FiredUp Network
Thursday, September 19:TimeOut KC
welcome into the fired-up network and Timeout KC joined again by the host of the KC Sports Authority. We got Keegan Russell and Christopher Tenpenny. Guys, it's been a little bit since I had you both on. The last time we talked, we were talking with really high expectations for the team that's in the picture behind me. You're KU football, Jayhawks and man, it hasn't gone well. They had a glorified scrimmage against Lindenwood who is really kind of the football equivalent of Prairie View A&M to basketball. There's a school that's a contract and hey, here's a couple hundred thousand. We're going to beat you into the ground but everybody gets their reps in. So that one doesn't count. Two real games. University of Illinois who's going to finish towards the bottom of the Big Ten. I think everybody agrees with that. And UNLV, who while being really good in the Mountain West, is still in the Mountain West and a team that KU just beat in a bowl game at the end of last season. And it didn't go well. I was there. I was in attendance. Man, it was just bad. The offense looked really bad. I mean, I guess the best thing you could say is the line looked good but it really didn't matter because they couldn't hit open receivers and Jalen Daniels was skipping passes in the receivers and air mail in long passes. Is it simply just that he hasn't had the opportunity to get in there and play and we're asking too much because so much of KU's offense is counted on the quarterback during this Lance late ball era, either Jalen Daniels or Jason Bean. And you know, maybe it's just too much to ask. What do you think, Keegan? That is the question hall of KU football wants to know. Is it Jalen Daniels Rust? Is it the lack of playing time the last two years? Is it the injury or is it the offensive coordinator? And I can tell you, not just as a fan but covering the team and talking with fans and other podcasts around the area. KU football is in like almost full panic mode right now. This is supposed to be the year chance of going undefeated up until the K-State game was fully on the table, college football, play on the table. Some of those aspirations are still possible. But yeah, it's been ugly. It's the fan base in my opinion. I think it is divided on Jalen Daniels has washed at post injury and Jeff Grimes is the worst offensive coordinator in the history of football and a P-We defensive coordinator could scheme up enough to slow him down. So that's to me where the fan base stands. Personally, I think there is some rust with Jalen, but we've seen plenty of game tape the last several years to show what he is capable of. So that's why I'm on the side of it. It's got to be the offensive coordinator. That's the only major change this off season. Basically, the entire offense is back. You swap out two offensive linemen. You swap a tight end out. Virtually everything else is the same. The play points eight out and a lot of starters. Yeah. So the answer to me is offensive coordinator. Clearly, the pairing there has not worked yet. Does that mean it's not going to work all season? I don't know. It's still early. But from a Kansas football fan perspective, there's a lot of panic and frustration and a lot of petitions going around to get Jeff Grimes fired as the fan base believes he is the one primary. That's not the most early. Christopher, were you being the voice of reason to talk Jayhawk fans off the clip? Well, version makes me take up back every bad thing I ever said about Jason being. That's for sure. Kind of wish you were. Are you going to push them off the clip? I might just push them off the clip, you know, but my whole thing is if there's two sides to it, it probably lands somewhere in the middle. Clearly here, like I think a bad offensive coordinator, a good quarterback can overcome and a good offensive coordinator, especially when you have Neil and high strong in the backfield can overcome a bad quarterback play. So clearly, they're just playing off each other. It's not a good look right now. One of them needs to fix it that KU has any chance of writing the table, preferably both. I think Daniel's I think it's fair to say it's rusty. He hasn't been playing much, probably a little bit in his head because he's probably so concerned about getting that injury bug off of him. He doesn't want that tag anymore. It has to have some kind of impact. So it's early, but it's been rough. I mean, the Illinois game. Okay, that's one thing to come back and do a dud against UNLV. I'm not quite over the clip, but I get where he fans are coming from. Yeah, it feels like you're hanging on with like two or three fingers there waiting for someone to reach out and pick you up on the line, committing the strength of your small club. Exactly, exactly. Well, here, let's hear from the man in the position of authority to address all of these issues. KU head coach Lance Leifold, I got to ask him after the game. Hey, this is two real games for Jalen Daniels. I mean, is it just that he hasn't played in almost two years? Lance, I wanted to ask about just the difficult situation because Jalen's only played a few games now in two years. It is really challenging to step into this level of competition. I mean, you know, these are quality football team and does at least getting these two games in, give them a better leg up as you head into the big 12? Well, we're three games in now. So I can't, I'm not going to sit up here and make excuses. That's not right. That's not whatever. It starts, you know, we have to own that. We don't play well enough to win. Could we say that he hadn't played a game since? What, I don't know, would it be like you or whatever, somewhere in there last year? Yeah, you know, quarterbacks aren't going to be live in fall camp. So, you know, is there something in? I don't know. I don't ask him because I'm not going to, like, I don't think that's a fair question, really, because what we, the, the create that stimulus in practice is, is difficult. So, but I, I, I think, you know, there's, there's times that you see him making throws that are that every bit is good, it's not better than he's ever made before. And then there's times where it's not, but, um, it's just everybody can do better. Everybody. And like I said, it starts with the head coach and I need to do better. Our staff needs to be better. Um, and we will find a, find a white. I mean, there's a lot of football to play yet with this group and, and, um, we haven't played a conference game yet. So, if you want to try to, you know, do something, but it's not going to get any easier. And I know there's going to be more people down the hand. And, and the best thing, I'm trying to tell our guys for a long time. The most important thing are the guys in the room in our team meeting room every day. Cause they're the ones that know everybody that's working and going on and everyone else will, unfortunately, you know, we'll, we'll, as I'm watching, unfortunately, everyone has, is entitled to an opinion. And, uh, but if we let opinions from the outside affect the locker room, then it's going to be a long fall. Sure. Well, so that was, that was a long way to say, yeah, maybe, you know, because not in still a lot of confidence. No, it wasn't a competent answer. It wasn't. Hey, he's got it dialed in. There's a couple of things we saw it in the film. We're going to get effects. It's all good. Don't worry about it. It wasn't meandering answer to kind of give multiple excuses without giving it definitive excuse because he started it out by saying, I'm not going to give excuses. So the counts, right? Yeah. And I think that's where a lot of frustrations have been. You've seen a lot, especially if you follow the KU Twitter sphere, there's been a lot of frustration with for two years now, the whole Jalen Daniels injury situation, just the way it was covered last year. It was, you know, very mysterious all the time. And, yeah, I would never doubt Lance Leipold as a coach. Cause I think he's the best coach K football is ever going to have in the history of the program up to this point for sure. But there's been a lot of frustration with how they've handled things from a communication perspective on this. And the last two weeks, you haven't really seen the accountability, take responsibility for our failures. And we're going to get it right. It's been a lot of, I'm trying to tell you what the answer is without telling what the answer is. And so I think the fan base just keeps seeing that as, why aren't you willing to admit that Jalen's bad this year in your offensive corner doesn't know how to fix it? We've even seen, I mean, not to get ahead of ourselves in this conversation right now, but even Jeff crimes in today's press conferences. The same thing it was, hey, we've hit rock bottom and I guess we'll figure it out in practice. There's been no, there's been no vocal communication of, hey, we've been bad. We've identified the issues and here's the game plan to get better. I think that's why fans are frustrated because to us it seems that the answers are obvious. Your offensive coordinator either has to go or needs to figure out how to get back on the right path with getting Jalen going and you need to instill confidence in the program to the fan base. And those two things don't seem to be communicated to the fan base right now. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna veer the other way, Kagan and Chris see if you agree with this. Watching it closely, the only passes that looked Chris were a planned bootleg where Jalen was able to throw his whole body in to that pass and, you know, throw it like a javelin to the receiver straight line aside. I just don't think he's healthy. Having had a broken back in sports myself and having multiple vertebraous views back in high school, it takes a long time to get the ability to rotate and, you know, being evasive and throwing down the move is such a big part of Jalen's game. I just don't think he's healthy or he's healthy but he's not at the lab all that he was at and it's gonna take a while to play. Yeah, there definitely appears to be limitations into what he can do. And like, I also think he's just having a hard time reading the defense is like, you know, college is set up to where a lot of quarterbacks, you don't have to do much. But the, if he can't, yeah, if he can't create, because he can't throw except for one way and then he can't read past the one read, like, it's gonna look like it has. So I think there's some truth there exactly what you're saying where he's not 100%. He may be 95% but that 5% that's still hurt. Like, it's really limiting that things that KU can do, which then again, comes back to this whole circle. It looks bad on grind because there's only so much place he can call and we're yelling at him for his play call. So it's definitely just back and forth off of each other. Yeah, because I mean, short passes from the pockets were skipped in and long passes were airmailed. So there was no, there was nothing that looked good except a one breed bootleg directly to that receiver. So what basically a one person pattern and that's not going to be winning offense and a major conference. I mean, not anymore. Maybe years ago, but not now. But ask you guys one more question. Call Ballard. Do you want to see him or is going with a less than 100% Jalen Daniel still your best chance to win. And call Ballard's dad's the GM of Indianapolis. He was Mr. Football Indiana, looked okay in relief of being last year. Is he about our answer, maybe? I think the question you have to find the answer to before you get into. Well, I mean, you were there the other night. Fans were cheering. Hey, we want cold baller. They were booing. They were flat. Yeah, booing Jalen. We want mode in the stadium turned real hard at halftime. Yeah. And for what it's worth, I was sitting with two NFL scouts they laughed. Yeah, that's not a good look. Yeah. But to me, to me, the question then is, I mean, the obvious answer is Jalen has has a higher ceiling than cold baller for sure. To me, I think it so comes back to new offensive coordinator different system. Is it the system that's the problem? Is it the player not adapting to the system? Is it the system not figure out how to utilize the skills in the player? I mean, again, last year in the last couple years with total Niki, we saw Jalen's ability to create plays and use his arm and his athleticism work tremendously. And this year, to me, I do think like refers to saying there's a balance between Jalen does not look good and the system is not working. When it is working, running the ball with Hysha and Neil works effectively, clearly getting the ball in the gym sand is also working. So to me, I think it's not about do you put cold ballad out there and feel like he's going to put together better results? I think it's is cold baller going to run the offense and run the system the way Jeff Grimes wants it? Or is the system just not really centered around Jalen being a skill set? And I think, you know, after three games, you know, obviously, the first half against Lindenwood, we saw Jalen air it out plenty and looked fine. You know, it's the, to me, it's the progression of reads like Chris said. There's been a lot of talk that Jeff Grimes has a much tighter leash on the way games are called and that he is influencing the way Jalen is reading the field and making a lot of those predetermined reads form. And to me, it just looks like everything's so scripted that Jalen's not playing free. He's playing, all right, I have to go here. This is the read. This is where they want me to go. And so I don't think the answer is sit him, but it might be if we go through another first half against West Virginia and the offense outside of the scripted first 10, 15 plays looks bad. I don't see why sitting him out for a series or two just to hit the reset just to see what Ballard does is a bad reason because the way the season's going right now, you're one more loss away from the season being completely wasted. So you might as well give him an opportunity, but I still think at the other day, Jalen's your best quarterback. Jalen, when healthy and looking right, he's one of the five to 10 best quarterbacks in the country. I think he's got enough game tape to show that. It's just about getting them to sync up correctly. And you said the offense has looked terrible and that's not just Jalen. It's some of the other guys, receivers haven't been involved at all. The Titans haven't done lick of anything. It's been all definitely on high shot. Yeah, and Christopher, you know, as negative as it went and the fans are really super enthusiastic. It was a sellout crowd standing remotely. Everybody was gotten nuts in the first half. They looked like they were going to dominate at UNLV. A good UNLV team coached by Barry Odom, former head coach of Missouri. And, you know, it just started falling apart with calling that timeout and throwing the interception at the end of the first half, UNLV, who had done nothing offensively, punches in a touchdown. Now it's anybody's ball game. And then at the end, KU, instead of falling on a fumble by UNLV's quarterback, trying to scoop it and score, fumble it forward, UNLV gets it, that hurt, the pass interference and what would have been an uncatchable ball in the end zone, put you in LV in position to score. So there were plenty of mistakes all around. I don't want to just pile it all on Jalen. It was just, it was the most obvious. He's the most visible. Do you think if a couple of those plays went the other way, everybody would be, hey, okay, man, we lost to an Illinois team, but there's three and oh, they're going to be pretty good. UNLV is pretty good. We want a close game. It's okay, we're all good. Yeah, I mean, if they find a way to win one of those last two games, like, again, the tone is definitely different. Dropping both is why it's such panic mode. And like, we've been piling on Jalen a little bit, but it is grinds like something I noticed that was driving me crazy. They're sitting there waiting for draw up the script at the end of the game for the last position. Like, you know, you just know that they're trying to figure out what plays we need to get down the field. The first play is a trip's right. The second play is a trip's left. Like, go back and watch it. So 15 second for all three receivers. That's on the OC, right? Right. Yeah, they were in there in no danger scoring. Yeah, there's no, there's no planning at all. It feels like or no real thought process. It's just, I don't even know how to explain what the thought process there, especially when you have a quarterback that didn't do anything in the second half. You know, so like, why is that? So there's just a number of things. I still, your question a little bit ago, I still think you guys stay with Daniel's just for name value. I mean, I think you need to, even though they've already been running in a decent amount, you need up that, you know, rely on Neil Highshot as much as possible. And the threat of Jalen is higher than Ballard. So maybe that will keep deep into a little more honest and then just kind of slowly work back in some of those different passing concepts to see if he can get a little bit more confidence that way by just relying on the run game, like 80% of the time, which sounds crazy. That's kind of where they're at. And then no more freaking bubble screens. Yeah, no more. Just no more. Everyone. Friends coordinators love the bubble screens because it's a safe pass here. Just because I agree with both of you guys are saying this clip from Jalen, I think perfectly summarizes over thinking. Yeah, the first interception was a cover three. The high safety made a play on the scene. The scene was open much earlier than I thought it would be. I was going through my progression and as I got to number three, which was too scan, the safety read my eyes the whole entire time and just made a play as I tried to fit the ball in there. The second interception was they played good defense all the way around. Looking back at it, the only thing that I had with my check down to the boundary is covered every single row. That was supposed to be a part of that play. And it just has also the defense for making play on that. That just didn't resonate. He answered the question. He gave a good answer. I mean, you can't complain. Hey, you didn't answer it. But just the mannerism was like, okay, yeah, I was supposed to do this. This is what I did. Here's what happened. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. I mean, it's just too much. I mean, it's a game of instinct, right? It's a game of, okay, you study to react. You study so you're not thinking. You just act in the game. That's why you practice. And it seems like, I think you guys nailed it, thinking a little bit too much. Well, hey, now the preseason's over. We're stepping into the Big 12 taking on a West Virginia team that you can honestly say about the same thing you said about the Jayhawks. They both go to this game at one and two. It's in Morgantown, a really tough place to play. You fly into Pittsburgh, you take a bus up there. If there's one team that doesn't belong in the new Big 12, it's West Virginia. That's where they're going. Both teams are disappointed. They're both sitting at one and two. West Virginia, a two and a half point favorite going into the game. They're predicting it's going to be a low scoring game for a Big 12 game, a 56 and a half point over under. How do you guys feel about this game? It's going to be good weather in West Virginia, 78 degrees sunny. No excuses. You beat the Mountaineers. Not to go basketball mode here, but everybody, Big 12 knows that when you go into Morgantown, at an early game Saturday, kick off or on the hardwood, weird things happen. So that element always scares me because it is Westfaw. They have a very good atmosphere. But let's be honest, this West Virginia team looks terrible. Not that they've had an insanely tough schedule and they finally put up points against Pittsburgh. But they must put 12 points against Penn State. He's got a really good defense. And they obviously blew out Albany, but they don't really look the part. So the fact that they're a two and a half point favorite really shows you the lack of confidence nationally people have in the J-Hawk chat for the first of the games. But two or three years ago now, two years ago now, this was the game that really kickstarted the upstart for the program with the Kobe Bryant pick six at the end of the game. So I think that's going to play in element here. Our defense has been really good. But yeah, this could be a very ugly, slow moving game with lots of turnovers. Offense looks sloppy in the team that plays the best fundamental football in the second half, I think is the one that comes out. But to give you the bit of optimism, and we'll talk about it this week on our podcast as well. I don't see how KU comes out and drops a third game the way they have so far. Like if they didn't learn after Illinois, there's no way they can't learn the way after the UNLV game. So I feel like they'll come out more prepared and execute better. And personally, I think this is Jalen Daniels bounce back game. Okay, Christopher, what do you think? Yeah, I see it differently. I think it is. I mean, I still, even though they're underdogs, and even though they look really bad last two weeks, I still am leading KU and that may just be my bias. But I think it's the perfect game to do what I said earlier, like we're pounding the rock. I don't think West Virginia is going to go up and drop 40 points on you. You know, I think it's going to be about ball control and about who makes the viewer mistakes. And I think it's a lot easier to make fewer mistakes when Neil and I are touching the ball most of the time. So work Jalen in, I hope is as statline does not need to be gaudy. It just needs to have zero, maybe one in the turnover range. You know, I'm giving a maybe one, but preferably zero. And I think KU wins that game. If they keep calling it how they have been, he's got two picks or if one boy or whatnot, it could be rolling in Morgantown real quick. Yeah, win the turnover battle. And you know, march in because honestly, if you win the turnover battle, you don't even have to win the turnover battle. If you don't throw the interception at the end of the first half, they win against a good UNO valued team who's probably better than this West Virginia team is. So yeah, Illinois is ranked now and UNLV was locking on the door and UNLV is now getting a lot of talk to be that the outside team looking into the culture play on place in their conference. So yeah, KU's got to get right. They cannot go into conference play zero in one, one in three on the season because we're already fighting the Kelly Leipold tweet or fake tweet on fan support. And the way the last two weeks have gone, you can't go out there and drop again and expect the fans to keep showing up because they're going to leave friendly. So it's a big, it's an important. It's going to be a bad look playing in front of a half empty arrowhead stadium too. Oh my gosh, that's not going to look good. I'd be given away sooner. And I want to replace it or in place some of those conference games at Children's First Park. Sullock crowds a little bit better than a half empty eight, no matter why. I mean, I don't know, can, can KU draw 75,000 people to a conference game for anybody for Iowa State? Yeah, Iowa State game will take care of itself. Right. Yeah, with 60% Iowa State fans, yeah, especially. Yeah, it'll be a basically a road game. But yeah, right. No, they can't, I mean, maybe if they were, you know, three and all right now and rolling, maybe they get close. But even then, I still don't know if they get to get there on their own. Okay. Well, let's take a more positive look. The Kansas City current, they are one game away from the playoffs clinching their playoff spot. They kind of avenged their first loss of the season. They went to Orlando hard fought game against the pride, the leader at the top of the table. No, they'll draw. Here's what Michelle Cooper had to say about going to Orlando and getting that draw. Oh, yeah, I think we both every team, both teams knew that it was going to be like a chess match because of what happened last game. And we know that we both are high intensity teams, but with factors of like the weather, travel, all of these things and wanting to chase a win from both sides, we knew that it was going to be a very tactical and like one mistake could lead to a goal type of game. So we knew that was going to be a game like that. And I'm just glad that we were able to travel there, play at home, play at their home and get a point. They actually made a good point because that was a challenging game. The currents made a lot of changes and you got to give them credit because they took that loss to Orlando when they went into the international break and said, Okay, we want to win the championship. We're not good enough. We need to build up our back line and we need to make sure that we're bringing impact players off when we sub out. And they made major acquisitions, added two goalkeepers, added Alma Cook, who is a former US national team, center defender Kayla Sharples and all NWSL central defender. And they added more offense, signing Jericho and Hilda, my new favorite nickname in professional sports, the breadwinner, who really haven't factored in much yet, but they seem like they're ready now. And maybe, hey, now we got our now we got our it's what all right, we got our feet underneath us. They got to win one nil, their last home game, they go and draw against the best team in the league. Feeling pretty good about them that they still have a good shot to be here for the league championship when that comes up Thanksgiving weekend in Kansas City. Yeah, and looking at some of the stats here, it's always good when you are one of the top teams in in goal differential, they're sitting at plus 15, which is third, you know, about nine goals behind the leader there and about seven goals behind the head of the next person. So that, I mean, just like what's happened with the Royals right now this year too, when you're leading in run differential, more times than not, that means you have a really good chance at winning majority games. And that's why they're they're top four team right now. And if you keep doing that, even when you have the zero zero or the one mill game there, you're you're you're slowly inching closer and closer. I think that's one of the interesting things about the soccer format is it's not always about your win loss record. It is, but you look at points score, you look at the run differential there. And the way they're sitting right now, they're there. I mean, they kind of control their own destiny. If they keep doing what they're doing, they're going to have a really good shot down stretch. Yeah, especially if they get home field advantage, because they have a very unique advantage in their league, having the only stadium that's solely built for a women's football team at CPKC stadium, selling it out, they know it's going to be a solid every game's already sold out because of season tickets. And in soccer football, home field is a huge difference. It makes a big difference. If you draw on the road and win at home, you're going to be fine. And I believe if they beat Washington this week at home, they basically clench a home field game in the playoffs. So it's a great position to be in. They still have a few weeks to go in the regular season. And it shows that you can make that commitment, spend a little bit of money. And as we seg over to the Royals, you make those acquisitions when it's near the deadline, which they did, they made four big acquisitions right before the trade deadline closed in the NWSL. And I think it's going to bear results. It takes a little while to get your your feet under you, because you know, you're getting a new chemistry, you're working in a new lineup, but now they seem to be on that right path. And I think we can say the same thing for the royals, because the royals went ahead and they made a flurry of moves and they added money to the payroll, which is something very unroyal, but they seem to be seem to be gaining now. And just like the current had a little bit of a losing streak, the royals had a little bit of a losing streak after making all these acquisitions. But now they seem to have righted the ship. And they're in a really, really good position to secure that wild card and not necessarily out of the division yet. How you guys feel about the royals where they sit right now? You can start Chris. Yeah, I feel great about, you know, playoffs, they don't even have to play well down the stretch. Obviously, you want to go into the playoffs hot, but they put themselves to where you can drop a few. I mean, this Detroit site Tiger series, this feels kind of important, but even then it's not none of its muscle and even if they for some reason somehow got swept. So that's a good spot to be with only 11 to go thing at this point where there's not that amount of pressure yet. I think the thing about the royals that's interesting me is going to be the playoff roster construction, because the bullpen has been the talking point all season long. And it's like, yeah, do you want the bullpen just to be all the failed starters? Because that's kind of where they're leaning. Like, you thinking a three game playoff series, it's going to be Regan's Lugo Walker going to be your three. So that means singers travel beta. Yeah, Lorenzo's going to go to the bullpen because he's tracking be back. Martian Lynch have looked really good in their time. They're probably going to be in the bullpen. All of a sudden, it's like, you got to move it's been long. And then four guys that have started the rest of the year. So like, I that's kind of what I'm interested in to see. Do they go more position players just because Katero likes to mismatch and go starters in the pin or that's where I'm at right now that the games itself on a daily basis actually don't quite matter because I'm kind of where the division's out. I mean, it's there, but it's not in my opinion. And I had not having the tiebreaker against Baltimore makes me feel pretty confident that the roles are probably going to be the five seat going forward. Yeah, it would be hard to catch here. I forget hard. It would be almost impossible to catch the guardians for the division. The guardians basically need to lose out. The royals need to win. Yeah. Well, it is Cleveland. So that's a possibility. I've covered sports in Cleveland. I saw quite plenty of epic collapses. It's more than possible, but I think they got the division. They can collapse in the playoffs. But it's wild to me about that with Cleveland still meeting the division. Again, if we're going to some analytics here, the royals have the best run to run differential in the division 23 better than the guardians. They've also scored more runs in the guardians and they've given up less runs in the guardians themselves have scored yet they're still in this four and a half game deficit, which I just I just find interesting because you look across all the other divisions. It's being what the best run differential in their division is in first place in their division. Yeah, the numbers say you should win. And you've been you've had the guardians number this year in the head to head series. Detroit and Minnesota are sneaking back up and the royals have dropped several series this year. They shouldn't have and you know Cleveland's interesting. They've gone through stretches where they're starting pitching and their bullpen looks like the best in baseball and they've gone through stretches where they're relying on their bullpen to to finish out a game because they're starting pitching a struggle. But they're still a very dangerous team. I don't think Jose Ramirez gets enough credit for being an MVP conversation as he should. But yeah, coming down the stretch here, you know, division or not, the royals are, in my opinion, locked into a playoffs by unless they themselves have an epic collapse. And I like Chris's point there. You know, that's something we're going to have conversations on two of the next couple of weeks is what does that 2526 man roster look like? You know, is it, like you said there, you go to your your your starters out of the bullpen for two or three innings and go that approach. And I think, well, we'll at least see with Q, but with the way they are analytical is once once we get to the playoffs, I don't think it's going to be about roles at all. It's going to be about matchups. So obviously, you know, if you're if you're going into into Baltimore, and with that offense or you're you're going into Yankee Stadium, I don't think you're playing singer. So you probably know, he's not going to be pitching that game, you're going with your best. But yeah, who comes out of the bullpen? Is it going to be starter starter starter starter starter than Ursik for two innings? We've seen how the, you know, the seventh eighth, if a Royal starting pitcher doesn't get into the seventh, we've got trouble. Even though some of the bullpen has been decent, but you got to get to seven and then you feel pretty good, you can throw Ursik out there for two innings, if need be. It's funny that down the stretch here, you know, that that has some cause for concern, but I think our group of guys is actually better suited for a playoff run than some of these other teams. Not that that the starters are going to be great bullpen pieces necessarily, but I think that the way you, the way you manage a playoff team, smaller series, day by day, you're not worried about all the rest quite as much because you're, you've got a little bit more time there. I think they're, they're honestly better students than that. Yeah. So you're not, I don't think you're too worried about it or pitching too much. No, you can, you can rest Ursik. You can, and here, to be fair, Michael Lorenzo has been a relief pitcher and, you know, he's not a failed starter. He's actually been a pretty good starter. So I'm comfortable with him. Alec Marsh was in the bullpen some last year, I'm comfortable with him. Boobich has been terrific this year. He's been really your second most reliable reliever. That's good. I think less of the bullpen and more of those guys is probably a good thing because the reason why the run differential isn't determining the division winner is because of those other guys, the bullpen, because we've blown a bunch of games and lost by one run because we threw away games that we were winning last night is one of them. You get a grand slam home run from Bobby Wood Jr. He gets another RBI. You wasted it triple by MJ Melendez and, you know, six runs. You score six runs. You got to win. You got to win at home. You score six runs. You can't blow that game. So, you know, that that's on the bullpen. And I don't think you see those guys in the play offs because you're going to get the days off. You don't have to worry about burning your starters out because, heck, if you don't win the seasons over, anyways, let's go. And, you know, you're not going to be running Will Smith out there. He's not going to get the chance to run out there. Chris Stratton. Chris Stratton. The general is not going to be allowed to stay out there. If he gets two guys, the first guy he faces looks horrible. Okay, you're out of there. You know, you're going to get somebody warm enough. You're not going to leave him out there for the inning to give up three runs. It's going to be a different mentality. And I think you guys are right. I think the Royals team is set up better for that. It's just unfortunate we're missing Vinnie Pascentino because he was a really good piece and had really turned it on after, you know, having to shake off his injuries at the beginning of the season. It's just a, you know, real unfortunate bad break with the thumb injury. But it's a great piece to have coming back next year. And, man, you've got to be excited going in next season. And we're not even, we're not even through this season. But this could be the best setup for a Royals run in years because we knew after they won the 2015 World Series that the whole roster was going to turn over. So it really just makes you feel super confident going into the next year of that. Man, they're in good position. And you got to be excited for this playoffs because here, if I told you guys in the beginning of the year, the Royals are going to win 83 games. Everybody would say, yes, I'm good. Yeah. And barring a massive collapse, they're going to win way more than 83 games. So it's been an amazingly successful year already. So anything else really in my mind is a bonus. Yeah. And what gives me hope going into the playoffs, a couple things. I mean, outside of, you know, judge and Soto just having insane offensive years, Yankees have best run of differential plus 123, the Royals are second in the American League. But what gives me pumped is you look at all these potential series matchups. And you know, right as of right now, it's probably Baltimore to start. But almost any matchup you have, you feel like you've got the better starting pitcher going into that game, almost in almost every single scenario, you know, unless somehow the Tigers figure out how to get in, you have to go up against scuba in the one game there. But the Royals look to like they're going to have the better matchups next night, which gives you a lot of excitement. You've got one of the best players in the sport in Bobby Mc Jr. You mentioned off earlier that your first oil shortstop to go 30 and 30 with home runs and stolen bases this year. And he's first shortstop and first, I'm sorry, first shortly. Yeah, then he looks like one of the two or three or four best players in baseball nine and nine out. Salve, you know, doesn't have the same protection without any behind them, but Salve's been fine. So as long as you can get through the next two and a half weeks, the next 10, 11 games without any other injury concerns, you got to feel like the Royals might actually be one of the better positions heading into the playoffs and then some of their other potential competition. You know, the twins still scare me a lot. Chris and I have talked about that. Yeah, that the twins just for whatever reason are a horrible matchup for us. They've just got the right guys up and down that lineup. But again, you got to feel good night and night out when you've probably got the edge starting pitching wise and in the playoffs, it's about pitching. Yeah, I agree. You got to feel pretty confident. I mean, outside of and like I said, Chris, everything's house money at this point. I mean, if they make it to the playoffs and they get bumps in the first round. Okay. Yeah, no, it would be a bummer if they got bump in the first round, but like I like you said, house money, we'd get over and talk about how much fun this year, how unexpected was that it would live on forever kind of like that. I mean, that O3 team lives on forever and they didn't even make the playoffs. They just want 83 games or whatever. So definitely a memorable season, regardless what happens. I'm really interested to see how like it wants to get to the point once they're in the playoffs, how the lefties do specifically MJ and Massey, because I think it was Dom Browski, the GM of the Phillies who said years ago, it was like to really have a chance you need to have some left-handed sluck. Like that's what you need. You need someone that could hit that tough right-handed reliever, you know, and he's shown that he had David Ortiz when he was in Boston. He has Harper right now. Broils did have Vinny, but Vinny's gone. So that leaves that leaves Massey and MJ, two guys who have been up and down. And I'm kind of hoping MJ has that loose-like run. I know it's a little optimistic, but I was looking at the numbers and I'm nerding out a little bit, but they're not that different at this point. The crew, MJ is actually better offensively at this point and at this age than Moose was. So we've seen MJ have the confidence, we've seen MJ have clutch. If he can kind of have that Moose-esque run where he runs into a couple of big homers, Moose's career took off after that. I would love to see something like that happen to one of the lefties young, the lefties in the Royals lineup. Yeah, we look at Moose Docus' career early in the World Series year through definitely Royal Blue color classes because he was down in like the 220s and I think he hit 14 homerun. So he was not a all-star player by any means that year, but he came through in the clutch and made a few big plays and that was enough. And that makes you a legend to baseball. So the future is still bright for MJ Melendez. He could still reclaim that glory as the minor league homerun leader that he is and the guy that we're hoping that we see at some point. It's just funny how two out of every 10 at bats has looked at as terrible, but you get that third hit in every 10 at bats and maybe you're on the whole other level. That's what's been about baseball. Every single day, you've got a new opportunity to go out there and make a difference on the field. And the Royals have a lot of guys that have the opportunity this year to have that type of moment. Yes, Melendez hasn't had the best of seasons. He's looked better in the second half in the first half, of course, but all it takes is one swing in the bat in October to forget a 200 batting average season. Absolutely. Now let's move to the national football league. Kansas City Chiefs go to two and oh, they get to go on the road to Mercedes Benz Stadium and Atlanta take on a shocking league. One and one Atlanta Falcons big assist to the Philadelphia Eagles for giving the Falcons the opportunity to win that game. The pressure cooker is going to be on Nick Siriani even a little bit more. I was able to go to Philadelphia for WrestleMania this year in April and some of the Philadelphia sports writers that I do and sports fans that I talked to when I was in between covering WrestleMania events, they were asking for Siriani to get fired already and that was April. So you know the pressure's on them. No issues in Kansas City with anybody asking for anyone's job, but it was a rough win. Andy Reed talked about the the takeaways and surprisingly they were able to win a game where they lost the takeaways three to one. So what do we learn from this turnovers? They kill you. They don't give you a very seldom give you an opportunity to win the game. So if you come out with a win with free turnovers, that's a that's a plus, but we got to take care of business there and then penal these when you're all of these things on the plus side of the field, those end up being points, whether it's a field goal or whether it's a touchdown, those are points. So we've got to make sure we take care of business with that and improve. And we had some young guys that ended up with some of these penalties and they'll learn from it. And Kingsley had he's going against arguably one of the best defensive ends in the in the league. It would be a great experience that he can put away and hear him learn from. And I end up taking them out of the game. Sometimes you got to take a step back to take a step forward. So and you know, so one year came in and did a nice job. Now he had he also had a penalty there, but very seldom are you going to get a guy like that right there that you're playing against. And what you want to do is learn from it and move forward. So I thought that really kind of summed up the game too, because you came out of it with a win against a good team, Cincinnati team that always kind of struggles to begin the season. But you get the win and it was definitively a pass interference at the end. And to be fair, if she a Morris doesn't slap at the at Hendrickson's face, then Kelsey has a 51 yard pass and you're in chip shot range. So the Chiefs got in position to win the game twice. What was your guys take away of this game? Definitely a better start to this year than last year. Yeah, I still, you know, I think the takeaway I've had across the NFL as a whole this year is there's been a lot of sloppy offensive possessions. You know, some of that might be guys don't get as much work in the preseason as they did in the past. But you know, with the Chiefs, that's never really been an issue for us. It's been the way we we facilitate our off seasons. They're prepared. So the fact that they're still, you know, looking a little sloppy offensively has me worried. But again, the Bengals, just like I was talking about with the twins at the Rose, the Bengals just seem to have our number matchup wise. That game is always ugly. The second that line came out as Chiefs plus six and a half or minus six and a half, I'm going, you know, wait, this game is always down to a field goal. Well, I think for the last five have been a field goal, winning the game for either team. And they just play really well. Trey Hendrickson looks like prime JJ Watt when he plays the Chiefs. And it doesn't matter where he lines up, he finds a mismatch. Their secondary, even though it's one of the worst secondaries in the NFL, just knows where to play the zones and in my homes made a few mistakes, of course. But these types of games early in the season that you win ugly, even going back to Baltimore, it takes, you know, a toe to win that game. Those, I think, pile up at the end of the season. So you know that even when maybe the offense isn't clicking 100% yet, Kelsey hasn't been involved. You know, the line backing core on Titans hasn't looked great. Now you've got some injuries stacking up. The fact that you can still go out and win games like this when you're playing maybe your C or B game at best, makes you feel good that as we get into the farther parts of the season, you'll feel good. And if we're being honest, we all know, I was talking to a buddy about this the other day, he was like, man, the Chiefs look terrible offensively, but it doesn't matter because as soon as postseason starts, the switch flips on and then they're the most dominant team of football. So in reality, whatever feelings you have right now, probably doesn't matter too much because come weeks 16 through 19, we're going to be sitting here going, all right, it's playoff time. Go ahead. I didn't even think the offense looked that terrible. Like, yes, like there are some big mistakes, which led to that, but like you're talking about a rookie fumble and my home's not reading, not accounting for a linebacker, which that was a really bad interception. And then, you know, the Brit interception, not only was it incredible, also worthy didn't do himself any favors with what the release he took with how much failure out of the inside. So I think that like, you're there one or two plays away from really breaking that thing away. The turnovers is just what kept Cincinnati in that game. Luckily, they gave one back, which really turned that game on its head. But I think the offense is way closer to the line is still done. I mean, we saw the push, they're getting doesn't matter if steel was running or pacheco. Like the run game has been, it's been very good at this point. You're still going to take a little bit for that receiving core to jail, especially when you go all through camp or OTN OT, like Hollywood Browns going to be the one, you know, we're not going to be worthy, he's going to be able to adjust and automatically that's gone. So now that happens to try to get this rookie involved, they brought Juju back trying to get him involved. Like, it's not going to be as clean as it needs to be right now. But I still think I've seen a lot of promising stuff on that offensive where I'm not. Yeah, it was an ugly stat line game from my homes. But like overall, I still think the offense looks to be trending way better than they were last year, where it was just at times of this move, which is rough with the patch of my home's led offense. And even when we look bad, you still can't be my homes. Right, you still can't be. No, I think you got to feel dramatically better too. Even without Hollywood Brown, having your wide receivers being a Rishi rise that is now, you're legitimately one of the best receivers in the league. Right. Justin Watson is a capable number three receivers. Xavier Worthy can fly. We saw what he can do, the impact he can make in game one. Juju Smith Schuster is your fourth option. That's okay. You know, he can be your number four guy. We haven't even had to see McCall Hardman in on a wide receiver snap yet. Whereas last year, he was our hope. We needed McCall Hardman. So you're in a much, much better place. And I think the tight ends, Noah's looked really good so far. They re-signed him. He's got an extension. And Jared Wily, I think he's gonna be an impact player. And then we'll see, I think Kelsey will get more involved. Of course, there's all sorts of talk that hey, he's done. He only had one catch for five yards. They're discounting the fact that he had what would have been the game winning catch pulled back from an incidental penalty. And Patrick Mahomes said that a lot of Kelsey struggles were because the Bengals chose to take him away. Yeah, they're doing a great job of just kind of having two people for him. I mean, pretty much the entire game. That's why you've seen guys like Rashid and Worthy. I mean, if you look at the first touchdown, I'm actually looking to Trev and the backside safety goes all the way across the field to help guard Travis and then the bottom of Sala and the Rashid. And that's kind of what they've been doing. And obviously, we played two opponents who have played a lot. So they have a plan on how they're gonna account for Travis. But as the season goes on, I mean, he's gonna get his catch. He's gonna get his yards. But the leader that he is is what special is he's hyping everybody up. He's keeping everybody motivated. And that's what you need are your great players. He's not worried. I'm not worried. I think he'll be just fine. Yeah, it's only a matter of time till he gets more involved. Yeah. And if Rashid Rice lights up another team, they're gonna have to start moving over to cover somebody else. Now, of an area of concern, though, Isaiah Pacheco going to be out six to eight weeks has a broken phobia. And you already talked about that. What are they going to do? As far as Pacheco goes, we will go with the guys that we have here. Now, Veach is kind of going through his lists and looking at people and we'll just see where that goes. But we're blessed to have some good people here. And they added a person back. The protocol running back has returned. Karim Hunt resigned. He's going to be on the practice squad for, I don't think, a week or two. He was not in training camp this year. He was working out with his college and working out with his personal trainer. So hopefully it's a week and he's ready to go. Clyde Edwards layer should be back in week four. Chiefs have three open spots on their 53-man roster. So you can actually elevate Karim Hunt and add Clyde Edwards e layer and still have a spot open if they want to bring up somebody or add another wide receiver. You're feeling good with Carson Steel, some Ajé P. Ryan and Karim Hunt coming in a week or two? I think what you're hoping for is that lightning strikes in the bottle thrice. But Veach has done this twice now where the running back coming into the season wasn't established and veteran. That was supposed to be your bell cow. And it started first with Spencer Ware coming off a really good year coming to the train camp hurt. And so you got Karim Hunt early and after that first fumble Karim Hunt became one of the five best running back to the season that year. Foot four to a couple years later, same kind of thing happens and you have Isaiah Pacheco step into it. Thanks. I think you're hoping that that situation comes about a third time with Carson Steel. He got a decent amount of runtime this last game. I know he had the fumble, but fourth down in short gets the first down there. So I think we're going to see a heavy amount of steel this week. I think we'll also see a lot more p-rine than we have so far. And my guess is they'll elevate Kiante Ingram off the practice squad for the Falcons game. I don't think they need Karim Hunt for that game. The Falcons, I don't know, they don't look very good. So I don't think they need that, but it is going to be interesting to see how much they favor steel versus p-rine because the steel is not really there in past pro yet, then maybe you see a lot more p-rine. And I actually think that's fine because I think p-rine is one of the perfect additions to this team. He kind of fulfills that Jerick McKinnon all pretty well. And I think he's better than most people getting credit before. So I think it'll be interesting. I am excited to see Karim Hunt back. He's not the same explosive runner he was before, but when you're in a situation with the Kansas Chiefs, like he's going to be the second go around. Not only will he probably be focused, I think he's, I don't think there's going to be a ton of expectation for him. So maybe not this week, but the following week he starts getting involved. Maybe it's five to ten plays if that. I don't think you're really asking him to do a ton. I think it's going to be a lot of p-rine in Carson's steel. And maybe maybe we find the next great thing I'm running back with Carson's steel the more time he gets. Oh man, he would be an NFL folk hero, the guy who has a pet crocodile. Yeah, he already is kind of kind of getting into a folk legend kind of range for that. The thing about steel is he's not as explosive as either of those two are. So I don't know if he can ever go full, you know, take over, be a true RB1. So I don't necessarily think that we can expect that from steel, but I just think this game plan is going to be a very similar to what we kind of saw against the Patriots. I think it was the Packers last year when Pacheco missed a couple games and you had Clyde and McKinnon. I think that steel becomes Clyde and p-rine becomes McKinnon and you just kind of run, you know, one's your pass catching guy, one's your running guy, but really your run game becomes jet sweep to worthy and bubble screen to rise and maybe McColl-Harden gets a few extra snaps this week just because he can kind of take over that run type look for opposing defenses. So I don't, yeah, Kareem may be getting activated this week either way. I don't know. I don't think this week, but yeah, right. Regardless if he does this week or not, like it's, he's going to be nice to have a goal line. It's going to be nice to have another option. It got it's been a number one before and has that experience in the NFL, but I don't really expect it to be too impactful down the stretch. Yeah, maybe a little bit more no agree in there as a HVAC, the action in a couple of swing passes and being an extra blocker because whoever starts at left tackle, if it's Kingsley or it's Wanda. Either one of them is going to need a little help probably. God shit. And you know what? Everybody else on the line's solid. So you can, you can help the one spot. They're just going to have to swing over there and hopefully you don't get too many matchups that are as far against you as that bangles matchup was with Henderson. Well, hey, with that, let's go ahead to weekly champion. We'll get your champions a week brought to you by our sister channel. Hey, what's up guys? This is Tybell when Alonka and you are watching wrestling. And you can check out weekly champions on wrestling spotlight. It will also be on this channel this week. I'm talking to the center of attention all eyes on her in the center of the ring, just like a circus. Brittany for us from future stars wrestling in Las Vegas, talking about her injury comeback and just kind of giving her feeling about women's pro wrestling overall. With that, let's go ahead and get your champion of the week. Keegan, who's your weekly champion? It's about. Yeah, it's hard not to go with with one of the stars. So like, I feel like I want to the easy answer here's Bobby with despite the loss last night, he has a grand slam, goes from your 30 and 30 season and going down the playoffs there. So I feel like I want to lean there. But Lugo's had a really solid last couple of outings. So I want to say I'm going to go with with Lugo coming down the stretch here as the guy that is still man, how many even Michael walkers look good. How about I just go royal starting rotation as a whole? That's great. Yeah, they want to take a copy and choose a straws and stir the drink. There's no doubt about that. And I got I got to go with with Trent McDuffie. I mean, locked up, Jamar Chase gotten his head a little bit with really out there and much caused a huge penalty cause Chase loses head to cause that huge penalty. Like, I think while there's a status on 17 of the 38 routes that Jamar caught and he only caught one pass on it for like 60 yards or something crazy like that. Like Trent McDuffie is just such a he's he's been so good ever since he's came to Kansas City. And you know, you're wondering what he's going to look like without Sneed and he's going to have to be that true number one and he hasn't missed a beat. He's even gotten better. So he's my champion of the week. Well, and I'm going to go with our college team, our area college team that we basically just glanced at, but really didn't mention much. You'll have to catch college gridiron to get more on them. How about the Missouri Tigers? They beat Boston College in a top 25 match up in the pre-conference. They get to take on Vanderbilt. In light drink points is in position to take that team to four and oh and they've got they've got a lot of potential. This is still going to be a big college football year here. Okay, you can get it turned around. K state is still sitting in the top 25 and MU sitting way up in the top 10 and basically they got the tiebreaker for the playoffs because they're in the SEC. So good position for MU and I'll give the weekly championship to coach Eli. You only drink weights for knocking off Boston College and getting that must win game because you lose that game the rest of the season. You can't live up to the potential of jam. With that, we'll wrap it up here. Thanks for catching us on the fired up network. Download that true TV plus app. That's the best way to watch the channel. You can also see us on sports.tv and carbon TV. And Keegan Chris, where's the best place to find the K.C. sports authority? Yep, you can find us also over on YouTube. Just search K.C. sports authority or at K.C.S.A. pod. You can check us out on Spotify if you listen on the go. Any of our social meetings as well at K.C.S.A. pod and if you're into sports betting, we have a new weekly segment called K.C.S.A. game day gambles. So be sure to check that out on all of our channels to hopefully win some some money this football season. Off to the start. Your stone cold lead pipe cinch lock of the wig. Are you to win? Are you in the money line? Yes, sure. I mean, I'm going to cause the home where I'm going to fit in with confidence. That's the more I'm going to bet it anyway. There's no way they drop a third one in a row. There you go. K.U. to win. All right. Thanks for joining us here on the fired up network. Stay tuned for more sports and entertainment right here and get that true TV plus app so you can see all of the great programming on fired up network wrestling, and then the rest of the channels offered on true TV plus for Chris for 10 penny and Keegan Russell. I'm Gerald Bentley. Thanks for joining us here on Chime Out K.C.