Hour 1: Sam Darnold’s Path Forward, plus Al Michaels In-Studio

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1:35Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show. They got Maeve flustered and, dare I say it, seen ghosts. Today's guest. Legendary sports broadcaster Al Michaels. Three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth. Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones. Actor and comedian Joel McHale. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show, as always, on Disney Plus and the ESPN app. If you want to see us between 12 and 3 Eastern every single day, today we're on ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, as it used to be. But now we're serving sports fans everywhere. I'm hitting every box here on the show, along with ESPN Radio, along with Sirius XM Channel 80, our podcast listeners.

2:25Rich Eisen:we say hello to you even though you don't have the ability right now to call 844-204-RICH and have a conversation with us great times in store here today on ESPN Al Michaels is in our green room we're going to come out and he's going to hang out the rest of the hour with us and and it's going to be great but I'm giving everyone a heads up right off the bat Al and I are going to conduct our entire interview in Spanish so all right I'm just giving everyone a heads up so and guess what I'm not I'm not going to know a word you're going to say but I'm going to enjoy Very good. I appreciate that. Thank you.

2:56Rich Eisen:Good to see you, Chris Brockman. How are you? What's up, man? I'm going to do the same thing with Joel McHale in Hour 3. Yeah, of course. Although, Hour 3, Seahawks fans, we've got Ernest Jones at the top of the hour, Super Bowl 60 champion, and also champion of having Sam Darnold's back. And Joel McHale was a diehard Seahawks fan. He's a 12. He's going to be in studio. And that's coming up in Hour 3. Mark Schlerer, three-time Super Bowl champion, his usual spot on a Tuesday, talking about what we've just seen on an NFL gridiron. And then there's you, as I mentioned, 844-204-RICH being the number to dial.

3:29Rich Eisen:Mike Del Tufo, good to see you, DJ. Good morning, Rich. Good to see you, TJ. Jefferson, is the candle lit over there? It doesn't look like it is. It's good to be seeing the candle. I think it's kind of dead right now. Oh, no. Is it like the NFL season? It's over? I mean, I had just enough wick to get us through about 21, 22 weeks. Now I need a new one. Just enough John Wick. Wick. I got to do my Bermanisms here. So, yeah. Now that we're on ESPN. The candle was out much like, or as Pella would say, the window has been closed. Is it on your Dontavian Wicks candle? Love it. Am I out? Do not stop.

4:08Rich Eisen:Do not. If this is a thing, I'm all in. Sign me up. We can do this. The Wickers of Eastwick. One of my favorite. Okay. Rich. We're on ESPN, right? Rich. Betty Davis. eyes well i would yes yes rich better rich kaleidoscope tj moving on up uh let's let's let's hit the sam darnold story again you know what i mean i mean we're still we're still 48 hours since this all went down and i i'm just so excited for him i'm excited about him even though he doesn't seem to you know he's in a mode does he know that he won the super bowl i know did you Did you see him and Kenneth Walker in the spinning cups in Disneyland?

4:50Rich Eisen:It's like, put your hands in the air at least. Like you don't care. Like you don't care. It doesn't seem like they don't. Okay. Hopefully they want an Indiana Jones. Mr. Darnold's wild ride. I don't know. That's a great one. So, but I'm excited for him. Yeah. And the thing that I'm really excited about at some point, we're going to see, like, what's next for Sam Darnold and who will he become? become whose career could he mirror what path is he on and you know that'll start as we'll end the show as we always do the Tuesday after the Super Bowl looking at the upcoming schedule who's scheduled to appear in the home of the Super Bowl champion in the season after in the season which they defend and who might the league put in Seattle's building to kick off the season um but once that happens how will sam donald follow this up because yes while we're basking in the glory for him in the moment he's got more opportunities coming his way and the question is who will he become because as you know um opportunity doesn't always knock for somebody and it does and unfortunately you're not unable to answer for whatever reason due to injury due to the rest of your roster to the rest of the the league getting better aaron rogers again won that one super bowl for the green bay packers has not been back since who would have not me not with that team um and so i'll throw some out for you because you take a look at sam Darnold's postseason.

6:39Rich Eisen:What he did when opportunity knocked. Now that it's all over. Now that he played the three games. And he won them all. And he averaged 224 in the air. And a passer rating of a high grade fever or a light rock station. 102.4. KSAM. Your light rock station. Your yacht rock station in Seattle. It's rock and roll in the nighttime powwow. 102.4. and so the the key though is he leads the league in giveaways with 20 and he doesn't have a single one in the three postseason games while throwing for five touchdowns and so i'm saying you know what happens next for him because you look at those numbers you're thinking the future could be particularly bright for his return to the super bowl and things of that nature joe flacco had 11 touchdowns with no interceptions in his super bowl season in which he won the mvp and then put a big-ass bag on Steve Bishotti's table and said, fill it up.

7:40Rich Eisen:Let's pay me. He never made it back to the Super Bowl to date and has played only, after that Super Bowl run, played only three postseason games the rest of his career. He played two for the Ravens after that and then one for the Cleveland Browns. Wow. That's it. And maybe, though, Sam Darnold will get back to the Super Bowl next year for Seattle and potentially is his career going to be like Russell Wilson's where he gets to the Super Bowl and he wins it doesn't win Super Bowl MVP gets him back the next year wins doesn't win if he wins again two Super Bowls in a row then the question is is what's going to happen after that does he make another Super Bowl at all could his career be like Jalen Hurts's yeah I'm throwing him in that mix as well where Jalen's made two Super Bowls he played great in both he won one and then the next year it reverts back to the the mean of everybody kind of saying mean things about him right you know Jalen Hurts showed up in his Letterman jacket one of the greatest Letterman jacket of all time Super Bowl MVPs he was in the same room as Tom Brady and Steve Young and Peyton Manning and Joe Montana and Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice.

9:08Rich Eisen:Lin Swan. Okay. And you're seeing that of Jalen Hurts. You're like, that's pretty cool for Jalen Hurts, man. And it's just like, oh, that's right. Jalen Hurts got criticized all year after being Super Bowl MVP. So could Sam Darnold go right back into that mix where it's just like, oh, well, good run, Sam. Keep smiling. but we're going to keep on wondering if you're the guy or not. Can you do it again? An opportunity knocks for Sam Darnold if he wins another one. Is he like Eli Manning's career? We're talking about Eli right now for Hall of Fame. I think Eli Manning's a Hall of Famer. Eli Manning was in that room with everyone else on Sunday, Super Sunday, with his Super Bowl MVP Letterman's jacket.

10:00Rich Eisen:and Sam Darnold, could he win another one after having some regular season struggles, but his team just catches fire and he wins the Super Bowl and he's got two now. And we're talking about Sam Darnold having multiple rings. Or could Sam just do something that's totally unexpected, which is just spark the dynasty now in Seattle and keep making Super Bowls with this defense and this offense and this coaching staff. And by the way, the Jalen Hurts of it all, just to cycle back about an analogy, he's on the Jalen Hurts offensive coordinator carousel just like everyone else. He seems to have a different one every single year.

10:51Rich Eisen:Every single year. And he's going to have another one too because Clint Kubiak is going to be the new head coach in Las Vegas. Can he overcome that change and get this Seattle team on a path that is dynastic? We wonder that every single year about a Super Bowl champion. Can they do it again? Can they repeat? How good are they? Can they make it back? What is it going to look like? Which is this entire conversation that, again, may be unfair because we're asking it, or at least I am, within 48 hours less than of a Super Bowl championship being born. But can Sam Darnold win two, three? Can Sam Darnold now say, this is who I've always been and I just didn't have the nurture along with the nature?

11:44Rich Eisen:I know what my human nature is, but I didn't have the right people guiding me down a path, setting me up with the proper staff, setting me up with the proper roster. I also didn't have the neck up ability that I do have now. But I'm still the same guy here. I'm going to win three. I'm going to win four. Can he be that guy? Can he be the guy in Seattle and do what Russell Wilson couldn't do, which was win another? and Ross won one and then lost one and then the Legion of Boom started drifting apart. This dark side just got born with Sam Darnold and JSN, Jackson Smith and Jigba and K-9 running it if he's still going to be there and an offensive line and a defensive backfield that is young.

12:47Rich Eisen:They just won one at the outset. This is kind of like the Legion of Boom winning the year of you mad, bro. You know what I mean? That year kind of sparked it and then went on a run. Maybe this is the beginning of something and Sam Darnold is going to wind up being that avatar because Sam, boy, his teammates love him. they love him that's another part of this and in advance of Ernest Jones coming on because this guy as you saw uh in Minnesota after he beat the Green Bay Packers they put him on his shoulders and I love revisiting this moment because we thought this was Sam Darnold being born and then the next two weeks losses the Lions and the Rams and it was all over this wound up being his last winning moment as a Minnesota Viking but you could see his teammates loved him And then when Sam Darnold threw his four touchdowns against Los Angeles Rams just up the road in week number 11, Ernest Jones, our third hour guest, had this to say.

13:52Sam's been balling.

13:54Rich Eisen:Like, if we want to try to define Sam by this game or what, man, Sam's been had us in every game. So for him to sit there and say, oh, that's my fault. No, it's not. It was plays that defensively we could have made plays. There were opportunities where we could have got better stops. Yeah, I mean, it's football, man. He's our quarterback. We got his back. And you got anything to say, quite frankly?

14:21Rich Eisen:You know, any soundbite that ends with the four words, quite frankly, F you. We need that as a drop. But could we ever play it? I mean, the beep, I mean, it's implied. You know, so.

14:40Rich Eisen:that's um that says it all about sam darnold and how they feel about him that's me defending you in the youtube comment and i appreciate that well more twitter comments or x comments either one yeah they love my bad bunny take there um but that's the basis here okay the The coach is in his second year. The quarterback in his first year. Ernest Jones is not even two years in. Right? Nicky Manwari is only one year in. Witherspoon is just, what, three years in? It's third, yeah. I mean, Rick Willen is just a few years in. Come on, now Charles Cross just a few years in. This is real. The question is how spectacular can it be?

15:28and Sam Darnold is going to be the guy to answer all this stuff

15:33Rich Eisen:and I can't wait to watch what the next step's going to be because it could go in any direction I just gave you. Any direction I just gave you. Opportunity is knocking. Could it be the next Kurt Warner as well? Right? Winning at age 28 and then maybe needing to bounce around again. Don't forget, Kurt's path to the St. Louis Rams went through Amsterdam, went through Green Bay, went through the Hy-Vee, went through a ton of places.

16:06Rich Eisen:And Darnold went through many places as well. Wins. Does he go to another spot and win again there? So many different ways to go. All right, so I just threw up a poll. Let's do this. who wins more Super Bowls in their career? We'll do the last two winners. Obviously, they each have one. Sam Darnold, Jalen Hurts. And we'll put the previous two years MVPs. Everyone talks about same draft class as well. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson. Look at you putting up a poll question. Who wins more Super Bowls in their career? Fantastic. And where do we put this up? That is on Rich Eisen Show Twitter account. Okay, at Rich Eisen.

16:47Rich Eisen:At Rich Eisen Show. Or call us. Why not? I want you. 844-204-RICH is the number. phone lines are lit. So sit back and hopefully you're hooked on phonics because Alberto Michaels is coming out here. At any rate, Al Michaels is going to come out here. One of my favorite humans on the planet. One of the greatest of all time. Talking about Super Bowl 60 and everything else. All the 11 Super Bowls he called. Oh yeah, the Miracle on Ice anniversary is around the corner too.

17:19Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

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18:25Rich Eisen:Visit TurboTax.com today to learn more. Real-time updates only in iOS mobile app, only available with TurboTax full-service experts. Get into the Hyundai Getaway sales event and get away with a deal so right it almost feels wrong. Because right now you can get great deals on our most popular models, including our adventure-ready SUVs like the Hyundai Santa Fe or Santa Fe Hybrid and the Tucson or Tucson Hybrid. Plus, there's our bold and stylish Elantra loaded with the latest tech or go all electric with the Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 9. So get down to your local Hyundai dealer and get away with a deal you'll love during the Hyundai Getaway Sales Event.

19:02Rich Eisen:Visit HyundaiUSA.com for details. Save money and get a better view of the road when you replace your worn-out wiper blades at O 'Reilly Auto Parts. Right now, save$10 on a pair of Rain-X Latitude Wiper Blades. They feature beam blade technology to improve windshield contact for maximum visibility. The professional parts people will even install your new wiper blades for free. Choose Rain-X Latitude Wiper Blades at your local O 'Reilly Auto Parts store or online at OReillyAuto.com. Al Michaels is here. Our ESPN radio audience, SiriusXM audience, just rejoined us. and you know um so that super bowl ending at the one yard line the malcolm butler play coming on the one yard line i mean how many more one yard line games can somebody call in the super bowl it was i saw there were a lot of uh surveys uh polls about what were the greatest plays in super bowl history to me the greatest one was james harrison 100 yard interception return at the end of the first half of our man Kurt Warner, which turned what would have been an Arizona halftime lead into an 11-point lead for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

20:18If you look at that play, of course, he intercepts it at the goal line. And then that defense had been out on the field for a while. He has to be gassed. There he goes down the sideline. You've got Larry Fitzgerald chasing him. He's out of bounds. He's trying to work his way through his guys. And then the thing that people forget is that if Harrison gets tackled at the one-yard line, the half is over. You don't even get to kick a field goal. No points. No. He goes into the end zone. And, of course, that game also had the Santonio Holmes catch with three defenders at the end of the game. But to me, the Harrison play is number one in my mind.

20:53Rich Eisen:Well, I mean, again, it's just the unexpected. And I've asked you this many times before because you've been always so kind when I reach out to you before I call a game about how do you do this, how do you do that. How does one plan for the unexpected? Like Malcolm Butler, I guess you had the good fortune of Butler tipping the ball to curse the play before because he wasn't probably on your board as one of the top cornerbacks to be employed by the Patriots in a big spot. Rich, the night before the game, I'm well prepared for the game, but now I'm going through the guys at the end of the roster just in case.

21:30so maybe at 10 30 the night before the game i'm in the hotel and i'm looking at a couple of guys that maybe maybe they get in maybe they don't and butler happened to be one of them and then as you mentioned he didn't even start the game i think he played something like 18 snaps maybe a third of the snaps in that game because kyle arrington was in there and he they took him out of the game and somebody got hurt and um so butler is in the game and then fortunately he was involved in that crazy catch where the ball bounced off curse like four or five times it was almost like a he did what moment it was a he did as antonio freeman it was very much the same kind of a situation and so when he is able to um to make the you know it's it's an astonishing play to this day though rich everybody talks about the fact they should have given it to marshawn lynch i get it they made a terrible call it was a bad call a bad play and obviously we know how it turned out but it was second down in my mind it's in a four down situation you have three more plays so what i would have done you know in retrospect of course being a um a couch coach right now russell wilson 5 11 maybe roll him out roll him out to the left he could run it in you had doug baldwin outside one-on-one fade throw it to baldwin russell wilson walks in if it doesn't work okay third down now maybe you go back to Lynch.

22:51But you and I both know that we have seen a ton of games and a ton of plays where sometimes the running back just doesn't get in. And they're at the one-yard line. Now all of a sudden you're at the three-yard line, a two-yard loss. Could have happened. I know it's easy to say that Lynch should have been the guy. I'm just saying you got three plays. One should have been Russell Wilson rolling out.

23:11Rich Eisen:Do we ever know? Have you found out about why that decision was made? Because again, by the way, this play got a two-week renaissance of a run because the patriots made the super bowl and the seahawks made the super bowl otherwise we wouldn't have been talking about as much as we had over the last two weeks but have you ever found that out well the mystery is we because i did the next super bowl in new england which was against philadelphia and minneapolis after the 17th season and then malcolm butler's he's in uniform he's not playing that was that's something uh brockman our our resident patriot fan you have been wondering about that forever yeah it's one of those things up there will never know the true reason why he didn't play in that game you're right because malcolm doesn't talk about it right belichick doesn't talk about it i think even even robert craft i don't know if he knows i've asked him a couple of times and he says i don't know yeah matt patricia probably we still haven't heard you know one wants to talk about it for some crazy reason i don't know why we got to get to the bottom of this i know that these are these are malcolm butler mysteries only scored 41 points in that game probably could have used them yeah yeah that's cheap but you know i got it you know what it's it's there it's you know what al if fruit hangs low it doesn't mean you can't pluck it of course you know what i mean just grab it just grab it come on baby butler did it or or or or was active and then wasn't used because that's the thing too about that one is if you're not going to use them deactivate them and you could potentially activate another malcolm butler that is correct exactly right you wasted a roster spot It was wild.

24:46Rich Eisen:But, again, you've never heard why Marshawn never got the ball. You've never sussed that one. No. Never found out. No. But, again, I go back to maybe they thought they could throw it into the end zone. But, as I say, Russell Wilson at 5 '11", throwing into the middle of the pack. Yes. And also, if you look at that play from any different angle, Brandon Browner creates what amounts to a defensive pick. and that lets Butler get inside. Ricardo Lockett is the intended receiver and lets him get there. So Browner is Gretzky. He should get the assist. Yeah, very good. I love that. Al Michaels here on the Rich Eisen Show.

25:26Rich Eisen:You called, I think, the play that flipped the season too. And I'm not, by the way, the Bears-Packers game that you called, my goodness gracious. But the play that flipped the season, I think, was the two-point conversion on Thursday night football between the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams. Right. Because the Rams had that game in the bag. They did. And then everything flipped when Rasheed Shahid returns that kick for a touchdown. And then they're three and out. They get the ball back. And they march down the field and score a touchdown. Go for two. Don't get it. Until New York buzzes in and goes, you know what?

26:09Rich Eisen:I think halfway there, the ball gets batted down, but it kind of looked like it was backwards, and Zach Charbonnet plucks that ball. When did you, did like T-Man, your producer, get in your ear and say, hold on a minute, they're reviewing this thing? Sure. Walk me through that moment. Sure, you didn't know whether it was a backward pass or what. Right. And then Charbonnet, all those guys are taught, if the ball is just hanging out there, pick it up. And I don't think he even knew at that particular point that that was going to make the difference in the game. So there were a lot of things going on.

26:38They had to take a look at this thing. It was pure luck. And then, of course, you get the at the end of the game. In overtime, the Rams go all the way down and score. Now they've got a touchdown lead. Now what is Seattle going to do? They go down and score. I mean, that was some drive that Darnold led. And then what do you do at that point? Do you go for the win? Do you go for the tie? I forget what the circumstance was in terms of had that game wound up in a tie.

27:05Rich Eisen:Well, it would not have gone well for Seattle. because the Rams would have won the season series 1-0-1. Correct. Exactly right. So that was a big, huge one. And after Puka scored the touchdown to put the Rams up to start overtime. Yeah, that was the game of the year at that point, and then there were a few other games. I mean, there were about 10 games that could have been the game of the year this year in the NFL. Yeah, I mean, for sure. Wow. But that game was so impactful because that's really – now you're talking about the difference between the one seed. and the five sheet and the nfc championship game could have been down the road here where next year super bowl is as opposed to where it was in seattle correct and the rams in the and the seahawks played a de facto sure super bowl you know obviously we're playing the result of what super bowl 60 looked like you know um but that was a huge moment alan i'm wondering when you were leading up to that game talking to mike mcdonald talking to sam darnold did you get a sense that this was a super Bowl run in the making?

28:08Rich Eisen:Did you get that sense? Yeah, both teams were very good. There was no question about that. I thought maybe at that point, maybe the Rams were the best team in the league. I thought so too. They still could be, as far as we know. I mean, as things turned out, obviously, they got beaten by Seattle. They got beaten by Seattle in Seattle in the championship game. No, I knew we had two of the best teams in the league in that game, and it didn't surprise me that either one of them could get to the Super Bowl, which they did. But again, you go back to that 1-5 situation, which is, we had one of those games, San Francisco-Seattle on Sunday night a few years ago.

28:41I mean, you think about it, the one seed, two games, you get a week off, you get healthy, two games at home, you don't have to go on the road again, and the five seed is likely to play three games on the road. The only time they could play a home game is if the six got there as well as them, which almost happened with San Francisco this year. But when you think about that, I think that's what makes it so interesting, too. I kind of like this format. People say they should have, you know, if you're the second best team, you should have the home game, whatever it is. I kind of like it the way it is right now.