Overreaction Monday: Rich Talks World Cup, 49ers, Red Sox/Yankees, Giannis & More

The band was back together, all four of them, for an Overreaction Monday on the actual Monday. And the first pitch came in hot.

Fresh off a four-game sweep of the Yankees, the claim was that the Red Sox are going to make the playoffs. Rich called it absurd, and the room mostly agreed. Boston sat four and a half out and would need to leapfrog five teams. The counter from the Red Sox corner was that the American League is terrible enough to make anything possible, with only three teams above .500. The reminder from the other side was that the Yankees handed Boston six unearned runs with their best pitcher on the mound. Overreaction, but a delightful one, with the Red Sox faithful insisting they cannot possibly be the worst team in baseball because they exist.

Then the table flipped it. After getting swept, is it a ringless season for the Yankees? Also an overreaction. The current state is not great, Rich allowed, but the team is not this bad either. Max Fried is hurt, Gerrit Cole did not have a great weekend, and Brian Cashman figures to make a move for the bullpen. Get Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton fully right, and who knows, maybe there is another Canyon of Heroes parade nobody saw coming. The Red Sox side took that as a personal insult, which was the point.

Football news was thin, but Brandon Aiyuk's offseason posting got a mention, with the take that he will not play it down for anybody this year. Overreaction. Talent wins in this league, the Niners hold the cards, and it is not even training camp yet. Rich invoked the famed Jonah Hill "stop, don't do that" GIF and moved on.

Wrestling earned a beat too. Seth Rollins, set to host the Thursday show, picked up a big win over Braun Strowman and is coming in healthy after a steel cage. And Sean McVay's shirtless vacation photo became its own segment. Rich figured McVay would win an NFL head coach Royal Rumble, counted the abs, and marveled that he and his wife, a mother of two, are clearly eating right on the Riviera. No In-N-Out, no baguettes on that boat.

The World Cup is where Rich lit up. Japan keeping Brazil out of the net was, in his words, insane, though Brazil eventually equalized. He framed the tournament as Messi and Argentina's to lose, then admitted France looks dangerous, with Ousmane Dembele scoring three goals in 30 minutes while Kylian Mbappe, already with four, did not even find the net. A France-Argentina final in New York is set up, where Rich noted that nobody, in football or football, likes the MetLife turf.

The NBA overreactions kept the free-agency dread alive. LeBron James playing somewhere other than Los Angeles? Overreaction for now, even with Draymond Green opting out to give Golden State optionality and Windhorst's careful note that James has not made himself available to the Lakers. Either Kawhi Leonard or Jaylen Brown winning a title before Giannis? Rich granted it, especially after the table informed him Andrew Wiggins had just signed a three-year deal.

The closer was pure troll: a proposed rule that any team swept in a four-game series should be ineligible for the postseason. One last shot at the Red Sox sweep, and the table earned every laugh.