Hour 1: Guest Host Bobby Bones, RIP Pro Bowl, Belichick Intrigue, plus NFL Insider Ian Rapoport

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1:24This is The Rich Eisen Show. This is the Rich Eisen Show. With guest host, Bobby Bones. Rich Eisen, he's calling me, that's cool. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Today's guests, NFL Network insider, Ian Rappaport. College football insider for The Athletic, Stuart Mandel. Actor and musician, Nick Jonas. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Bobby Bones.

2:05Alright, here we are. Call us once I say something that irritates you. 844-204-RICH. Watch us on Disney Plus and the ESPN app. Listen on ESPN Radio, Sirius XM, Channel 80. and you can follow us at Rich Eisen Show. Also subscribe to the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Rich Eisen. Chris, TJ, what's up friends? Bobby, man. Great to see you, dude. Thank you. We just spent 20 minutes on my hair, so it's going to be good. I've got to say, it was really fun watching that whole process. I haven't done that in 25 years, so it was cool to live vicariously through you having that done. I should have been sensitive to your needs.

2:45I'm just saying. Sorry about that. Yeah, it's okay. I accept. Yeah, I accept. I do want to talk about the Pro Bowl to start. The NFL is killing the Pro Bowl game, which I think we can all clap at that, right? Should we all have this? Oh, really? You don't want to clap at the Pro Bowl? Are we pouring one out, TJ, for the Pro Bowl games? I don't know yet. I'm still trying to process it. Oh, you're doing games, too. So first they did kill the Pro Bowl. Now they're killing tug-of-war. Yeah. Three-legged race. They were doing the potato sacrifice. That was all pretty stupid. You know what it felt like the Scholastic Book Fair back in the day, whenever I was in school?

3:17did you guys have this where they would bring this thing to you and at your school in the library they would sell a bunch of bookmarks and it was a big event that's what the Pro Bowl games felt like to me. Remember when we were kids and you went to Pizza Hut for the book it and you got your stars and if you got your five stars you got a personal pan pizza that was the greatest day of my life when you filled the stars that's how I used to eat you don't want that sad story you don't want that sad story though I read so many books just to have dinner. Yeah, you don't want that sad story right now.

3:49That's not what we're here to do. That's not what we're here to do. I'm sorry for your plight. Yeah, you got trauma. We both have trauma. You have bald head trauma? No, I'm a proud bald man. Fair enough. Pro Bowl games are gone, which are good. Could this be that Shadur Sanders killed the Pro Bowl? I saw this take yesterday, TJ. Oh, someone had it before me? Oh, yeah. People have jokes. The internet moves fast, Bobby. And it was like, look, Shador made one Pro Bowl and they killed the games. That's wild. I don't know. I enjoyed the games. You didn't find them fun, entertaining. The flag football was cool.

4:26The old quarterback challenge. Remember those when we were kids? They kind of did a modified version of that. It was a fun attempt. Look, all-star games are kind of all pointless and meaningless now. They don't mean the same today as they did when we were kids. Exactly. And we were talking about this pre-show. I don't know if it's a generational thing. The money's too big that these guys just can't risk anything, really. Embarrassment, injury, et cetera. But I thought the games was kind of a fun attempt for the kids, and I didn't mind it. But the fact that it's gone, I guess, is in a way sad because the Pro Bowl used to be awesome.

5:04Yeah. Did it, though, even when it was in Hawaii. Look, man, Sean Taylor blowing up that dude was one of the greatest moments in NFL history.

5:14Brockman:When we were kids, right, and getting to watch all of these great players come together and play on the same team. That was fun. That was play. Yeah, but when you're 13 and 12, you don't know that. You just know that, you know, Peyton Manning is throwing a touchdown pass to Randy Moss. You know, like I believe kids were, at least I was, more caught up on that aspect of it than the actual game play. I like it that they're still going to honor the pro bowlers. I don't think we need to replace them now because you don't need to be replaced just to be honored. So you do have your pro bowlers. They get their money in the contract that we're getting their bonuses for.

5:54But I don't think anybody actually cared. Again, the pro bowl games were fun. But if I would compare the pro bowl games to what's coming up with the Olympics, with flag football and NFL players possibly getting involved, I don't want my guys playing in either one of them. Really? I don't want them playing in the flag football game. I don't want them playing in the Olympics if it's my team because I don't want there to be any risk that one of my guys might get hurt doing that. Now, do I want to win the gold? Absolutely. Do I want all the guys from the Lions to play? Sure. Not my team. So I don't want my guys playing flag football.

6:26I don't want my guys playing Olympic flag football because we just see what happens. And if Joe Burrow even thinks about watching you stop, you just stay hurt. I don't want my guys getting hurt. That's all. And it also comes that you think about the other traditions that used to feel important that we don't really care about anymore. And you guys are with me. We're all around the same age. It used to be not just viewing where you would sit down and watch, but you would wait for a month for the slam dunk contest. Yeah. It was the absolute greatest thing in basketball. Bigger and better than the All-Star game.

7:03I mean, I remember Spud Webb, my favorite all-time dunk contest winner. Spud Webb winning the dunk contest because he was 4 '3", and we had never seen anything like that before. I remember Dominique Wilkins. That's where he became a brand because Atlanta kind of sucked. It was Dominique. It was Doc Rivers. Atlanta kind of sucked as a team, but Dominique rushed the court and slammed harder than anybody else. Man, with authority. So even Dee Brown. I can go to... Dee Brown! Yes. It was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. They put it on the bottom of his Reebok pump. That all mattered then. It doesn't matter now.

7:44The same thing I think is going to happen to the Pro Bowl. I would say bowl games are getting there. Yeah, I kind of like the idea. I don't know who had this, but play the bowl games first. Play them at the beginning of the year. Talk more, talk more. Play them at the beginning of the year where they actually matter. But how do you get the teams for the bowl games at the beginning of the year? All the bowl games are usually promised to conferences. A random bowl game is SEC fourth place against Big Ten fifth place. Are we speculating? Sure. Preseason rankings. Who cares? It's too much speculation.

8:22It does feel a bit, though, when they do ACC versus SEC challenge. Right. So I guess you could do that type of thing in football, but then still make the money. We pretty much know who's going to be good. and who, like, what, bowl games feature how many? 60 teams? You pretty much know what the top 60 is going to look like, give or take a random here and there. You can offer up invites, and if someone says yes, they say yes. Let's do it at the beginning of the season. Then we can really enjoy the college football year, and then boom, playoffs hit. I don't mind it if we treat it like college basketball does, where we just go ACC versus SEC, Big 12 versus, because the only reason we're still having them, honestly, we all know this is money.

9:06Sure. There are so many. I mean, they start now. It's the day before Thanksgiving, and they roll all the way to the national championship game. It's the most wonderful time of the year, bowl season. It's crazy. So I would say bowl games are falling into that more. But I hope they get rid of the conference championship games. Yeah. And I know that's been talked about. If I were a team that were going to play in the playoff, and if there were two teams for sure going to play in the playoff, and you're going to stick on both in the conference championship game. I don't want to play the game. I don't want to play the game because, well, same reason, I don't want my guys playing flag football in the Olympics.

9:40Yeah, you're going to see guys sit out conference championship games, right? If they're already kind of a lock for the playoff. Even at 12 teams, 16, we're probably going to expand at some point. I would sit guys, maybe not in the first quarter, but yeah, I don't want my guys getting hurt. So the Pro Bowl is gone. Goodbye. But I think we should just have our... But then you get into Pro Bowl versus, you know, all pro guys. And the difference was the all pro guys, number one, you know, all pro first team, second team. The Pro Bowl guys, actually, there were more players and they actually played the game.

10:15And that was the difference where just because you're all pro, like that was the highest that you could achieve. But there wasn't a game. Pro Bowl, there was a game. So they'd keep adding more and more players. So there's going to be less of a difference now in all pro and Pro Bowl. do you i would think so yeah in theory i mean look when you have all due respect to these players they're in the nfl tj i don't want to besmirch them but when you have shador sanders has the star next to his name for last year i mean he was not a good quarterback snoop huntley the year before like you know matt jones let's not act like he wasn't you know he was uh yeah what he was either sixth or seventh option because guys well same with shador get hurt they sit out mac Mac Jones had a much better rookie season than Shadar Sanders.

10:59Still, the point. Put some respect on Mac Jones' name. Made the playoffs. You guys have receipts here. You guys are going dirty dog. I just gave you one. You guys keep throwing more people under. It happens every year where it's like, wait, you go to their pro football reference page and you're like, that guy made the Pro Bowl? Like, what happened? I mean, I have the list. So just quickly, Shadar replaced Drake May. Joe Flacco replaced Josh Allen. Joe Flacco was a Pro Bowler last year. Like, what are we doing? That was a lifetime achievement Pro Bowl. Congratulations. You didn't break a hip. Pro Bowl, T.

11:35Higgins replaced Zay Flowers. I don't hate that one. Tyler Warren replaced Brock Bowers. So, yeah, Pro Bowl, we're all good with that. Joe Flacco was 1-5, TJ, last year. Didn't Phillip Rivers make the Pro Bowl last year? 2-8. No, but that would have been hilarious. Did you see Phillip Rivers' son play high school football last week? Was he amazing? He lost to my friend Luke Bryan's son. Oh. Luke Bryan's son plays quarterback. It was a Tennessee, Alabama two high schools, and it was on ESPN. Hunting, fishing every day. Yeah, and climb tree. And Bo, Luke's son, threw for like$3.75. Jeez. Yeah. It's pretty great to see.

12:21I'm friends with Luke Bryan, so it was pretty cool to see Bo who a kid I've known since like 12 years old. Yeah, that's awesome. Luke has a son named Bo?

12:29Brockman:Wait, seriously? Go ahead. I mean, big Dukes of Hazzard? Yeah, there we go. Nice catch. Alright, now we're on. They got a cousin named Cooter or Daisy or Cletus? He's got to own a General Lee, right? You know the General Lee, not really something you own now. Well, Bubba Watson had one and he painted it over. Yeah, you paint the top. Yeah, you paint the top of the top, but I'm saying the type of car. Fair enough. We can quickly drop into, should a professional athlete be allowed to go back and play college sports? And I think generally, we could all say it together. The answer is no. Yeah, yeah.

13:05I mean, the only people who think yes are basically judges in Louisiana or Texas, you know. So we're starting to see, though, now these conferences come out and go, can't do it. Here's the penalty. SEC said we got some pretty harsh penalties I was reading yesterday 50 % of the money no sitting at the table making decisions with the league your coach is suspended 50 % of the year but here's the thing the NCAA always loses when it goes to court they always lose so if they want to really press on this they will probably lose again so the penalty this is from Pat Forty he tweeted this half season suspension for the head coach uh five or excuse me the fine 50 of the sports budget sec voting privileges revoked on business manager uh matters and the commissioner has latitude to apply other sanctions boy that last one's hardcore that's just they can do whatever they want to you so we all agree but here is my medium warmest of takes oh i want there to be pros in college football you do i want there to be i I want every pro to come back and play college football.

14:18I want it to be such mayhem that they are forced to fix it and quickly because it is not going to be fixed. We have seen a McDonald's playground slide down into college football being weird and terrible and just sad because it doesn't need to be what we grew up being. That is not how life works. Everything changes. But it sucks now because of the transfers, because of how NIL is handled, all of these things the one year transfer has really made college football not fun because we can't bond with our players it's why i've kind of checked out on college basketball recently yes like when we were growing when i was a kid but guys stayed three four years we got to know tj one of your favorite college basketball players of all time grant hill was a four-year super duper star and we had connections to these guys uh the michigan players and guys that went to syracuse Georgetown we got to know them and know their games we were excited for them coming back next year and looking forward to you know just speculating on how they were going to play in the tournament and what their pros draft prospects were going to be like and then all the one and dones happened and you're just like I don't know who any of these guys are I have no connection even though they wear the same jersey that I you know grew up rooting for at Arkansas those were our guys because we didn't have a sports team a pro sports yeah and so i think nasty it needs to be so terribly run and organized and everybody needs to be so angry that a change has to be forced because a change they've tried they've got they've almost got some legislation they can't get everybody to vote because they always try to pork belly some odd things in it as well i think it has to go so wrong that's the only time anything ever gets so you want chaos it has to be until it blows up.

16:08It never gets fixed until there's total chaos. Yeah, I'm looking at the operating budget for LSU football last year. You guys want to guess what this is? You can talk about the 50 % fine if they were to play one of these guys. $51 million. The football budget in LSU. That's your salary here. Can you imagine that? That was between us. No, but I'm saying that's a lot. That's how I know that's a lot because I know that's your salary here. Again, I thought that was the off-air cover. We hate pros in college. LSU is really the face now and is it a surprise that LSU is being run by Lane Kiffin? I mean, is that a surprise?

16:46I mean, he goes there. Jay Feli wants a Raider, always a Raider. They kind of play by their own rules. He's the Pied Piper of just trouble. He's the Pied Piper of like fun trouble. Fun trouble. Yeah, Lane is your fun uncle who like sneaks you beer when you're 12. Right, you know what I mean?

17:05Brockman:So I hate it. And you cannot understand why your mom gets mad at. Yeah, and you're just like, Wayne, come on, come on out. You know what I mean? It's the big deal. Teaching him how to drive at 10. There he is. We all hate it, but I feel that it needs to happen even worse because it's got to get fixed, and they're not fixing it as is. They're just trying to band-aid it, and those band-aids are falling off like you just got in the shower with it on. They're falling off like that, that quickly. So that's that. Another one is Bill Belichick. he's going to play this week, week zero of college footballs this weekend, so it's year two at North Carolina.

17:40One to ten, ten meaning you totally care. How much do you care, former Patriots? Lover? Yes, love Bill. Everything he did for the team that I root for for X amount of years. A lot of winning, TJ. Put up a statue. He should have a gold jacket already. I am less than zero interested in North Carolina football.

18:01Brockman:Really? Yeah. What about you, TJ? I got so many teams, Bobby. I just don't have the capacity to take on another one right now. Well, you just took on, Bobby, you may have missed it. TJ is now a diehard Oregon football fan. Really? And so, oh, Jay Feli in breaking news. I haven't been here for a while. Diehard Oregon fan over there, TJ Jefferson. So asking him to root for the Tar Heels probably is a bit. And I don't even know if you need to root. Are you interested? I am interested for one more season. He went 4-8 last year. It was a fun story. greatest NFL coach of all time takes a college team.

18:34Brockman:Wasn't it a fun story though? It seemed like a lot of people were cracking a lot of jokes. But that's fun to me. Okay, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't have to be like a wholesome story. I like your style. I see where you're coming from. Yeah. They're playing TCU this weekend. In Dublin. Which is pretty awesome. College football overseas does not make sense to me. Because NFL-wise I could see where you could bond with an NFL team. Right. Yeah. College football, there are so many schools and also college football is based on where you grew up or where you went to school or where your dad went to school.

19:05In Dublin, they don't care. There's no real attachment. Yeah, I feel that Bill Belichick going 4-8 last year, if he doesn't have seven wins this year, I think he probably says, hey, I'm going to go ahead and call it. They're going to let him call it, and he's probably going to step away. But it'll be interesting. Is it still novel? No. I think a little bit some of that shine of Bill Belichick being the greatest coach ever. You think this is tainting the legacy a little bit? I think it's, we'll call it acute tanking, because what will happen is Michael Jordan on the Wizards. We can do all these where you're going to ruin your legacy, but Brett Favre is a great packer, regardless of what happened.

19:49Belichick is the greatest coach of all time. It's just going to take about three years to fully wash it off. Does it make you think that it was all Tom Brady? No. It doesn't. It makes me think that Tom Brady probably wouldn't have been Tom Brady without the exact coaching style of Bill Belichick. I do a podcast for the NFL with Matt Castle, and who was under Brady, obviously came in when Brady was out. And he talks a lot about that dynamic. And he thinks that it's very much those two were together at the right time, the right place, and they worked together wonderfully. And he talks about how Tom Brady would take coaching as good as anybody on the team and how hard Bill Belichick was as a coach.

20:31And what's funny to me is when talking with other Patriots, just through Matt, is that once Tom left, and Tom was the example on that team of, hey, you're the best player and you also take coaching wonderfully. Once Tom left, they didn't have that anymore. And so Belichick really wasn't able to coach them as hard because there wasn't the main guy going, yeah, I'll be coached hard, and everybody else can too. So I think it was the perfect mix. I agree. All right, Bill Belichick, we don't care. Is that what we're saying? Very higher register. Kind of, higher register. They go on the run, we'll care.

21:06Yep. They will not go on a run. I agree. So we will not care. That's so true. Ian Rappaport's coming up. I love Ian Rappaport. That's true. ESPN, NFL Network Insider, the go-to guy. If there's somebody I'm going to read, it's Ian. We will come back with Ian Rappaport in just a second. I'm Bobby Bones, in for Rich Eisen. and thank you guys. Bobby Bowles! Rich Eisen here with some advice. If high interest credit card debt is grinding you down, it might be time to call an audible with a SoFi personal loan. It consolidates your debt into one low monthly payment with no fees required. And with as soon as the same day funding, you can make the right play fast.

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23:05The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast. All right, call us 844-204-RICH. Would love to hear from you, especially about our Pro Bowl talk, if you think the Pro Bowl was a complete waste of everybody's time and the Pro Bowl games. Ian Rappaport, co-host of The Insiders on NFL Network, ESPN+. Let's go to the Pro Bowl for a second. Obviously, they're not doing the games now. They're just going to recognize the players. What do you think, Ian? Good move? You know, I never really watched the Pro Bowl if we're being totally honest. Thank you, Ian. So I don't know that it really affects my life very much. I think they tried.

23:44You know, I've been to some Pro Bowls. It was surely a fascinating experience. Not a lot of people trying. Not a lot of people playing hard. One or two guys would try to play hard, and you're like, what are you doing? And it's just like, also, guys aren't really in shape, and there's always freaked me out about, like, would a guy get an injury or not?

24:04so you know I'm probably the right decision I mean it wasn't a good game I think the flag football attempt was a really good effort a really good answer I think they tried they really tried and like flag football is obviously having a moment so that was a really good thought I just don't know that players want to work out after and like try hard after taking off for three weeks like that just leads to their bodies feeling terrible and it's just like I don't know who needs it and there's an opportunity to cut it like cut it um should be honored should still have pro bowlers like I really like that players are pro bowlers like I like all of it um just not the game part of it so probably probably the right decision Patrick Mahomes continues to hit all of his rehab checkpoints I don't really see it I don't know what that means even except I feel like he's getting healthier but how much of this is propaganda how much of this is Patrick Mahomes is going to be ready to go week one yeah I mean it feels like Patrick Mahomes is going to be ready to go week one um I was there in Kansas City one of the last training camp practices and I was there at Brian Baldinger and like I really could not believe honestly how good he looked I was sort of told going in like he's going to look good he's doing a lot of things I'm like okay okay he looked not good but great um You know, is he 100 % speed-wise?