Hour 2: Chris Simms

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**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:34)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:41)
Show everybody, hour two of the fastest two hours, fastest moving two hours in Sports Talk Radio. We're so glad that you could join us. We have a big show tomorrow. So it's like an amalgamation of things tomorrow.
It's as it always is, a free for all Friday. It's a football Friday. And also, it's 25 years since the world changed, the attacks of 9-11.
And we're going to talk with Howie Rose, who was on the call on the television side on Mike Piazza's home run when baseball returned to New York. And then we're going to talk with Al Leiter in the two o'clock hour, who was on that Met team. And actually, Al and I spent the day together on 9-11. And there's a story behind that, which we will tell you as well. So Howie Rose and Al Leiter tomorrow on the show. We'll have our two-pack for sure as I make my football picks. And you'll have an opportunity to be the co-host as well. Because as I mentioned, a lot of stuff to cover tomorrow. It's an amalgamation of a free-for-all Friday, a football Friday, and a remembrance of what happened 25 years ago on 9-11. We're excited that once again this year, Thursdays, at this time, we are going to talk to one of my favorite guests that we've ever had, Chris Simms, who works for the NBC family.
And he joins us now on the show. Chris, how are you doing?

**Chris Simms** (2:05)
I'm doing great, Michael. How are you doing, man?

**Michael Kay** (2:07)
I'm doing great as well. So I watched the game yesterday, after I got back from the Yankees. And it's funny, I mentioned this at the beginning of the show.
Football is so bad for the first couple of weeks. Because nobody really plays during the preseason games. Is there any way to fix this? And it's funny because although the level of football was not top flight, I was still enthralled by the game. That's why the NFL just grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go.

**Chris Simms** (2:35)
Well, that's right. I mean, it's still the best of the best that our country has to offer in athletes. It's still the biggest psychos we got in our country to go out there and throw their body around and do some of this stuff they do. So it is the best of the best that way. But this is definitely a common talking point theme, whatever, even throughout the NFL. Yeah, September has become a little bit of almost an extension of the preseason. Like you said, players are making so much money now that teams are scared to play them in the preseason. The other aspect too is it wasn't always like this, but teams have really become simple in the preseason. Where back in my career and even my dad's career, yeah, it was maybe a little bit more simpler in the preseason, but you still saw teams do certain blitzes and try some things out that they were going to do during the regular season. You can watch a preseason football game now, and I could tune in on with you and go, they're playing the same defense and the same coverage every play of the game, and they haven't changed it other than maybe one or two times on a goal line situation or whatever else. So, yeah, listen, Michael, for a long time, I've been one to say that I don't think necessarily some of the rules that they put in place that they say help the players actually help the players. I don't think they're calloused or in football shape quite as much as they should be or the way they used to be, because, yes, we can only practice so much in the spring and then training camp has all these rules, and I think it's one of the reasons you see, yes, a sloppier play and you see more random injuries, it feels like, early on in the year as compared to maybe 15, 20 years ago.