I feel good about it and that's that's as the coaching staff feels that way his teammates feel that way um so we hope he can get some more up on Friday right uh yeah absolutely take me through the story of Toson so he's from England you flew out there how'd you guys discover him and how'd you get him to come to Princeton well it's a crazy story his his club coach who also was one of his national team coaches emailed a bunch of ivy schools a bunch of you know high high academic high major uh program that that they thought fit him apparently I was the only one to follow up on the email and go out to see him but the story gets better because when I when I got to the northern uh I flew into London drove four or five hours up north in England and Toson is playing in a really tiny gym that probably had one side of bleachers you could probably fit 10 fans in there there's every line you could imagine handball volleyball I mean sports that I don't even know existed netball on this court it it's unbelievable what the gym he was planning Zach I'm not kidding they were down 50 at halftime his peak I think it was 64 to 12 and uh I still fell in love fell in love with the kid it's funny because he tells a story that I didn't know but when the game ended and I'm sitting and talking to him he said he wasn't paying much attention because he was just waiting for me to say hey goodbye we'll never see again that's how bad the team played at a rough rough night and I'm like hey when can you come out and visit us and you know of course he came out and visited us the rest is history and he's he's changed our program he's changed you know not just this season but the impact he's had on our program has been uh has been massive so we're thrilled we have him did you white lie a little bit to Mitch Henderson and made it out to me since he's in England and Mitch probably didn't know what was going on that hey he was a lot better than whatever the box score said you know you know a good thing I watched some film before I went out and saw him because I had at least a better feel for the type of player he was and what he was capable of and I I think I probably told Mitch you know it wasn't his best game you know but so maybe maybe I didn't uh didn't go all the way in on how bad a performance it was for his for his team but uh everybody's happy with how it worked out that's for sure what stands out to you Brett McConnell before we let you run the the assistant coach from Princeton in the sweet 16 Friday night up against Creighton what stands out to you about the Blue Jays they're a big team we know they're a good team they had some adversity early on in the season where they lost six in a row but they're starting to click on all cylinders yeah I think they were missing Kalkbrenner for that stretch yeah and he's a big guy in the middle he's 7-1 really talented skills block shot like and then they put four shooters around him and you know when you put four shooters around a really good player uh it presents a lot of challenges prevents presents a lot of challenge if we're going to double what what could happen beyond that if we guard them one-on-one can we stop them like there's just a lot of questions with shooting like that around a really good big um and uh and they're smart they're skilled they're tough they're really good Zach they're really good I remember when we were hanging out in Princeton you were telling me each and every year you go to the final four now you're still a long ways away from the final four you got to go win two more games but you just being a student of a game and obviously you've coached for a long time and you grew up around basketball this just got to be such a thrill Brett McConnell like we hear you on the bus right now you guys just got out of dinner like part of this the last I know you guys feel like you belong but a lot of it still has to feel surreal right it's a hundred percent Zach I mean in my wildest dreams like to be coaching a team in the sweet 16 uh man we're we're pinching ourselves it feels like it feels like a dream but but we don't want it to stop and and at the same time we feel like we belong and we feel like we feel like we should be here so it's kind of an interesting dynamic and a combination of these two things but uh each time we get a win we're one step closer to the next thing that that felt insurmountable and now has become pretty close two more yeah two more before we let you run coach um let me just ask you this uh so we all know that the Ivy League did not play in the COVID year then you guys lose in the in the championship game to Yale you've had some tough performance up against Yale you beat them that win in the Ivy League tournament against Yale was it just a sense of relief that once you got into the tournament it was just a giant monkey off your guys's back are you sure I mean the pressure that that mid-major teams in one bid league space in their conference tournament and and um you know for us to to play pen again and have to beat them a week after we clinched the regular season title in the semis and then play Yale who's been really tough in the final like those two games are absolute battles you are scrapping and clawing and fighting so hard to win those two games so yeah without question like you feel like you're playing with house money a little bit when you get to the NCAA tournament there's less pressure you've achieved your biggest goal you've made it to the NCAA tournament and I think you're seeing that from our guys there's a freedom there's a confidence there's a looseness to them um as much as they're focused and playing really hard um there's a little less pressure uh on us right now and I think we're relishing that opportunity last thing I'll ask you Brett McConnell uh this team last got to the NCAA tournament the program back in 2017 you guys were right there with notre dame and you just weren't able to hit a shot at the end what did you take from that experience and how has it helped you this go around yeah I mean you know what Zach like for all the bells and whistles and the bright lights like what I realized in that 2017 notre dame game the second the ball gets thrown up and tip it's a basketball game and and and we've all been there before we've all played basketball games these guys have played against really good teams so once the game starts once that that ball goes up um we we know what we need to do and and I I don't think the moment is too big I don't think anything else uh impacts us beyond just trying to win a game and um we've got two down and and now we're on to Creighton and trying to get that next one well enjoy your fancy dinners enjoy the fancy bus ride enjoy it with the guys and hopefully we see you as a head coach soon but you're doing a kick-ass job as the associate head coach for Princeton's basketball team and it's been a whole lot of fun to see you guys continue to build and move forward with this great program so appreciate you doing this thanks Zach they're waiting for me to finish so they can start singing karaoke back oh thanks they could have started interrupting you and singing karaoke during the interview we could have put them on speakerphone I know I should have done it that was great talking to you Zach thanks man thank you there he is coach Brett McConnell joining us on the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio that would have been great Hickey if we would have got Toson and Blake Peters singing like a little Sweet Caroline or something like that could I karaoke on CBS Sports now uh CBS Sports Radio two days in a row what was last night yesterday Maggie Gray did a little karaoke herself oh did she really not on the air but during Women's Appreciation Day and they replayed her karaoke on the air so we had that karaoke yesterday oh in the uh in the event in the in the office yes and you could have had karaoke today with the Prince of Men's basketball team so look at that karaoke is is hot now everyone's doing it the reason why I'm laughing is you're like oh look at that karaoke two days in a row I sang yesterday I didn't remember doing so I love karaoke but I would not do it here like you give me a give me a few beers in the system a little microphone at a bar I could do a little karaoke you have a go-to song oh this could be embarrassing when I there was a karaoke night every Friday in the Poconos and uh I would sing the Grease song Summer Lovin' that would always be a thing that would come on and they would try to get people to go up and do karaoke and I did it one time and then it became a thing where every Friday night people want me to sing Summer Lovin' happened so fast interesting I was not expecting that one yeah also uh what's the the song by the Alfields lose your love tonight that's also a good one to sing karaoke too and then you could uh get to some other songs and just some vulgarities that are are not allowed to be set on the radio I don't want to be like you there's some songs with some cursing in it that are good karaoke songs as well that you just can't sing on the radio so it is what it is we'll take a break we will come on back Tyler Palumbus will join us do a little QB Carousel with the Denver Broncos. 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allbirds.com that's a ll b i r d s dot com you're listening to the Zach Gelb show right here let's spin the wheel and find out which teams we hit today the denver broncos all right now joining us the super all 50 champion does a great job mid-days on altitude sports radio and that's our pal tyler palumbus tyler how you been hey i'm doing great zach good to be with you well thanks so much for coming on so we found out today that russell wilson to start this off season did undergo right knee surgery um when you look at last year was the disaster obviously for russell wilson and the broncos now sean payton is in well what's your expectations for your number two of russell wilson with the denver broncos well that's a loaded question right uh i think for this fan base you know for the for the layman fan uh they're all they really care about is the wins and losses uh they're not going to be looking at touchdowns interceptions although i will i'll be looking at touchdowns interceptions i'll be looking at uh you know completion percentage and um all those things that we we need to look at uh for our own advanced stats but the fans hey you get to nine wins or you get 10 wins sneak into the playoffs and you know maybe you could flirt with some success in the first round or not and i think the fan base would be forgiving obviously it's been a roller coaster since russell wilson arrived in denver and it's mostly been on the downhill i don't know the downhill the fun part on the roller coaster which which parts the the non-fun part on the roller coaster because that's the part we've been stuck on maybe when it ends or maybe if you ask me when it goes when it flips upside down because i can't stand that part i'm projectile vomiting all over the place yeah yeah we've we've been stuck there so you know rus had 16 touchdowns he had 11 interceptions last year uh i would love to see those numbers i would love to see him in the 26-28 uh touchdown um you know and honestly probably in the same ballpark as far as interceptions 10 or 11 interceptions all the year i think now we expect all quarterbacks to play into their late 30s or early 40s with what we saw with tom brady you've seen with tom brady and then also what aaron rogers is still being able to do at a pretty high level is there that concern with russell wilson that maybe we're seeing the decline and that's what it was last year and he'll never be able to be a great quarterback again in the nfl of course there's that concern yeah i mean i think people are terrified of that you know when russ got here uh last just last season he said that he was going to play another 10 years and he's going to win another three or four super bowls uh i think we would be lucky to get a solid three or four more years of good football out of russell wilson uh if you got a super bowl out of it i think we would all count that as a bit of a miracle at this point i mean it was bad ball last year it was really bad now but what everybody's banking on is the the last four or five games uh russ was playing better he played really well against the chief uh he ended up getting hurt in that game uh that was probably his best game of the season but he started to find his stride a little bit with jerry judy they found a connection at the end of the year uh but jerry judy's on the trade block right now and i do think they are still actively trying to get rid of jerry judy so what's the deal there because we were just talking about that before you came on tyler palumbus it's like okay this guy just played three years in the league he hasn't been as great as what people thought he was going to be but at the end they had a little bit of a connection what's the truth with the jerry judy situation well you know the you know the the wide receiver room is just not good enough right now uh cordland sudden is getting paid uh good money it's not like incredible money for wide receivers in today's day and age believe it or not but he's i think he's making like 14 million per year which is crazy to say that's not stupid money uh of course that's stupid money but you know nowadays wide receivers are making a lot more than that but he has just not lived up to his expectations ever since he got that contract jerry has just been frustrating uh he has had in his first couple years he had so many drops last year his drops really weren't so bad um there was a lot of guys i think i think he was hovering around that five or six mark on the season um but it's uh it's been a roller coaster he's been an emotional roller coaster he's a guy that wears his heart on his sleeve and he throws temper tantrums uh um a lot odell beckett jr uh i mean i would call it like many obj type of temper tantrums doesn't run back to the line of scrimmage uh he'll pout take clays off uh so i think they're making a decision right now you know they got to decide uh if they want to give them that fifth year option and so if you if they don't trade jerry judy i think it's a guarantee that you're going to give them that fifth year option so it's really are they willing to make a two-year commitment to them right now or not and that fifth year option i believe comes in around 13 million dollars so you know uh do they think that he could be worth 13 million dollars i personally think the broncos should keep them uh you know your wide receiver room is so depleted already uh i think you got to bank and just hope and cross your fingers the the jerry judy that you got in the last five games that's who you're going to get consistently i'm going to ask you about the running back room i know javante williams injured last year there was high expectations and who knows what he's going to return i read a lot of discouraging things on the rehab process unfortunately there for him um is there a chance i know it doesn't usually happen in division but i see where the odds are right now that they somehow wind up with austin eckler via trade well i don't know about austin eckler uh broncos are out of draft picks i mean they gave up they give up the farm to go get russell wilson they gave up the farm again to go get sean payton so uh draft picks are not a commodity that the broncos have enough of if anything they got to find ways to get more draft picks so i don't know if austin eckler makes sense um i would love to have him great football player uh and i think he'll be worth the money still he wants a new contract uh i i on the surface i would welcome austin eckler uh i do think that despite the fact that they it's unlikely they'll trade for a running back they will add another running back because of what you just mentioned you know rumors behind the scenes and i want to be clear i don't know this for a fact uh but rumors behind the scenes are that uh jovante knee entry was much more serious than what anybody they do uh and you know it was a total rebuild when they got in there and so i think they're going into the season expecting sabanche purine to be their number one uh if they get jovante back great uh and jovante would probably get that number one spot back if he does come back healthy but they got to bank on jovante not being there so they got to add another running back either way so you think there's a chance you can miss the entire season i hope not i hope not because jovante williams is such a fan favorite i mean anybody that's watched that kid run he is so easy to root for but i fear it yes i fear it by the way you're doing a local talk show in denver you guys don't have a draft pick until the third round what the heck do you talk about with the draft well i was talking about that with our producer the other day i was like so do i just get to take the first two rounds off like uh we don't have to do any draft coverage because they they can't trade back into it it's very boring it's very anti-climatic could we get it can we get a starting center in the third round can you get you know get a running back we're talking about the boring stuff so when you when you look at sean coming in obviously that locker room was dysfunctional last year what is going to benefit russell wilson the most by having such a great coach like sean payton well uh going back to russ and kind of the drama of last year uh so much of it had to do with off the field stuff obviously he wasn't playing well on the field but you know russ there were rumors that russ had up to six parking spots that were available to the stadium uh you know he had he had his own uh personal quarterback coach that had an office in the building not a broncos employee on tuesdays russ and his personal quarterback coach would pass out a game plan that was non-sanctioned by the denver broncos it was russ and his personal quarterback coaches game plan and uh i think honestly the best thing that could happen for russ right now is what sean payton did on day one he said no there's not going to be any non-bronco employees in this building that's not working like that all the perks are going to go away russ is going to have to force himself to kind of reacclimate with the locker room uh and and that's been a problem because i don't think guys dislike russell wilson i just don't think they know how to relate to russell wilson and it's going to be good for him to get back he's he had his own personal office he's going to lose his own personal office he's got to be back in the locker room with the fellas what is the the status of of jay keeps that's the personal quarterback coach we know he's not going to be at the facility sean made that clear i'm assuming he's still working with russell wilson have we heard anything on the jake front does he does he do interviews still no uh you know jake was doing interviews with us uh at the beginning of the season and then he went quiet um i think he probably got a little upset with me i consider him a friend uh but i broke uh some rough uh russell wilson news in the middle of the year about him using audibles from the seahawks and offensive line not knowing it and so i'm sure that didn't help my personal relationship with jake but i as far as i know he's in town he's working for us uh he's going to be doing everything that he can uh just outside the building jay keeps best friend tyler perlumbus here with us on cbs sports radio how tough is it going to be for rus to win back over that locker room because that's weird when a locker room turns that quickly on a quarterback with that much established success in the league it shows you how bad that situation was and then at the last two three weeks of the season when teammates were starting to try to make it not look as bad as it was i thought that was so phony well it's real simple it's real easy win ball games and you get the locker room back uh nobody cares you know if rus was if rus went out last year and won 11 football games and and he was playing like ruffle wilson in the old no one would care nobody nobody would have cared about jay keeps being in the building nobody would have cared about the parking spots nobody would have cared about the extra people in the plane but when you don't win ball games it's all an issue so uh the best thing rus can do to reacclimate himself with his teammates win do you think it's likely this team makes the playoffs this year um i think anytime you got sean payton as the coach uh you've got a fighting chance at it uh it's so hard to predict because nobody knows if russell wilson is left for dead or not uh and if i had to guess i think he's closer to permanently on the decline than playing like uh seattle rus ever again so uh playoffs are a stretch but easily attainable if russell wilson can even come back remotely to his old form of course playoffs is attainable with sean payton and russell wilson but it all comes down to we got to see what rus is in the first four or five weeks of the season the chiefs are better the charges are better are the broncos right now better than the raiders yeah i think so uh josh b daniels is always a mess uh i forgot that's your best friend oh yeah that's my real best friend yeah that's that's my real one yeah so i i mean but seriously look at what he's done out there i mean he's having problems left and right it just got rid of darren waller uh traded out derrick carr for jimmy groplow jimmy groplow's not as good as their car uh derrick carr is clearly better the the market said that derrick carr was better based off the deal that he got down in new orleans and based off the deal that jimmy got with the raiders so yeah i mean i think the broncos are finally a more healthy organization than the raiders uh the chargers you know they're always the the best team on paper to begin the season and then they just charger it up and they do what they always do so you know as good as justin herbert is what have you really accomplished right so i i think there's still an outside chance of of getting a wild card spot you're not going to dethrone the chiefs uh that that's not happening so the best you can do is try to fight for that number two spot i'll tell you just going back to the raiders i i listened to that entire pat mccaffee interview with aaron rogers and it seemed like rogers was definitely interested in a reunion with devante adams that still blows my mind how that didn't happen where you move on from carr who i don't love derrick carr but it doesn't move the needle for me really bringing in jimmy garoppolo when it seemed like rogers want to go there i'm not the world's biggest derrick carr fan either but he is better than jimmy garoppolo yeah i don't think there's really much of a difference like to me derrick carr is healthier jimmy garoppolo's won more games but yeah if you're probably just looking at the talent cars cars probably slightly better right right but not getting rogers there that's a that's a big mistake it's a swing and a miss by mcdaniels yeah yeah uh although i'll i'll tell you it doesn't shock me that uh josh is going with the middle of the road quarterback i mean jimmy g he wins ball games nobody nobody can take that away from him he wins ball games but i'll tell you when josh traded away uh jay cutler from the broncos uh he came into the team meeting he he addressed this all he said fellas don't worry about it i could turn a high school quarterback into an all-pro so that is josh mcdaniel's philosophy on quarterbacks how did you react to that i how do you think we reacted to that i mean he just traded away our whole nucleus jay cutler brandon marshall tony shepler i mean we had one of the youngest most exciting nucleuses on offense in the nfl and he got rid of them all uh it was not a good start for josh oh i'll be hanging out later on tonight with josh mcdaniels and jay keeps he's of course is tyler palumbus tyler i appreciate the time i got no beef with jake i like you might have beef with me uh i i'm just gonna go out on a limb i don't think he likes you these days by the way that you experience i'm gonna assume you might be right you know what i will put you guys in a group text and i'll just say hey guys you need to mend this relationship see what happens perfect perfect i like it all righty there's tyler palumbus always great when he joins us now i'm just wondering if i should actually send that text that would be a whole lot of fun marco valetti is here now marco remind me you're not as optimistic about sean and russell wilson meshing together if i recall correct i'm hopeful i'm a little concerned with russell wilson going off on his own and not sticking to the quick read get rid of the football and play inside the payton offense likelihood that they make the playoffs this year slim right because buffalo buffalo's gonna make it there's so many deep teams in the afc even before the draft we get to yeah like buffalo cincinnati jacksonville kansas city those are probably division winners the jets they keep on making good moves assuming the rogers deal gets done don't forget the dolphins yeah yeah the dolphins if too it could stay healthy the chargers right i think are better than them the ravens assuming lamar stays there there's and the stealers are always around i guess so if de sean watson knocks off the rust absolutely the browns could be a player oh definitely man that's that's gonna be tough and i would right now say the broncos are better than the raiders but it wouldn't surprise me the raiders finish in front of the broncos this year uh i guess i'm a little confused as to what the raiders are trying to accomplish and maybe that's all the josh mcdaniels i just i i don't get exactly what they're trying to do franchise but i mean like you were so quick to move on from derek carr which is fine and then to turn it into jimmy garoppolo like uninspired again it's almost like you're treading water what exactly are you trying to you're telling me that the jimmy garoppolo josh mcdaniels connection is worth more than a good quarterback you can't get to derek carr it's not a malcontent you can't get him to play inside your system it just doesn't make sense it almost makes me think and maybe i'm dead wrong here and maybe they're waiting to go draft a quarterback next year but if they have another disaster year i would not give them your number three this regime maybe they're going to go draft to richardson maybe they're going to go draft a levis and you have garoppolo be that stopgap guy once again for a year that's that's fine if that's the road you're going i mean see if they have to pick to be able to even do that i mean we're talking there's some reports of richardson going number one i mean who knows but that's what i'm saying like who knows you you you want one of the top four or five quarterbacks you might have to get into the top five top six so i don't know where the raiders are going to go in that regard if that's the case and that's different then you're rebuilding the whole thing but you're you went from a playoff team to what you had last year where they couldn't hold a lead picking seventh this year to now garoppolo is the answer and stripping it down a little bit like i feel like they don't know what they want to do they're in they're in the middle and that's not where you want to be and also when they they signed jacobi mayers and they have already uh devante adams there and then when i looked at that move i'm like okay that means they're going to get rid of renfro and keep waller then they trade waller like the whole thing just doesn't make any sense again i feel like they want to almost like the dave gettleman they want to have it both ways they want to rebuild while winning at the same time bring guys in but then also get rid of like at some point you have to figure out what your direction is are we trying to again strip it down is is that's extreme it's the nfl you can go one year to the next but you have to figure out if you're going to go a little bit younger and try to build something with a core or if you're going all in with veterans and see if you can make a playoff push and i feel like they're caught in between when you're caught in between it's almost like the mr miyagi left side of the tracks you're fine right side tracks you're fine you know middle of the tracks squish like grape that's where the writers are in the middle of the tracks squish like grape this is that gilf show on cbs sports radio closing bell next planning a wedding can be intimidating but finding the perfect suit shouldn't be indochino makes it easy to get a fully customized suit right from home with dozens of high thread count fabrics patterns and colors to choose from indochino lets you fine tune every detail and design a suit tailored perfectly to your body and your personality set up your measurement profile on indochino's website and choose fabric and customizations without leaving the house or book a showroom appointment 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samson and also jim larenago right now i do leave miami i think miami is going to win that game you also have gonzaga and ucla that is tomorrow night at 9 45 p.m eastern and that is the next chapter of this matchup in the ncaa tournament you remember all these years ago that and morrison crying as uh ucla did take down gonzaga and then a few years ago you had the big jaylen sub shot to get gonzaga into the national championship game i just can't wait with mccronan and uh mark few we've obviously seen um uh the the great players ucla over the last few years and you know good tiger campbell could be and then jusang as well uh but just how much of a winner he is and then for gonzaga you got the 9000th year of drew timmy so that should be a great one for uh alabama and san diego state i do think that gave me a little bit closer to what people think but it's the brandon miller show and we'll just continue to see him probably roll uh to the final four and then how far can you take it from there they are my pick to win it all princeton major storyline i don't think this is a good matchup for them up against craden and the size of craden but for princeton in the first game they beat arizona but they didn't shoot well and then up against missouri they were just on fire i wonder can you find that middle ground i don't think anyone expects them to play as well as they did up against missouri but it's weird saying like don't play as bad as he did up against arizona when you beat them but brett mcconnell said it mitch henderson said it they shot the ball horribly in that game so i just want to see if you can find the middle ground there and then finally it's the coaches here you look around and you see nate oats going for his first championship we know mcdermott's been going at this for a long time lara nega trying to get back to a final four in the first ever final four for miami the redemption story of kelvin samson rodney terry should already have the job at texas uh you have the must bus as that continues to roll through we'll see if he rips his shirt off uh hurley and the job that he's done is this the first time um when you look at rick barnes he's gonna finally get his credit and get more credit nashley the great story of jerome tang at kansas state you have tom izzo in march um you look at dusty may at fau there's just so many good stories with these coaches and he's going to see who continue the magic here of the ncaa tournament all righty let's get to the closing bell another day is in the books and we're taking stock of the sports world it's time to find out who's up and who's down let's end the day right and hit the closing bell only on the zach galb show paul george going to be re-evaluated in two to three weeks last night the clippers do lose to the oklahoma city thunder who are right now a game and a half back of the sixth seed they sit there as the seventh seed with the record of 36 and 36 but last night they got a one point victory up against the clippers and j gilges alexander had 31 points and seven rebounds to give a stock up to sga this story was brought back up on part of my take part of my take had friends to show john fanta on and it was a great interview and i guess i missed this now j williams remember he claimed he got hacked when he said congratulations emo doka becoming the first african-american coach for the boston celtics and that was a tweet that he got clowned for because it just wasn't true and then he said he got hacked but i guess in january he tweeted out when the georgetown job was clear patrick ewing wasn't going to make and they got fired after the year so people keep asking me so i will answer georgetown basketball has always been a dream job why does anyone think j williams would have got that job maybe it's because he was sitting around that espn he saw jeff saturday get a gig he thought okay i could get a gig but you tweet that out when patrick ewing was still there i thought that was very classless and good job by part of my take bringing that back up to fanta and fanta said yeah he was never a candidate so stock down to j will we'll talk to you tomorrow everybody we out bye-bye peace