Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast on Jimmy G, disrespect of Antonio Pierce, NFL expanding and so much more
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00:00 Hi everybody, this is Hondo Carpenter from the Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast.
00:06 Great to have you all.
00:08 Remember we are so grateful.
00:10 Now this is Saturday, so we got Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, three days away from me making my
00:15 personal appearance.
00:16 I'm going to have Shannon and Dexter Ernest Wayne Carpenter with me in San Antonio.
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01:15 You're not going to miss anything.
01:16 It's going to be great.
01:18 This guy right here is one of my dear friends.
01:20 Love him.
01:21 Just a great friend.
01:23 The one and only Johnny Guitars.
01:24 Johnny, how are you doing, bud?
01:27 I look good.
01:28 I feel good, but I feel strange.
01:31 All the people out there, they feel strange too.
01:34 We've had 20 some weeks in a row of football and we had that preview the bye week before
01:42 the Super Bowl.
01:43 It doesn't feel great.
01:44 Now we have to adjust.
01:47 It's a strange feeling, but March 31st is coming.
01:53 We'll get there.
01:54 Spring pro football.
01:55 I'm excited for it.
01:56 But for now, strange feelings.
01:58 It's going to be a strange weekend for many folks.
02:00 John, I am shockingly really excited about spring football this year.
02:06 More than I've ever been other than when the XFL came out and the USFL originally.
02:11 I was more excited for those two, but I am genuinely looking forward to it.
02:14 How about you?
02:16 I am looking forward to it.
02:17 I'm glad there's been consolidation.
02:19 I have thought from the beginning it was going to take about four seasons for this to literally
02:23 stick and become what it's going to be.
02:26 This is year two.
02:27 I'm excited for some of the rules changes that we've seen.
02:31 They're going to tweak the kickoffs a bit.
02:33 They have now hold on, hold on to your seats, folks.
02:36 They have actually defined what is a catch in writing to use in these games.
02:43 So I am excited when we get to four years, we're going to see this league populated with
02:48 a lot of faces and names that we know from college and pro football.
02:53 There's a few now.
02:54 There'll be more this year, but by the time we get to four years, it's going to be like,
02:57 oh, I remember that guy.
02:59 I saw that guard play at Arizona, Georgia, Notre Dame, whatever it is.
03:04 And I kind of like watching some of these plays.
03:06 So I see this absolutely sticking.
03:09 I think it's going to take about four years.
03:11 Consolidation makes sense.
03:13 On we go.
03:14 So we got our shorter off season this time before there's pro football again.
03:19 I love how they've aligned themselves with the NFL.
03:22 It's smart.
03:23 I also like that they're going to do things you're not going to see in the NFL.
03:27 They're going to let it go there and percolate and see if they like it.
03:31 And then if it works, move it up to the NFL.
03:33 I like it.
03:34 Now, I need to explain to everybody, John comes on once a week.
03:38 John is a terrific journalist, terrific journalist, and a very respected attorney.
03:46 He lives in Atlanta and John comes on each and every week for this reason.
03:51 I cover the Raiders in a microcosm every single day.
03:57 And when John joins us, we look at the NFL from a macro view, certainly how it impacts
04:04 the Raiders.
04:05 It's never not Raider talk, but how it impacts the Raiders.
04:10 And then sometimes we do get into some micro.
04:13 So we're going to start with a couple of micro things.
04:15 John, yesterday we had two reports.
04:17 The first was a big one about the disrespect for Antonio Pierce.
04:23 DraftKings comes out, has Jim Harbaugh as the lead for coach of the year.
04:27 Fine.
04:28 I don't have a problem with that.
04:30 That roster has underproduced.
04:33 And so you bring him in with 40 million over the cap.
04:36 I think they're going to have to get rid of too many players for this to be true, but
04:39 I understand it.
04:40 An argument can be made.
04:43 But Antonio Pierce wasn't even listed.
04:47 I mean, there wasn't even a million to one odds.
04:51 There was no odds for him to be coach of the year, which to me is complete disrespect,
04:58 completely preposterous.
05:04 I can tell you have, and I'm not a fan, as you know, but covering this team, I have become
05:10 to just get used to this organization being disrespected.
05:15 It makes no sense to me, John.
05:17 I don't think it would to anyone that was being fair, Raider fan or not, with what he
05:22 did.
05:23 No OTAs, no mini camps, no training camps, didn't have his full staff.
05:27 He didn't have a staff that he picked and didn't have a full staff to get to five and
05:31 four with Elmer's glue sticks and scotch tape.
05:35 Phenomenal job.
05:37 To me, this is outlandish and disrespectful.
05:40 Your take.
05:41 I was looking around for some glue and some tape.
05:43 I got tape, but it's too far to reach.
05:46 My perspective is I understand what you're saying, but I'm thinking maybe just pump the
05:51 brakes for a second.
05:52 We're talking about coach of the year for 2024, the year to come.
05:56 First of all, and we're talking about a marketing betting line.
06:00 So if anything, maybe this isn't just a little bit of a dig at Pierce.
06:04 It's a little bit of a dig at the Raiders because they don't think your new coach is
06:09 going to get enough action.
06:11 Our boss, sure, let's slide him right in.
06:14 He's going to get action right away, but Pierce, they're not even going to worry about him.
06:18 So I think it's a long way away.
06:21 I do believe there's a chance.
06:23 I'm not a DraftKings expert, but my guess is that you will be able to bet on all 32
06:29 of the head coaches before the season starts for coach of the year with different odds
06:33 and payouts.
06:34 So I think it's an initial surprising slap to the face that stings just a little bit,
06:40 but I'm not sure it's going to hurt.
06:42 And I do think when I look at these things and these lines and these payouts, they are
06:46 marketing based first.
06:47 They're not scientific or analysis based, but I see a little bit of a dig there.
06:52 But the bigger dig is if we could put this guy on the board, he's not going to actually
06:57 draw us enough action where this shiny, funny looking thing guy walks around, doesn't like
07:03 chicken, loves chicken, can't shake hands, can shake hands all over the place.
07:09 He's a lightning bolt.
07:11 He's going to bring action.
07:13 So I hear you.
07:14 I see it, but it's maybe not exactly what we think.
07:18 No, I'm including in the disrespect that they don't think the Raiders are going to get any
07:26 action.
07:27 All right, let's move on to the next report.
07:29 Jimmy Garoppolo, we all kind of knew the Raiders are going to cut him and move on.
07:33 People saw our report.
07:34 Tell them about it.
07:35 Well, the interesting thing is here is Jimmy Garoppolo is going to have to face a two game
07:40 suspension for violating the league substance abuse policies.
07:44 But it's got a little bit of a twist.
07:46 It looks like Garoppolo used a prescribed medication, but he did not go through the
07:51 procedure to get the exemption for it.
07:54 As a result, it's going to be two games and he's not going to fight it, which actually
07:59 he doesn't deserve credit for, but it seems to be the right thing to do.
08:03 If you made a mistake, if you didn't go through and get the approval beforehand, or if you
08:09 said, I'm just going to accept the consequences, then you should serve the time.
08:14 This paints it as a not the greatest ending, but this is also, and look, if it was prescribed
08:21 and he didn't get it cleared, there's probably a suspension that has to be, because we're
08:24 talking about protecting the shield, the entire group of players, owners, everybody underneath
08:30 it, not just picking on Jim Garoppolo.
08:33 But it's a strange ending to what was a very strange tenure in what appears to be, as you
08:39 mentioned, the inevitable cutting of Garoppolo.
08:41 Who knows if he plays in the NFL again or when, but teams can hold three quarterbacks.
08:49 Somebody else may come back, get hurt next year.
08:52 I mean, for God's sakes, we're going to hear a lot about Joe Flacco for a long time and
08:57 people will remember that guys can come off the street absolutely every season in the
09:01 NFL.
09:02 And I got to tell you, I think there's a place in the NFL for Jimmy Garoppolo.
09:07 Certainly.
09:08 All right.
09:09 Now we're going to flip to a macro view that certainly impacts the Raiders, but it's NFL
09:16 talk.
09:17 We're going to call this expansion Saturday.
09:21 And I want to talk about the expansion of the NFL.
09:23 We're going to talk about expanding the season, the franchises and the rosters.
09:29 So let's start first of all, with the season.
09:32 You have a proposal that I love is move the Super Bowl to President's Day weekend.
09:43 Okay.
09:45 Most schools are closed on Monday of President's Day.
09:49 Most a lot of businesses are not a lot, but some banks, you know, that kind of stuff,
09:54 but allow, move it to President's Day weekend or keep it where it's at and move it to a
10:02 Saturday.
10:03 Now, a couple of things.
10:06 I prefer keeping it where it's at because I think two weeks is horrible unless you expand
10:14 the season and add a second bi-week.
10:18 And I love the idea of playing it on the Sunday before President's Day.
10:23 Johnny Guitars, talk to me, explain what you think.
10:27 Yeah, let's look at it.
10:30 It didn't used to be this way.
10:31 Yes.
10:32 But now the season has grown and expanded to the point where I'm scratching my head the
10:37 other day saying, why is this?
10:40 Why are we not at Super Bowl weekend here?
10:43 The Super Bowl is the largest single event in America of its kind.
10:49 It's not even close.
10:50 200 million people are so tuning in.
10:52 Now you're starting to really stretch into true holiday territory.
10:56 For younger folks out there, this was not the case 30 or 40 years ago.
11:00 The audience wasn't nearly that big.
11:02 Now it is.
11:03 For a couple of decades, many of us have been saying, move the darn Super Bowl to Saturday.
11:09 And I understand a long time ago there was some pushback with hotel rooms and TV and
11:13 all this kind of stuff.
11:14 But now this thing is so big, that stuff went right out the window.
11:18 It's out the window for good.
11:20 So I'm with you in that I would like this more to be on the Saturday than extending
11:25 another week to President's Day weekend.
11:28 So let's give you two options, NFL.
11:30 Either move it to Saturday or now that the schedule is where it is, now that we're at
11:35 17 games, who does not need a second bye week during the football season?
11:42 What team of 53 does not need one?
11:45 There is not any.
11:47 They all could use one.
11:49 If you want to go a wild step and take a universal bye, first of all, your TV partners are going
11:54 to have an issue.
11:55 Maybe there's a way to do that by division or conference of some kind, but that's a huge
12:01 step.
12:02 We'll leave that out there.
12:04 But I'm looking at the calendar.
12:07 I'm looking at people going on vacation.
12:08 I'm looking at people making plans and I'm thinking, wait a minute, why don't we take
12:13 the low hanging fruit, NFL?
12:15 Why don't we do what we can to tee the Super Bowl up on President's Day weekend?
12:22 Put it on the Sunday.
12:23 If it's going to be on a Sunday, that way the enormous glut of people having a rough
12:29 day at work or not working, et cetera, you take that right out of the equation.
12:34 Now in the old days, my mom would tell me, you're crazy.
12:38 It's not that big a deal.
12:39 And she probably was right.
12:41 But now it is that big a deal.
12:43 The business world has spoken.
12:45 They know what it is.
12:47 Let's take the low hanging fruit.
12:48 Let's move this thing to President's Day weekend.
12:51 Monday is a male holiday.
12:53 It's a bank holiday.
12:54 It's a somewhat soft holiday.
12:58 It's a bigger holiday when kids are out of school.
13:00 Let's do that.
13:01 Or let's put the thing on Saturday.
13:05 If we do move it to President's Day weekend, I do believe more often than not, you'd either
13:09 have to maybe move the start of the schedule or add a second bi-week.
13:14 And I easily agree with millions of folks that would say, I got no problem with that.
13:22 So let me tell you a couple of things.
13:25 I am a big proponent.
13:27 We've talked about it before.
13:29 I think you trim it down to two preseason games, add another regular season, get to
13:35 18.
13:37 And then I think you add two bi-weeks and then move the Super Bowl to President's Day
13:41 weekend.
13:42 I'm fine with that.
13:43 But don't change the playoffs.
13:45 Leave the playoffs the way they are.
13:47 When too many teams get in, I mean, listen, I remember when in baseball, the playoffs,
13:55 now there's all these wild cards.
13:58 And listen, I used to be a huge baseball fan.
14:00 They've lost me.
14:02 I don't even know.
14:03 Well, I do know because I had to do it for work.
14:06 But I don't even know the last time I watched a baseball game when I didn't get paid.
14:11 I just don't care.
14:13 I literally just don't care.
14:16 I love hockey.
14:17 I love the NHL.
14:18 Hockey's great.
14:20 Just so many teams in the playoffs.
14:25 To me, expand it to 18 games, two bi-weeks, you move the Super Bowl to the Sunday of President's
14:35 Day.
14:36 Now, to do that, we've talked about this before, but it brings us to our next point.
14:43 You have to expand the rosters.
14:46 I would like to see them make the roster 63 players.
14:54 Add 10.
14:55 I'm just saying, add 10 and then add an additional 10 for a practice squad.
15:02 I'm good with that.
15:04 So 63 players and add 10 on the prospectus squad.
15:10 Because if you keep adding games, I mean, this year, it's ridiculous.
15:15 There were teams adding new players for the Super Bowl.
15:19 Just ridiculous.
15:22 It diminishes the product.
15:26 I think it was the Dolphins.
15:28 Their last big game at the playoffs, I mean, they had, I don't even remember how many new
15:34 players they had because of injuries.
15:36 You've got to expand the roster or it's not going to work, John.
15:41 So again, 18 games, two preseasons, two buys, move the Super Bowl to President's.
15:48 I'm golden.
15:49 I don't want any more games unless you take preseason away.
15:51 It's just too much.
15:52 Talking to the players, it's too much.
15:54 But to do that, expand the roster to 63 or even 60.
16:00 63 may be a little too many.
16:02 I know you want to go higher, but I'm trying to think of the owners.
16:07 Above 63 is never going to happen.
16:10 Between 60 and 63 is going to be rare.
16:12 I think you could get enough owners to go to 60.
16:16 And then expand to 18 games, move the Super Bowl to President's day weekend.
16:21 Your thoughts, John?
16:22 Well, we got to tie in a couple of things.
16:24 I want to explore a couple of things.
16:28 I want to talk about the roster first, and then we're going to go back in the schedule
16:31 and look at a couple of important pieces of math, which I have tried to double check,
16:36 which is always a good idea.
16:38 The roster expansion is important for so many things.
16:41 To me, the very top is kind of that Dolphins example that you gave.
16:46 What are we doing to identify the best team?
16:49 The best team for the season of 2023.
16:53 We heard ourselves as an NFL product when we have the Dolphins hiring three guys off
16:58 the street, and one of them, I think, had to start in your playoffs.
17:02 That is not good at all.
17:04 The best way to identify the best team is to have a consistency of product and not have
17:09 them hiring people off the street in the middle of December.
17:13 When we talk about expanding the rosters, I want player safety to be in there.
17:19 That's why I believe you go three deep at each of the main positions, which would get
17:24 us to 66 for the roster size that I would like.
17:28 I would say, "You want to stop there?
17:31 Okay.
17:32 Give me 68 or go to 70 with a round number because you have to have some people kicking
17:36 the ball and maybe a specialist.
17:38 Maybe 70 is the roster size I would like, especially if we're going to expand the schedule
17:43 a little bit."
17:44 We talk about safety.
17:46 We talk about, obviously, the consistency of product.
17:50 How about development?
17:52 You want to avoid tanking?
17:54 Get some guys out there that all of a sudden, "Hey, we can go to the third guy on our depth
18:00 chart to play here.
18:01 We can protect the health of the first guy.
18:02 We don't have to worry about tanking."
18:04 How many teams do we see, not mailing it in, but not every single guy of the 11 on the
18:10 field is all in and giving the best effort that he can?
18:13 As we know, as we've heard from all the guys that play the sport, most of the time, most
18:18 of the plays, if one or two guys is off, you're going to get the thing blown up.
18:23 If it's 11 on 11, you may need to win six to have a productive play for your team.
18:28 If you've got one out to lunch or one less than full power, you may get smoked.
18:34 That's where roster size makes all the sense in the world.
18:37 Now, I got to have a humongous pat on the back for the NFL.
18:42 I think the playoff setup they have now is the best in the history of pro sports.
18:46 It is perfect.
18:48 You got one team that gets the big buy, which is great in the home field, and the way the
18:52 wild card weekend sets up is literally perfect as far as who's playing who.
18:58 Then you've got that divisional round, which to me is the single best weekend of football
19:02 in America all year.
19:04 I don't care.
19:05 Rose Bowl, Labor Day football, I don't care.
19:07 What is that one to me and to you crazy nuts out there that love this sport?
19:11 That is the best.
19:12 It's better than the championship games.
19:13 It's better than the Super Bowl.
19:14 That is the best because you know in those games, you are seeing the two eventual teams
19:20 that will be in the Super Bowl and of course the champion, but then you get a little extra.
19:24 That to me is the best.
19:25 I want to massive compliment with the playoffs.
19:28 We don't want to screw with that at all.
19:32 Where are we at with the schedule in the situations with the divisions?
19:37 We've got eight divisions of four teams.
19:41 Just to circle the wagons on the schedule, you've got two games against every other team
19:47 in your division.
19:48 There's your six.
19:49 You've got six right off the bat.
19:51 Then it gets a little bit, you have an opportunity, it can get a little bit fuzzy.
19:57 That takes care of our divisions.
19:59 We've got six games here.
20:03 If you mathematically look at it from there, you've got seven other divisions in the NFL.
20:08 If you played two of those teams each year, all of a sudden you're up to 20 games.
20:13 That's too many, not even a question.
20:18 If you look at how do we break this down, it ends up uneven at 17 and there's no really
20:26 simple way to get to a 17 game schedule with the divisions the way they are.
20:33 Well, you got to go 18.
20:34 That's why I said 18.
20:36 If you go 18, you can start doing math because you say, okay, I got my six games in division.
20:43 There's three other divisions in our conference.
20:46 What if we play two of those teams a year?
20:48 There's another six games and you can pretty easily get to 18.
20:56 The point I'm trying to make is when you look at the numbers and the size of the division,
21:03 the more games you add to the schedule, you're running the risk of putting less emphasis
21:09 on the division games.
21:11 I realize scheduling is impossible and thankfully they've got the artificial intelligence computers
21:16 working on it except for those final two weeks.
21:19 Remember when you had, or three weeks, when you had the Giants and Eagles playing two
21:23 of the last three weeks and the Lions and Vikings playing two of the last three weeks?
21:26 We didn't forget about that.
21:29 But when we look at expanding, whether we're expanding the calendar or the regular season
21:33 games, we must consider what are we doing to not dilute the divisions even more?
21:40 Because if we're going to dilute them completely, maybe we just lose the divisions and have
21:44 two conferences and just take a list from there.
21:48 This is a further idea down the road.
21:50 My point is if we're going to keep divisions, what's the right thing?
21:55 Well, we don't want teams, you don't want to play your division teams three times a
21:58 year because that's going to be uneven or four times a year because that's insane.
22:03 There's a lot that goes into it and we're tying this whole picture together.
22:07 Do we expand the playoffs?
22:08 No, they're perfect.
22:09 Do we expand the season?
22:10 Well, we need to expand the calendar.
22:13 If we expand the season a bit by trimming the preseason, like Hondo saying, we must
22:17 expand the rosters.
22:19 And then let's still get a second for the bigger picture.
22:22 Well, should the NFL consider expanding franchises?
22:25 In short, absolutely not.
22:28 Number one, not very easy.
22:31 There's 32 franchises.
22:32 We have to go to 36, right?
22:35 To get a nice even number.
22:37 What four cities could produce an NFL and support an NFL franchise right now?
22:44 I don't think there's four.
22:46 Can you think of four where it's like, well, no, that doesn't look very easy.
22:51 So I think we put that out of the picture for essentially for good.
22:58 There may be a question of whether you go to four 18 divisions and that might be-
23:03 I'm going to tell you, John, I'm going to stop you right there why I vehemently disagree
23:08 with you.
23:11 I hate expanding the teams.
23:14 Yep, me too.
23:17 I hate it.
23:18 And I want to tell you why.
23:21 Years ago in Hartshorne, Oklahoma, I had a buddy that lived there and I went down on
23:24 a fishing trip.
23:26 Across the street from him lived Warren Spahn, the great major league baseball pitcher.
23:34 Remember Warren Spahn?
23:35 Yeah.
23:36 So one day I'm fishing, I leave him alone.
23:40 He's outside, I'm outside.
23:41 He just kind of chats with me for a minute.
23:45 So I start chatting with him and he was so warm to me.
23:51 Oh my goodness, what a great guy.
23:54 And we just started chatting and I was talking baseball and he wanted to talk sports.
24:02 So I didn't, I mean, he came to me, I didn't go for it, nothing.
24:07 And I asked him and he starts talking about how back in his day, you had to learn how
24:11 to pitch.
24:12 He goes, I hate these pitch counts.
24:15 And I told him, I gave up on baseball years ago when I went to a minor league game and
24:22 the guy's pitching a no hitter and they took him out because he was at his pitch count.
24:26 Well, then it's not real baseball.
24:30 And he told me how he thought the game was worse for it.
24:33 He thought there were more injuries because we coddled guys.
24:37 And he talked, this was another thing he said.
24:41 He said, we're, he goes, we leave guys out of the hall of fame that played in the Negro
24:46 leagues because they weren't allowed to compete with us who were phenomenal.
24:51 And he goes, I think the Negro league record should be considered exactly like the regular
24:55 when they were divided.
24:57 He goes, cause the level of competition was that good.
24:59 He was very vehement about it.
25:02 And he goes, but as they keep expanding baseball, he goes, now there are guys who are one in
25:10 two pitchers who wouldn't have even pitched back in the day.
25:15 And he really sold me.
25:17 Cause I used to be a big expansion guy.
25:20 He really sold me on every time you expand, you're weakening the pool.
25:26 You're making the game worse till today.
25:29 I hate baseball.
25:31 I loved baseball when I was a kid, I grew up watching the tigers and Lou Whitaker, Alan
25:36 Trammell and Steve Kemp and you know, Jack Morris and Doyle Alexander and Bert be home
25:43 by 11.
25:44 I loved all that.
25:46 But to me, this game is perfect.
25:51 Do not, you can expand the season, but you expand the rosters.
25:54 But to me, there has to be one absolute.
25:58 We will not expand franchises.
26:02 Now I give you a couple of caveats because to do it, you're going to probably have to
26:06 add six.
26:08 Okay.
26:09 I don't like that with eight divisions.
26:12 So if you add eight, I don't like that either.
26:15 Again, it's expanding too much.
26:17 I know down the road, they they're telling everybody they would like to have, like now
26:25 they have the NFC and the AFC have a conference.
26:28 That's all foreign teams.
26:31 Never going to happen.
26:33 At the Superbowl this year, I had a dinner one night with three players and you're going
26:38 to love this.
26:39 So we're sitting at dinner one night and it was them.
26:42 A couple of them had their significant others.
26:44 One didn't.
26:45 And Shannon was there and Dexter and I were just sitting there having dinner.
26:49 And we're talking about the issue of a foreign league.
26:58 Because one of them asked me, do you think this will ever happen?
27:00 And I'm like, I actually, I said, do you think this is ever?
27:04 One of them goes, where?
27:07 He goes, I don't want to play in England.
27:09 I didn't, I took a, I didn't go to California.
27:12 I didn't want to pay California taxes.
27:14 You think I want to pay European taxes?
27:16 He goes, I don't want to go play Toronto.
27:19 I don't want to play Canadian taxes.
27:21 Now if anyone's wondering, oh, Hondo's making a political statement.
27:25 This guy isn't even a Republican or a Democrat.
27:28 He's apolitical.
27:29 He just doesn't like paying taxes.
27:32 And he's like, I don't want to play there.
27:35 I don't want to be away from my family that long.
27:37 He goes, it's a long season.
27:39 I don't want to do it.
27:41 I have no desire to make the plane trips to America.
27:46 I mean, I'm telling you, John, I know there are some players who aren't in the league
27:52 that if the expansion of the league meant you have to go play in a foreign country,
27:56 let's go.
27:57 But for the most part, the guys that are in there now deserve it.
28:00 They don't want it.
28:03 And I'm vehemently against it.
28:06 Do you see the argument?
28:07 You agree or disagree?
28:08 A hundred percent.
28:09 Yeah, and that's why I wanted to visit this just since we're looking at what could be
28:13 or what should be expanded.
28:15 There is no argument for expansion of NFL franchises.
28:20 If anything, by far there's a better argument for contracting them.
28:24 So we do not expect to see that and it should not happen.
28:29 Now the idea of expanding internationally, I don't know that we're ever going to shake
28:33 that idea.
28:35 It's a lot more likely in the NHL, which is something I heard about in the 90s.
28:40 It's a lot more likely to happen in a more global game like that.
28:44 It's nearly impossible to see it happening in the NFL and to go back even into the 90s
28:51 again.
28:52 You know, that's probably the first time that people said, well, why is there not an NFL
28:58 franchise in Toronto?
28:59 It's depending on how you count, you know, the fourth biggest metro area or fourth biggest
29:04 city in North America.
29:06 And at that time, the explanation was T-A-X-E-S, taxes, taxes, taxes.
29:13 And it's still got to be the same.
29:16 It's a great thing that the NFL didn't go to Toronto and then either have to backtrack
29:21 or try to figure out how to keep the thing floating as we've seen other sports do.
29:26 There is no place for international expansion.
29:29 Give me, give you, give everybody that Super Bowl in the new Aloha Stadium, which I'm telling
29:35 you is coming in the 2030s before you give me a league or division out of country, out
29:42 of continent.
29:44 I do think the NFL has done well here to kind of make a home base for the NFL Europe game.
29:50 I do think that since we're giving and taking with them here today, we're going to give
29:56 them a couple more international games.
29:58 They're going to give us another week on the calendar to get the Super Bowl on the president's
30:02 day.
30:03 I think we can all make this work here, but we are clearly in total agreement.
30:08 And we just maybe as a public service for everybody, just shut the door on any possible
30:13 NFL expansion idea.
30:15 It's not going to happen.
30:17 No way, Jose, no how.
30:20 Brown cow, it's not on the table and it shouldn't be.
30:24 They got these other things to tackle first roster expansion, calendar slash game schedule
30:30 expansion.
30:31 We can figure out whether two or three preseason games are necessary.
30:35 And there's certainly an argument if the roster is expanded, somebody may say, Hey, we need
30:39 to keep that many games.
30:41 There's arguments to be had.
30:43 But the neat thing is as great as the NFL is right now, as nearly perfect as the playoff
30:50 setup is as successful as the Super Bowl experience was in Las Vegas, a city 20 years ago, 40
30:58 years ago would have not even been possibly thought to host in our lifetimes.
31:05 There is still a Siri.
31:08 There is still possibility to improve the sport and the people in charge of it should
31:15 be paying attention.
31:16 They should be doing it.
31:17 I hope they are listening.
31:19 Last quick thing for me, John, is I have family members who lost a home game to an NFL team
31:26 that they have tickets to this year because they went overseas and they were living.
31:31 They're like, listen, we're seasoned ticket holders.
31:34 This is not a, yeah.
31:36 So a lot of questions here.
31:37 All right, John, last thing for me, it's completely Las Vegas related.
31:43 I thought I was, you know, I've been to multiple Super Bowls.
31:48 This was the smoothest.
31:49 I mean, Vegas is built for these big events.
31:53 It wasn't bigger than the city.
31:56 Traffic was not outrageous.
31:59 Everything was laid out perfect.
32:01 There was no, the internet sucked.
32:07 Completely sucked.
32:09 But that was at the game, but that's on the NFL.
32:13 That's not on Allegiant stadium.
32:14 That's on the NFL.
32:16 But other than that, and that doesn't even affect fans, fans don't care.
32:22 But other than that, the entire week was awesome.
32:25 I thought Las Vegas represented themselves incredibly well.
32:30 We know it's coming back.
32:31 That's not, that's pretty much a foregone conclusion, but I'm telling you of all the
32:36 Super Bowls I've been to, it wasn't even close.
32:41 I mean, it does not even compare to quality of Super Bowl.
32:48 It blew everybody else out of the water.
32:51 Terrific event, well-hosted, was perfect for everybody.
32:55 I heard no complaints other than the internet on game day.
32:59 Your thoughts.
33:00 Yeah.
33:01 I mean, amazingly enough, you know, it's kind of set up to host it.
33:05 You've got this strip of hospitality with enough towels, water, organization, practice,
33:14 used to hosting it, logistics, moving people, airports, cars.
33:18 You can get there by foot.
33:19 The whole thing really lays out on paper to be fantastic.
33:23 And then boom, it's delivered.
33:25 Look, this was not anywhere near an overwhelming situation like we saw in Detroit, like we
33:31 saw in Jacksonville.
33:32 It was not over, not even close to a massively stretched out situation like you see in other
33:38 cities.
33:39 My city, Atlanta, can host a Super Bowl pretty well because it's got an area around the stadium
33:44 where things can get done and people can get around easy.
33:48 Those things exist.
33:49 We all know about how great Indianapolis is, for example, hosting basketball tournaments,
33:54 but the Super Bowl is huge.
33:57 There were so many more people there, of course, than were at the game.
34:01 We saw the success now that the NFL draft has become.
34:04 For sure, the draft is going to be coming back to Las Vegas probably sooner than later
34:08 as well as it should.
34:10 The Super Bowl is not only a no-brainer, it went off so smoothly.
34:14 I think that if the NFL decides to create kind of like pillars, maybe a half a dozen
34:20 pillars where it's kind of like the home base for the Super Bowl, you'd have to absolutely
34:25 think that Las Vegas would be the second one out west.
34:28 Obviously, they've got Los Angeles for millions of reasons, including the NFL west headquarters.
34:34 The setup of Las Vegas is just built for this.
34:37 Like you said, it's not that it wasn't a blip on the radar, but there are conventions and
34:42 other stuff that come to Las Vegas that bring even more people.
34:45 They have even more things of logistics and pulling in multiple locations and venues.
34:51 The whole thing went off very smoothly.
34:54 This is a great way to end it because like it or not, this is a humongous crossroads
35:00 for the NFL.
35:02 The NFL is accepting, embracing, dealing with, and regulating sports gambling without any
35:10 question.
35:11 I do think we might need to give the NFL a little credit for keeping that back long enough
35:17 until the technology, the support, the infrastructure was maybe at a point where they said, "Okay,
35:24 well, we now think this stuff is so secure, it won't even be on the radar as far as infiltrating
35:29 our game.
35:30 And if people make mistakes, which they will, we will get after them right away."
35:35 We talked about that preseason.
35:36 We talked about that during the season.
35:38 I bet you we will talk about it before the next season.
35:41 So this was a huge success, but I actually think, "Whoa, this is a massive milestone
35:48 in the relationship between sports gambling and professional sports.
35:52 This is the biggest one.
35:53 This is the biggest event.
35:54 It went off smooth as could be."
35:57 So we are in a new era, like it or not, we are in a new era and it looked like a huge
36:02 success.
36:03 - Massive.
36:04 All right, everybody, I'm Hondo Carpenter.
36:06 You're listening to the Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast, part of the Fans First Sports
36:10 Network.
36:11 Remember, if you don't know this, I do an additional podcast, about five minutes, riding
36:16 with Dexter and Hondo.
36:17 It's just a little bit of information that maybe you don't get on this podcast every
36:21 day.
36:22 When you go to the Apple or Spotify, it's a second.
36:27 This one's also available if you don't want to look at us, which I know you want to look
36:31 at John, but not me.
36:32 You can get our regular podcast there, audio only.
36:35 You can get our five-minute, smaller podcast every single day.
36:40 But you can find me at si.com/nfl/raiders, @HondoSR on IG, or @HondoCarpenter on X,
36:49 formerly known as Twitter, and si.com/nfl/raiders.
36:54 Don't forget, coming up Tuesday, I'll be in San Antonio.
36:58 Hope to see you all there.
36:59 John, thanks for joining us.
37:01 Everybody, you continue to have a great weekend.