Rice on the Mics

Decision Season

• Ian • Season 1 • Episode 42

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December has a way of stripping the excuses. We kick off by framing the NFL’s prove-it month, from Bills vs Bengals as Buffalo’s window check to the Steelers’ Tomlin question and Chicago’s identity test at Lambeau. Closer to home, the Jets’ culture looks real while quarterback purgatory lingers, and the Giants juggle a fearless young QB who won’t slide, a blue-chip defender testing team standards, and a GM trying to steer a coaching search while feeling heat himself.

If your fantasy season is on the line, we get surgical: why Caleb Williams is a risky start against Green Bay’s two-high patience test, why Jared Goff indoors is a green light, how James Cook and Chase Brown become weather-proof volume plays, and when to chase Dalton Kincaid over name value elsewhere. Then we build a Week 14 card that embraces ugly: trusting a Miles Garrett takeover in Cleveland, riding a Rams-Cardinals dome over, grabbing Houston with the hook at Arrowhead, and eyeing a classic Jets-plus-points spot in the wind at MetLife.

On the hardwood, the Knicks become a case study in selective honesty. Big wings hunt their weakest links, Brunson’s size and Towns’ wandering defense get spotlighted, and the Giannis watch revives the Melo lesson: don’t overpay early when patience can preserve depth and leverage. If a veteran like Chris Paul is in the mix, it’s as a bench organizer, not a marquee fix. We wrap with baseball’s gathering storm: a CBA collision course that could threaten 2027, an AL East arms race turning rotations into weapons, the Mets building a super pen with Devin Williams, and ex-Yankees talking loud as the Bronx tries to revive its mystique.

From lineup locks to front-office calculus, the thread doesn’t change: patience beats panic, matchups beat narratives, and brand only matters when the product is serious. If you’re riding with us, hit follow, drop a quick review, and share this with the friend who always benches the wrong guy—what’s your boldest Week 14 call?

SPEAKER_00:

I guess it's only definitely positive. Tis the season. You can feel it in the air right now. We've hit that part of the calendar where everybody is about to talk themselves into something that they can't undo. Owners, GMs, coaches, fan bases. This is the season of decisions. You're either about to overreact or you're about to sit tight and hope you're not the one left holding the bay. You see it all over the NFL right now. Bill stared at the end of a six-year run with almost nothing to show, but a couple division banners while the Patriots, who have 17 of those things, by the way, are suddenly back on top with Drake May. The Steelers hanging around at 500 while their own legends are on podcasts, basically writing Mike Tomlin's goodbye speech for him. The Bears are trying to change the narrative at Lambo. And then there's here at home. The Jets finally winning some games, but still living in this quarterback purgatory where every Sunday feels like, yeah, but what's next? And by the way, I don't need Mahomes, man. I don't. I'd sign in blood right now for seven years of Chad Pennington level stability and some meaningful games in November. God forbid, maybe December. The Giants have their guy in Jackson Dark, but he refuses to slide. And Abdul Carter is getting benched again, and Joe Shane is somehow both on the hot seat and in charge of hiring the next coach. That's a decision tree that only the Giants could grow. Fantasy-wise, it's the same thing. You're either gonna bench the wrong dude and hate yourself, or you're gonna ride your guys to the promised land. So we'll touch a couple landmines, a couple must-starts, and then we'll roll the dice with rice. Last week's Thanksgiving card, this week's full slate, and plus why the Dolphins Jets is exactly the kind of game the Jets win just to ruin their own draft plan. On the NBA side, the Knicks are the perfect patience test. You got Big Cat front running against bad teams and getting hunted on defense against good ones. Giannis now hurt and clearly eyeing the exit in Milwaukee, and the entire city is just buttering under their breath. Don't Carmelo this again. Then we'll wrap things up with some baseball. We've got a whole sport tiptoeing around a potential labor fight. The Mets stealing quote unquote Devin Williams from the Yankees. Sonny Gray and Devin taking little shots at the Bronx. And the big bad wolf suddenly not looking so scary anymore. That's not a talent problem, that's a brand problem. So that's where we're going today. Not so much who are you, but more what do you do now? Do you stay patient or do you flinch? This is Rice on the Mics. Let's get into it. Here we are. Let's start where every football week really starts. Figuring out who still wants to matter in December. We just came out of a sneaky, huge holiday stretch. Thanksgiving, Chiefs, Cowboys, and Jerry World. That felt like a playoff game in November. Mahomes is looking like Mahomes again, but Dallas shows why it could be a terrifying succeed to face in January. Then Black Friday, Bears, Eagles, Chicago walks right into Philly and basically says, no, no, no, no, no. We are the team that's going to be a problem in January. And the Eagles yet again prove that they can absolutely choke it away with the best of them. And then the upset of the week, Rams at Panthers. Bryce Young, who has been a punchline for a year and a half, suddenly looks like the number one pick that he was supposed to be at home in a big spot. And the Rams walk out of there with the how did we lose that game face? That's the part of the NFL calendar we're in right now. Reputation's flipping week to week. And it only gets nastier from here because from now until the playoffs, if you're still in the hunt, every Sunday is basically a playoff game. So let's take a look at the week 14 board here. Bengals at Bills is enormous. This is Buffalo's penance tour. You had six years to run this division. You had Josh Allen in his absolute prime. And what do you have to show for it? A couple of division banners in the Raptors and a whole lot of yeah, but Mahomes memes. Meanwhile, the Patriots have now come back to life. They have 17 of those division banners hanging. 11 in a row for the record, with probably another one coming this year. And now the Bills are staring at a wild card scrap, just trying not to waste this whole era. With Burrow back in town, that Bengals team just moves different when he is under center. That's not the version of Cincinnati you want to run into this week when you're trying to hold on to the sixth seed in the AFC. Colts Jags is the same deal, by the way, just with more chaos. Both teams eight and four, both kind of held together with duct tape at quarterback. And Daniel Jones, I cannot believe this is a real sentence, is literally playing with a broken leg. He's got a fibula fracture. If you saw that video of him trying to drop back, you know that he is not scrambling his way out of anything. That's a statue with a helmet. So this thing might just come down to who screws up less, who runs it better, and who gets one big defensive play in the fourth. Steelers Ravens, that's another one. That's not just a for the division game. That's a for the era game. This isn't just angry callers yelling fire Tomlin on talk radio anymore. The talk is getting loud. If Pittsburgh lets this division slip again, if they go through another season where the record looks respectable, but every real team seems to slap them around, the Tomlin conversation gets real, real fast. You can already feel Steeltown trying to talk itself into maybe it's best if both sides move on, or maybe we should try and find something for you. Steelers have had three coaches in their franchise history. If Tomlin got fired or got moved on from, there would be a line at his door for him to coach any team. But sometimes it really just is about a change of voice in a locker room. Bears Packers sits right there in that same lane, too, by the way. Chicago has basically reinvented themselves on the fly. Big run game, defense, Caleb managing the game instead of being the playmaker. And now they get the measuring stick game at Lambeau, a place where they religiously cannot win. So are you just the fun story that ruined Philly's month, or are you actually a problem in this conference? Well, we're gonna find out real quick. We're gonna find out what that revamp Bears line looks like when a front four led by Micah Parsons decides, nah, nah no, you're not just gonna hand it off all night. Locally, though, it always comes back to the Jets and Giants because both of these franchises are also in decision season, just in two totally different ways. We'll start with the Jets. The Jets steal one from Atlanta with the walk-off field goal, and it was just such a Jets win, you know? Gritty, special teams heavy, defense hanging on, and they're running back dragging people around in the fourth quarter. Aaron Glenn keeps talking about small wins, and he's not wrong. The culture does look better, which is great. I mean, they traded guys that weren't bought in away, and the guys that stayed are the guys that are bought in. That's what you want. You want one locker, one band, one sound, right? The special teams unit is legit, too, by the way. I feel like I'm watching Mike West off coach again. They hang around in almost every game now instead of getting blown off the field, and their points per game as a defense has actually gone down after trading two of their best pieces away. But the problem is I keep coming back to the same thing with the Jets. The same problem that's plagued this franchise for 30 years, 40 years. I need a Jets quarterback who actually scares a defense, strikes a little fear in the other team's defensive coordinator during the week. I mean, they get the huge kick return, and my Jets brain immediately goes, Alright, cool, we're gonna tie this game. Because you know they're settling for three. You know they're not gonna be able to punch it in. And look, I get where this league is going. I see all these space age offenses, and then look, that would be great. That is the ultimate goal, right? To find and develop an Aaron Rodgers or a Mahomes or whoever. But I would literally settle for Chad Pennington or Ken O'Brien or Boomer Asiason for the next seven years. Just give me competence, give me stability and some normalcy. Give me someone who lets you play somewhat meaningful Jets football in November and God forbid December instead of every single season being over before Halloween. I'm tired of it. Please. Can we be five and five at the ten at the benchmark? And that's the choice that's staring them in the face this offseason. Are you finally going to pick a long-term answer and live with the ups and downs and get it right? Or are we just going to continue to do the band-aid thing again and again, hoping for the best for retreads from other teams? And the funny part is the guys around the quarterback are actually starting to look like pieces. I mean, Brees Hall complained about not being traded, right? But week in and week out, he's putting serious effort in between the tackles. Yes, it is a contract year for him, but he could have easily said, Oh, you know, I don't want to get hurt. And Adedai Mitchell is another perfect example of that. Second year guy. He comes over in the sauce gardener training as what was thought to be like a throw-in. And he could have sulked. He could have said, Man, I got traded from an 8-14 to a 3-9 team. But instead, he's turned himself into a real weapon. Eight catches, 100 plus yards, confidence to the roof. That's not an accident. That's a guy taking a second chance and squeezing it. That's culture. That's buy-in. Him and Mechie and Garrett Wilson when he comes back. The Jets will have some decent weapons at receiver for whoever is going to be under sender moving forward. And then this week, Dolphins at Jets. Division game, blood in the sand. I'm not going to go too deep on it right now because we'll circle back with the rolling with the dice segment. But I'll just say this. Tua in cold, windy Met Life with a Jets defense that is hunting for some turnovers that they haven't really had all year. This has like a way too early 2026 hype video written all over, I kind of feel. On the other side of town, the Giants are the Giants are in a completely different kind of identity crisis, right? That Monday night game in New England was a mess to say the least. Defense and special teams got buried in the first half. It's Dart's first game back, and Mike Vrabel coached circles around Kafka. 33-15 on national television. It looked bad. Look, it was a huge shot. It looked violent as hell because Jackson left his feet, but it was a totally legal football hit. He's inbounds. He's trying to squeeze a couple extra yards off the sideline, and he gets absolutely decleated. And the crazy part, Dart comes out after the game at the podium and he says, Yeah, that's football. I've played like this my whole life. We're not playing soccer. It's very Pete Rose talking about his batting stance. If you don't know the video I'm talking about, there's a video with Pete Rose on MLB Network with A-Rod and Frank Thomas and Ortiz and teaching these young Bucks something about hitting. Meanwhile, all three of them have about 400 plus home runs at least. And he says, look, don't change your stance. Your stance is what got you to the big leagues. That's Pete Rose. Okay? That's the hit king. I'll take advice from him any day of the week. So for Dart, it's kind of that same thing. It's don't change your regression. That's what got you here in the first place. That's what got you to be selected in the first round. And I get it, I do. But at a certain point, man, this isn't running over SEC corners anymore. These are NFL linebackers in safety that get paid to put the hurt on you. You got four concussion checks in eight games. You've already missed some time, and now the whole building is basically yelling, slide during practice. So the Dart dilemma is real. I mean, how do you protect your future without turning him into something that he's not? That's not a Jackson question. That's an organizational question. Are you willing to call fewer design runs? Are you willing to live with punting instead of letting him go full kamikaze for three extra yards in the first quarter? I mean, he's literally 22 years old. Think about how hard your head was at 22. So I get it. But someone, either in this organization now or someone to bring in, you have to bring somebody in. Someone has to be able to get through to him. Otherwise, his career can go from a promising young star to what could have been real quick. Then to make matters worse, you've got Abdul Carter, who's supposed to be one of the cornerstones on defense, and everyone said you could put the gold jacket on him right now as soon as he was drafted. He even had the stones to ask if he could wear Lawrence Taylor's number. Yeah, well, he got benched again in primetime for being late to a team meeting again. Look, one time is a mistake. Two times in three weeks, that's a pattern. To his credit, he owned it. I let my team down. They scored 17 while I was sitting. Yeah, but you said that last time too, man. And the vets are trying to keep him in line. Dex is saying that uh staying on the young guys. Brian Burns thinks it got through this time. You can't preach new culture and accountability and adults in a room while your number three overall pick is missing meetings because he overslept. And over all of that is Joe Shane. Look, the rule is always that leadership trickles down, whether it be good or bad. Well, now on the bye week, he's doing the media car wash saying two and eleven is not good enough. That's on me, we gotta be better. But also, I'm gonna be running the coaching search. That's where Giant fans absolutely have the right to squint a little. If your own seat might get hot in a year, are you really the best person to pick the next leader? Are you going to hire the guy who might demand real power, who might come in with his own ideas, maybe even knows more ball than you, and could ultimately be the reason that ownership looks at you and goes, Yeah, I think we need to upgrade at GM too. I mean, that's a real human conflict of interest. It's one thing to say, we're gonna do what's best for the organization. It's another thing to sit in a room across from a guy like a Mike Tomlin type and realize, oh, wait, this guy could outlast me here. And that's the fork in the road for the Giants right now. So are you finally going to choose grown-up stability and let a strong coach reset this thing? Or are you just gonna keep trying to thread the needle between control and competence and hope for the best? That's where we are in the NFL right now. Every game feels like a playoff game. And every front office meeting feels like a job internet. Bills, Steelers, Bears, Colts, Jags, Jets, Giants. Everybody's being forced to decide who they actually want to be for the next five years. And speaking of decisions, well, you've got some to make too. Fantasy playoffs are pretty much here. Uh, the betting cards are locked and loaded. So after the break, we're gonna get into who you shouldn't trust in your fantasy lineup and who I am gonna be trusting with my money in the rolling the dice with rice segment. Keep it right here. So, you know how we've been talking all episode about December being that prove it month? Well, it applies to fantasy more than anything. This is the week where you find out if your regular season darlings were real pieces or just some pretty little lies your phone told you in October. So let's do this in two phases. First, a couple lineup landmines and some green lights for your playoff push. And then we'll roll right into the week 14 rolling the dice with rice card. So, fantasy playoffs, who do you actually trust? Well, at quarterback, the one that scares me the most this week is Caleb Williams against Green Bay. Look, on paper, it feels insane to sit him in the fantasy playoffs slash playoff push. Big name, Bears are hot, division game, all that jazz. But look under the hood. Chicago has turned into a run first bully, and his accuracy has dipped. Plus, Green Bay's past defense has quietly been really stingy the last month. They're living in that too high safety world that forces you to be patient, and right now the Bears' best version of themselves is a 30 carries, some quarterback keepers, and defense. If you've got another legit QB1 option, I don't exactly hate the idea of putting Caleb on the bench for one week and not letting your season die on riding vibes. On the other side of it though, a name that I really do like this year that has been living in the middle pack of quarterbacks, Jared Goff in the dome against Dallas. I'm in. Look, the Cowboys are basically a cheat code matchup for quarterbacks right now. They've tightened up against the run, which just funnels volume to the passing game. And they're giving up chunk plays all over the yard. Even if Amon Ra can't go, Goff at home in a must-have December game against a secondary that's been cooked so often, that's exactly the kind of spot where you plug your nose, live with the occasional weird golf throw, and trust the matchup. That Cowboys defense, even though it's been tightened up a little bit, the secondary is still terrible. Running backs, there's a couple of big old check your heart spots here. Javante Williams against Detroit, I get why people want to auto start him. Draft Capital, season-long production, the workload has been there. But this is a tough draw this week. The Lions are a brick wall against the run. They've given up basically nothing to Backs for the last two months. And this sets up as one of those games where Dallas has to throw to keep up to avoid the front. So if you've got him and you're thin, sure. Play him, he'll do okay. But you can roll him out and hope for a goal line plunge. If you're sitting on a similar tier guy in that softer matchup, I'm not exactly married to starting Javante just because he got me here. Two running backs that I absolutely love, and they're both in the same game. Bangles, Bills. Chase Brown has finally turned into this quietly terrifying volume monster he was supposed to be all season. He's got six straight hundred-yard games, and that's without a ton of touchdowns. Now he gets a Bills defense that's been leaking rushing yards and scores to backs. You give me a hot runner with Burrow back under center and a defense I can't really tackle, I'm in. And then James Cook on the other side of the field might be in the best spot of any back this week. The Bengals run defense is a turnstile. They've given up the most yards, the most big games, and they can't cover backs in the passing game. Buffalo just fed Cook 30 carries last game. They clearly have decided, yeah, this is our guy. So in a must-win for Buffalo, with the weather potentially being gross, I expect both teams to lean on their backs. So if you have either Brown or Cook, you're overthinking it. You're doing too much. Start them both. Couple quick ones at wideout. Xavier Worthy versus Houston. I get the temptation. He's fun, he's electric, he's attached to Mahomes. But once Rasheed Rice came back, the the volume and the upside just haven't really matched the name. And the Texans defense is not the group that you want to test that against. They've been nails against outside receivers. So if you're in a deep league and you need a swing, fine. But if you're staring at the lineup Sunday morning thinking, well, he could pop off, that's exactly how people end up texting the group chat. I can't believe that I started him. As for someone that I do love, Zay Flowers against Pittsburgh is the classic don't let last week scare you off. He has been frustrating, yes. He has put up some duds, yes. But the Steelers give up targets after targets after targets. They give up yards, they give up receptions to wide receivers, like it's their job. They might not be giving up a ton of touchdowns, but in PPR, this is exactly the kind of game where eight for eighty just falls into his lap. If you've been wavering on Zay as of late, this might be the week that I'm I'm willing to back it up for. As for tight ends, Dallas Goddard has hit that name bigger than the fantasy output zone the last month, and I'm treating him that way this week too. The volume isn't there, the touchdowns have dried up, and the matchup is meh. I don't know. If you got uh if you got a Dalton Kincaid type against Cincinnati, I'd rather kind of play that matchup than than the name. The Bengals have been hilariously bad against tight ends. The Bengals defense has just been hilariously bad. 90 plus yards and basically a touchdown a week to that position. So if Kincaid's active, that's the one I'm willing to chase. In December, you either lean into your structural advantages, elite matchups and elite usage, or you get bounced and you go home. Big picture with your fantasy roster this week, don't get cute. Don't cling to ghosts. If the matchup's screaming at you and the usage is broken, I don't care what round you drafted the guy in. And on the other side, if the matchup is a layup and the role is locked in, I don't care that he's a not brand name. December is where we stop pretending and we start playing who's actually helping us win. And speaking of pretending, you're responsible with money, that is, let's roll the dice. Last week's Thanksgiving card treated us pretty nicely. We went two and one. The Lions minus two and a half was the one that blew up the turkey leg, but both dogs, Cowboys and Bengals, not only covered, they won outright. So the lesson there, even in quote, public holiday games, the underdogs still have teeth if the matchup and the numbers are right. So this week's card is a little different. We got three games and then one local game with the Jets. And the through line is basically how much ugly are you willing to stomach in December? So let's get right into it. Game one, Titans at Browns. Battle for the number one overall pick. Let's start with the Siccos. Titans might as well be on a separate streaming service called You Either Live Here or You Bet It. This is one of those classically gross Cleveland games, cold, probably windy, two offenses that can't really protect the quarterback, and one absolute alien on defense in Miles Garrett, who's chasing the sack record. Tennessee season is already a draft conversation. It's done and over. Cleveland at least has some defensive pride left and a pass rush that can take the game over. I'm laying it with the Browns here. Under a field goal, I'll take Cleveland minus two and a half. And if you can buy it down off a three, even better, you're basically betting that Miles Garrett destroys whatever the Titans are calling an offensive line these days, and that Cleveland can stumble into 15-20 points. It's not pretty, but again, December pretty doesn't always pay. Next up, game two Rams at Cardinals. The total is sitting at 48.5, and I like the over this week. The Rams have been a juggernaut when they're in rhythm. McVay has got that thing humming. They scheme guys open. And even when they stall, they tend to move the ball between the 20s. Arizona, meanwhile, is one of those frisky bad teams. They got some weapons, they're in a dome, and they take just enough shots to drag you into a track meet. So it feels like one of those classic NFC West games where all of a sudden you look up halfway through the third and it's 27-20, and both coaches are still dialing scripted stuff. You're just sweating red zone execution. I'll take the over, 48 and a half here. I trust both offenses more than I trust either defense to get stops for four quarters in a controlled environment. Game three, Houston at Kansas City. And yes, we are actually saying huge game for the Chiefs if they plan on staying in the playoff picture. What a sentence. Here's the thing Houston's defensive line is real. They get after you, they hit, they hit you hard, they can win up front without blitzing. And Mahomes this year has had to live in that hero ball on every snap world because the margin for them is smaller. Look, Arrowhead is a different animal, always. But if you give me a live dog with a legit front four and more than a field goal, I'm gonna listen. So I like Houston plus three and a half here. If they keep it clean, no back breaking turnovers, no special team meltdowns, they can absolutely hang in this game. You're not really betting that the Texans are better than Mahomes and the Chiefs. You're betting this is a one-score game in the fourth quarter, and the hook goes a long way. And then the locals. Giants are on a bye, so it's just Jets Dolphins this week, and this is such a Jets spot. It's disgusting. This is 100% the kind of game they win outright when they probably shouldn't. Just enough to screw up their own future. You can see the scripts already. Jets, after the trade deadline, fire sale in an 0-7 start. They go on a little late season mini run, finish 6-11th, they pick 8-9-10, and they somehow talk themselves into the fourth best quarterback on the board. On the field, it makes sense. Tua in a cold, windy MetLife against a hungry Jets defense is not exactly his happy place. That defensive line is still nasty. They are due for a big turnover game. They are the lowest in turnovers for the season. You give them a couple short fields, and suddenly the offense doesn't have to be a firework show. It just has to be competent enough, which is what Tyrod can do. So I'm gonna take the Jets plus the points. And I do think that there is actually a very real chance that they win this game outright. This absolutely feels like one of those 2017 how are we still alive with this quarterback room games that buys everybody in Foreign Park another offseason of if we can just clean a couple things up, we might be alright. And again, it fits the theme of the week. December is where you find out who you can actually trust with your money and your lineups. Some teams are built to travel in bad weather and ugly scripts. Some guys are built to get you fantasy points when the windows get tighter and the games get real. The trick is being honest about which is which before you click submit lineup or place bet. Fantasy playoffs, card is in, theme is set. Next up, we'll swing over to the NBA side. Nick's Gianna's drama, cat therapy session. We'll keep this no more maybes thing rolling along. Keep it right here. Since we are already in the December tells the truth kind of mood today, let's talk about a team that keeps trying to lie to itself day after day, and that would be the New York Knicks. Because the back-to-back this week was basically a perfect little case study in who they are and who they are not. You go up to Boston, rematch of the playoff series, big boy game, statement spot, and you get the full Jalen Brown tutorial. Four points in the first quarter, 42 by the time the night is over. And it wasn't complicated. He just went hunting. He hunted Brunson, he hunted Towns, he hunted Kolek over and over and over again. Where's the smallest guy? Where's the slowest guy? Cool, get me that switch. And the Knicks just kind of let him. No real adjustment, no, we're not giving you this matchup anymore. No make somebody else beat us. Just ISO after ISO after ISO. And Jalen gets to have his don't forget, I'm a max player night. And the part is the part that the part that fries your brain the most, everybody in the league knows the scouting report for Jalen Brown. His biggest criticism for years has been that he can't really go left. It's the most basic thing that people bring up about him. And yet he still walked into 42, controlled the game, and closed it out. If a guy that everybody says just send him to the left drops about 40 plus on your head, that's not a Jalen went off tonight kind of thing. That's a you thing. And you see the pattern here, right? Last year it was Halliburton carving him up, and then it was Tatum getting to his spots. Even in the win against the Hornets, they let LaMelo put up 34. Any good guard or big wing that can handle a little bit, take control of the game, have a good shot. You can almost pencil them in for 30 and got whatever he felt like in the recap. That's not bad luck. That's not running into a guy having a good night. That's structural. Then flip it to the very next night. Back home, Hornets in the garden, and suddenly the Knicks look like the Globetrotters again. Kat drops 35 and 18. Brunson cooks in the second half. Hart is stuffing the box score. Everybody's smiling. The ball's popping. MSG's loud. The organ is screaming. And they're 11-1 at home. And you go, yeah, yep, I know this movie too. That's great. But this is Kat in a nutshell. This is his whole thing in a nutshell. He will kill bad teams. He will absolutely stat pad on soft matchups. Hornets roll in with a defense made of tissue paper, and he looks like prime dirk. And yes, that is what you're supposed to do to bad teams. I'm not saying don't eat. I'm not saying go get yours. But when all of your biggest nights are against the Charlotte's of the world, and the minute it's Boston or a locked-in playoff defense, you either disappoint or you're the biggest problem on the floor. That's where the frustration comes from. The core issue is defense and construction. You can survive one minus defender in a playoff rotation. You can even fake your way through two meh guys if the other three are dogs, which Mitch, Bridges, and OG, and Josh Hart are, by the way. But you cannot build your entire offense around two guys who, when on the floor together, are pick and pop targets on the other end. Brunson gives you effort. He'll step in, he takes charges, he'll put his body on the line. That's not the problem. The effort is always there. The problem is physics. Against long, twitchy guards, he just doesn't, he doesn't have the length to bother them. The effort isn't in question. Unfortunately, it's just plain and simple geometry. It's I'm bigger than you, so I can find the angle I need to get a bucket. But Towns, man, Towns just doesn't know where to be half the time. He doesn't communicate on switches. He lumbers back in transition, which I could forgive if he followed his shot, but that's not the case. He doesn't anchor anything. You can see the other four guys constantly trying to have to cover for him, which then leads to an extra pass and leads to a splash dagger three all the time. You can have one guy like that if he's giving you 30 and 15 on the other end every single night. But that's not the case against the real teams. When it's him and your point guard being hunted in every big spot, now you're asking the other three players to play whack-a-mole on defense. Every single possession. That's not sustainable, and it's really not fair to the brothers that are on your team. And all of that lives under this bigger, looming question that's hanging over this franchise's head right now. What do you do if Giannis really is in play? Because here's the reality Giannis wants out eventually. The Knicks want him, and he wants the Knicks. The Lillard experiment did not work, and he has always said from day one that he wants to play somewhere he can win championships plural. This has been a thing for two seasons, and now the noise is starting to get really loud. The Bucs are spiraling. He is openly evaluating his future. Doc Rivers is saying he's never asked for a trade. Yeah, well, his agent sure did. And then just when you think another NBA superstar is about to force his way out of his current team and out of his situation, as if on cue by the basketball gods, he takes a bump, he grabs at the calf, and he's out two to four weeks. Look, I'm not saying the injury is some conspiracy. I'm just saying that the timing is very loud. Okay. The vibes in Milwaukee are cooked. The front office knows that one way or another, they are going to lose him. Whether it be at the February trade deadline or during the offseason next year, Giannis will not be a buck come the start of 2016 season. And this is where the Knicks have to decide if they're actually if they've actually learned anything from their own history. Because it's starting to feel very Carmelo adjacent. Back then, everybody knew Mello wanted New York. He wanted the garden. He wanted the stage, the same stage that Giannis wants now. And instead of waiting, because he was a free agent, instead of playing it cool, they panicked. Or should I say, Dolan panicked. They emptied the clip. They moved every young player, every pick, they gutted the depth, and by the time Mello got there, they had traded away half the stuff that they would have made his life a lot easier. Now there were extra layers back then. There was a looming lockout, the weird contract rules that might have came in. So there was a little more pressure to get it done early. But that is not the case this time. There is no lockout clock ticking. There is no sign before the rules change. If anything, patience actually gives you leverage here. Best case scenario for the Knicks, you keep your powder dry. You try to stack some picks somewhere. Maybe you get some competent role guys. You wait for the moment where Milwaukee just has to pick between losing Giannis for nothing or taking the best possible package. And you want to be that team with a clean cap sheet. You want that third team willing to jump in on the trade to help compensate picks. And you also still want to have some real players left on the roster so you don't look like a G-League outfit the second that the trade goes through. Now the risk, obviously, is that if you wait too long, Giannis might just say, I'm sick of it in Milwaukee and I don't care anymore. Get me out of here. And then they turn into the favorite to land him to yet another missed opportunity that goes down to Nick Lore, like Donovan Mitchell. That's the game here. There is no way to completely de risk the situation. But if you panic and overpay, you might end up looking at a roster of Giannis and Brunson and a bunch of vet minimums or some wow, he's still in the league, guys. And as a Knicks fan for a long time, we've seen that movie before. We don't want to go back there. You can win a championship with Giannis and Brunson. But don't put yourself in a situation where you unnecessarily overpay for a superstar player when you already have one in Brunson. To me, December is not trade for Giannis month. It's make sure Giannis still wants to be here month. So that means Kat cannot be out here looking like an empty calorie stat every time the lights get bright. That means you have to keep winning at home. You keep looking like a real serious operation. A team that players want to play for, a team that players want to make the garden in their home, not just a come two twice a year and drop 40 on us. And this injury actually comes at a perfect time because with the rumors swirling again and getting super loud, you don't you don't exactly want guys in the locker room looking around asking, do you think they'll trade me? Do you think I'm on the block? You want everyone focused on one goal together as a unit. You want them stacking as many wins as you can and putting yourself in the best posit possible position to succeed. So if you're practicing some patience here and not buying into it right away, well, what's what's the move? What's the move? What do you do while you're waiting? Well, this is kind of where the Chris Paul thing gets a little interesting. So if you haven't heard Chris Paul, this is gonna be his last year, he's 40 years old, he already announced his retirement, playing with the Clippers, where he, you know, his his jersey will probably go in the Raptors for the Clippers. Well, he's been dismissed by them. Uh for what I can only assume is actually holding guys accountable, and they didn't want to hear all that, so so much so is that he like him and Tyloo, his coach, weren't talking. Uh look, I don't think CP3 changes your ceiling at this stage. It doesn't exactly scream 30 and 10 a night, save your material. But as a plan B, as a one-year vets minimum, grown up off the bench, someone to keep the second unit organized while Brunson gets a blow, someone who is built almost exactly like Brunson, a top five all-time point guard in his own right. I mean, you could do worse. You're seeing in LA that like when what happens when leadership just doesn't fit the room. Paul holds everybody accountable loudly, and that clearly rubs some people the wrong way. So the Clippers decided they'd rather move on than deal with that friction. The Knicks, if they do bring in a star like Giannis on the road, they need to make sure that the voices in the locker room are all aligned. So if you did bring in a CP type on a cheap deal, it'd have to be with everyone on the same page about how he is now. A floor organizer, a teacher, a mentor, not the guy whose name is on the marquee anymore. So for this week, if I'm the Knicks, I'm looking in the mirror and I'm asking the same question that we've been asking all episode. Who are you when it's not the Hornets on a Wednesday? Who are we when it's Boston or the Nuggets or Detroit or the Thunder? If if the honest answer is a fun regular season team with two defensive targets at the center of our offense, then you know what you have to do to fix before you can start claiming that you're the team to be in the East. But if the answer shifts, if the defense tightens, if Kat has a real night against a real opponent, if Brunson and Bridges start making life miserable for somebody else's star, now we're talking about a foundation players like Giannis actually want to be a part of. And when that day finally comes, those Ante Tacumpo jerseys in blue and orange are going to be everywhere in this city. But you only get there if you're honest about what you are right now, not what you wish you were. Okay. Alright, alright, alright. I'm done. MBA therapy session is over. Let's catch our breath. Then we'll slide over to the MOB side. We got a looming labor war, the AL arms race, and why the big bad Yankees don't feel so scared to anybody anymore. Baseball up against nothing says baseball like a 30-degree December night, right? Well, while the NFL is having its stretch run uh melodrama, and the NBA is leaking storylines every 12 hours of who wants to go where, the MLB is low-key setting up for a pretty wild couple of years. And I'll start with the part that nobody wants to hear about, but everybody's gonna feel it if it goes sideways, and that would be the labor stuff. Look, I know, I know, nothing empties a room faster than a collective bargaining agreement, but this is the thing that's gonna decide whether we have baseball in 2027 or we're sitting around in March watching grainy spring training clips from 2019, like it's a Zappruder film. For my younger audience, the Zapruder film is the JFK film. And if you're still lost from there, well then I can't help you anymore. So here's the short version of it. So don't fall asleep on me, I'll give you the cliff notes. The current CBA expires December 1st, 2026. Owners are making a lot of noise about a hard salary cap, and the players are basically treating that like a slur. Okay. You got Rob Manford and Dan Halum on one side, and you got Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer on the other. And there's already a federal investigation hanging over the players' union finances. So you got owners who have been crying poor because local TV money is evaporating. You got small market teams jealous of the Dodgers and the Mets spending like crazy. And you got a union that refuses to be the group that finally gives in on a cap after fighting it for decades. So, long of the short, if you're looking for a pretty little handshake deal, it's not gonna happen. This is not it. So, what does this mean for us? What does this mean for the consumers, the diehard, the fans of baseball? Well, it means that 2026-2027 has real serious lockout potential. And it means some teams, like the Cubs, for example, are already lining up contracts to expire right when that CBA hits. So they they can flip to whatever the new world looks like with clean books. Good for them. But it also means the next couple winters are going to be weird. It means some teams are pushing all their chips in before the rules change, and some teams are just sitting on their hands waiting to see where the dust settles. So, yeah, look, I know nobody wants to hear about luxury tax thresholds and revenue sharing formulas, but long of the short, if you like free agency, if you like trade deadline chaos, if you like knowing your team will actually take the field in April 2027, this is the fight that decides all of it. Okay, that's the that's your vegetables. That's the stuff that's hard to swallow. That's the stuff you don't want to eat. So now let's get to the fun part. The spending spree and the drama, right? That's what we're here for. We're here for the hot tea. Because while the lawyers are drawing lines on the board, the Mets and the rest of the AL East are just lighting money on fire like it's 2010. We're gonna start in Queens, Devin Williams to the Mets, three years, 51 million, and he hops on Instagram to fire a little parting shot at the Yankee fans on the way out. Says, quote, for a bunch of people that didn't want me back, y'all sure are mad in the DMs. End quote. That is so perfectly Mets and Yankees at the same time. The Yankees rent this dude for a year. He has the worst ERA of his career, melts down early, loses the ninth inning job, still shoves in the underlying numbers, and then the Mets are go, okay, cool, yeah, we'll take that. Oh, and while you're at it, go tell the Bronx to piss off while you're on the way across town. From the Mets side, I I actually love this. If, and this is a big, huge if if it's Devin Williams and Edwin Diaz. This cannot be some actually Devin's our closer now. Who's Edwin? Nonsense. Don't gas on me. Don't give me that BS. The dream is a true super pen, right? And if David Stearns doesn't want to pay starting pitching, fine. But then six, seven, eight, nine guys better be elite, elite, elite, elite. Okay? The Diaz trumpets in the ninth and the airbender in the eighth. Now you're shortening playoff games to six innings. You can tell Stearns is kind of going back to his comfort zone with this a little bit too. This is his Milwaukee guy, when Devin is right, he is one of those good luck if we're ahead after seven kind of guys. The peripherals last year, even though didn't really look it, and there's a lot of media, he still was an elite reliever. So I get the bet on him. But if they whiff, if they lose out on Diaz and they try to sell this as, well, we actually prefer Devin as our closer, he's a cheap, he's cheaper, low ERA, yada yada yada. You're you're gonna hear City Field boo in like four different languages. And the funniest part of all this is that the Yankees helped create this monster. They dropped the famous no facial hair rule for a year because they thought they were getting the next Mariano. They brought Devin in, let him be himself, then as soon as it went sideways, they bailed, snapped the rule back into place, and now you got a reliever who they didn't really want to pay, chirping on his way out and signing across town. Layer that with Sonny Gray now in Boston saying it feels good to go somewhere. It's easy to hate the Yankees. I never wanted to go there in the first place. You got a roll this Chapman talking about I'd rather retire on the spot than go back there. The big bad wolf doesn't feel that big or that bad right now. It's starting to feel like just another rich team that hasn't scared anybody in a while. That's an image problem. If you're the front office, part of the mystique was guys feared leaving the Yankees, feared not going to the better team, not lining up to the task. Now they're lining up to trash talk on the way out. And while the Yankees are working on regrowing the mustaches within the radius of George Steinbrenner's okay portrait, the rest of the AL is quietly but very loudly building pitching staffs that look like video game rosters. Toronto just went to the World Series, took the division, took the Dodgers to game seven, lost, and their reaction was cool, not enough. Add Dylan Cease, add Cody Ponce, guys striking out the whole planet in Korea. They push the payroll over the tax line and say to the MLB, go ahead, stop us. Who cares? So now if you're a hitter rolling into Toronto, you're starting, you're staring at a combination of Gossman, Berrios, Bieber, Yesavage, Cease, Ponce, plus a bullpen. That's not a rotation, that's an arms convention. And I hate to say it, unfortunately, Toronto is the favorite to land Edwin Diaz right now. Meanwhile, Boston trades for Sonny Gray, who's basically on a revenge tour with a personal Yankee subplot baked in. The Orioles added Ryan Hazley on the back end and traded for a legit bat in Tyler Ward. The whole division is loading up specifically on arms. And in the middle of all that, you got the Yankee X's popping off and the team trying to rehab the brand with grooming rules. That's not where you thought this franchise would be ten years ago. The through line with all of this, the labor battle, the Mets stealing another ex-Yankee, the AL arms race, it's kind of the theme of the episode, right? December is where the truth starts leaking out. The truth on the labor side is that this sport is about to have a real ugly money fight. Owners are tired of getting lapped by super spenders. Small markets want cost certainty. Players refuse a cap on principle. And the union's leadership is under federal scrutiny. Nobody's the pure good guy here. Nobody's in the right. Both sides are trying to protect their slice, and fans are just going to be sitting here hoping that we don't lose a whole season over it. The truth in New York is that the Mets are trying to steal some of that. Yankees old. We are the destination energy. Guys are leaving the Bronx and immediately saying how happy they are to be anywhere else. Especially if that anywhere comes with less facial hair drama and a fan base that doesn't have 27 rings as a baseline. And the truth in the AL right now is that if you're not actively building a monster pitching staff, you're already behind. Toronto gets that. Boston seems to get that. Baltimore is acting like they kind of get that. Tampa just happens to always pull guys out of nowhere that have a one ERA. And the Yankees keep talking about it. And look, once their guys get healthy, they do have a great rotation. I'm not taking anything away from them. So while everyone else played catch up with the Yankees rotation, now we'll see if the Yankees play catch-up with everybody else's lineups. So when we get to March and we're all locked into spring training box scores, just remember the real story this winner isn't just who signed where. It's why they signed. How long the money runs and what it looks like if we wake up on December 2nd, 2026 and there's a padlock on every spring training facility gate. Alright. That's enough baseball for today. That's enough CVA talk for one night. I might turn it to Jeff Passen if uh if I go any farther. Let's land this thing. We'll wrap it up with the outro, we'll tie a nice bow on everything, and we'll get you out of here with something a little lighter than possible work stoppage in 2027. So that's that's where we're at, man. In baseball, you got billionaires and union shadow boxing over a CBA. Sonny Gray and Devin Williams talking spicy about the Yankees, and the Mets trying to steal back some bullpen swagger. And somehow, all of it still comes down to the same thing we talked about all episode. Are you actually serious or are you just saying that you are? We hit a lot tonight. Jets trying to convince us this time it's different, I swear. While really we all know they're one competent quarterback away from a completely different life. Giants trying to pretend that the only problem was Brian Dayball, when the real issue is a building that can't show up on time and can't pick a direction. Steelers wobbling on Tomlin, Bears and Packers playing a game that might tell us who's actually coming out of that little Midwest identity crisis on top. We talk fantasy playoffs, the landmines, the smash plays, the week 14 card on rolling the dice with rice. If your season is on the line this weekend, I hope you feel a little less alone staring at that lineup screen. Trust me, we are all out here trying to decide if we are brave or dumb starting Caleb Williams and Lambeau. Nick's, Bucks, Giannis, Big Cat. Same story there. Some teams are built for the quiet games in December. Some guys only show up when the lights are soft and the opponent is bad. The real ones, the real ones show up when it's ugly. That's the theme for this episode. And honestly, we didn't even get we didn't even have time to get to everything. The Lane Kiffin LSU Old Miss Breakup is a full episode on its own. College Ball is doing its usual soap opera thing, and there is so much to cover there. So we'll we'll stash that in the story bank for another week. As always, if you're rocking with the show, do me the favor, make sure you're subscribed, leave a rating, drop a review. It's literally two clicks on your side, and it helps the show more than you can even imagine. Make sure you come hang out on Instagram for the Wednesday mic check polls and the clips, too. I put up a bunch of I put out a bunch of reels throughout the week. That's where we keep the conversation going between episodes. Feel free to DM me anything, anything you want. A good meme, fantasy start, questions, whatever you need. I got you. Uncle Rice has you. As always, I appreciate you spending part of your day with me. And most importantly, check in on your people. Tell someone you love them. Try to put a little good energy back into this world. Do the right thing. Hold the door a little longer. You know? It's the little things that count. Anyway, I am Ian Rice. This has been episode 42 of Rice on the Mics. And I will talk to you same time next week. Take care.