Ray Romano Talks Netflix’s ‘Running Point’ Season 2, Jets & More with Rich

Ray Romano returned to The Rich Eisen Show with a new Netflix show, an old Knicks hangover and unfinished business from last summer in Tahoe. Running Point season two is out now, and Romano joins the cast as the head coach of the fictional LA Waves.

The gig came together fast. Two weeks to cast, almost no time to prep. So Romano did what he always does and looked for an anchor. The only NBA coach he could think of who fit his demeanor was Gregg Popovich. He used Popovich as a jumping-off point, then layered his own thing on top.

Coaching has been on Romano's mind for a while. He has spent ten years trying to get a Jim Valvano biopic off the ground after watching the documentary Survive and Advance. Valvano is from Queens, Italian, and Romano figures he looks a little like him. He admits he is probably aged out at this point, then mentions AI and grins.

Romano is a Knicks fan and a New Yorker, and he was sitting next to Jimmy Fallon at game two when New York could not even get a shot off in the final seconds. Fallon, it turns out, is from Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, not Boston, which surprised Romano too.

The Jets conversation is where Romano really opens up. He is not a draft junkie. He asks his kids how the team did. His kids told him okay. They wanted a quarterback. They know they did not get one this year. Romano's three sons, twins included, have written a script he commissioned about two lifelong Jets podcasters trying to get their show off the ground. He says it is a comedy, and admits the whole concept says a lot.

He became a Jets fan right after Joe Namath in 1969 and has been waiting ever since. He told a story about his twins at fifteen, watching a Monday night Jets game, both of them face-planting on the carpet when the loss came. Romano left the room. He came back forty-five minutes later and they had fallen asleep in the same position, still in their Jets shirts.

Then Rich pivoted to Tahoe. Romano did not just beat Rich in the karaoke contest at the American Century Championship. He won first place. The route there was years in the making. He started with Rocky Raccoon, moved to a Chicago deep cut called Dialogue, and finally did Lose Yourself with his twins on the chorus in matching Yankee shirts. They brought it. Rich described the moment he realized he was not winning. He had handed Romano the microphone thinking he had it locked.

Mike Del Tufo claimed he used to fill in for Jim Norris on Everybody Loves Raymond. Romano did not remember him, then found a way to soften it by saying he does not remember Brad Garrett either.

The segment closed with Romano confessing that during a previous appearance he claimed to know every world capital, then realized at home he had gotten one wrong and Rich had not called him on it. Chris ran the quiz again. Senegal, Slovenia, Oman, Latvia, Bulgaria. Romano nailed them. Vanuatu tripped him up. Pitcairn was not really a country.