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Mac & Bone Show - Jim Szoke Interview · Mac & Bone Podcast

• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Sports Radio 92.7 WFNZ. Mack and Bone with you. I
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: want everybody to know that the view from the booth
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: does not take a bye week off, ladies and gentlemen.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: That's right. Much to the chagrin of some. You seem
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: very upset about that. No.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Gosh, no. We've got to get our reps in. Jim
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Zoki is here, baby. Don't beat ourselves.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Where was that memo for half the, or probably over
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: half the NFC East gesture?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Zoki's got a no days off mentality.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Related fully to Matt Rule, don't beat anybody in the
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: top 25.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Zoke comes in firing, baby.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: We got that extra rest. We're extra rested for it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: We've got extra little snarkiness.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're here for it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're here for it.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: We are here. And he's got his Guardians hat on.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: He's feeling it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: It's not often I get to wear the Guardians hat
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: this late into the season. We usually check into the
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: wildcard round and then exit. We skip the wildcard round.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: And somehow, for those of you looking for a team
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: to root for, because we're down to the Final Four,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: welcome aboard to the bandwagon. I'll tell you two things. One,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: we may not score another run. And secondly, we've not
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: won a World Series since 1948. So add your own
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: caution if you want to join the Guardians team. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: the bandwagon.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I'm in, Zog. I'm on your side. I need you.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: You got Brewers, Dodgers, Rays.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: I need you desperately, Zog, after what the Rays did
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: to my soul. Okay, so we have one more.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Guards up. Is that what they say? Guards up?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: I don't even know. Is it guards ball, which means
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: we can't hit? We hope to pitch, but we can't hit. Oh, man.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I just called it Cleveland, so I'm still getting used
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: to the name.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You called it Cleveland. Cleveland. You called the ECU win
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: over rice.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I did not use a cooked rice. Thank you for that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: You did not use it?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I did post a picture, and this was factual, in
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: both the suite area and in the media area. They
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: had a giant bowl of rice in each place filled
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: with peas in it. And I hate peas. So it's
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: just like. It was like, perfect. We're playing rice, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: they're serving rice with peas in it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Peas are horrible. I'm going to deal with that. Bushy
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: green peas. That goes back to my youth, man.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: The peas got fed to the dog a lot when
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I was growing up.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Underneath the dinner table. I did.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I would hide them in the mashed potatoes and just
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: in the napkins.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Napkin. That was another move I did.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Spread them around the plate.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Your thoughts on peas brought to you by QC Mechanical,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: your original HVAC experts.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Does anybody, yes, ask the audience, does anybody actually like peas?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've met anybody that actually says, yay,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: peas are on the plate.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: For me, about two to three times a night.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Well played.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about the ECU game. They
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: get down early second half. Rice, I really feel like
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that was their vaulted running game, really only ran it
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: on that one drive, right, for the touchdown.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: It was four plays, 75 yards on the ground. What
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: in the? Pirates had done so well up until that point.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And after that, I feel like they did.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: They did.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Y'all just said, OK, you want to play that way?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It was three quick touchdowns, offense and defense both involved,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and they put that one away.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: What do you think of this team as the season
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: goes on?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: The defense is the star. They had two takeaways in
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: this game. Previous two games, they had touchdowns on takeaways
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: from safety Aiden Duncanson. So the defense is keeping the
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: scores down, first of all. So they've won three in
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: a row, in large part with that. And then secondly—
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: The passing game is still a work in progress with
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: the quarterbacks kind of getting ready. Emery Williams is looking
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: a little bit better every week. They had Mitch Griffiths
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: to begin the season. But T.J. Engelman has become the
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: star running back, and he's put up big numbers the
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: last couple of weeks. So I think the smart thing, obviously,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: with a short week is to lean on that run game,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: play at Alabama-Birmingham on Thursday night. We had back-to-back Thursday games.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: They had Memphis after that, which I think everyone believes
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: to be the best team in the American Conference. But
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: they've got all the components kind of. Every week, incrementally
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: getting better and better. And like a lot of group
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: of five teams, I mean, you've got to kind of
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: put your offensive line together every year. Basically, we have
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: five new starters this year. We had one carryover who
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: was kind of like the sixth man last year. So
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: it's just, it takes time to put all that stuff
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: together as far as gelling. This will be the halfway
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: point of the regular season. And I still feel like
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: we're still trying to figure out where they are because
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: with today's college football, especially that group of six level,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: it takes a while to get chemistry and get things
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: where you get kind of a feel of what your
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: team is going to be about.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Zouk, on the pro football side yesterday, we had some
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: completely insane endings, and one includes the way that the
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: Eagles lost in London to Jacksonville. Eagles were already a
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: volatile mess going into that game, and then they lose
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: in that fashion. Nick Sirianni now is under more fire
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: than he was before.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: They're banged up. But when you look at the Eagles
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and what we want out of this, did we want
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: them coming in on a high and feeling better, or
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: did we want them like a wounded animal like they are?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I guess each... Everybody's got a different opinion on that,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were one second from being 3-2 instead of 2-3,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: which feels completely different.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Went over a real good Jacksonville. They were so close
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: That's a long flight back from London, too. Like, ah,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: one second.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's miserable.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I tell you what, they're injured, obviously, but I agree
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: with you, Bo. I think, you know, this is like
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: back to the wall. Like, you're just going to get
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: every bit of everything out of Philadelphia going on the road,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and there's always tough. So, I mean, they're going to
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: be an edgy team, and they're going to, you know,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: we'll see as the week goes on if they can
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: get Saquon Barkley back. Will Shipley left that game, Weddington star,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: with a foot injury. Devontae Smith, Hollywood Brown. And then
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: they depart with two different offensive linemen last week, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the guy they had as their center, Drew Kendall, wasn't
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: even available to play this week. So we'll see if
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: they get him back this week, too. So especially on
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: the offensive side, they had a lot of injuries. We
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: feel sorry for nobody when we start talking about injuries
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: because we've been dealing with it probably as much as
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: anybody since the beginning of training camp as far as
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: fighting through injuries, which I think to me is like
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: really the story of the Panthers this year is just
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: the fact that they've played so well, hope to get
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: even better, but they're doing it so shorthanded and just
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: kind of putting it together right now.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I finally saw the chart bone that I knew had
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to be fact on Friday. I forget who put it out,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: but Panthers were at the top of the most like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: games lost because of injury. And I'm like, I know
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that has to be the case, but now I finally
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: saw it in writing. We're even ahead of, of the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: power station Niners. We're even ahead of them on injuries. Now, granted,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: their injury-to-win ratio is pretty damn good in San Francisco.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Thank God we don't have a power station. I have
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: a train track. Does that do anything to him?
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: There's a theory. There is some sort of power station.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: There is?
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: No, that's real.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: It's real as far as people talk about it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But here in Charlotte, people talk about it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Are you saying we do?
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Some Duke Energy power station. Or is that just BS?
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: I think it's the light rail. The light rail is
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: causing all these problems.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Is that what it is? Yeah, it's the... The sparks
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: of the track.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Are they getting hit by the light rail? Oh, the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: sparks of the track. It could be.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Our radio signal. We're not that far away from the stadium.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're always blaming us for it. It's our radio signal.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: It could be an FM radio signal that's doing this.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I'll say this. I'm sure we'll talk about this all week.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Canalis 0-2 after the bye week. Remember when Ron had
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the— that was a more extended period.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I was talking about Ron. They do have to look inward.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Ron did that. What are we doing off the bye weeks?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Is there anything we can cling to? But they need
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to get a post-bye win. I will say this. I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: love the NFC South.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I want to hug it and I want to kiss it.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Because yesterday we saw it again.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Very romantic.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't get too dirty there, Bo. We saw it
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: again yesterday. The New Orleans Saints offense completely shut down.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Tyler Shuck doesn't even have 100 yards passing against that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: great Minnesota defense. And then we saw it last night
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: against Atlanta. They blow a lead. They lose in overtime.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Their run defense, which was number one statistically, gets run
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: all over. Maybe it's not as good as it looked.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Just like last year when they were at the top
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: of the defensive charts early in the season.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And by the end of the year they were not.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And Michael Penix got hurt again, and Tua still stinks
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: because he threw a horrible interception and the game. How
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: are you feeling about the teams around us in the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: NFC South?
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: It's just like my Guardians. It's the American League Central.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: It gives you your best chance. to win is the
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: NFC South. So whether it's the, the Panthers winning or
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: the rest of the division losing and about the time
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: we were ready to bury the Buccaneers, they get a win, uh,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: back on Thursday. So it's like, you can't count anybody
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: out right now. I would still say as far as
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: beyond the Panthers, the team that has the most potential
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: is still Atlanta, uh, because they have been better with,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: with panics out there. If they can resolve some of
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: the other issues they have end of game defense, obviously
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: was huge for them in the loss on Sunday night. But, uh, Yeah,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Tampa Bay doesn't seem, even with Baker, I just don't
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: feel like they, without Mike Evans, they just don't feel
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: like the same team anymore. So I don't think they're
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: probably the most volatile one. And we'll see. I'm not
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: going to count New Orleans out yet because they do
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: have a lot of, they've got a lot of good
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: talent there. But I think the Panthers, if they can
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: get healthier and get through the next, whatever it is now,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: six weeks of getting the corners back out there, I
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: like the way it sets up as far as our
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: long-term projection for the season. It's such a dang long season.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: We're only four games in to 17. So even though
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: we're missing some guys, there is some positive news. You
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: get A-Chan back, it looks like. Sounds like some positive
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: momentum with Morton coming back. So we'll see, I guess,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: probably maybe by as soon as today when I get
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: some kind of news out of the coach from that.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: We have Panther talk today. Wednesday, of course, is the
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: bigger day as far as injury news goes. I'd love
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: to get these guys back.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Does Coach hit you with a, we'll tell everybody on
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Wednesday on Panther Talk?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: You should put Panther Talk on Wednesdays then. A little
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: more forthcoming.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: I think they kind of stick to the script as
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: far as like, you know, talking about as far as
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: on the program, on the program, about what we can
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: relate with that. But, you know, there's obviously, we've got
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: to be gaining on it as far as the amount
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: of time some of these guys have been out that's ready. Obviously,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: A-chan for sure. But with some of the other guys
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: we'll see about.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: Do you think once a year they should have a
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Sunday that is NFC South, NFC East Challenge Week?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Where they all play each other and we just watch it?
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Absolute chaos happening. But they play at like 10 o'clock
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: in the morning or something.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: On a weekday, I mean.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It ends in three ties. Two teams score 12.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: It's like Maction, like on a Tuesday.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: No, I'll go to Bone, one of Bone's lines. They're
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: going to put that on gas station TV. You've got
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to go to gas pumps. to watch it there. I'm
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: telling you, man, I'm working on a case that our
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: division might not be the worst thanks.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: To the NFC East.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: The NFC East is making a case for it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Take it a while. Police and Giants and Commanders didn't
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: play a weird game at all.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Zoke, multiple texters pointing out that there is a substation
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: near the practice field, Zoke.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: All these 30-plus years.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: That's why you get away-headed every day. Yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: I tore my Achilles walking in here.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: That must be it. All right, Joke, you're the man.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. Good luck this week.