← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
3 & Out - Reaction to JJ McCarthy & Vikings LOSING to Falcons on SNF, Eagles DEFEAT Chiefs
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John Middlekauff
This is an iHeart podcast.
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John Middlekauff
What is going on everybody? John Middlecop 3 Now podcast how are you doing? Hopefully better than JJ McCarthy who had a big week because he had a baby but then had an awful Sunday night game. He was atrocious at home against Atlanta who get a who gets a big win even Though Michael Pennix and their offense didn't score many points. The Atlanta Falcons win 22 to 6. And we go live on our YouTube page after Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night. So make sure you subscribe because we're going live and that's. We'll play what I, what I just did. And yeah, some other stuff that happened. Obviously, you know, Joe Burrow has severe turf toe. He might be out basically the whole season. Not ideal if you're a Bengals fan, given that your season would be over. And yeah, Chiefs are 0 and 2. The Cowboys Giants played, I don't know, one of the most entertaining ending of a game you'll ever see. The fourth quarter, the overtime, it was just, it was, it was fantastic. There's no other way to say it. And then the Bears, I mean, fold the franchise time. I don't know about that, but they got thoroughly embarrassed by the Detroit Lions and yeah, so the game plan will be we'll have podcasts all week of a podcast after the games tomorrow double header, which I don't love, but you know, what are you going to do? Complain about two football games? Could be worse. Could we have none. And we'll have a podcast out as well as a mailbag on there as well. So at John Middlecoft, fire in those DMS to get your questions answered here on the show. And other than that, you guys know the drill. So before we dive in, here's what I got to say. You guys know my friends, my partners in the official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time. Best in the business. I've used them all. I mean, I've gone to concerts, I've gone to every game imaginable, and I've used every ticking app. And nothing is better than Game Time because you can search by the event, you can search by the team, you can search by the arena. So if you want to go to one of these football games, if you want to go to a college game, if you want to go to a concert, get outside, have a little fun and just enjoy yourself. And I'm telling you, any event you want to go to, they got you covered. So take the guesswork out of buying tickets. With Game Time down the gametime app today, create an account and use the code JOHN for $20 off. First purchase terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code John Johan for $20 off down the Game Time app today, last minute tickets, lowest prices guaranteed. Let's dive in to what we just witnessed because that was terrible. I mean that, that was an awful Sunday night game. Mike Tirico had a little subtle flex when he was talking about Bijan Robinson, who wanted to be known as Bijon. And then it was Bijan. It was like, what's going on? Just call him by the name that everyone's been calling him. He's like, Hey, 20 million people watch this game, right? It's the number one television show in America, Sunday Night Football. And we just witnessed field goal after field goal after field goal. Now listen, last week was impressive because J.J. mcCarthy had never played an NFL game. He was on the road against a division rival and had played like complete, you know what, through three quarters. I mean, it not only looked awful, every single human alive was thinking, what are they going to do at quarterback? Would they trade for Kirk Cousins, who is even available? This is not going to be a functional player. And then he goes on in the fourth quarter, he throws for a couple touchdowns, he runs for a touchdown. And it's just awesome. Like the heartbeat of the team. And was just making throws, was making plays like it looked like high level quarterback play. And then you get a home game. Now listen, this week I'm not giving the guy a pass, but I've never had a baby. Got one coming here in a couple months. Probably threw off his week a little bit. But still, the expectations played at home school. Like, my expectations were pretty high. Now, was I expecting Jared Goff, five touchdowns? No. But did I think I would get some version of. Not the guy we saw early in the Bears game and just the capable player, a guy that could distribute the ball, maybe throw a touchdown or two and lead Minnesota to, I don't want to say an easy win as the NFL, but I expected Minnesota to win because I expected J.J. mcCarthy to build off what we just witnessed. And it was the opposite. He was atrocious. I mean, he was terrible. We have now eight quarters of film and a body of work and evidence on JJ McCarthy and seven of those. He has been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL, like legitimately terrible. And tonight he had multiple spots, despite how bad he was playing again, to just kind of flip the switch. He skipped one to Jefferson on a long third down. They had to punt. He had Naylor. That clearly was a scheme play by Kevin o' Connell against the slot corner, wide open, and as Collins were said, just put a little air under it. He tried to throw like a rope and he overthrew him by 5, 6 yards. It wasn't even close. And then every single time you're like, okay, this is moment now sometimes he's getting peppered his backup left tackles in there school who comes from the 49ers, who's, who's a not a good player. But the reality is, and I'm guilty of this too, is I nitpick these backups. The drop off in the NFL with offensive linemen from starters to backups is as wide as the Grand Canyon. There is not a position in the NFL where you go from starter to backup where the gap is wider right now than offensive lineman. Partly because the supply and demand guys coming into this league has come at like a outweighed version of defensive linemen have been flowing into this league the last five or six years and offensive linemen simply have not. So when you get these guys, you got to make quick decisions. You need your coach to scheme around it. And anytime you put these guys in a one on one situation, your quarterback is going to be compromised and he's going to have to play smart. And clearly jj, it felt like it again was just swimming a little bit and I think they tried to run the ball, they tried to settle him down. But the NFL, like just football in general and college too, comes down to a couple big spots and it's usually third and long. And third and long in the NFL is like third and seven, third and eight, third and nine. It doesn't have to be like third and 20. It's a passing situation where you have to drop back and there's a decent chance even if you have a Justin Jefferson, he might get double covered. So you're going to have to work through your progressions. There's going to be shit flying around you because you're going to have a couple offensive linemen in the game that probably aren't that good. They're going to be a pass rush, you're going to have to slide and you're going to need to make some passes. Especially when you do get some protection and you can step in the throw, you got to hit it like 100% of the time. This is not like this is the NFL and that's the reality. And tonight JJ was atrocious. Like it felt like he had no control over the ball. He's throwing them low, he's throwing them high. He threw an awful pick. His accuracy is really concerning now. Obviously that moment in the fourth quarter happened, but the other seven quarters have been pretty concerning. This team's really good. They got players that they're going to get back. Obviously they had some more injuries, you know, leading into this game from last week. But like, their coaching staff's really good. Brian Flores is good, we know o' Connell's good. But there comes to a point where it's third and eight and your quarterback, whether it's Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or JJ McCarthy, the out route is open and you can either hit it or you can't. Like this is a production based business. It's very black and white. Like there's not much middle ground. And it's pretty evident at least through two games, like, he is not comfortable doing that. Balls are just missing left and right, which I just think I gave him a ton of credit for mental toughness. He showed it last week the moxie. But tonight there was just like, I don't need mental toughness. I just need you to complete the fucking pass. And he couldn't do it. Like you saw by the end of the game, they have an incredible home field environment. You could argue, like the best environments in football are really in college, like the top three or four, right? Lsu, I mean, Tennessee looks pretty elite. Penn State at nights, pretty awesome. Oregon, There's a couple in the NFL that I would call collegiate. Kansas City, Buffalo, Seattle. When it's on, it's definitely Minnesota and they just were deflated as the game went on. It's like, what are you supposed to do? You're keeping your fingers crossed, you're rooting for this guy. Seems like a great young guy, but it's like, we need something here, buddy. And it's not like Atlanta was doing anything. I'm a huge Michael Penix fan and part of the reason I love Michael Penix is he used to just throw bombs. It would just be in college he dropped back. Rome, McMillan, Polk. He would just push the ball down the field. And now you're watching him and listen, it's not. He's just running the plays. They're calling a lot of dick in Duncan now. Luckily they got Bijan Robinson, who is clearly as talented of a player as there is in the NFL. I mean, he is a freak show. But like, that's not really the most fun team to watch I've seen two weeks now, the Atlanta Falcons. If you had to rank like, you know, teams one through 32 of who you would want to consume, they would be near the bottom. And I would have assumed after last week Minnesota would have been itching its way back near the top. But after watching tonight, like, they got a lot of coaching to do now, I don't know what you really coach up with a player that's just struggling to hit basic routes. I mean, they have, you know, b. John Robinson is clearly one of the most talented players and he's really. Tonight he showed like, I am an elite player. The Vikings have pound for pound, any position, one of, if not the best player in the NFL in Justin Jefferson. And even Collinsworth mentioned tonight, like, listen, he's a good guy. He's a great team player. But at the end of the day, wide receivers get frustrated when the quarterback play is shitty. And tonight had to be a night where it's like, what is happening? I mean, how is this going on the defense? And this is where, like, when a defense plays at a really high level that eventually they can break when you don't get it done. I thought this happened last week to the Bears. If I saw any person being like, oh, the defense let him down. I think you're a yahoo. I. I think you have no clue what you're talking about. The defense was excellent for the Bears last week. By the end of the game, the offense was so terrible that they just ran out of gas. And tonight I felt like, had a moment like, Minnesota's like, what else can we do, guys? Brian Flores in the unit's like, hey, can we get a little help over here? And Justin Jefferson's got to be like, not my problem. I'm getting open. This kid doesn't know where he's throwing it. The offensive line can't block. Jordan Mason's running his ass off, which he was still on the Niners. He looks fantastic. But big picture, after last week, and this is. This is the great part about the NFL, we can only. Can't overreact. No, we just literally just react to the games. So last week you went, hey, the way this game ended, I'm bullish on Minnesota. Now I go back to like, I don't know, I'm a little concerned because the quarterback play is not trustworthy. So even if they get a bunch of these guys back from injury, there's no disputing their roster minus the quarterback, top to bottom is excellent. And once they get their left tackle back, their offensive line should be better. Though they lost their center tonight, their skill positions are really good. They get Jordan Addison back. They got a lot of firepower. Defensively. Their scheme and coaching is as good as any in the NFL. You know, if. If Turner, who had a made a play tonight. Now, granted, it was like a more of an effort play, but still, like, you. You just get good front four, five play, right? Depending. They bring a lot of guys because Flores is pretty aggressive, coordinator, secondary, solid. And you go, this should be one of the better teams in the NFL, but you cannot be one of the better teams in modern day football. Like, there is no more such thing as the 85 bears or the 2000 ravens, right? Those teams are never going to exist. Where it's like our quarterback was, you know, Jim McMahon's a famous guy, but they were known for defense in a running game. And I just think the days of a team just like, yeah, we just our quarterback didn't matter, are done same thing in college. If your quarterback play, your team has to be elite for your quarterback play to be average for your team to be good. But if your team's elite, your quarterback play has to be above average, then you're good, but you don't get by, which is like, yeah, quarterback play was below average. And listen, this is the hard part about, I say this all the time about instituting a young player on a team with high expectations, because you don't get this 1997 or 1992 or even like 2006. We get to take a deep breath, we get to ease our way in. The packers situation with Jordan Love and Aaron Rodgers are complete outliers, and they definitely don't happen anymore, right? So if you're a young player, you play for as great as Russell Wilson was today, and he played his best game, what feels like in like a decade, like, people are not going to want to see him for long. It's like, well, might as well if we're losing games, put in the young player and the pressure from ownership, the impact that the fans have on them, which, you know, kind of seeps its way down to the coaching staff and the front office is very evident by the moves that we see consistently in the NFL. And J.J. mcCarthy, like, the expectations for this team are to be good, and it is really, really difficult, especially even in their division. Look how hard they, like, it took them to beat the Chicago Bears, who clearly might be one of the worst teams in the league. So I think if you're Kevin o', Connell, you got to stay the right things and be positive. But, man, it's a little concerning. And this was always my concern with JJ McCarthy was obviously in terms of intangible stuff, the metal toughness, the moxie he proved a week ago, like, he's got some shit to him. So I'm not questioning any of the intangible stuff. His teammates like him and stuff, which is awesome, but sometimes we, like, spend a lot of Time on that and I'm guilty of that too. But on the field, tangibles like accuracy, like just throwing from the pocket, is he comfortable doing that? Right. Like ultimately Michael Penix. Well I think a lot of people, if you're not a diehard college football fan, if you're just watching Michael Penix, you're like middle cop. You like this guy. What's, what's his deal? He's barely throwing for like 140 yards. Like this is the guy he thought was going to be a really good pro. Well see yeah, his great attribute is his deep ball. He is an elite deep ball throw and he doesn't throw deep balls with this team because they don't have deep ball. You know wide receivers, they got Pitts who is a tight end, but he's a wide receiver running slants, they got what's his name, who's their other wide receiver, number five, who's a big bodied wide receiver going over the middle, running deep ends like is a physical. Drake. Drake London. So it's like the body types they have are not Tyreek Hill in his prime. Tyree killing his prime. For Michael Penix that would translate. But when you look at this team, that's not really the way it works. And like Zach Robinson, the offensive coordinator, I think it's fair to say, like is he that good? I don't, I don't know. But take nothing away. Big win for The Falcons. Made JJ McCarthy look terrible. And yeah, we got two one on one teams. I would say this, I don't like the Falcons moving forward. Like I don't think they're that good. And I think Minnesota in theory can be good, but their quarterback play leaves me greatly concerned now that we got four more quarters. So we got eight. And like I said, there's one positive one. The other seven it'd be, listen, sometimes you just get off to a slow start. It's pro sports. It's really hard. It happens in every sport. Steph Curry could start this year with like seven straight games of poor shooting from three point range. Right? It happens. But when this is the only evidence I have of you in the NFL, like I got eight quarters and most of it's really bad. It's hard to not be concerned, especially when you go, you got really good skill around them. So I just think that's the headline. It's like, is J.J. mcCarthy any good? Like that's what that was what I wrote down like midway through the fourth quarter. I do not have the answer to that. And right now if you're a betting man, you'd have to go like we got some problems and I would imagine Minnesota fans are a little worried. We are extremely excited to announce our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. 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John Middlekauff
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John Middlekauff
Okay, let's dive into the. The Bears. Because I, I saw this. I saw this tweet that I thought was fascinating because obviously the Bears got ruined tonight against or earlier today. It's been a long day. It's been a long, really couple weeks here football, but we got to get back in the. Dialed in here. I, I think the expectations for the Bears consistently have been really off. Right? Last year, people were picking them to, like, compete for the NFC championship. It's like, what are we talking about? And then this year, because they got Ben Johnson, a lot of people are like, okay, well, I'm not going to get ahead of myself, but they're going to make the playoffs. Like, no, guys, they're the Chicago Bears. And last week, the Lions, right, played an awful game against Green Bay. And my initial thought was like, listen, I. I think Green Bay is pretty good. Clearly, they're even better than we thought. And then we saw them on Thursday night, like, no, Green Bay's elite. This might be the best defense in the league. And obviously, offensively, they're awesome. They had a lot, a lot of, I would say, like, revenge for them against the Lions. That was a bigger game for the Packers Week one than it was. The Lions, Lions swept them both times last year. They went 02 against them, but they were also terrible in their division. So they open up at home at Lambeau. It was a massive game for Green Bay and they came out swinging. And obviously they parlayed it again Thursday night. They look fantastic, but it was like. Are the Lions bad? It's like. And listen, I. You got two new coordinators. You never quite know, but watching them today, it's like. No, they, they, it's, you know, bringing some guys along with the offensive line, but they still got elite players at countless positions. Brian Branch, Aiden Hutchinson, Sewell St. Brown, golf La Porta Gibbs. Oh yeah, Jameson Williams, the guy runs like a 4, 140. Like they got high end skill. And here's the other thing. In 2025, this is not the Lions I grew up on. They had Barry Sanders and nothing really else. And the Lions throughout the entire Internet era were a poverty franchise. They just always lost. I mean they have been kind of the running joke, but for just poorly run franchises. Not in the NFL, but all of sports. Well, that changed a couple years ago. Why? They got a high level GM and an impressive head coach, but they are starting to pick really good players. Like you look at their roster, it's not perfect. No one's comparing them to like the 07 Pats. I'm not claiming they're the best roster of all time, but they have really, really impactful players at countless positions on both sides of the ball. They are a well put together organization. And then I look at the Bears and this tweet is, you know, they get Ben Johnson, but they still got the same gm. They still got Ryan polls who somehow after the embarrassment of the last couple years got a contract extension. And Eric Lambert who put out that Ryan polls has now drafted 34 players and 26 of them have played more than one season. None have made the Pro Bowl. He is the only GM in franchise history to have that honor. At the moment he's 3 and 17 against the NFC north and he's 15 and 38 overall. He has objectively been a horrendous general manager. Now I would say this, the McCaskeys are not a good ownership group. They feel, I don't know, pretty archaic something of the past and have really struggled with the modernization of the National Football League. Look at Kevin Warren, who know a few people that are in Big Ten circles. He was kind of a laughingstock when it came to running the Big Ten. They couldn't wait. Once he left to the, I mean, depending on who you talk to, did he kind of get forced out? However, no one was sad to see him go, but because of they are a weak ownership, he basically runs the entire franchise. The head coach, the GM dancer to him, which makes some sense in Green Bay when you Got Murphy or Ed Policy and those guys have a lot of juice. The owner doesn't exist. Well, the McCaskeys have owned the family forever, yet this guy can come right in. It shows you everything you need to know about this operation. It's pretty low level, but at the end of the day, he's not picking the players and he's not running the plays. And I said this last year, and I will reiterate this after the article that came out, just because Caleb Williams had a ton of media hype doesn't mean that should impact him. Do you know the amount of scouts, GMs, college directors I talk to that say when they watch games on tv, they try to turn down the sound because they don't want to hear the commentators talking about certain stuff. Because a lot of times it's just about hype. It's just about stuff that you and I would be talking about. You know why? Because that's not their job. Hype in football means nothing. You could be the greatest prospect of all time. That's all we heard about Arch Manning. And then eventually you got to play. So that hype is meaningless. Once we see you play games, you're either good or you're not. You either have talent or you don't. You either are improving or you're getting worse. And I'm not trying to shit on Arch Manning. Maybe his shoulders really hurt, but every time I watch him play, I go, I just don't see a very good football player. And I hope his shoulders hurt. It's that difficult to watch him throw the ball. And when I watch the Bears, this is like, hype, hype, hype, Caleb hype, hype, hype. Even though he had won the Heisman Trophy, it felt like a no brainer from the outside noise, outside of football to take Caleb Williams. If you would have tweeted a year ago leading into the draft of like, I don't think Caleb Williams going to be a good NFL player. The ratio of people on the Internet shitting on your take would have basically been 100%. He, you would have been called the village fucking idiot. You know nothing about football. Don't quit your J job, stop ever commenting, having a thought or an opinion on the sport. Yet a year later, universally we all go, the guy stinks. He can't play well. You know whose job it is to not worry about Twitter ratios or what people are going to say online? It's the general manager. And I'll never forget because I've known him for a while And I remember watching the reaction to Adam Peters bring everyone to topgolf. It was like, what is he doing? How could he be doing this? And I would imagine I've never asked him this. He probably had pretty high thoughts of Jaden Daniels before he did the topgolf experiment. But it's his job to try to remove his biases and the way he's leaning to just let the process play out. So why would you not do your due diligence on every single person? And he did that and he ended up getting Jaden Daniels. But he didn't just go, you know what? I know for a fact in February, in March, that Jaden Daniels, the best player. I don't care what anyone thinks. And I'm doing it. And it was easy to do that with Caleb because universally on the Internet and the fan base, everyone's going to give you a thumbs up. Yet now everyone's giving you a thumbs down because the guy can't play. But you didn't do any due diligence on anyone else. And I'm not even factoring in Tyler Dunn's article about the way the meetings went. I'm just. Because again, that's obviously coaches talking. There's a lot of different, you know, irons in the fire, a lot of different variables of opinions. It is an objective fact that he brought one quarterback in during the draft process, which is insane. And clearly. And I saw someone. I don't want to. I apologize for not giving credit on this because this is not my take. I'm stealing this on the Internet. That basically, Ben Johnson is a direct. If he was a movie director, he not only writes out the script, but he directs that script perfectly when the camera is on. He does not want you, like Leonardo DiCaprio, whoever the actor may be, to ad lib. He wants you to do exactly what is on the paper for your lines. And Caleb Williams doesn't memorize the lines. He just ad libs. And sometimes it's really good, but most of the time it's not. And meshing those two things together will never work. And it clearly is not working. And I didn't think it was going to work. It's way worse than I thought. But it's not even all Caleb, Ben Johnson. It starts at the top. Ryan Poles, the organization. I mean, there's just. They are an embarrassment. They really are. And if I hear one more time about all this talent, like I'm watching them. The Lions have a lot of talent and they beat the shit out of these guys. It honestly wasn't even a fair fight. Game was kind of close for a minute until it wasn't. And I just think there's a rot, there's a negativity. There's obviously an intensity because it's Chicago. But I like, it's going to be hard to overcome for Ben Johnson, even if he picks his quarterback one day. The situation that is that he signed up for and people have DM me, you know, it. Is there a chance that he regrets the decision a year ago? And I've said over and over I don't know the guy personally, but talking to people that knew him personally, felt that he was just a little on the fence about how ready he was a year ago. But you can't tell me he lays in his bed, which I would imagine he's not sleeping much because of what just has been transpiring these last couple weeks and doesn't think, you know, even if I wasn't ready, I got news for you. Most human beings aren't ready when they get big opportunities, right? Sometimes you just get thrown into the deep end. You just kind of got to learn to swim. I would say most people in any competitive industry, despite how much experience may be needed for that spot, probably have a little less than ideal, especially younger people in coaching that he can't regret the decision that he made by shunning the Washington commanders and coaching Jaden Daniels and working with Adam Peters and Josh Harris, an organization that is just dramatically more buttoned up than this shit show in Chicago. The Dallas Giants game. What a, what a fun experience. You know, sometimes you do this long enough, you kind of get jaded and can get negative sometimes on, on given days like, oh, these games are terrible. I was even telling myself that this morning. So, God, it's kind of a boring morning. This isn't great. Hell, I was saying that definitely on Saturday, like this is. This is not that fun. And then that game breaks out and just a little throwback. And I'm guilty of this. Like I've talked a lot of shit about Russ Wilson. I think he's kind of weird and obviously he's not a very good player anymore until today. And he was just throwing bombs and they were catching bombs and they were scoring points left and right. I don't care if Dallas couldn't cover me and you. It was enjoyable to watch Russ just sling that pillow as high as humanly possible in the air and have it land in Malik neighbors hands and score touch like that was really, really fun. But when Dallas tied up the game. You know, one thing I learned from a schematic standpoint that I will never forget is I work with Lewis Riddick, who's now on espn. And Lewis, when he was a player, Lewis was a really good college player at Pitt and then, you know, played in the NFL for I think six or seven years. Well, for a couple of those years he played in Cleveland and Nick Saban was the defensive coordinator and Bill Belichick was the defensive head. He was the head coach. And he used to hammer this home because he was taught this back then is listen, in zone defense, right, you're not just covering a man, you're covering space. So in football there are specific landmarks. If you are a linebacker and you're in a zone defense against, especially in a situation where they are going to pass the ball down the field, you get a certain amount of depth and you get to a spot on the field, 10 yards back, 3 yards over whatever it may be given that specific defense. And on the play that Dak Prescott hit Ferguson to get them into field goal range, which somehow for this kicker is like the 50 yard line, there was a linebacker in the middle of the field and he probably did exactly what the defensive coordinator told him to be. Seven steps back, two steps over, be a player. Well, it's like that's being a robot. Sometimes in football you got to go throwback to like when you were at recess or when you were in high school and just play the game. You know that you just sitting there killing. Turf is completely worthless and there is a tight end a couple yards to your left. Do you know what you might want to do? Maybe leave your spot, show some instincts and just make a play. Instead everyone just dropped to their landmarks, stood there like this and Ferguson caught the ball and landed like the 48 or 49 yard line and it gave them and put them in position to kick a game winning field goal. That would have been good from like 80 yards. But to me defensively, I was like as willing as anyone to just completely shit on coaches first over the players. That's on the player. Like at the end of the day, there gets to a point, especially situational football, where it's like you got to have some basic understanding of like, I probably need to cheat over a yard or two and just use some of my instincts in a game I've probably been playing since I was 6, 7, 8 years old. Even well before Pats, when you're just running around, there has to be some sort of feeling. And I thought that is where the game was lost. Obviously there was a lot of craziness after that. In overtime, both teams got the ball like felt like 10 times each. But that play is like, how does that happen? And I think everyone's going to crush the defensive coordinator. There are moments in a game on defense when you're talking about space where the guy has to just make a play or just put himself in a position to make a play. If I'm just standing there because we have gone over this since the off season or for the last couple of years. Otas training camp, the season. Otas training camp, the season. This is where I'm supposed to be. I know I won't get in trouble. I don't know until the guy is right next to you catching the ball and you're just standing there. It was pretty embarrassing. And then obviously I do think it's pretty crazy that throughout most of my life, I feel like a 50 yard field goal, maybe up to 55, was viewed as a really, really long field goal. I feel like consistently and maybe stats aren't on my side. We have seen guys consistently hit field goals from well into the high 50s and into the early 60s. And a lot of times when they make these either game winners or game tires from 60 yards or 57 yards, it feels like they have 6, 7, 8 yards to spare. I mean, part of the powerful thing about the Cowboys game time kick is it probably would have been good. I saw some people putting 70, maybe 75 yards. It's crazy how strong the guy's leg were. It had like first an initial fade, then a hook. Like it had like six different bull flights in the air because it had so far to travel. One of the more just crazier kicks. Here's the thing too is when they got him into, quote, unquote, his range, I think 64 yards, there's not a soul that thought he was going to miss it and then he just drilled it. It was, it was incredible to watch and listen. You know, Brian Schottenheimer, easy guy to make fun of. Coming into the season. He had no business being the job. No one else would have hired him. And all those things are true. No one else was going to hire Brad and Schonheimer to, to be their offensive coordinator, let alone their head coach. But I'd say through two weeks, he's the play caller. The offense looks really good, looks really explosive. George Pickens is not an easy guy to coach. Right. Some, some balls he attacks, some balls he just watches. Sometimes he blocks, sometimes he doesn't. But he's making a lot of plays for him. He's I listen, Jerry deserves some credit on this one too. It's only two weeks, we got a long way to go. But he's, he's made a lot of plays and had a huge influence on just balancing out this offense. Because one thing, when you've got CD Lamb, who's an excellent player, if you don't have anyone else like any team, you know, worth their salt, could, you know, Georgia could put together a defense to slow down one NFL wide receiver. Well, if I got two guys, I can only cheat so much. And clearly Brian Schottenheimer and Dak Prescott are doing a really good job of slinging that pill around.
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I think the Bengals are done. Their next four games are Minnesota, Denver, Lions, Green Bay. You know, by all reports that Joe Burrow has a severe case. Obviously there are different cases of turf toe. Whatever Brock Purdy has is like two to five weeks. And you know, there were some reports today that Purdy probably going to miss next week as well. But I would imagine that I'd be a little stunned if Purdy's not back the week after that. But his, the severity of his turf toe is not burrows. And burrows turf toe is the one where you need surgery potentially. Now he's trying to get second opinions. But if he gets surgery and it's a three plus month situation, like his season's over, the Bengal season is over and they invested, they paid T. Higgins, obviously they figured out financially how to keep Trey around and not trade him. All because of Joe Burrow and you remove them. And I told Coward this. I never thought in a million years Jake Browning would be make one year in the NFL. I was stunned when he made it through a training camp and was kept on on practice squads. He's obviously a serviceable player. He has improved as much as any human being from college to where he's at now as I've ever seen. I thought he was a fringe college starter. I know he won a lot of games in college. I always thought it was crazy that he could win games in college. He was unloaded teams, good coaching. But he's a different player now. But the drop off from Joe Burrow to Jake Browning is just is pretty big. And we've seen this before, when Burrow gets hurt, they fall apart. There's just, you can't lose one of the best players in the league. I mean think about the start of the season. We don't think their defense is very good. And we were like, well, if Burrow could have a similar season to last year and throw 43, 44, 45 touchdowns, maybe they could compete to be the seventh seed. Well, that's gone. I mean Browning threw whatever three interceptions day. Now granted he threw two touchdowns. He also had the game winning touchdown so they got Jamar, Chase T. Higgins. I mean, they got weapons. But your season ends before it even starts. I can't even imagine being a Bengal fan if it does become official this week that he's got to get the surgery and he's out for three months, AKA the year your season just ends. And that's the brutal part about football, is other positions can go down. You could have offensive lineman break a leg, you could have your stud pass rusher Terror's acl. But your season doesn't end the moment your quarterback goes down. Especially when it's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. We all know the outcome. It's over. And they have no chance. If Perot has to, which I don't think people are just like, I don't see how he avoids it. We saw as he was walking off the field, the clip kind of went viral as he was walking semi normal. And then all of a sudden I would imagine the pain in his foot. He could barely walk. And he had to basically be escorted back in the locker room. And I saw someone saying, don't they have a little John Deere? Don't they have the little. The cart where you put injured players in. Wouldn't you want to buy a cart? Which I don't know, my guess is 20 grand max for a guy that you just gave a. I think like $300 million to instead of making him put weight on his turf toe. But of course they're cheap. And their offensive line, you know, you invest in these wide receivers, you invest in pass rushers, which I'm not against. But when you can't block for a quarterback who is a pocket quarterback, you don't. This is. What do you think is going to be the outcome here? And yeah, sad day to be a Bengal fan. Not much else that hasn't been said about the Chiefs for, oh, and two, I think for the first time since 2014, which was Andy's second year in the league for the Chiefs, I don't know, man. I thought they threw the kitchen sink at him. That's as good as they can play, given this team. Their defense was awesome. They were, you know, controlling. Jalen hurts. The passing game for the Eagles was nothing. Mahomes was making some plays and I thought if they score touchdown on that drive that goes off Travis Kelsey's hands, I thought they were going to win the game. And it was like they were going to pull this thing. It was going to be ugly. It was going to be like, this is championship heart. This is championship character. And it just bounced right off Kelsey's hands. And that was the game. Like, honestly, it could have even ended harder. If the left tackle can't run somehow like a linebacker and tackle the DB down the sideline. But your margin for error when you play in these crazy close games and they are playing in games that look, especially today, they look exactly like last year. You're going to lose some of them and they won them all last year and they lost it today. But I don't know what they're supposed to do. Worthy's not healthy. Rasheed Rice is suspended. Like that is their explosion on offense. Hollywood Brown actually is making some plays. And I think the tough part about today is I thought Travis looked pretty good. He had the sweet play where he stiff Armed DeJean. He made a couple other huge plays on third down. I think one was even on. Was it fourth down where he ran like a route that had three different breaks. He like did an out route, an in route and he or he ran in. He ran out and it was like six different jukes. It's like Allen Iverson crossing you over and then crossing you over again. But that play. And listen, everyone was tweeting like he's washed. It's like, I don't know. They were just. The timing was a little off. But that, that was a devastating moment for the Chiefs and they got lucky that Denver lost, that someone has to lose tomorrow. Do you know what's crazy is there is a decent chance, I mean the Raiders are at home that the Raiders are in first place and the Chiefs are in last place. I bet there's a decent chance that that has not happened at any point since Andy Reid has been in Kansas City. Now the Raiders haven't been in first place in general very often, but probably the one year with Derek Carr where he broke his ankle. They had a. They had a really good team and they were competing to win the division that year. But overall they have. They've been really bad. And if they go to. It's early but the Raiders have a chance to go 2:0 and have a two game lead on the Kansas City Chiefs. I want writing Kansas City off, but this was inevitable that they're just going to have a season that some of these breaks aren't going to go their way and maybe they go 10 and 7. Obviously defensively they're still really good. Physically that game was just. Was brutal. I mean guys were getting crushed. That that was a game on the line of scrimmage. Like you better buckle Your chin strap. And let's face it, like the elephant in the room is Eagles are two and oh, their passing game does not look good. And I know how Philly works. I've been there. I follow the team really closely ever since I've left. It's an intense environment. Now you go on the road, you beat a team that has won the AFC five of the last six years. That's, that's a good win. You don't apologize like your stats should have been better. The clip going viral of Chris Jones and saying you didn't even have 100 yards and Jalen saying we won the game. And this thing I respect about Jalen is like sometimes he just finds a way. He had to play today on an all out blitz and Spags brings it. I mean he always has kind of what he's known for where Jalen just gets destroyed and waits till the last possible second. The difference of, you know, Jalen in theory should be this running, scrambling quarterback. You watch a guy like Caleb, he's always taken off for his life. Jalen will sit in there, throw this great go route in a one on one situation against what I thought was like a pro bowl level guy, gets McDuffie who doesn't even look. Devonte Smith makes a great play and that was that. That felt like a dagger at that moment. But Jalen stats do not look great. And listen, he's not going to be on a week in, week out basis, you know, slinging that thing like he's Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. He's not going to put up those type stats. He did no chance. Like the game Herbert had a week ago. It's not really Jalen's game, but he does make some winning plays throughout that you kind of like got to be a little football nerdy. But he deserves some respect, you know. And I think the Eagles, the way they're built, their physicality, defensively, they're just going to be well coached. With Fangio obviously Saquon busted some big runs as the game went. Offensive line, they're just so big and physical. Clearly on the one tush push they had a couple of guys jump off sides. I've said this over and over, I hate the tush push. I fucking hate it. Not because I don't like think they should be able to do it. It's in the rules. Any team could do it. And you see teams in college and definitely in the pros kind of try. But the thing that makes the Eagles so strong is their quarterback, so powerful. Most Quarterbacks are a little higher. They don't get as low. They just don't have the push. And the thing that separates the Eagles isn't just their powerful, good offensive line. It's their quarterback can squat like all of Kansas City, and that. That makes that play for them. But it is a boring play to watch because if they go into it on third and one, even if you're able to somewhat neutralize it once, it never fails two times in a row. It feels like an inevitability in a sport that is completely not inevitable. I mean, just. It's a sport that on any given moment, anything can happen. In every game, every player, you just never know. A guy could throw a pick, a guy could trip a guy, get a first down, a guy could bust 80 with that play. You just 100%, it feels like, know the outcome. That's my issue with the play. But they do it and they do it to perfection. And even Brady, who I think is so much better than last year, like, dramatically better. I mean, dramatically better. Honestly, I thought he was borderline unlistenable last year. I'm not calling him John Madden yet, but he's. He's just solid. Like, he's. It was an easy listen. I think he's relaxed a lot, maybe, just. Which is understandable. He's got a year under his belt, just kind of comfortable in the role. And just. I thought this is a much easier listen in 2025. So it shows you, you know, you get. Get 10 years, $375 million. It might take you a year, but he'd be good at it. And we'll end on this. In the NFL, you know, people do power rankings, and depending on what show or podcast you listen to, people rank teams. None of that actually means anything, right? You either make the playoffs or you don't make the playoffs. You either are the one seed if you win the division, or. Or the two or three or four. Your record determines where you go. And it's very, very basic how you make the playoffs, how you win the division. Like, it's very black and white. Yet in college, it's always been people vote. And we got these different rankings. The ap, the coaches poll. That one chick went viral last week that basically said, like, I don't even give a shit. I just throw some teams. I know that other people will balance it out. I was thinking, like, why are we even doing polls? How does this exist? I get. Because it's still a subjective formula to create the playoffs in college. Why do we do preseason polls anymore with the transfer portal. We have no clue who's good and who's bad. In terms of, like, we know that Clemson is not going to go 0:12, you would think. But last year I saw Florida State, who the previous year had won 13 games and if it wasn't for their quarterback snapping his leg, would have been in the final Four and who knows, could have won the national championship the following year, won two games and everyone like, clem's going to be really good. Clem's going to be really good. What if they're not? It happens in the NFL all the time. Like, this team's going to be good or maybe not. We do not need preseason rankings because that really jades the way, like in football, we think the Vikings are going to be good. I think they're going to be good. But if you told me, hey, JJ's a debacle and they go 7 and 10, it's not unrealistic. And in college football, these preseason rankings dictate the way we look at these teams. Like Notre Dame, they've played Miami and Texas A, and Miami could be the best team in the country. And A and M, worst case, probably winning nine games. And if it goes perfectly for them, maybe they go 10 and 2, 11 and 1. I mean, if you told me they were in the SEC championship game, wouldn't be that surprised. But coming into the season like, hey, they were in the national championship last year, be there again. Well, I don't know. I mean, they lost their quarterback, they lost other players of the draft. They have a bunch of young players coming up the pipe. Maybe they're ready to go, maybe they're not. You just never know. We saw this with Texas and Arch Manning. It's like, hey, Texas, completely loaded except the quarterback who might not be good. And now with 12 teams, I just think preseason rankings, we should just throw them in the trash. They should not exist. You could tell me after September, maybe we could do, you know, top 25. But even then, the last couple of weeks, you know what I did yesterday? I was like, you know what? I'm going to go play golf. Why? Because I looked around and it's just a bunch of big time teams playing nobody's. It's like, this is a terrible product. There were two good games. I thought that, like, you couldn't miss Georgia, Tennessee and Notre Dame, Texas A and M. And it was a lot of Texas versus Utah. It's like, how are we still playing these games? How do these games still exist? They're unwatchable. How am I supposed to. Even if you are kicking the Indiana who made the playoffs last year just played Indiana State, the school Larry Bird went to beat him 73 to nothing. What am I supposed to make of that game? What's more impressive, Indiana winning that game or Notre Dame losing at home to Texas A and M? I think we all know, like if Notre Dame played Indiana 10 times, I think Notre Dame would beat him nine times. But we got to do these preseason rankings and they're higher, they're lower. It's like, I, I just think we got to find a better way to not go into the season with a bias. And there's no way to get around that. When you have a 4 in front of your name or 20 in front of your name, you actually might. If you're the 20, you could be the 15. Like Miami. Miami could be good. What if Miami is just the best team in the league, but they had a preseason ranking? That kind of jades the way you think about them. But if there were no preseason rankings, you'd be like, God, Miami the best team in the league or in the country, Right? I said this about the packers coming in. People are kind of like the Packers. Then they got Micah. You'd be like, oh, they're, they're definitely one of the six, seven, eight best teams. After two weeks, you'd be like, they're the number one team in the country. But we don't do that in the NFL. You know why? Because it doesn't fucking matter. We got three or four more months of football. Same thing with College football. It's September 14th. We got a long way to go. I just think these top 25s, I get it. It's fun. It leads to debate. Everyone's arguing over it. Mean nothing right now. Mean literally nothing. Adios. Good night. Talk to everyone. Soon.
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This is an iHeart podcast.