Sal Paolantonio on the NFL, Eagles, Super Bowls & Tennis

All right, it's Monday morning, September 21st. Week two of the NFL football season is just about in the books. We got another huge game tonight, and that's where our man is, Big Daddy. I am Patrick McEnroe. He is rich, Big Daddy Selgado. He is out west. He's made the trip out to support Big Blue going up against the Rams tonight in El Segundo, California. Big Daddy, remember, by the way, MacDaddy presented by our friends at Volition. Big Daddy, I know you got your fire department coffee there. Maybe a little Dosombres later. You know I'll be checking in with that. You can get I can guarantee you that. Give me the rundown on the Big Daddy trip out west first before we get into whether or not you think your giants actually have a shot tonight.

Well, listen, you know, um I travel quite a bit, clients all over the NFL and in all different venues and places and whatnot. So obviously, we're starting bright and early here with Mac Daddy and our guy Sal Palantonio. Uh, we've got another interview later on down the road here, uh later on in the day. And then I will make all uh when we discuss uh Dos Ombres, I am going to meet our sponsors, uh Brian Cranston and Aaron Paul. Uh they are putting a Dos Ombres bar inside SoFi Stadium. So big kickoff before the big kickoff. Uh two kickoffs I'll get to see later on today, and uh and then I'll make my way around and then I gotta find our friend who decides to call me the Batman of the NFL, Mr. Pat McAfee. Uh I will chase after him on the field some point today as well, tonight.

Well, we know you'll be busy, and as usual, Big Daddy, you jump the gun because I'm all ready to do this whole intro for our guest, our special guest today, and you blew it. You kicked off before they put the thing on the T, you know, the football on the T. But you know he's your guy. He's my guy back in the years of he actually covered some tennis for us at ESPN, but you all know him as the football guru. He is one of a kind, he is the man, he is Sal Palantonio. Welcome to the program, my friend. What an honor to have you with us.

Patrick, it's so great to talk to you once again after all these years. I I've followed your career and uh I watch you all the time on TV. I listen to you on the radio. I'm a dedicated fan of Patrick McEnroe. And of course, you know I love Big Daddy. He and I are brothers uh from another mother on Long Island. So we're very, very close. He's been to my house many times. I've been to, you know, we've been out to eat together. I've been to some of his parties, and um, you know, we buried my dad and my mom on Long Island, and uh Big Daddy came to the services, and then we had you know a nice festive lunch with the family, and Big Daddy hosted us, and I can't thank him enough for his brotherhood and his friendship and being part of my family.

Yeah, well, there's the at as I'm learning and doing this show with Big Daddy, Sal, now for a couple of months, there's nobody like him. Uh, you know, the contacts he has. But he always likes to say, you know, when I go to the game, you know, I go on the field and I meet this guy, and I meet that. He's sometimes a little short on specific. So I'm gonna ask you, Sal Pell, tell me what it's like sidelined before an NFL game with Big Daddy. It's like being with the Pope. I love it. That's it. Enough said right there.

All right, yeah, that's it, Patrick. I mean, we all saw that movie, The Pope of Greenwich Village. That's the Pope of the Meadowlands right there.

All right, so so you're you're back in your place in Philly, right, Sal? Where do you live? You live in Jersey or in Philly? Yeah, I'm in Jersey, yep. You're in Jersey. So you were at the game yesterday. Uh, by the way, I just want you to know, you know, my football knowledge is uh, you know, it's okay. It's not I'm not gonna, you know, go crazy.

That's not true, Patrick. I've had many great conversations with you about football. Don't start with me, Patrick. I'm gonna start with you right away. That's why I have you know. Oh then, Patrick. Come on.

Well, well, I did I did say, and I and I was texting Lauren, our producer, who's here too. Um, I texted it, I was texting him during the day as I was going back and forth, watching the games, listening, picking up my daughters in the city after dance class. You know, I gotta do what I gotta do. That's why I got the shirt right here. Girl dad, I take care of my ladies, you know, the three, my three daughters. But I did say, and Big Daddy, you can vouch for me, Jets would win 17-13 over the pack. Now, I was damn close because it was 17-14. I was like, holy mackerel, this could actually happen. Uh, it was an ugly game, but that's what we expected. Jets defense has been good. You were there, I saw you on the sidelines. What was your take overall on how that went down fourth quarter and then into overtime?

Well, I was in the booth with Steve Levy. We called the game on ESPN National Radio. The Jets had a great opportunity to steal one. They were one of four home dogs yesterday, and I thought that they had the best chance to win of any of the four home dogs on the week two slate. They were in a position to win the game. And then Sky Moore reeled off that 63-yard punt return. We had watched Sky Moore. He was doing a heck of a job as a punt returner throughout the entire game. And I turned to Steve Levy and I said, if the Jets don't watch out, he's gonna break one. And several minutes later, he did down the left sideline, right in front of a stunned Aaron Glenn and New York Jets bench 63 yards, flipped the script on the game. The Packers were back in the action, and they wound up tying the game and of course winning it in overtime. I thought that was a crucial, crucial turning point in the game. The other for me was when they had that pass interference down the right sideline in front of the Packers' bench on Z. Thomas. So two big plays flipped the field in favor of the Packers, and you really can't survive that if you're not getting enough offense out of Geno Smith and the Jets offense. I thought there was one point where I thought they might pull it off, is when Aaron Glenn went for it on fourth down. And actually, Steve Levy and I had a discussion in the booth. I was in favor of it. I thought it was an aggressive, good mood move. If they had made that fourth down, they would have gone on and won the football game. They didn't. Um, but I thought it was a really smart thing to do. It it sort of gives the team a sense that the coach has confidence in them. I think Aaron Glenn was worried that his defense wasn't stopping the Packers and he needed to do something aggressive with his offense in order to close the game out.

The problem with that, Sal, is that the Jets have a shitty offense and they have a pretty darn good defense. So I know when Aaron Glenn, there was that other I'm listening to some shows this morning trying to sort of grasp him not calling a timeout late in the game, right? There was some little controversy there that I saw Greeny, your old buddy, put a tweet out like you know, he was scratching his head about why he didn't call a timeout. He was trying to play for, you know, how to play the overtime. Could you walk me through that? Because uh I need a lot of help in my NFL ABC's coaching, please, at the end of the game.

Well, you know, there's a lot of different decisions that he made that there's there's going to be discussion about. Uh I think he made the right moves all the way through in the game. I think in the end, Patrick, yes, their defense is better than their offense overall as a unit. But I think he was concerned that their deep the defense was not able to stop Jordan Love, specifically when he was hitting Christian Watson on those crossing patterns. Now you got to remember, Jordan Love, he lost two of his best players on offense in the first series. He loses wide receiver Jordan Reed, then he loses his right tackle. So Jordan Love was playing, I think, great in at the end of the game, despite all the losses that they had. They had a record number of penalties. By the way, these those NFL officials yesterday were just out of control. Too many penalties in that game. Uh and I thought that that that pass interference on the Jets at the end was a ticky-tack foul. Listen, Aaron Glenn's decisions didn't win or lose that game. That game was lost because they had a pass interference, and the Packers had an amazing punt return at the end of the game that flipped the field.

Right. You know what I love about you, Sal, because you've been doing this. I just plugged in my uh light that just went out, but I got it back going. This is how I roll here. But what I love about you, okay, is that you come on this show, which we're just starting out, right? Mac Daddy, right? We're trying to gain an audience. We're doing this ourselves, me, Mac Daddy, me, Big Daddy, me, Lauren. And you come on this show after spending the entire weekend doing these NFL for ESPN, our employer, for how many? I've been there 30 years. You're gonna tell me in a second how many. And you got notes for us. You got your notes scribbled down that you want to make sure that's why you're freaking you, okay? Because you are prepared, and that's why you're teaching a class at a being a professor teaching. What do you teach those kids? Is that is that it preparation?

I teach them two things, Patrick. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready. That's from the Navy. I was a naval officer for six years, as you know. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready. And the second is proper prior preparation prevents poor performance. You know, I get up every day at 4:45 and I'm ready to go.

I love it. What do you do for your uh what do you do for your fitness routine? What's your routine to work out?

Great question. Uh, I actually have it written, I write it down every morning. Stretch. Of course, of course you do. Stretch, pull, stretch, and then I'll go get a hit later on this afternoon. I have a club nearby. I'll hit for an hour. I like to hit three times a week during the season. I play singles, double singles, stretch it out a little bit. Only an hour. I don't stay on the court too long, but you know, at least I'm getting that blood flowing. I'm I'm moving. That's my cardio. I'm in the pool in the morning. I like, I don't put the heat on in the pool. I make sure the temperature's nice and cold. Right now, the pool in my the temperature in my pool is 62 degrees, so it's perfect. Wow.

Wait a second. Wait a second, hold on a second. Wait a second. Big daddy, you didn't tell me this. You didn't tell me that our guy, uh, you know, I do all my homework on everything either. Playing tennis, I mean, I knew he was a tennis fan into tennis, but three times. Big daddy, why are you holding out on me?

I want you to get the Sal Palatonio experience for yourself. That's why.

I love it. No, I've okay. I got one of my old sticks here, Sal. So it's a Wilson. I'm now, I'm now this is this is actually uh T2, that's not a T2000, is it Papi? That's not the old no the Jimbo Connors racket. Yeah, no, it's not one of those.

I had I had a T2000 at Salonica High School on Long Island when I when I played number one singles at Salonica, which was not a great tennis goal, I'll admit, I had a T2000, I overhit everything. Everything I overhit. I had big just big switches. So much power.

They got so much power, those rackets. Oh, yeah, they were great. And and and Jimbo, Jimbo Connors, obviously, was one of the first to switch to the well, that was a steel racket. And then of those, you know, these are graphite, and they just the rackets keep getting better and better. Uh, I'll tell you one quick story because it just came to me because you'll get a kick out of it. So I'm I'm I'm thinking I'm about 16 at the time. John's number one, uh, two or two in the world. I think Lendell had just overtaken him. They were you know going back and forth. It was early 80s, and John was still using the wood racket, the old Dunlop Max Fly Fort. So he calls me up. He's getting ready to go down to um uh go out, go down to Dallas to play in the WCT Finals. You remember that? Those are the top eight players in the world. Uh and Lendell was the top C, John was a two C. So he calls me up, he says, uh, they call me Lenny, you know, is my nickname, Little Leonard. Apparently, there's a character on the little rascals named Little Leonard that I look like. So all my brothers and their friends in Douglaston call me Little Leonard because I'm the little runt of a brother. So he says, Lenny, I need you to come out and hit some balls with me tomorrow at Cove, Glen Cove, where Tony Palifox, our coach, was now uh the head pro. He had we had started a Port Washington Tennis Academy years before. So I go out there and I'm using the new Max 200G, which was the first Dunlop racket they ever made that was graphite. I've been using it for about six months, you know, in my junior tournaments, because all the kids were switching to the graphite. So we go out and we, as typical with John, no warm-up, warm-up three minutes, no drills, none of this BS, just play. Look, we're gonna play. Play some points, play games. It's still the same to this day. So we go out, he's missing his first serve, and I'm just stepping, you know, I had a good return. That was my best shot. And uh he would always hit it to my backhand when he didn't need to win the point because he knew that was my best shot. Anytime he needed to win a point, the little effer would serve to my forehand, which I'd miss it all the time. So I'm I'm burning him down, I'm burning him with the return. He gets all surprisingly very irritated, takes the right, gets give me that fucking racket, right? Takes the racket out of my hand, we start hitting. He's playing Sal exactly the same way, uh stroke wise, as he's been doing with the wood, but now he's getting 20, 25% more pop on every shot. He says, give me those rackets, takes my five rackets, you know, which Dunlop had sent to me because I was a top junior, and maybe because I was John's brother, um, and he goes off to Dallas, just it was a round robin format, destroys everyone, plays Lendell in the final, best of five set final, McEnroe defeats Lendell 7-6 in the fifth, seven-zero in the final set tie break, and therein lie the death of the wood racket.

I got I want to show you a picture. That's a great story, Patrick. I want to show you this picture. Maybe you guys can see it. I'm gonna hold it up. That is me. You got it? It's me and my granddaughter.

Hold it back a little bit, hold it back a little bit, hold it back. Yeah, yeah, it's like it gets a little shiny.

Yeah, there it is. That's me and my granddaughter, Kira. We're out on the court. That's my new tennis partner. We're out hitting all the time.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's that's the beautiful, that's the beautiful thing about tennis, Sal. You know, and I'm recovering from shoulder surgery. I have I've had four shoulder surgeries. I'm on my third on my right shoulder, which is my serving shoulder. So, so I'm starting to uh rehab. I mean, I've been rehabbing for months and months, but I'm I'm back on the courts, can't serve yet, but I'm able to go hit. So I need to come down there to Jersey, and we need to get out on the court because you played in your high school, man. You can play, baby.

Oh no, I'm a 4-0. I'm I'm a 4-0 player, but I really love being on the court. I mean, I I remember I was on the practice courts when I covered Wimbledon before ESPN had I planted the flag at Wimbledon with our producer, the great Willie Weinbaum. We used to come to Wimbledon with umbrellas and ESPN hats just to get on the grounds. I interviewed Pete Sampras on the golf course across the street in the first Sunday conversation when he won Wimbledon, I think it was 1995 or six. And um we I used to go out, I had Betsy Nagelson, I had um, I had, of course, um I had uh Lindsay Davenport as a partner on the air. I had but the Luke Jensen was so great, and Brad Gilbert, I had BG with me on the air.

Oh he's the best.

Yeah, he was best, and we would go over to the practice courts, and Luke Jensen would be ambidextrous, he'd be right-handed and left-handed, and we'd have so much. We had a media game, we had a media tournament, it was a lot of fun.

You just dropped so many names right there, all people near and dear to my heart. I'm gonna start with Willie Weinbaum, who still works with us. They didn't bring him to Wimbledon this year, which I was very upset about. Okay, ESPN made some you know changes, as I like to call them. You know, you know about that, but he was back at the open, you know, he's from the New York era. He is the best. Anytime I do my hit uh on Sports Center, he's always right there. He's always gives you a couple, like, well, you know, it was great, but you know, that one, you know, that's what I love about him. And by the way, did you know that my when I won Kalamazoo boys eighteens doubles, you know, Kalamazoo is the national championships for for boys eighteens and sixteens. My partner was Luke Jensen.

Wow.

So Luke, so Luke Jensen and I, because we won the doubles, it still exists today, we got the wild card for the U.S. Open. And we played in the first round, we got drawn to play the Gullockson brothers, maybe from Wisconsin. Tom and Tim. Yep, Tom and Tim. So we played them uh in a night match, actually played pretty well. We lost 7-5-6-4 as a junior team, you know, and the junior boy gets who wins the singles, and that same year, or maybe it was a year before, I lost in the final one year to Aaron Crixtein in four sets. But anyway, um, let's get back to some NFL stuff. And by the way, we had BG, Brad Gilbert, on the show. What was it, a week ago, Lauren, or two weeks ago?

Yeah, a week ago. And I know what you're gonna ask him. You know what I'm gonna ask him because now the Raiders are 2-0, so Brad Gilbert is like you know over the moon right now.

Well, that's what's good for him. But going into week three, we want a happy Brad Gilbert. No question about it.

Well, we threw Lauren texted me this morning. He's like, Yeah, we got to get BG back on the show. Let me ask you this, though. Your Eagles, uh, I'm not your Eagles, you cover the Eagles forever, uh, not looking great, but the bottom line is they're 2-0. Uh, what do you make of their start thus far?

Well, they got offensive line problems, but they have Jalen Hurts. And the bottom line is in the last two games, Jalen Hurts has bailed them out. There's been shuffling on the offensive line. The defensive line hasn't been as advertised. And the adversity that they went through yesterday in Tennessee was off the charts. And I've interviewed Nick Sarriz, Nick Siriani probably two dozen, three dozen times in his career in Philadelphia. And he always has the same thing that he gives the football team before the game. Two words embrace adversity. You're gonna have adversity in the National Football League, in your life, in your career, embrace it and try to get over it. So let's look at the adversity they had yesterday. They were not used to that heat, they were not ready for the heat in Nashville. During the broadcast, they put up the temperature on the field. They had that field turf. It's a horrible turf, especially in a one o'clock game in Nashville. It was above 150 degrees Fahrenheit to the point where players' cleats were melting. Mylotta said he was rolling his ankles. Lane Johnson, of course, who's had foot problems, he was complaining. A lot of the players were complaining about the heat. That was one. Saquon Barkley goes out after the first play in the first quarter, your best running back. He's gone. The defense not play, and the offensive line, again, changes. You've got a new center. You go through all spring, all of the summer, and you've got Cam Jurgens snapping you the ball. Now they move him to guard. Drew Kendall has to play because Landon Dickerson's out. So Jalen Hurts had to overcome a lot of stuff. He puts together a nine-play, 65-yard drive, his 15th go-ahead touchdown drive in the fourth quarter of his career. I mean, I what a gutsy performance by Jalen Hurts. But the best part, the best part, Patrick, he's being interviewed on the field after the game on live television. And Jeffrey Simmons, the D tackle, who before the game said, we're gonna make Jalen play quarterback, comes over to congratulate Jalen Hurts. Hurts doesn't miss a beat and says on live TD TV, you put that bleep out there, and I finished the job. I love that. That was great.

I love that. That's that's being that's being a leader. You know what? I'll tell you one thing, Sal. I was there the week before and it was hot. I understood exactly what those guys were going through without having all the equipment on, because we were standing on the sideline before the game and 106, and I'm like, man, this is hot. So

Big Daddy, you you you insure players, you know players. Shame on the NFL for A, having that turf, and B, scheduling those one o'clock games in a really hot situation like that in a hot city on September. Everybody knows that in the South, in September, is when it's the hottest. There's no wind. You have the humidity really high. Look what happened in Tampa yesterday. Everybody in the world knows that in September it's super hot, super humid, and you're going to get a thunderstorm in the afternoon. You're not putting the players in the best position to succeed. In my view, uh it's unfair to those players. But to keep it real about Philly, there are warning signs. And the Giants are definitely breathing down their necks.

Well, before we get to Siriani in adversity, uh it was 157. Didn't he need an IV yesterday, mid-game? Yes, he did.

Wow. Wow. You know, this reminds me, this reminds me of playing tennis in Australia, right? With when the conditions are absolutely brutal. And we used to play, we used to play in a service called Rebound Ace, right? Which was basically ground-up tires. So it was um it was like sort of softest, but when it got hot, it would literally literally I remember Sal coming off the court a couple matches, and my feet were freaking on fire, right? And they've they've they've since changed it because a lot of players are hurting their ankles and their knees. But here's what I don't get, and I'm glad you mentioned the turf thing, because this drives me effing crazy. Because they all, all the stadiums, when the World Cup came over here this year, and Lauren and I were lucky enough to go to a game in Met Life where you were yesterday, which was then then called the New York Stadium, to watch France play Senegal, right? So, in other words, all the stadiums and all the owners of those stadiums, who are many of them own the NFL teams, changed it to natural grass because they had no choice. What I don't understand, because I'm thinking about playing tennis on those brutal conditions, these freaking guys are hitting the living shit out of each other as football players, and then they're literally, it's like playing on concrete to play on that surface. Why can't I you both you football experts need to give me an answer this for a minute? Why can't the player union just say, if we don't get this in the next collective bargaining agreement, we ain't playing anymore. We're not doing it. You I mean, just change it to natural grass. It's so much more fun to watch anyway. I don't understand why that can't happen.

So let's go for well. It's about money. But Big Daddy is closer to the negotiations than I am. I'll say this the players need to make it a point of emphasis in the in the negotiations. I think that they will. There's no reason why you can't play on natural grass everywhere with a technology that you have that you've seen in Arizona, where it's a dome stadium, but they bring in pallets of grass and they play on grass. So you can do it. It's a matter of will, power, and money.

You know what I think is the real holdup is that the owners they want the stadiums to be accessible for everything besides football. You know, when you're drawing concerts and you're having, you know, college football game and college soccer and all these as many things as you can get in that stadium to produce revenue, that's where you have the issue whether you have grass or field turf. Because if you're putting uh pallets down and all this stuff all over the grass, you're killing the grass. So now all of a sudden your uh landscaping bill becomes quadruple because uh you're trying to do more and more and more. And then I think the other thing is that let's just say the players were to decide, hey, we're not going out there, we're not playing. Okay, well, you don't want to play? We'll go get another 53 that we'll play. I think that's the other thing that's available out there.

I wonder if um, you know, like Sal said, I mean, the technology's become so good, it seems like you could put something over the grass. But anyways, it's that that that's a question for another day. Let's get to the big blue, Sal, because uh, you know, we're we're fired up in New York. The Bills, who I'm I'm a big Bill guy, not a fan, but I think I think I think they're gonna go all the way. We we know about Josh Allen, how awesome he is. Um, what do you think about the Giants? I mean, I think they look great against the Cowboys. Uh, they've got a big time coach now. I'm not buying it. A lot of people here in New York are saying they they they can beat the Rams, who are still, you know, maybe a little suspect after that down under trip where they they botched that up big time. But I think the Rams bounce back tonight. I'll think the Giants will be competitive. What do you think?

The Giants definitely will be competitive in this game. I think they'll have a chance to win the game. Let's go big picture and let's go small picture, little picture and big picture. Let's start with the big picture. There's no question that John Harbaugh has made an impact on that franchise overnight. And if you listen to what John Harbaugh has said very specifically, I'm a coach that puts in systems, and that's exactly what he has done. Forget culture. Culture is a big, amorphous word that's hard to define. What is definable is that Harbaugh has put in the right systems offensively and defensively and special teams. Remember, he started out as a special teams coach with Andy Reid in Philadelphia before he went to Baltimore. So his expertise has always been from special teams. Start there. You got to have all three phases, you got to play all four quarters, and you have to be able to have the right system in play. So that's number one. If you look at the way the offense operated, Patrick, in the opening game, it was a clean offense that was productive. They had 7.2 points per drive, week one. That led the National Football League. The Giants haven't led the NFL in points per drive, which is an important analytical number, for the last five years. They did it in week one. That tells you he has the right system in place. Defensively, this is a blitzing league. Everybody is blitzing. Brian Flores, Aaron Glenn. Everybody is blitzing. And what the Giants have done is decided they're going to be uber aggressive defensively, because in this league, you have to attack the quarterback and attack the football and then play zone defense behind it to prevent the big play. That's what Fangio is beginning to do. We're seeing it all over the league. He's definitely seen it with the Giants. So that's system number two. And then system number three is we're going to play hard. We're going to practice hard and we're going to play hard. And the last thing that I will mention is this he's got three coaches offensively that have a brain trust. And that brain trust is Greg Roman, Brian Callahan, and Matt Nagy. And they take care of all three phases of within the offense. Nagy's got the quarterback, Brian Callahan has got the run blocking scheme, and Greg Roman has the running game and the protection. And the bottom line is they're working together, and Jackson Dart is anticipating throws, he's sliding, he's getting out of bounds, he's under control. I think that's the key thing. And you've seen that a little bit from Geno Smith with Frank Reich as the offensive coordinator. Coaching matters in the NFL. And the Giants have the right coaches in place, and that team is going to be on track all year long. They've got a tough schedule, but I do like what's happened in New York a lot.

Well, you mentioned that last week, actually, Big Daddy, about Frank Reich and the Jets. So to hear it again from Sal is interesting. Yes, coaching matters in NFL and the football and football more than any other sport, in my opinion. Big Daddy, you get to be around the team, sort of away from what Sal just discussed, the systems, obviously number one. But maybe you got a little more sense of that culture and how it's changed and how the coach has had an impact on those players in the locker room.

You could just see the difference. I mean, uh the the culture has changed, the attitude has changed, they're playing super hard. I know training camp, those practices are not easy, but that was on purpose because they had to make a change, a whole attitude, a whole culture change. And you could see, I I would not be shocked. The Giants are gonna come out strong and hard tonight. It's not gonna be easy because the Rams are the Rams, and they're probably looking to uh safe face after you know Blunder going down last week, and you know, Sean McVay is not a guy that's gonna sit there and let someone spit on him. You know, he's gonna come out fighting and he's gonna try to show the world that, hey, we are the Rams, and we are the team that everyone wants to beat.

So let me ask you, there are other where are the Rams vulnerable? They are vulnerable up the middle on offense. And that has been exposed recently. If you can get the pass rush in Stafford's face, up the middle, in the A and B gaps, which the Giants will try to do in this game. They did it against Dak Prescott week one. They will try to do it against Matthew Stafford, get him out of the pocket where he's not comfortable, he can't move as well as he used to because he's older, probably in his second last or second or last year in the National Football League. Get him out of the pocket. When he's in the pocket and he boom, boom, boom, zinging the ball left and right, you got no shot. Go after him big time in the middle of the pocket. That's what you got to do. Patrick, you know, the funniest thing that I saw on TV when the Rams went over to Australia was your brother, John, on TV saying, I've flown to Australia 17 times. I know how hard it is to go to Australia and play a tennis match, no less play a football game at the NFL level the next day. That that was I I thought that was one of the best examples of you know, saying to Sean McVeigh, what are you doing?

You know, I I had the privilege of actually meeting Sean McVeigh at a at an event in Vegas. It was a tennis event like two, maybe a year and a half ago. Nadal played Alcaraz. And a great, I was like, man, you should have called me because that was a boneheaded move at the start of the season to do what they did. Because I know they said, well, we want to stay on, you know, LA time. No, no, no. When you get down there, and I've uh I've done it as many times as my brother, right? It it takes you a couple days just to get like your bearings. Forget about the jet lag part of it, just to get off that flight. We make the trip from New York, well, my brother's in LA a lot, so he sometimes does it from LA. I do it from New York, but it's it's a brutal trip. All right, a couple things just bouncing around in my head now that we're almost done with week two, and I want to get your opinion, Sal. Kansas City Chiefs looking good, two-0, overtime win last night. The other harbour not looking so good, is the bloom off the roads with Justin Herbert and company out with Sandy, uh, out with them out west. And the third one was, oh yeah, the the commanders. Oh and two now, and now Jaden's out for we don't know how long. Well, how brutal a situation are they in? So give me a little potpourri on those three teams.

Okay, let's start with the most difficult one, and that is the AFC quarterback situation. Remember, last year, no Patrick Mahomes. The window was wide open in the NFC. Excuse me, in the AFC for Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Bo Nicks coming on, Drake May. He had those five quarterbacks. Now Mahomes is back, and he's got really, I think, the most exciting player on the most exciting team right now, and that's Kenneth Walker the third. And Andy Reid, you know, I covered him for 14 years in Philadelphia. I actually picked him up at the airport the day he was hired when I was a beat writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer. I gotta tell you, I've known this guy for so long and studied his offense. He may be the best offensive play designer of his generation. And now he's got Walker and a great compliment to Patrick Mahomes the second. It just opens everything up on them offensively. And I just think it's gonna be a tough out. I mean, if if Buffalo is gonna give up 31 points a game, they're gonna have to seriously tighten that up. It's gonna be hard for Buffalo to go to Arrowhead and beat Mahomes unless they can tighten up that defense. We've seen many, many games where Mahomes and Josh Allen go punch for punch, only to fall to Mahomes at the end because the defense couldn't handle the Chiefs' offense. So I think it's really going to be important. And I'm doing the game in Buffalo on Sunday. Buffalo's gonna have to show me something defensively because Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh, they're 0-2. If you go 0-3 in the NFL since 1970, if you go 0-3, your chances of making the postseason fall to 4%. Four. Yeah. Wow. You don't want to go 0-3. 0-2 is bad enough. It's 12%. 0-3, it's 4%. So the Chargers, talk about backs against the wall. Talk about desperation time. But playing in Buffalo is not easy with that offense humming like it is right now. So the Chargers are without a doubt on the clock. The Bengals, the Baltimore Ravens, after losing unexplainably to New Orleans, they're on the clock. You have to try to keep it. You do not want to go to Arrowhead and play the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. It's a super tough out. I'm sort of wondering if the championship window closed on Josh Allen because he didn't make it through last year when Mahomes was out of the picture. With Mahomes back, I think it's going to be really tough.

Interesting. Yeah, I was thinking like maybe what it's going to take Kansas City, you know, this year to sort of regroup, but you're you're convincing me that I was probably wrong about that. Um unbelievable. What about what about the commanders? Because that I mean that two two losses in the division, and now the quarterback's in trouble. Uh, is their season on the on the cusp of going down the drain quickly?

Well, I feel sorry for Jaden Daniels. That was with him this summer. He worked his butt off, Patrick. Worked his butt off from January to August to get himself in better shape, uh, to take the hits, to be available for his football team like he wasn't last year. He was missing for 10 games. Uh, I really feel sorry for the young man. I have a lot of respect for his work ethic, his leadership ability, and his ability on the field. He's the kind of guy you just want to make sure he's healthy because he's so pyrotechnic as a football player uh that you just you root for a young man like that. And I hope he gets better quickly. Um I like Dan Quinn and I like their new offensive coordinator, David Blau. I think they've done some smart things there. Uh but the commanders right now, when you look at it, let's be real. We're in Philly, let's keep it real. You know, they're the fourth best team in the division. You know, Dallas showed me something yesterday, without a doubt. The Giants, you know, they're in a situation where they can make some moves now. If they play right and they don't turn the ball over, they'll be okay out in LA in Monday night football. Uh and the Eagles, they just keep winning. I mean, Jalen Hurts' winning percentage right now, Patrick, is 70%. 59 and 25. He has a 70% winning percentage. The Eagles have the best road percentage, winning percentage in the last five years of any NFL team. So uh they just find a way to win. They have some holes, they've got to get it fixed on offense, be more consistent on offense. But right now, I think they are in a position to go back to the NFC Championship game if they stay healthy.

All right, nobody better than Sal Powell. Before we let you go and get Big Daddy get ready for the big game tonight out west, um, you you you talked a little tennis, so I want to get some of your opinions on the tennis side. Um, I predicted Ben Shelton would win the U.S. Open. Uh I was close. He didn't quite get it done. You've you've you've covered tennis a lot. You obviously know what it is to be a big-time athlete, what it takes. What's it gonna take for Ben Shelton or maybe another American to finally have me, Patrick McElone, not have to answer the second most annoying question I get: when will an American man win a major?

Well, first of all, I was shocked that Shelton took care of Big Foe uh so easily. I mean, I I thought that match would be a little closer, but uh I thought foe would actually you know get through. But when Shelton got to Sasha uh uh in the final, again, I was a little surprised that Sasha handled him so well. I was gonna ask you, what do you think he has to do in order to beat Sasha in a final? It seems like maybe his return or serve has to improve greatly, but I just think he's that close. He's close, and I and I wonder what he has to do to get through these guys.

Well, you know this better than anyone, is it used to be on that famous show called NFL matchup, right? So a lot of NFL teams. I'm still on.

22 years I've been hosting that show. I'm still on.

Yeah, NFL matchup. So tennis is a lot of times about the matchup, like how you you know when you're when you're fairly close, right?

You know, Patrick, BG used to say to me, big guy leave big guy beats little guy all the time in tennis. And I said, What about it?

Yeah, so so what you it it the return game for uh for Shelton has gotten better. You know, he's a better returner, he stays in points better from the baseline, he uses the backhand, you know, slice uh better. It's it's not great yet the slice. And when he, if you notice, when he played the slice against Zrerev, it did nothing. It did nothing. When you use a slice, you're trying to do a couple of things. Get the ball out of your opponent's strike zone so you can A, get him to miss, or B, get him to give you something that you can then attack. You say it's like a setup shot. Like Federus, Federer's slice was so good because he had a lot of mustard on it, and because he could put it anywhere in the court. So he could put it short, so he had to come up and play it up over the net, then he kills you with the forehand. So that's one area where he needs to improve. The other part is what I mentioned right at the start of the match, because I saw it coming. I saw it coming sell like a ton of bricks. The transition game for Shelton is not quite up to par to beat a guy like Zerev in a best of five in a big spot. What do I mean by that? Well, you get a ball where you get it in the in the middle of the court. It's a ball you can you can attack. You don't necessarily want to go for a winner, but you want to go, you want to go big. You want to keep your opponent pinned back behind the baseline. And as you saw from watching, Zerev is very far behind the baseline. He gives up a lot of terror territory. Why does he do that? Because he's an incredible defender. He moves exceptionally well, he can he can retreat, retrieve off both wings. And because he wasn't worried about Shelton's transition game, he didn't have to adapt. He didn't have to, if he was playing Alcaraz or center, you know, then he's got to come up in the court more. He's got to try to play offense more often. And I think Shelton was a little unsure about those balls when he's got the mid-court ball. Do I attack and come forward and finish at the net? Actually, my brother and I went back and forth on that topic because John said, well, he's improved his volleys. He's a great volley. And I said, no, no, he's not a great volley. He's not a great volley. And that's why he's not comfortable transitioning to where he's gonna have to play not an easy volley, but like a semi-difficult volley. So we disagreed on that. You gotta love it, Sal. When I disagree with John on air, he gives me a look, you know, he gives me that look, you know, because it it it rarely happens, but when it does, you know, I gotta be ready. Uh, but anyway, I think that's the part of the game that needs to improve. But I love him. I love his dad, who I grew up playing junior tennis with, his dad, Brian, and then and then, you know, he's the only coach, Sal, in college tennis that won a national title coaching a women's team at Georgia Tech. I was aware of the coaching men's team at the University of Florida.

So I hope that I think great family, great family, and and just you you can just see the love there and the support. And he's such a big star, Shelton. And um, you know, I I just hope that he gets he gets one of those majors soon. But you know, Sinner coming back from injury, Alcaraz coming back from injury, uh, you know, those are the players down the road that he's really got to worry about more than Zarev, I think. Um, but it's very simple. Similar. It's very simple. He should get that guy off the golf course in LA to teach him how to hit uh 130 miles an hour down the T and then back it up, uh coming up to the net. Name Pete Sampras. That that guy, I still think to me, greatest American tennis player of all time. No disrespect to anybody else. To me, no, there's no doubt.

And by the way, you you you it it's very similar because you just mentioned center and alcaraz, very similar to what you mentioned about Mahomes. You know, like the window was there. The window may start to close again for not just for Shelton, but for you know, for Zerv. We had Jeannie Bouchard on uh a week ago or two ago, who I thought did a very nice job for us at ESPN. She's a rookie in the TV business, and and and and Lauren had the question is there a new big three? And she said yes. And I said, no, no, no, hold on a second. No, no, no, no. There ain't no big three in men's tennis yet until Zerav beats one or two of those guys in a major. Would you agree?

I would agree 100%. And that's why I'm you know so bullish on the Chiefs. I know that Andy Reed is a great play designer and a great, great call of uh of players, and he coached under Mike Holmgren with Steve Mariucci in Green Bay, and Holmgren, of course, learned it at the knee of Bill Walsh. So the direct DNA, Walsh, Holmgren Reed. When you look at and study what they did in terms of designing and then adapting and changing on the fly, and I would look at Walker as sort of the Roger Craig of this offense. When Bill Walsh got Roger Craig, that was the difference. And I just helped put Roger Craig in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I was his presenter in the Hall of Fame selection committee. I'm on the committee and remain on the committee when they just truncated it down from 52 to 25. So I'm proud to be still on the committee. And uh I I helped get Roger Craig in because I thought he was very underrated in terms of his impact on that Bill Walsh offense. And you can see it's like a snapshot from the 80s with Walker and Roger Craig, Walsh to Andy Reid, and how Walker is helping Patrick Mahomes just open up the middle of the field. And if Mahomes with the middle of the field and his ability to make quick decisions and his arm is so quick and so accurate, I just think that championship window closed for a lot of guys in the AFC who wanted to try to get past Kansas City. I think it's gonna be tough.

Before I let you go, Sal, um, uh, I want to say I would love it if you would pick me up at an airport anytime. I mean, if I could be in that same position as Andy Reid was, that would be big time. But we're gonna I'm coming down to Jersey, and I'm not I'm not I'm I'm serious about this.

Hey, let me uh let me say one thing. Well, uh Sal has invited us to come on a Friday to NFL Films. Uh MacDaddy Crew will uh sit down, interview, having a full interview with Sal again and uh do the NFL Films thing, and then we'll sit down and have some lunch and uh yuck it up even more. Sounds good.

All right, I want predictions for I want predictions for tonight. I'm gonna go first. And I I I sort of agree with you guys that the Giants will keep it close, but I don't think they're gonna keep it close once we get to the fourth quarter. I think it'll be close through in the middle of the third. I got the uh Rams pulling away 34-20 win for the Rams. What say you, Big Daddy, first?

Well, listen, we're in LA. The game is in LA where movies and dreams and realities all happen. We know where you're going. Go ahead. Ready? The G-Men will pull it out.

All right, Lauren next. Lauren next, and then we finish with Sal. Lauren, what do you got tonight?

Sure, why not? We'll go with the G-Men. Puka might not play. I think it's sneaky. I think they could sneak in because of the distractions from Australia and the fact that they have a lot of pressure on them with Seattle and 49ers looking so good in 2-0. So I'm gonna go with the G-Men 24-21.

I'm gonna I'm gonna send you. I mean, you're like the producer here. You're the guy with all the brains setting this whole thing up. You need some freaking light over there, man. I'm gonna I'll give you some like $5.99, okay? I'll give you one of the I'll send you one. All right, Sal, you're the best, man. Uh unbelievable to have you on, and we appreciate you doing this. Give me a prediction on what happens tonight, please.

I think it's a field goal game. I think the Giants will attack Matthew Stafford, and I think the Giants will win by a field goal in this football game.

I mean, that's the way to that's the way to end it right there. Another edition of MacDaddy in the books. We'll see you at NFL matchup, NFL Films. That is pretty cool. Can't wait for that to happen. The great, the legend, the man himself, Sal Palantonio here on MacDaddy. We'll see you on Friday, everyone.

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