Mets Walk Playoff Tightrope, Jets Botch Haason Reddick Situation

Mets Keep Playoff Hopes Alive it's the Mike Francesa podcast on the BET Rivers network hello again everybody and welcome to the Mike Francesa podcast on the BET Rivers network brought to you by casamigos tequila casamigos tequila is brought to you by those who drink it we have reached the Labor Day weekend it's going to start off here in the metropolitan area with some rain but hey still it's still Labor Day weekend enjoy as we say goodbye to Summer and look forward to a football season that will begin well it's already began and college will begin in a couple of days on Thursday as we will lift the curtain on this NFL season with Prime Time games on Thursday and again on Friday as the NFL tries to see if it can you know squeeze some more money out of another country uh as they bounce games all over the place which you know to me is always a FAL but hey you know NFL is always looking for another way to put some money in the coffers we know that now baseball Mets bounced back with a big win yesterday needed that game after a crushing defeat and you know with the Mets there's going to be days where that Bullpen is not going to get the job done that's all there is to it and uh those games are going to hurt they bounced back yesterday got a win Braves lost so they're three behind three is critical they have to as we enter September they have to keep the wild card number at three or or below as we head towards the September 24th dates and those dates in New York are going to be enormous uh September 24th 25 26 I've talked about them before Orioles Yankees three games Mets Braves three games everything could cut down to those three days the season ends a couple days later it ends the following Sunday so there's one more series to play after this series September 24 Tuesday September 25 Wednesday September 26th Thursday Orioles Yankees at the stadium Metson Braves in Atlanta and everything could be on the line in those two games the Mets have 28 games left they're in Chicago this weekend to play the white socks and they know the Cubbies are trying to crawl up their back a little bit they're two behind them right now and playing better um but you go into Chicago and the Yankees couldn't do it you go in there and you try and sweep a series this team has lost seven in a row they've lost nine of 10 they've lost 104 games already they have a very good chance to be the worst team in baseball history but they can win a game I mean they won one game against the Yankees and almost won another one so they're capable of winning a game against the Mets and that would hurt they Mets need to get in get the games put them in their pocket get out and get home to play the Red Sox on Labor Day Mets will follow up the Red Sox with the Reds and then go to Toronto and Philly they're going to see the Phillies a couple times before they play the Braves uh so white socks and then the Red Sox on Labor Day night both Yankees and the Mets at least are playing on Labor Day I hate if they're off get mad you know that um you know my annual Crusade about playing double headers on Memorial Day Fourth of July and Labor Day they'll never do it but it's a good idea um but at least they're both playing yank Mets are home to the Red Sox who are not playing well the Yankees are in Texas uh starting on Monday so the Mets will come home play Red Sox and reds then they'll go to Toronto and Philly after that 28 games left the Mets have played better on the road by a couple of games they're 35 and 31 on the road they're 35 and 33 at home um with them you know it comes down to whether or not their Bullpen can do the job they're going to have be in a bunch of close games they can come from behind in games they have offense uh they can get leads the question is can they hold leads and yesterday they had a good win a bounceback win and that's the one thing you'd say about this team is every time they have a crushing loss they seem to bounce back and they've done that but they can't get worse than three behind and chasing the Braves is not easy because the Braves are playing well as a matter of fact the Braves are trying starting to scare of Phillies they really are so those Philly games become important too because you know you never know before you might wake up one morning and the Braves are pass the philli because the way they're playing right now so it'll be interesting to watch I don't think they can catch either San Diego forget the Arizona but I don't think they can catch San Diego either I think that San Diego's Bullpen is too good so I think they'll win enough games uh but right now it's the Braves three behind Cubs are two behind them so you got to pay attention to that's the team of the moment they seem to go back and forth and back and forth but right now that's the team um you want to see who's going to get hot in September like the Tigers have started to play better as an example in the American League the Cubbies are playing better so you gotta watch what teams are starting to fade what teams are starting to come together and are going to make a decent September run just you know Play Better Baseball in September but again it could very well very well come down to these three epic days and ironically they're both going to play the other team at that time Yankees See Opening as Orioles Self-Destruct Yankees and Orioles the Orioles have played miserably for a while and that's the only thing that saved the Yankees the Yankees are a game and a half up on the Orioles they're two in the loss 78 and 56 77 and 58 because the Orioles have been terrible they just got beat up by the by the Dodgers they haven't played good baseball in a while but neither the Yankees I mean let's be honest the Yankees in the last 75 games were one game over 500 it's not enough it's it's not not been and and nothing is consistent except SoDo and judge that is ultra consistent been amazing to be honest with you but nothing else is consistent not the lineup not just pitching nothing I mean the pitching can be very erratic we know the bullpen can be erratic the rest of the lineup can be ultra erratic and then you have Soto and judge day in day out as it has been uh all year uh and that's the one constant for a team that's hanging on because let's be honest the Orioles just it's been a while as badly as the Yankees have played the or have played just as bad they have not shown that they are going to write the ship at any point and you're still staring at those three games in about a little more than three weeks September 24th Orioles who have played well against the Yankees this year will invade Yankee stadium for three big games while the Mets will be in Atlanta for the same three dates all night games then the Yankees will host the Pirates to close the season while the Orioles are playing the twins twins fate will probably be decided by then and the Mets will close the season in Milwaukee which is not great for this reason Milwaukee's going to have long clinch their division but they're going to be in a fight for the record you don't want to be the third record of the three divisions because that means you play so right now two games separate the three teams that lead the national league 54 55 56 losses if it stays that close you're going to get a motivated Brewer team that weekend and that's a problem because they're a good team so you can't go there figuring oh or you know Milwaukee's going to be sitting back playing kids because they're getting ready for the postseason it could be that by then but probably not probably this is going to be a fight for best record because it's that close between the among the three teams among the Dodgers the Phillies and the and the Brewers 54 55 56 two games separates the three teams and that makes a very big difference so the Mets in Chicago to play the wol for white socks the Yankees home against the Red Birds and you know it's a funny thing it doesn't matter if the Reds it doesn't matter if the Cardinals are a mediocre team this is just something and if you've been a baseball fan long enough you understand this there are now insignificant games against the Cardinals you just see the Cardinal un form and you you know you you sit up in your chair because it's the Cardinals and you have respect for the Cardinals you have respect for who they are who they've been great baseball organization great heritage the whole thing and you know there's certain teams you know Dodgers are usually good but even when they're not they're still Dodgers the Cardinals you see that unifor for and you know to me it's shades of 64 watching the World Series as a kid against the you know that seven game World Series which to me was the World Series that I think had the biggest impact on me of all the World Series it was a 64 series it's just the age I was man was still playing and still a big factor he had a very good World Series he had three homers eight RBI hit 333 had big home runs you know had a walk-off home run against Bonnie Schultz in game three hit a home run in game six so did marris and peperone in a Yankee route and then hit the three-run Homer to bring the Yankees close in game seven against Gibson left center field bomb or Gibson that mava said I just could not believe he took that pitch out of the park to left center field um so you know Manel was struggling physically even then Maris was in sentimental played right because he had a problem with his shoulder he had made a bad uh play in the Outfield in game in game three which was what he was angry with as he came to the plate you know he never made any statements about what he was going to do it the plate Ellie said that he never you know would say something about I'm going to do this I'm going to do that he he wasn't a brag kind of guy um and he was mad because he had made a bad throw and he turned to Ellie and he said you can go in and Ellie said I don't remember any time that he ever did that he said this game's over and first pitch Bonnie Schultz lucka and you know uh the Cardinal starter had pitched a brilliant game was 1-1 and he said he was relieved by Schultz in the nth and he said as he walked down the he was running walking down the corridor that went from The Dugout to the locker room in the old stadium and he said he was just in the corridor and he heard this incredible Roar and he said oh I know what that means man hit a cuz he knew man was leading off the bottom of the ninth and he said I knew it I didn't even have to go check I didn't have to go look I didn't have to I just heard the Roar and I knew what it was and he hit the first pitch for that walkoff home remember cretti pounded him on the back as he comes around Third Base uh a walk-off World Series Homer and I remember every you know it's funny certain series as a kid I can remember almost every play of That World Series I was glued to that World Series and and for some reason the E and flow of that series Gibson's performances and that was the first coming out of Gibson who was utterly brilliant in His World Series career if you look at the numbers they're staggering he fit complete games in every game I think in the games that he started I think he was seven and two Lifetime and he threw every inning of every game I mean just incredible stuff um the Yankees who still had a lot of pop in ' 64 you know you had Maris still there he had not had a good year in 64 this remember he had really good years in 61 62 60 61 62 Maris hit 40 homers then he hit hit 39 homers then he hit 61 homers then he hit 33 homers and then after that he really didn't hit a lot of homers but in those three years he hit you know a lot of home runs and you had peperone you still had you know Richardson you had ston Howard so CLE Boer uh so it was you know it was still the Yankees and they had had a tough penet race that year but I remember it well and so that Cardinal uniform always takes me back it always does even when they're a mediocre team which they are right now a 500 team not a team of any significance right now but still they're the Cardinals so when the Cardinals play the Yankees It's just something special about it because two of the really great franchises I mean the Cardinals have always been about winning they've always been about organization when you come up as a cardinal you hear hernandz talk about it a lot what it meant to come up through the Cardinal organization the only organization you would think that had a stronger impact on a player would have been not the Yankees the the Dodgers because the Dodgers had their Dodger way of doing things even the Yankees didn't do things the way the Dodgers did or the Cardinals did the C Cardinals and Dodgers throughout their entire organization did things a certain way that was the Cardinal way of doing things and that's why it's a spe it's just a special franchise and I just always get the feeling that whenever you see the C uniform it's hey it's a big game so the Cardinals are at the stadium this evening for a weekend set before the Yankees go to Texas on uh Labor Day try to hold the orales off that's basically it try and keep their distance we know the Yankees and the orals are both going to the playoffs the question is which one's going to win the division and we've been talking about that now for months and they haven't been able to shake them they haven't been able to shake them because they haven't been good enough and the ools haven't moved in front because they haven't been good enough we are a couple days away from the NFL season can't wait and we will do a live program we will do a live podcast uh on the Mike Fran has channel on the BET Rivers network on YouTube on Wednesday morning and we'll clue you in on what our schedule is going to be for the opening week and what our schedule is going to be for most of the season so we'll do all that on Wednesday morning when we see you live on Wednesday morning after this Labor Day weekend so that'll be the next podcast and we'll give you the schedule and tell you what's going on and what we're going to do for this football season and everything else we'll have overuns we'll have everything so join us Wednesday morning and we'll get you up to date on everything that's going on for the football season on Wednesday we should be able to give you a good schedule obviously we're going to have always a football Friday program for you up live on Friday morning that's going to be given uh and we will be there after the games live on with audio and video this year so we'll be up on the uh on the channel too so after the game so that will be something new Jets' Haason Reddick Drama um I was driving yesterday to go play golf and I heard Douglas's sound bites talking about reic and he just sounded so completely lost it was almost like you were waiting for him to say hey guys you know what I just screwed it up and I'm trying to find a way out instead of he's praising his agent and praising reic when really he wants to strangle both of them now I mean this has completely imploded on him the Eagles who are a smart kg organization knew exactly what they were doing they were going to unload a player who they know as he approached 30 that they didn't want to pay him a ton of money and that he was going to demand a ton of money which is why they unloaded a player who was as productive as he was hey when something looks like that there's a reason why it's happening nobody's going to give you Hassan reik and and they will tell you or they'll try to tell you the Jets hierarchy that he said this and he promised this nonsense you had to deal with this long before now now you're playing a game of chicken that's based on the results of the regular season and you don't want that see reck's sitting there saying listen I'm only going to what I'm going to do this year if the Jets don't watch it is I'm just going to do enough to make sure I get myself the free agency all right you don't want that you don't want him in and out of this lineup you don't want him playing this game now right now he's thinking all right they go into Monday night against San Francisco and they don't touch the quarterback they're going to come running with a new deal they're going to panic they're not going to want to get off to a bad now the one thing that went and backf fight on reic is the fact that it looks like Williams isn't going to play and if you know anything about the Niners when Williams doesn't play they're not the same offense not even [Music] close you can talk about anybody in that lineup including mcaffrey when Williams is out of that lineup that team loses its identity offensively all that power all that productivity everything they bring their runs after catch their play action stuff everything they do in that offense and they signed ioke as you know uh yesterday everything centers around the fact that they need Williams in the lineup and it looks like he's not going to play so if San Francisco is not at it is not operating like they're supposed to operate Jets might get more pressure than than originally anticipated and that could prolong this situation with re because if the Jets are productive in their pass they're going say see because they're trying to go on this premise they don't need him nonsense how can you go on a premise you don't need a pass rusher like H reic that's nonsense why'd you bring him here if you don't need him you traded for a player you don't need that's what you g that that's that is your story and you're sticking to it I trade it for a player I don't need I don't really need him you know I traded for him I don't really need him I gave up very productive player for him but I don't really need him I brought him here forget what he's done in the league the last four years I I don't really need him we all know that's garbage you need him you want him in the lineup you've envisioned him being there all year he is a standout performer we all know that and you also knew what he was going to do because why do you think he was available when the Eagles just got up one day I said you know what we've had enough for this guy yeah he's been great but you know what hey you know goodbye they didn't want to deal with what the Jets are dealing with right now but the Jets can act like they didn't expect to deal with this nonsense this was a given that this was going to happen that's why he was available in the first place and Douglas can sit there and tell you all this nonsense and it's complete nonsense that he's spewing because he doesn't know what else to do this thing has been royally screwed up and this team didn't need this distraction this team has a chance it really does and jumping on the jet band wagon now okay but let's be honest the jet roster is loaded yes yes they have to keep an old quarterback upright and healthy is he a great player yes does he still have it I think he does is he brittle oh yeah is he susceptible to injury oh yeah you have a left tackle who's a Hall of Fame player who last year graded out as the best pass blocking player in the league and played 900 snaps last year but he is very and I scream to bring him here but I have to admit he's injury-prone he's not young and he's injury-prone which is why he was available because the Cowboys were like we think we've gone down this road enough times that we're going to and they admit that watching him leave was very difficult why because they've had two great players anchored that line through these years which is why they've had the offense they've had because they've had a great left tackle and a great right God and it has anchored their offensive line this guy will anchor this line he will lead this line he will offer this team incredible protection he has to stay healthy they have to keep their quarterback and their left tackle healthy but if they do they have a chance to be not good they have a chance to be super yes the Jets I don't know if there's a better top to bottom roster in the NFL this team has everything does it have a big time receiver check does it have a big time running back check does it have a big time defensive back check does it have big time pass R check check have a big time linebacker check check got a kicker yeah got a punter yeah head coach you got me no check Jack Ma I hope not two things well let me go to three things scary you about this J here number one is the obvious injury situation to two aging brilliant performers in their quarterback and their left tackle Hall of Fame credentials we know that for the quarterback I mean he's doing the right thing he's buting up against immortality I mean he has that kind of ability the left tackle is a Hall of Famer their injury situation scares you they both are injury prone and they're not young and age hurts in the NFL it just always does number two is the coaching the head coach has not proven for one iota that he understands what it means to be a head coach does he understand how to run a defense yes he proved that before he came here does he understand what it means to be a head coach not a lick from what we've SE seen so far not a lick from what his practices have showed you what his game time decisions have showed you what his record shows you that he might just be really bad at the job we're going to find out now but you have a guy who can supersede the coach because he can basically run the team and that is the quarterback the third thing is that it's the Jets so we know that they are highly capable of being in that class that I only use for very special teams the ones that can screw up a one car funeral they're one of those matter of fact they get to help carry the banner and this reic thing is a perfect example this was not necessary you knew what you were getting into why did you allow this to happen this year not this year there are times to take a stand this is not that time and that worries you because if you don't think that can festor into something that can really start to break at the core of this team then you haven't watch no football of course you can little things matter when you want to be really good this isn't about being you know a playoff team this isn't about being a team that's playing meaningful games in December this is about a team thinking about being able to play for a championship and then if you're going to be in that world little things matter everything matters because it's the little things that will destroy you you have to have someone who handles and pays attention to details because when you ignore them it's when you get beat but as far as the roster that has been built the team that is there I'm not sure there's a roster in the league that I could put above it now that the offensive line can play the way that it can with the depth that it's added with the versatility that it's added and with what they added especially with a player of that magnitude at left tackle the offensive line now joins the rest of the team at a level that is ex see the offensive line was lagging well behind and the quarterback was lagging so far behind see you have to understand a lot of people think like how can you have the Jets go from here all the way to there well because you have made the changes that needed to be made on the offensive line and the step you were about to take at quarterback the most vital position in all of sports the step you're about to be take is as big a change at the position as big an upgrade as any team has ever experienced in the history of the NFL you are going from awful to all world that changes everything but the head coach has to be smarter and the general manager has to be smarter and they have to get up to a caliber of performance that at least resembles what the roster they aren't anywhere near the level of the players the play players are at a very high level on this team the hierarchy of this team could be as bad as it gets and that's scary next time we talk it'll be football season enjoy your weekend thanks for listening to the Mike francessa podcast on the BET Rivers network