Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: Hi everybody, and welcome in. Kevin Clark from The Ringer.
Speaker 2: We'll stop by for a twenty minute chat on our
Speaker 2: Tuesday morning podcast. It is great to be here. There's
Speaker 2: some college football news today that I want to discuss
Speaker 2: three things. Number One, SEC Commissioner Greg Sanke says the
Speaker 2: entire playoff structure, which is going to expand to twelve
Speaker 2: teams in twenty twenty four, needs to be reconsidered because
Speaker 2: of expansion. And I absolutely agree. This is what I
Speaker 2: have proposed, and this is what I believe is the
Speaker 2: truth of the playoff structure. I think it needs to
Speaker 2: go to sixteen, eighteen to twenty four teams. I think
Speaker 2: there is so much money left on the table in
Speaker 2: college football because of so many of these dreary, small
Speaker 2: town bowls that nobody attends, nobody really wants to play in.
Speaker 2: It's just a way to get practices for some of
Speaker 2: these coaches that you know half of them. Nobody shows
Speaker 2: up to the games. They're awful, they're optically bad, players
Speaker 2: could get hurt. Great players go into the NFL, don't
Speaker 2: want to play in them. Get rid of those things.
Speaker 2: I think we now have to consider, not just twelve teams,
Speaker 2: but sixteen to eighteen because I think college football needs
Speaker 2: to take a page from college basketball and have a dramatic,
Speaker 2: long playoff scenario to cap off the season. It's the
Speaker 2: icing to the cake. College Basketball's primary issue is the
Speaker 2: cake isn't very good anymore. The best players don't want
Speaker 2: to play college basketball, and if they do, it's briefly
Speaker 2: one year and they're gone. College football will maintain a
Speaker 2: high level of integrity and competitiveness and quality because you
Speaker 2: have to stay in college football minimum three years. Most
Speaker 2: players stay four, some even five with red shirting. So
Speaker 2: I mean you see some of these quarterbacks coming out.
Speaker 2: They're twenty four to twenty five years old now, and
Speaker 2: so the quality of college football will remain high. I've
Speaker 2: never bought into this argument that it'll kill college football rivalries. Really,
Speaker 2: Auburn Alabama both know they're getting into a twelve to
Speaker 2: sixteen team playoff. You're not going to watch the game
Speaker 2: in Alabama. That game won't mean anything. You'll just skip
Speaker 2: it and go to the Falcon Saints game in Atlanta
Speaker 2: the next day. That's so stupid. You love college football
Speaker 2: or you don't. Rivalries will always matter Douke. Carolina is
Speaker 2: still a great rivalry, and we know they could meet
Speaker 2: again and again and again down the road. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Great is great. So Greg Sankee, who is the most
Speaker 2: powerful person in college football, the SEC Commissioner, says, hey,
Speaker 2: we're expanding all these conferences. Let's reconsider the playoff structure.
Speaker 2: I'm all for it. What the SEC has done better
Speaker 2: than any conference. They've been willing to evolve, be aggressive annually.
Speaker 2: And Greg's right. Secondly, Jim Harbaugh self imposed three game
Speaker 2: suspension at Michigan. We heard it was going to be four, right,
Speaker 2: and then Harbaugh and his guys couldn't agree with it. Right.
Speaker 2: Then it was none. Now it's back to three. The
Speaker 2: NCAA has always been fairly toothless. They depend on the
Speaker 2: reporting of newspapers and media to up end programs. They
Speaker 2: really don't have the ability, very rarely, the staffing or
Speaker 2: the ability to go into a program and monitor these closely.
Speaker 2: And now with name, image and likeness, what's cheating. Harbaugh
Speaker 2: can be a difficult personality. He's strong willed, he's forceful,
Speaker 2: and he's not going to get pushed around by anybody.
Speaker 2: I think in the end, this is probably self imposed
Speaker 2: three game suspension is probably those are weak games. Michigan
Speaker 2: old roll. The big picture is it. Harbaugh's just not
Speaker 2: somebody you can push around. When his athletic director a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago asked him to take a pay cut,
Speaker 2: what did he do to the staff? Interviewed with NFL
Speaker 2: teams and has had back to back great seasons. So big,
Speaker 2: willful personalities are not to be eft with. And Harbaugh
Speaker 2: is not going to go quietly into the night because
Speaker 2: you didn't like his answer. When you're the NC DOUBLEA,
Speaker 2: the toothless NCUBA, I will always defend these coaches. They
Speaker 2: have to run these programs, deal with nonsense from the
Speaker 2: NC DOUBLEA deal with boosters. Yes, they're highly compensated, but
Speaker 2: there's a reason they're highly compensated. They create ninety one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars in annual revenue to athletic departments. So
Speaker 2: Michigan's athletic department has been revamped due to Jim Harbaugh's
Speaker 2: recent success. There's a total momentum shift, there's a total
Speaker 2: cultural shift. It is a great day to be a
Speaker 2: Wolverine these days, not so much a Buckeye. That's because
Speaker 2: of Jim Harbaugh. I think the self imposed penalty is
Speaker 2: probably the way to go about it. But we're learning
Speaker 2: time and time again. Don't try to push around Harbaugh.
Speaker 2: He's going to have a strong opinion. Another story, Jen Cohen,
Speaker 2: the highly capable athletic director at the University of Washington,
Speaker 2: has taken the job at USC. Several years ago, a
Speaker 2: trustee at USC asked me to write a list of
Speaker 2: people he thought were capable of being the athletic director
Speaker 2: at USC. I actually did not write down Mike Bone.
Speaker 2: I didn't know him. I wrote down six or seven
Speaker 2: athletic directors, two in the Big ten, two in the SEC.
Speaker 2: One of them was Jen con at Washington, highly capable,
Speaker 2: and so now she finally gets the USC job. They
Speaker 2: have wanted Gen Cohen for years. The challenge Jen Cohen
Speaker 2: will face is one that Pete Carroll never had to face.
Speaker 2: LA is now the economy's never been bigger because of
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley. Pete Carroll did not face two NFL teams.
Speaker 2: The market wasn't nearly as distracted. The Lakers were great,
Speaker 2: The Clippers were a doormat. The Clippers are now viable.
Speaker 2: The Lakers are still viable. The Dodgers have never been
Speaker 2: more popular lafc in town people now because of Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley and the net worth it has created to many
Speaker 2: people in southern California. People travel more, have second homes,
Speaker 2: some third It's harder to get people into the coliseum.
Speaker 2: That's why they shrunk the profile of it. They dropped
Speaker 2: off ninety thousand fans down to seventy five thousand. They
Speaker 2: realized it they weren't going to fill it anymore. They
Speaker 2: also realized they had to go big on the coach.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just that Clay Hilton was struggling. They had
Speaker 2: to go big on the coach. So there's real challenges
Speaker 2: inside that building. La is not even a nice town
Speaker 2: like ann Arbor, Austin, Texas. California is the biggest economy
Speaker 2: in the country. It pulled away from the rest of
Speaker 2: the country New York State and Texas during COVID, and
Speaker 2: there's just a lot to do here ninety minute drive
Speaker 2: north or south. I think Jen Cohen's struggles will be
Speaker 2: things that have culturally changed in the city. A more
Speaker 2: distracted fan base. You know, a lot of guys have
Speaker 2: to choose Saturday or Sundays. You know, if you're in
Speaker 2: a relationship and your big football fans and one of
Speaker 2: the other people are not as big a football fans.
Speaker 2: You don't get Saturday or Sunday, and so now you have,
Speaker 2: you know, justin Herbert Matt Stafford Rams Chargers games. There's
Speaker 2: just more to do in Los Angeles. So I think
Speaker 2: you know UCLA is going through some of these struggles
Speaker 2: with name, image, likeness, money. Is that you're asking boosters
Speaker 2: for more and more money. USC is now building a
Speaker 2: three hundred million dollar football facility, getting rid of the
Speaker 2: old one, which was really nice, and it feels like
Speaker 2: they just built. But you know, Lincoln Riley needs a
Speaker 2: new facility. There's something contractually which allows him to ask
Speaker 2: for that. So now you're asking people who have got
Speaker 2: a lot of distractions. This is not the biggest game
Speaker 2: in town. The Lakers and the Dodgers are bigger. This
Speaker 2: is not a small college town. It's not even a
Speaker 2: medium sized college town like ann Arbor. So I think
Speaker 2: I think Jen Cohen and anybody running USC. It's a challenge.
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean it can't be accomplished, but asking for money,
Speaker 2: even in rich city is not easy when there are
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Speaker 2: All Right, you know him, you have to. It's essential.
Speaker 2: Kevin Clark, senior football writer, analyst at The Ringer, host
Speaker 2: of the Slow News Day podcast, a friend of the Herd.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna throw something at you. Years ago. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure who said this. It could have been Jerry Seinfeld.
Speaker 2: He talked about He called it the comedy jet Stream, Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston,
Speaker 2: like New York, this Northeast sort of maybe a little
Speaker 2: higher brow sort of a lot of times, you know
Speaker 2: this educated understanding. We get the joke. And I think
Speaker 2: it was Seinfeld or somebody said people are funnier in
Speaker 2: places where the weather's lousy because life's too easy. It's
Speaker 2: life's too easy in Miami, Tampa and Phoenix, right, it's
Speaker 2: always sunny. And so I've always had a little bit
Speaker 2: of a theory that in the nor Northern football team, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: New York, even the Giants teams, the Parcels teams, you
Speaker 2: know that very successful Super Bowl, they were tough. Phil McConkey,
Speaker 2: Mark Bavaro and Chicago. I always think about this. It's
Speaker 2: almost hard to explain how Chicago can never have had
Speaker 2: a great quarterback. It doesn't mean it's ridiculous, and you
Speaker 2: think to yourself why. And my theory is that some
Speaker 2: of these kind of cold weather towns they have romanticized
Speaker 2: defense and toughness, and it's not that. And I think
Speaker 2: Chicago's had multiple options in their franchise history to draft
Speaker 2: a quarterback, and they went for the rush end or
Speaker 2: the mike linebacker, and that it's a somewhat explainable why
Speaker 2: Chicago I can't even name their best receiver ever al
Speaker 2: Sean Jeffrey like it's it's you know. So my takeaway
Speaker 2: is when I look at Chicago this year, we may
Speaker 2: finally have a dynamic quarterback for the Bears. I'm hoping so.
Speaker 2: But that's my theory on the Bears inability to land
Speaker 2: one great quarterback. Ever, is it horseshit? Do you buy it?
Speaker 1: I buy it? First of all, do you know who
Speaker 1: the single season passing leader is the Chicago Bears all
Speaker 1: time currently twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Johnny Lujack?
Speaker 1: It's Eric Kramer nineteen ninety five three eight hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty eight yards. They have never had a four thousand
Speaker 1: yard passer in an era where you can accidentally do
Speaker 1: that going You can walk to the gas station in
Speaker 1: the NFL right now and accidentally pick up a four
Speaker 1: thousand yard season. I mean, that's like asking a town
Speaker 1: if you have indoor plumbing, have you had a four
Speaker 1: thousand yard quarterback? I mean, it's really easy to do
Speaker 1: in this era, and the fact that the Bears haven't
Speaker 1: done it is stunning. Dustin Fields, by the way, came
Speaker 1: out and said he will be the first four thousand
Speaker 1: yard quarterback over the season on a podcast. Maybe that
Speaker 1: was tongue in cheek. I don't know, but I would hope.
Speaker 1: So there is a high floor here. I interviewed Justin
Speaker 1: Fields a couple of months ago. I said, does it
Speaker 1: put more pressure on you the fact that there have
Speaker 1: been these big misses and they passed on Patrick Mahomes,
Speaker 1: Deshaun Watson, all these guys who could have been quote
Speaker 1: unquote franchise saviors. And he said, it's not my fault
Speaker 1: that this happened. And I thought that was exactly the
Speaker 1: way to do it. And I think he liked those expectations.
Speaker 1: He said to me that, however high the fans expectations
Speaker 1: are his or higher, which I think is the exact
Speaker 1: way to do it. And there's a floor here that
Speaker 1: I think that people say, oh, well, Luke gets you
Speaker 1: in the offensive staff, they've got a lot of work
Speaker 1: to do, And I say, no, it's just the opposite.
Speaker 1: There was a stat last year Colin that blew my mind,
Speaker 1: which is his consecutive games with fifty yards and a
Speaker 1: touchdown of rushing was the most sense. Gail Sayers, Okay,
Speaker 1: Gail Sayers. There's a name that actually was good in
Speaker 1: their past, and when you have that kind of production
Speaker 1: on the rushing side, it doesn't take much to open
Speaker 1: up those passing ways. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a massive step forward. I think that we're going to
Speaker 1: see an improved team. And I was I was joking
Speaker 1: with you a couple of weeks ago where some people saying, oh,
Speaker 1: in the first preseason game, he just gave the bald
Speaker 1: to Herbert and to DJ more than they did the work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Good, that's the point. That's the point of a Ryan
Speaker 1: Pole has been able to do. The rosters much improved.
Speaker 1: They had a bunch of money to spend, they spent it.
Speaker 1: So I'm expecting a lot. I totally agree with your
Speaker 1: theory that I remember being at a remember being in
Speaker 1: a Miami Notre Dame game at Soldier Field, which I
Speaker 1: don't really want to bring up because Miami lost by
Speaker 1: five touchdowns, but they as they want to do in
Speaker 1: the Al Golden Era. But I remember just some random
Speaker 1: Bears fan at the concession stand just arguing about whether
Speaker 1: or not the eighty five Bears defense was the best
Speaker 1: of all time. That's their identity. That's what Bears fans
Speaker 1: want to do. They never want to talk about the quarterback.
Speaker 1: They always want to talk as you said, they want
Speaker 1: Khalil Mack in the first round. They want that kind
Speaker 1: of guy, the big beefer. They want Mike Didka calling
Speaker 1: into local radio shows and saying, here's what we're going
Speaker 1: to do. When you have those sort of voices, they
Speaker 1: never really go away. That's you see that all the time.
Speaker 1: In the opposite I grew up in when the Dolphins
Speaker 1: have a good quarterback, they immediately get Compton Marino. That's,
Speaker 1: in a weird way, held them back. So I just
Speaker 1: think a team can get buried under its own history,
Speaker 1: and I think that's when you get in trouble sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, you know, when I look at
Speaker 2: this league, it's really fundamentally to me, there's been a
Speaker 2: cultural shift. And I've seen it in basketball where the
Speaker 2: power forward went from essential to a complete liability on
Speaker 2: the floor, Like Tristan Thompson was valuable and you can't
Speaker 2: play him in a three year period. In baseball, it
Speaker 2: used to be Dave Kingman. You don't remember Dave probably
Speaker 2: he was like a six to six home run hitter
Speaker 2: who struck out a bunch, he would be Cody Bellinger today.
Speaker 2: He was viewed as a complete liability. Now it's the
Speaker 2: ground ball. And in the NFL, if you look at
Speaker 2: the top spending teams on defense, it's Buffalo, it's Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: it's the Chargers, it's you know, it's these defensive coaches.
Speaker 2: And I've said this before, is you'd have to really
Speaker 2: convince me to hire a defensive coach in the NFL.
Speaker 2: So you recently did an article coming out on the Bengals,
Speaker 2: and it's interesting. When everybody was bailing initially on Zach Taylor,
Speaker 2: my takeaway was, no, no, no, it's the right side of
Speaker 2: the ball. You just can't win in this league with
Speaker 2: an old Andy Dalton, whoever it is. And the minute
Speaker 2: he gets Burrow, he completely embraces him. Flores struggled with Tua,
Speaker 2: Simmer with Kirk Cousins, Pete a little with Russell Belichick
Speaker 2: with Mac. I find when the coach is offensive, there
Speaker 2: is a happier, more joyful experience. Offense is celebrated, mistakes
Speaker 2: are tolerated, Like I feel, the locker room feels different.
Speaker 2: What was your vibe from Cincinnati?
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable because it's not just Taylor, it's Burrow,
Speaker 1: it's Brian Callahan the coordinator, and there's no football ego
Speaker 1: there and Colin We've talked about this before, but if
Speaker 1: you're going to have a culture changer like Joe Burrow,
Speaker 1: the number one step is to let him change the culture.
Speaker 1: And there are coaches who would say no, no, no, this
Speaker 1: is my show. Sectator didn't do that. He adapted the
Speaker 1: offense in myriad ways. I mean, at one point twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: some of the coaches are saying they're trying to run
Speaker 1: the McVeigh outside the own stuff. They were terrible at it.
Speaker 1: They gave up on it. Joe Burrow comes in and says,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to do this, this, this,
Speaker 1: I want to get five guys into routes. They said, great,
Speaker 1: And what the piece that I did that I reported on.
Speaker 1: I spent a long time talking to the coaches and
Speaker 1: Tyler Boyd and Tigg into some of these guys down
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati. Basically the angle was they've mastered the easy
Speaker 1: play because last year NFL defense has sold out to
Speaker 1: take away the deep ball, and basically his deep ball
Speaker 1: numbers were halved last year, went from thirteen touchdowns to seven.
Speaker 1: Guess what, he was a great quarterback anyway, because there's
Speaker 1: no football ego on that staff or even from Joe Burrow.
Speaker 1: And I think that what's interesting is that modern defense
Speaker 1: dares you to be uncool. They say, you know what,
Speaker 1: go ahead and do whatever you want to do. But
Speaker 1: it's going to be a checkdown to Pee Ryan, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a checkdown to Joe Mixon, it's going
Speaker 1: to be a checkdown to Hayden Hurst, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a fifty yard bomb to Jamar Chase
Speaker 1: and Joe Burrow said, deal, great, We're going to do it,
Speaker 1: and that's why they were able to win last year,
Speaker 1: especially after Week five. I basically had halftime of a
Speaker 1: Week five game against Baltimore and they started to make
Speaker 1: those changes. But that's not normal. Mahomes said. It took
Speaker 1: him a couple of months to figure out to just
Speaker 1: have that patience, have that foresight. And what Taylor told
Speaker 1: me was basically, he'll check, Burrow will check down and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know, Jamar might be open fifty
Speaker 1: yards down the field doesn't matter, because ten yards wide
Speaker 1: open is great he gashed Buffalo like that with Hayden
Speaker 1: Hurst and some of the backs out of the backfield.
Speaker 1: They doubled their targets to running backs last year. And
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing is I thought, Brian Callahan,
Speaker 1: the OC, said something really interesting. He said, it's a
Speaker 1: type of football maturity unfolding in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1: It's just him saying, this is what I have in
Speaker 1: front of me this year. I'm not going to force it.
Speaker 1: Even though I have the three I have the best
Speaker 1: receiving core in football, doesn't matter. I'm going to let
Speaker 1: those guys run down field open up the rest of
Speaker 1: the defense for me. I think it's really astounding because Colin,
Speaker 1: as you know, like when a young quarterback, young quarterbacks
Speaker 1: almost like a boxer, right, their career changes so much
Speaker 1: from year to year style. You know, one fight can
Speaker 1: change your entire trajectory, all of this stuff. And so
Speaker 1: to go through a year where you're not doing the
Speaker 1: things that you're used to and you're not going and
Speaker 1: the chemistry between Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow is as
Speaker 1: good as any two young players have ever seen in
Speaker 1: my entire life. And the stories that that Chase told
Speaker 1: me last year about how Burrow will underthrow a deep
Speaker 1: ball because he knows he can throw in a double
Speaker 1: coverage and all of this stuff. It's crazy, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just not going to do that
Speaker 1: this year. That to me is the sign of a
Speaker 1: guy who's going to adapt every single year of his career.
Speaker 1: And by the way, now that he's successful for it,
Speaker 1: the deep ball opens back up and that's the most
Speaker 1: amazing thing that they can do it again. So the
Speaker 1: fact that Burrow's on the cutting edge of this chess
Speaker 1: match shows me that not only is Zach Taylor a
Speaker 1: good coach, not as Brian Brian Calla and a good
Speaker 1: oc but the Joe Burrow is capable of anything on
Speaker 1: the football field.
Speaker 2: So Stephen A. Smith reported that Stefan Diggs wants out
Speaker 2: and I've said there are two kind of quote what
Speaker 2: you call diva receivers, and you don't see it as
Speaker 2: much today because I think there's so much money in it.
Speaker 2: Players want to win games. They don't feel like they
Speaker 2: constantly have to fight for the ball. The game's more
Speaker 2: wide open. They get the ball. But there's like the
Speaker 2: des Bryant who was difficult from day one, for Dak
Speaker 2: Prescott was just loud. Now he was. Jason Garrett once
Speaker 2: told me he fought like hell to keep him because
Speaker 2: he gave you eight to ten touchdowns. And then there's
Speaker 2: the Randy Moss Stefon Diggs, which is they're highly productive
Speaker 2: for three years and then it's their personality they want more.
Speaker 2: Diggs has been targeted a lot, highly productive, it's just
Speaker 2: his personality. And I've said I would go make the
Speaker 2: move for Randy Moss in his peak, and I'd make
Speaker 2: it for Stefan Diggs. I don't feel they're problematic. You
Speaker 2: get three years of productivity and then their personality comes out.
Speaker 2: I can live with that. In this league, three years
Speaker 2: is forever legacy's are formed and so let's just play
Speaker 2: the game. Stephen A. Smith says he's unhappy wants out.
Speaker 2: If that's true. Is there a team or two that
Speaker 2: you just think of off the top of your head
Speaker 2: where you're like, gosh, they just I mean, I obviously
Speaker 2: New England's clear, but I think they're trying to get
Speaker 2: value on every offensive player and there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of those with cap space, so you'd have to make
Speaker 2: it work via some trade. Is there any place Digs
Speaker 2: would work to you.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's a great question because unfortunately, if you take
Speaker 1: him away from his current team, one of the best
Speaker 1: places it loves to go all in right now is
Speaker 1: the Buffalo Bills. And then that's a strange thing, right
Speaker 1: It's like if you were just saying taking the team
Speaker 1: out of it, you know what, the bill is signed, bond, melbody,
Speaker 1: which contract they've got, you know, certain cap situations where
Speaker 1: they need to win right now. They're the kind of
Speaker 1: team that does it. So he's unhappy there. He's going
Speaker 1: to be unhappy in a lot of the places. A
Speaker 1: couple other teams, like the Miami Dolphins, they love making
Speaker 1: aggressive moves. Well they're full and wide receiver. They can't
Speaker 1: add another piece, and so you get to kind of
Speaker 1: the dregs a little bit, and he's going to go
Speaker 1: to a place. Does a team with a bad quarterback
Speaker 1: when a trade for us to Diggs. I don't think
Speaker 1: they do. So it ends up being, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of different places, but I just don't I don't
Speaker 1: see a place where he'd be happy. You know, does
Speaker 1: he want to go and play? You know, would he
Speaker 1: have taken the Chicago Bears slot you know, to be
Speaker 1: their star guy and try to resurrect that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, and if it's if it's a quarterback you
Speaker 1: can't get in the ball, does that make the expiration
Speaker 1: date on his happiness that much shorter. And maybe it's
Speaker 1: a place like Carolina if he wants to reboot and
Speaker 1: play with the quarterback. I don't know. But when you're
Speaker 1: going out of a winning situation, there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of options for you, and the NFL is going to
Speaker 1: set your market pretty quickly. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: Buffalo in general has a lot of blow up potential,
Speaker 1: but they could also win the Super Bowl, and I
Speaker 1: think I think there are real questions. I was just
Speaker 1: listening to some of their beat guys at the Athletic
Speaker 1: talk about how there's still questions on the offensive line.
Speaker 1: Kyer Elam, who's the first round pick from a year ago,
Speaker 1: is just not taking the job the way the coaches want.
Speaker 1: There's some real holes in that roster. But then there's top,
Speaker 1: top time ben talent, and that's why he need Stefon
Speaker 1: Diggs there. If I'm Brandon Bean, I'm doing nothing to
Speaker 1: move Stefan Diggs. I'm not going to ask for a trade.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to do a last dant situation because
Speaker 1: you need that top, top end talent because you've missed
Speaker 1: on a handful of big roster decisions in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years and you went all in maybe on
Speaker 1: guys like Bond Millwerre we shouldn't have. And so if
Speaker 1: I'm the Bills, I'm standing pat. I'm doing everything I can.
Speaker 1: I'm putting in it on Josh Allen to make it work.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs to be happy because Stefon Diggs is a
Speaker 1: type of talent you have to have if they're gonna win.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly in the AFC, where Calvin Ridley now in Jacksonville,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, he'll be one hundred and twenty catch guy.
Speaker 2: I just view the NFC so much differently than he'll
Speaker 2: cuff see, like Jared Goff would get lost in the AFC.
Speaker 2: I look at him and I think I've seen him
Speaker 2: go toe to toe with Mahomes on Monday Night football.
Speaker 2: There will be Sundays. He's absolutely the best quarterback in
Speaker 2: the NFC. Absolutely, And it's like, so when people say
Speaker 2: to you buying too Detroit, I'm like, kind of there's
Speaker 2: a lot. He's like, yeah, GoF so let's talk about them.
Speaker 2: Because you know, I was saying to Jason McIntyre today,
Speaker 2: I said, one of the things I have such great
Speaker 2: sympathy for young people is I was very lucky in
Speaker 2: my career. I got a couple of great first bosses.
Speaker 2: Let me make mistakes, let me grow. Jared Goff was
Speaker 2: a bust with Fisher and then got to a Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: His career was over like it was done with Fisher.
Speaker 2: He didn't know east from west, where the sun set.
Speaker 2: It was like embarrassing when he was on hard knocks.
Speaker 2: And I always think to myself in basketball, in soccer
Speaker 2: or basketball, talent is talent. Kobe would have found a
Speaker 2: home if he stayed in Charlotte. They didn't trade him
Speaker 2: right like he was too good international soccer, there's not
Speaker 2: many messies you'd find a club. So I look at
Speaker 2: Goff and I think to myself, we're undervaluing him. He
Speaker 2: was a number one pick. He throws one of the
Speaker 2: best deep balls in the league. At the end is
Speaker 2: he got two hundred and forty throws without a pick.
Speaker 2: It's something absurd, like where do you land with golf?
Speaker 1: I'm higher on him than most people. I didn't I
Speaker 1: want to build Simmons podcast this time last year, and
Speaker 1: Brad Holmes said to me, Jared Goff is not a
Speaker 1: stop gap, and people were killing me in the quarterback
Speaker 1: in the Twitter mentioned say, no he's not. They're gonna tank,
Speaker 1: They're gonna get you know, they're gonna get Bryce. They're
Speaker 1: in the sweep six cans. And I promise you guys,
Speaker 1: they want to add quarterback last. They'd rather be like
Speaker 1: a Philadelphia Eagles type team where they build the stacked
Speaker 1: roster and let the quarterback developed kind of later, and
Speaker 1: then they're ready to go in year two of the
Speaker 1: quarterback in three or four years. I really like Jared Goff.
Speaker 1: And I think you know you mentioned, you know, situation matters.
Speaker 1: I've always said that's about the quarterack position. Geography is
Speaker 1: destiny man like Drew Brees ending up in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: that was written in the stars, Patrick Mahomes ending up
Speaker 1: in Kansas City like that. This stuff matters. This stuff matters,
Speaker 1: Patrick Mahomes Andy Reid solved each other's problem. Andy Reid
Speaker 1: couldn't finish the big game because of clock management. Patrick
Speaker 1: Mahomes said, I will put you on my back and
Speaker 1: make sure that never happens again. I win two Super
Speaker 1: Bowls late in the fourth quarter. It does not matter
Speaker 1: right for me. Jared Goff executes the offense. That's the
Speaker 1: one thing we always overlook. When I was on my
Speaker 1: camp trars talking to guys, and you hear things about
Speaker 1: like Desmond Ritter, You, I don't think that highly desnim Ritterer.
Speaker 1: But guess what he can do. He can run on
Speaker 1: the Smith's offense and then that's a pretty good floor.
Speaker 1: He can hit these blind throws. He can just fire
Speaker 1: it in there. Coaches love Kirk Cousins. They just love
Speaker 1: Kirk Cousins. And when Kirk Cousins is available after this year,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of Shanahan treated guys
Speaker 1: spending a lot of money to get him in that building. Okay.
Speaker 1: Ryan Tannehill is another one where coaches just love the effect.
Speaker 1: He can just fire a ball and they can run
Speaker 1: the offense. Jared Goff ran Ben Johnson's offense. Ben Johnson
Speaker 1: is one of the best young offensive coordinators of football,
Speaker 1: one of the best play callers, and he will be
Speaker 1: one of the best head coaching candidates this time next
Speaker 1: year if he wants to leave, and the fact he
Speaker 1: can do that, the fact he can take advantage of
Speaker 1: the talent there. Brad Holmes is very quickly a very
Speaker 1: good roster. I didn't love the draft, but it's funny.
Speaker 1: Someone the other day in the NFL coumped Dan Campbell
Speaker 1: to somebody thought was funny. They said, he's got the
Speaker 1: chance to be Midwest poor Man's Mike Tombin, which is
Speaker 1: tough team every single year, always competing. Maybe in Dan
Speaker 1: Campbell's case, especially with the quarterback, there's a ceiling. They're
Speaker 1: probably not gonna win fourteen games, but you know what
Speaker 1: else they're again not gonna do going forward. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna win four they're gonna win a bunch of games
Speaker 1: not supposed to. They're always going to be competitive. They're
Speaker 1: not gonna quit. They're gonna have an identity. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the most interesting thing about this Lions team.
Speaker 1: And Jared Goff is a part of that. There are
Speaker 1: guys in this Lions team who were not wanted elsewhere
Speaker 1: and they turned that into something. Jared Goff is that
Speaker 1: I think one day, yeah, like if they're able to
Speaker 1: get trade up and get a Drake may somebody like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know someone like Riley Leonard, you know, with
Speaker 1: pick twenty or something. Next year, maybe we're talking about that.
Speaker 1: But I don't think they're in any rush. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was interesting because last year when I started to
Speaker 1: Brad Holmes, he said that the rebuild and the teardown
Speaker 1: in the first year was almost accidental. And he called
Speaker 1: the first year of the HVAC year and the second
Speaker 1: year of the chandelier here okay, and the third year
Speaker 1: now is okay. We've got the house. We've got the house,
Speaker 1: and now they're going to try to figure out what
Speaker 1: that is. I guess what. Jared Golf still in the
Speaker 1: house because he belongs in the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yes he need He's better in a dome. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's not great in a muddy pocket. Folks, it's the
Speaker 2: exception to the guys that are, like most guys need
Speaker 2: a cleaner pocket. This baseball season continues to heat up.
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Speaker 2: for years and years I defended Russell Wilson, and I
Speaker 2: was hard on Pete Carroll. I said Pete's tone, deaf,
Speaker 2: let's run on first and second, throwing third and five,
Speaker 2: that he never gave Russell Wilson credit, but to his credit,
Speaker 2: he moved off him, elevated, kind of resurrected Geno Smith's career,
Speaker 2: and they've hit home run after home run the last
Speaker 2: two drafts. What I think is interesting about Russell Wilson
Speaker 2: is like the whole Let's Ride thing. I'm not religious.
Speaker 2: I'm agnostic. Okay, I've always been agnostic. I didn't grow
Speaker 2: up in a traditional church, and so not that I'm
Speaker 2: turned off by religion. I try to be open minded,
Speaker 2: but it can be a tad cringe e and judgmental
Speaker 2: to me. But when I hear that Russell Wilson is inauthentic,
Speaker 2: I think, hold On Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, and Russell
Speaker 2: Wilson have deep religious conviction, and I think they're all
Speaker 2: authentic to who they are. I think they've given their
Speaker 2: life up they believe to religion. I find Cousins incredibly
Speaker 2: likable on that Netflix special, and I really do think
Speaker 2: this is who Russell is. He's just he's just insanely optimistic.
Speaker 2: And I think there's so much snark media people see
Speaker 2: it as inauthentic, and it's like, no good people who
Speaker 2: are highly optimistic they still exist and one quarterbacks the Broncos.
Speaker 2: That's really who he is. How do you how?
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 2: It's like, it's not cool to be optimistic, right, Derek
Speaker 2: Carr's not cool, It's funnier to be Jim McMahon snarkier.
Speaker 2: I get Jake Cutler, Aaron Rodgers is cool. Where do
Speaker 2: you land on Russell Wilson.
Speaker 1: I spent time with him ilimited amount of time. I've
Speaker 1: never done, like the two hour long profile or whatever.
Speaker 1: But he's been on my show a couple of times,
Speaker 1: I've been some print pieces with him. I think he's
Speaker 1: an interesting guy. I think that he's got a grand
Speaker 1: plan of how he've used his life. And I think
Speaker 1: sometimes players can be kind of turned off by that
Speaker 1: if they think that there is something beyond the locker
Speaker 1: room or whatever. But I will say this, first of all,
Speaker 1: outside interests are frowned upon and in a lot of
Speaker 1: locker rooms to begin with, right, if you're that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing, and the one thing you should overemphasize is
Speaker 1: weight room, study, habits, all that stuff. And from what
Speaker 1: I understand, Russell Wilson does emphasize those things, and he
Speaker 1: works his ass off and he always has and I
Speaker 1: from from what I understand, he's always put ball first, okay,
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of the criticisms outside
Speaker 1: noise that then becomes inside noise or I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, obviously there is some tension with the legion
Speaker 1: of Boom, which has been well documented. But this offensive
Speaker 1: versus defensive tension on a lot of teams, especially after
Speaker 1: you go to something as traumatic as that line thing
Speaker 1: that's just going to linger. I've said this a million times.
Speaker 1: The amount of fractured locker rooms, the amount of quote
Speaker 1: unquote distractions in every building that never leak would shock you.
Speaker 1: You know. Somebody was talking to me the other day
Speaker 1: actually about the DIGS thing, and I said that, you know,
Speaker 1: the only teams that really get distract there bad teams, right,
Speaker 1: good teams. You know, the Seahawks I think had two
Speaker 1: fist fights the week they won the Super Bowl, and
Speaker 1: everybody just kept it. The only time that matters is
Speaker 1: when you have a bunch of bad players and they
Speaker 1: start playing bad and people start to point bitter distractions, right,
Speaker 1: And somebody from a NFL team called me and said,
Speaker 1: you are so right, And with somebody from a good
Speaker 1: team and they said, the amount of times it'll be,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you won't believe what happened to four
Speaker 1: in the morning with these three players, and then they
Speaker 1: win about forty points. Happens all the time, never comes out,
Speaker 1: never comes out, And so your problems and your distractions
Speaker 1: only become an issue once you become bad. And that's
Speaker 1: bad for Russell Wilson over the past twelve twelve months,
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have the legs hold onto the ball anymore.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have the athleticism that he used to, can't
Speaker 1: go downfield, and so now it becomes, oh, Russell Wilson
Speaker 1: doesn't fit in the locker room because he has an
Speaker 1: extra office. Or Russell Wilson is going through his own
Speaker 1: walkthroughs without the coaches, and that's why he's bad. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: He was doing all sorts of weird crap in Seattle.
Speaker 1: He just got away with it because he played well.
Speaker 1: That's all that matters. As you've said many times, it's
Speaker 1: the great winning is the great deodorant quarterbacks, the great deodoran.
Speaker 1: You play well, everything gets solved and so your voidbles
Speaker 1: come out more. In Denver, people don't know him, Munia
Speaker 1: doesn't know him. They're not going to protect him, and
Speaker 1: so it just comes out now that he's a weirder
Speaker 1: guy because there's not a fan base that's ready to
Speaker 1: defend him. I believe Sean Payton is going to help
Speaker 1: that team. I was looking at some of the numbers.
Speaker 1: The false start penalties were just ridiculous last year. The
Speaker 1: pre snaps, the crazy Like, all Sean Payton needs to
Speaker 1: do is run the offensive more tempo. Get whoever was
Speaker 1: doing the false starts, get them out of there, or
Speaker 1: teach them to snap count. One of those two things
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to win a couple more games.
Speaker 1: Clock management, decision making. I really do think Sean Payton's
Speaker 1: gonna be able to fix the Broncos really easily. And
Speaker 1: then the assumption then is that Russell Wilson at least
Speaker 1: gets fixed at alongside.
Speaker 2: Seven Clark senior football rid analyst the Ringer. Finally, there's
Speaker 2: always a bad team that has a good year. Mine's Carolina.
Speaker 2: I think they're front seven's really good defensively, Frank Reich
Speaker 2: has made Andrew Luck, Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz very quickly
Speaker 2: more efficient. I think Bryce Young's really smart and will
Speaker 2: adapt very quickly. Small ceiling lower, really bright, high school
Speaker 2: college figure stuff out. Wonky Division. Caroline is going to
Speaker 2: be a wild card playoff team. That's my bad team.
Speaker 2: That's better than you think.
Speaker 1: Give me yours right division, wrong team. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: the NFC South has the easiest schedule in football. Okay,
Speaker 1: by far, the Saints are like lapping the field with
Speaker 1: easy schedule by Vegas win total. It's going to be
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Falcons who are right behind them. In easy schedule,
Speaker 1: but are a better team, better coaching staff, better infrastructure,
Speaker 1: more talent. Jon Robinson is a portal towards actual positionless football,
Speaker 1: which Arthur Smith wants to build. Desmond Radder, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, can execute the offense. There's talent everywhere. They
Speaker 1: took their medicine with dead cap charges, which a lot
Speaker 1: of good teams will been able to do. In the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. They basically flushed the entire roster
Speaker 1: and all the cap problems. So I'm expecting a huge
Speaker 1: jump forward. I think Arthur Smith and his schemes won't
Speaker 1: talk about a floor. His schemes and the stuff that
Speaker 1: he's able to do with his offense that should get
Speaker 1: you seven to eight wins by itself. The way he
Speaker 1: runs the offense kind of what we're talking about Zach
Speaker 1: Taylor like, he just understands how this goes, and so
Speaker 1: now there's confidence there. I like them. I like them more.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the track record for rookie quarterbacks
Speaker 1: going with winning seasons is actually quite low. I was
Speaker 1: looking to some gambling numbers over the past couple of days.
Speaker 1: It's not a great track record. Des Murder being in
Speaker 1: his second year, maybe I like that a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Bryce Young, I love the guy, but him just adjusting
Speaker 1: to the league, the offensive line, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: I just have more questions there, and I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna take an extra year.
Speaker 2: Kevin Clark, it's a pleasure. It's night where you're at
Speaker 2: it is. We just got through in La yesterday, earthquake,
Speaker 2: tornado warnings, and a tropical storm.
Speaker 1: It's already sonning. It's already sonning there. You'll be happy
Speaker 1: to know. This is the first media I have ever
Speaker 1: done after putting my son to bed, and so I
Speaker 1: was all dressed. I had the shirt on under this
Speaker 1: blazer thing. But spit up, nothing but spit up. And
Speaker 1: so that's a lesson learned. I will now be by
Speaker 1: begetting my uh my, my, my media outfit on after
Speaker 1: Teddy Clark goes to bed.
Speaker 2: Good seeing your buddy.
Speaker 1: Thanks, and it tipped out. H h. The volume