Knicks Strangling the Spurs With a 2-0 Finals Lead | Jun 8, 2026

Show Notes

Baker Mayfield's contract standoff with the Bucs heats up as he sets a training camp deadline. The Knicks take a commanding 2-0 Finals lead after a Wembanyama turnover seals Game 2. Pittsburgh's edge room becomes the NFL's priciest with Nick Herbig's $100 million extension alongside T.J. Watt.

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Welcome to The Sports Hangover Daily, I'm Michael Benatar. Today on the show: Baker Mayfield's contract standoff in Tampa, the Knicks strangling the Spurs with a two to nothing Finals lead, and Pittsburgh's edge room just became the most expensive in football. Let's get into it.

Baker Mayfield is heading into a contract year in Tampa, and based on what he said Friday, things are not going well. His exact words — "not anywhere close to what we were thinking." He wants to stay. The Bucs say they want him to stay. But the money isn't there yet, and Baker put a hard deadline on it. Once training camp starts, he's done talking contracts.
And honestly? I get it. Look at what this guy has done. Over thirteen thousand yards and a hundred and three touchdowns — including playoffs — in three years with Tampa. That's not a placeholder. That's a franchise quarterback. The problem is the market. Eleven quarterbacks now average over fifty million a year. Dak Prescott's sitting at sixty million at the top. Baker's probably looking at something in the fifty to fifty-five range, and the Bucs are dragging their feet.
Baker is thirty-one. He's not ancient, but he's not twenty-five either. Tampa has to decide if they're paying for what he's done or what he's gonna do. And if they let this drag into camp without a deal, the vibe changes. You can't ask a guy to lead your team while telling him he's not worth what eleven other quarterbacks are getting. That's a morale problem waiting to happen. The Bucs need to get this done before minicamp on June sixteenth. Every day they wait, Baker's leverage grows. Because if he hits the open market next March, somebody's paying him. Probably more than Tampa wants to.

Over in the NBA Finals, the Knicks took Game two in San Antonio, one oh five to one oh four. And this one ended on a Victor Wembanyama turnover with nine and a half seconds left. He threw it off Stephon Castle's back. That's the kind of mistake that sticks with you all summer. Wemby had twenty-nine, nine boards, and four blocks. He was the best player on the floor for most of the night. But Karl-Anthony Towns was the best player when it mattered. Twenty-one points, thirteen rebounds, four assists, eight of twelve from the field. Towns is the early Finals MVP frontrunner and it's not close. Brunson only shot seven of twenty-five but still put up twenty points, six assists, and five steals. He's the first Knick to post twenty, five, five, and five in a Finals game. Joins Jordan, Pippen, Iverson, and Butler in that club. The Knicks are now up two to nothing heading home to MSG tonight for Game three. And the Spurs have a real problem. Nobody has ever come back from down two to nothing after dropping both games at home in the Finals. San Antonio's window to steal one on their own floor is gone.
The Steelers' edge rusher room just got absurdly expensive. Nick Herbig agreed to a four-year, hundred million dollar extension. Combined with T.J. Watt's deal, Pittsburgh now has the second-highest-paid edge group in football at eighty-three million in average annual value. Only Houston's is higher. And Alex Highsmith missed the second day of minicamp, which they say is unrelated to Herbig's deal. Sure. Your coworker just got a hundred million dollars and you called in sick the next day. Totally unrelated.
Jacoby Brissett is still holding out in Arizona heading into mandatory minicamp today. He completed sixty-five percent of his passes last year with twenty-three touchdowns and eight picks over fourteen games. He wants more money. The Cardinals drafted a quarterback and signed Gardner Minshew. Brissett's leverage here is basically nonexistent.
The Seahawks are getting their Super Bowl sixty rings on Wednesday. Kenneth Walker the Third, the Super Bowl MVP, said he'll fly back for the ceremony even though he left for the Chiefs in free agency. That's a classy move. Show up, get the ring, dap up the boys, then go win another one somewhere else.
And Caleb Williams is on the Madden twenty-seven cover after throwing for thirty-nine forty-two yards, twenty-seven touchdowns, and seven picks in his first full season. Led the Bears to eleven and six and their first playoff win since twenty ten. Kid earned it.

Here's my Hangover Take. The Minnesota Vikings quarterback competition is gonna be the most overblown storyline of the entire summer, and J.J. McCarthy is gonna win the job by August fifteenth. Kyler Murray is a veteran presence and he's got experience. Fine. But the Vikings didn't trade up and draft McCarthy to have him hold a clipboard behind a thirty-four-year-old bridge quarterback. Kevin O'Connell's offense is built for a young, mobile passer who can extend plays. McCarthy fits that. Murray's there as insurance, not as the plan. Every beat reporter is gonna write fifteen articles about the "wide-open competition" because it drives clicks. But this is McCarthy's job unless he throws four picks in the first preseason game. Minnesota knows who their guy is. They're just making him earn it publicly so the fan base buys in. By the time Week one rolls around, nobody will even remember this was a competition.

That's your hangover. Go hydrate. I'll see you tomorrow.