Colin Cowherd (3:47)
Listening to the Best of the Herd podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio and noon to 3 Eastern, 9am to noon Pacific. Find your local station for the herd@foxsportsradio.com or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR. This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio. Oh, here we go. It is a Wednesday. We are live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, thanks for making us part of your day. J. Mac. We are packed today. Josh McDaniels, former, you know, legend in New England, Albert Breer stops by today. Some breaking stuff. Mark Sanchez stops by as well. And you know, for years and years, I had talked about wide receivers. Chris Carter used to give me crap for this being overrated. I said, a football team's a cake. They're the icing. It makes it better, but it's not essential to the cake. And then clearly, because of rule changes, receivers became more valuable. But about six months ago, you suggested that we could have. You've heard of housing bubbles. You said wide receiver bubble. And I think you were onto something. You think maybe, huh? I think you were. So I want to start with that today 49ers Brock Purdy. The quarterback says, oh, I love Deebo Samuel the wide receiver. Here we go again. Another high maintenance wide receiver that the quarterback has to make sure he's happy. Like A.J. brown in Philly. And Deebo and Malik, neighbors earlier in the year with the Giants. And Devonte Adams with cryptic messages when he was a Raider. And I like Devontae, but CD Lamb is perpetually unhappy. And George Pickens and Deontay Johnson. Even Ja'Marr Chase, who I love, made noise this year. Oh, by the way, the top five rushing teams, rushing teams in the NFL, Philly, Baltimore, Washington, Detroit and the packers are 48 17. Hey receivers, we gave you a couple of years to be stars and you wasted it complaining. The world changes quickly. Nine months ago, all we heard is the media lament the future of running backs. Nobody wants to pay a running back. Running back saying nobody loves us. Today, power running football is back. Detroit, Baltimore, Green Bay. Wide receivers have become once again flashy sports cars. Really expensive, high maintenance. You buy one and you find out they're not great in winter months and they're not something you could drive every day. Meanwhile, there are running backs. All weather power, economical, low maintenance grinders add toughness and leadership to locker rooms. Yes, occasionally you will get a running back that's got some flash. Kyron Williams of the Rams, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley. But six of the top 10 wide receivers in the NFL, six of 10 leading in wide receiver yards are on teams with losing records. Loud and losing. And once again, whether it's Philly or at San Francisco or it's Dallas, it's this constant need. Look at me. Let's make sure the wide receiver is healthy. I don't get that with Saquon. I don't get it with Derek Henry. I don't get it with James Connor in Arizona. I don't get it with Walker in Seattle. They're grinders. Head down. You give me the ball, I'll produce, I'll block, I'll take on a rush end, I'll take on a Mike linebacker coming a million miles an hour to protect my quarterback. And I like Debo Samuel, but in six NFL seasons, he's only had two years of a thousand plus yards. Derrick Henry, seven straight seasons of a thousand plus yards. And whereas running backs, when they're good, make a quarterback's job easier, wide receivers, when they're good, often need to be constantly soothed and pampered and taken care of. I mean, the A.J. brown situation is Ridiculous. Your team's on a heater. Saquon Barkley should be arguably mvp. And you want more targets, you're getting seven. Okay, we'll give you nine. And I like a lot of the receivers, but I always felt in this league that they were the icing to the cake. Saquon Barkley is the cake. Christian McCaffrey is the cake. Derrick Henry is the cake. And that doesn't mean I don't like wide receivers. But how many times do we see this? Winning teams having to make sure the wide receivers healthy. What's interesting about Debo, my favorite Debo is after the catch and when he plays running back. So when the receiver Debo becomes the running back Debo, I like him more. So I think it's just a very interesting. The world changes quickly. And if you look at the teams now with power run games, always a quarterback's best friend. It's Baltimore, it's Philly, it's Detroit, it's Washington, it's Green Bay. Running backs are back, all weather, economical, tough. Quarterback's best friend. All right, so nobody wants any sportscaster to sit on the fence, right? Well, what's the point? You got to pick a side on stuff, right? And I'm just going to tell you when the story keeps coming out today that Belichick and Carolina are close to joining forces to be the coach of the Tar Heels. My takeaway and my opinion is it's eventually going to be a disaster. Let's start with this. He's 72. Yeah. And his personality is formed. He's got no charisma. He's trying on the other network, but he doesn't have any charisma. And college football. Dan Lanning, Big energy, good looking, confident young Sark salesman. Saban. Charming. Kirby Smart. Likewise. Marcus Freeman. Good looking, cool. Jim Harbaugh, totally authentic, full of energy. Pete Carroll at usc. I mean, he hit you like a strong drink, man. He was coming at you 100 miles an hour chewing that gum. Good looking guy. I'm going to change your life. The players choose you in college football in today's nil. Bill's Patriot way. Hey, take a little less for the team. Yeah, that's, that's not, that's not happening. That, that's not happening. So that's the number one reason Belichick, in my opinion, seemed a little out of touch dealing with 27, 28, 29 year olds his last three years in pro football. Now he's dealing with 17 and 18 year olds. So that's the first Part, the second part is. And this, this is true in a lot of universities, but it's really true at Carolina. The administration at Carolina right now is a little bit of a mess. Academics one side, sports on the other. This is a proud university. That's rival is the academic power Duke. So they don't want to take a second fiddle to anybody. So North Carolina is serious about academics and there's a lot of pushback upstairs in the academic world to the sports world and the football program. And by the way, what's interesting is the top college football agent is Jimmy Sexton. He is a power broker. Why isn't he sending his best candidates to Carolina? Why are like second tier candidates backing out? Agents will tell you the truth, where they send their people. If they start, if top agents in any industry start, start sending their people to certain locations, it or not sending people to certain locations, it tells you everything. Why isn't Jimmy Sexton sending all of his great clients to Carolina? Because it is a top 20, 25 job. So. And the third thing is, I think it's all about Bill Belichick wanting to give this job to his son in like a year. I think he's going to get worn out a year in and say I want to give it to my son. Which by the way, I get it, I'm a dad, totally get it. But whereas Deion Sanders went to Colorado and he was about attitude, us noticing a program that was irrelevant, swag, confidence. And I truly do believe that Deion Sanders really does care about elevating young men. To me, Belichick cares about elevating one young man, his son. And I get it, I really do. But that's not why you take a job. Right. Like I think Deion to Colorado works because I think he's a. When it comes to Dion and what he really wants to do, he got the bag. He's the greatest cornerback of all time. He wanted to change some lives, including his son, not just his son. And so I don't buy it. I'm not sitting on the fence. Michael Irvin, who was so good yesterday on our show the Playmaker, former Cowboy, his thoughts on Belichick and Carolina.
