Good afternoon, Wisconsin. Good afternoon, world. Welcome to WFHR's Playmakers.
Welcome to the show. We are here to have some fun. Get you into the weekend with a lot of good
conversations. Phone lines are wide open. 715-424-2600. Call up and join the conversation. We'd love to hear your sports
feelings, sports takes. Got your host James here with you. My man Seth will be in, oh he's just
getting in right now. He's right here. He's there. He's right on time. Right on time. All right everybody?
Yes, right on time. We appreciate you being here Seth. Thanks so much. We're here to take your calls.
Your sports takes, your feelings. Nobody does sports like we do here at WFHR. That's always been
the case and it still is. We are here to have some fun and talk a little bit of football with
you. We've got high school football going on this afternoon. We are kind of your tailgate to the
Lincoln High School Stevens Point rivalry game. The great battle for the mighty jug. The mighty river
jug. Yes. The mighty river jug is up for grabs tonight. When it is a rivalry game, it does not matter
of the records already of these things. Nope. Just here to have some fun. We're going to hear from
Michael Comer a little bit later who was down at one of the fields. He's somewhere. He's around.
He's around somewhere. One of the cool things with the teams are with a lot of your local teams
are playing in town and have home games. You can pop around to different ones. I remember doing
that in high school around here. It was always fun. We're looking forward to talking with you guys
about that. Badger football tomorrow. I want to definitely get into that. We are not going to
finish our show today before talking to some badger football tomorrow because I want to talk
expectations. I want to talk about what you want to where you would like to be after the game
outside of a big upset victory. I want to also share something with Badger fans. I actually will
start off right there because last weekend, I was going into the, for me, the biggest game of
the college football season. NIU versus Notre Dame, they barely play each other. There is not a team
I dislike more in all of sports, not the Detroit Red Wings, not the St. Louis Cardinals. None of
these teams even come close to how I feel about Notre Dame and my disdain for that team. I can
actually say that's in all of not only like just in college or anything like there's no sport
where I are player that I dislike that team. NIU never plays them and those don't pay a lot of
attention to college football. NIU is not known for college football. Not really. No. No.
We're quick out there. Tell us what NIU means. Northern Illinois University.
Most people are like, what is he talking about? Absolutely. There's a million people out there.
I will give you a pair of tickets or something for something. If you can guess what their mascot is
even. Oh gosh. I don't know that either. With that, they were going into that game and I knew
that they didn't have a chance. But I had a couple of close friends of mine telling me. Hey,
man, you never know. It's college football at Michigan. You know that whole thing. It's happened.
And what happens? But one of the greatest moments of my college football life.
NIU, Northern Illinois University, the Huskies, are able to defeat the Notre Dame. They were
able to defeat them. And by the way, they have to go by Notre Dame until they win a national
championship. I said, all right. They have to actually go back to the actual way you're supposed to
pronounce that the cathedral in Paris. Why are they the fighting Irish not the fighting French?
Why they should be the makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense. But I want to give some of that
upsetness to not only Badger fans out there, but to my fellow Lincoln High School alum out there.
Because you know, they odds don't necessarily have tonight for them the same thing for the Badgers.
So you just never know what can happen. You can be as happy as I am come Monday. Let's take a call
like we'd like to do. Good afternoon. You're in the game. I thought it was a misprint when I saw
that Saturday evening when I was looking through the doors of the end for the football games. I was like
CBS put that in wrong. Yeah. They mixed it up. It was wrong. Yeah. Yeah.
It was it was pretty interesting. And it does remind you because this is really the first big up
set in college football this season. And it could be the biggest one all season. We'll see. We don't
know. But it does remind you. Exactly. It's why I'm holding off because you just don't know
what can happen. What's funny. A lot of people were talking about Wisconsin being in a trap game
last week because of their eyes on Alabama. This week, everybody's saying that about Alabama
because of Georgia next week for them after they go from Wisconsin to Georgia. So there's a lot of
people saying that about Alabama. You just don't know. Especially when we're talking. You don't
know with NFL players, let alone with collegiate players who are men, but are just becoming men.
And a million things could be going through their heads when they're on the field Saturday.
Never know. We'll see what happens. Kevin, what's on your mind?
Well, I've been getting tech messages, text messages from my my SEC friends from
and I'm texting me BTH. Yeah, Alabama. I mean, that's just a big, that big thing with those guys. But
oh, yeah. My thing is, I think he could be a successful weekend. If Wisconsin can keep it
under getting beat by 20. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, I just, I, you know, I know you, you,
you said in the past, you do like sickle. I mean, he's, he's done, you know, yeah, he did a great
job in Cincinnati, kind of turned that program around, you know, some of the talking heads say, you
know, you might have to give him three years. And I just, I don't, I don't know about this
air raid offense. I guess maybe because of us, badger fans have been spoiled for over 30 years
with, you know, being running back you and having, you know, the big ugly is from the foreign
boys pushing guys around and wearing teams out by the end of the second quarter because we're
just pounding the ball. I just, you know, I'm, I guess I'm going to, I'm definitely going to
watch the game tomorrow. I mean, I was almost going to go down and go down and at least tailgate
and be down there with, you know, just the atmosphere. That's awesome. You know, but I mean, I
got other thing, other fish to fry, but yeah, it just, so one of the things, one of the things that
I think that is important with what coach fickle is doing and really going forward for the Wisconsin
Badgers, if you want to be a relevant in college football, I don't mean just fighting for a national
championship every year. I don't mean just holding with your weight in the big 10 that is only
going to get stronger and bigger as we go forward. Yeah. Um, you have to modernize and you have to
be able to attract these talented kids because these talented kids are we're going to get people
to go to these games and get you get on TV and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, everything's IP,
everything is about branding and all of these things in college football is no different. Um,
booster money is vitally important for college football. It always has been and IL hasn't
changed that. It just brought it in the forefront. Right. So in order to do these things,
the classic ground and pound run game is not going to do that. You're not even getting the top
running backs anymore. Not just Wisconsin. I'm talking about your running back use that we all grew
up with Texas and some of these teams that just always produce great running backs. They're not
going to the traditional teams. If, uh, if you're running back half the time, you're like the kid
and boys he stayed and you're staying in house or nearby, who by the way, that kid is the best running
back in college football. Um, there's, there's no, there's no, um, future for you in that. I,
I don't know that you can't win a national championship that way. I think Michigan showed last
year that maybe they're the last ones to do it, but defense, you, you've got to get that interior
defensive line. It's all about the defensive line nowadays. And, and if you can have those world
beaters inside, you can change games, you can win championships. I don't know if defense wins
championships, but defense of lines do. Um, and we've seen it in recent years with Georgia and
Michigan and Clemson and other teams like that. Um, that's where you should be recruiting the
most in some ways. But as far as like, look at what Wisconsin's done with the receiver core they have
right now. They got a really fun, young, exciting, receiving core. If you give these guys another year,
if you give these guys a chance, they may actually show you something. We've got to really see how
this is. I don't think it's even a question outside of a garbage fire or something. Fickles got to
have another year. I don't care what happens tomorrow. No, nothing could really change that for me.
If anything, not even because I necessarily believe in the guy or or I think it's the right idea,
you've gone this far in. Right. You can't, man, you got to wait. A lot of teams right now need to be
looking at Miami and and making like, okay, I'm not doing that. Okay, I'm not doing that. And I'm
talking about the Miami dolphins, not the Miami hurricanes. Right. Uh, you've got to learn from these
things. Um, you, you can't go half in on stuff. You got to go all in and you got to see it through.
You have to, and it's also a pretty darn good listen to the young kids too. Hey, uh, you know,
if things aren't working out, you can't just fire a guy and start all over and go back to what you
used to always do. You got to see things through sometimes. Uh, more people need to do that in life,
I think. Um, I think that we need to do that as badger fans. I think we need to see this through.
I think we need to see what happens here. Um, on the other side of it, as far as liking him or
disliking him, then it all comes down to winning. Uh, it really does. People like Mike McCarthy for a
little while. I mean, you know, you guy wins and, and we all get behind him. That's right. That's
the winning changes everything. Mike McDaniel last year at this time was looked at as an offensive
genius. Right now, everybody's wondering if he's an even, uh, a system season. Yeah, right. He's
going to finish and stuff. Uh, Syriani and Philadelphia. Very similar thing. Well, you know,
anything is, I mean, I'm not saying going on fire fickle. I mean, for one thing, I don't,
I mean, when they said they hired trust, trust, as a defensive coordinator, I knew that was a bad
call. Yeah. I don't think he's either decent defense coordinator. Um, but I mean, I, I agree with
you. They got some really talented wide receivers, but his offensive line is gotta give the quarterback
a chance to set me free to make the fitness rolls because, um, he's not that bad up. I mean,
he did well down in Miami. Mm-hmm. I mean, his freshman year, he was, he was one of the top
quarterbacks in the, in the, in the country. I mean, yeah, last try. I think because, because of
injuries and stuff, things changed a little bit, but give him enough time. He's got, he's got a
pretty good arm. Um, give him time to put, put them under arrest. He's got, he only can throw
these little five yard outs or these little passes behind, you know, in the backfield.
Alabama's coming for you. Yeah. They're, and last week they had a bad, they had a bad week. It was,
you know, there was a, Northern Florida, there's, uh, Northern Florida had a, had a chance to
really make a game of it until like just about halfway through the third quarter to the fourth.
Um, I just, I just, I don't know. I mean, I just don't want this washer into repeat.
Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, I mean, I don't mind. Like I said, I might say, and you gotta get rid of
sickle, but boy, if they, if something happens this year, I mean, they were picked with eight,
what the eight to nine wins. Yeah. And they barely skate the first two with. Uh-huh. Right.
We will see how tomorrow goes for them. I think that a lot of us, uh, I'm in agreements with
you, man. If you can keep it within 20 and end the game where it's not, nobody feels like it's
a blowout. That is a, a victory and something you can build on. It's certainly not a, I shouldn't say
a victory. It's something. It is that moral victory that we like to talk about that no football coach
wants to hear. Oh, never. But, but it is, it is. And, and, and whether he, uh, acknowledges that
or not to his players or anything, I guarantee, you know, I guarantee that he will because they,
they build on these things and a good coach can turn a loss into a win. Right. A good coach can
make it next year. Uh, a good thing. So, right. And Kevin, don't worry. I mean, if, if he's
doing nothing but checking down, you know, the quarterback, he's perfectly NFL because that's all
they do anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Man, what happened to that change quick, that change is quick, man.
Like we get used to the running game, everybody. Yeah. Or the, or the quote unquote running game,
where it's like a short outpass to the running back. And it's still like basically a run play.
Yeah. Or, or just a jet sweep or whatever. Yeah. And you, you, you, you go back to, you know,
to the NFL, I mean, last week, if you watched that throw that Richardson through with a guy in
his face and he, he launched the 30 yard or 60 yards and the guy caught it, you know, insane.
Yeah. I mean, that's one thing I'm, I'm worried about tomorrow on Sunday. I mean, if you want to
switch to yours, just the tab before I get off. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, you know, that's one thing with
Richardson. He, I think he's got a bigger stronger arm than what, um, uh, uh, sure. Um, Millie
Quillis. No. Uh, the quarterback from Philadelphia last year. Oh, Jalen Hertz or Jalen Hertz.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long day. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you about no worries. But he's got a bigger,
and he's bigger and stronger too than I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then he turned around and
throw, you know, one of the best badgers out there, Jonathan Taylor in the mix, but, you know,
yeah. Boy, I really hope that, uh, things get turned around in that defense with the backers.
You know, that's, I mean, there we go. You know, badgers were talking about defense.
Mm-hmm. Passers were talking about defense. I mean, that, that, that, that, Packer fans are
right to be concerned about this game. I really think so. Yeah. You know, yeah. It's, it's
something that it's hard to get to me outside of injuries. It's hard to get too worked up,
early on in the NFL season. In the first quarter of the NFL season, well, no matter what happens.
We've all seen multiple, multiple times teams bounce back from an oh and four start even
and make a playoff run or something like that. Packer's last year. A good example of that,
actually. Yeah. They're, it's, it's, but it is also our job to dissect these things over think
these things. Of course. And to, and to use Captain hindsight whenever we can. Right. Um,
well, what kind of sports fans are we if we use logic or anything? It's, I, I think that what
I'm excited about for Green Bay is, okay, now every player on that team gets to see what they're
made of. Uh, you don't, you don't have your leader. You don't have the guy that's there that's
supposed to be the, the, the, the Superman. You don't have Superman. You, you, you are the Justice
League without Superman. Go win the battle. Go beat this team because the odds have you, Vegas has
the, the Packers East. Last I saw Green Bay ahead in this one. Odds wise. Oh, really? That's
yeah. They're like three, three and a half points favorites or something like that. I think
wow, it is Indianapolis has a couple of nice pieces, but this is a game with or without Jordan
love. You should win. Um, now whether they do or not, that doesn't matter almost, uh, because
this is NFL and anything can happen and all the things I just said, but you do get a chance to
see, wow, look at this guy step up or, oh, look at these receivers. They can play well with any
quarterback. That's, that's true. Again, same thing with the, the coaching staff here for Green Bay
as it is for Wisconsin or any other team. A good coach can turn a, a loss into a win and a win
into learning and they're, they're going to be able to do that either way with this game if they
want to make this a real season. Uh, and, and, and I keep coming back to this man. This could
really actually work out for Green Bay. Jordan love is, Jordan loves arms just resting right now.
His legs are healing. His mind, his, uh, everything that you care about the most is all doing okay
right now. Um, that stuff, like I'd be a much more concerned if it was a shoulder injury or
something like that. Uh, you're just sitting here, just kind of letting them, uh, we're going to,
we're going to open up the package on Christmas. We're not opening it up by Christmas Eve. We're
opening it on Christmas. Um, and that's when we're going to celebrate. That's the concern, uh, on my
side is they bring it back too fast. Yes. That is a real concern, I think, too. So, which is,
is, is a good point to bring up, especially if you're looking at a week to week and oh god, we're
oh and three, you know, or something like that. Do we need, we got to ask Superman to come back
early? Uh, you know, that, that, that, that could be, that would be bad. That could be bad. I
don't think that'd be good. Uh, and, and I don't think they need to do that. And I do think that
they're smart enough to see that. I, I am, I am interested to see who is going to sign Ryan
Tenehill first. Um, I'm curious because his ending with Miami was not great. Things did not end
well there that first run. And, and the way that the fans treated him was not great. So I wouldn't
be shocked if there was a little bit of, you know, uh, now, hey, uh, dollar signs win all. And
especially if you're just sitting back and you've been waiting for somebody to call, I would look at
both teams and I would think that you got a good chance, uh, at a playoff run either way. I would
think that if you sign in Miami, you've got more of an opening because who knows what's going to
happen there? Because we every, every, you can't be doing a sports show right now and not give
your feelings about this situation with Tua. And I watched that game last night. I didn't get
see all of it, but I've seen most of it. And I certainly seen, um, Miami, almost every Miami's
offensive drive. And through that whole game, um, he was not making very good decisions.
Uh, especially the last pick that he threw where he was being, he was, he should have just swallowed
it, just taken the ball, just taken the sack and instead threw it up and it's a pick six. Um,
then the final play of his where he's going marching down the field, he's, he's rushing down the
field. And you can almost feel every NFL fan thinking and feeling the same thing. All of us,
and obviously Miami fans, obviously the coaching staff, he runs into, he was not tackled. He runs
into Demar Hamlin. Demar Hamlin barely got his arms in the tackling position. He goes into this
head first. Right. Right into his chest. Demar Hamlin's chest, the young man that was just lost
to us almost from this same type of play. This young person, this, this, this wonderful young person
to a, to a, to a, to a low level one. Dang it. I knew I shouldn't have done that. You should have done that.
That's right. You tried to just go with two. I've seen so many interviews. I've seen so many
things about this guy. He seems like a good guy. He seems like a cool kid and seems to really love
his family. Um, really care about his teammates and everything. He does not seem like an unintelligent
person. But in that game made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision until a final one
where instead of sliding, instead of running out of bounds or something like that, protecting himself.
He did the worst possible thing he could do not only for himself before Demar Hamlin, another player.
He, he endangered another player with this. He did something that everybody watching in the moment
was worried about. He however did not do the right thing. Um, he needs to take accountability for
this. Yep. And I, and I think with all of this being said, I don't understand how he can continue
to play logically. Now passion wise, heart wise, we all understand what that, you know, how that
can outrank the brain all every day. And that's, that's half of the people in the NFL. Yeah. Um,
but logically he has shown that he has not learned how to handle this last season was an anomaly
apparently. Last season him not having any of these that we know of by the way we know of. Yeah.
We know who knows. Yeah. He is on paper for having four concussions. If you conclude the one at,
at, um, at Alabama, uh, he is, uh, by all, uh, by our eyes has had at least six from what I can tell
and I haven't even watched that many of his games. Uh, and he's, and, and just as importantly is all
of this of what doctors say, his parents, his, his wife, all of these things, it is coming back to
the fact that he does not seem to have learned. He doesn't seem to have corrected things. It's
Robert Griffin with the legs. Robert Griffin, they kept begging him, please learn to slide baseball
players, Washington National baseball players are trying to teach him teach him to see Griffin out
there. Just, just like he was trying to hurt his legs almost it seemed like like it just a bad, bad
decision making. Um, it's, I don't know that he, there's certain things in life. I feel like you
have to earn and, and, and I don't know that he has earned the benefit of the doubt in this
situation where he, he, he just wasn't thinking. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he wasn't thinking obviously,
but what tells you the, why should I give him the benefit of the doubt that he's going to learn
that he's going to be any better if they, if he gets under center again? I, I, I, I worry about
not just him, but other players. Uh, one of the things that I, uh, I, I, I appreciate Kevin
is you hanging out, even when I'm on my soapbox. Thank you for doing that brother. That's all right.
Well, he, well, um, you guys have a great weekend. You two, man. That's the goal pack goal.
Go badgers. Yeah. Lincoln. I mean, it's, it's a big rivalry weekend here. So, yeah, it's a fun
weekend too. Absolutely. And not only all of that, but it's a birthday weekend for you, man. Enjoy,
enjoy your day. Have a great one. And we appreciate you. All right. You guys have a great weekend. You
do, man. Seven one five four two four twenty six hundred is the number call up and join us.
Michael Komer is going to be calling up and joining us in just a little bit. Look very simple.
Very simple with him. Uh, that should be good. Uh, great points about Alabama. I thought from
Kevin listeners there. That's, um, we will see how that plays out. We've got some stats of the
shows for you coming up in a little bit here. Everybody. Uh, a couple of them, I think are pretty
interesting too. Uh, well, I guess, of course they are. Of course, I think why would you, you,
you wouldn't pick him otherwise, right? Yeah. I've got some stats of the shows coming up, but
they're boring. And I mean, no, no, they're good. Before we go to break though, I got to call
somebody out. Oh, I don't mean to do this. Okay. Cause I do not know this person. And, and I,
I get a little tired of the keyboard cowards and these people that'll take people out, uh, when
they know that they're, they're not listening. Right. Um, the person that'll talk, you know,
trash about somebody as soon as they turn their back, but they're facing them. Oh, how you doing?
I don't like that. Uh, so I will, I will promise the audience that if I ever have the chance to
meet Mr. Robbie Chosen, um, I will do it with, I will say the same things to him to his face that I
have said to the audience and to this microphone. All right. What are you doing? What, what are you
doing, man? For those that don't know, uh, Miami, uh, Miami Dolphins wide receiver, um, he used to be
Robbie Williams. Um, Rob, I'm sorry, Robbie Anderson. He brought Robbie Anderson. He, his
birth name is Robbie Anderson, Robbie with a Y. Okay. Uh, he briefly has changed his name to
Robbie Chosen. Oh, I'm sorry. He went from Robbie Anderson to briefly changing it to chosen
Anderson. And he is now going by the name Robbie Chosen, but Robbie with an IE.
Did it bother him that much? Why, why is he not getting roasted for this? You, you can't do that.
Look, if Patrick Mahomes went out and changed his name, I'm, I'm, I'm Patrick Mahomes,
and I can't do my carbon impression right now. Right. He came out and do one of the go by Patrick
Chosen. We would trash him for that. And he could get away with it. He's, he's, he's, we can,
he get away with it, man. There is literally nobody outside of one person, one thing, one entity,
if you will, that can really get away with that nickname. Now, if the fans want to call him that,
that's different. That's a given nickname. Right. Yeah. You can't do this, man. From this day
forward, my name is no longer James. I want you to call me wolf. You guys ain't gonna call me wolf.
No, it can't be puppy or, or something. Yeah, right. Give me some kind of, or maybe a night writer.
Yes. Oh, that's maybe twitch. Yeah, I did. He literally flinched when I said that.
I'm just going to play with this man. We're just letting him get away with it because he's a football
player. He can't get away. I hope his friends are, are just roasting it. I do, you know, seriously. Okay.
Even like at the height of his arrogance, Chad Johnson, he went with an Ocho Sinko. He didn't even do
something like this. At least try to fun way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you can't do that, man.
You can't change your name when you're, you have 379 total receptions. You got 30 total touchdowns
in a, what, seven year career or whatever this is. Yeah, that's not. Yeah. I didn't even know
he's with who the dolphins. I didn't even know that nobody did nobody until last night. Nobody
did. Nobody. I love how he went from chosen Anderson. No, no, wait, wait, that doesn't sound right.
I got to change this. But Robbie Cho, oh, wait, and I don't never like the spelling of my name.
So I like, I, like, so obviously he didn't like chosen Anderson. That didn't sit well with him.
So instead of learning from this mistake, he went, oh, where I messed up was going by that as a first
name. That was too arrogant of me. Let me move it to the back. Let me, you know, that, that's a lot
of class. Next time you should just go straight up, just chosen just get rid of the other name.
Just go with chosen. I mean, why not? I might have actually, then might have actually been a
little bit better. I'd still be true. You'll probably do it twice chosen chosen. Oh, I like that.
Actually, you know what? No, I don't want to be going on pizza pizza too. I'm fine. You know,
that's pretty good. If he was a rapper, I wouldn't let him get away with this. I mean, you can't
outside that we, we have allowed in society two people to give themselves nicknames, Shaquille O'Neal.
Shaquille, it's away with it. Lots of nicknames, lots of nicknames. It's not a big list here.
There's not a lot of people to get away with this. Shaquille. Okay. Not only Hall of Famer,
multiple championship winner, one of the best centers of all time. Okay. We get that. Plus,
he's a big teddy bear. Yeah. You know, one of the nice guys in the, you know, so come on.
That's something, but this guy, we don't even know who he is. No. No. You, you, you were barely chosen
by the dolphins, man. Yeah. Right alone chosen. You can't get away with that. We're going to take
a time out. I gotta, I gotta get, I gotta do a penalty. Yeah. Stop it. We'll come back. We're
going to talk some high school football and we're going to talk to you coming up on playmakers here
at WFHR locally grown radio. Welcome back, everybody to WFHR's playmakers.
I'm suddenly thirsty for an 80. He mentioned, he said 80, like four times that weather report.
Very, very thirsty for what now. I really want to see Jerry Rice for some reason. Oh, that'd
be pretty cool. Yep. And I was just actually watching old highlights of Jerry Rice's. That's
not a bad thing to do. I'm telling you. I usually before the start of any sports season, I'll go back
and watch highlights of some of my favorite players. And the watching Jerry Rice actually got me on
a down a rabbit hole of white receivers that I've grown up and I've always loved every every
year of my life. There's been, you know, these guys that I just really enjoy watching. I really
liked Jerry Rice a lot. I liked Andre Rice and a lot. It was a big fan of his. He was fun.
And more currently, my last favorite wide receiver was Larry Fitzgerald. Yes, my last favorite
player really. Now I'm a big, I will not lie. I'm a big home's guy. I do like him. He's really good.
There's a couple of guys out there that I have really big fans of that are must see TV from
me. Larry Fitzgerald was that. And it actually carries us perfectly into our stat of the show.
All right. Cool. It didn't even know that you were doing that. I didn't send him up. As we go to
Larry Fitzgerald, who I believe is one of yours. I mean, a soda boy, isn't he? I think he is.
Yeah, or he was from. Yeah, he's from Minnesota. Yeah, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver,
Larry Fitzgerald is, of course, a future Hall of Famer. The veteran has started 261 games in
a 17 year NFL career and has scored 121 touchdowns. That's insane. One of my 17 years. Yeah,
wide receiver. Wow. One amazing record that Fitzgerald holds is that he has more tackles,
41, then dropped passes 28. What? What? 17 years. That is insane. 28 dropped passes. Oh,
Fitzman. That's telling you down here. I ain't nobody like. There was a name like the Cardinals,
man. I did. Yeah. But think about that. When you're looking at it, like, I just, like, I
obviously didn't find this out myself. I'm reading it from an article. Right. Um, the,
the statistician that comes across this, I mean, like Kev was saying earlier with the score from
the game, you're just looking at a couple of, wait, they can't wait. Is that right? Yeah.
They can't be right numbers are wrong, right? They flipped them.
These guys that have 20 drop passes in a season. Like, you can't know way. No.
41 tackles to 28 dropped catches. That is just incredible to me. That's an incredible stat.
And that is our stat on the show. Uh, stat of the show. Now, let's just hope Marvin Harrison
can get more than one. Uh, yeah. Yeah, really. You would miss. There were people freaking out over
because he was clocked at only like 16 miles an hour as his fastest on Sunday. People were freaking
out. Oh my God. I, uh, I, I think he's going to be okay. I think he'll be fine. I thought it's
like 22 in Ohio State. I don't think he's small. I, I don't know that Kyler Murray is going to be
okay. I would, I would, that's one of those situations. If I'm the cardinals, I move on from him
before I would from Marvin. He's my fancy team. Um, yeah. Yeah. I have one other stat that I heard
today. Uh, I did not get to catch much of it, but I did hear a little bit of the Dan Levitard
show in a big shout out to him and the amazing work that him and his team do down there. Uh, he had a
really interesting stat that I heard. It has been 43 games since the Buffalo Bills lost a game by
more than six points. Forty three games. Really? And they have not lost a game by more than six. Wow.
That's, that's impressive. Just, I, I don't even know how to, what to do with that stat necessarily.
Like I, I mean, there's, does that include playoffs? Um, I don't actually, I don't know. I don't know.
Regular season, regular season, regular season, regular season game because they, I do believe the
Josh Allen's, I think first or second playoff game was just a massacre. It was bad. He was throwing
like deep passes to fullbacks and stuff like, I don't know what that was. And they don't even play
anymore. No, no. Um, but that is a wild. That is at least three NFL seasons of, of going where your
team is just always in it in the fourth quarter. Your team is just always in it. Um, that's impressive.
That win or super bowl or not, that isn't impressive run right. But you know, it was, you know,
and we touched a little bit on before when we were talking about two of, but yesterday's game was
really weird. Yeah. There was like Buffalo did not have a ton of offense. Josh Allen
feel like 139 yards. He only ran for two. I mean, the, the, his best pass catcher costs like
five balls. Um, James Cook had a nice game. Yeah. But they still won by 21 points.
That was weird, man. It's a weird anomaly of a game. It was a weird strange game. Yeah.
Uh, and, and you're going to have that first couple of weeks of the NFL season. That's true.
We shift gears for now into baseball because I do want to talk a little ball with you, Seth.
All right. Let's do it. Rocky burrows are an action tonight taking on the Arizona Diamondbacks.
That has always been a good matchup tough series over the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, the
burrows, of course, looking for that magic number. I believe it's seven. Uh, for them right now.
Uh, at the last I heard, I believe it is seven. So looking for that and certainly looking for
momentum going into the playoffs. Uh, I did want to mention because we never want to seem biased
or anything to our teams or anything like that. Right. For those that didn't hear
interesting story coming out of Minnesota or I should say out of the Minnesota twins farm system.
Yeah. Uh, Derek Bender, six round draft pick catcher was, uh, cut from the team for tipping
pitches. Bender on third, uh, they cut catcher Bender on Thursday after he told opposing hitters,
the types of pitches that were coming to the plate during at bats in the game last week that
eliminated his team from playoff contention, uh, sources have told ESPN. Um, now there is a,
there is no, nothing heard from the young man yet. I believe as far as why he was doing this.
I thought when I brought this up with Seth earlier today, you had some interesting comments.
Before I get to that, I do want to say the little bit that I've heard about this and, and this
isn't reporting. This is just a little bit I've heard. He wanted to, he wanted it to end the game
to series to end, but that was a big part of why he was doing this. Okay. Now that could be him
like or his people or whatever people throwing it out there. So you don't look, don't look at that.
Look at that. Don't look at gambling. Yes. Look at that. Don't look at the gambling that boy
if that doesn't sound like some kind of, uh, whoo inside thing. I mean, other than the weirdly
blatantness about it, which out in the open, the other players are going to think that's really
weird. The ones you're telling that to the other team are going to be like, dude, why are you telling
me what's coming? That's, that's not normal. That's really, really weird. I'm not in this chair
without second chances. Uh, so I, I don't ever want to come across like people don't deserve
second chances. I also believe that there are certain jobs, certain things in life that are a
privilege to do. I'm doing one of them. And if I mock up, I don't get to do this job anymore.
Right. I can still work for a living. I can still find other ways to pay for my responsibilities
and myself and all of that. But, uh, you don't get to do that. And you're darn sure don't get to play
a kids game for a living and get paid thousands of dollars to do it. If you don't do certain things,
like cheat like this. Yeah. So I don't care why he did it. I don't think this kid can ever play
baseball again. Like, like, that's where that's just I don't want him in the Northwoods league. No,
it's bizarre. It's just the strangest story. And there's obviously more. And I'm guessing there's
going to be an investigation. Uh, but there's, there's more here because that is just the strangest
thing I think I've ever heard in my life. If it's true, there's no answer he can give me outside
of like Liam Neeson called me up before the game and told me he had a particular set of skills.
He was going to come after me and other people. Why? I had to tell them I had to like outside of
something like that. There's no defense to this. Not really reasoning. Almost doesn't even matter.
But I, I'm thinking about this. And as it's becoming more and more of a storyline with the young
man in the NBA last year who averaged 0.8 points a game and got lost his whole career. Through it
away for a couple thousand dollars, right? I feel like we're not, this isn't the end of this.
We're not going to bring Max's top hearing these stories. Now this is stuff that's very
interesting to me, especially as all of sports just decides. Hey, you know how we said for over 50
years that the worst thing you could do is gambling on on sports. Well, now we want you MLB just announced
earlier today that they are going to be for the playoffs having logos on their helmets and everything
for advertising. Yeah. So get used to seeing a draft draft king right there or something as we,
you know, all that stuff we said for 50 years. And whatever, you know, you know, I mean, come on.
Let's be cool. Be cool about it. I mean, other than that, the weird preseason, you know,
Shohei Otani interpreter story, which was still really crazy. I mean, we win everybody.
We just all just, but we forgot. We all forgot about that. We just, we memory hold that on purpose.
Yeah. So you sure did. I mean, obviously, it looks like that Shohei had nothing to do with it,
but that's really seems that way. But anyway, I mean, they released all that information, but
it's going to hit. It is going to be a gigantic gambling scandal coming. I don't know which sport
it's going to be in, but it's going to hit. And it's going to hit soon. And we're going to have to
re-evaluate all of these sports leagues that are now partnering with all of these gambling sites.
It's like, oh my god. Right now, all around the country, there are people that are having
their records expunged for different reasons because of different laws changing. My dad and I were
talking about this and we were talking about the possibility, hey, does this mean with gambling
being okay now? Should Pete Rose be reconsidered? And I asked my dad this. My dad didn't blink
an eye. No. Jimmy, he sold out his team. Like for my dad, everything he did up to that point,
didn't matter. My dad really liked Pete Rose. Big Pete Rose guy up until then. After that,
nothing for it. Forget it. Nothing for him. He's like, no, you can't get away with that, Jimmy.
You can't get away with that. We're going to call Michael right now. Michael, you're on the line.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm four Pete Rose going in though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's up to the Hall of Fame.
Just because he was banned from baseball, doesn't mean he couldn't get in, but the hall is following me.
I love the idea of taking little kids to go to Cooper's town and see all these heroes and everything.
And hey, there's Pete Rose. He's the hit king. Why was he in there sooner? Because he gambled on his
team. You know, and he didn't pay the price for it. He got into the Hall of Fame after all.
So guess what, kids? You can get away with stuff and still get in the Hall of Fame. Great lesson.
Like, hey, you know, it doesn't matter as long as you're good, as long as you break records,
you can still get what you want in life. Like that, what lesson is that? He doesn't deserve to be
in the Hall of Fame. He sold out his team. You don't get to get that's the that's the whole point
of this catcher. Like this catcher could be the greatest catcher of all time. I don't ever want to see
him in a baseball uniform again if this stuff is true. Where is the line here, especially with
baseball, what that loves to embrace cheating? It loves to spit balls, uh, sign stealing the
Astros, the Astros. Like, I mean, come on, pick a lane here. If you want to be okay with all that
and we're just going to go ahead and wink, wink, nudge, nudge, then sure, let Pete Rose in.
You should have done a years ago while he could actually acknowledge it and everything.
But if we're going to actually hold the line here and say, hey, cheating is wrong,
then no, you can't let him in. Pick a lane. MLB, not you guys. You guys are. Yeah. Yeah.
Your opinions. Michael, we want to talk some high school football with you. Where are you right now?
I'm current. Well, I actually just actually just took a shower. So I don't kill
Killorandy after a long day of work. It's good to be better than I normally do.
But no, I was at work all day. I stopped at the fourth leg of the Wisconsin Valley Conference
girls golf meet and no official results yet. But it would appear as it was power for the course.
Marshfield as Marshfield took the fourth leg as they won the previous three with Rapids taking
second for the fourth time in a row. All right. Okay. Very cool. Excellent reporting. Yeah.
Nice to lurk, man. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Michael, we have talked all week about this game
and you and I talked Wednesday quite a bit about it. But as you're gearing up for at 650, I'm 105,
5WYRI are pregame kicks off. Lincoln High School hosting Stevens Point, the battle for that
beautiful, wonderful jug. Michael, what are you going into this game? What do you think and feeling?
What are you hoping for? Well, I'm obviously hoping for Rapids to get their first win of the year
at the cost of their biggest rivals. Honestly, that's what I'm hoping for.
Look going into it. How is Rapids going to slow down points? Points score is a lot of points.
Yeah. It's even in their name. It really is. That's point. It's another point.
Yeah. So can Rapids slow them down and can they get their offencing gear? That's the other
part of it too. I mean, you looked at the first week. They put up 21 points and then week two,
they were shut out, 44, nothing to rice lake, and then they were pounded like 34, 35 to 6 by
others last week. And that was actually a defensive score. It was a pick six by Kyler Tritz.
So the offense is not scored for two full games now. That's rough. Yeah, eight quarters. Actually,
I think it's nine because I don't think they scored in the fourth quarter of a game against
River Falls. When it comes to something like that, you're looking at just trying to get
something to build on, regardless of the winning or losing the game. You're just focused on
getting this team to have something to look forward to and to build on. Right. And you know,
it's funny. We talked about it. We were one third of the way through the season after week three.
Well, it was funny from the first day of practice until the last game is played on the last week
of the regular season. Yesterday was actually the exact middle day of the season. Wow. Okay.
Wow. That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. I got that from good old Travis Wilson of
Whistboards, but I do it with somewhere in there, but I mean, he'd be the guy that you know, it's more
than I do. It's an interesting stat. Yeah. Michael, when it comes to the game itself tonight,
certainly excited for it and looking forward to it. Don't want to, and you know,
wear your voice out here with us and everything. You got a long night ahead of you.
But is there any other high school games you want to know or anything else about the week this
this week of football just in general, man. I don't want to just talk high school. Have you had
something else that you wanted to touch on? Well, you know, I want to see how Nakusa does against
the team that can score a lot of points. You know, Berlin, Berlin scores a lot of points in each
game. They scored 119 and they out of the three games they played. They've won two of them,
and that's factoring in, but two of those wins. They didn't allow a point. So they have
they shut out Amro and they shut out Wautoma. So well, and Wautoma is who Nakusa plays next week.
So there's kind of a barometer there, but you know, that's what I'm looking forward to. Obviously,
that's that's one. And of course, Port Edwards and Alma Bancrop, that's always a very good rivalry,
very fun one as well. College wise, I'd be a liar if I said, like I said, I'm starving,
because I said I wasn't going to eat all day today. So I was hungry for the crimson time.
I was working on that at work. You nailed it. You nailed it, man. You nailed the dismount. I know
that you mentioned you'll be at the Packer game this Sunday too. Safe travels, enjoy, have a good time,
have a good weekend, have a great game tonight, okay? Oh yeah, definitely, but you know,
this is the time of year where as much as I'm a football junkie football football football football football.
Gonna be up at about five o'clock tomorrow morning climbing about 14 feet closer to the
great heavens sitting in an oak tree hoping to stab a deer with an arrow. So that starts that starts
tomorrow morning. So that's I get to sleep in on work days before I go to work because weekends
are getting up early to try to harvest a deer. Nice. Safe, I have a good time out there.
Yeah, I hope you say hundreds have a safe time out there in a good hunt and we appreciate you,
man. Have a great time tonight. Yep, thank you guys. You guys have a great week.
You too, too. We'll talk on Monday. We'll talk soon. Appreciate Michael. Again, the coverage of
the the game's going on tonight. Assumption is taken on eye scan. Shout out, Randy. That's going
on tonight. Port Edwards taking on Almond Bankcroft. That is also at seven and of course,
the Nikusa game coming up Berlin versus Nekusa right in Nekusa. The heart of Nekusa.
Yeah. Beautiful Nekusa. And of course tonight not only is it going on here in rapids,
it's going on on WIRI. Steven's point versus constant rapids. 650 are pregame kicks off
for this great wonderful rivalry. One of the oldest rivalries in high school sports set,
which is really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. By the way, we are going to be carrying a couple
of Nekusa games coming up as well. So keep that in mind, everybody. That is very exciting because
that team is excited. Yes. Seth, thanks so much for hanging out with us, ma'am.
Yeah, no problem. Do you have to go or do you have to go to do the game? Not yet.
Not yet. No, that's until seven. We got a little bit of time. I do have to do something,
but not that. Right up. Well, you go ahead and do that. We'll be back right here on PlayMegas.
Welcome back, everyone to WFHRs PlayMeghark.
Seth and James, hanging out with you, taking you to the top of the hour.
Phone lines are open. Seven, one, five, four, two, four, twenty six hundred, four, two, four,
twenty six hundred. Very cool. Sorry, I was just checking out this bear's book. You got it.
It's really cool. You set me up again. Great, great teammate right there. You just set it up,
and I just slam it down because I want to thank Pam Hilke for the collector's items. She gave
me this book on the bears and it's actually autographed Seth. I see that. Oh, that's so cool.
My parents don't know it yet, but they're got a new book to read. And there's Black Hawk's
poster here. That's very nice. Very cool. Appreciate you, Pam. Appreciate you. I want to talk
a little baseball with you, Seth, before we wrap up today because there was a topic that came up
a little while ago that you and I did not get a chance to dive into. There is this proposed idea
from MLB about the idea of how they can get in. They have an interest in increasing the amount of
action in the game and restoring the prominence of the starting picture and reducing the prevalence
of pitching injuries. MLB officials told ESPN. That is their statement on this. The idea
of making it mandatory for starting pictures to pitch at least six innings. Of course,
this would not include a blowout. Trying to see. There's a lot of exceptions that they put on
there too. There is. There is. And those are not worth it. But the idea is still there.
And they're not letting this go. They kind of skated or they kind of tried to not cover it up,
but just 21st seven news cycle. They just quickly put it out there. Yeah, exactly. And it's already
been gossed and lost in the ether. But this says something that is going to come back, especially
in the winter. Yeah, your thoughts on this. Well, it's that's the night. So the first thing was,
you know, let's how do we speed up the game? And they did the pitch clock and that's worked pretty
good. Although it's it's gone back a little bit again. The games are starting to get a little bit
longer again, but still better than it was. But now they're looking at. There's a lot of people
that don't like, you know, using six guys every game out of your bullpen kind of thing.
It's like, well, what happened to the starting picture? You know, look at the guy. I mean,
even in the 90s, you had guys throwing, you know, like 10 complete games in a season. You never,
ever see that anymore. Occasionally, it's just something that happens every now and then,
or they throw no hitter or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm with him on this. I'd like
the idea of starters going longer to games. I do not think this is the way to do it though.
Because first of all, they've got a whole bunch of, you know, exceptions. Again, you know,
if there's like more than certain number of runs, there's, you know, I got him right here real quick.
If he throws a hundred pitches, gives up four or more earned runs or gets injured.
Right. Those are the three exceptions, which is kind of the way they do it now.
They throw 100 pitches. They take them out anyway. Yeah. It's kind of self-governed already.
Yeah. That part of it, I don't see it making a big change. I really don't.
To me, of all the ideas that I've heard, the one I like the most is limiting the number of
pitchers you can have on your team. Yeah. That means limiting the size of your bullpen, basically.
When James, when we were kids, 1980s, when we were growing up, and this wasn't a rule,
they carried 10 pitchers. That's it. Yeah. That team's carried 10 pitchers. When they started
carrying 11, 12, 13 people like, what is going on here? This is outrageous kind of thing.
And now it's the norm. 15 maybe. You can get, there's 26 total players on a team.
You can get up to 14. There's no real limit of how many pitchers you can carry. Yeah.
And, you know, they've tried to limit, you know, the, now a reliever has to face at least three
batters, right? Unless they end in inning. That kind of, there's a few exceptions for that too.
That hasn't helped a ton either, especially with speeding up and getting, they still call into
the bullpen all the time. So I, I'm thoroughly, I'm, I'm, I'm very much in the camp of let's limit
the number of pitchers they can carry. And I think you will then see starters go deeper into
games. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful that they're going to do, because they have made some smart
decisions in recent years, I think. I'm hopeful that they don't muck up the good that they've already
done with something like that, something mandatory, something that is forced or really goes against
again, what baseball is. It's trying to do this thing. And I understand it. And I respect it,
actually, of staying true to tradition and taking care of their core audience, while also adapting
and trying to get bigger. We know something about that here at WFHR. I get it. But at the same time,
you got to again, pick a lane. How are you going to handle this? How are you going to go forward?
Because we're all adults here. And even kids can see the difference of some of these things that
they're doing, where they're trying to almost cherry picking where they want to make changes,
or what they want to do to, you know, increase the game better and everything. And maybe I know
one of the things they're trying to do is limit injuries to that's the other thing. The whole
maximum effort, every single pitch, they're trying to get away from that. And that's, I think,
one of the reasons that the six inning are minimum is came out because it's like, you have to pace
yourself then. You can't throw 100 miles an hour every single time you make a pitch. 650 tonight,
our pregame kicks off on 105 five WRI Lincoln High School hosting Stevens point. Oh, it's going
to be a good one. Be sure to check it out tonight. Randy, Michael, Seth, going to cover that one
for you. A big thank you to all three of you guys for that. Always given great coverage and a lot
more high school sports to come throughout the season. You got it, man. Tomorrow, we got a great
lineup for you and a great game lined up for you at 9 a.m. Join us as our pregame coverage starts
for Wisconsin hosting Alabama. You're going to be able to feel Madison from here, man. Yes,
you will. It'll be rocking. We'll be talking about it on Monday's playmakers. With the last
minute, we have left kid, Seth, you mentioned that we are kids of the eighties. Let's name some
eighties baseball players. I will start Tim rock rings. Oh, nice. Wade Boggs. Oh, Eddie Murray.
I don't know why, but Eddie Murray's mustache just popped it by head. Oh, mustaches. Karnie Lansford.
How about that? Oh, good mustaches. You got a good one. Don Mattingland. Good one too. Was
Alan Trammell? Was that an eighties ball? Yes, he was. He's don't combo ever.
Lou Wittaker belongs in the Hall of Fame, by the way. It's a good one. I'm trying not to look at my
computer. Brett Bliven. Brett Bliven. I don't know where that came from. I don't know. How about
another B. Brett Butler? Great lead off, man. He was a great bonner, too. Walt Weiss. Well,
nice. Very good defensive source. Yeah. We appreciate you all out there. And a big big
big inequality plus printing. Getting your words out here in Wisconsin Rapids. We'll talk to you next
week. Have a good week and everybody.