← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
THE HERD - Hour 1 - More drama coming out of Pittsburgh, defending Fernando Mendoza
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And James Harrison's on a short list of the second best player. Great players. Well, they have podcasts and they've gone on those podcasts over the last year or two and been critical of Mike Tomlin and the Steelers. And by the way, their message is pretty smart. Their message to me was spot on. But according to Joey Porter senior, whose son plays for the Steelers, so, you know, he gets very emotional. Joey Porter senior says Big Ben, who he calls number seven. And. And James Harrison broke the brotherhood. He used his brotherhood in the article I'm reading like seven times. So just remember that word. Here is Joey Porter senior mad at James Harrison and number seven, Big Ben seven. Definitely broke the brotherhood because, like, that's the one I don't understand. The 7 dude that did that we don't talk about. I know is crazy. He should never grab a microphone and really talk Steeler business. Yeah. Because if we talking Steeler business, his ass is foul of all foul. He's not a good teammate. Won a Super Bowl, Woody. But the person, he's just not a good teammate. Like he knows that. Anybody in the Steeler building knows that. But we protected him. Well, if James Harrison and Big Ben don't buy into the brotherhood, his word, maybe the brotherhood's not that important. I also know Big Ben and James Harrison hit when you start attacking the messengers and not the message. They're onto something. That brotherhood couldn't beat Blake Bortles at home in the playoffs or Baker Mayfield. That Brotherhood, the last 11 games against playoff teams, 1 and 10, averaging 15 points, giving up 28. The Steelers culture forever under Tomlin was talent and toughness. I like those qualities and I guess brotherhood. But with the Chiefs and the Seahawks and McVeigh's Rams and Shanahan's 49ers, I get the toughness and the talent, too, but I get discipline and schemes like smart football. Have you ever noticed over the last 10 years, as football has gotten much smarter, More motion, more deception, more looks. There are so many great coaches out there. Tamiko Ryan's, Mike McDonald on the defensive side, McVeigh, Shanahan, offensive side. Have you noticed during that time the Steelers have become less relevant? That's why I defended old guy Aaron Rodgers this year. Was he part of the brotherhood? No, he was the new guy. But the offense finally looked like grownups. Fewer penalties, fewer turnovers. Aaron Rodgers, the new guy, walked in at 42 and it's like, oh, this is. Despite having some limitations at wide receiver, you're like, oh, this is how an offense should function. That Steeler Brotherhood has not beaten a top 10 quarterback in the playoffs in 15 years. And big Ben and James Harrison called it out. You know, Mike Tomlin, bottom 10 offense, seven years. Why not innovative, not creative. You can win with defense. Seattle did it. But have sophisticated, progressive, new approach, new looks. Not just what the Steelers do. Let's spend more money. The Steelers passed defense this past year, 29th defensively. How's that brotherhood thing working? I don't know. Big Ben and James Harrison, and it takes some courage to do this. Pushed back on very popular Mike Tomlin. Pushed back on this organization which keeps everything in house. Ah, I'm not into that. I'm about beating teams in February and January, top quarterbacks. So, I mean, I. This, this whole thing about talent and toughness. Everybody in the NFL is tough. Everybody in the NFL has talent. You can call it a brotherhood, but if Big Ben and James Harrison are saying things they shouldn't, to me, that's the underlying problem. What Joey Porter is saying is, hey, nothing leaves house. Yeah, that's the problem. You don't discuss real problems. You don't put them out there. You don't take criticism well. You get stubborn and rigid. And the way we used to do it, it's the way we do it. They brought in 42 year old Aaron Rodgers, old guy, in one off season. He fixed the offense to the degree anybody could fix that offense where you didn't have a number two receiver. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna defend Big Ben and James Harrison. Going out and saying, there's some issues here. And some of them were Mike Tomlin. It should be noted, Mike Tomlin no longer coaches. So Big Ben and James Harrison aren't the only people that wanted to bring that up. Drew Brees was on the show yesterday and he was great. And it was at the end of the show and I said, drew, if you look at your career and you look at super bowl champion Sam Darnold's career and all the turbulence you both had early, does Sam's career remind you drew a little of your early career, all the lessons that we hope to teach our kids through sports and through team athletics. And that is that you will face adversity, you will face failure and disappointment, and it's how you react to it that matters. And while it didn't work at the first couple teams that he went to, he continued to work. He continued to recognize where he needed to get better and learn. While it wasn't maybe the road that he would have envisioned when he first got in the league, it was meant to be. And it's what has brought out the best in him and allowed him to play the way that he has, lead the way that he has, and also inspire others the way that he has. Drew said. Yeah, when I watched Arnold, I thought of my early years and you know what Drew Brees comments made me think of? Not Darnold, Arch Manning, all these college quarterbacks. Now, the minute they have a bad week or get bad news, I'm out of here. Give me a paycheck, I'm out of here. And there are times I think college quarterbacks should transfer. Cam Ward at Washington State gets a Miami Hurricane offer, you take it. Trinidad Chambliss, great quarterback at Ole Miss, came from Ferris State. You take that offer and go to the sec. But Arch Manning never left. He had to sit for two years at Texas. And then when he finally played, it was rough, he got crushed. He was bad and he stayed there. He hung in. He was tough. And did you watch his last five or six games in the SEC? 5 and 1. Beat A and M and Ole Miss. Or, excuse me, A and m and Vandy. Five and one, 20 touchdowns, two picks, 320 yards a game. He overcame, he endured, he had to sit. I watch these five star quarterbacks. If they're not starting by their red shirt freshman year, I'm out of here. The first sign of adversity in the nil world, I am out of here. You do understand the NFL is adversity. I mean, God, Belichick and Brady never had dinner for 20 years. Like, it can be grumpy, it can be harsh, it can be punitive, it can be tough, you can be injured. Every time we bring on an NFL player who's even 30 years old, he's on his ninth surgery. So when I'm watching Drew Brees talk about Sam Darnold, it makes me think of Arch Manning. That is the one five star quarterback that I can think of, top of mind, who could have transferred multiple times, who had to sit behind a Guy I'm absolutely convinced he's more talented than got beat up when he played, was really bad and just hung in, head down, put in the work, didn't sulk. And at the end of this past year, it's really good. Too many young quarterbacks see adversity and they, they scramble. They're just running and they don't know where they're running. They're just running. And I'm not saying you shouldn't transfer again. If you're at a small school and get an Oklahoma to call, you should go. I'm not saying that that's opportunity. If you're at Ferris State and the SEC calls or you're at Cal and Indiana's got money with Kurt Signetti, like, go, I get it, go. But there's a, I'm telling you, when people are banging on Arch Manning and saying some article was like biggest bust ever, I'm like, but half these five star quarterbacks, if they're not playing through one year, they're out the door. Thanks for flying United. Get me where I can play. We're going to look back in about 10 years, 15 years at how many of those get me out of here guys did. And my guess is Arch Manning will be better than most. All right, J. Mack, there's, there's a, some. You know, sometimes during super bowl week, a lot of stories get buried. Yeah. The Jonathan Kaminga, Steve Kerr warrior story got buried. It is fascinating what's going. That thing got, that thing got ugly. I, I think that era is over real quick on Arch Manning. If the jets have any clue how to tank, they will, they will tank the entire season and get Arch Manning. We've screwed this up before. We had to settle for Zach Wilson instead of Trevor Lawrence. And this year we're settling for a no quarterback instead of Fernando Mendoza. If the jets want a quarterback and a future in this league, they got to tank the right way. Even if it's not Arch, it's going to be someone else. Would you agree on that? Yeah. I don't think Aaron Glenn has to try to tank. Oh, come on. You're taking shots at Aaron Glenn every day. I mean, if you don't have an interception as a defensive coach and playing the same division as tua, you know, I, I think you're tanking without trying. I think that's what the jets are doing. Although maybe, hey, maybe there's a chance that the Raiders don't take Mendoza and the jets get him at 2. I mean, based on yesterday's talk and I ran into a guy at the gym who's a big Raiders guy. He doesn't want Mendoza. Like, what are you talking about? These people are losing their mind. I It's unbelievable what's happening. I'm going to address that. 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You're now entering the no Bull Zone, sponsored by Credible. Great Rate. None of the bull. So I've been doing this about 35 years and I always felt kind of my responsibility is to form relationships in athletic departments, form relationships in professional league scouting departments. So I have the most informed opinions now. I do three hours a day. Some of it's just my gut instinct or my eyes, but a lot of times if I have my strongest opinions. I remember when Tebow was on a hot streak and I was like, this isn't going to last. And I had somebody inside the Denver locker room saying, dude can't play that he's not an NFL. Don't listen to all the nonsense. Whether it was Darnold over Baker, it was Herbert over Tua. Through the years I've relied on scouts, often with my strongest opinions. They get backed by people in the league. So my scouting guys, sometimes there's a problem when I like a player way more than my scouts do or I don't like a player as much as my scouts do. And that's where Fernando Mendoza, like, I like Fernando Mendoza a lot. Everybody else just kind of likes him. Albert Brear came on the show yesterday, and this is kind of the universal opinion I hear about The Hoosier quarterback two years ago when Caleb Williams went first, Jaden Daniels went second, Drake May won third, Pennix 1 8th, McCarthy went 10th and Knicks went 12th. The consensus I've gotten is that he would have been the fourth of those quarterbacks. So right in the middle. I think most teams like the makeup. They like how much he's won. They like the accuracy. But is he physically what, you know, say Drake May was coming out of North Carolina or Jaden Daniels was coming out of LSU or Caleb Williams was coming out of usc. He's not that okay. When I watch him, here's what I see. Bigger, stronger, more athletic version of Matt Ryan. That's what he looks like. Well, Matt Ryan is ninth all time in passing yards and top 10 all time in touchdown passes. Got to a Super bowl and led 28 to three, has an MVP season behind him. Fifteen years, four Pro Bowls. So add 30% to that because I think Mendoza is got. He's a little bigger, he moves a little better. I think he's got a slightly stronger arm. So I, I think Matt Ryan you can build a franchise around and get to Super Bowls with in Fact, I think largely the Falcons failed Matt Ryan. He didn't fail them. He was a very good quarterback, so. And again, Matt Ryan. Plus, I remember when C.J. stroud came out and everybody said, jared Goff says comp. And I'm like, yeah, that's an accurate comp. Jared Goff gets to Super Bowls. He got to a Super Bowl. Jared Goff's top 1012 quarterback in the league. That's what everybody's trying to get. So it's interesting though, I. I like him a lot. Everybody kind of likes him. The knock on him is he's not super athletic. It should be noted. Lamar Jackson is and Josh Allen is, and they haven't gotten to a Super Bowl. The athletic thing we talk about. Sam Darnold's athletic. How many times did he scramble in that game? How many times did Sam Darnold scrambled in the Super Bowl? Couple what he mostly did. He commanded the game, managed the game and didn't use his hyper athleticism. I'll admit Mendoza is not super athletic, but I mean, I think his athleticism. I don't think he's Justin Herbert athletic, but he's big and strong like Herbert. So I. I see a better version of Matt Ryan. And Matt Ryan's was really good. Was a really good quarterback. J. Mack with the news. No, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the Herd line news. Let's start in the NBA. Colin, where The San Antonio spurs, the best team in the league. Yes, you heard that right. Best team in the league. Best. Had a nice comeback to beat the warriors. They won by 13, ended up covering the spread despite a poor 3/4 to start the game. Wemby cooked the Lakers on Tuesday and then basically filleted the warriors on Wednesday. He and Dear and fox combined for 53 points. Colin, this team is really on fire. They got about seven guys. They have a starting five. They use two or three guys off the bench. That's very much like Oklahoma City. You know exactly who's playing, how many minutes they're playing. This is what championship teams look like, okay? Seeing the spurs, you know, when Denver won that title, they had the same thing. They had to move off guys and they've never been the same. But because they're not, you know, because right now you're not paying Wemby a fortune and you're not paying, you know, Stefan Castle a fortune is they've got their finances, right? They've got draft picks. The spurs and OKC. That's how you do it. Great GMing. Keep your draft Capital have ascending players. And, and Wemby is now. Is Wemby moved into best player in the league? He's in that discussion with Luka Yokich. Yokic is number one. Giannis is ever healthy. Yeah. Jokic is the best player in the league. Wemby's a much better defensive player. I don't, I don't think you. Luka is. I think Lucas dropped down to like six or seven. Wow. All right, so hey, real quick, I know you're big on this is how a championship team looks. You're right. So do you want to know the last time the spurs won a playoff series? Eight years ago. 2017. Okay. They have been garbage for the last eight or nine years. Two playoff appearances and then nothing. That's how you're able to be good now. And you've got a lot of young guys because you keep drafting high. They got Harper, who was a top early pick. They got Castle, they got Wembanyama. Like that's, that's what it takes. You missed the playoffs for nine years. And, and that's what Adam Silver wants. That is the new cba. But the Lakers, the Lakers aren't close. And the Lakers, the Lakers have tried to transactionally trade for ad, trade for Luka and you can get those players, but that's not what the league is anymore. And so is Los Angeles going to be patient with the new Dodgers owners for years? And I don't think Los Angeles is built to be that like in baseball. You can just go buy guys. In the NFL, you can go awful to great overnight. The NBA now, and this is the Adam Silver NBA, everybody's shooting threes, nobody wins. Backs to backs. And the one way to build is draft and develop. Well, the problem is the NFL draft gives you 23 year old. The NBA draft gives you 19 year olds. So they're not even ready to go to the hotel bar. So are Los Angeles Laker fans ready? Move off LeBron, get some draft capital in a player for Austin Reaves and get more athletic and wait for about four years to get back into that OKC San Antonio mold. Well, I think patient, you use the right word. That's the word. That's the key word. The Lakers had the young guys, d' Angelo Russell, Brandon Ingram, all those early picks. Lonzo Ball, we don't have the patience for this. Let's bring in LeBron James, let's bring in AD. But they get the title. But the league was less punitive to that. That wasn't necessarily bad GMing. No it was bad GMing. Now, well, now you're right, it's tough. And that's what's going to make this Luca thing tricky, because the league has this stupid, stupid new rules that kind of want to restrict player movement. Colin, riddle me this. Why did Adam Silver want that? The best this league has been post Jordan was the last decade where everybody's moving around the Warriors Super Team LeBron's created. Well, we talked about the NBA more during KD warriors and the Heatles. And I believe it's because David Stern, the late great commissioner, took over a league that nobody cared about. So he understood the value of New York and Chicago and the Celtics and the Lakers, big brands being great. Adam Silver inherited a different league from David Stern, one that was top heavy where, where 70% of the owners were unhappy that you could create super teams. So Adam Silver is like, ah, let's have a league with ultimate parody. Dynasties are popular. Go Back to the 10 most popular NBA teams in my lifetime. Magic's Lakers, Birds, Celtics, the Bad Boy Pistons, the Heatles. That doesn't mean every dynasty. Duncan spurs are beloved or fascinating, right? But there is a history in basketball. Ask yourself this. The top 10 AAU teams in the country, they always, you know, Atlanta Metro, Detroit Metro basketball's UConn basketball, Duke basketball, UConn women's basketball. Basketball has always lent itself to dynasties. Why? Because you only have five starters and eight rotational players. If you get two great players together, you can have 10 great players in the NFL. If you got a crappy coach, you're done. So basketball's always lent itself. It's the reality of the structure, the construct of basketball. You're going to have dynasties, girls teams, boys team, doesn't matter. And so Adam's pushing back on a reality of the sport. Get out of the way. If people want to play together, Magic, love playing with Kareem and Worthy and Michael Cooper. Like if you're going to have stars, stars want to play with stars. Kobe wanted Gasoline. Shaq, he didn't want that two year period when they didn't have another star. And you know who's going to be hurt the most by this, Colin, is Steph Curry, who's stuck on a putrid warriors team. Where's he going to go? Not even a playoff team. And LeBron, who is averaging 22, 6 and 6 or whatever. And he's looking at like he might just have to take a major pay cut or retire. Like it's real. I don't like what Adam Silver did. I think they butchered this. And I'm not optimistic about the next year. You can go to 8th grade basketball where it's boys and girls, and then it becomes high school basketball and then it becomes college basketball. Then it becomes pro basketball on every level. Basketball is about dynasties. You go to any state in this country, there's one basketball program in high school that dominates, maybe two. And I'm talking about, you get, you know, outside of maybe California, even big states. So I just think just let the water flow where it goes naturally. Great players want to play with great players. Yeah. All right, let's move on to the NFL. And the New England Patriots suffered a big L in the Super Bowl. It's curious whether or not they'll get back there. But at his final press conference of the season Tuesday, Mike Vrabel broke down a message he gave his team following the loss. Talked about a disappointing finish to a phenomenal, exciting, enjoyable year. You know, it's unfortunate. Talk to him about the, you know, foundation. I think that we've built much like. Like a home. You know, you build a home and then run out of things to do. And so you continue to add on to it. You finish the basement, you make additions to it. And we'll try to do that to this football team. I like the foundation of it and we'll try to improve on it. Yep. Attack the offensive line, get another tight end and wide receiver. The defense is good enough. It just needs more depth. They'll be very good next year. The downside is the entire AFC had a hiccup this year. Like, I mean, it really was Kansas City and Baltimore and Borough and. And the Chargers lost both their tackles. The problem for New England isn't their roster, it's their competition. The AFC had a down year. This was the year with a Patriots schedule to sneak through. I think there'll be a better roster next year and yet won't get to the AFC championship with a better roster. Yeah. So the schedule. By the way, the first place schedule is going to be brutal, Colin. Brutal. It's like last year was a joke. I'm looking at the schedule. Jags, Seahawks, Chargers, Chiefs, Lions, Bears. I'm not making this up. These are the away games. I mean, in the division, they'll beat the jets and the Dolphins. That's fine. They got to go to the Bears, the Lions. I don't think you're. Let's. Again, everybody can get excited about Drake, May and Rabel. There's a world where this team misses the playoffs next year. It's Not a lock. The biggest advantage the NFL has over college football, and you and I love college football, is that the better you get, the league stacks the rosters against you. You know, in college football, the better Saban's teams got. The more power Nick had with the schedule and the softer out of conference schedule, they wouldn't go on the road out of conference against anybody. Right. It was like neutral field or in Tuscaloosa. The great thing about the NFL, where it really separates, you get more high quality games, you get a New England schedule for a year, take advantage of it the following year, you are going to face a gauntlet of great teams. And that is why it creates all these great games. Think about this. We got about 14 games a weekend in the NFL. Nine are compelling. What's the hit rate in college football? You got 70 games a weekend. There's six good ones. You have so many lopsided games. So I, I love that the Patriots took advantage of this, but next year's true serum and, and they'll be better, but they won't have as good a record. Not even close. All right, final story is the Seattle Seahawks wrapping up their super bowl win. Ernest Jones, the linebacker came to the defense of Sam Darnold yesterday at the or two days ago at the parade. Shout out to these badass who play this game the right way. Not only do we have the best defense in the world, we got the best team in the world. And quite frankly, if you got anything to say for my quarterback, you got anything to say about my defense, you got anything to say about online and you got anything to say about the city of Seattle? I got two words for you. That was a little harsh. That was kind of frank. Ernest is the. I mean, geez, how many drinks at that point? Come on. Goodness gracious. Okay. Sam Darnold won the Super Bowl. He went to Disneyland. The end J. Mac with a. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by the herd lie news. So I. So I just saw this. The Packers, Matt Lafleur, serious story has landed on the coaching hot seat list. So here, according to this story, the 10 coaches on the hot seat, Aaron Glenn, obviously, and you know, Brian Schottenheimer, Todd Bowles act Taylor, like some are predictable. They have Matt Lafleur at number nine. Second most wins in the history of the NFL for a coach in his first seven wins, seven years. According to foxsports.com they got, they got Matt Leflore on the list. Okay, I don't agree with that at all. The Interesting one though is Nick Sirianni, eagles coach at 2. Because I believe the market is the truth. When Cleveland fired Kevin Stefanski, he interviewed with the top five jobs within a week. I said when they fired him, he's going to land the first or second best job on the market. Now Buffalo didn't look like it had any intention of hiring anybody but Joe Brady, so that one was kind of out. And Baltimore really leaning heavily into Jesse Minter. But I, I don't the, the market is the truth. Kevin Stefanski interviewed immediately for all the top jobs. What's interesting with Sirianni is I don't think he get in her job, not quickly. So fans are completely swayed by winning. But there's a lot of different ways to win. Sometimes a coach inherits a mess, Bill Parcell's career and turns around quickly. And sometimes a coach inherits a really good roster. Nick Ceriani, he inherited a great O line and a great owner and a great GM and great team momentum. I mean they got rid of a coach who won a Super Bowl. So you got to be careful. Results based analysis where you base everything on the results is flawed. That's what Miami did and they paid 54 million a year for Tua. Well, he made a Pro Bowl. I mean made the playoffs. He had a great offensive coach when he was making the playoffs. He had a running back that led the NFL and touchdowns. He had a track team on the sidelines at wide receiver. And the jets and the Patriots were a mess and rebuilding. Okay, you can't just be swayed by results. That's like judging a real estate broker only when the interest rates are three to three and a half percent. Anybody can sell a home with that. If you have a real estate broker and the interest rates are seven and a half percent. I have a friend who's a real estate broker down in Florida. Everybody tells me, man, Florida, that is a buyer's market, man. The seller, they can't, they can't sell anything that he's never had better years. He's really good. And the interest rates aren't ideal. That's a good real estate broker. Anybody can anybody if you give them a track team on the perimeter. Mike McDaniel, 18 Running back, touchdowns, weak division, where it's Buffalo and team circle in the drain. Patriots rebuilding, jets rebuilding. So that's my take on Nick Ceriani is he landed this great, great job and you all think Nick Ceriani is a better coach than Kevin Stefanski. The market reacted to Stefanski's firing Everybody interviewed him. Sirianni's got a trophy. If he lost his job, who's interviewing him? Seriously, who's hiring him? Maybe he could get a job. I don't think he'd get one of the good ones. It can't just be results based judging winning takes. There's a lot of different ways to win. We just had two defensive coaches in a Super bowl after years of offensive coaches. So by all accounts, I mean the offensive line coach for Philadelphia, Jeff Scoutland, considered the best offensive line coach. He's still coaching. He left the Eagles with all that talent in the old line. He left it. What does that tell you? So when Green Bay Packer fans get all worked up about Matt LaFleur, you guys don't know how good you have it with Matt LaFleur. You do realize Green Bay doesn't land free agents. How did the Seahawks get Sam Darnold? Big city good coach convinced him to come there. There were more than one team wanted Sam Darnold. So Green Bay does not attract free agents like other places do. I mean, some players love playing there, but it's. There's not a lot to do. It's a tiny town. That's a huge disadvantage. The packers have always done a great job drafting and developing, mostly because that's the only way they can build dynasties. Drafting and developing. Seahawks can do it multiple ways, Eagles can do it multiple ways. Rams can do it multiple ways. Rams give up their first round picks and they're great. So when I see coaching hot seat and I see Matt LaFleur on it, I mean, you gotta be serious. That's just not serious. Live in Chicago, it's the Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd, Weekdays at noon Eastern, 9am Pacific. All right, two truths in a lie. Here we go. I went to college with college football coach Jim McElwaine. I began my broadcasting career doing play by play for the Las Vegas Stars. And I've been a Verizon customer for 15 years. Okay, I lied. All three are true. Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your ATT or T mobile bill to a Verizon store, they'll give you a better deal. That's right, a better deal on the best network with the most ways to save on plans, streaming and phone deals. So take that AT and T or T Mobile bill to your local Verizon store today, get a better deal and start saving based on root metrics. Best overall Mobile Network Performance, U.S. second Half, 2025. All rights reserve must provide recent Consumer Mobile Bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Running a commercial plumbing or H Vac company isn't easy. You're driving revenue, managing payroll, coordinating marketing, juggling projects and keeping customers satisfied all at once. You need software that keeps up. It's time to upgrade to Servicetitan, the all in one solution built to help companies like yours run smarter, grow faster and scale with confidence. See how the most successful contractors are doing it today with ServiceTit. Visit ServiceTitan.com to learn more. That's ServiceTitan.com this live check in is brought to you by State Farm. Okay, real talk. I'm about to become a dad again and wow, it hits different the second time. Hi, I'm Umar Valderrama and I've done, you know, I've done the red carpets, the long days on set and all that. But nothing prepares you for that moment when you're building a crib and you realize you're building a future. Familia is everything to me. The laughs, the chaos, the unconditional love. But also the pressure. La responsabilidad. 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Saturday, the ACC and Big Ten collide in primetime for the inaugural Nashville Hoops Showdown as number 15 Virginia takes on Bruce Thornton and Ohio State. It all begins Saturday at 8 Eastern on Fox. You seen the ratings for college basketball this year? Oh, yeah. Beating the NBA. You know, I'm a college hoops guy. Beating the NBA. Yeah. No, certainly the college basketball season, Colin, this is, I mean, there's like seven teams that could legitimately win the Natty. It's amazing. There's so many good teams this year. It's going to be a great tournament. It helps outside of Kansas and their star, you know, who's playing every night. Oh, yeah, it's amazing. Football players tackle each other and yet they're always available on Sunday. And basketball players run wind sprints and they're always hurt. You know, I don't like when you do that. I mean, okay, college basketball, they play fast, too. I always get the starter showing up. Seems like to me. So it's amazing. I'm reading a story this morning how the Russell Wilson trade by Seattle really jump started what we're watching now. They got all these picks, Devin Witherspoon, Charles Cross, the left tackle and others. So they started building. But what's interesting is at that time Russell Wilson was good, but he was viewed by John Snyder, the GM as not good enough. And that's what you can take from the Seahawks Super Bowl. You're not going to duplicate this defense, the dark side. You're not going to go eight for eight the next four years on your top two or three picks in the draft. You're not John Snyder. You don't have that. What you can identify as something to emulate is what the Seahawks did. It's the same thing the Niners did with Garoppolo, who got to a Super bowl and San Francisco said we're not going to settle. It's what McVeigh said to Jared Goff, who got to a Super Bowl. We can be better at that position. It's what Andy Reid and the Chiefs said. Even though Alex Smith got Kansas City to the playoffs, we're not going to settle for that. The Eagles with Wentz, we found something we think is better. You can laugh at this, but the Bucks had Jameis Winston, who led the NFL in passing yards, was second in passing touchdowns as the league was transitioning to an offensive league. And they said, now we're going to get the old guy Brady. It's not good enough. Jameis Winston was wildly productive. Pete Carroll, by the way, thought Geno Smith was good enough and he got whacked. Mike McDonald got one year of Geno Smith got him out of the building. We're upgrading. That's what you can take from the Seattle Seahawks. Don't copy their identity, copy their mindset, which is don't settle. Give you a great example. This works. This is a two way street. Demarcus Lawrence, who's. Who's a. Loves Dallas, played with Dallas, wanted to end his career with Dallas, went to Seattle and he didn't do it for the money. He only got like 18 million guaranteed money. DeMarcus Lawrence, do you remember when he said this? You know, Dallas is my home. I made my home there. You know, my family lives there. You know, I'm forever gonna be there, but you know, I know for sure I'm not gonna win a Super bowl there. I'm not gonna settle for the Dallas Cowboys nonsense. I'm gonna go to better structure a non meddling owner in his eyes, a better coach, a better system and a better roster. So it works. It works both ways. It's just, that's what you copy from Seattle and the Rams and Kansas City and the Niners don't settle. Gino's fine. Darnold's better, obviously. And it was obvious before the trade or before the free agent signing. So here was Darnold this week at the parade, reflecting on his journey. Yeah, I just want to say I've talked a lot this last week about belief. A lot of people, you know, didn't believe in me, but it didn't matter because the ones that are close believed in me, including y'. All. I appreciate y' all so much. That short list also includes Jody Allen, John Schneider, Mike McDonald. Man, I appreciate the belief y' all had in me for signing me last this past year. And last, but certainly not least these players, man, for believing in me. You know, I wouldn't be here without these guys. Yeah, it's, it's funny John Snyder, GM and Mike McDonald, the coach of the Seahawks, both publicly and privately lamented the fact they could not figure out why Donald was so negatively covered by the media. And I, and I think this goes back to something we've discussed, that those initial first impressions are really strong, especially if it's like a three year first impression and I'm seeing ghosts. People just were not willing to move off that. There's a lot of rigidity in sports, which is silly. New information, new opinion. I've always said if your biggest criticism of me is I move off opinions, yeah, I'll own that forever. New information, new opinion. Sam Darnold, jets didn't work. Sam Darnold end of his Carolina run. Oh, four and two as a starter. San Francisco, Minnesota, Seattle's a new player. New information. He's really, really good. Is he top ten good? Maybe closer to ten than three, but he's good. There's no question he's good. And I it was funny having Drew Brees on yesterday. Here's four quarterbacks who have gone through a playoff without a turnover. Darnold, Brees, Aikman, Steve Young. All of them had great coaches. All of them had their best roster ever in their career. And they figured out I'm not taking big risks here. You go back to that Saints team with Breeze. We were watching yesterday, the highlights of it. That Saints team was stacked. They had corners and safeties and linebackers and running backs. I mean, they had guys, they had like bit players on that team that could play special teams. And Drew Brees figured it out. You know, it's like there are times as a quarterback it's like I got to take risks. We play from behind a lot. We've got holes. I mean, that's Matt Stafford. Like, Matt Stafford knows the Rams corners. They should draft two corners this year before the fourth round. Matt Stafford knows we got to be good on offense because you can beat us down. The Carolina almost beat the Rams twice. I mean, there are holes with most teams. Seattle didn't have a hole. I mean, they do not have a hole. They have exceptional special teams. Top three special teams. Even their offensive line, which I had criticized during the year. I think center, right guard, right tackle, it's okay. I think left guard, left tackle, very good. I mean, I, I'm. We say this, I'm not sure when's the last NFL team and I guess you could say Philadelphia last year. But you know, I was Philadelphia. Special teams this good. Jalen hurts, doesn't throw over the middle of the field ringer has an article this week on Jalen Hurts. He like literally doesn't throw over the middle of the field. There were Nick Sirianni's not in Mike McDonald's class as a coach. Like I'm trying to think of a NFL team in the last eight years, nine years, ten years this good, everything, A AT everything. And their O line. Maybe they overachieved. Maybe they're better than we give them credit for. O line was pretty good to me in the playoffs, pretty good in the super bowl because New England's defense is good. That wasn't about the Seahawks O line. Our two next Think Verizon is expensive? Think again. Anyone can bring their AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. So bring us your bill. Walk in, running, pogo sticking, teleport if you can ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or flying on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way you can bring your AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best Network based on RouteMetric's best overall mobile network performance US 2nd half 2025 all rights preserved must provide a very recent postpaid consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits, plan features and Texas and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credits stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required. Imagine never buying gas again. 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