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Speaker 1: All Right, So I occasionally bring Danny Parkins on FS one,
Speaker 1: but we can kind of stretch things out here and
Speaker 1: go for forty five minutes to an hour on the volume,
Speaker 1: which I really like, and talk about a bunch of
Speaker 1: different stuff. So you know, it's funny. I was trying
Speaker 1: to wade through Baltimore and Kansas City. So when I
Speaker 1: started my you know, thirty years ago, I started being
Speaker 1: a sportscaster, I mean got thirty five years ago. And
Speaker 1: so when I started, I watched everything, and I thought
Speaker 1: everything was important and baseball was had much greater social currency.
Speaker 1: You didn't have the Internet, you didn't have all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And then when I got to ESPN, I really started
Speaker 1: seeing this research where there's like four things that matter.
Speaker 1: And don't be a newspaper. You know that every newspaper
Speaker 1: when I was a kid had the prep section hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing. It's like, don't do that. That's sports center,
Speaker 1: that's not talk radio. And then over the course of
Speaker 1: the last twelve years, I would say twelve to fifteen,
Speaker 1: the NFL has taken over our world. There's legalized gambling.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing that really works on TV. The
Speaker 1: iPhone has made us more distracted, so therefore people just
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday sports it's unless you have a Caitlin
Speaker 1: Clark or you're a superstar brand, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: get people's attention outside of the weekends. We're all distracted,
Speaker 1: we're all on our phones. So I was trying today
Speaker 1: to watch Baltimore in Kansas City, and I knew the
Speaker 1: game was huge in Baltimore and Kansas City. I could
Speaker 1: feel it, and I'm thinking, I just want to get
Speaker 1: to the Phillies, Dodgers, and Yankees that's just what I
Speaker 1: want to get to. Those are the players.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: You have lived in the city of Chicago, where one
Speaker 1: team's awful and one team's kind of interesting. Have you
Speaker 1: and I still like baseball in the biggest spots, in pressurized,
Speaker 1: urgent situations. I'll watch the Phillies Dodgers. If that gets
Speaker 1: to the NLCS, I'll watch every pitch. It'll be great.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have a transformative sort of time in
Speaker 1: your life where you felt like, yeah, baseball doesn't I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it was taking calls from your audience. Did your
Speaker 1: audience lead you into being more football than baseball?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I I grew up you know, a kid
Speaker 3: in Chicago in the nineties, and you know, ten to
Speaker 3: twelve is a sweet spot for a sport fan. I
Speaker 3: think because you can kind of stay up late occasionally
Speaker 3: and watch games. You kind of know what's going on.
Speaker 3: You can memorize stats, trading cards, that sort of thing,
Speaker 3: And so that's for me. The second Bulls three peat
Speaker 3: ninety six to ninety eight, culminating with the home run
Speaker 3: chase of Sammy Sosid Mark Reguire summer of ninety eight.
Speaker 3: So I grew up a huge Cubs fan, and I
Speaker 3: obviously say that I have a love hate relationship with
Speaker 3: baseball because I actually don't agree with like, I don't
Speaker 3: really need the big markets for playoff baseball because if
Speaker 3: I tune into that game in Baltimore or in Kansas
Speaker 3: City or in Milwaukee, and that place is rocking, it
Speaker 3: has a college football college basketball vibe that is impossible
Speaker 3: in regular season baseball. The problem with regular season baseball
Speaker 3: is that the games don't matter. They say that they
Speaker 3: do and know a game in April counts the same
Speaker 3: as a game in September, but it's just the math
Speaker 3: doesn't work. It's one of one sixty two. Football's one
Speaker 3: of seventeen. So every football game means so much. And
Speaker 3: I think when I started realizing that as I got older,
Speaker 3: and just like, wait a minute, this game can It's fun.
Speaker 3: They give handshakes and high fives after they win, but
Speaker 3: then they just have to come back and play a
Speaker 3: game the next day, which I get is part of
Speaker 3: the beauty and the allure of baseball. It's a companion sport.
Speaker 3: It's there with you every single day, and that's the
Speaker 3: grind of the sport. I understand that, but I love
Speaker 3: sports and games that matter a ton. So for me,
Speaker 3: not the big markets in postseason baseball like I'll be,
Speaker 3: I'm locked into that, Orioles Casey and part of that.
Speaker 3: For Casey, I lived there for seven years that culminated
Speaker 3: in their back to back World Series in twenty fourteen
Speaker 3: and twenty fifteen, So I know how good of a
Speaker 3: baseball city it is. But I think you feel like
Speaker 3: when you tune into playoff baseball, it doesn't feel at
Speaker 3: all like regular season baseball because the crowds are so
Speaker 3: into it and there is an energy that it would
Speaker 3: just be impossible to replicate with one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: two games. It's just impossible. Regular season baseball largely feels bad.
Speaker 1: It's just I think sometimes the audience likes something. I
Speaker 1: try to take my personal experience. So but I also
Speaker 1: have a bias. For instance, my friends are all professional.
Speaker 1: They all work. I have one exception, stay at home Dad.
Speaker 1: But all my friends work and they're busy, and they
Speaker 1: don't watch regular season their NFL, college UFC, fight love
Speaker 1: English Premier League. So my friends don't watch baseball, and
Speaker 1: I hang out with my friends and we talk about things.
Speaker 1: So my professional friends are just too damn busy. And
Speaker 1: I mean, like I have a friend Danny's like I
Speaker 1: couldn't even tell the last baseball game I watched. That
Speaker 1: may have been twenty years ago. And Dan knows the
Speaker 1: English Premier League top to bottom, loves his Warriors, NFL
Speaker 1: guy and knows college football, and he'll go out with
Speaker 1: me and watch a UFC fight. He doesn't know much,
Speaker 1: he doesn't care, but he's kind of into the moment, right,
Speaker 1: And so I do yes, and so like I'm into
Speaker 1: the World Cup. But I my mom was British. I
Speaker 1: went to England as a kid, England and Holland and
Speaker 1: Johann Croi for ruled the world. So his early age
Speaker 1: I watched you know, my mom and her twin brother,
Speaker 1: and I was into it and it was on TV.
Speaker 1: And then I grew I went to the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: where like even college soccer was big in the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 1: the Timbers at Seattle Sounders. So I kind of liked
Speaker 1: it more than my average friend. And then the World
Speaker 1: Cup and and you know what, we're going to network
Speaker 1: previously and now that are into soccer. But there are
Speaker 1: times I do wonder. In Los Angeles they'll draw almost
Speaker 1: like five million people. I do wonder sometimes if I
Speaker 1: like it less than fans, And I also wonder if
Speaker 1: I like the NBA more than the public. So I
Speaker 1: like the NBA a lot now in Los Angeles, it's
Speaker 1: wildly popular. And every time I go to a Bulls
Speaker 1: game and they're dreadful, they're sold out or close to
Speaker 1: sold out. So I do think I'm aligned with a
Speaker 1: certain audience. But do you ever feel like with the
Speaker 1: NBA it's like my number two, number three sport, do
Speaker 1: you ever feel like you like it more than the public?
Speaker 1: Or in Chicago, did you get a lot of calls
Speaker 1: on it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Chicago, I mean it was you know,
Speaker 3: Bears are the thing that unifies the city. Clubs are
Speaker 3: the next most like next largest most engaged fan base.
Speaker 3: Bulls and Blackhawks fans are kind of split, like people
Speaker 3: like both teams, but you inevitably have a favorite winter sport.
Speaker 3: And by the way, it's it's the same thing with
Speaker 3: the NBA. The in person product is incredible, and you know, Okay,
Speaker 3: the game's gonna start at seven and you're gonna be
Speaker 3: out of the arena by nine to fifteen, and it's
Speaker 3: quick it's fast paced. You can go to a baseball
Speaker 3: game and see show Heyo Tani go oh for four.
Speaker 3: You go to a basketball game you see Giannis. He's
Speaker 3: gonna give you twenty and ten. So there's a there's
Speaker 3: a safety net of like, I know I'm going to
Speaker 3: get an entertainment product. I know it's going to be fast.
Speaker 3: I know I'm going to see crazy high degree of athleticism.
Speaker 3: So I love the NBA, but I think with the
Speaker 3: sports that you were talking about, baseball, basketball, it's very hard.
Speaker 3: Other than true supers, everyone's got an opinion Steph Curry, Lebron,
Speaker 3: James Kdi. That can cross over in the NBA a
Speaker 3: bit because these guys are brands. But people only have
Speaker 3: so much time. So like if I was in Chicago
Speaker 3: and I was a Bulls fan, I'm watching Bulls game.
Speaker 3: It's hard to justify another two and a half hours
Speaker 3: to watch Grizzly Suns when it's one of eighty two.
Speaker 3: I have a wife, you have two young kids, I
Speaker 3: have a job. I dedicate all of my Sunday to
Speaker 3: the NFL. I watch the big college football game, and
Speaker 3: so those sports inevitably are just going to be more
Speaker 3: popular on a local level, and then that will only
Speaker 3: be relevant when the team is good, not only obviously
Speaker 3: they are your diehards. There are your exceptions. But you
Speaker 3: see it all the time that there are just ratings
Speaker 3: kind of spike based on if the team is good
Speaker 3: or not. In the NFL, it's high across the board
Speaker 3: all the time. Because I only got to dedicate seventeen
Speaker 3: Sundays to seventeen Bears games. That's easy. Weekends, I've got
Speaker 3: the time. It's an event, it's three hours. You have
Speaker 3: sea fights, they're events. Oh this is a big card.
Speaker 3: I care about it. I can go and watch a
Speaker 3: UFC card. I follow it decently close. But like you
Speaker 3: bring friends together, all you got to do is watch
Speaker 3: the intros ninety seconds before the fight. It's like, I
Speaker 3: get it. That's the old guy with the jiu jitsu background,
Speaker 3: with the seventh wings man. That's the dude who's the wrestler,
Speaker 3: who's young and the up and comer. Let's go, like
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like it's you can It's
Speaker 3: it's like an Olympic event. I can get the story
Speaker 3: in ninety seconds and then watch the fight and be
Speaker 3: entertained with baseball, with basketball. There's so much volume of
Speaker 3: content that it's it's hard to get up for each
Speaker 3: individual game and field.
Speaker 1: And if I was Tom Verduche and you were a
Speaker 1: Dodger fan, he's the best I think there's ever been.
Speaker 1: He and Peter Gammons, you would know more than him
Speaker 1: on the Dodgers. And he's investing you exactly, And he
Speaker 1: is a he is paid to just cover baseball. So
Speaker 1: I always feel as a national guy, I keep my
Speaker 1: mind on the Phillies, the Dodgers, the Yankees, Braves. Usually
Speaker 1: if I think they're good, I kind of watch it.
Speaker 1: I'll do I'll watch like Major League Baseball to either
Speaker 1: MLB channel occasionally and just flip around and listen to
Speaker 1: the guy. I think they do a good job. By
Speaker 1: the way. All right, so we got that. We got
Speaker 1: that out of the way.
Speaker 3: So well, just one one thing on that that's pretty funny,
Speaker 3: Like Boog Shambie's doing his buddy of mine those Cubs
Speaker 3: games on Marquis does the World Series on ESPN Radio
Speaker 3: he's doing I think he was doing the Mets Padres Series.
Speaker 3: I think it's the one he said, But he basically
Speaker 3: came in in the early on in game one. He's like,
Speaker 3: this is the time of year where the local fans
Speaker 3: are locked in and you're the most passionate, and the
Speaker 3: US national guys parade in. We don't hate your teams
Speaker 3: because it's really hard to you know, I know Jason
Speaker 3: Bennetti and Jeff Passing and Boo Shot, these guys, they're
Speaker 3: the best of the best in baseball, but like to
Speaker 3: your point, they have to cover everything. It's impossible for
Speaker 3: them to watch one sixty two of all thirty teams.
Speaker 3: And then when the games are the biggest, it's so cruel.
Speaker 3: I feel like for local fans, there's a connection between
Speaker 3: local broadcasters and local baseball fans, and then when the
Speaker 3: games get the biggest, Michael Kay's doing the games, and
Speaker 3: they're like, wait a minute, I've got a New Yorker
Speaker 3: who's not watching my team doing the games. It's a
Speaker 3: cruel part of the baseball postseason viewing experience. But sorry,
Speaker 3: go on.
Speaker 1: You know, and Michael k by the way, is doing
Speaker 1: a game while your games are being played at the
Speaker 1: same time every night, so he has really no idea.
Speaker 3: But it's impossible, but.
Speaker 1: He's but he's better than the average guy to a
Speaker 1: Major league baseball. So they put him on the networks
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of time to fill. So, you know,
Speaker 1: so I think back to my premise.
Speaker 3: They're they're.
Speaker 1: We'll make an edit here for the guys. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a situation. Sometimes I'll see something
Speaker 1: and my initial reaction I don't know if it's right,
Speaker 1: but it was fascinating. So Jeff Passen is the number
Speaker 1: one baseball like story breaker, He's the schefter of baseball.
Speaker 1: A story comes out ESPN's considering moving him to the
Speaker 1: I think NBA. That comes on the heel place. Wogh.
Speaker 1: That comes on the heels of the disastrous Apple Baseball contract,
Speaker 1: the silly Roku Baseball contract, and report of the ESPN
Speaker 1: and even Fox are not digging there heels in and
Speaker 1: unloading big dollars to baseball. My take was, Wow, that
Speaker 1: that is ESPN pivoting too, like we're all in on
Speaker 1: the NBA and NFL. When you if you went to
Speaker 1: Woes and said we're moving near the NFL, I would
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, would Adam Silver call on that? What
Speaker 1: was your takeaway on passing even up for the job.
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of startling.
Speaker 3: It was startling. And so I again I'm I am
Speaker 3: biased here. I am good friends with Jeff Passon. I
Speaker 3: think he is excellent because he's one of the rare
Speaker 3: guys that is a top line, number one newsbreaker in
Speaker 3: the sport who also can throw ninety eight on the
Speaker 3: corners for a take. Yeah, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: He will give you an opinion, he will be critical, like,
Speaker 3: so I just think his ability to like bounce back
Speaker 3: and forth between reporting and commentary is very, very incredible.
Speaker 3: But it kind of bothered me that it's even possible. Like,
Speaker 3: and he's excellent, Like I really consider him a ninety
Speaker 3: ninth percentile person on our industry. But like, isn't the
Speaker 3: whole point of the insider business supposed to be contacts
Speaker 3: twenty five years of relationships and compacts and grinding spring
Speaker 3: training or grinding summer league or grinding training camps and
Speaker 3: agents and trainers and players and owners and gms and
Speaker 3: stadium workers and all sorts of Like you're telling me
Speaker 3: that he can just like, like, if it was possible
Speaker 3: to go from baseball to basketball and replace WOJ, replacing
Speaker 3: maybe the greatest to ever do it. And by the way,
Speaker 3: same thing, unbelievable news breaker in his day, unbelievable columnist,
Speaker 3: miracle at Saint Anthony's one of the five greatest basketball
Speaker 3: books of all time, Like, oh, Heighten of the industr,
Speaker 3: you can just replace him. It doesn't like from a
Speaker 3: different sport. It doesn't. I don't want to believe that
Speaker 3: it's possible, right, because then it would feel like it
Speaker 3: was like, oh, agents are just sending group texts to
Speaker 3: get their transaction on the bottom line of ESPN, and
Speaker 3: it would feel more transactional than actually like old school
Speaker 3: relationship networking journalism. So I don't know if it'll happen
Speaker 3: or not. I root for Jeff with a personal bias.
Speaker 3: But think about this when I when I saw it,
Speaker 3: I was just like, I don't I literally don't know
Speaker 3: if that's possible.
Speaker 1: It would be like, let's say you're a pharmaceutical rep
Speaker 1: and you have all these relationships with doctors, hit your
Speaker 1: big conglomerate, and they say, listen, we just bought Jiffy Loop.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be selling car parts. It's like what I
Speaker 1: literally had thirty years of doctor relationships. It's just I
Speaker 1: just read that and I thought, that's not like a
Speaker 1: transition that seems realistic and.
Speaker 3: Far be it from me. It's a critique a Colin
Speaker 3: Cowherd analogy, but at least there's an argument of like
Speaker 3: sales as sales, you know, like does he know every
Speaker 3: general manager in the NBA? Like his woes just going
Speaker 3: to like set up up on group chats like Kobe Altman,
Speaker 3: this is Jeff pass It, like our Turst partnerships. This
Speaker 3: is Jeff pass It like it just like go down
Speaker 3: the lit like it just seems it seems ridiculous that
Speaker 3: it's even possible. If anyone could do it, it would
Speaker 3: be Jeff. I want to make that clear, but I'm like,
Speaker 3: my god, man, that seems really hard, really hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I don't not that the public would care
Speaker 1: a ton, but since it's a podcast, I'll bring it up.
Speaker 1: I've always felt, uh, and I can't speak to Jeff,
Speaker 1: but I always felt it's a fairly joyless job. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs in our business that are a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I think we've got one. It's fun. Yes,
Speaker 1: I like driving no work, especially on big football days
Speaker 1: or big story It's great. I'm very grateful and I
Speaker 1: know you are as well. The job that pays a
Speaker 1: lot that's not necessarily fun is the story breaker, because
Speaker 1: it is a joyless life sapping experience. Years and years ago,
Speaker 1: probably fifteen years ago, there was a person of note
Speaker 1: at the other place and we were in the lunch room.
Speaker 1: It was breakfast. It was like, I was just going
Speaker 1: to go on my show in about twenty minutes. And
Speaker 1: I go in and this person was a story breaker,
Speaker 1: and you know, there would be lines by the cashier
Speaker 1: and nice person. And I had a relationship with this person.
Speaker 1: And I was there for about four minutes and he
Speaker 1: never looked up, and I was having a conversation with him.
Speaker 1: Two other people were and I remember just thinking, that's
Speaker 1: not a life I want. That's not good. I don't
Speaker 1: care what that pays. That's not good. So part of
Speaker 1: me when Woes left was he just wants his life back. Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's schefter, writes books, he does the texting, he does
Speaker 1: TV hits. I'm like, God, love you, brother, because I
Speaker 1: don't know how you. I mean. There are times I
Speaker 1: literally drive home from work and it's noon and I
Speaker 1: can still keep talking. I'll come home to this pod
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I got I got plenty to
Speaker 1: talk about. I'm gonna watch a game like tomorrow, you
Speaker 1: know when this airs tomorrow Thursday morning. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: home and watch Baker Mayfield and Kirk Cousins after my show,
Speaker 1: have a great time to a podcast. That's all easy.
Speaker 1: So for the audience out there, just know, the toughest
Speaker 1: job in terms of quality of life is the story breaker.
Speaker 1: That is freaking brutal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're you're, you're, You're married to your phone.
Speaker 3: It's I think it's kind of funny and perfect and
Speaker 3: poetic in a way that before he tweeted the announcement
Speaker 3: of woj leaving for the Passion job with Saint Fondaventure,
Speaker 3: which I think is just like so cool and inspirings.
Speaker 3: You can say, like I don't care how much money
Speaker 3: it pays. When I read how much money it paid,
Speaker 3: it's like that's interesting. Yeah, I'd consider it. Uh. But
Speaker 3: he he had made it, he had made it to
Speaker 3: the top of the industry. But the tweet before his
Speaker 3: announcement was Isaac oc Okoro three years, thirty eight million
Speaker 3: dollars like that, you know what I mean, Like that's
Speaker 3: not worth missing like weddings and bringing your phone into
Speaker 3: the shower, and so like, I get it, Like, you've
Speaker 3: made millions and millions of dollars, you're famous, You've reached
Speaker 3: the top of the mountain. I could see by breaking
Speaker 3: that three for thirty eight contract might get a little
Speaker 3: old at his stage in the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but
Speaker 1: first impressions do matter. They matter a lot. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: when Nick Seriani had his first press conference, it was
Speaker 1: the worst thing I'd ever seen. Jim tom Sula's was second,
Speaker 1: So I had confirmation i'd seen Tom Sula's pressure. He
Speaker 1: did an interview after he was hired, and it was
Speaker 1: a disaster. Tom Salibat does. I'd been told by a
Speaker 1: source that I really trust Sirianni wasn't parady for the job.
Speaker 1: They weren't sure he was a great coordinator. And then
Speaker 1: he had the press conference, and so then he starts coaching.
Speaker 1: It's really choppy, Shane Stiken takes over play calling, it's
Speaker 1: really good, Shane leaves, it's terrible again, and so and
Speaker 1: I think back to the Sirianni thing, and so I
Speaker 1: didn't stick with my belief, Like my take was okay,
Speaker 1: Sirianni's got it. And now I go back and I
Speaker 1: look and I think, why did you ever bail on that?
Speaker 1: Your first impression was right now, I will say Dan
Speaker 1: Campbell's opening presser was kind of vintage, a little caveman
Speaker 1: over the top Dan Campbell. But the truth is, we
Speaker 1: don't think he's situationally a great coach. We think he's
Speaker 1: a culture builder. And he was building a culture so
Speaker 1: that was aligned with how really he is, and that's
Speaker 1: why his players play so damn hard. Even his first
Speaker 1: year when they weren't winning, God, they were playing good
Speaker 1: teams to the bell. And so I've always watched that
Speaker 1: opening presser. Tamiko Ryans excellent, Sean McVay excellent, many of
Speaker 1: the guys. Now again, Belichick was actually pretty damn funny
Speaker 1: at the podium before he got all the rings. Then
Speaker 1: he turned angry. But I do watch that Wednesday press conference.
Speaker 1: My legendary or annoying hat on backwards take like I
Speaker 1: do think that stuff matters. I've had more coaches text
Speaker 1: me on that in the last ten years than you
Speaker 1: would believe that they they do take the Wednesday press ahead.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had people say the truth is we
Speaker 1: tell our guys, that's a big press conference. The banks
Speaker 1: behind you, watch what you say, that's a big press conference.
Speaker 1: The Wednesday quarterback presser. And I do watch press conferences
Speaker 1: for coaches because it tells me Brady talked and never
Speaker 1: said anything. Eli Manning talked and never said anything, and
Speaker 1: they turned out being two of the smartest quarterbacks of
Speaker 1: all time. So one of my takes is, I know
Speaker 1: it's a general is a but I do take snippets
Speaker 1: from coaches the podium. As a member of the media.
Speaker 1: I watch interactions. Kenny Pickett had a comment at a
Speaker 1: press conference a year ago. I'm not going to repeat it.
Speaker 1: It was about some body part of his and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh Jesus, this guy can't Nope, he doesn't
Speaker 1: get it, Like this doesn't work at all. Whether or
Speaker 1: not you agree with backward hat the premise of making
Speaker 1: a judgment for high priority positions on brief snippets, now
Speaker 1: we do this with politicians freely, liberally and with conviction.
Speaker 1: Do you buy it for sports?
Speaker 3: To a point, I think that grading press conferences at
Speaker 3: times is something that the media does and puts too
Speaker 3: much emphasis on, because it is something that we can
Speaker 3: relate to and we can understand. We are good public speakers.
Speaker 3: We know how to speak into a microphone, we know
Speaker 3: how to say interesting things. We don't know how to
Speaker 3: run the West Coast offense, right, We don't know how
Speaker 3: to block a three hundred pound guy who runs a
Speaker 3: four or five. And so I think that there is
Speaker 3: some degree of they're playing our game. They're answering our questions,
Speaker 3: They're in front of our microphones, in front of our cameras,
Speaker 3: so they're on our turf. So let's judge them at
Speaker 3: our game because it's something that we are obviously better
Speaker 3: at and understand and our train for. We're the pros
Speaker 3: in that arena. So I do think sometimes we overrate it.
Speaker 3: But that is not to I say all of that,
Speaker 3: then say to your point, Sometimes when I see a
Speaker 3: guy up there, I'm like, there's just no way that
Speaker 3: he can command a room, right, you know, Or like
Speaker 3: there's no way that his players are not making fun
Speaker 3: of him behind his back, or whatever the conclusion. So
Speaker 3: I'm not it's not a hard and fast rule of
Speaker 3: Matt Eberflus Bear's coach. I think he's a nice guy
Speaker 3: who listens to his players, But I think he's a
Speaker 3: little vanilla, little corny some dad jokes. I mean, I've
Speaker 3: had guys say like, yeah, you know, dad joke, Grandpa Fluse,
Speaker 3: Like we laugh, we laugh at him a little bit, like,
Speaker 3: not in a mean way, not in a disrespectful way.
Speaker 3: But I don't believe that he's like all of their
Speaker 3: guys that they would go to the mat for forever.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't think he's that guy. Dan Campbell
Speaker 3: very clearly is that guy. His team has taken on
Speaker 3: the culture of Dan Campbell. I do wonder if there's
Speaker 3: an expiration date on something like that, Like if you
Speaker 3: give me the great culture builder or the great schematic mind,
Speaker 3: I'll take the great schematic mind. Like I'd be interested
Speaker 3: into knowing what Ben what Dan Campbell's team looks like.
Speaker 3: When Ben Johnson takes a head coaching job and a
Speaker 3: couple of the TI players leave. You know, I'd much
Speaker 3: rather have Kyle Shanahan than Dan Campbell. Would not even
Speaker 3: be close for me, because I've seen that Kyle Shanahan
Speaker 3: can overachieve. So I think that there's obviously something to it.
Speaker 3: These are billion dollar organizations. You're representing yourself publicly. It's
Speaker 3: a glimpse for us into their world. But I also think,
Speaker 3: I mean, how you know way more coaches than I do.
Speaker 3: I know plenty. I've covered the NFL for a while.
Speaker 3: What are their work weeks? One hundred hours? One hundred
Speaker 3: plus hour work weeks. They're in front of the camera
Speaker 3: for an hour a week post game Monday Wednesday. So
Speaker 3: I think we get so much content out of that
Speaker 3: hour that they're in front of our cameras and microphones
Speaker 3: that we, by definition overrate its value because to them
Speaker 3: it's one percent of their work week. To us, it's
Speaker 3: one hundred percent of what we see into the building
Speaker 3: that isn't broadcast on our TVs on Sunday night, Monday
Speaker 3: night and Thursday. So I just I do I think
Speaker 3: it matters, but I think the media overrates it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the you know, it's it's it's it's an interesting
Speaker 1: time in the NFL because I mean, we all acknowledge
Speaker 1: and he reads a great coach, and then there are
Speaker 1: coaches like Shanahan, Lafleur, McVeigh. It's a lot of offensive guys,
Speaker 1: you know MCF Yeah, Shanahan McVeigh. You know, we know
Speaker 1: they're Lafleur, they they're Dan Campbell culture builder, So I
Speaker 1: aways tend to think every coach has a specialty. I
Speaker 1: think the play sheet for Shanahan is his thing. Sometimes
Speaker 1: to a fault, he's glued to it. I think McVeigh
Speaker 1: is the better public speaker, a little more alpha. He's
Speaker 1: the culture builder. Not that he's bad on a play sheet,
Speaker 1: but he's a culture builder. I think Lafleur's a little
Speaker 1: of both. He's not as dynamic as McVeigh in the
Speaker 1: locker room. I was told that when he was in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: But he's he's good enough, and he's good on the
Speaker 1: play She been not good as Shanahan, And I think
Speaker 1: there's you know, when I look at coaches, I always
Speaker 1: I look at quarterbacks and coaches the same way. When
Speaker 1: I look at a quarterback out of college, there's got
Speaker 1: to be at least one wow. So Daniel Jones has
Speaker 1: no wow, so it doesn't work for me. Joe Burrow's
Speaker 1: accuracy was wow. Josh Allen size Lamar's speed, Jayden Daniels
Speaker 1: a little of both. There's a wow. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's refined. But when I saw Josh Allen, first year
Speaker 1: jump over a linebacker, I'm like wow. So my first
Speaker 1: take is a trubisky no wow. Daniel Jones, right, no wow?
Speaker 1: Ej Manual, no Wow. Like, if I don't see a wow,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna last, or you're gonna need a perfect coach.
Speaker 1: That's why I was into Sam Darnold. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see the wow. He is freaking an athlete with
Speaker 1: a big arm and he runs over. He's like a
Speaker 1: poor man's Andrew Luck or maybe a better man's Carson Wentz.
Speaker 1: Like he's you know, but we know he's not Luck.
Speaker 1: But I think he's better at his best than car
Speaker 1: and Wentz. If I said to you best coach, Andy Reid,
Speaker 1: is there a definitive to you second best coach in
Speaker 1: the league. Because Shanahan's liability has been late game lead
Speaker 1: of operation, and there's I can give you about six
Speaker 1: different times in big spots.
Speaker 3: Yeah you can. Here's the thing. This is not a formula.
Speaker 3: It's not something that can be computed. It's just in
Speaker 3: my own head, a guy who watches damn near every game.
Speaker 3: I plug into the matrix for eleven hours on Sunday
Speaker 3: from one pm Eastern to eleven thirty pm Eastern, and
Speaker 3: then watch Monday Night Football and Thursday foot byes watch
Speaker 3: it all. I've got a in my head. How good
Speaker 3: is your quarterback? How good is your coach? How good
Speaker 3: is your coordinator? How good is the rest of your roster?
Speaker 3: How good is your owner? How good is your general manager?
Speaker 3: How good is your cap space? Who's carrying more dead
Speaker 3: cap money? Who's supposed to win this year? Who' supposed
Speaker 3: to be good offensively, who'supposed to be good defensively? And
Speaker 3: then I have all these factors, and then I'm like,
Speaker 3: who's overachieving and who's underachieving?
Speaker 4: Okay, So like the Eagles, they spend more money on
Speaker 4: offense than any team in the league, number one in
Speaker 4: cash spent on the offensive side of the ball, and
Speaker 4: they have an offensive head coach, and they have a
Speaker 4: high profile offensive coordinator, and they're nowhere near the best
Speaker 4: offense in the.
Speaker 3: League through four games. They are underachieving. That's a big
Speaker 3: knock for me. On Nick Sirianni, and also Jalen Hurts.
Speaker 3: He leads the league in turnover since the start of
Speaker 3: last year. Kyle Shanahan, I've seen the guy in a
Speaker 3: Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo, and I've seen him in
Speaker 3: a Super Bowl with Brock Purty. And I've seen him
Speaker 3: in another NFC Championship game with brock Purty. I saw
Speaker 3: him trade three first round picks to move up from
Speaker 3: thirteen to three to take an FCS quarterback it not
Speaker 3: work in Trey Lance, and then be better the next
Speaker 3: year like he is. It's crazy what he gets out of.
Speaker 3: Maybe you love brock Purty. Fine, Maybe his special or
Speaker 3: his WOW is anticipatory throwing post snap processing between the ears. Fine,
Speaker 3: we would not have said that at Iowa State. We
Speaker 3: did not know that. Good job by them. He was
Speaker 3: literally the last pick in the draft. I don't think
Speaker 3: they knew it either. There is something to Kyle Shanahan
Speaker 3: overachieving that impresses me sure more than any And by
Speaker 3: the way, I'm consistent on this Andy Reid, best season
Speaker 3: of Donovan McNabb's life with Andy Reid, Mike Vick's life,
Speaker 3: Andy Reid, Jeff Garcia's life, Andy Reid, Kevin Cobb's life,
Speaker 3: Andy Reid, Alex Smith's life Andre Reed. Then he gets
Speaker 3: the generational talent five thousand yards, fifty touchdowns, MVPs, Super Bowl, MVPs, rings, dynasties,
Speaker 3: you know, like to me, Andy Reid overachieved with all
Speaker 3: of those guys, and so that is kind of how
Speaker 3: I look at coaches is are you overachieving or underachieving
Speaker 3: based on your circumstance? And I would put Kyle Shanahan
Speaker 3: to because to me, he is the most consistent overachiever
Speaker 3: without a Hall of Fame quarterback.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now I'm going to focus on a coach.
Speaker 1: And you watched every minute of his career, and this
Speaker 1: was my observation that I really think he's a coach,
Speaker 1: but he was set up to fail. So Matt Naggi
Speaker 1: has mitched Trubisky. Yeah who Greg Cosell told me to watch.
Speaker 1: I was in Hawaii with my family vacationing, and Greg
Speaker 1: Cosell said, I'm hearing that people are going to draft him.
Speaker 1: Watch him play. I think he played. He was at Carolina,
Speaker 1: they played Florida State. I was in Hawaii, my kids
Speaker 1: were out in the pool, and I watched a half
Speaker 1: and I text Greg, I'm like, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Front leg thrower ball dies athletic, but I don't see
Speaker 1: the wow. I don't get it. He's athletic, dish and
Speaker 1: they draft him. So with Aaron Rodgers in his prime
Speaker 1: and a really stable top tier organization with Matt Stafford
Speaker 1: in his prime. Matt Naggy got Mitch Trubisky to the
Speaker 1: playoffs twice with the poorest ownership group in the league
Speaker 1: and not considered an elite GM, and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: And my takeaway is all these quarterbacks now get second chances,
Speaker 1: third fourth, Darnold Baker, Derek Carr, they all do like Gino,
Speaker 1: Andy Dalton and coaches Todd Bowles can really feel outmatched
Speaker 1: and then go to somewhere else. And I am I
Speaker 1: look at Matt Naggi and I'm like, just say it
Speaker 1: out loud. Mitch Trubisky playoff twice with Stafford Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 1: And at the time, I think the NFC was better
Speaker 1: than the AFC. You didn't have this influx of C. J. Stroud, Mahome,
Speaker 1: you didn't have these all these great quarterbacks. But you
Speaker 1: were there. And I'm watching half the time on a
Speaker 1: corner TV. So what what what? What was the belief
Speaker 1: because he has not resurfaced by the way Andy brought
Speaker 1: in right back? What was the knock on him?
Speaker 3: Okay, so a couple of things. It's an interesting way
Speaker 3: to frame his time in Chicago. He won the Coach
Speaker 3: of the Year award for that twenty eighteen season. They
Speaker 3: won where they where. They won twelve games and lost
Speaker 3: on the double doinc in the in the playoff game
Speaker 3: when Cody Parky hit the upright twice. That defense had
Speaker 3: thirty six takeaways that year. Khalil Mack, Eddie Jackson, like
Speaker 3: you know Eddie Jackson, I think, had six interceptions that year.
Speaker 3: Khalil Mack was first team All Pro a Keen Hicks.
Speaker 3: So this but this is a Vic Fangio defense. Thirty
Speaker 3: six takeaways led the NFL, and takeaways by far. Trubisky
Speaker 3: was fine. He was twenty four touchdowns, twelve interceptions. He
Speaker 3: was a Pro Bowl alternate. But that team was so
Speaker 3: defensive dominant. I remember saying at the time, like I
Speaker 3: was a big Matt Naggy guy because I covered him
Speaker 3: in Kansas City. I knew it. Andy Reid and other
Speaker 3: people in the Chiefs organization had said, this is the
Speaker 3: best coaching candidate off the Andy Reid tree that it
Speaker 3: ever happened. I said the Andy Reid Tree so much
Speaker 3: on my radio show that I got like started getting
Speaker 3: mocked for it. Like the Andy Reid Tree. Andy reach
Speaker 3: I was like, come on, Ron Rivera, Sean McDermott. All
Speaker 3: these guys are on the Andy Reid tree, John Harbaugh,
Speaker 3: he knows Matt Naggy, very nice guy. Mahomes swears by him,
Speaker 3: Reid swears by him. But he only worked for Andy Reid.
Speaker 3: He was a real estate agent who got hired in
Speaker 3: Philly on an ambitious interview attempt because he had his
Speaker 3: highest level of football before that was the Arena League
Speaker 3: as a player. And then he was with Andy Reid
Speaker 3: all in Philly, and then he was with him in
Speaker 3: Kansas City, and then he left Kansas City for the
Speaker 3: head coaching gig in Chicago, and Andy Reid said that
Speaker 3: he let him call plays. But Andy Reid never really
Speaker 3: lets these guys call plays. He just says that he
Speaker 3: does so that they can help him get jobs. Andy
Speaker 3: Reid does not give up play calling. And when he
Speaker 3: got to Chicago, he hadn't worked for anybody else, so
Speaker 3: he knew one system and he had never really called plays.
Speaker 3: And then he gets there and he tries to make
Speaker 3: Mitch Trubisky Alex Smith no disrespects to Mitch Trubisky intended
Speaker 3: Alex Smith's one of the smartest quarterbacks we've seen in
Speaker 3: the NFL in the last twenty five years. Mitch isn't that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like as a postmap processor, he can do it on
Speaker 3: a whiteboard in you know, a backwards hat in a
Speaker 3: meeting room, but when the bullets are flying, it speeds
Speaker 3: up too fast for him. Justin Fields, man, he tried
Speaker 3: to make Justin Fields that guy as a rookie, like, buddy,
Speaker 3: adjust your system to the personnel that you have. It's
Speaker 3: working for Justin Fields and Pittsburgh because Arthur Smith is
Speaker 3: building an offense around him. You've got a high read,
Speaker 3: you've got a low read. If it's not there in
Speaker 3: one or two, take off and run like it's not
Speaker 3: five step drops, stand in the pocket, one to read,
Speaker 3: two reads, three reads, four reads. That's not what Justin
Speaker 3: Fields can do. And so Matt Nagy, I think is
Speaker 3: an incredible leader, an incredible communicator, a really nice guy
Speaker 3: who definitely knows Andy Reid's offense better than anyone not
Speaker 3: named Andy Reid. But if you don't have the quarterback
Speaker 3: and you're not Andy Reid, it just didn't work. So
Speaker 3: maybe the second time, but I would still have the
Speaker 3: same concern with him honestly, man, Like I wanted him
Speaker 3: when he left Chicago. And this is a longer answer
Speaker 3: than maybe you were looking for. I wanted him to
Speaker 3: go work for Matt Lafleur, Like, go go work for
Speaker 3: a defensive head coach, Like, don't go right back to
Speaker 3: the to the very comfortable mess where you already know everything. Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it'll get you another ring, it'll get you playing in
Speaker 3: the playoffs, it'll get you Andy Reid's endorsement.
Speaker 5: Yes, but go go be a coach who's coach, you know,
Speaker 5: Go go expand your Go study abroad, right, you know,
Speaker 5: go go go study, go double major, go learn a
Speaker 5: new skill, a new system.
Speaker 3: So I think he was just a one trick pony.
Speaker 3: That was my issue with him.
Speaker 1: People may or may not know. And I'm trying to
Speaker 1: and I think trying to introduce you short of the audience.
Speaker 1: That's why I like these hour talks, so people can
Speaker 1: see your breath of knowledge. And you're very good on gambling.
Speaker 1: So a couple of years ago, I tried to hire
Speaker 1: you at the Volume and your radio station at the
Speaker 1: time didn't like it. Blah blah blah. So I want
Speaker 1: I want you to show off your betting acumen. So
Speaker 1: I think one of the more fascinating games of the
Speaker 1: week is Dallas and Pittsburgh. It's in Pittsburgh, it's a
Speaker 1: standalone night game. So far this year, home teams have
Speaker 1: done very well in those standalone, highly lubricated fan based games.
Speaker 1: So now Dallas doesn't have Brandon Cooks. Pittsburgh I think
Speaker 1: is favored by one and a half? Is that the
Speaker 1: number right now?
Speaker 3: I see two and a half? Okay, but I mean
Speaker 3: you know it's less than three as a home favorite,
Speaker 3: and you know it depends where you're shopping as always.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is an interesting game to me because
Speaker 1: I get a big quarterback edge, but I have an
Speaker 1: offensive line with Dallas that is struggling. Offensive line struggling
Speaker 1: going up TJ. Watt and company on the road where
Speaker 1: it's harder to hear. It can be problematic. Take me
Speaker 1: into how you, as a guy who loves gambling embraces
Speaker 1: it is good at it. How do you view that game,
Speaker 1: which I think is the marquee game of the weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's certainly the marquee game of
Speaker 3: the weekend, with the possible exception of Buffalo Houston. A
Speaker 3: couple of three and one matchups there. That's a huge
Speaker 3: game of THEFC easily could be a playoff preview. So
Speaker 3: I like that game a lot this weekend. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not the same as it was back in the day,
Speaker 3: three point favorite and for home field advantage. Home field
Speaker 3: advantage does not matter as much anymore. A half maybe, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Teams have gotten just much better at silent count hand signals,
Speaker 3: more college offenses, more like check with me stuff calling
Speaker 3: two plays in the huddle, So crowd noise just matters
Speaker 3: less in the NFL. But it still is a home
Speaker 3: team favored by less than three. So you note that
Speaker 3: it maybe would make you think that on an neutral field,
Speaker 3: Dallas would be a slight favorite, whereas one and a
Speaker 3: half and two and a half. I try very hard
Speaker 3: to play numbers. You know, you want to bet the
Speaker 3: best of the number where you want to get closing
Speaker 3: line value. But this is not going to be one
Speaker 3: of those games, because it's not going to get to
Speaker 3: Pittsburgh by three and one and a half, two and
Speaker 3: a half pick them not going to matter on the number. Man,
Speaker 3: I think this, I think Pittsburgh's the side because what
Speaker 3: do we know about Dallas. They cannot stop the run
Speaker 3: at all. Period. They did it against the Giants, but
Speaker 3: that is the outlier for them, Like, if they play
Speaker 3: a good team that is committed to running the ball,
Speaker 3: they can't stop it. And all they've done since then
Speaker 3: is get more injured. Lawrence injured, Parson's injured. The Steelers
Speaker 3: are not a dynamic running team, but they are a
Speaker 3: team that is committed to running the ball. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: will twenty five thirty times with Naje Harris or Jalen
Speaker 3: Warren obviously justin fields. So if they're committed to running
Speaker 3: the ball, they will keep Dallas's offense on the sideline.
Speaker 3: Dallas's offense is very one dimensional. It's very Seedee Lamb focused.
Speaker 1: They put him in the backfield. There's just all they
Speaker 1: can do to get him the ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Pittsburgh's defense, they gave up a few big
Speaker 3: plays to Indy. But I watched a decent amount of
Speaker 3: that game. It felt a little fluky to me, some
Speaker 3: of the throws that Anthony Richardson was getting in there
Speaker 3: at the beginning before he got hurt. Some of the
Speaker 3: throws like Pittsburgh was right there. Yeah, it was not
Speaker 3: blown coverages, it was not bad in the defensive assignments.
Speaker 3: It was like they threaded a needle. I don't think
Speaker 3: if you do that throw ten times, you're completing at
Speaker 3: eight like they some of some of the big plays
Speaker 3: from Indy seemed like outlier events. So Pittsburgh has the
Speaker 3: much better defense, they are healthier, they are committed to
Speaker 3: running the ball, and they are home. So I like
Speaker 3: Pittsburgh a lot in this game. And there's really no
Speaker 3: you've got to get this number on this spot because
Speaker 3: whether it's two and a half, one and a half,
Speaker 3: two one, very few NFL games fall in that number.
Speaker 3: So you could be comfortable to say, who do you
Speaker 3: think is going to win the game? And I'm happy
Speaker 3: to lay those points. So I'm I'm confidently on Pittsburgh
Speaker 3: in this spot.
Speaker 1: Also again young Dallas offensive line, and yeah, road games
Speaker 1: on the standalone, later games, it's really hard for offensive linemen.
Speaker 1: The quarterback and the coach can talk, but it can
Speaker 1: get pretty tough. I mean you you watch teams like
Speaker 1: Buffalo completely unravel against Baltimore, like like I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: have you ever like you know we were talking, We'll
Speaker 1: wrap it up with this. So I was watching Detroit
Speaker 1: and Seattle.
Speaker 3: And we were on this one. You like Seattle in that.
Speaker 1: Game, right, Well, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Actually was my favorite line of the week.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead. So once I found out Seattle was
Speaker 1: missing not two, but full all four of their top
Speaker 1: defensive linemen against that old line, I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: on the wrongs. I knew it before the game started.
Speaker 1: I find out, like, okay, because they were banged up.
Speaker 1: I didn't know all four were gonna be gone and
Speaker 1: my bad. Sure, okay, whatever. So but the fact that
Speaker 1: Gino Smith had thirty eight first downs and Aikman was
Speaker 1: acknowledging that do this guy is pminent and you do
Speaker 1: get to a point. I think you do get to
Speaker 1: a point sometimes with these quarterbacks, Like it took me
Speaker 1: a while to figure out brock Purty, but I think
Speaker 1: now he could hoist a trophy. With Shanahan, I don't
Speaker 1: think it would be easy, but I can see it.
Speaker 3: And the guy's in the super Bowl. You can If
Speaker 3: you can get to the super Bowl, you can win
Speaker 3: the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Same with GoF he can hoist a trophy. Garoppolo Lake
Speaker 1: Kansas City in the fourth quarter if he hits one
Speaker 1: pass right, yeah, And I'm sitting there and a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys, I don't see Baker, Derek Carr as
Speaker 1: a lot of these middling guys. I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: watching Gino Smith make throws. And if you didn't know
Speaker 1: it was Gino Smith, the timing routes, the back shoulder stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, DK Metcalf's good, but there was
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. It was on the road. It
Speaker 1: was thirty eight first downs, defensive head coach and a
Speaker 1: college offensive coordinator. I'm sitting there like, if Seattle had
Speaker 1: three of their four defensive front guys, that's a real game.
Speaker 1: Is Gino a potential hoisted Trophy guy? Because damn he's big,
Speaker 1: he's strong, he moves. I mean, Aikman was saying, this
Speaker 1: thing is he has got a heater on this thing.
Speaker 3: He makes high degree of difficulty throws consistently. He's incredibly impressive.
Speaker 3: You know what's funny what I've been thinking about with
Speaker 3: Gino uh this year so far, I think one of
Speaker 3: the single biggest stories in the NFL. And there are
Speaker 3: a few I think that I just can't really stop
Speaker 3: thinking about, but one of them is we all say
Speaker 3: that we know that situation matters. It's not just like,
Speaker 3: what if Mitch Trubisky would have been drafted to Andy
Speaker 3: Reid and Patrick Mahomes would have been drafted to the Bears? Right,
Speaker 3: it's a great what if? What would mahomes his career
Speaker 3: look like? What would Trubisky's career look like? If Trubisky
Speaker 3: had Kelsey and Reed and Tyreek Hill in that infrastructure
Speaker 3: right sitting behind out Smith the whole thing. I like
Speaker 3: to play that game on sports radio all the time.
Speaker 3: We do these unanswerable hypotheticals. Sam Darnold is ballin', yes,
Speaker 3: Geno Smith is ballin'. Justin Field's career highs in efficiency,
Speaker 3: taking fewer sacks, turning the ball over less, higher passer
Speaker 3: rating than any time in his career, higher completion percentage
Speaker 3: than any time in his career, winning seventy five percent
Speaker 3: of his games. Baker Mayfield has found a home. All
Speaker 3: of these guys were left for dead.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So we are all coming out now in saying, oh,
Speaker 3: of course, Minnesota is good. Kevin O'Connell, great coach, Brian Flores,
Speaker 3: great coach. Can anyone find any member of the media,
Speaker 3: that didn't have them finishing fourth of the division four
Speaker 3: weeks ago. I mean, and by the way, me too,
Speaker 3: guilty as charged. And I covered the NFC North and
Speaker 3: I've said that Kevin O'Connell's an awesome coach for seven years,
Speaker 3: like five years whatever it's been like, so can I
Speaker 3: see Gino hoisting a Lombardi Trophy maybe, Like it's it's
Speaker 3: not an anti geno point for me to say, No,
Speaker 3: what is the situation good enough for him to.
Speaker 1: It's the NFC, it's not the AFC.
Speaker 3: Sure you're right, now, here's why I love Detroit. In
Speaker 3: that game, though, uh, people were going crazy over three
Speaker 3: and O Seattle and McDonald coming from Baltimore, our youngest
Speaker 3: head coach, their defense the whole thing. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: they had beaten Jacoby Brissette, Nicks and Skyler Thompson, right,
Speaker 3: like can we we Every game matters in the NFL,
Speaker 3: Every week matters. But some teams were judging through the
Speaker 3: prism of four games. Seattle new coach, Let's judge them
Speaker 3: through just this season. Minnesota new quarterback, let's judge them
Speaker 3: just through the prism of this season. But I judge Detroit,
Speaker 3: same head coach, same offensive coordinator, same offensive line, same
Speaker 3: quarterback Aiden Hutchinson. I'm on Ross Saint Brown, Laporta, Gibbs, Montgomery.
Speaker 3: It's the same team that last year whilst by three
Speaker 3: to the Niners in the NFC Championship game, and it
Speaker 3: was one of the five best teams in the NFL
Speaker 3: all season. Like they have a twenty plus game body
Speaker 3: of work to me of being a top five or
Speaker 3: six team in the NFL. Seattle had three games of
Speaker 3: beating bad quarterbacks. So I know that's not exactly an
Speaker 3: answer on Geno Smith, but I also look at that way,
Speaker 3: like Baltimore, I give them the benefit of the doubt,
Speaker 3: Kansas City, I give them the benefit to the doubt.
Speaker 3: Like teams that Buffalo. I picked them to win the
Speaker 3: AFC East. They've done it the last four years, like
Speaker 3: they to me, they deserve the benefit of the doubt
Speaker 3: over some of these newcome teams that we're thinking are
Speaker 3: going to be the hot thing in the moment. So
Speaker 3: it's the NFC. Gino is slinging it, But I need
Speaker 3: to see them actually beat good teams with this defense,
Speaker 3: with this coach before I think that they could go.
Speaker 3: And I mean assuming you think San Francisco's gonna win
Speaker 3: that division, They'd have to go like at to you know,
Speaker 3: maybe at Detroit, at Green Bay, at San Francisco or
Speaker 3: something like that to win a super Bowl. That's just
Speaker 3: a very, very tough path because I haven't seen them
Speaker 3: beat good teams yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean my AFC division winners. I think the
Speaker 1: AFC is easier than the NFC. I had Josh Allen, Bills,
Speaker 1: C J. Stroud, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson, and they're
Speaker 1: all going to win their division. The NFC, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like Stafford McVeigh and then they have cluster injuries
Speaker 1: and I'm like, they may they're not as good as
Speaker 1: Sea Lower San Francisco. Now. I tend to just lean
Speaker 1: on quarterbacks, but I it was interesting why. I mean,
Speaker 1: Sam Darnold I think is more gifted than Gino. But
Speaker 1: I watched Gino. I've watched them all season long, and
Speaker 1: in that game on that road, basically in a track
Speaker 1: meet and trailing the entire game, and you know, Detroit
Speaker 1: knows he's got to throw. I was blown away in
Speaker 1: a losing out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's impressive, man. And I also what I
Speaker 3: like about him too, And I know we've got to
Speaker 3: wrap up and maybe maybe next time on the pod.
Speaker 3: It's become a league of like checkdowns. Everyon's talking about
Speaker 3: two high safety right taking and dunking. Right. We don't
Speaker 3: have time to get into all of it, but I
Speaker 3: think it's one of the biggest stories of in the
Speaker 3: NFL right now. Uh he'll take shots? Oh yeah, like
Speaker 3: like like Gino. Gino's a fun watch like he he is.
Speaker 3: He is out there saying I will throw to the
Speaker 3: second and third level of the defense. I will fire
Speaker 3: this out route, this fifteen yard out with my arm strength,
Speaker 3: like he is not there to matriculate the ball down
Speaker 3: the field six yards at a time, like he will
Speaker 3: throw the ball. So I love watching him play.
Speaker 1: All right, Danny Parkins FS one. His show is Breakfast Ball.
Speaker 1: I love to bring him on regularly in our show.
Speaker 1: The guy knows everything he is. There's a matrix quality
Speaker 1: where he's in and out of sports and opinions, and
Speaker 1: he could do politics. We're not interested. I'm really not interested.
Speaker 1: I watched that thing last night. I have no opinion.
Speaker 1: Civility won. I'm good.
Speaker 3: I tapped that out after about forty five minutes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was. Yeah. I don't want to talk that with
Speaker 3: you on Mike right now. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe another day, maybe maybe another day.
Speaker 1: Not at the end of the pod, come on, all right,
Speaker 1: good to anybody.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Tom the volume.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: take a moment, rate and review.