First Punch

Episode 58 is here, and this week the sports calendar threw the first punch.

Ian opens with the Mets home opener at Citi Field, where Carson Benge’s debut, a wild first inning, and an electric crowd helped set the tone for the whole week. From there, he gets into why this Mets team already feels different, why the Yankees’ pitching might be the bigger early story than the bats, and why ABS is a wrinkle baseball should keep.

Then it’s over to New York football, where the Jets and Giants are both staring down draft-season noise and trying not to lose the plot. Ian talks Ty Simpson, roster-building, supporting Jaxson Dart, and why no player should ever be truly untouchable if the right offer shows up.

On the hardwood, the Knicks get a reality check in Charlotte after a strong run, and St. John’s gets the respect it deserves after a tough loss to Duke that still showed how far the program has come.

Early swings. Fast starts. Bad counters. Real responses.

Episode 58, First Punch.

Transcript

Delayed Drop And Spring Energy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Así que no me voy a moverse. If it isn't the consequences of my actions, you know, this was supposed to be a Friday morning episode. Nice, clean, right on schedule for your listening pleasure. Life had other plans. Baseball had other plans. City field definitely had other plans. So now it's Saturday morning. And honestly, you know what? I'm fine with it. Because some weeks, some weeks the sports calendar grabs you by the shirt and says, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You're doing this on my time. And that's what this week was. Opening day with my wife for the fifth straight year. 70 degrees on the East Coast. Sunshine finally hitting your face after a winter that felt like it would never end. And suddenly everything loosens up a little bit. People are rolling their shoulders. They're enjoying themselves a little bit. You get off the train, you see the stadium, you hear the noise building, and it feels like reconnecting with someone you haven't seen in way too long. Home. Also, if my voice sounds a little beat up today, well, that's because I made the mature adult decision to drink as many beers as my wallet would allow me to and scream at a baseball game for four hours. So now I have to live with that, and so do you. But that whole day set the tone for the week. And that's where my head's been coming into this episode. First punch and setting the tone. Same neighborhood. Just two different ways of saying it. You know, who came out swinging, who got clipped early, what did they look like after that? Every story this week has some version of that baked into it. You know, the Mets came flying out of the gate and turned opening day into a full-on scene. The Yankees have been spending two games reminding people that pitching can carry the mood of the season before the bats even start to wake up. The Knicks were feeling really good about themselves right up until Charlotte ran them around the gym and made everybody a little bit uncomfortable again. The Jets and Giants have all standing in that draft season fog where every pro day workout becomes a headline, and every rumor that gets spread around gets treated like it's gospel. Hell, even St. John's found its way into the middle of all this. You know, different sport, different stage, but the same basic question. When the game tightens up, what do you even have left? So that's that's the show today. Early swings, fast starts, bad counters, and some real responses. So with that being said, settle in, turn the volume up, throw some more weight on the bar if you're working out, or make yourself a nice drink. You got nothing to do on this early spring day. Episode 58, first punch. Let's do it to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Tranquility base here. The ankle has landed.

Carson Benge Sparks Instant Belief

Why This Mets Lineup Feels Deeper

Yankees Pitching Leads The Way

Rotation Worries And Front Office Pressure

ABS Challenges And Getting Calls Right

MLB Quick Hits And Early Chaos

NFL Draft Season Smoke And Mirrors

Jets Quarterback Talk Without Getting Drunk

Giants Clarity Around Jackson Dart

NFL Notes Rooney Rule Australia Opener

Knicks Streak Ends With A Warning

NBA Trends Anti-Tanking Wemby Jokic

St Johns Comes Up Short Vs Duke

First Punch As A Life Rule

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Ladies and gentlemen, the day that I've been looking forward to all winter has finally shown its head and made its appearance. Opening day. So you know that we had to start this episode with baseball. There was no other way around it. I mean, the episode got pushed back a day because I was at City Field on opening day for the Mets with my wife for the fifth straight year. You know, she's fully indoctrinated to a miserable Mets fan now. But, you know, the weather, the weather looks like somebody upstairs finally decided that the East Coast had suffered enough. And then once I got there, it was over, man. The week belonged to baseball from that point on. City Field City Field felt like home the second I got off the train. It always does. That's the best way that I can put it. You know, it it was ten in the morning, I was in shorts, I had a breakfast beer in my hand, the sunlight finally hitting my face, I was wearing nice sunglasses. The world is healing, right? That that's the meme. That's what it felt like. You see the stadium, you hear that little buzz before the building gates open. You slide down the entrance rails like you're ten years old again. And it really does feel like reconnecting with an old friend that you haven't seen in way too long. One nice day, and all of a sudden you're ready to forgive Mother Nature for all the bullshit she put you through in January. God, there really is nothing like opening day. And you know, it can have a little bit of pageantry, a little bit of tightness, a little bit of nervousness, people easing their way into the season. City Field skipped that part. They they had George Washington himself skip a couple lines of the national anthem, which everybody in the crowd all looked around at each other when it happened. Like, yeah, you you heard that too, right? But, you know, once all that was done, once the game started, everybody was all in right from the jump. Even even with the long first inning, you know, nobody got quiet. O'Neal Cruz boots two balls in center, and City Field lets him hear it. Paul Skeens gets yanked in the first, and the whole place is waving him goodbye like he just got bounced from the bar before his drunk mozzarella six that he ordered shows up. I mean, I can't tell you what it was like to see 42,000 people waving goodbye to Paul Skins. It it was awesome, honestly. And the the sunshine helped, man, but good baseball helped even more. That game was a really fun reminder that this Mets team feels different right away. And not fake feels different either. Not new season, fresh slogans, you know, everybody smile for the promo, shoe for the jumbotron, kind of different. No, different because it actually is different. Carson Bench, honestly, is the easiest place to start the poll that I put out this week, which if you're new here, uh every week on Instagram on Wednesday, I put out polls that help guide the show. And the poll this week for the Mets was the biggest Mets storyline heading into the opener. It was Carson Benge, Kodai Sangha Bounceback, or the Lise Roberts New Life. And Benj wins it at 50%. So people were already leaning towards the kid before the first pitch. And then, what do you know? He goes out there and cashes that ticket for the fans immediately. Makes the roster, gets the runway, cranks a home run in his major league debut, and now the spark that you thought you know might be coming down the road in a little bit turns into potentially something very real right now. That homer, by the way, puts him atop the list of the youngest player to hit a home run in his major league debut of all time. And the only two people on that list that he passed, Barry Bonds and Bryce Harper. I mean, the crowd lost its mind when it went out. He, you know, he gets the curtain call. You could feel that jolt run through the whole building. SNY even put out a great photo set on Instagram afterwards, too. And the best one by far is him rounding first, basically jumping through the moon off the ground with that pure, oh my god, I really just did that look on his face. You know, for the rest of his life, no matter what happens in his career, that kid gets to say he hit a home run on his first day in the major leagues. That is cool, no matter how cynical you try to be about anything. Now, to be fair, nobody needs to hand him the plaque after just one game here, right? You know, the full season is still waiting for him, the league adjusts, the rookie wall exists, pitchers are gonna eventually stop treating him like a surprise. All of that is totally fair. But it's hard not to be romantic about baseball, right? Baseball is allowed to be fun. You don't have to step on the moment just to prove you're measured. The kid gave the fans a shot of energy, and you could feel it echo through the whole building. And that's the reason I keep circling back to the lineup. You know, that one swing doesn't feel like life or death for them anymore. And that's the way it had been many, many times before. Bo Bachet, you know, fucking big signing, stolen from the Phillies, you know, a lot of expectation, playing third. You know, one of one of his at-bats, uh his first at-bat, he knocked in a little sack fire, which great. Crowd loved it. But there was a there was an at-bat with like first and second that he swung through a pitch at his chin, and it got a big groan out of the crowd. You know, I think Mets fans are really expecting him to, you know, oh, he hits 300. Yeah, they're expecting him to hit 380, which is unfair. But everybody heard it in the crowd. The difference now in this lineup is that it doesn't go cold and dive right there with Bo Bachet. You know, Lise Robert had a massive at-bat in that first inning. He worked skeins for 10 pitches, made him labor, made that inning feel way heavier than he wanted it to feel, and then ended up turning into a walk. Meanwhile, Polanco gives you those same old calm professional, I've been in the league for a little while now, at bats, where you know, the guy just looks like he's been there, done that. And of course, Lindor looked like Lindor, Soto looked like Soto. So this lineup now is not ground into a double play lefty or home run, swing, or miss. You know, one bad swing no longer feels like the whole offense just got dragged into the bottom of the ocean because now we're not going to be able to score with the bottom of the lineup. No, there's layers now. That's a very healthy sign. That's why I'm not looking at the Skeens getting pulled early thing as some lucky little weird opener where the Mets caught a break. Yeah, look, maybe they got some help, right? I mean, Skeens wasn't as sharp as he usually is, and Crews' two errors in the first inning made it way worse. That's all true. But the Mets still earned that chaos. You know, they fouled pitches off, they stretched out counts, they made every pitch way on Skeens. They kept the inning alive. And, you know, once you do that to an ace early, that's how you open the door to get after him. And what happens? Brett Beatty, who's had a fantastic spring, busted open from there with a bases loaded triple, and the whole building exploded. Clean, polished baseball. I don't know, maybe, not really, but kind of. Still learn, though, and it still counts. And still a tone setter. And Francisco Alvarez, I'll tell you what, deserves a little bit of real love here, too. You know, Bench got the latter story. Makes sense. The rookie debut, the Homer, the curtain call, all that, whatever, whatever. Alvarez, though, quietly reminded everybody why Mets fans are so bought in on him. And I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong. Uh, you know, well, this time last year, I was talking about trade deadline. You know, if you can get a nice price for Alvarez, he's always hurt. You know what? Look, man, I was wrong. And I'm happy to be wrong, by the way. He is an elite knower of the strike zone. And now with ABS, I have no fear with him tapping his helmet to back up his pitchers. And if he's gonna stay healthy and his bat is gonna be what his bat should be, you know. He's batting ninth in this order. Teams might be in some serious trouble. Bench hits his home run, and then he goes, and then Alvarez hits his back to back. A deep lineup gets a whole lot more interesting when the lower half is giving you something real. There's a bigger picture here, too, for the whole season. And it starts to come into focus once you kind of pull back from just the one game opener. You know, there's the rotation still has some questions to it, but Sangha is the one that matters the most. If the ghost fork and the velocity really are bad, like how they've been saying all spring and how he's looked all spring, that changes everything. Not to mention Nolan McLean picking up rookie of the year chatter. I mean, no one needs to crown anybody in March, but it does tell you that the organization may have some more young impact sitting around than most people realize. You know, Jonathan Tong still has a lot to prove, but he looked pretty good in the spots that they put him in last year. And a lot of people forget that Christian Scott, who had Tommy John, was supposed to be the best out of all of the young pitchers coming up, and he should be ready for this time of the year. Not to mention either, this outfield that they have put together here by moving Soto to left is kind of the I guess I don't know, the the measuring stick for how things can go. I mean, look, Soto, Soto is gonna be Soto, right? Barring injury, Soto's gonna be fine. Luis Robert in center, I don't know, man. If he really has something left to unlock and be this player that he was and turns back into, not just gold glove, man. I mean, he's got a fucking stick. He can hit the ball a country mile. And it's a lot easier to be engaged and be willing to sacrifice a little bit for the team when you're not in the south side of Chicago in the ice cold winning 30 games, but now you're in Queens along your fellow Dominican brother in and actually get some good food, you know? And as I said with Benj, I mean, Benjamin Wright, if he gives them that young jolt that they clearly wanted, you know, there's upside there, and yeah, sure, there is a little bit of risk there, but that's what makes it the most interesting. Buster Only was doing an interview where he was talking about, you know, Nolan McLean and Carson Benge, and everybody kind of has Noan McLean penciled in as rookie of the year just because he's a pitcher, and Buster Only flat out said that Carson Bench could make a play for rookie of the year. If Carson Bench gives a good run at rookie of the year in right field for the Mets at 22 years old, we're in good hands, Mets fans. I'll tell you that right now. But I will say, look, pressure sits underneath all of this. You know, David Stearns, it's his team, right? He has moved out some fan favorites for the guys that he thinks that he can win with. And he was bought in, he was brought in specifically because Steven Steve Cohen knows him, likes him, and knows that he can build a winner. Or at least he thinks he can. So it's not that his seat isn't hot, but it's definitely not cold either. And Stern's double down. He's not talking like this is some cute developmental year, which it shouldn't be. You know, this team is supposed to matter. So the fun of opening day is real and it's a great time, but the expectations under it are also very real. If you want to be an elite team as you are being billed as, you have to go out and beat the bad teams. And you know, even with the additions that the pirates have made, they are still barely projected to be a wild card team if things break right for them. So yeah, go out and handle your business. Both things can live in the same room at the same time. There is another little thing baseball thought, speaking of the Pirates and Skeens, a little thing that I'm keeping my eye on here, a little tinfoil conspiracy hat thing. Uh Logan Webb in the Yankee game, good ace from last year, got shelled by Paul Skeens, rookie of the year, Cy Young award winner, got kind of shelled. You know, a few of these WBC arms, uh, I'm curious if some of them ramped up maybe a little too hard or a little too early, or if being away from their usual spring training flow and usual coaches messed up their routine a little bit. Look, it might be nothing. I don't know. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws here, but two starts doesn't exactly make the theory, but it's something worth keeping an eye on for now. Alright, let's slide across to the Yankees now, slide across town. And the story for me is the pitching. I mean, listen, the bats are gonna bat, right? That's baseball. Early in the year, the arms are usually ahead of the hitters anyway, so when the poll that I put out says 65% of people are more worried about the young and old bats mix, I get it. I get why I do. Two games in though, the pitching is the headline. Max Reed comes out on opening day, or I guess opening night, and sets the tone immediately. Six and a third, four strikeouts, smart, controllable baseball. Judge, unfortunately, goes 0 for 5, strikes out four times, a rare golden sombrero for him. Looks awful by his standards, and yet the Yankees still win seven-nothing. Follow that up with two days later, Judge answers with a big homer, and Stanton follows right behind him. Schlitler deals, and the Giants look like they forgot the season even started yet. That's the point. The Yankees don't need to look perfect in game one or game two to still look dangerous. The pitching has carried the early boot of the season, and that's a very good sign for them. Judge getting booed in San Francisco made me laugh a little bit too. I mean, Giant fans are still carrying around that old free agency scar tissue like it happened last month when it was almost four or five years now. Uh if you don't know what I'm talking about, if you need me to jog your memory, when when Judge was a free agent for the Yankees, there was a report that came out late in free agency that he was potentially going to sign with the Giants. And at the time it made sense. You know, it's where he grew up, it's where he wanted to kind of be, or where he was using his leverage at least. You know, he wanted more years and stability, and the Giants offered him more years. But when push came to shove, I'll give him credit, how Steinbrenner pulled a card out of his dad's playbook and called Judge personally to say, what's it gonna take to keep you a Yankee? Well, boom, boom, boom, deal gets done. He stays a Yankee, and apparently, Giant fans have been waiting to boo him for years properly. So opening day, they let him hear it. Game two, though, he shoves it right in their face and he flips a strike to a ball with the ABS challenge system, stays alive in the at-bat, parks one, and now Yankee fans all of a sudden are calm again, and Judge can, you know, not do no wrong, but he he's back to being judge, yada yada yada. Yeah, man, that's how stars work. They don't they don't stay ugly for a very long. The bigger Yankee point here is still the arms. You know, the running it back can be a fair criticism. A lot of the lineup chatter all offseason was kind of fair too, but what got a little bit buried was the idea that the rotation might actually be stronger if the pieces hold together. You know, Garrett Cole on the I. L to start the season creates nerves. Luis Hill not making the opening day initial roster creates some more questions. But those guys are gonna come back. So if Freed, if Schlittler, if Will Warren can hold it down until Rodon and Hill or whoever come back and start dominating, if you're uh if your starting rotation for the Yankees is going to be in July, it's gonna be Max Fried, Garrett Cole, Carlos Rodon, can't uh Schlitler, and I don't know, Peanut Boy out of the state out of the stands, the Yankees are gonna be alright. Even in a tough American league and a tough American League East. So that's the version of the Yankees that I'm watching for. Not the not the what does game one tell us about the 162-game season version. I'm looking for when these guys do get healthy, how does everything come together kind of version? And I do want to talk about the ABS uh automated balls and strikes system that's now come to baseball. It deserves a little bit of its own little shine, too. Here I am all the way in on it. I can't stress that enough. Look, I love the human element of baseball, it is one of the things that separates baseball from every other sport. That it's not exactly, you know, A plus B equals C. You know, there's different dimensions for every ballpark. There's different strike zone depending on your height, whatever. I love the chirping. I love the arguments, love the catcher stealing one here and there. Uh I love a Manager losing his mind when the moment calls for it to hype the boys up and get his team back his team back into the game, you know. But the part that I am tired of a hundred percent is a 100 mile per hour fastball that barely catches the corner, and the ump blinks when the catcher's mitt pops, and the catcher frames it like it's like he's Picasso. The hitter knows it missed, the catcher knows it missed. The pitcher knows it missed, but it still gets called to strike. So now the hitter says something, and suddenly the whole thing becomes a pissing contest over an incorrect call. Next thing you know, the ump is in his feelings, the dugout's hot, there's chirping left and right, and somebody gets tossed over something that could have easily just been corrected in the first place. Accuracy and accountability are good for the sport. You know, I don't need to pretend being wrong is some sacred old school baseball tradition. Just get it right. And this gives us an opportunity to get it right all the time. And it gives umpires a little bit to check their ego and stop being it's my way or the highway. Yeah, you're gonna get humbled real quick when I tap my helmet and it was five feet outside, and you still called it a strike. Couple quick notes from around the league before I get out of baseball here. Jacob Mizeraski, big name from last year, young rookie, a little bit of controversy when he made the all-star team last year. On opening day, him and the Brewers put up 20 strikeouts, which is uh stupid in the best way possible. Mizeraski accounting for 11 of them himself. Uh Rosarena and Cal Riley smoothed things over uh after the WBC awkwardness where Cal Riley wouldn't shake his hand and this, that, and the other when he was up at bat. Something tells me the manager had a nice behind closed doors meeting for most of the team. Kevin McGonagall, you think Carson Benge had a good day. Kevin McGonagall in his MLB debut rips four hits for the Tigers. Tigers might be onto something here. They made a lot of good signings. And Atlanta, man, Atlanta dealing with suspensions, dealing with injuries, and you can add Spencer Schreider to the list, too. He's gonna start the season on the IL along with some early reports from Busser only of that he's not gonna be that same 98 mile per hour high strike zone guy anymore. He's more than likely gonna be that 94 to 96 and has to mix in some breaking pitches kind of guy. It's a shame. You hate to see that. I mean, he he pitched like de Grom and he threw like Syndegaard. He was gonna be a real big name coming up in this league. But if his arm's shot already, it's not great. It's not what you want. And around the league, uh, extension season apparently is happening. Guys are getting paid. Nico Horner gets the bag, Chris Ball Sanchez gets the bag, Shane Boz gets the bag, Pete Crow Armstrong. You know, the Cubs have now solidified their core. Teams are wasting no time telling you who they want to build around. And unfortunately, the Dodgers are still being the Dodgers. Kyle Tucker doesn't miss a beat, slides right into that lineup, and just keeps feeding into the machine. And Jordan Alvarez got robbed of a home run early by the roof, of all things. So yeah, it's uh it's two days into the baseball season, into the baseball calendar. And that's why I love it. There's chaos already. You know, nothing is settled, but everything just feels alive, right? Everything, everything feels loud. Every overreaction has a little bit more juice to it. It's a fresh start to a long season, and every team is trying to throw the first punch to make sure you see them in a certain light. A few of the clubs landed it right away. A few got clipped early, and now they have to answer to it. But that's baseball in March and early April, man. It's just it's it's everything and nothing. So let's move on from opening day to direct season. Because where baseball gives you some answers. Football right now mostly just gives you smoking ears. Rumors get loud, workouts turn into breaking news, every quarterback throw gets treated like it means something enormous. And before you know it, half the fan base is talking itself into a future it wasn't even thinking about three days ago. And we start there with the Jets because the poll told you a lot right off the rip. Premium draft pick on a quarterback this year. Question mark. 24% said yes, while 76% said wait until 27. That's not close. That's a fan base basically saying, can we please stop trying to force the next answer just because the calendar says it's time to talk about quarterbacks? And that Ty Simpson conversation is what it boils down to. And it is interesting. I'll give it that. I get why people are circling it. There's arm talent there, there's upside there, and once the draft machine gets rolling, all it takes is a couple strong takes from the right people, and suddenly a guy becomes the story of the week. Fine. That that part is normal. Where I get careful with the Jets is when the quarterback discussion starts swallowing everything else on the board. That's when it gets dangerous. If you truly grade the kid out and believe that he can play, then sure, go get your guy. I'm not against that on principle. What I am against is talking yourself into a quarterback just because everybody else is yelling about quarterbacks. Those are two very different things. Jets fans have every right to be skeptical here. I mean, they already lived through the full pre-draft quarterback hype cycle with Zach Wilson. They talked themselves into upside, sold themselves on the arm and one rollout throw. They sold themselves on the future of what he could be, and the whole the whole thing blew up so badly, it got the entire building wiped out from top to bottom. Coaching staff gone, front office gone, franchise setback years. Then came the emergency repair job with Rogers, which turned into its own mess that they're still paying for to this day. So when this fan base here is another late March quarterback push, yeah, the natural response is not here we go again. It's wait, wait, wait, slow down and make sure you're not doing something stupid again, which they always do. That's where my head is with them right now, man. I mean, look, worry about this year, this year. You know, build the right team, get the structure right, get the tone right, make the roster stronger. The rest follows. It follows easier when you do it in that order. Too many people want to skip to the part where they found the future and ignore the fact that the environment around the future can still ruin him himself. Yeah, Geno Smith fits into that conversation. Gino can absolutely be the bridge to 27 if that's what you want to do. That part is fine. I don't care. It's a veteran guy that's seen a lot, knows what the league looks like, can settle things down a little bit. But a bridge only works if there's an actual road attached to it. So if you take Ty Simpson, you need to be 100% sure that Gino is the right stopgap for him. You know, is he willing to mentor the kid? Is the timeline clean for him? Is the team around them strong enough that you're not just dropping another young quarterback into confusion and hoping whatever talent he has sorts itself out? That's where the real conversation starts for me. And the bigger thing with the Jets is they still have other business to handle, too. You know, wide receiver still matters. Garrett Wilson goes out there every week by himself, still manages to put up a thousand yards a season, and he's got no one on the other side of him. Building the defense the right way still matters too. Brees Hall's future matters. Aaron Glenn setting an adult tone in the building matters. Gino talking about Glenn the way that he has been and gassing him up in the media, that's nice. That's nice to hear. But the whole offseason cannot become one giant quarterback argument. That's how teams lose the plot, and that's how bad franchises stay bad franchises. Flipping it over to the Giants. Uh I think the cleanest way to say this is this. If you believe in Jackson Dart, then act like it. You know, support him, build around him, give him something real to work with. But, you know, at the same time, nobody should be untouchable. Those two thoughts do not fight each other at all. The Kayvon Thibodeau poll that I put out this week was basically dead even. And it was should they trade him or not? Forty-eight percent said keep him and 52% said trade him. So that basically tells me you, the fan, is at least open to the idea of moving Thibodeau. My own rule with this stuff has always been pretty simple. It's brutal, but nobody is untouchable. Look, if somebody calls you with a godfather type offer, you listen. That does not mean that you make the deal automatically, but it means you're not in the business of falling in love with your own roster so much that it stops you from thinking clearly. You know, NFL history is full of teams giving up way, way too much and regretting it forever. Herschel Walker, Ricky Williams, the RG3 trade, over and over again. The team that gets the haul ends up sleeping a little better down the road. So, you know, look, if somebody wants to blow the doors off with an offer, you at least need to sit down and hear it. You need to do your due diligence. But still, though, the bigger the bigger Giants point has less to do with Kayvon and more to do with the clarity. If Dart is your guy, which it looks like he is, then you need to do the obvious stuff as well. You need to help him, you need to add support around him, and you need to make his life easier on the quarterback side of things instead of harder. You know, wide receiver help matters. Neighbors coming back is going to be a big boost for Jackson Dart. But when they triple team him, you know, he might be great, he might be a great receiver, but he's not that great. He's not Calvin Johnson. Also, the offensive line stability matters a lot. You know, Jackson Dart early in his career has been knocked for running too much. Well, is he running too much because that's his first instinct, or is he running too much because the offensive line can't let the play developed? The draft direction matters here. This team doesn't need to get cute. It needs to figure out what kind of team it wants to be and then commit to it. You know, I think John Harbaugh is the guy to get that plan in action and stick to the plan. But what is the plan? That's kind of what makes the Giants draft stuff interesting. You know, it's it's not the rumor chasing, not the prospect of the day kind of stuff. It's the real question is what are you what are you trying to become? You know, are are you helping the quarterback or are you building the spine of the roster? Are you just collecting names because draft season makes everybody drunk? Those are all very different paths. Good teams know which one they're on. Bad teams usually realize it way too late. Unfortunately, that's kind of all we got for football right now. There's not too much else to report on. So just a couple stabs from around the league. Joe Flacco, everybody's favorite backup quarterback, still not a backup. Well, I guess maybe. I mean, he's landing in Cincinnati, and that feels right considering Joe Burrow's always hurt. But every year, he just pops up somewhere. Looks like the oldest man in the room because he is. And somehow still does what he has to do and does what he have does what he has to do and gets the job done. There you go, I got there. Uh, there's also a ref work stoppage story that's uh one to keep an eye on for the league. You know, if you've been watching football for a while, you remember when the refs went on strike and we got the fail marry uh between Rogers and Russell Wilson, probably got 10 years ago now at this point. But the league is trying to patch together officiating logistics. That's the kind of thing that can get weird real fast. So I'm interested to see where that turns out. JSN, Jackson Smith, and Jigva got the bag from Seattle. God bless him, good for him, and he deserves it. It's a kind of a big deal, though, because it mostly because every single time one of these young receivers gets his number, the market now immediately shifts for everybody else. So Dallas, who just uh franchise tag George Pickens, which I'm sure he's not happy about at all, is now looking at that number that JSN just got and looking at his stats comparative to JSN's and saying, Yep, I'm about I'm worth about that much money. Uh something tells me the Cowboys aren't gonna commit that much money when they're paying CeeDee Lamb also that much money. Looks like Vegas is getting a Super Bowl, which would have been unheard of six, seven years ago. Uh that's great. Also, if you want to get a ticket to it, it'll probably be two thousand dollars just to sit up on the light pole on the roof. So that's fun. The Ravens, after backing out of the Max Crosby deal, it's it's one of those good reminders that not every big rumor actually gets all the way to the altar. And the Rooney rule conversation is getting brought up again. It's kind of one of those simple things to me. Listen, the Rooney rule is garbage for all intents and purposes. I mean, the uh how do I how do I say this? The the good intent with the rule is there, but the way that it goes throughout the league is a joke, you know? It's always like, you know, Tony Dungey and um Herm Edwards used to talk about it all the time, like, hey, did such and such call you, or did such and such team call you? Because it would be their typical way of like, yeah, we interviewed a black coach, we interviewed a minority coach, so we got that out of the way. Now we can just go hire whoever we want. That's not what the rule is intended for or what it's meant to do. You know, it it is important to diversify your bonds, so to speak, but it's kind of become a joke. So scrapping it all together is not the move. You can admit that the current setup is not great without pretending the answer to it is to throw the whole thing away in the trash. It definitely needs to be reworked, but calling for an abolishment of it is uh not not good for the league, not good for anybody. And the Australian Open, yeah, not tennis, by the way. The NFL on Wednesday night is opening up in Australia. The Seahawks are playing whoever they're playing. Come on, guys, really? I mean, look, this is what the league needs. I don't know. I I I understand the business side, okay? You're trying to become a global game, you're trying to spread the game throughout all the countries and make the owners money. That's Roger Goodell's job, right? To make them as much money as he can. And he is very, very good at that. But dude, it just Wednesday night, man, the league opens on Wednesday night. It feels like one of those ideas that just it sounded a lot better in the boardroom, and then once it gets in action, every single football fan is like, what are we doing here, man? I don't know. I again I talked about this earlier at the beginning of last season. The NFL, if they could, they would play a game on the moon. They would play a game in Mars. I don't know. Starting the season on a Wednesday is ridiculous to me. It was ridiculous enough on a Thursday, but I can understand it because there's already Thursday night football. Now it's Wednesday, and they want to push a Christmas, uh, excuse me, Thanksgiving Eve game on Wednesday. What do we what are we doing? Whatever. That's where football sits for me right now. Uh in New York, uh Jet fans are trying not to get quarterback drunk again, I guess. And Giant fans are trying to figure out what's movable, who's movable, what's foundational, and what can actually help our quarterback get better to succeed so he doesn't have a sophomore slump. But it's the same old draft fog, same old smoke and mirrors, just with new names floating through it. Let's get to the Knicks now. We we're uh we've been on a nice winning streak, but then we had one bad night. And it's always just one bad night until you've had enough of those one bad nights to make people start to get weary and queasy and think how many bad nights can you actually have? Hardcore talk up next. And when you've had one bad night, it's one bad night. But when you've had enough of them this season that you can't just wave your hand anymore and go, eh, whatever, you know, burn the tape. It is what it is. It's kind of where I'm at after this Charlotte loss. Look, fair is fair. The streak was real. They were playing better, they were stacking wins, they're making a play for the two seed over Boston. Brunson always doing Brunson things. The offense had some serious flow to it. And for a minute there, you could you could feel the temperature changing around the team a little bit, you know? Not all the way to everything is fixed. You know, no, nothing dramatic like that. But there was there was some rhythm there, man. I mean, you know, you played the weaker part of your schedule and you took care of business like you're supposed to. You beat Brooklyn, you handled Washington, you beat New Orleans, and seven in a row looks pretty damn good when you glance at the standings. The poll that I put out told the truth before the Charlotte game even tipped off, though. You know, Knicks win seven straight. Are you buying it? Was the question. Forty-five percent of you said hot when it matters, and the other 55% said they were still only beating weak teams. So the skepticism is still sitting in the room. You know, this wasn't some giant mood swing after one loss. People were already giving the streak a little bit of the side eye. So Charlotte comes in, they get him, and now the people who were skeptical starting to look a little bit smarter. They're starting to feel a little bit bigger about themselves. My read for the Knicks here is not to panic. And it's kind of in my MO. All year. You know, don't panic, man. I it looks bad at times, it looks shitty at times, it looks like some guys aren't giving effort at times. I've been critical of Kat all year. I've been getting on Mikhail Bridges as of late. Rightfully so. But in NBA, honestly, sometimes one bad night really does just happen. You know, the season's long. There's weird travel days. You know, one team catches you flat and another team gets hot. All of that is real stuff. The Knicks are not supposed to fall apart emotionally because of one March loss to the Hornets. That would be absolutely ridiculous. It happens, man. That being said, though, it feels like I have definitely had this conversation more than at least three, four times this season of the Knicks having, oh, it's one bad night kind of deal. So it can't be completely ignored. There needs to be some balance. You know, no panic, no excuses, but there needs to be a little bit of honesty. You can't just fully shrug it off. And to be fair, I gotta give Charlotte some credit too because this team is not just some random spoiler anymore. I mean, they play fast, like real fast. Josh Hart said it after the game and he nailed it. He said, those guys play like they were shot out of a cannon. That's a direct quote. And you can see it. You know, the ball moves up and down, they fly up the floor, they make you play at their pace. And if you're not gonna keep up, they're gonna blow by you. Even if you're a half step slow, you're chasing the game instead of actually controlling it. That's exactly what they want to do, and that's exactly what happened to the Knicks. You know, Lamello pushes tempo. He is looking to drive the lane and score. And the same thing goes for Brandon Miller, who can also score. And Khan could nipple, could nipple, could nipple. I don't think we ever got a true pronunciation declaration for that one. But Khan could nipple, I guess. You know, he had a hell of a game. 26, 11, and 8, 6 threes. Dude, what are we talking about here? And he didn't even feel fluky doing it. It's not like he just like caught hot and like, you know, had to give him a heat check or something. He's been doing this kind of the whole second half of the season here, maybe even most of the season. This wasn't a weird heater from a bad team. Charlotte has quietly turned itself into a pretty solid basketball team as of late. And this is the time of the year where those kinds of teams get real dangerous real fast. That's the bigger East Conference, Eastern Conference thought that I have. One of those bottom four teams is going to take out a big dog. You know, it's Detroit, it's Boston, it's the Knicks, and I think it's the Cavs at the one, two, three, four. Money's on the Cavs, but somebody, somebody's gonna get stunned. It happens every year, and every year people act like some lower seat dragging a favorite into a nasty six-game street fight that they end up pulling it out of as like a huge surprise. It's not. You know, NBA is mostly chalk, but mostly is the key word there. Charlotte has some of that energy right now. They are fast, they are confident, they're annoying, they're young, and they're loose. You know, they're like they're just they're not experienced enough to grasp the full gravity of the moment, which actually kind of makes them more dangerous. You just you kind of just have to pray that the Knicks aren't one of those teams who get caught up in that mess. The uh the feel of the game matters more to me than the final score. And Brunson still proves that he controls the game late. You know, he did his thing, 26, 13, still being the captain, still trying to settle everybody down, still trying to drag order into the chaos that's going on. You get you got effort, and you got some push late. It was never really super close, but they did cut it down a little bit. The issue was just Charlotte could just control the rhythm almost right from the jump. And once that happens, the mood kind of follows. The Knicks don't play like that. You know, they they get rebounds, they do the nitty-gritty, they beat you up a little bit. The Knicks spent too much time just chasing and letting them dictate the pace. So that's that's why I'm not making all this doom and gloom. I mean, the streak wasn't fake. You you took care of business. But the skepticism also wasn't wrong just because they won seven in a row. Again, both things can be true. They were playing better, they are playing better, they look good. Kat finally looks like he's settled into whatever role he's settling into, but they still have habits and some soft spots that the right kind of opponent can take advantage of. And that's the honest to God truth version of it. They're good, but they are flawed. So, again, no, I I'm not torturing them over one loss after a seven-game win streak. That's lazy. That would be the easy thing to do. To say that the sky is falling. The the better way to say it here is that Charlotte gave them a reminder that they probably needed. You know. You don't get to just show up with a streak and expect everybody to admire and roll over for you. You know, not this time of the year, not in this conference, not against a team playing with some real young, dumb belief. I'm not gonna kill him, but come playoff time, that mentality needs to go away immediately. You need to be balls to the wall and grind away. A couple quick NBA things before I get out of here. The anti-tanking stuff the league is kicking around is actually worth watching and worth keeping an eye on. They are clearly trying to make it harder for teams to spend the half a season pretending that surrender is some grand long-term vision. Good, by the way. Good. That whole act of trust the process and we're gonna figure it out through a top five pick through the lottery. You sound like a degenerate gambler. It doesn't work. Stop it. Wemby is making an MVP type push, and it it kind of turns into one of those things where the question isn't really if, but when he becomes permanently uh center of that conversation. I mean, you gotta he's only 22, I think. He's still gonna grow, he's still gonna fill out. This man's gonna be a real problem. And speaking of a real problem, Jokic and Jamal Murray putting up that ridiculous history book game deserves a little bit of a nod, too. You had 53 from Jamal Murray, and meanwhile, you had Jokic nearly putting up 20, 20, and 20 for a triple double. You don't talk about fuck around had a triple double of, you know, 10, 15, 11. This man almost had a 20-20-20 triple double. And with those two, it's almost starting to feel like normal, which is insane when you really think about it anyway. Staying with NBA, kind of, but more of staying in New York. St. John's. Um, you know, St. John's deserves a real tip of the cap, even with the loss to Duke. Look, man, the game was tight. That game was there, though. They were up at the half, 40 to 39. They even built a 10-point lead in the second half. And honestly, for a minute there, it really felt like they were gonna be able to steal this whole thing. But Duke is Duke, man. They just they had more answers late. Caleb Foster comes off the bench, gives them a lift for the second half. Isaiah Evans hit some massive shots. And Cam Cameron Boozer did what stars do. Guy's gonna go number one overall in the draft for a reason. And then, you know, once once St. John's cooled off a little bit from three, you could just feel the margin for error getting thinner and thinner. You could feel the air kind of getting sucked out of the building. And what sucks is they still had chances. That's the part that stings. They I don't know, this was this wasn't some like no-show game from them where they got lucky early. I mean, they played their asses off. They absolutely could have stolen that game. Just sucks, man. They just they couldn't finish the job. And the poll that I put out on them, well, the slider that I put out on them, was around 70% juice at the hype for the team is around 70% of people were really hyped up for them. Kind of felt right about where it should have landed. The city had a real buzz around this run. Look, I'm not, I fully admit it, I am not a huge college basketball guy. But local is local. And when the city cares, it matters. The pulse of the people, right? St. John's gave people something real these last couple weeks. And more importantly, Patino has clearly rebuilt this thing. Okay. This is no longer a 16-win program stumbling around in the dark anymore, right? This is now a consecutive 30-win program making a bid in the tournament and trying to be a real powerhouse again. That's a major shift from where this uh college was. Now the standard changes. Getting here was the step. Last year you got bounced after the first game, but out of the first weekend. Now you made it to the second weekend of the tournament. The next step is getting through that stage. Not just arriving at it and feeling good about the invite, and we beat a couple teams. I understand the eastern bracket was hard, but that game was there for the taking, man. You had it. But yeah, that's uh that's kind of it for the hoops this week. You know, Nick's got a reminder. Charlotte looks like a real pain in the ass. Kind of how Detroit looked last year in the playoffs. And St. John's, unfortunately, they came up short. But fortunately, the program now feels alive again. Like everything in life. There's good and there's bad. You know? Alright, let's uh let's bring this thing home, huh? So the more that I sat with this episode this week and tried to figure out a theme and tried to figure out where to go with it, the title is where I landed and it just kept making more and more sense. First punch. You know, not in the not even in the loud, chest out, fake, tough guy kind of way, either. More in the real way, the the sports way, the life way. You know, somebody somebody always gets there first. Somebody always sets the tone early. Sometimes it's you, sometimes it's the other side. Sometimes the day starts exactly how you drew it up, and sometimes you look up five minutes in and realize alright, this uh this thing is already moving a lot faster than I planned. That was this whole episode. You know, the Mets came out flying and turned opening day into a full-on panic mode for Paul Skeens. And the Yankees, they let their pitching speak first and reminded people that not every statement has to be that loud. The Jets and Giants are both trying to figure out how not to get tricked by noise and actually build something with a real foundation. The Knicks got a little reminder that one slip up can still leave a mark when the wrong team catches you flat. And St. John's took one took one on the chin. But, you know, they still walk away looking like a program that matters again. You know, that's the part that I keep coming back to over all of this. The first punch matters, of course it does. Early tone matters, first impressions matter, fast starts matter. Nobody's saying that it doesn't. Still, though, the thing that really tells you who you are is what happens right after that. You know, how do you answer? How do you settle in? How do you carry yourself when the game speeds up, when the crowd gets loud, when the plan gets a little messy, when you don't get the bounce that you wanted. Anyone can feel good when everything breaks clean. Anybody can talk big when the sun's out and the beers are cold and your team is landing haymakers in the first inning. Real character usually shows up in the next part. In the response, in the reset, in the choice to stay with it, keep your head, and not let one rough moment drag the whole day, week, month, season, whatever it is, off the rails. That's a sports point, sure. It's also not just a sports point. You know, some of you listening right now are probably dealing with your own version of that. Maybe things didn't start the way you wanted. Maybe this week clipped you early. Maybe you're tired, behind, frustrated, doubting yourself a little bit, wondering if you're losing the threat. Look, it happens, man. It happens to everybody. The answer usually isn't panic, though. Usually isn't feeling sorry for yourself either, to be honest with you. The answer is settle in, adjust, and set the next tone for yourself. You may not control the first hit, but you do control what comes after it. And there's a lot of power in that if you really do believe it. So keep swinging, man. Stay in it. Don't let one bad bounce become your whole identity. It's really easy to give up. It's really hard but really rewarding to fight. Reset, breathe, get back to your rhythm. Find your zero. Throw your own punch back when there's an opening there, too. Don't be shy, man. Be rough. As always, I appreciate everybody rocking with me this week, especially with the episode dropping a day later than usual. I appreciate everybody who voted in the polls. That stuff always helps shape the show and it keeps it feeling like a real conversation instead of just me yelling into the void. So make sure you keep following along on the Instagram, on all the socials. It's at Rice on the Radio. More clips, more posts, more nonsense, more sports. And of course, we end the show the same way we always do. Make sure you spread good energy and tell someone out there that you love them. I am Ian Rice. This has been episode 58 of Rice on the Mics with a broken vice and all, and I will catch you next week, same time, same place. Cheers, boys.