NFL Draft Notes, Knicks and Nuggets Red Flags, Atlanta’s Moment, and Vrabel’s Mess | With Rob Mahoney and Sean Fennessey

“I guess the giants, because Reese fell to five. A lot of people, including our own dating, Kelly had him as the number one player in the draft. Not even 21 years old yet. Awesome pass rusher, you know, just do it all defender potentially. Who knows with these guys? But, but he fell to five and then they got an offensive line with 10. It did seem like there was a moment when they were going to get downs, the safety who Dallas took at number 11 and they were going to get Reese and downs.”

“Nine offensive lineman in the first round. We talked about this on Tuesday's pod. The over under was seven and a half, and that kept moving up. They really could have made eight and a half, and I think it was ended up being nine anyway. So the Giants, they were fun to talk about. Ty Simpson goes to the Rams at number 13, and it was one of those where if he didn't go 13, he might have fallen all the way to the end of the first round.”

“This feels like a terrible omen just for the season, not to mention all the personal stuff. There's no way this isn't gonna affect the coach. There's no way this isn't gonna affect the team. Also coming off some of the other stuff that happened and the way variable carried himself last year is like such a leader and the Patriots are a family. And is this going to seem genuine now? And it's just one of those sports stories that just sucks in every capacity other than, you know, unless you're on social media, get jokes out of it.”

“His inability over these last two games to get anything going whatsoever against Rudy Gobert is a massive problem. And I think it's fair to hold him to a different standard. Like, we talk about him as one of these stars who doesn't need ideal circumstances to be effective, who doesn't need everything to be just so to win. And yet in this series against an opponent like Minnesota, it kinda feels that way.”

“He's really the piece that elevates, like, the two man, Murray Jokic stuff into, like, a three man action that's really sophisticated and really hard to stop. He's the connector of so much of what they try to run. And so not having him out there you saw it in the first half. Like, just the drop off from going to from Aaron Gordon to Cam Johnson, Spencer Jones, Christian Brown, I think combined for two total points in the first half between the three of them, Minnesota can just sit in every passing lane.”

“CJ has just been sitting there on the shelf waiting for someone to trade for him. And I think a lot of teams overthought it. And he couldn't be this for just anybody. Like, you need the right supporting cast. You need the guards who can compensate for him defensively. You need the movement to work around the fact that he's not, like, the most natural playmaker in the floor on, in the world. But he gives them and this group, like, exactly the kind of squirrelly one on one game that they need.”

“I would say that this was a weird occurrence if it hadn't been happening for, like, a month straight now on and off. Like, he's had so many of these games where, like, you would have to work really hard to have less of an impact on the flow of basketball than Mikhail Bridges in this game. Like, completely transparent. He hasn't always been the defender he's been hyped up to be for the Knicks, but this was a especially glaring case of that. I thought Deuce was, like, easily outplaying him.”

“I would say spending the last several months not preparing the team to, like, function whatsoever on offense. Like, these are the problems right now, but this is the same team that if you turn them on two months ago, it'd be like, why don't they know how to play out of a double team for Kevin Durant? And here it is all coming home to roost when he's the only guy who can actually handle the ball. So if you wanted Reid Sheppard to be a bigger part of your team, maybe you should have invested more in his actual encore development.”