Ryan Glasspiegel on Vrabel-Russini, NBA Ratings, Steve Kerr as Broadcaster

You seem a little avoidant on Roussini Vrayble, but I do think...

Yeah, it's probably the hottest button topics, though.

I don't even go into it begrudgingly, the only part of me that's at all begrudging

is just people going enough already in my audience.

But I think it has leapt, it has broken containment, it is unstoppable.

It cannot be contained, and now it's a legit football story.

And it's being avoided in the media.

I mean, it's perfect for us.

I look at the NFL homepage, or not the NFL homepage,

but the ESPN NFL homepage, and they'll throw in a little headline that obfuscates it.

They almost don't want this story that everybody's interested in to be a story.

Welcome to the House of Straps.

Yeah, go for it.

Stars hang with stars, winners hang with winners.

It is House of Straps.

We were joined by Ryan Glass, Beagle of Front Office Sports,

the preeminent sports media critic in all the land.

I don't do this for a lot of people.

A nighttime recording like this, especially with my lauded famous schedule of waking up at 4 a.m. Ryan.

This is so usually taxing for me, but not in this case, because I'm excited to talk with you.

It's eight o'clock for you.

Okay, it's 10 o'clock for me.

My natural that I'm happened already.

So fair enough.

The point is like, the point isn't me complaining.

I can complain a lot.

The point is more just that there are things to discuss and a lot of media topics.

And I almost feel this is, this is almost an emergency pod.

It's, it's funny.

This is an emergency receney, verbal pod.

And you know it's an emergency pod.

And you know you have to talk about it.

But because you're such a good feeling person, Ryan, I can feel your reluctance.

I can sense it through the teleprompter right now.

I've been, I've been reluctant to cover it the whole way.

I wound up getting like two pretty big like scoops out of it and a WFA and appearance.

Just like big deal for me going on with Craig Carton afternoon drive.

Like I had never been on WFA and grew up listening to it in the back seat of my dad's car.

And so, I mean, this is a terrible moment for them got me that.

But yeah, it's a, I mean, we don't need to go rehash everything.

Let's just talk about like what happened new today, which is that they basically called an emergency press conference for Mike Rabel right before the draft.

There were new page six and TMZ stories of photos of them together in different places over the last six years.

Rossini went dark on social media.

And there was like an undercurrent and even you asked me this wondering if like Rabel was going to be gone.

And I just thought there was no way that was going to happen.

And I got vindicated when he basically did another press conference and said exactly what he had already told us PM last night,

which is that he's going to go to counseling because nothing is more important than his family.

Other than the first two days of the trap to be there for the first two days of the trap.

The third day and then go to counseling to be clear.

I did not expect him to get fired today.

So if that happened, it wouldn't have exactly shocked me.

There are people thought he was going to resign too.

But I was like, first of all, I didn't think he was going to be gone for several reasons.

I mean, first he's an enormous difference maker as a head coach.

And you like it or not, you know, people, tall organizations, tall array,

quote unquote, distractions from star talents disproportionately than they would for, you know,

even if he's a league average coach, he might have been a lot more trouble.

But he took a team that was so bad that it fired their coach after one year and made the Super Bowl with them.

And his first year there, one coach of the year.

So like, there's that first of all.

And then the other stuff, you know, just being like an astute observer of this stuff,

the Patriots issued a statement not defending him, but basically saying like,

we have his back, he's our coach, we support him through these issues.

And the league issued a statement to front office sports and other places,

saying that variable is not under investigation of the league's personal conduct policy.

And then Cadel repeated that and said it's a personal matter and a pre draft interview.

So I mean, you take what the Patriots and the league are saying with their organizational,

like shields behind it.

And you're like, okay, he's not losing his job.

And we're like, people are like, oh, he's going to resign at the press conference.

Are you talking about no way he's going to do that?

Because if he was going to resign, he would just issue a statement and get out a dodge.

He's not going to like go face the media as he's quitting his job.

There's no way.

So all those factors we need to think like, no, he's not losing his job.

There's so much here, there's so much here because I believe the following.

When this initially happened, I be naive and not knowing anything about the NFL world.

I tend to believe people, especially when they're vigorously defensive with some specificity.

And when the initial photos came out, published by the New York Post,

and the denials came from Rossini and from Vrable using a cover

that I suppose was just transparently untrue, easily proven false,

and is led to Rossini's answer from the athletic.

Well, I initially believe that when I put out my initial thoughts saying, hey,

I guess I'll believe people.

This is what they say.

He got flooded with tax messages from people within the NFL world who had connections.

He said, this has been a known thing.

So I say that to say this, the patriots had to know about this when they hired Mike Vrable.

They had to, what would you say the percentages based on what we know now that the patriots knew about it?

One reason, one reason, I believe they had to know about it is because, okay,

well, first of all, I asked you a question and I want your percentage.

I was doing my wind up, but what's your percentage that they knew,

the robber craft knew going into this?

I would say hi.

It's hard to put a number on it.

I mean, we, I don't want to like take other people at our sites reporting,

but like someone had heard like another team that had Vrable and was worried about this coming out.

And I don't know if that's why they passed on him, but it hasn't gotten pen to paper.

So I don't want to like go too much on that.

But yeah, it's a, I would say it seems to have been an open secret.

Yes.

And I read this tweet from a director of content at Bet Sports.

My whole feed is just old Diana Rossini tweets that make the whole thing seem very obvious.

It's like the damn montage after he drops the coffee mug in the usual suspects.

And he's referring to a lot of tweets, some just funny coincidental possible double entendre phrasing,

others you could infer there are a lot of people talking about how one of the kids is named Mike.

And she had a tweet about how has there been what were the best mics who are players and coaches?

Like all the things.

Yeah, so that's sort of thing that it's going to get people gossiping and wondering.

And there's no proof of what people would immediately wonder, but people are going to wonder it.

But I did have one of those usual suspects moments for something else.

And it's this 2024 clip that went around where Roussini was talking about how

Rabel was struggling to get hired again after a very successful altogether run had coach of the Tennessee Titans.

It was a bit of a mystery.

Why isn't Mike for able to get in hired?

Why is he in the wilderness?

Why is he getting passed on?

And people are having a lot of fun with Roussini saying it's because he was physically big.

And it was intimidating.

He's intimidating the large and yeah, you can laugh, but that's a factor.

No, no, I was like at the implication of it was like he got angry and like in some supervisors face.

Like he was big and large.

And like when you have the type of passionate disagreement that one has in a football organization,

they felt like they feared for their safety.

That was the implication of what she said.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

I do not dispute your implication and need you need not apologize because more context is good.

But the reason I dropped the coffee mug is because looking back at it, I go,

oh, she's the reason that he was in the wilderness.

If I have to guess because it didn't make sense.

People were going, he was the browns.

Like a lot of football fans were talking with me and going, what's going on?

Like why isn't this guy snapped up?

And I think it makes a lot of sense that he would go back with people who knew him,

who might forgive a bit of a mess and might worry about it a little bit less.

And that's the New England Patriots.

I believe the Patriots knew about this.

They didn't know how any of this would actually go and how it would come out.

I mean, it'd been an open secret for a while.

Maybe it just stays an open secret.

I know a bunch of MBA open secrets that never exploded like this and conceivably could have.

So I think that is a dynamic here.

That is an aspect.

If you're saying, hey, why is he less of a threat to be fired beyond that he's had success?

And they just went to the Super Bowl.

It's a little difficult to make the case if you're the Patriots internally

that this is something that we have to do if we knew about it.

Now, if he had lied to them and hidden everything, that's a different matter.

But I don't think that's the case because once again, I think they knew.

Well, I think I'll disagree on her being the reason why he wasn't hired.

And I think it's the implication.

I would say it couldn't.

Can we just say maybe not the reason, but it couldn't have helped.

I think it was more of the implication of what she said that like word got around.

Like, hey, this guy is a hot head.

And if you try to manage him, he's going to lose his temper.

And you might fear that he's going to beat the shit out of you.

I think that that was like that.

And he got really mad at her for saying that.

And that was why like at the time.

Like she already.

Well, yeah, obviously, no, I lose my temper.

No, but yeah, I mean, my recollection.

Do I know the answer?

No, but that was my impression of like at the time of someone who follows, you know, every minute of the league.

Yeah, I'm not going to dispute.

I'm not going to dispute your theory.

But I'm only saying this.

And maybe you dispute this as well.

There was something off about his time in the wilderness.

And there was something weird.

And it felt as though not everything was being spelled out.

That's true.

What was going on.

And this sort of baggage.

I do think it also speaks perhaps to decision making, not being the best outside of the grid iron as well.

And so now it's the situation.

It's been handled horribly.

There was a woman who had viral saying it should have been handled a different way.

And she gave this convincing speech of what he could have said up there on the podium a week ago about how he had had a relationship that wasn't appropriate.

And now it's, you know, they're moving on the past it.

The weirdest thing is they do these press conferences with rabble.

They've now done two where nothing is said where there's this kind of vague contrition.

Absent any specificity.

And it contributes to this dynamic where they've got an inability to move on combined with how they're getting stocked by some sort of super villain from a movie who just keeps putting out little bits of information to keep the whole thing moving.

I've seen a scandal in sports that has like this much staying power off the top of my head since the Ray Rice elevator video.

And like that.

That's obviously much more dusterly than this because that like involves physical.

People are probably more interested in this.

Right.

That was so massive.

I mean, it was combined with.

I'll put it this way.

I'll put it this way.

That was a massive story and at a time when people were taking a lot of shots at Goodell.

But this is the sort of thing that people want to read about.

This is the sort of thing that people, this is the Aaron Sorkin quote I like where that publicity is like seasickness where you feel like you're going to die.

Everyone, everyone else thinks it's just kind of funny where everybody likes joking about this and the memes.

But if you were in this mailstrom, if you're in these families, it would be the most horrendous thing.

Right.

And that's why I like that's why I'm so squeamish about it is like, you know, there are innocent others who did not, you know, misbehaved or whatever.

And really don't deserve to have this like dragged for weeks.

You know, my old out with the New York Post.

I really don't like how they are doing these stories.

Who is Jen Rable?

They shut out of, they shut out about that.

That's wife.

And who is Kevin, forget his last name, Goldsmith.

Goldsmith.

Who Diana's husband.

And look, I know how it goes there.

When one thing hits, they want to just story and story and story and story and story until all of the embers are like dead calls.

And, you know, every outlet is like that to some extent.

It's not, I don't want to pick on the post, although they did the two stories together that I thought were particularly gross.

And so just, I think the way it occurs, like I get it, people are Googling them.

You have some, like, like, that's another thing about the post is they have these people whose entire job is to say,

oh, well, this is a breakaway trend on Google.

We have to do it.

And, you know, you can't even like imagine what it's like to be like in my position and just get assigned something based on.

Like the computer guy who said that.

But I can't deal with that.

I can't do as I worked at Bleacher Report in 2000, 2012 in 2011.

So I do have some imagination.

It's horrible.

It's horrible when you're commanded to do something by the machine, by the algorithm that makes you participate in something that's unethical.

It makes you look like a small person and you don't have a lot of leverage to contest it.

They shouldn't have done.

The goldsmith thing is arguable.

Maybe you can say this is us applying more sensitivity to a woman than a man that I'm more put off by the who is the wife.

But she had, Diana Rossini had made goldsmith something of a character in her play.

In her little take my husband, please, vaudeville act.

So that made sense.

But the who is the wife?

It's not like for Abel had made his wife a public person in that manner.

And there's something about that article that I have found to be egregious and I think a lot of people agree with that.

And yet at the same time, I know a lot of people who agree with that.

And these same people are in group.

What was that?

They probably clicked at.

They they're just talking about this constantly in the group chat and dissecting the last specs, talking about all these photos.

Of them and how photos of receding variable and there's this weird wistfulness to it where it's man.

They just, they seem like they're really in love and projecting emotions pair socially on the scenario.

And they get about their own lives and misconceptions and potential workplace romances.

I don't remember a story ever like this.

Riot.

This story is unique in how it's being consumed.

Yes.

But we don't think we don't think variables getting fired for a functional.

Look, you know, that's the yeah, that there is an aspect of it.

Like her whole career is ruined and he gets to like go to like quote counseling on the third day of the draft and return when they think that this is like blown over probably in time for training camp.

And I, you know, like I think to Mel Hill said that this is like an unfair double standard in her way is, but it also, I mean, the job of a reporter, especially the New York Times.

And I will veer from most of our profession when I say, I'm actually in a weird way.

Like not, I'm not not bothered, but from like a journalistic perspective, I think your job in this day and age is to tell the truth interestingly.

And so I, yeah, the way that she came by some of her scoops clearly is not in, you know, the New York Times best practices guide allegedly.

But she's now interesting just by virtue of who she is because she's somebody that people in my life who hate sports now know about kind of in the way that Tom Brady is an interesting broadcaster because he's Tom Brady in a very different way.

I don't know people are having this conversation of, well, she ever get hired again. I don't want to ever say never because a bunch of people when email Doka lost his job within the NBA told me he's never getting hired again.

And then time passes and.

She'll be hired again. She'll be hired again by September by somebody.

Yeah, I guess.

You don't have to be hired. She can just start a YouTube channel that's like white listed by a big podcast company where maybe like she, maybe they don't want her under their brand, but they will still sell her ads.

And the like, you know, Sue got offered her a spot on this show on Fox Sports Radio. I wouldn't be surprised of Levitard offered her a show.

So she's going to have, she's going to land. But like, she's going to have to evolve from being primarily a reporter into primarily an opinionist, but I think she had started to do that with her podcast.

And by the way, you know, people are like, oh, she could never be a reporter again. She's done being a reporter. No, if she, like, so she deleted her Twitter account today, we're talking about Thursday.

It's Friday morning. She likes just reactivates her Twitter and says, oh, huge surprise. Everyone thought Aaron Rogers was going to the Steelers, but guess what?

He signed with the Cardinals and like, if she was first to that, every like, what are people going to be? Oh, no, I can't listen to her reporter. No, she gets like big scoops, then all of a sudden, people have to, you know, credit her.

Yeah, there's no official, there's no official guild. It's not like the chief of reporting tells you to hand over your gun in your badge, Diana, that doesn't happen.

Right. Right. Exactly. Right now I'm talking with you. We're talking opinions. Tomorrow, I can do reporting. You can do reporting. It's not, it's just, I guess a matter of if she's got the wherewithal to keep on going and move past this whole situation.

What, what alternative does she have? Is she going to go like work in a steakhouse? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what her interests are. But with Rabel, there's a funny incentive. I don't know his contract situation. So the contract situation, but determine a lot of what's good for who? But in a weird way, I feel like it would be good for him to get fired versus to stay on.

Because the Patriots have a first place schedule now. They had this great year. They're going to come back to earth. Of course, when they come back to earth, everybody's going to be talking about this. And you can almost see him getting fired at the end of the season, because you've had this cloud. And then they don't do well versus.

I don't think so. He's a pretty good coach and their quarterback is on the right. Let me, let me, let me just play this, let me just play this for because I, we don't know what's going to happen in the Patriots, but let's just say, let's just say they have a disappointing season. And I don't know if he gets fired, but I'm just looking at this through the email doca lens, where if he got ousted immediately or stepped down immediately, he's kind of retiring at the top.

And there's going to be a moment or there would be a moment where teams would go, yeah, that was weird, but man, I can coach, you know, like, yeah, like he'd be the hottest coach on the market, probably, if he got out now, versus having to fight this uphill battle against a way better schedule. And his life falling apart, potentially.

I mean, they're over under I'm looking at it right now is over nine and a half. And that's shaded to minus one 40. So at this has them at like a probably like 55% chance to go 10 and seven or better.

Should we do the mic in the mad dog, go through the schedule and what's a win.

No, we should have as much as much as I would like to do that. I think our listeners would maybe not be.

I guess it's a first place schedule, but it's not exactly the greatest of divisions. I look, I haven't committed their schedule to memory, but I am curious about that.

Two time to make the playoffs. I mean,

the and then to miss they are plus 176 sets, you know, about they've got almost a two thirds chance if you devig that to make the playoffs based on the gambling.

Not so. Wow. I guess I thought there was a little bit more talk of their potential fraudulence and a little bit of a let go.

If there is, you can earn, you can earn some coin on that. Well, I look, I'm not that confident and I don't bet. I don't bet wind totals.

Why would I want to put my money? Instead of putting my money in a bank, why would I want to put my money in a casino?

But it just makes no sense. That's the I feel as though wind totals are kind of a fun,

like if you've got a long shot, but if you're if you're a gambler's gambler, it's, you know, not not the best, not the best way to go.

Okay. So we've gotten out of the scandalists, the purient. That's how I pronounced that word. I can't really remember.

We got other stuff on the docket right here. That is that the Niners have traded out of the first round completely. That is the

Well, the bragg the Packers traded out of the first round completely by this time last year. So yeah, you know,

I'm not, I'm not sometimes happy, but dealers choice connected topics, your Steve Kerr article, which is reporting,

but also a bit of opinion on how he's just the hottest NBA broadcast name there ever was. Or in a while, though, since Kobe,

or NBA playoff ratings, the discourse about it and how everything is I've written is just up, up, up, up, up,

and we don't quite know how popular anything is.

I want to go Kerr first. And so for people who didn't read my story real quick, he has

contractors expired with the warriors. Like he's going to have an option, whether it's he could he could sign a new deal with the

warriors that that option is available to him. He could become a coach somewhere else. That option would be available to him.

He could probably go lead a front office somewhere, but I'm less sure about that than I am that he would have a coaching opportunity.

Or he could go into media, but it's basically his his decision about this is where I will, is I want to get in the media aspect,

which you wrote about, I can't see him going front office. He hated that. He told me about that. Now a name drop.

Well, so he wouldn't want to do it. He, so he was GM of the Suns, which we'll get to. He had two stints at TNT for four years,

each and he was the top color guy there alongside Marv Albert. And everybody I talked to before I ended up publishing, which is, you know, five or six different people, all right.

Oh my God, he was such a good announcer. Like he was great as a color guy.

But in between, then he was GM of the Suns and Ethan says he hated that job.

Yeah, he told me that one day he just quit.

Selt in a men's wave of relief, gotten his car and played counting crows all the way to San Diego.

That was his story about how he just couldn't take it anymore. And he just didn't feel, I think Sarver wasn't the easiest guy to work with.

And he just felt like I'm a coach. I'm a coach. I'm not a GM. This isn't being a GM was just something that didn't, didn't quite appeal to him.

Now, maybe broadcasting does. Maybe it's time for that. And the pairing that I'm intrigued by, I love the idea of him with Mike Breene.

I feel like they would just get along famously. And that would be really cool combination. It wouldn't be fair to Tim Legler, who might get forced out of the rotation.

But it's almost like a Tom Brady Greg Olson scenario that dynamic. But that's something that I could foresee if he ended up with ESPN ABC.

Yeah, although. So here's the thing. He has not been. I'm going to take a noun and make it into an adjective is not been soap boxy as of late.

Is that correct? Like, you know, for all of like discord that is going on in the country in the world, we haven't seen this season.

I don't believe we haven't seen Steve Kirk get up there on the podium and wag his finger about any of it.

Is that there has been less of it? It happens every now and again. It's a tricky thing because reporters will ask him sometimes.

And so it's not necessarily like he goes in there. And this is my topic list, but if people ask about the No Kings protest, then Steve is going to talk about the No Kings protest.

But it does seem less so. I would agree with you. So that had to be some calculated decision on his part.

However, he made it. We don't know. But if he goes to ESPN, yes, that's the place where it gets the NBA finals. If he goes there, and like, it would require them again, switching the team around for the fourth time since they got rid of them.

I mean, Jackson, because they add doc rivers in there. They add Doris Burke in there. Now they put in. Now they put in my glass.

So be the fourth time in four years, switching that up so that that would be an issue. But it would not be a good fit for ESPN if he is going to be so boxy because ESPN has gone through.

Considerable effort to make their company full of talents who are not so boxy anymore.

The there are several. And I think everybody knows who they are. We're not there anymore. And then so Mark, Mark Jones, most recently, Mark Jones, yeah, um, the so Malika Andrews used to be very, um, you know, poetic way active in, I don't know if it was on social media on the air.

Whatever she has ceased doing that for a while in a similar vein to how Steve Kerr has, um, and by the way, I'm not making a value judgment on what people's politics are or aren't.

I'm just saying that ESPN is wanted to get out of being associated with only employing people. I'm making a slight value judgment.

I did take issue with a lot of it's on their talents. Only criticizing one side. Right. I don't like that. I'm not a big fan of that. I think at that point, you are propaganda. You are propaganda.

If you, if it's all just, if there's all just one thing all the time and you're lecturing me with this fervor, then it's just that's not a, that's an accurate model of the world. And I think that it's reasonable to say, this is low calorie content.

It'd be, and it also I guess be weird if they were doing it all the time and talking about both sides, but I think that was an objection. It's less that you're going to vote Democrat.

That's a reasonable thing that reasonable people do. And it's more that you're on TV all the time. At the moment, the Democrats are at their lowest level of popularity in my lifetime.

And you never, ever end up criticizing that side. That's kind of weird. But I'm getting I'm digressing because I largely agree with you. I think a lot of it too was that people weren't necessarily when they were being political on air on ESPN.

They weren't necessarily political people. That was just the vibe on Twitter. And they were plugged into Twitter. And when Twitter changed. Yes, the institutional incentives for ESPN, I think shifted.

But it's also these people, they would say something, let's say, woke for lack of a better term on this platform where everybody used to give them the applause emojis. And instead, they would get completely assailed. And I think that also contributed to less of the over politics. Now the shift at the Steve Kerr.

And now answers don't usually get a spot to be soapboxy, which is ironic because their job is talking. But the only guy ever see say stuff.

Stan Van Gundy will sometimes slip something in about his politics during a broadcast. I can't really see Steve Kerr doing that.

I didn't mean, but to be clear, I didn't mean that he would like drop, you know, some type of like Trump diatribe during game four of the NBA finals. I met like if he did, you know, some interview with like USA Today or the New York Times.

And they just made it into this is like how bad he thinks things have gotten with or whatever, you know, or whatever.

Or, you know, in a press conference or something like, you know, they have those media calls before and you're someone asks him and he answers the question, how he feels.

So in those ways, if he is going to be politically active.