The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Shedeur Sanders or Jaxson Dart as QB2? Plus, Senior Bowl Takeaways With Todd McShay and a Memphis-Portland-All Star Tales from the Couch.
Fri, 31 Jan 2025
Russillo starts the show with Tales from the Couch by recapping wins from Memphis and Portland and sharing his thoughts on the All-Star selections (0:47). Then, he’s joined by Todd McShay to learn more about the QB class and how they looked at the Senior Bowl, discuss team plans heading into the draft, and rank which positional groups are strongest (23:34). Finally, Life Advice with Kyle and Wargon (60:15)! Did I react wrong to my girlfriend sending me a nude photo? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Todd McShay Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the key takeaways from the Memphis and Portland games?
On today's episode, little tales from the couch, Memphis, big win. We'll talk a little bit about my trailblazers and all-star snubs. One of my least favorite pieces of content out there. Senior Bowl, draft stuff. We've got football. McShay is back home, full of information. How the quarterback class is shaking out a bit. Did you just go Abdul Carter? A lot of good stuff from McShay.
And we've got life advice from Kylan Wargon today. A little Tales from the Couch for you, but I'm not going to run around to everything that we saw the last couple nights. And don't worry, for those of you that love this podcast, we will hit it hard post-Super Bowl. So the main game that I was really into last night, although I did have a bit of a detour, was Memphis' comeback win against Houston.
It was a fun game. And if you want to start doing the seeding stuff, which is way too early, but we can do it a little bit, looking at the number two seed, now Memphis a half game behind Houston after finally getting a win against the Rockets. You can get into, as I said, it's too early to do this, some of the two seed versus three seed stuff, being like, hey, is it better to be
the three seed, then it would be the two seed. You're playing, again, this is, I've already said too early three times. Would you rather play, let's just, if you played it out, would you rather play one of the LA teams in a 3-6 matchup if that's where they were to land as opposed to Minnesota figuring some things out, a healthy Dallas, a healthy Phoenix? Like, I can see how I'd rather play
The Lakers, then Minnesota and Dallas. Phoenix is just really tough for me. Even when they were winning, I didn't necessarily like what I was seeing. But then you have this Clippers team that's 27-20. What this group has done, what the front office has done, what Ty Lue has done and the coaching staff, They deserve more credit than they're getting.
And I know I already touched on it a bit on the last episode when I talked about them moving on from Paul George and not wanting to give him that fourth year, which I think about every time I watch Paul George. But Kawhi's back, nine games in, a career – well, not a career high – A career-high 29 minutes would be not that great of a number.
But it is a season-high 29 minutes the other night when he had 27 at San Antonio in that win. He played in his first fourth quarter in the Phoenix game where they took him out and had they kept him in, maybe they get that game too.
So it's not like they've been just pushing as hard as they possibly can here in the standings, but they've found a way, whether it's the high, hard usage again, but Norm Powell, We can get to some of the all-star stuff here at the end a little bit, but then also having just multiple wings that they like.
If you look at the defensive numbers, did you know that the number two defense behind OKC, they like Clippers. OKC's an insane 3.4 points better than the number two Clippers. The gap there is ridiculous. The last 10 games defensively, the Clippers...
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Chapter 2: How did the Senior Bowl impact quarterback rankings?
Adams had nine shot attempts last night. That's a season high. The dude averages... I think two shots a game on the season. So just something to think about and definitely something to think about if they were to face each other in the playoffs. Bain was great. Numbers are down because his shots are down. I think he's down like four or five shots per game. His career, 41 percent from three.
So, you know, that's always there. But what I love from him last night is that when he knew they needed him, which Aaron Jackson is foul trouble. Because that would be the number one option with no jaw last night, of course, offensively. Bain just is smart. He's just smart about this stuff. I think Aldama got a little shot happy.
I mean, he takes some really tough shots, even though he is a really skilled offensive player. And Aldama ends up playing center last night defensively in some of those small lineups for Memphis. But Bain, just with momentum, coming off some kind of handoff. They don't run a ton of ball screens. the takeoff on Bain's layups.
I think he's in the dunk contest or the less impressive layup contest, which they have not installed into All-Star Week. Jaron Jackson, my guy, my All-Star starter, 31 minutes last night, got in a foul trouble, not a shock, is tied with Sabonis with 154 total fouls on the season.
although it makes more sense that Sabonis would have more fouls because he's playing center and just getting destroyed over the course of the games, and he's played way more minutes. Like, I thought I had the number here, but, like, way more minutes than Jackson has played. So whatever. But Jackson hit the big floater. Brooks does a good job on not letting Jackson get depth.
Brooks defensively was doing some really nice stuff. Like some possessions, he's got Sharon Jackson. Other possessions, he's got Bain coming off the screen. So you want to talk about versatility. But Jackson, in a huge, huge possession, got down, found a way. He even went at Eamon Thompson, who... A man didn't even look, I said his name twice, two different ways.
He didn't even look like he wanted to drive on Jackson, which is pretty rare if you've been watching this Thompson experience the last couple weeks. But there was a huge bucket there. And then, of course, he hit the free throws after the ridiculous timeout that the ref gave to Memphis when they didn't ask for it, when it looked like Wells was breaking away for the game. But the go-ahead...
layup which i shouldn't say the game winning because houston's going to get a possession again so we talked fouls there a little bit let's talk clutch offense for houston these clutch numbers for houston you know you're never going to see this i don't think they're number one in clutch wins they lose last night but they still have 17 wins that's the most in the nba despite having the 19th ranked clutch offense so are they doing with defense well a little bit
Their point differential, they're 17 and 10 now in clutch games. Their net rating is a negative 1.2.
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Chapter 3: Who stands out as the best quarterback prospect this year?
I don't know the years on the contract, five, six years, whatever it is. Well, yeah. I mean, the first time guy, no way it's that long, right? Well, Joe Douglas was six years.
So I don't know.
I got to look at it. But my point is like even bigger picture, not just Tennessee, but any team sitting there, there's two things that are running through your head that's in addition to. In addition to your actual evaluation, they can skew the evaluation, right? The first thing is, all right, I'm the general manager. This is my first year as the GM, right?
And the product on the field is going to be what if we don't draft Cam Ward? Will Levis, a retread veteran, you know what I mean? So that factors in. And then the second part that factors in is like, all right, yeah, I could go draft a great player in Abdul Carter, but we're going to suck again. What if I take a hack here and it works out?
What if we hit strike gold and we got a Jaden situation or even like the promise of a Michael Penix or Bo Nix? You know what I mean? What if we have that in year one and we can start then building? And now I get four. It's like it's like that pot of gold, right? It's like now I get four years on this for more years after his rookie year.
And now I feel good about him and there's momentum and I can and I've got his rookie contract. He's worth nothing against my cap. And I can plug free agents and go draft picks and all that stuff. And so it's like this enticing thing that can draw you away from what probably is the right decision, which is just draft the best player in the draft, who also happens to be a pass rusher, you know?
Yeah, I'm leaning that way because it's just been, it feels like the default of well, they need a quarterback, they have to go ahead and take one. And maybe it'd be different if Carter wasn't so impressive to me all season long. Would you take Carter over Hunter in a vacuum?
Yeah. Yeah, for a couple – Hunter's going to be a playmaking, really, really good cornerback. I actually think he's a better wide receiver, but I think it's harder to find corners. And I think – I don't think if you're going to –
if you're planning on and you absolutely need to plan on him being different than anyone we've ever seen before, you've got to find a plan, but you've got to do it as, as your, your folks would say with the load management. And that's going to be the trickiest part. It's good.
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