← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
THE HERD - Hour 2 - Look for defense to play a huge part in the Super Bowl, Greg Cosell, Liam Coen
00:42:09
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- [00:00]
Greg Cosell
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
Colin Cowherd
Thanks for listening to the Herd podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio at 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. Now let's get this party started.
- [00:26]
Liam Cohen
You're listening to FOX Sports Radio.
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Colin Cowherd
All right, Greg Cosell's around the corner. Nobody breaks down the tape, the film like Greg Cosell. We'll get to him in a couple of minutes. I thought this was interesting. Mike Frable told pool reporter Lindsey Jones that his staff in New England had saved elements of the game plan for this week to keep players engaged. And I've said the big advantage in this game is Vrabel's been in, what is this, the fourth Super Bowl. This is the tenth for Josh McDaniels. And having a coaching staff with lots of super bowl experience is like having a great wedding planner. You're freaking out. It's the first wedding, emotions are high and the wedding planner is like, I've got this, I've got this. There's a lot of I got this with vrabel and Josh McDaniels. The other thing is Fred Warner, the great 49er, talked about just as a player, what's it like from first super bowl to second. The things you learn, the thing you.
- [01:38]
Fred Warner
Don'T realize the first time around is how, how draining the entire game is. Everything is longer. It's not just a regular season game where the, the timeouts are longer, the halftime is longer and there's just so many breaks. The, the, the, the, the, the national anthem before the game takes, feels like it takes an hour. So the second time around I made a conscious effort pre game, post game, leading the weeks leading up. I said, hey, we have to make sure we can serve our energy when we get to the sidelines because it's going to be a four quarter ball game.
- [02:06]
Colin Cowherd
And that's what Vrabel and Josh McDaniel that they're preaching that to the players. Conserve some energy. All this anxiety is going to SAP energy. Everything is longer. So I do, I think one of the advantages of New England is Vrabel and Josh have been in this game so many times before. Seahawks need a wedding planner. And with that, Greg Cosell, 46 years, NFL Films joining us live. So last year the Patriots had Drake May, they had a lot of his personnel and they were unwatchable 31st yards per game this year. You still have Drake May. They made some acquisitions, but Hunter Henry was here last year, he's there this year. When you look at New England's offense year to year, is it free agent signings, is it the draft or is it just schemes and coaching a massive upgrade? Why?
- [03:10]
Greg Cosell
I think it's schemes and coaching and the natural development of Drake May. You know, Colin, we've talked for years. You know how big a believer I am in coaching with quarterbacks. Very, very, very few quarterbacks are transcendent that you can just go out there and it doesn't matter what the system is, what the schematics are. It all comes down to that, in my opinion, in many, many ways. And I think that's a big difference. And I know for a fact the way Josh McDaniels went about dealing with Drake May, and they basically gave him everything because he can handle it mentally and then you can work down as opposed to just giving it incrementally giving it to him that way. So it'll be interesting because, you know, it's funny, I don't know how you feel about this game, but this game to me, believe it or not, has much more of a defensive feel to it than an offensive feeling.
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Colin Cowherd
Yeah, I think it is a. I've said this, I think it's 24, 20. I think field goals and special teams will matter. I think a lot of it's played in between the 30s. I think it's a very physical game.
- [04:14]
Greg Cosell
Yeah, I mean my sense, look, no one can predict turnovers and short fields which obviously change games. Can Shaheed take one to the house on a pun return or kickoff return? Sure. You know, can Darnold hit Shaheed for a big one? Yeah, those things can happen.
- [04:28]
Liam Cohen
But.
- [04:29]
Greg Cosell
But I don't see this game as being a game where you're going to see a meaningful number of 11, 12, 13 play long drives for touchdowns. And I think one of the things in this game, and we rarely talk about this, the defensive tackle rotations in this game for both teams are really high level. And I wonder how that's going to impact the run games because you look at what New England brings to the table with Barmore Williams, even some unknown players like Corey Durden and Tonga. Then you look at Seattle, we know about Leonard Williams, Williams and Murphy, Jaron Reed. It's very hard to run the ball inside against these defensive fronts. And I think both teams will definitely feel the need to have the run game to be a meaningful part of their Offensive approach.
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Colin Cowherd
Why did Sam Darnold and jsn? It felt like it clicked very early. And we know this is not the case with all quarterback wide receiver combos. It takes time. These guys click immediately. Why?
- [05:33]
Greg Cosell
You know, I think a lot of that also has to do with schematics because aren't you always amazed at times when you see really great receivers being so open? You know, you wonder, God, he's a great receiver, he's open. And that gets down to the schematics of the offense. And I think one of the things that Seattle does exceptionally well, we actually saw it last year in Minnesota with, with Darnold, was under center play action. And I've always believed that under center play action is much more effective than shotgun or pistol play action because what are you trying to do? You're trying to influence and put second level defenders in conflict. And when it takes more time for a second level defender to determine whether it's pass or run, and the run game and the pass game are married together so well that then they get caught in conflict. And you see a lot of those in breaking routes that the Seahawks were really, really good at against single high safety coverage. And you saw Smith and Jigba being able to run those routes and essentially be open. So. And they move him around a lot too. He predominantly lines up outside 80% of his snaps, but they move him around a lot. And you know, I'm not sure that the Patriots are going to put Christian Gonzalez on him because that affects other defenders too. People aren't aware of that. It's not just one guy.
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Colin Cowherd
What I remember when Kenneth Walker was at Michigan State, he was very good post, very good post contact. Well, he's very good post contact as a pro. How do they use him in Seattle? Do you like the way they use him?
- [07:11]
Greg Cosell
You know, I think that over the last five, six weeks he's become a different runner and a better runner because to me, and I, this is the way I evaluated him coming out of college. And I thought he was like this for his early years in the league and he hasn't been in the league that long. But I always described him, Colin, as much more of a jazz musician, improvisational guy as opposed to a, you know, classical pianist who, you know, follows all the notes. But over the last five, six weeks, he has run inside much, much better. He's gotten what we call the hard yards. And I think when you play in games like this, a yard, two yards, three yards, those yards matter. Now I also think that the Patriots, because of Rabel's background with Belichick will do a much better job than recent opponents of the Seahawks in setting the edge. And you're not going to see Walker get outside the way he has against some other opponents in recent weeks.
- [08:05]
Colin Cowherd
Is there something that stands out with the Seahawks defense that just jumps off the film for you or is it just consistent, the ability to play and mesh all their levels of football together. What does the tape say?
- [08:20]
Greg Cosell
Two things stand out. I would say Williams and Murphy on the inside and the versatility of so many of their safeties and corners because don't forget we know about Emin Worre and again I know he got hurt and we'll wait and see on that. But let's assume he plays. He's essentially a Sam linebacker in their system but he does so many things. He can match up to wide receivers as we're seeing. But also Love was a corner in college. Witherspoon can play outside, can play inside. They have tremendous versatility with their back end players which allows them to do multiple things from a coverage and a pressure standpoint because Emenwari and Witherspoon are both very good blitzers and while the Seahawks are not a high percentage blitz defense, when they do blitz, they're very, very good at it.
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Colin Cowherd
Do these two teams look like I mean I again I see a close, low scoring game. How do they match up on film? Are there glaring holes for I worry about New England's O line matching up but I worried about the last three weeks and three games and they won. How do they match up?
- [09:26]
Greg Cosell
Yeah, I would say that the left side of the Patriots O line with the rookies, the two rookies, Wilson and Campbell are potential issues. Again, the Patriots know this. So it depends on how the game is played because now you get into situational football and if you get into too many long yarded situations. Do they feel they need to help Campbell? I mean obviously the pass, the edge pass rushers for Seattle, maybe they're not quite at the level that they played against in the playoffs, but they're still very good. So the question is do they feel they need to help Campbell? How about Wilson, the rookie left guard? What do they feel about him going up against perhaps Williams or at times they even move Lawrence inside. So I think that it'll be interesting to see how the Patriots handle that knowing that that is a potential concern when you get to pure pass and third down situations.
- [10:21]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, the yeah, you kind of talked about strength and weakness there. I want to circle back to Sam Darnold. Yeah. You know, I said just because of his early years, if he has a bad pick in the super bowl, people will just be like, see, I told you so. And no question, no question. And, and Drake May will be able to get away because Drake May, our early impressions are, boy, he's really young and talented so he'll get away with more. I mean just Darnold can't throw a bad pick. But here's something else. I think Fred Warner mentioned this yesterday. So Seattle and the Rams play these wildly entertaining games and they both look like absolute dynastic, unbelievable rosters. New England plays in blizzards against good defenses. So the takeaway with New England is their offense stinks. And I'm like, no, they dropped 31 on Buffalo. So you have to be very careful about recency bias in my opinion on New England's offense. I still like it. Greg. I like New England's offense. Now they get a plan. California weather. What do you like about the Patriots offense that we probably haven't seen a lot of in the last month?
- [11:33]
Greg Cosell
Yeah, it's a great point because all throughout the season May was terrific and their pass game was really good. I really like the way they, they attacked, they worked the intermediate areas of defenses really, really well with their route concepts. Protection will be the key, as we just mentioned. But yeah, again, no one knows what Drake May is going to do. He's a second year player playing in a Super bowl, you never know. But throughout the course of the season, their pass game was very dynamic. It was really very schematic, really good. They did a lot of things conceptually that define reads and throws. For May, I would expect that to be the case. You know, as I said, if he's under duress, that changes things. But the other thing to keep in mind, May's legs are a big deal. He had more scrambles this season than any quarterback in the NFL. Keep that in mind. And I was very surprised that Denver, you know, didn't really do a lot to, to address that in that game. Now Seattle, historically this season has not used a spy. Now with two weeks to prepare, could they do that? Sure. But you know, Mike McDonald is aware of May's leg, so he's going to have some plan that accounts for that in those pure pass and third down situations.
- [12:50]
Colin Cowherd
Great stuff. I, I've said before, you know, if I was a better, I would take the points here and the under. I think it's close and low scoring. It's very hard to project how game is played. But it sounds like you expect, you expect a top physical, low scoring game. That's what you're kind of projecting, right?
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Greg Cosell
Yeah. And by that I don't mean it'll be 10, 7. But I'm with you. I mean, I, I, because I get asked all the time and I have to pick scores. I think I picked 2320 or 2317. And I think you feel the same way. And I pick Seattle. But you know, when I pick games, it's, you know me, Colin, I could give you 10 reasons on either side. So I never can pick these games with great conviction.
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Colin Cowherd
Great stuff. Greg cosell, love your 15 minute breakdown. Thanks, Greg.
- [13:36]
Greg Cosell
Thanks, Colin. Really appreciate it.
- [13:38]
Colin Cowherd
For the record, it is now, if you, if you asked me, okay, it's a blowout. Yeah. I would take Seattle. I could see Seattle's defensive front just wearing out. Will Campbell. I could see, you know, one little injury on the O line for the Patriots and a line that's struggling. It's man overboard. In fact, J. Mac just told me there's an alternative bet you can make. I think this is an interesting one.
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J. Mack
Yeah, there's alt lines. You could bet Seattle minus 10 and a half, Seattle minus 14 and a half. And if you believe like you said, Patriots offensive line struggles. You know, go look at the Patriots who they played down the stretch. A lot of backup quarterbacks, a lot of coaches that got fired didn't look great. And you know, I think Seattle could easily win this 277 in kind of a beat down like Drake May chasing against that pressure. I don't know, Colin. I don't see it. I'm starting to lean. Seattle blowout here. I did call Eagles blowout over the Chiefs last year. Was it last year.
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Colin Cowherd
And that takes courage. Yeah, I don't have the courage. I'm calling it low scoring and close.
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J. Mack
Let's put my money where my mouth is. And my mouth is a lot of. I talk a lot of trash, but.
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Colin Cowherd
I do like Seattle here, considering your bitcoin losses.
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J. Mack
I have suffered some bitcoin losses in the last three months. I'm going to go back to my job at Burger King on weekends.
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Colin Cowherd
Nothing wrong working.
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J. Mack
See what happens. Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
All right, let's. Liam Cohen's coming up today. Ryan Fitzpatrick, who's a fascinating guy. Fascinating.
- [15:00]
J. Mack
Former jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick.
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Colin Cowherd
Yeah, Ryan Fitzpatrick. You know, he comes out of Harvard, so everybody's like, oh, smart guy. He was kind of a playmaker. He was a way better athlete that people give him credit.
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J. Mack
He moved like Drake Bacon, like just elusive.
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Colin Cowherd
Ryan Fitzgerald was a playmaker. And by the way, there's a little Darnold where he could be a little reckless. He, he loved to take big swings like Ryan Fitzpatrick had. No, he let it rip.
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J. Mack
Came close to getting the jets of the playoffs. There's a week 17 game where he had three picks against Buffalo, might have been four.
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Colin Cowherd
He was always he didn't get a lot of great coaching and he was a risk taker.
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J. Mack
Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
So. And Liam Cohen, who basically course corrected Trevor Lawrence this year.
- [15:40]
J. Mack
I like that guy's story.
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Colin Cowherd
Yeah, well, he, and he is feisty. Is feisty. He's on our show. Want more?
- [15:46]
Liam Cohen
Heard the herd streams 24 hours a.
- [15:49]
Colin Cowherd
Day, seven days a week within the.
- [15:50]
Liam Cohen
Iheartradio app search herd to listen live.
- [15:53]
J. Mack
Or on demand whenever you'd like.
- [15:57]
Colin Cowherd
Stigatz here I have a podcast empire. It continues to grow and I have brought it here to Ivar. I'm also doing a live radio show from 3 to 5pm Eastern because my wife wanted to kick me out of the house. It's called Stugac company Live, which is available in podcast form right when the show finishes. And every single day, some of the biggest names in sports, a lot of phone calls. I love you guys show. It's one of my favorites. A lot of interaction, guys not taking themselves too seriously. Those are just some of the things that you can expect from Stugouts and company and Stewartson company Live. So listen to Stewartson company Live and our original podcast. Please subscribe, rate and review Stugatson Co. And God bless football team. Taylor's livelihood depends on it. Do it today and you can check all of those out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, Two Truths and 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. A 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. Build to your local Verizon store today, get a better deal and start saving based on root metrics. Best overall Mobile Network Performance US 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. All right, welcome back. Liam Cohen. Ryan Fitzpatrick. I'm going to play a game of take your pick. I'm going to go coaching special teams, defensive front o line, rank them up. Yesterday I did top 10 players in the game. I was 6 to 4 Seattle. If I would have gone to 12, it would have been 11. Would have been Leonard Williams, Seattle 12 Christian Gonzalez, New England. So it slight edge Seattle. We'll, we'll break down everything. Special teams, running backs, quarterback. Take your pick. Next hour with Ryan Fitzpatrick and J. Mack with the news.
- [18:25]
Liam Cohen
No, no, no.
- [18:27]
Colin Cowherd
Turn on the news.
- [18:28]
Liam Cohen
This is the Herd line news.
- [18:31]
J. Mack
Colin Drake May breaking some news. So his shoulder injury feeling great. This is the first healed shoulder after a plane ride. He said that as soon as the flight touched down in the Bay Area on Sunday, his shoulder felt better. I don't know what kind of massage he was getting on the plane, but Drake May sounds like he's going to be 100% go for the Super Bowl. He has had a rough postseason. I don't know if it's a shoulder. People want to blame it on the weather or him being a young quarterback. I haven't seen it during this postseason. And I'm honestly worried about him against the Seattle defense.
- [19:02]
Colin Cowherd
I'm not the almond worry, the safety for Seattle. I'm a little worried about his versatility. I always think every year in the super bowl. What worries me in the super bowl is a left tackle like Kansas City. Like a left tackle can't play and the other team has a good pass rush. Drake May is, I mean, listen, Sam Darnold has been playing for a month with an oblique injury and doesn't practice. Sam Darnold just played his best game as a pro against an excellent defense and didn't practice. I think Drake May is going to be fine.
- [19:39]
J. Mack
So there was a breakdown. Warren Sharp, I think you know him, he's come on my podcast before. He had a good breakdown of the COVID 6 defense that McDermott used in the second meeting against Drake May. And May was flustered. It kind of mixes zone and man on each side of the field. And May really struggled and teams threw it at him and he did not handle it well in the postseason. He's seen a lot of that now. He's got two weeks to kind of tweak some things. But let's be real, that schedule they played down the stretch, it's like, oh, they killed the Dolphins, they look great. It was Quinn Ewer starting. Dolphins were garbage. Then it was like, oh, they smashed the Jets. The jets were tanking. Starting another bad quarterback. I'm just saying this Patriots team, Colin, not very impressive. The win over the Ravens was nice. Remember the prime time.
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Colin Cowherd
Let's be fair. You came on the air. You love the Chargers.
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J. Mack
I love the Chargers.
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Colin Cowherd
And they dominated them. Crushed two teams this year dominated the Chargers, Jacksonville and the Patriots.
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J. Mack
I like the Texans as well against.
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Colin Cowherd
I didn't see the Texans was a really tough matchup.
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J. Mack
Well, they were in that game until the fourth until, you know, May hits the one arm catch by.
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Colin Cowherd
Almost like you're forgetting that Patriot dominating win over the Chargers.
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J. Mack
No, I'm just remembering the embarrassing effort against the Broncos. A backup quarterback and barely winning 10, 7 and playing the weakest schedule. This century, Colin. This century. Go Seahawks. All right, let's move to. Oh, how about this one? Joe Burrow. Colin, you know, obviously he's a superstar with the Bengals. Well, Jay Glazer was giving an interview yesterday, the Fox NFL Insider, and he said, keep an eye on Joe Burrow this off season. There's an interesting storyline developing.
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Liam Cohen
Want to see what happens to Joe Burrow.
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Fred Warner
You think that's real?
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J. Mack
You think Joe. Joe could end up somewhere else?
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Colin Cowherd
I just, I want to keep my eye on it.
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Liam Cohen
I think people are going to go after it.
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Colin Cowherd
Doesn't mean they're going to be willing.
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Liam Cohen
To do it, but I think people.
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Colin Cowherd
Are going to go after it. Yeah, I mean, Joe Burrow body language alone has been visibly, if not distraught, disappointed with the Bengals, understandably. Yeah, I think Joe Burrow and you know, Cincinnati can say whatever they want, but I mean, I don't necessarily think the way Cincinnati's constructed that I would take the call if I was Cincinnati because they're not going to spend money on the offensive lineman and free agency. They're not. They don't have the big scouting department. All it takes is one more injury to Burrow. And the Bengals have shown no aptitude to protect him. They've shown no ability to protect him. They have not had a top 15o line since he arrived. You know, Burrow would go. If McVeigh called tomorrow, Joe Burrow would be on the first private jet to la. And if I'm Cincinnati, you can say we're not going to do it. But one more injury and Joe's market is very small.
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J. Mack
Let's just spitball here. The Houston Texans call up and say, hey, we'll give you C.J. stroud and three number ones.
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Colin Cowherd
Barbara, if I was Cincinnati I would do it and not because I think CJ's better than him. But CJ doesn't have an injury history and three number ones for a very cheap organization that doesn't want to go buy elite players. They can get him in the draft.
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J. Mack
And in free agency. Seattle, Cincinnati struggling to lure guys because of the notorious cheapness and around the facility like not fixing stuff and they grade very low in some of those.
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Colin Cowherd
Arizona and Cincinnati grade very low among players like these. The owner of the Bengals. It's just crazy to me is that like they, they lack self awareness. Like everybody inside the league is like that's not a place you want to.
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Fred Warner
Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
Like if you are you going to move your family now they do. They don't run through coaches like they, they don't want to have any dead coach money. So like they hang on stuff and whether. Whatever you think. But it's like players don't look at Cincinnati as a great landing spot. Players are just like everybody else in society. They talk and gossip.
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J. Mack
Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
And they're like you don't want to be here.
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J. Mack
So I'm trying to think like could the Vikings do well they would have no. Bengals would not want Justin Jefferson and picks right. They have receivers trying to think of someone who needs a quarterback and is close and could give up a star player or two and come through like it's tough to find one moving off burrow that that would be.
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Colin Cowherd
They've shown no ability to consistently be able to protect him.
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J. Mack
Yeah. You know we have a Bengals fan on the staff.
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Colin Cowherd
I wonder he has been distraught since.
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J. Mack
The super bowl final is it's official Bill Belichick will not be a first ballot hall of Famer. This has led to questions about other people's hall of Fame first ballot potential. Rob Gronkowski. I kind of sort of love this one from Gronk. He believes one coach should not be first ballot since Belichick is not ridiculous.
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Colin Cowherd
I mean Coach Belichick needs to be in the hall of Fame and it needed to be a first ballot. Now there's no such thing as a first ballot hall of Fame coach, no other coach ever in history should go first ballot. And there's a guy out there, Andy Reid, but he can't go first ballot now because Coach Belichick wasn't first ballot.
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J. Mack
I like that. Well wait a minute. What are you saying?
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Colin Cowherd
Well Andy didn't have, you know, a couple of spygates.
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J. Mack
Was Belichick suspended for the spygate? I Forgot? No.
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Colin Cowherd
Well, they gave up a first round pick. A third round pick. League doesn't like to do that. Fine. 500,000. I think he may have been fined even more the second time. There's a lot of suffixes. There's a lot of gates suffixes. What do you call?
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J. Mack
So. But honestly, like, nobody in football thinks Andy Reed's a better coach than Bill Bell.
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Colin Cowherd
Nobody but Andy Reid has won with eight different quarterbacks. Belichick, what has he won with?
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J. Mack
Eight different.
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Colin Cowherd
Donovan McNabbie got to a Super Bowl.
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J. Mack
They didn't win it. You get to assume 111 games or whatever with the Browns in his first tour of duty. 10 or 11, something like that, and.
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Colin Cowherd
They let him go.
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J. Mack
Well, that's the Browns. That's their fault. Listen, I like Reed a lot. He's done some good things, but I just. I'm kind of with Gronk here. If Belichick is not first ballot, what coach can be? Nobody's got a better resume than him.
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Colin Cowherd
I'm kind of a cheaters never prosper guy.
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J. Mack
He's dug in. All right.
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Colin Cowherd
No, I'm not. I'm not anti anything. But I said as everybody was freaking out. I'm just as bothered by Robert Kraft, who won pre Belichick and post belichick and has 11 Super bowl appearances. And Jerry Jones is in and Robert Kraft is in.
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J. Mack
Yeah.
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Greg Cosell
Was.
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J. Mack
Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
That to me.
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J. Mack
Owners in the hall of Fame.
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Colin Cowherd
Oh, wait, I know.
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Liam Cohen
Yeah.
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Colin Cowherd
You're one of these owners.
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J. Mack
I don't play. I don't do anything.
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Colin Cowherd
What's the worst job you ever had?
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J. Mack
I'm embarrassed to say on air. I worked at a car wash. I was so angry. My parents wouldn't give me like a real allowance, so I got a job at a car wash that did not last long. I'll just say.
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Colin Cowherd
And why didn't it last long? Was the boss lousy?
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J. Mack
They made me do stuff I didn't want to do. And then I, like, rebelled. I mean, like work, just not stuff I want to talk about out there. It's just not fun. I was like, I don't want to do this stuff.
- [26:49]
Colin Cowherd
I think you were a lot more high maintenance than you're. You're letting off.
- [26:53]
J. Mack
I know I was high maintenance and I thought, now I'm low maintenance. I'm very low, as you know. Well.
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Colin Cowherd
Oh, I sure do. I know a lot. Well, J. Mac with the news.
- [27:03]
Liam Cohen
Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by the herd lie news.
- [27:09]
Colin Cowherd
It's so interesting to me how people weren't bothered at all by Robert Kraft not getting in, but they're deeply bothered by Belichick. And I would ask every single person, let me ask you right now, if you are working somewhere and you're not really happy, ask yourself why you're not happy. And I bet in almost every instance, you don't love management. You don't love the vision of the company. You don't love the product you're selling. You don't trust them. It's not co workers. It's not where you live. It's not where the plant is based. It's usually I don't. I have said this before in my career. I've been so lucky. I've had. I have had overwhelming luck with, you know, quality of bosses and, you know, quality of environments and lived in Vegas and Tampa and LA and Chicago and, you know, great, great places to live. Even northeast in the summers and falls. Amazing. So. But people aren't bothered by Robert Kraft. It's like Jerry Jones is in. Robert Kraft isn't. You're. You're totally okay with that. Nothing against Jerry, but, I mean, Jerry calls himself the gm. Robert Kraft has one time in his career reached down and said, we're not going to do this with personnel. The Jimmy Garoppolo, Tom Brady situation. And he was right. Thomas still had a lot left in the tank. Okay, we've got Liam Cohen also. Take your pick. I will say the money's overwhelmingly on Seattle. I did my take my pick this morning. Man, Seattle is good. There is no getting around that. See, Seattle is really good. We had Fred Warner on yesterday talking about that. Fred Warner obviously knows Sam Darnold, former teammate, played against him. I mean, a lot of this is just. Darnold played a perfect game against the Rams. You can't unsee that. You know, 10 days ago, whatever it was. Here's Fred Warner on Darnold.
- [29:12]
Fred Warner
He was a great teammate. He fit right in, you know, that's why I'm so happy for his success and, and the way that he's played throughout these playoffs. Of course, I wish he didn't play as well against the old Niners. But for him as a person, man, and being a former teammate of mine, I am happy for Sam, you know, and he's always had uber ability, like, uber talent. The ability to put the ball wherever he wants to manipulate arm, arm angles and do those sort of things. He's just done worrying about what everybody else got to say about him. Hey, man, I'm just going to play the game I'm going to play the position the way it's meant to be played and I'm going to trust my team, trust my teammates, and ultimately, that's why they have a chance of winning the Super Bowl.
- [29:47]
Colin Cowherd
And he did just that last week. Live in la, it's the Herd.
- [29:50]
Liam Cohen
Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd, weekdays at noon Eastern, 9am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the iHeartRadio app.
- [29:59]
Colin Cowherd
All right, two truths and a lie. Here we go. I went to college with college football coach Jim McElwain. 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 AT&T 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 builder, local Verizon store today, get a better deal and start saving based on root metrics. Best overall Mobile Network Performance US 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. Well, you get some of these young coaches. Ben Johnson's obvious because he was so high profile with Detroit d' Amico Ryan's before he got the job. I had called some people in San Francisco. They're like, that guy's going to hit like fast. Like he's going to be great. Liam Combs was that when he's with the Bucks, he's with the Rams. People are like, this thing's going to work in Jacksonville. It's going to work fast. And he turned around. I mean, just, it is amazing. Ben Johnson gets a lot of the love for the turnaround, but The Jags went 4 and 13 to 13 and 4 and it was, and I love Trevor Lawrence and I got to the point where I was like selling stock and Liam Cohen takes the Jags over and it is, it is a bright future. And he is joining us live in San Francisco. So let's, let's start with this because I think it's kind of fascinating. I love getting these coaches on the air about this. So I, I, I love, like everybody else, I saw him play in high school, I saw Trevor at a high school camp and I was like, bro, that guy Is like, wow. I loved him at college and I. But he was a bit turnover prone. Mechanics weren't always clean. And then you. So when you take over him, do you break him down? Because there was a massive jump. He played much cleaner with you. And Ben had to do this with Caleb to some degree. He'd been beaten up, lost some confidence. What did you do in the first three weeks, four weeks with Trevor? Because the ascension was noticeable very quickly. What in the hell did you do?
- [32:15]
Liam Cohen
Colin, thanks for having me on, man. Really appreciate it. A ton of respect for you in this program. Trevor was so cool to work with at an early point because of the humility you talked about of being able to say, man, I do want to break this thing down. I'd like to change my footwork in the shotgun. He was always a right foot forward guy. Ended up wanting to go left foot forward. That was his idea. That was something that I was comfortable with after working with Matthew and Baker and we started there. Colin, he wasn't able to throw all of for a long time during spring because of a shoulder surgery. So we were able to really start from the ground up, really start with the footwork, start to work with the playbook, the protections, the schemes from the neck up without worrying about the result of a completion.
- [33:02]
Greg Cosell
Right.
- [33:02]
Liam Cohen
Like we're just worrying about your footwork and your thought process going through the cycle of the snap without worrying about the throw. And then, okay, get into training camp. Now we're getting closer. Now we're getting closer. And it did. It took some time. We were able to run the football effectively early in the season, which helped us win games and Trevor managed the game at a high level. And then once, man, the pass game took off. He brought us to a whole nother level.
- [33:26]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, it is, you know, it's funny, like Drake may moves, Darnold moves, he moves. I mean golf and Matt Stafford don't. But what is the line on wanting your guy to move and not get whacked? Because I couple times with Trevor this year, I'm like, bro, get down. You are long. You, you're a big target. He got smoked in a game. It may have been one of your playoff games earlier in the year. Just got smoked one. What is the line for a coach? You want that third down escapability. But he is the franchise. How do you coach that? Right?
- [34:01]
Liam Cohen
That is the finest line that you walk. Honestly, with a guy like Trevor that, I mean he's legit high 4, 5, 4, 6. That can really run. Athletic, big, strong, has an advantage, right? It's an advantage for us when he can get moving. And while you also want your quarterbacks to go through progressions and read it 1 to 2 to 3 and find a check down or be able to keep the ball in play, because if you check it down and we gain 10 yards, well, you just took a negative into a positive and you didn't take a hit. Well, when he has to, when he's able to go scramble, push up in the pocket, slide out, go, run. Now you've made the defense defend every blade of grass, and you make it very frustrating on the defense. So that was a lot of conversations, Colin. I actually remember after the Kansas City game, his wife Marissa was like, dude, you gotta slide, you know, you gotta get down. And hey, I'm like, man, as long as you. You feel like you're protecting yourself. And look, he just wanted to compete his tail off this year, prove to a lot of people that he can do it, prove to himself that he can continue to play at a high level. And I think when you do that, Colin, you earn your players trust and you earn their respect. And that's something that Trevor was able to do this year.
- [35:12]
Colin Cowherd
You know, I said you played the Seahawks and you hammered some really good teams. The Chargers game, you. You unravel teams. There was one game, though, the Seattle game, where it was like, and I've said this all year about Seattle, turn the sound down and watch Seattle. They just look longer and they are fast, they are young. And with young teams, you get energy, you get more mistakes, but they, when they're humming, they look different. Let's go back to that game against Seattle. You're on the sideline. Did you look at that and think that that team may be a Super bowl team?
- [35:47]
Liam Cohen
There's no question preparing for, for that team that we were very aware of the physicality, the way that they played. Their coverage structures in the back end, you could tell, is extremely tied together. Mike does a phenomenal job. I think his coaching staff does as well. But you can see they've got waves of rushers, right, Colin? Like, they've got groups up front, in their front seven specifically, that can really impact and affect the quarterback. It's not just one, it's not just two. I think the big nickel Humanora kid is unbelievable in terms of the athlete, the freak, the ability to play coverage and rush and defend the run. They are exciting. It's an exciting defense. And then really offensively, a ton of explosive plays. Right? They've lived and died by the explosive play. Sam's playing at a high level. I think their run game is really coming to life. And thought they did great things over the course of the year. A lot of props to Mike for what they were able to do this year. And you're right, you can turn the tape if you just watch and listen, they play the game the way it's supposed to be played.
- [36:51]
Colin Cowherd
You know, Mike Vrabel we were talking about, very few coaches, like, have a brand, and it usually takes years to develop. And it was about halfway through his career in Tennessee. I started seeing this video of Mike Vrabel and the players after the game. Long snappers, quarterbacks, rush, edge. And I'm like, if I had two words to describe Vrabel, it would be like tough love. Nobody's going to love you more. Nobody's going to support you more. It's almost like a fatherly figure. And you have a very close relationship with your players. It's hard, Liam. You sometimes you have to give them really bad news, but you also have to have the respect. And you've got to. You've got to be an alpha. You're leading. You're leading successful, driven men in a career, in a career that pays well and is very short. When you see this stuff of Vrabel and. And how does it land for you, a coach, watching that coach in that relationship.
- [37:46]
Liam Cohen
That'S. That's everything to me is the relationships like this. Take football back to Pop Warner, take it to high school, take it to college. It's the brotherhood, is the relationships. It's the trust. It's the connection in the locker room, the coaches and players having a real honest, open conversations that, yeah, you're right, can be difficult, can be challenging. But if you approach those conversations and tough ones with. As a man and bring it to him as a man without really ego involved from your standpoint or the organization standpoint, those guys can usually take that stuff like men, and they can handle it like men. And that's what they want to be treated like. They're pros. We're working together. You know, I happen to be the head football coach. And so when you can make them not feel like a line on a piece of paper of a playbook, I think those guys are going to play a lot harder for you. I think those guys in the fourth quarter are going to reach and find something maybe they didn't have. So those are the type of relationships that we would like to have with our players, our coaching staff. And you can see raves Coach raves has that without a question.
- [38:51]
Colin Cowherd
Well, it's interesting. Jacksonville always had a reputation, kind of a sleepy town, warm weather. And if you look at the NFL, Liam, I don't know if you're aware of this, but there's never been a warm weather dynasty. And I've always argued, you know, in college football, you play the warm. You play the, you know, a lot of your big games inside, right, or in the south, in the NFL, there is value in playing in New England and Baltimore and Green Bay and Seattle. And what's interesting about Jacksonville is how do you create a tough, physical, almost northeastern kind of, you know, attitude when it's 72 degrees a lot, the beach, you can smell the salt. Like, how do you do that as a staff? Create an. And it's weird to say it, but almost a northern toughness in a southern place.
- [39:43]
Liam Cohen
That was exactly what we said when we got here, Colin, like working with Tony Bacelli, James Gladstone about what we really wanted this to look like. I mean, when you're executive vice president of football operations is a left tackle, right, and your general manager is a coach's son, you're going to fall into synchronicity with what you really want it to look like. And we knew if we wanted to get where we want to go, ultimately it was when a Super bowl is, we're going to have to go run the football and stop the run in places like Baltimore, New England, Buffalo, Kansas City. And look, that's something that. It's football, man. It's. It's what it was when we were five years old playing this game. And I was fortunate enough to grow up around Division 3 football, watching my dad coach every day. And, you know, you're putting car lights to have night practice and they're getting. My dad's making sandwiches, my mom's making sandwiches for the players to have on the bus. I mean, that's what I grew up in. And I don't think that really changes based on the level you're at. If you want to be a tough brand of football and play that way, great. Or you can go play Star wars and play seven on seven, and maybe that stuff works, but I just think that this game's meant to play violence, meant to be physical. And I think it shows with the way that we coach and play.
- [41:07]
Colin Cowherd
Well, I see, I look at your coaching resume and I see Maine and UMass and Rhode island and Brown, which is, for the record, a beautiful part of the country, but it is. I like that you got, you got Some northeast kid in you, and I love that. And you have crushed and you turn. Man, you turn that puppy around fast. And I'd love to have you on again and just keep crushing. You're good for the league.
- [41:30]
Liam Cohen
I appreciate it, Colin, thank you very much for having me on.
- [41:33]
Colin Cowherd
All right. Liam Cohen. Yeah, it's former college assistant. And I see all these northeast schools. Chip Kelly did a lot of that too, before he was discovered by Oregon. So it's. It's crazy. I was, I think, like a lot of you, I was a huge Trevor Lawrence fan. And I got to the point where I'm like, yeah, he just makes too many mistakes. And all of a sudden you watch immediately and you're like, okay, got his guy, you know, Baker. For the record, Baker Mayfield had Liam Cohen and. And Dave Canales, and then they leave, and then it doesn't quite work as well. A lot of success for quarterbacks. I mean, Matt Stafford did not win a playoff game pre McVeigh.
- [42:09]
Greg Cosell
Okay?
- [42:10]
Colin Cowherd
Look how good he is. I mean, look at Sam Darnold, New York. I mean, last week or a week and a half ago, Stafford, Darnold, go take their first five years in the NFL. Stafford and Darnold. If I would have tried to sell you on, yeah, right now they're in the nfc. They'll meet in the NFC championship. If I'd have said that after four years of Darnold and four years of Stafford so much. That's why it's. Don't give up in field on young people. I don't care if you're a young teacher, a young attorney. You know, it doesn't matter. Just you don't give up. It's when you're young especially, you need stronger support than when you're old. I mean, at this point, I got gray hair. I am what I am. I mean, I have to deal with JMac. You know, that's difficult. But outside of that, it's easy living. I made my mind up.
- [42:59]
J. Mack
Low maintenance Mac. That's the new nickname. Going around the building.
- [43:04]
Colin Cowherd
Is it going around the building and then bouncing right back to you?
- [43:07]
J. Mack
We got a Nick Amanwari update from Mike McDonald. He is saying that he's confident, quote, that his safety will play in the Super Bowl.
- [43:15]
Colin Cowherd
Young athletes heal quickly.
- [43:18]
J. Mack
It's called a low ankle sprain.
- [43:19]
Colin Cowherd
Not the high one that walk into the set.
- [43:22]
J. Mack
Yeah, yeah, you suffer one of those every.
- [43:24]
Colin Cowherd
Low ankle sprains don't mean anything.
- [43:26]
J. Mack
And this guy's a machine. He's what, like 23 years old? Young superstar.
- [43:29]
Colin Cowherd
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:30]
J. Mack
You'll be fine.
- [43:31]
Colin Cowherd
All right. We got good stuff. Ryan Fitzpatrick. If I had Ryan on years ago, he's done a great job for Amazon. He is. I'm telling you. You can go. Give me a three minute reel on Ryan Fitzpatrick. That dude made he was athletic and he's going to join us.
- [43:50]
J. Mack
Think Verizon is expensive? Think again.
- [43:53]
Colin Cowherd
Anyone can bring their AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. So bring us your bill.
- [43:59]
J. Mack
Walking, running, pogo sticking, teleport. If you can ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or fly in on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way you can bring your AT&T.
- [44:08]
Colin Cowherd
Or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a.
- [44:11]
J. Mack
Better deal on the best network based on RootMetric's best overall mobile network performance. US second half 2025.
- [44:16]
Colin Cowherd
All rights reserved.
- [44:17]
J. Mack
Must provide a very recent postpaid consumer.
- [44:18]
Colin Cowherd
Mobile bill in the name of the.
- [44:18]
J. Mack
Person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply.
- [44:21]
Greg Cosell
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.