Hour 1: Knicks-Cavs Game 2, Stafford’s Rams Extension, plus 49ers FB Kyle Juszczyk

23:30Rich Eisen:Well, listen, I will do the thing that even though I'm only returning for my third time, two times in a row, I will speak for the folks at the American Century Championship to say, if he just wants to show and not golf, I think he will be most welcome. I think any event plus George Kittle, that's value added. That event just got a little bit better. I love it. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think he should be there regardless. Let's just jump in then. The draft, how do you watch it? You know, obviously you're keenly interested in what your team's doing. They traded down multiple times out of the first round.

24:12Rich Eisen:How are you watching when that happened? You know what? Honestly, at this stage in my career, like I'm not I don't have it on and I'm not like dialed into like every single pick. But I'm absolutely checking out the results at the end of the night of who we ended up with, what positions, and evaluating where I thought we would be, what we ended up getting. But really excited about this group that we have here. Stribbling, he's got a locker right next to me, and I've just been super impressed with this guy. Just the maturity that he has for a rookie stood out to me right away. He looks like an absolute beast on the field.

24:51The way that he moves for his size is really impressive. And, I mean, we've only spent a week with him. So I've really, I've talked with Stribling and Kaitlin Black, and I've been impressed with both of them. So I'm excited about this class, though. I've heard great things about the rest of them from, you know, the defense and some of the other position groups. But those two in particular have stood out for me.

25:13Rich Eisen:Well, let's talk about your teammate, your new teammate in the running back room and Kalen Black out of Indiana. And so much was made when he was drafted, where he was drafted in that round at that position, because he wasn't invited to the combine. If I'm not mistaken, neither were you, Kyle. Exactly. I've got a soft spot for that one. I was also not invited to the combine. So have you spoken to him about that at all? Have you had that conversation? You know what? I haven't yet, but I'm definitely going to bring that up this week because, like you said, we got that in common. But I don't know if – so Kalen is absolutely jacked.

25:56I don't know if you've seen this guy. So Malik Mustafa walks around in the locker room, and this dude's just like an absolute ball of muscle. You can't believe he plays safety, and he's one of the biggest dudes you've ever seen. And this week, Kalen's walking around with his shirt off. I'm like, Malik, you got major competition now. Like, I think this might be the new, like, most muscular guy in the weight room. I mean, in our locker room. So hopefully he plays as good as he looks. Well, he does. I mean, he looks really good.

26:28Rich Eisen:He won a championship, you know, and was a crucial cog in that Indiana machine, Kyle. Yeah. You know? Yeah. No, I've seen highlight clips of his running and been super impressed. And I know people have kind of mentioned that he didn't catch a lot of passes at Indiana, but you wouldn't be able to tell that based on what you see on the practice field. I mean, he looks very natural running his routes, very natural hands, and I think he's going to fit in just perfectly. And then just pulling a little bit more on that string you left out there about Stribbling, the wide receiver out of Ole Miss, again, who's drafting where the Niners drafted him and who else they could have drafted and what they could have done in the first round if they didn't trade out.

27:16Rich Eisen:What did impress you? Obviously, sitting next to him in the locker room, even just one week, you got a story on that just to put a little bit more meat on that bone you put out there? Really just the conversation that we had and just getting to know one another. He grew up in Hawaii. He's from a military family, so he's very buttoned up, very well spoken. You can tell he's got a good head on his shoulders, but just watching him go through drills and seeing the explosion, the acceleration from a guy of his size and the way he's able to open up his stride so quickly that really stood out to me. It really impressed me.

27:55I'm excited for this week when we're actually going against the defense, actually running plays, you know, you'll get to see a lot bit, a lot more out of these young guys. So, you know, The evaluation is going to continue going forward, but a big part of that was two weeks.

28:10Rich Eisen:Well, and we had Kyle Shanahan on right after the draft and talk with him about the philosophy of the 49ers and him and Lynch drafting. It was just a fascinating conversation. I mean, that guy is about five dimensions deep into a four-dimension game of chess. And I'm wondering what is it like to be around him talking ball? Kyle. It's awesome, man. I really, I never leave a conversation with Kyle without having learned something or been just impressed with what, how his brain works and just how he looks at things. Cause I do feel like he really, he has a different perspective than most. But to be able to sit in his meetings and just hear him break down the game and like some of our, our favorite meetings, You hear a lot of guys on the team talk about this is when he'll go through and he'll tell you every single assignment of the defense.

29:09And he uses that. He'll use their assignment against them for how we can exploit that and be successful on offense. And I think that's the difference between him and maybe some of the other play callers in this league is that he understands the defense just as good, if not better, than most defensive coordinators. And I think that's how you really take it to that elite level of play calling that I feel that he's at.

29:38Rich Eisen:And I imagine that gives you a sense of confidence that allows you to play freer. Is that – No question. No question, because you know that he's putting you in a position to succeed. He's not going to put you in a spot that he doesn't think that with your abilities, your talent, that you're in a mismatch, that you're not going to be able to pull off that assignment. And that really does give you the confidence to go out there, play free, play fast, because you know he's not going to try and screw you. He's going to put you in the best position to be successful. and how do you notice the way that he's maybe downloaded a lot of that stuff into Brock Purdy you got a story about that front row seat watching the two of them talk and how it manifests itself on the field with you and yeah I mean right um I I'm always I'm always impressed or uh relieved maybe that you know during games like when Brock comes off the the field like him and Kyle they're always talking they're always uh communicating you know what happened on the previous drive what's you know what are we thinking here going forward and I just think there's a direct line of communication and especially as Brock's gotten older and you know he's been you know he's a veteran starter now he's got a lot of games under his belt you see Brock being able to contribute be more to that to push back maybe like you know he doesn't always have to agree with what Kyle says or sees out there and um it's been cool to see Brock you know mature uh in this league and be able to you know stand on on his belief of you know hey this is what I actually saw and this is how I see it um and be able to have that communication and that back and forth and then what what about Brock that you've learned that makes him the perfect avatar or conduit for what Kyle has drawn up?

31:31I mean, Brock just, he has an incredible ability to process, you know, post snap. I think he does an incredible job of being able to see how the defense moves after the ball is snapped. And he's got that ability to make his own play when it's not there. And I think that's something that gets slept on a lot with Brock. He can sit in the pocket. he can do things in progression but if he needs to run around and buy some time i think he's one of the one of the better guys in the league at doing it um because he's also keeps his eyes down the field as he does it uh so i i love that part of brock's game you ready to go to australia

32:13Rich Eisen:to start what do you got for me what about that yeah you know what um it's an interesting situation that is a long long flight but you know i'm gonna i'm gonna try and just you know look at the at the positives of it. Like what a cool experience to be, you know, the, one of the first teams to ever play an NFL game in Australia and to play in like such a big stadium like that and have over a hundred thousand fans there. It's just going to be a cool life experience. The weeks after that might not be the best as far as recovery and that sort of thing. You know, it's not ideal, but it's something that we're going to deal with and we're going to figure it out.

32:53We're going to be okay. and we're going to take it head on.

32:56Rich Eisen:Did you hear the number of air miles you're going to be traveling this year? Did you hear that? Oh, no. Has anybody talked about that? Well, I mean, we could talk about that or how many the air miles. What's a larger number, the air miles or the amount of gigawatts that come out of the electrical facility? I don't know. That's good. That's good. That's good. Yeah. The Niners are good for a lot of memes, really. Or the draft strategy of John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan. What else is being talked about? We're just making headlines out here. It's 38 ,000 miles, Kyle. Yeah, I've heard. It's a pretty long way.

33:43But at the end of the day, it's about how well you can play football. It's not about how far you have to travel. So hopefully we can travel far and play good.

33:54Rich Eisen:Not to get too deep into your personal relationship with your wife, but what is the philosophy between you and Kristen on binge watching shows that you both like? Do you have to do it together? Because 38 ,000 miles is something that you're going to get ahead of the game. You know what I mean? Like on a flight, Kyle. Yeah, no, we definitely, if it's a show that we are both watching actively together, we usually try to you know wait to binge those together uh but recently you know what she's been going off and and finishing shows without me dude i might have to do that whoa this is din is that breaking what she just what you just finished well she i don't know if i even know if i wanted to watch this or not but i guess this the new craze is uh off campus i think is the name of Oh, yes.

34:45Rich Eisen:It's on. She watched it in a day, I swear. She watched off campus in a day. I'm pretty sure she finished season one of the day. Maybe two days. But that was the new one recently. I watched some of it, and I did enjoy some of it, but I didn't watch the whole time. Got something for everybody, Kyle, that show. I'll tell you that. I don't know if you're into hockey or not, and that's not what I'm referring to, but it's all good. All right. So that's she did that. All right. And so but you're going to have to choose. Yeah. You know, 38. I actually did a top five list of the most, you know, suggesting what you guys should binge watch on your 38000 miles.

35:25Oh, I like that. So, you know what?

35:28Rich Eisen:Yeah. Something cool. Last year, me and Christian started is on our away trips. You know, you always see those those lists of like top 100 movies of all time or whatever. And it's got, you know, all like the the classics. Well, last year on every away trip, we would pick one of those movies that neither of us had seen. And we would watch it on the flight and then, you know, talk about it when we got to the hotel. And it was honestly it was fun. It was a lot of movies that that I probably would have never watched. I had I not had this assignment, but it was it was pretty fun. I don't know if you've seen like Children of Men.

36:09I think it might be one of my new favorite movies of all time.

36:12Rich Eisen:I have not. I got to write that one down. I will write that one down. Children of Men. Okay. Yeah. Very good. You ever see Poltergeist? I have not. I'm not a big, I'm not crazy about horror movies. It's not really a horror movie. It was in the 80s. It was about a house that needed to be cleaned due to, you know, ghosts that were in there, which is my way of asking you when we look at your schedule week 12 seattle at san francisco sir as you know this is where you know the week 18 didn't finish up the way that you liked you did win a playoff game but seattle um came in your house and won a super bowl in your house is that something that you're not when you go out there on that field week 12 you know hey hey, this is our house at the end of the day, and is that something you'll be thinking about months from now, Kyle?

37:09Listen, anytime we play the Seahawks, it's going to be personal, and it's going to be a rivalry. It's going to get dirty. It's going to get physical. So I look forward to playing them wherever it is, whether it's at our place. We could go play them in India. I don't care. Wherever we've got to go play.

37:27Rich Eisen:You might have to. Listen, they might send you there next year. Be careful what you ask for, Kyle. I mean, but come on, though. Did they rip up the carpets in your locker room? Well, you know what? Honestly, we were doing a bunch of renovations in our locker room anyway, so we didn't even have to see it after they were done. We're getting rid of all the junk that they touched in there. So we're going to have a clean, fresh start, fresh slate this year. We're not worried about that. See, you need to see Poltergeist because they finally did, spoiler alert, get rid of the ghosts, and, you know, there's a line from it.

38:10Light some sage. This house is clean.

38:13Rich Eisen:This house is clean. We can get that. That's what we can get that for you. Clean the house. You know, back in, like, 2017 and 2018, when we first got to the Niners and we weren't winning a lot of games, Kittle used to go around the facility and burn sage and go into each coaches meeting room. Got to do this, Kyle. Do it. Mention it. Mention when you see him this weekend, first of all, tell Claire happy birthday to tell him that we had this conversation and he's got to do it. All right. He's got to do it. I mean, now more than ever, they want a trophy in your building. that can't happen again you know what i mean like you got to clean the house yeah no you're absolutely right that's a good point i'm just trying to leave you in a better spot thanks for thanks for zooming in enjoy the weekend let's do this again real soon okay absolutely man hey i'll see you at uh at the edgewood you bet the american century championship i'm um century yeah i mean i'm i'm hopefully a few strokes lighter what are you looking at me like that for no just my guys i want you to practice that's all i am practicing who finishes higher me or you hold on a second 2025 results look before i go here how how many more up the stable for ladder was i than this guy uh i had many more points uh you finished in 80 88 second second to dfl right you know kiddo wasn't much better he was 81st okay let's see you check it I think I was probably low 60th.

39:48Rich Eisen:59th. 59? I'm not getting there. We'll talk about you giving me some strokes, and then we'll talk about it. Okay, we'll talk. It's called a healthy competition. That's what it's called. Yeah, I like that. Have a good time this weekend. Be well, Kyle. All right, thanks. Kyle, you shake, everybody. I'll see him at the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe, everybody. So Kyle was minus eight points. You only get negative points for a double bogey. Worse? I'm well aware. Sorry. Just explaining to the audience. Obviously, they might not know. Rich, you had minus 60 points. Somebody laughing in the back at that?

40:23Rich Eisen:Did I hear that? Tied with Catherine Tappan. Three points better than Dylan Dreyer. Big fan of Dylan Dreyer. Yeah. By the way, I mean. Delightful. You're on the heels of Grant Hill and Jason Kelsey. I could have gotten him. You know what I mean? If I shave a few. Right. I'm on it. I got it. Chris. Okay. I'm on it. Trust me. Okay. I want you in that, you know, Kittle-Baker range this year. That would be amazing. I'd love to play with both of them. Yeah, yeah. Minus 30s. I think you can do it. I can do it. It's a few less doubles. I understand that. Okay. It's just practice. No, it requires being good.

40:59Rich Eisen:Just one extra day a week. 844-204-RICH, number to dial here on the program. When we come back, oh, let's be fair and balanced. Matthew Sanford signed a new contract. Yeah, he did. Or an extension. Cha-ching. Bing bong.

41:16Rich Eisen:the rich eisen show the podcast

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42:26Rich Eisen:Schedule dropped and it's time to settle up, people. There's road trips to plan, tickets to split, tailgates to cover, scores to settle. All the things for the season. But now when you send$10 or more to a friend with PayPal by May 28th, so get in now, you could win two tickets to every home. I said two tickets to every home game of your favorite NFL team. That's for the whole season. Visit paypal.com slash P2P sweeps. No purchase necessary. See our website for details, including how to enter by mail. Brought to you by PayPal, official peer-to-peer payment sponsor of the NFL. Travis in Singapore.

43:07Rich Eisen:Is this the country? Travis in Singapore, you're on the Rich Eyes Show. Travis, you there? Yes, sir. Thanks for taking the call. All right, I will ask the same of our caller from Australia. What's the date and time where you're calling him from right now? It's Saturday morning slash Friday night, just before 1 a.m. over here. God bless you, Travis. What's on your mind, bud? Thank you. Well, I've actually called in a few times before, back when I was traveling from Washington State, but I moved here last year. I'm a diehard Rams fan. And in respect to, I guess what you were just talking about, you checked about all the travel.

43:49I want to add five more movies to the Niners watch list. Oh, wow. On their flights this year, if you don't mind. Okay.

43:56Rich Eisen:I want to help them out. All right. I know this is a theme, but I want to help them out. All right. This is very touching. All right. How quickly can you bang him out, Travis? I'll do him quick. There you go. I'll do him quick. All right, go ahead. Number five, American underdog. This is specifically for Brock Purdy to watch a quarterback from Iowa actually win a Super Bowl. Number four, multiverse of madness, Doctor Strange. In one of the many multiverses, there might actually be one where the Niners win the Super Bowl. Wow. But probably not. Okay. This is hilarious. Travis, go ahead. Number three, be kind, rewind.

44:35Jack Black breaks into an electrical substation, becomes magnetized, and starts erasing VHS tapes. You know, as a coincidence, a VHS tape is what you would watch a Niners Super Bowl win on.

44:50Rich Eisen:Wow. TJ, he's speaking your language. I don't know Travis Black really, though. Travis? I like you too, TJ. Number two? Keep going. Number two. Yes. Number two, Friday Night Lights. Underdog Team makes it all the way to the championship. Doesn't quite get all the way there. Okay. Number one, Dumb and Dumber. Now, you might be wondering why Dumb and Dumber. This is not a comment on anybody in the Niners organization being dumb. Okay. It is, however, the number one movie in America in 1994, the last time they won the Super Bowl. So they might get a little bit of a remembrance by watching Dumb and Dumber.

45:27Rich Eisen:Travis, Travis. Angapur. My G. Wow. Wow. I mean, for somebody staying up late, you got your rest today. Well done. You know what Travis has? He's got a lot of hate in his heart. He does. And I love it. Look at you. That's Richard the King on the pedestal. Yeah, that's the high stuff. Travis has been telling. Travis, what I've been trying to tell people for years, he just put it better than me right here in the way he did. Correct. Bravo, Travis. My goodness. There's a chance. Yeah! Did we just hang up on Travis? We did. like del tufo rack him sorry you just dropped him I mean we were going to talk about what wouldn't make you so um the Rams feeling themselves clearly all the way from Singapore meanwhile and old what is it Thousand Oaks is that where they are yeah right down the 101 Les Snead and Sean McVay doing some work with their quarterback because we want to Sean McVay I want to make sure Matthew Stafford is happy by looking angry and sad over the drafting of a quarterback that Sean McVay, I think, is very happy to have drafted.

46:34Rich Eisen:Ty Simpson. Well, as you know, money talks and everything else walks. And here's the news. Schefter saying it's a one-year,$55 million extension worth up to$60 million incentives. Stafford now has two years. I said two years. and up to$105 million remaining on his deal with the Rams. If you look at the fine print, meaning the ESPN.com article that Shefty wrote alongside his report, he's scheduled to make$40 million this year, and of the$55 million extension,$5 million is a roster bonus fully guaranteed at signing. So basically, here's$5 million, Matthew. The remaining$50 becomes guaranteed at the start of next year's new league year, which means that's a$50 million contract for next year if everything works out.

47:27Rich Eisen:The deal also includes$5 million each year in incentives tied to playoff success, meaning $50 million contract in 2027 is in the back pocket. If it all works out, what does that mean? Does it have to be a Super Bowl? Does it not have to be a Super Bowl? Does it have to be something similar to last year? Does it have to be something that we've seen from Matthew Stafford last year? something close enough basically it's a way to say there's a 50 million dollar a year contract sitting for you next year here's another five million for this year hope you're happy pay that man his money matthew stafford and it sounds like you know he is to stay right there the rich eisen show podcast this is what everyone's talking about Everything's on the table This is what champions come to take This is what everyone came to see No do-overs No second chances No more Mr.

48:31Nice Guy This is winner take all And it's all happening now On the home of the NBA Finals Don't miss it June 3rd on ABC and the ESPN app