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Welcome to The Honest Truth Podcast! Tired of all the fake, hot takes? This is the podcast where we only speak the truth. NO BS. Only real takes and opinions on the hottest news in sports! Where we put the Realism into Journalism. Intro - 0-11:08, Justin Fields Hater Talk 11:08 - 32:24, WildCard Weekend Preview 32:24 - 48:40, Cubs Offseason/Outlook 48:40 - 1:03.15, Follow Me 1:03.15 - Finish
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Welcome to The Honest Truth Podcast! Tired of all the fake, hot takes? This is the podcast where we only speak the truth. NO BS. Only real takes and opinions on the hottest news in sports! Where we put the Realism into Journalism. Intro - 0-11:08, Justin Fields Hater Talk 11:08 - 32:24, WildCard Weekend Preview 32:24 - 48:40, Cubs Offseason/Outlook 48:40 - 1:03.15, Follow Me 1:03.15 - Finish
Listen to Episode 1 - The Honest Truth Sports Podcast by Michael Pinarski MP3 song. Episode 1 - The Honest Truth Sports Podcast song from Michael Pinarski is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 01:04:25. This high-quality MP3 track has 2116.8 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 14 Jan 2023. Stream and download Episode 1 - The Honest Truth Sports Podcast by Michael Pinarski for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The Honest Truth Podcast aims to provide real takes and opinions on the hottest news and sports. The host wants to create a platform to freely speak about their interest in sports and call out fake takes. They will mainly talk about baseball, football, basketball, and Formula One racing. The host is a Chicago sports fan, particularly supporting the Cubs, Bears, and Bulls. They criticize the Cubs' lack of investment in the team and praise Justin Fields' performance as a quarterback despite criticism. The goal of the podcast is to be honest and call out fake people in the industry. The host also enjoys comedic twists in sports podcasts. They want their podcast to be the honest truth about sports topics, with no BS. Hello, welcome everyone to the Honest Truth Podcast. Are you tired of all the fake, hot takes? Well, this is the podcast where we only speak the truth. No BS. Only real takes and opinions on the hottest news and sports. Where we put the realism into journalism. In today's episode, I want to just kind of introduce this podcast and what my goals and aspirations are for this. As I kind of stated in the last, I guess, intro bit, whatever that four minute segment you'd call. Where I kind of told you about the news I had and what was going on in my life and what kind of led into it. But with this goal and this podcast is that I just want to create a platform in which I can freely speak about my interest in sport, my takes. I also want to kind of make it a platform where I can call out those fake takes and kind of point out the people that are just doing it for clout and chasing fame. I am not really a big supporter on that. I think if you're going to be a journalist in the sports industry, it should really be mostly about speaking the truth and understanding the facts behind your takes. You shouldn't just put something out there and say anything and not really back up your argument in that case. Next thing, so with this podcast, what I will mostly be talking about is basically anything and everything about sports. I can range from baseball, which will probably be talked about most because that's my favorite sport. Baseball, football, some basketball. I'll even probably get into a little bit of Formula One racing once that season comes about, which will actually be pretty soon I think. It comes, I think it starts in February. However, yeah, I'm just going to start talking about some sports like that. If anybody has suggestions, I can look into it. I'd be more than willing to look into it and understand more about the sport and try and give my best take on it. Which then leads me into the next thing I'm going to say is that I am a big Chicago sports fan. So some of my takes may or may not be biased. I'm going to try and not be biased towards my Chicago fandom. My sports teams would be, include the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls. However, I do, as I said before, I really enjoy baseball as a whole. So my bias may come out sometimes towards the Cubs. But let me put this out there right now. Let me say this. I know they are not a good team. They have a lot of holes to fill. We are not a good sports team currently. We have fake ownership. They don't like to put money into the team. They spend it all on their retail side of the business and make the stadium better. Which it was already good as it was, but I guess you need to bring more fans in to see what you've done to the place. It's got the most history in the world. I mean, Wrigley Field, come on. Who's going to not show up to Wrigley Field? I don't think anybody would. That's on everybody's bucket list. So they're putting money into that. They put so much money into the sports book that they built right outside the stadium. You have all this money in the world. You are one of the biggest marketable franchises in the league. In the league! And yet you are spending money like a mid-franchise team. The NL Central, at most, has spent $160 million this offseason. And the Cubs have so much more money than that. They have millions and millions more than that. But they refuse to spend it. I don't know what for. There's talent out there to get it, but they refuse to get it. So I guess bouncing off of that, there's kind of my Cubs rant right there, as you can see. So the Chicago Bears, they are another team of mine that I like to have a fandom towards. And I'll get into a little bit more about that as the season kind of wraps up this past week and all of this Justin Fields drama that has been appearing on my social media lately. And I'll give my take on that. But kind of continuing and going on in my list and introducing this podcast, the goal is to be completely honest about my takes. And I don't want there to be any smoke screens out there to where people are just saying stuff because they can and they're trying to stir the pot. I will try and call out people that are like that. Like, I will say my favorite journalist would probably have to be Colin Coward. He's one of my favorites. However, he can say some BS at times. I will point him out on that. Some names shall not be named. In the recent actions of what he has done in the past, like very recent, with all the DeMar Hamlin situation as well, he is kind of the person that I am trying to go after. I do not like the situation he put himself in and he tried to ramble on and say that there was no one in his production crew that told him to take down the insensitive tweet that he put out there. And he tried to back up what he said and tried to explain what had happened. However, his co-host as well said that he should probably end up deleting this tweet and he went ahead and stood his ground and did his whole hypocrisy speech of how the day before he said he would have taken it down because of his producers telling him to, but then the next day he said to his co-host, Oh no, I stand by what I said. I am not going to take it down. It kind of put me in a place where this kind of all came about. I wanted to start something to make a point where people can have a voice and it can be heard, but they should not abuse that voice for fame. There comes a point where you have to be sensitive to topics and understand the situation. You can't just continue to go out there and speak literally whatever comes to your mind. Try and put some reasoning behind it and try to be a human being and understand that there was a human life on the line. He almost dropped dead on the field and you went ahead and said, Why are they not finishing this game? If it was anyone else, they would have finished this game. That is not what you should be doing as one of the biggest journalists in all of the sports industry. That's just not what you should have been doing. However, going off that subject now, I kind of ranted on that. I'm sorry. As I said, the goal is to be completely honest and to point out the fake people. I hope that this can lead into a bigger and better audience to understand that us small people, we have a voice as well. We can be heard. It's just we have to reach the right target. We have to be consistent and persistent on how we do things in order for us to be heard. Because everyone has a voice. Everyone should be heard. That's why I want to put the realism into journalism because a lot of this news is just fake and it's not something that is good for the sports industry and journalism as a whole. Continuing on how this kind of all came about, I've listened to various podcasts. The one that I enjoy the most may be kind of a comedic twist to the sports industry and pardon my take, but I listen to them for the said reason because they are comedic twists. I enjoy the takes that they have because sure, some of them may be about very serious topics, but they like to take the air out of that serious balloon and make it kind of a humbling approach to where they know that whatever they say, it's going to be bad, it's not the best, but they make it funny. I enjoy that type of content as well and I hope I can kind of pursue that a little bit into this podcast, but the main idea is that I want this to be the honest truth. I want this podcast to be the honest truth about what's going on in the sports industry. I want this podcast to be the honest truth about sports topics and there will be no BS behind any of it. And now with that being said, I would like to transfer this into my first segment where I kind of talked about it in my intro where we will talk about the Justin Fields haters. This is a great topic. I've been scrolling through Twitter all week just seeing all of the Justin Fields haters and what the Bears should do with the number one overall pick. I'm going to give my take on what they should do and then what other people have said. I just find it so funny, so funny that people are so persistent on saying that Justin Fields is not a good quarterback. Oh, he's just a running back and he can't throw. He's not a QB. Have you not looked at the tape? Have you not watched a single Chicago Bears game? This year, this man has solely put the team on his back. There's a reason why they went 3-14 and that those three wins were all him and the 14 losses were not on him. Sure, he played a role, but his surrounding cast was not good. It was not good. His offensive line started the year worst in the league and then they progressed to be 14th in the league at the end of the year according to PSF. But he had a rookie left tackle who was surprisingly really good. He made the all-rookie team, I believe. He was the bright side of that team. And then you had Tevin Jenkins, who was last year's rookie, dealing still with some injuries on and off. You just wanted to hope that he was healthy for the year because whenever he was in, they ran the ball really well. That was their goal. They were a running team and a pass-second offense. The team ran the ball so well. At one point, I think they ended the year being the number one running team in the league. And there's a reason for that. Because they were so dominant on running the ball. They were pursuing that aspect of the game and making sure it was run first. But then on the defensive side of the ball, the teams would just understand that. Oh, all they're going to do is run the ball. Justin Fields can't throw the ball. If you get a little bit of play-action passes in there, like they ended up showing towards the middle of the season, he was throwing deep balls with such accuracy. There were balls that all the receiver had to do was run underneath it and catch the ball. However, those wide receivers consisted of Equinemius St. Brown, Dante Pettis. Who was the other one? Oh my gosh, I can't even remember. I can't even remember because it was so bad. The team was so bad. Maybe I can look it up here as I'm trying to continue on. But these wide receivers were not helping him out whatsoever. I'm going to try and find out. Because there were multiple games I remember. I forget against who, but Justin Fields was trying to lead a fourth quarter comeback. And as they're driving the ball down, he has guys open, but they won't catch it. I mean, considering that on the year, the highest reception on the team was Cole Komet with 50. That's not good. A tight end. I mean, granted, I'm glad for Cole Komet that he kind of had a breakout year because he played all 17 games, had 53 receptions for 7 touchdowns, 544 yards. That's a good, that's a solid year for what you want out of your starting tight end. But we have things that we can get more out of him. Oh, here. Here we go. So he had Equinemius St. Brown, Dante Pettis, only chased Claypool for 7 games, which they didn't really incorporate him into the offense a lot. Like, I wish they would have done more. Oh my gosh, this guy. They had Ymir Smith-Marset, who threw the game away, I think it was the Vikings, where he literally just had the ball ripped away from him on a fourth quarter comeback. He just had the ball ripped away from him. No biggie. Oh, shoot. Shucks. We lost to the Vikings. We would have won, but we lost. So they had him. And then, Velvis Jones, like, at the beginning of the year, this man was such a letdown. Had a lot of high hopes for him coming in and just let the team down. He was another down spot. Nakiel Harry, he had the injury bug, so he didn't play as much as well, but like, he's such a big body. I mean, he only had 7 receptions on the year for 116 yards, but like, he's a big body. He can go up and get the ball whenever you need a jump-off situation. I just don't understand why they didn't incorporate those plays in the red zone or just plays when they needed them most. They just relied on Justin Fields to kind of run the ball and use his legs, which it helped because it worked a lot, but like, I will say like, it's not going to be a sustainable career if he continues to do that because I enjoy him running. I enjoy watching him be a playmaker. Like, he has that ability to be a breakout star, and like, he can be a threat when he has the ball in his hands. However, I would love to see J.F. have this leap, this third-year leap coming up like Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts both did. I have a lot of hopes because it's seen consistently throughout the NFL, and you always see rookies come in the league. They either have good success or like, mediocre success, and then they have the sophomore slumps. However, this was kind of the opposite for Justin because rookie year, he was kind of thrown into a very, he was thrown into a worse situation as well. Terrible coach, terrible offense, and I think honestly, he was thrown into a coach that just didn't want him there. They drafted him, and he just didn't want him there. And then you come into his sophomore year, he's getting more in tune with the offense, knowing what he's supposed to do. However, still sophomore slumps, like, he didn't throw the ball that much because, I mean, in the first four games, he didn't throw the ball for more than 20 pass attempts in each game. More than 20 pass attempts. And he was considered a laughing stock at the beginning of the year. So many people were laughing at Justin Fields. And honestly, keep laughing. Keep giving him this chip on his shoulder to come out, and I will say this right now. Next year, Justin Fields, he should probably set this team to be a playoff team next year. I'm not saying win the division. They might sneak in. I could see them sneaking in because the Bears have so much potential to just revamp this team, revamp the defense, give Justin Fields some weapons, and make this team a playoff team. I don't care how far they go into the playoffs. I just want to see them back there. Sure, I would like to see them win a game, because who wouldn't? As a fan, you'd like to see them win a game. But all this Justin Fields hater talk has got to stop because these throws that he can make when he has a solid pocket, a pocket in which he can throw from, he doesn't have to move anywhere. He can be an accurate passer. Even when he's not standing there in the pocket, when he has moved, he has made great throws. And I mean amazing throws. Like down the sideline to David Montgomery against the Falcons on a 3rd-and-12. That was an amazing throw. Amazing throws down the field to Darnell Mooney. That one-handed catch against the Vikings, Darnell Mooney. There was the corner endzone throw against the Commanders to Dante Pettis. That was for a touchdown. That was a great throw. So many great throws when he has a clean pocket. They just need to get him protection. There's nothing else. I mean, look at Josh Allen. He has at least a somewhat decent protection. Like he has a pocket to throw from, but he's also just a freak athlete. I mean, standing at 6'5", right, something? 6'5", 240 pounds or whatever it is. I mean, he's a mammoth of a human being. It takes a lot to take him down. Like you need people to take him down. But he is a superman in all aspects. Like it's incredible what he can do. But, like, I see so much potential for Justin Fields. Like for guys like Josh Allen, like he had that 3rd-year leap. Jalen Hurts had that 3rd-year leap. I mean, he's going through it right now. Like Jalen Hurts, this is his 3rd year. He has put in so much time and effort into making the Eagles the team that they have been this year. Like I know people are going to say he shouldn't be the MVP of the league this year, but, like, if you really think about it, that man is the most valuable player on his team. Because if he was not playing, they would not be the same team, as you saw in the two games that Gardner Ministry started for them. They won every single other game except for the one he, I think he got, no, no, the one game that they lost, I forget who it was, but Jalen Hurts has led that team to victories for a reason. And my opinion, he should be the MVP of the league. I mean, like, this man has done everything for that team, and I see a lot of that in Justin Fields. He has done so much for the Bears, so much for them. I mean, like, sure, only 2,242 yards passing on the year, but he also had over 1,000 yards rushing. He became the second most rushing quarterback, or the, he became the second, yeah, no, the second most rushing quarterback in the league behind Michael, no, not behind Michael, behind Lamar, because Lamar did that a couple years ago, whatever it was. But, like, he's, I believe he's going to have this third-year leap, and you honestly can't, I mean, I don't know, you just can't, honestly, you can't predict the future, but I have hope that he's going to be so much better next year because of this hopefully revamped Bears roster with all this, all of this cap that we have available. The potential to draft somebody in the first spot, however, I don't think they will, which, I mean, is honestly kind of a segue into the next thing I want to talk about with the Bears, in which what they are going to do with the first pick. Like, the Bears have this opportunity with the first overall pick in the case that they can end up either picking somebody or trading it away. And I think, I think personally that the Bears should end up trading it away, trade down for a lot more picks and potentially either a defensive stud or a wide receiver because, my gosh, Justin Fields needs a wide receiver one. Darnell, I love the guy. He's a good athlete, he's amazing, but he's not a wide receiver one. He's a good wide receiver, too. He's a guy that is still reliable, that you can throw him the ball, but he's not the wide receiver one that you want on the field that you can go to every single time, that you know he can get open every single time. You know he's a red zone threat. You know he's a guy that will win his matchup 100% of the time. And I just don't think Darnell is that guy. However, I'm not saying he can't be that guy. If he can be that guy, I would love to see him continue to improve because I think, what, this next year is going to also be his third year, maybe fourth year, I forget. But, like, he's got the skills. Darnell's got the skills. It would be nice to see him improve next year. However, the Bears, they have, they control their destiny this next year. They are on the clock as of right now, basically. I don't know how many days it is until the draft, but with all this going on, the Bears have the opportunity to trade or draft somebody. And I keep hearing all this talk, oh, the Bears should draft Bryce Young because Justin Fields is just not the guy. That is complete and utter BS, and I will tell you why. Bryce Young is, what, 5'10", 180 pounds. He, historically, I will say the short quarterbacks, not really good. I mean, they have flashes at times where they can be good. But, like, that is not where the NFL is going in today's day and age. Like, you want to be bigger, faster, stronger. And Bryce Young is just not that. Justin Fields has so much ability, so much. He is 6'3", 230 or whatever. Big guy, huge guy. He's got the arm talent. He's got the leg talent. He's got so much potential. And why would you waste the number one draft pick? Why would you waste it? It's going to be a waste if you draft a quarterback. That number one draft pick should be either, I consider either Jalen Carter from the Georgia Bulldogs, Will Anderson, Jr. from Alabama, or you trade down and grab a defensive lineman slash wide receiver from one of the teams that needs a quarterback. Because you are going to be seeing so many teams calling that front office for that pick. Especially since now that we see that CJ Stroud from Ohio State, he has not yet declared for the draft. And there's been rumors stating that he might go back to OSU. And if that's the case, I saw this Twitter poll on Twitter the other day. And it states this. If CJ Stroud stays at Ohio State and he has not declared for the draft and he has until Monday to do so, does the value of the number one pick increase or decrease? And I believe it increases. Almost 75% of the people believe it increases. Because, listen, if you have one less quarterback in this year's draft, you have then, who do you have, who do you have? You have Will Levis and Bryce Young. Those are the top two quarterbacks and probably the only two quarterbacks, I believe, that are going to be potential good quarterbacks in the NFL. Because there's a lot of people that are high on Will Levis because he has the Josh Allen build. He's got all these Josh Allen aspects in him. I kind of see it, I kind of don't. But continuing on with what I said about CJ, and if he doesn't declare, this will make the value of that number one pick so much more. Teams can't, they can't wait for the potential of somebody not taking quarterback and then dropping down to their slot and being able to pick them as their next QB or whatever. They have to make a push for that spot. Like, I know the Colts, they are almost begging for somebody to either trade them a quarterback or they're going to have to draft a quarterback. Because, I'm sorry Matt Ryan, but you are old. You are past your prime. We saw it all year. You couldn't do anything. Granted, like I said with the Bears, your line, not so good either. They're terrible. They did not protect you. Quinton Nelson, down near, I still think he's a great offensive lineman, but their line did not protect you. And honestly, honestly, I think, I think if the Colts wanted to send Quinton Nelson to the Bears, along with their first pick, another pick, and we'll give them our first pick, I wouldn't be opposed to it. However, a lot of speculation has been seen that Quinton Nelson is kind of a low market offensive lineman because he had a down year, I guess you consider. He is still an All-Pro. He was an All-Pro. And he's got all the footwork and potential and skills to become, not become, because he is an All-Pro. He has been. He's been there. So he is an All-Pro offensive lineman. And I could see them possibly trading up for that and giving them that. Also, I've been hearing that DeForest Buckner could be a potential from the Colts. Honestly, if you wanted to also, like, if the Colts were really, really nice and they wanted to end up giving us Michael Pittman as well, I would take Michael Pittman. I mean, he's a good wide receiver one. I mean, good, not great, but good. He's got a lot of potential in him as well. But with that being said, like, the Bears, they have so much off-season work that they need to figure out, but they should not draft a quarterback. That would be a mistake and lead them down a five-year recovery plan because it would take that long to try and recover from that mistake. And Ryan Poles, please, please, for the love of God, do not draft a quarterback. Either trade it for more picks or get a defensive lineman slash wide receiver. Nah, not wide receiver. That's way too high for a pick like that because there's honestly not really many guys out there that are going to be called. Just get a defensive lineman, either Jalen Carter or Will Anderson, Jr. That's my take on that. So now kind of continuing on with the football talk, I kind of want to move into something new here, and let's get into it. Are you ready? So going into this weekend, we have the weekend wildcard for football. We got matchups like the Los Angeles Chargers against the Jacksonville Jaguars out of Duval. That's going to be a big game on Saturday. I think that's going to be one of the most watched games of the weekend. You got guys like Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence. Those are two really good quarterbacks that have had surprising years. Well, not surprising for Justin Herbert because he's a guy. Justin Herbert is a guy. I've been highly endowed to that guy ever since he got drafted. He has the height. He has the arm strength. He has the ability to run out of the pocket if need be, but he's not that type of guy, so he really won't. He is a true fire gunslinger, I think. He is one of the top quarterbacks in the league. And then on the other side of the ball, you have Trevor Lawrence. I mean, this guy has been the number one recruit coming out of high school. He sure fired number one draft pick ever since he got to campus on Clemson. And he has been that guy for Jacksonville. I mean, last year with Urban Meyer and all that saga, he was taking the brunt of all of that and just being the guy to try and see what they could do. Urban Meyer did not put him in a situation where he was well endowed to try and win a football game, let alone be in a playoff situation. If Urban Meyer was still the coach this year, they maybe would have won four games. I'm sorry, Urban, but you are not a good NFL football coach. Good college football coach, not NFL football coach. But kind of going into this wild card weekend, the first game on the slate is Seahawks versus 49ers. My take is that I believe the 49ers are going to walk away with this very cleanly. I mean, you got Brock Purdy, man. Brock Purdy, he is Mr. Irrelevant. And clearly he's not irrelevant because he has led this team to five straight victories, I think is what it was. I don't think he's lost yet. This man is doing things that nobody else in the sports world would have thought he would have done. I mean, clearly, Mr. Irrelevant, he is seen as a guy that's just not going to do anything. And that's clearly not the case. He has put this team on his back and he is leading them high into the wild card weekend. However, he's got a matchup on the other side of the ball and somebody that has not wrote back to the sports journalists, Geno Smith. He, man, Geno has had such an up-and-down career being drafted to the Jets, right? Yeah, Jets. Having an all-right career there, ups and downs. Then getting released or dropped out from them. Having a stint of being backups. He really wasn't going to have an opportunity until the Seahawks got rid of Russell. But the Seahawks have paid well for that trade offer and Geno has led them to a playoff game. Geno has done everything in his ability to get the Seahawks to a football game in January and passed whatever. Geno, he's led the league. I think his completion percentage is leading the league this year. It is the highest in the league, I believe. Almost got it to 70%. He was at 69.8% this year. I think that should be the highest in the league. I'm not quite sure on that. He is an accurate passer. He has been an accurate passer all year. Doesn't have the touchdowns. Well, no, wait. He has the touchdowns in Show 4. He has 30 touchdowns, which is fourth in the league. He's done everything he can to put this team in a position to win a playoff game. However, the road to the championship is pretty hard because they have to play against a team that they lost to already twice this year. And a divisional opponent for the San Francisco 49ers. But everything in the regular season does not matter once you make the playoffs. The playoffs is a different atmosphere and a completely different thing. So there's going to be a pretty good matchup right there. Going on to the next one as I kind of talked about the Chargers and the Jaguars. Oh, wait. Sorry. Let me go back really quick. I already told you. 49ers over the Seahawks. I'm going to say the 49ers win it outright probably over 10 points. It's going to be like 30 to 17. That's my call. Next playoff game, Jaguars-Chargers. I think it's going to be a good game. It's going to be a good game. It really will be a good game, I believe. Saturday night, 8-15, NBC. I think the Jaguars go into Deval and win a close game. It's going to be a close game. Actually, I totally forgot. Mike Williams is not playing. But the Jaguars, they have an obstacle to face because Trevor Lawrence did not look particularly good last week against the Titans. Was missing wide open guys in the end zone for touchdowns. And you can't have that in a playoff game. You just can't. You have to be a good quarterback. You have to make those throws. You have to connect and able to win a playoff game because it's win or go home. You can't look forward to next week. You have to win to have a next week. That being said, I could see the Jaguars still winning the game. But I think the Chargers are going to win a close one. Possibly maybe a game-winning field goal. I don't know. We'll have to see about that. But it should be a really good game. Then as we go into the Sunday slate of games, you have the Dolphins versus the Bills. There's not really much to be said about this game. The Dolphins are starting their third string quarterback in Skyler Thompson. He barely won them a game last week to get into the playoffs. However, they are playing the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen. Josh Allen, he's going to stomp all over the Dolphins. It's going to be a cakewalk. The Bills, they win. They definitely cover the spread. I'm going to say 35-17. They win by over half the points they score. Moving into the next game, the 4-30 slate. You've got Giants versus the Vikings. Now, I'm going to go off of what my thought on the Vikings are. Not my thought. This is kind of persuaded on part of my take in Big Cat and PFT. But the Vikings are a fraud. They are a fraud team. They will not win this game. Giants are going to upset the Vikings and go into next week. Because, I'm sorry, Kirk Cousins, good quarterback, not great. Good, not great. You have one guy that you throw the ball to, and that's it. Maybe two. But Justin Jefferson, he is your MVP. You would not be in this situation if you didn't have him. You won those games because you have just thrown the ball to Justin Jefferson and hoped he made a play. And he did. He is your real MVP. And, I'm sorry, Vikings are not winning. Giants are winning. They will be the underdog and beat you. Probably a close game. It's going to be a close game. But they're going to win. Giants are going to win. Let's say close game, kind of low scoring. Because I think both, well, actually, no, I take that back. Vikings' defense is bad. They're going to have to try and outscore the Giants because the Giants are probably going to control the ball a little bit more, run the ball. So, it could be a low scoring game. I'm just going back and forth on this take. Probably a low 40s total. So, I say it's 23-20. That's my take. 23-20 Giants. And they move on to the next round. Giants do. Then you have the Sunday night game. Ravens-Bangles. The coin flip game. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Bangles. What can you say about the Bangles? They have their franchise quarterback at the helm, Joe Burrow, leading a very talented Bangles team. A Bangles team that wasn't at the Super Bowl last year. They know what it takes to get there. And I don't think the Bangles are going to let the Ravens, who are going to be led by a Lamar Jackson-less team. Yeah. That's how you say it. Lamar Jackson-less team. Because he's not playing. He's injured. It's going to be a backup. I think it's, oh, my gosh, what's his name? I don't remember. I literally saw it. I can picture him. But it's going to be a backup playing for the Ravens. And the Ravens' defense is good, but not good enough to stop Joe Burrow, Jamar Case, Joe Mixon. Too many weapons on that team to stop them. Bangles win, but it's going to be a low-scoring game because the Ravens' defense is pretty good. They cover. I think Bangles win, I'm going to say 2017. No, that's too close. 24-17. We'll make it a touchdown game. 24-17 total. Bangles win and move on, which would make a matchup that you will not want to miss next week if the Bills and Bangles both win. That's going to be a game to watch. Then you got Monday night, baby. Monday night, people. Let's go. Monday night, you have the Dallas Cowboys against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That is going to be streamed all over the place because who would not want to watch the greatest quarterback of all time beat the Cowboys because he has never lost to the Cowboys in his career. Tom Brady never lost to the Cowboys in his career, ever. Not once. Maybe look into the preseason. He probably hasn't even lost to them in the preseason either. That's really not a credible stat, but it's probably true. He hasn't lost. He's the greatest of all time. Sure, the Buccaneers barely sneaked into the playoffs as well, a below 500 team. But the NFC South, not really a good division either, so you had to have one team come into this playoff with a home game. Sure enough, it was the Bucs. The Cowboys, they have to come to Tampa playing a grass field. Historically, not a good team this year on a grass field. They're 1-4. Their one win was against the Titans. You can't really consider that a win because the Titans didn't have anybody to play that game. They were all injured. So you can't really count that. Dak, he's got issues. He's thrown a pick in the last seven games. He's got to figure it out. You just can't. You can't make mistakes in the playoffs because, like I said, it's win or go home. There is no looking forward to next week. You win or you go home. You've got to give everything you've got on this field or you're done. And hopefully he doesn't make a mistake like running the ball and sliding on the ground and making the clock go out like he did last year because that's not a good idea, Dak. Don't run the ball. Throw the ball or throw it out of bounds. Clock it. Do whatever you can. Don't be dumb. Dak, I'm sorry, but I think you're going to lead a 12-win team from this year to a loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because Playoff Lenny, Tom Brady, Mike Williams, Chris Goodwin, Godwin, however you say it, Tampa Bay is going to show up for this playoff. They are going to ship. They are going to ride the sail and lead their team into next week against whoever they're going to play. Sorry, Cowboys. Your season is done after Monday night. That is going to be probably a close game as well. I think high scoring, but Dak is going to do something stupid and cost him the game. Probably an interception because that's happened so many times. Buccaneers, 30. Cowboys, 24. My call. With that being said, we have concluded the Wild Card Weekend cap and we are going to kind of move on to our next subject and topic. Stay tuned. With this next segment, we are going to end up talking more baseball. What I would like to talk about is my favorite team in the Cubs and what this upcoming year kind of looks like for them. Some possible key pieces to add before the season starts and then I will also kind of talk about what other teams have done and what they have done to add to their lineup. However, for the Cubs, I know they have CubsCon this weekend. A lot of guys showing up. They have signed guys to avoid arbitration. Nico Horner and Dansby Swanson, going to be the best middle infield in the league. I will say that right now and I will stand by that. They will be the best infield in the league. They added guys like Cody Bellinger, Eric Hosmer. I know they added the other day. He is going to be a good veteran piece. Eric Hosmer will be a first base guy. Probably not an everyday starter. He will probably switch on and off with I think Patrick Wisdom is going to play there a little bit. That also leaves a gap to fill at third base. A little bit of Christopher Morale. He will probably play there a little bit. Probably play a little bit of the outfield as well. You are going to have guys like Cody, Ian, Seiya Suzuki. He is going to be out there. That is going to probably fill out the outfield. That is going to be their outfield. Then you have guys in the infield. Dansby, Nico, Eric, Patrick, Chris. You are going to have guys that are going to fill roles and they are going to have to make that adjustment. Make the adjustment, in-game adjustments at the plate. Be able to hit the ball well. Stripe the opposite field. You are going to have to play all around good baseball fundamentally, physically, and just have good baseball. You can't make the postseason without 90 wins. You have to figure out a way to hit 90 wins. That is the benchmark. You can't go below 500. You have to find 90 wins somehow. That being said, their pitching is also not really looking good. Ian, you have added some guys here and there. You added Jameson Talion. Talion. Talion. Talion. I think that is how you say it. He is probably going to be a good two-piece. I don't think he will be our number one. I don't even consider us having a number one. The Cubs have a string of guys that are good. They were good at the end of the year. Hopefully that kind of rides into this next year. You have guys like Justin Steele. He is going to be a good guy, though. He is our dark horse. He is the guy that you want to give the ball to. You know he is going to get you a solid outing every single time. He is a guy that grinds. You give him the ball and he will get you outings. He will get you five innings at least and then give it away to the bullpen. The bullpen kind of has its issues, too. We are signing guys left and right. We are kind of trying to fill the gaps there. It is going to have to come about because we have guys that are young and pretty talented. There are guys like Caleb Killian. I believe he was a good draft pick this last year. I don't remember. There are guys there. Marcus is going to have to pitch well this year. I wouldn't be surprised if Hayden Wisniewski is on the starting rotation. I don't know. Starting five is going to be a little bit picking pieces left and right. Kyle is probably going to be considered our number one still because it is Kyle. He has been the go-to. I think he was opening day starter the last two years. I think. It is probably going to be Kyle. Then I would consider Jameson. Then Marcus. Then Jay Steele. That fifth spot is kind of up for grabs. It is probably between Drew Smiley and Hayden Wisniewski. Those are two good guys. Drew is coming from the Southpaw side. Hayden is the right-hander. He's got a lot of width to his ball, a lot of wide horizontal movement, which is good because you want balls that are going to move and not just stay straight. But then kind of looking into the roster, you have Adrian Sampson. He was a good guy towards the end of the year. He picked up a lot of innings, and he did well. You're just going to have guys that are going to have to really dig deep and just rally towards five innings at least. Then you also have Adbert, Javier, guys that they've got what it takes to be in the major leagues, obviously. Why else would they be there? They just have to make the most of it. Kind of going down in the roster a little bit, I think their catcher position is going to be a toss-up. Really, historically in the league, the catcher is not the one to produce the most offense. But you want a guy that's going to produce offense because how else are you going to win games if you don't produce offense? You can't really win all your games 1-0 or 2-1. You've got to produce offense. Guys like Tucker Barnhart, not really a good producer in the offensive type. He's 32 years old, been in the league for a while, a couple of gold gloves. He's from Indy, so he's a hometown kid kind of, at least where I'm from. Then you have Jon Gomes, another veteran catcher. I'd love to kind of see him only kind of DH maybe because he's kind of a reliable bat. He can get you probably a .270 batting average, .260 on a yearly basis. We have Miguel Amaya. He's been in the minors for some time. He's probably going to get a shot at some point here in the near future. He's a good prospect. I wouldn't hate to see him get some time in there, in and out, but that catcher spot is going to be a spot that they have to figure out. It's not good going along with only having really one first baseman. That's not good. Then your outfielders, you have more prospects like Brandon Davis. He is a guy. Nelson Velasquez. Oh, my gosh, I can't talk. Nelson Velasquez, he is a guy as well. You have these prospects that have the ability to produce. If these veteran guys don't, then these prospects will be given the chance, I believe, to try and produce because the Cubs should not wait so long to get these guys a chance. They need the experience. They need to be out there. I think the Cubs need to try and add some more relievers. That's the one thing they need to get more of. Maybe possibly a third baseman. Patrick did well. He was on and off. But he's got to be more productive at the plate. He's a good defensive player. He's just got to be productive at the plate. That's been the one thing that's been holding the Cubs back. They've been, I think, bottom in the league in terms of production at the plate, and that just can't happen. You need production to get those 90 wins. That's the goal. That's the benchmark. You have to hit 90 wins. You can't really make the playoffs if you don't do otherwise. That being said, other teams, they've really stacked their rosters. The Mets, they kind of went all out this offseason. They grabbed a lot of starting pitching, I believe. What was it? Justin Berlander, he signed there. Did they get another pitcher? I totally forget. I'm blanking right now. But they did a lot to acquire in this offseason more talent to make a push in the offseason or the next season and try and win that NLE's title. They were close, but I believe the Braves won it still last year. They were close, but they need more. Who are the other teams that kind of made pushes for more people? I don't know why, but I'm blanking. I've been talking a lot about the Cubs, and the Cubs, they're really all I have on my mind because I want to see them do well. I want to see them do well. I'm a fan of them. They've done well in the past. It's just sad to see that they gave away all their guys because they were asking for too much money, apparently, even though we have all the money. It's sad to see the direction my Chicago sports teams are going. Bears have been terrible the last few years. Cubs, terrible last few years. Bulls, they were on the bright side last year, but this year, they are kind of slumping. Not really doing as well. But, you know, the Cubs, they've got hope. They should do well next year. I really believe in them. Other than that, I guess continuing my baseball talk, I just want to touch base on what this whole Carlos Correa saga I've kind of thought about. You know, Carlos Correa, good player. Great player, probably. Very good for the Astros. He's won them a couple World Series and whatnot. But, holy crap, dude. How can you go out there and ask for so much money, so much money, and not have a physical to back it up? You got turned down by not only one, but two organizations that checked your physical and was like, actually, actually, my guy, you are not really capable of this much money. Like, we would be willing to keep you up. Like, we want you on the team, but can we try and reach a benchmark in which we don't have to pay you that much money? And the Correa team was just kind of like, no, we want money. Like, we know we're good. However, these organizations were not looking past the B.S. that they were putting out there, and they just did not want to give in on giving them more money for that type of play because his injuries that he has occurred, they are pretty detrimental. And, like, they will limit his ability if he gets a long-term contract. Like, he won't be playing the same sport and given the same abilities when he's 40. Like, his abilities will have to change. He's going to have to play a different style of baseball when he is that old. You can't be that productive given that age. Like, there's few players that can do that, and I just don't think you're going to be one of them given the physical history that you have with injuries. It's just, like, not going to happen. And I promise to you that, I mean, you went back to a team that always wanted you there, and the Twins, and they gave you more money once again. But I think, honestly, they gave you less money than what you originally had. If I remember, you left the Twins. You said, screw it, I'm leaving the Twins, entering free agency, to not only get turned down by one team but two teams, get rejected by both, and went back to the Twins, I think, for less money. That's pretty impressive how you did that, but I give you props. I don't understand. It's pretty funny. That being said, you know, this was the first episode of The Honest Truth. I appreciate you guys for listening, if you listened to the whole thing. I really hope you did. There will be more content like this on a weekly basis. I will cover grounds on what happened in the last week in the sports industry, in the sports world, sports content, sports media, social media, all things like that. That was everything that I believed was honest, in my opinion. My favorite sports teams, favorite sports, things I like to talk about, and I appreciate you guys for listening. I hope to see you guys next week with more topics to talk about. Thank you, guys, and I'll see you guys next week. Also, if you guys could, go ahead and give me a follow on my social media platforms, Twitter, and I'll probably also post on Facebook. You can find me there. Probably not Instagram, but Twitter will be where you will most likely find until I get my own platform and my own Twitter handle for this podcast. Thank you.
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