Rick's former radio partner and longtime Tampa Bay Times columnist Tom Jones, now at the Poynter Institute with his own podcast, drops by to talk about a wild few days in Tampa Bay sports. They start with the Bucs' 16-0 win over the Falcons, where Baker Mayfield completed zero passes, and Rick says nothing like it has been played since 1974 (Joe Ferguson's two attempts for the Bills while O.J. Simpson ran). That leads to old Monday Night Football highlights, Terry Bradshaw calling his own plays, and quarterbacks handing off 30-plus times a game. They then marvel at how hard it rained at Raymond James Stadium (not a drop during warmups, then a downpour right after the anthem), how poorly the field held up, and what Rick calls the NFLPA survey's failing grade for the playing surface. Along the way Tom explains why his St. Pete house stayed dry, and they trade Halloween stories, including childhood costumes in Pennsylvania, Heidi Klum's severed-hand getup, and horror movie marathons.
The heart of the show is Nikita Kucherov. Tom says he understands both sides: Kucherov deserves to be paid like one of the NHL's best players, and the Lightning can't be blamed for balking at a massive contract for a 33-year-old who'd be 39 at the end of it. Rick and Tom wonder how his teammates really feel after Kucherov reportedly told them on the plane to Nashville that he had asked for a trade, why it became public in-season, whether it will hang over the locker room the way it did with Steven Stamkos, and if he really felt disrespected after only two conversations with Julien BriseBois. Steve points out that Kucherov wears an A and the team poured onto the ice when he broke the franchise scoring record, and the group debates his reluctance to speak to the media, the "Cooch being Cooch" culture around him, and what a real captain looks like (Tom's pick is Stamkos, with Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, and Gerald McCoy as other examples). Tom tells a story about the Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk keeping the whole team in the locker room after a bad loss at the old Nassau Coliseum so reporters could ask questions.
They also take a look at the bigger picture: the Lightning's history of letting stars go (Stamkos, Marty St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier), why a team that's trying to keep its window open doesn't want draft picks, Kucherov's playoff scoring, whether Steve is right that he'll end up in Vegas (Tom and Rick also think he won't be in Tampa Bay a year from now), how fans might react, and the chance BriseBois has to meet him in the middle or trade him in February if the Lightning fall out of the race. They finish with a plug for Tom's podcast, his guests (including Rachel Maddow and Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, and an upcoming one he can't reveal yet), the Elizabeth Holmes documentary he can't stop talking about, and a quick promise to be back tomorrow.