- 1 day ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Sean Pendergast, Brandon Scott, in for Seth Payne.
00:04Actually, a bit of breaking news we can touch on a little later.
00:07Michael Lombardi, the general manager of the University of North Carolina football program,
00:14which is coached by Bill Belichick, placed on administrative leave.
00:18No other details.
00:20Administrative leave.
00:21Administrative leave, yeah.
00:22Yeah, normally when you're placed on administrative leave, it is not a good thing.
00:26No.
00:27Not automatically a bad thing.
00:30But normally not a good thing.
00:31Yeah.
00:32I don't know how popular Michael Lombardi is around football circles.
00:35I'm guessing there's a lot of people, A, speculating as to what it could be.
00:40B, happily speculating about what it could be.
00:42Well, and to the point of not being all that popular,
00:45I would say one of the few places where he is in good favor would be with Bill Belichick.
00:50Yeah.
00:50So if he's already where he has some of his few advocates on planet Earth
00:57or in the football world, and he's there being put on administrative leave,
01:01I can only imagine what's going on.
01:03How surprised were you when you heard Mike Vrabel say this over the weekend?
01:08DeAndre Hopkins was spotted at Patriots training camp.
01:13DeAndre Hopkins, who played in the NFL last year.
01:15Yeah.
01:16And obviously not the same level of player he was at his peak,
01:19but still presumably good enough to get on a roster somewhere.
01:23So he was at Patriots camp, and here was Mike Vrabel answering,
01:26why was DeAndre Hopkins here?
01:28You know, DeAndre Hopkins is here with us kind of in a, you know,
01:34just to kind of check things out as far as what he wants to do as far as coaching,
01:39and you'll see him on the field and whether that's personnel.
01:41And so I use him as an example because he wasn't the fastest receiver,
01:46but he had an unbelievable play style and a play strength
01:49and a route craft that allowed him to succeed.
01:53Okay.
01:54So Vrabel, so the money out of all that is, wow, DeAndre Hopkins looking at,
02:00it sounds like looking at various career options here.
02:03Yeah.
02:03I think to me the biggest takeaway from that, B. Scott,
02:07that, you know, 25 seconds of audio that explained why DeAndre Hopkins was there
02:12was that, one, okay, DeAndre Hopkins seems to be operating like somebody
02:17who might be done playing, period.
02:19Yeah.
02:20And two, wow, coaching for DeAndre Hopkins, a guy who, depending on who you believe,
02:27got traded up and out of here in part because he didn't like to practice.
02:30Yes.
02:31Well, and it's hilarious because it's like he didn't like to practice himself.
02:36Doesn't mean he didn't necessarily like attending, putting in the extra work.
02:40He just didn't want to practice.
02:41So it'd be funny if the moment his playing days are over, all of a sudden,
02:48DeAndre Hopkins is now committed to practices and film work
02:51and the nitty-gritty part of the game.
02:55It's a lot of hours, man.
02:56I thought it like this, and I talked about this yesterday on the weekend show
03:00with Zach Gelb.
03:01I wondered if DeAndre Hopkins is looking at this.
03:06Now, mind you, he's got a background with Vrabel, obviously, right,
03:09from both here and in Tennessee.
03:11Yep.
03:11So there's a relationship there.
03:14Is DeAndre Hopkins looking at it now as, hey,
03:17the only way I'm really going to get on a team is if somebody's injured
03:21or if I come parachuting in midway through the year or something to that effect.
03:26And so is he just kind of getting a head start
03:30in sort of a quasi-de facto player-coach role?
03:34Is he, like, selling himself a little bit right now?
03:36A little bit.
03:37Selling himself, hedging his bet.
03:38Yeah.
03:39There's a couple of different ways that you could or angles you could take on it,
03:42but you understand what I'm saying.
03:43For sure.
03:43Could this be, like, his soft landing spot if he does take one last ditch at it?
03:49That's interesting.
03:50And, by the way, it is the team that was in the Super Bowl last year.
03:52Dude, I hadn't even – I just took it at face value what Vrabel was saying.
03:55It could be all of it.
03:56It could be DeAndre.
03:56No, it could be.
03:56It could be a piece of all of it.
03:57That angle is interesting to me because if he were doing that,
04:00it's almost like networking is what he's doing if that's the case.
04:03And I always think networking is smart.
04:04Yeah.
04:05Always.
04:05Always, always, always networking is smart.
04:07So if that's the case, if he's doing it just to maybe get some face time up there,
04:11kind of scope out the situation, I think they have needs at wide receiver,
04:15the Patriots do.
04:16I know they traded for AJ Brown.
04:19You know, DeAndre Hopkins might be able to latch on with them.
04:22Yeah.
04:23I mean, even if there's –
04:24And it's a contender also.
04:25That's what I'm saying.
04:26They were in the Super Bowl last year.
04:28And even if there's nobody on that depth chart that at this stage of his career
04:32that DeAndre Hopkins could beat out, I think he can make the case for that.
04:36Even if that's true, we understand the war of attrition and injuries.
04:40It could be him just kind of waiting there on his moment or on his opportunity.
04:45Somebody either gets injured or is just not available to play for whatever reason,
04:48not productive, whatever it might be.
04:51There's DeAndre Hopkins to kind of just take advantage of the opportunity.
04:55Do you think he ends up in coaching?
04:57This is the part that did surprise me because of what we were saying earlier.
05:01I say no.
05:02He did not strike me as like coaching vibes.
05:05No, no.
05:06I did not see it.
05:07Yeah.
05:07So you're with me on that one.
05:09Early at least, maybe later on in his retirement life, but like straight off the field to the
05:14sideline.
05:15No.
05:16Yeah.
05:16And to his credit, I think it's really smart for him to do due diligence on things like
05:22this.
05:22I think he's operating in a very intelligent manner and diligent and purposeful, if that's
05:29what he's doing, if he's examining it.
05:31I just don't know if he's going to examine the hours and go, you know what?
05:33That's for me.
05:34I mean, DeAndre Hopkins made a ton of money.
05:36Yeah.
05:36He's made a ton of money.
05:38Now, I don't know what the options are for DeAndre.
05:41I always thought he was a really thoughtful interview.
05:44I don't know how great he would be at broadcasting or if that's something he's got thoughts about
05:49or if the new wave of what players can do on their own platforms, if he would be good.
05:53That's what I was going to suggest.
05:54He's had interesting things to say on social media before, like video, like IG Live and
06:01things like that.
06:02Like, you know, he's an interesting guy.
06:04So I think, to me, if I'm picking which side of the scale he skews in terms of potential
06:11media, I think he skews towards a yes for me or at least a, like, do it and see how
06:17it
06:18goes.
06:18Yeah.
06:19He's not a slam dunk or anything like that, but he's also not somebody where, like, don't
06:22bother.
06:23He should try it if he wants to.
06:24I think that, obviously, he's DeAndre Hopkins.
06:27He's kind of an alpha in his own regard.
06:31Yeah.
06:31But I think he fits best as an interesting cast member on a show like, think of what
06:40Pat McAfee has done, what Ryan Clark's doing with The Pivot, some of you basketball fans
06:45out there who follow Jeff Teague's podcast and has a bunch of, like, basketball voices
06:50on it.
06:51I view him as one of those sort of supplemental voices with, like, maybe a more refined host
06:58hosting the show, but DeAndre still being one of the stars of the show.
07:02But, like, whatever the next generation's version of The Pivot or, you know, Pat McAfee
07:08hit their version of it, I could see him being one of those.
07:11DeAndre would be good.
07:11You know, DeAndre and I have a history on social media with each other.
07:14Oh, yeah.
07:15There was a back and forth.
07:16There was a back and forth.
07:16Well, it was, and it goes back to his practice habits.
07:20Yeah.
07:20They reported practice habits here.
07:22They didn't even like practicing.
07:23I do remember this.
07:23This is when he was on the Titans, and this is, wow, we're coming up, but the anniversary
07:28of this was yesterday.
07:30Oh.
07:30Yeah.
07:31Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of DeAndre Hopkins coming at me on Twitter.
07:37That's right.
07:38Because a comment tweeted out footage from a Titans practice where DeAndre was practicing,
07:45and I retweeted it and said, rare footage of DeAndre Hopkins practicing.
07:49I didn't tag him.
07:51I'm not one of those people like, you should have tagged him on this as if there's some
07:54level of accountability.
07:55I'm like, I think most athletes would rather not be tagged.
07:58Yeah.
07:58Because then they're not subject to all the replies and everything else.
08:00I think it's actually tacky to tag the, I know people who do it and actually even do
08:04it by policy.
08:05I think it's actually pretty tacky.
08:07Yeah.
08:07Unless you're talking directly to the athlete.
08:10Right, right, right.
08:11So I'm looking at the headline of an article that says, from back on July 27th, 2023, that
08:20would be three years ago today, DeAndre Hopkins eviscerates Houston radio host, then deletes
08:29it because it was probably a bit much.
08:31So I tweeted that, DeAndre retweets my rare footage tweet and says, just buy my jersey
08:41for your wife at this point.
08:42I'm sure she's tired of hearing my name in your sleep.
08:46Pretty good.
08:47It's a pretty good deal.
08:48And then someone else retweeted and said, DeAndre Hopkins just out-smacked the five-time
08:51smack-off champion.
08:53Yeah, man.
08:53But then DeAndre deleted it, and then he DM'd me and was like, hey, I'm just joking
09:00around.
09:01It's all good.
09:02And I was like, yeah, man.
09:03I wasn't mad about it.
09:04All in good fun.
09:05Hilarious.
09:06All in good fun.
09:06The notoriety's good, man.
09:08I actually-
09:09Thank you for punching down.
09:10I like the fact that he was able to find this without you tagging him, which lets me know
09:15that either he or somebody close to him has a swindle or a specific window for his name.
09:23Yep.
09:24Mike Vrabel, who we just heard, we heard that cut quite a bit over the weekend about Hopkins.
09:30The other thing Mike Vrabel did that got a lot of run over the weekend was he showed up
09:36at the first post-practice press conference for Patriots training camp with a puppy dog
09:43tucked underneath his arm.
09:45Something that we did last year, obviously the first day of training camp, was the Patriots
09:50program that Dana Craft implemented last year and was really successful.
09:56Did a lot of really good work, not only for these dogs, but for the families that adopted
10:00them.
10:00So I think we've almost got 60 dogs this year.
10:03And so if anybody's looking to add to their roster at home, we would love for you to be
10:09able to adopt these dogs tomorrow.
10:11Okay, so this is apparently part of something called Patriots, P-A-W, Triots, which as Vrabel
10:19outlined, this is the second year they've done it.
10:21There were 60 dogs there.
10:23Some of them have been adopted already.
10:25The dog he had under his arm could not have been cuter.
10:27It was some sort of German Shepherd mix.
10:30And he had it tucked under his arm.
10:32A good boy, I'm sure.
10:33It was a good boy.
10:34I imagine.
10:35And the optics of Vrabel with a puppy dog underneath his arm, certainly he was very wholesome.
10:41Just something you feel like a family guy, solid dude, loves his family, loves his wife,
10:47would do, would have a puppy dog underneath his arm.
10:49Yeah, someone who would never embarrass their kids.
10:51No, no, no.
10:51And you know who noticed that?
10:52The internet.
10:54The internet noticed that.
10:56But so I understand that there is an actual charitable initiative behind this and that
11:04Vrabel may have done this last year at this time with a puppy dog under his arm.
11:09And I had one Patriot fan, because I tweeted about this as well, something to the effect
11:15of, hey, five-star deflection tactic.
11:18Dogs are loyal beasts also.
11:20Vrabel might be able to learn a thing or two from the dog, right?
11:23Yeah.
11:23So I had some guy come at me, he's like, uh, they did this last year, too.
11:27It's called Patriots.
11:28Might want to delete that tweet, bud.
11:30And I'm like, it was a joke, A.
11:32B, I'm not going to delete the tweet.
11:34Yeah.
11:35And also, there's a noticeable difference between last year and this year.
11:40Might I point that out?
11:42Read the room.
11:43There we go.
11:43There's the sentence.
11:44Yeah.
11:45Read the room.
11:46Okay, so.
11:47Come on, guys.
11:48So, B. Scott, I want to run this past you.
11:50All right.
11:50So I just feel, like, I know there's a lot of Patriot fans, like, hey, man, we're just
11:54trying to find homes for all these dogs out here, which I'm an advocate of.
11:58I think dogs are awesome.
12:00I love dogs.
12:01Dogs should live way longer than we live as human beings.
12:04They certainly should live way longer than they currently do.
12:09Dogs are great.
12:12But I do feel like this is part of the infidelity washing that's going on with Mike Vrabel going
12:18on right now.
12:18Yeah.
12:19So a few weeks back, a few weeks back, there was some pushback on, I'm trying to remember
12:26which athlete it was, but there was an athlete that brought his son or brought their, maybe
12:30it was Embiid.
12:31Joel Embiid or something.
12:32It was somebody.
12:33Joel Embiid brought his son to a press conference after they got knocked out of the playoffs.
12:37And it was like a controversy.
12:39I know you were on the side of, hey, this is weak, don't do that, because it makes people
12:42a little bit less likely to be harsh on you when you're sitting up there with your kid.
12:47I know Nick Wright was one of the national pundits who was on that.
12:51I've got far less of an issue with bringing your actual child, your flesh and blood child
12:57to the podium as I do a dog.
13:00Like, I think you can make excuses for, hey, my kid really wanted to be with me at this
13:05moment.
13:06Really?
13:06And also, don't let my kid keep you from holding my feet to the fire.
13:11Like, to me, none of that should have anything to do with the other, just because my kid
13:17is sitting up there.
13:18Okay, so you think what Vrabel did is worse than what, but a dog that's, don't make me
13:23argue like a Patriot fan argued with me yesterday.
13:25I mean, there was a component that was tied, he didn't just randomly bring a dog up there.
13:30What I'm saying is, that's worse.
13:32That's even more of a deflection.
13:33Because what is the dog up there for?
13:37You can get up there and talk about this charity or this charitable cause, this thing that you're
13:42doing for the community.
13:43But you come up there with just some random mutt or some random dog, and you've been going
13:48through everything you've been going through throughout the offseason.
13:50Come on, that's a clear deflection.
13:52Let's rapid fire these real quick, okay?
13:54I've got six things that Vrabel has done to cheat wash his reputation, okay?
14:01Okay.
14:02Rate these on a scale of one to five in effectiveness.
14:05Skipping the third day of the draft to go to, quote, rehab.
14:09Yeah, that's going to be two.
14:10That's a two for you.
14:11That's a two.
14:12That's a two.
14:12Five meaning, it's a sincere, boy, it makes me feel different about Vrabel.
14:17One, you're rolling your eyes.
14:19Rolling my eyes.
14:19What's the draft?
14:20The third?
14:21Third day of the draft.
14:21All right.
14:22Okay.
14:22So it's a solid two.
14:23Number two.
14:24When he got to Utah to do that rehab, which I guess seemingly took place, they have a place
14:30in Utah, I think, and it involved his family.
14:32There was that video of him buying his wife some sort of hoodie or something at the gift
14:38shop at the airport there.
14:39One to five.
14:40Yeah, now that's going to be closer to a four.
14:42Four?
14:42Well, because he embarrassed that woman in public.
14:44She needs a hoodie.
14:45She needs a costume or some kind of disguise.
14:48And that didn't feel staged either.
14:50Nah.
14:50It was like somebody seeing Vrabel in the airport.
14:52And we don't even know.
14:53He might have been buying the hoodie for himself.
14:54But people, the color of it looked very girly.
14:56Yeah.
14:57Okay.
14:59The photo afterwards of him entering the Patriots headquarters the day he got back from rehab.
15:05You know, pep in his step, but a little bit of gravitas, kind of walking in.
15:09One to five.
15:09We're back down to the two.
15:10We're back down to the two.
15:11Okay, a little phony.
15:12Yep.
15:12Fugazi.
15:13All right.
15:14The family photos at his son's engagement party.
15:18Whole family together.
15:20New daughter-in-law.
15:21Soon-to-be daughter-in-law.
15:23Everybody all kumbaya.
15:25I'm going to get closer to the four on that.
15:28And it's to leak him out on social media.
15:29Let me go 3.5 on this one.
15:31Okay.
15:313.5 on this, because I think that is a legitimate effort to kind of rectify things
15:35or reconcile with his family to whatever degree he needs to do that.
15:38Yeah.
15:39I think that that's legitimate.
15:40The video of him getting into the limo with his wife before the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelsey
15:46wedding.
15:47Man, he was leaving that woman in his dust.
15:49Like, I don't know how to judge that video.
15:51That video, to me, that's almost more damaging.
15:55He quickly got into the limo before she did.
15:59Right.
15:59He didn't even help her in or anything.
16:00Yeah.
16:01And somebody made the excuse, well, you know, if you've been in a limo, you want to scoot
16:04to the other side so she doesn't have to climb over you.
16:06I could see that.
16:07But at least you want to hold her hand or her dress or...
16:11You would think.
16:11There's some kind of...
16:12Feels like there's some chivalry that should be happening there that was not.
16:16Okay.
16:16The last one, I think I know you're great on this one.
16:19Puppy dog at press conference.
16:21Yeah, that's at a one.
16:21That's a one?
16:22That's at a one for me, dog.
16:23Boy, that's an interesting take.
16:25You're...
16:26That's where you...
16:27You are better with people bringing their little children to a losing press conference
16:32after the playoffs.
16:33I might not even notice the child.
16:35Maybe because I'm a dad, too.
16:36It could be.
16:37So I'm just going to be like, whatever, with the kid, I'm going to look straight at you.
16:40You're a real journalist, too.
16:40You know, sometimes you get the air quote journos that are there, that are more there kind of
16:44like...
16:45Like the ones that would bury the Kyle Shanahan crashing their car story.
16:49Right, right.
16:50The ones that are there to kind of play the game a little bit.
16:52Yeah, I would have rather have not known about the Kyle Shanahan thing at all than to have
16:55been asked to bury it.
16:56Exactly.
16:56Right.
16:57Exactly.
16:57Yeah.
16:58All right.
16:58Payne and Pendergast.
16:59Brandon Scott in for Seth Payne.
Comments