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A
Foreign Today's episode of the Pod we're going to talk about football, which I know shocking so many of you, but here's what we try to do. Mitchell Schwartz, former Chiefs tackle he's going to hang out with us. I know he's kind of the Chiefs whisperer, but I want to talk o line play. Even a lot of the stuff that we saw on Monday night, some great answers, man, it was actually incredible insight. Stuff that I wouldn't be thinking about as much because I didn't play online. But he's great on that. And then some fears, like long term fears about what to expect out of Kansas City. Max Olson, college football writer for ESPN all over the transfer portal, we're going to talk about the biggest impacts almost a month into the season, preview some of these games and also the bigger picture stuff with the portal and the quarterback stuff. I was reading him all summer on the transfer portal and checking out his latest piece for ESPN.com on the biggest impact transfers in college football. It's Max Olson, who's been covering the sport for a while. Good to see you, man.
B
Hey, thanks for having me on, Ryan.
A
Okay, so let's start with the transfer portal stuff. We'll look at some of the rankings. You know, we don't have to break down all 10 guys here. And then I want to touch on a couple of the games and some bigger picture stuff here. But I mean, how easy was it to land Mater at number one for Oklahoma considering the start that he's got off to?
B
Yeah, pretty easy. I think the hard thing in December was just when you have him and Carson Beck out there. And then in the spring, Nico, sort of like there was, I think a little bit of industry disagreement on who's the best guy out there. I think for me with Mattier, like upside was like he had a chance to be a real like season changer for Oklahoma and obviously when you go with your OC that that helps ease that transition. But I think in terms of like impact to his own team, which is maybe a different conversation than Heisman, I think he's, I think he's been kind of the MVP of the season so far in terms of how he has changed things for Oklahoma and I don't even really think he's played his best football yet. I think he's still growing as a passer. You see the athletic stuff, that's crazy. But, and I think he's, you watch them, he's lifting up that offense. I think that they, you know, Jayden odd for the Cal transfer hasn't really worked out so far. The receiver group behind Deon Burks is, is solid, but you are just seeing impact play to play just makes everybody better. And you know, I think that obviously the schedule ahead is going to be really challenging. Different than Washington State, but really impressive so far.
A
Yeah, this is a top 10 offense in college football last year, which I was easy for me to forget with his oc, you know, coming over with him and you're like, okay, well are they going to be able to do this because it was so ugly last year, there was so much turnover and I don't know that I love the receiver depth and certainly when you have 12 who's a linebacker playing tight end and you're going okay, is this desperation or is this actually the right move? And then actually, you know, watching him in that Michigan game just go, okay, this appears to be the right move because nobody can get him on the ground. And on top of everything else, like it'll be a material thing. But the team in general, it looks like eventables defense. I don't know how they're going to survive this. This may be a team with two losses who people want to get out of the playoff where I would argue, you know, let's see how the rest of the season goes. We're getting ahead of ourselves but I mean this is the kind of two loss team that I would hope would still be alive if they play as well as they've looked and considering the rest of the schedule. This is the Ryan Rosillo podcast presented by FanDuel. And the NFL is officially back. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with FanDuel. They've got the goods. Futures, live betting, SGPs, that same game parlays your way, bets, all of it. The app's clean, it's fast and yeah, when you win, you get paid instantly, which is nice because Sunday patience does doesn't exist. So get your bets in, build something bold and make every game feel bigger. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com Ryan R Y E N to get started. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus and President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling Problem Call 100 Gambler Visit rg-help.com Call 888-789-777 or or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut. Paid Endorsement this episode is brought to you by DoorDash. Look, winning every Saturday sounds great, but with doordash streaks, it's actually possible. Order every Saturday and you start to build up the Savings. Up to 250 bucks over the season, including $100 in DoorDash credits. It's simple. Order game day food, drinks and snacks and you get rewarded. Just don't let the winnings go to your head. No need to go full mascot mode in your living room. DoorDash. Order every Saturday. Build up the savings. Win every week. Terms apply. Promo period through 1118. Now we've got kind of the revenge factor here with Auburn in this game. Where did you have Jackson Arnold at Auburn?
B
Now I think Jackson Arnold in terms of the transfer quarterbacks has probably been a top five guy so far this season and I think that, you know, he's a very polite kid who's not going to come out and say it, but he was put in a nightmare situation last year at OU where you know, the offensive line was a mess, they gave up the most sacks in the country. You know, he's playing with the receiver group where the top five guys all got hurt. They fire the OC during the season, they bench him during his first SEC start so and then a month later go back to him as the starter. So I don't really think any new first year starter is going to play with any confidence under those circumstances. And so just the epitome of like man really need a fresh start. Obviously he was a five star recruit and people thought really highly of him and I think the fit so far has been pretty good with Hugh Freeze and I think you like so far that against Baylor like he had to win that game with his legs and I think since then he's gotten his really talented receivers more involved. And so I think as he comes back to Norman, that's a kid that, yeah, there's a lot of baggage with that but he's going to try to light them up.
A
I'm with you on the sympathy part of this because I felt bad for him. I thought he got hosed in Oklahoma for all the factors that you said the Tennessee game was a disaster for everybody involved. I'm not saying that he was great but then it was like, so now you're going to put in Hawkins who has no experience and now he's going to save this whole thing. And so I don't even know that that was fair to him. And then you know, Jackson's a bench for a month. And it's like, you know what, we probably shouldn't have done this because it felt like just everybody there in Norman was scrambling. It's not like he's lighting it up passing. With Auburn, the Baylor wins a great win. I enjoyed the heck out of that game. I think Baylor's a good team, so it's a really good start for an Auburn team with Hugh Freeze. You know, a few years in, you're like, what is like they're never going to at least kind of figure this out or have that weird Auburn season where they have two awesome wins and two terrible losses, but still end up with a decent record in classic Auburn fashion. So for them to be anyone that were really taken seriously in the sec, they probably could have with this Hugh Freeze offense, like, start getting him going a bit more in the passing part of it. So it's going to be a massively, like, emotional game for him because it's not just, hey, I transferred or these are the guys that recruited me and I was this big time recruit. It just felt like he became the, I don't know, the scapegoat for, for all of these other things that were wrong with that team last year.
B
Well, and then when he goes back in, it's against South Carolina and Hawkins is really struggling and they're just getting destroyed and the O lines just getting worked by Dylan Stewart and Canard and the guys they had up front and it's just like, all right, Jackson, could you go back out there and just kind of take this beating so we can kind of get out of this game and then you're going to be the guy going forward and yeah, sorry about all that. And then by the end of the season, it's like, well, I mean, obviously we're not like, committed to you being the guy here going forward. And we bring in the OC and it's, you know, once you hire Arbuckle or you target our buckle, it's pretty clear kind of how that's going to play out. So, yeah, I think it's. There's. There's so many of those guys that Ryan that, you know, you have that pedigree and then something goes wrong and you hit the portal and it's like, hopefully you can find a good fit and you can find a coaching staff that like, can put some confidence back in you. And there are times in fall camp where it kind of seemed like Hugh Freeze was not super committed to Jackson Arnold or had had maybe a little bit of worries There. But I think from the Baylor game on, you've seen like, we're behind this guy. We're going to play to his strengths. And like I said, it's a talented young roster with really good receivers. They brought in Eric Singleton from Georgia Tech, who's one of the fastest receivers in the country. So if that thing's like clicking and it's a real like he's playing to his dual threat talents, I think they, they are going to pull some upsets in the sec.
A
The guy that may matter the most when it's all said and done after the season with their start, Miami getting that great win against Notre Dame and just putting it on usf, who a lot of people were excited about and still again alive for the playoff considering the start of the schedule for them. But Beck may be considered the number one guy on this list. What do you think has been so much better for him beyond just health after Georgia? Yeah.
B
Are you kind of enjoying the roller coaster of perception on him over the last 12 months?
A
Well, yeah. I mean, quick timeline. The mock draft in 24 for 25 has him as the number one pick. Look, I had a hard time with that Alabama game. Cause he probably should have had like two more picks. And yes, they get back into it, but I also think that's like, hey, we're down a bunch. So now you have zero fear. So it ends up looking like, I mean, technically, yes, he gets them back into the game, but there's just a different style of quarterbacking where you're like, well, what else? Like, this is a disaster. So now I don't have to worry about some of these deep shots because it's just another interception. I think there were a few games last year, specifically some of the Bama throws. Couple others that I could point to where I'm like, he now looks lost and I understand the drop stuff and then being hurt at the end. I even think Gunner Stockton got all this kind of like, I feel way better about him now after that fourth down throw and one specific series that he had in the Tennessee game. But I thought Gunner was getting like all this love because it looked like he almost got decapitated when in fact, like he wasn't great in that game. But it just, you kept seeing that play over and over again. It's like this guy brings a juice. He brings an energy that Beck didn't necessarily bring. In a way, I felt like that was unfair to Beck. Did you watch Gunner the rest of the time? Like, he looks pretty limited here. And again now after the Tennessee game, I feel much better about him. So the Beck thing, you're right. It's, it's, it's a lot of. We've covered a lot of territory on him when we talked about him last couple years.
B
Just like the draft expectation then seeps into our brains and we're watching every snap last season with that. Like, does this look like a number one pick? And, and obviously, yeah, big moments, some struggles, some turnovers and stuff like that. But there's also, I feel like it probably also goes too far the other way where it's, oh, he's 24 and three as a starter of Georgia and it's like, well, he should get some credit for that, right? I mean, yes, he's surrounded by incredible players and draft picks and all that, but they, you know, that guy has played in and won a lot of games against top 25 opponents. I think you saw that last year with Tennessee. I think when he went in the portal, it was a little bit of a surprise because he had declared for the draft, but it was, it was the right move. And it's not just because of the money that Miami was throwing out there. But just like you have the elbow injury, you know, the draft process might be rough, you might kind of have that Quinn, yours fall a little bit where you maybe can't change your stock that much during it. But I think we're seeing Carson. But you can't say like, Georgia didn't put him in a position to be successful. Obviously they did. And you can't say like, oh, finally Miami is like the right spot. But I think there's probably something mentally there of just like, all right, I need to just do this somewhere else and prove myself again. And, you know, he's leading the country in completion percentage. You certainly saw against Notre Dame, like the big game experience show up. And I would say in general too, Ryan, like Miami, Oregon, Georgia are probably these teams are. Because we don't have a lot of reps with the 12 team playoff. You look at how they finished last season, they finished the season with a loss and you kind of think like, okay, they lose in the first round and they don't make the playoff. You know, you lose your quarterback, you lose all these draft picks. We probably expected a little bit of a step back from them. And that's, that's not been the case at all. They've reloaded. And in Miami's case, you certainly look like they belong in the top five right now.
A
Who's been the biggest impact on Defense, I think that.
B
So the two that sent it to me, LSU went out to try to fix their secondary and I think you look, I think it's fixed. Yeah, I think it's fixed. I think it's pretty good. You know, you bring in Mansour Delane, you bring in Halsey and Cooley and you bring in a 6 foot 4, 5 star corner as a freshman. I think you saw that against Florida. That's a huge, huge difference. And then Texas Tech D line, I don't know if you've caught them a lot so far because they've been playing easy opponents. They got Utah this week, which is going to be a sick game. But like they, they went out to try to build the best defensive line in the country and they, they spent a lot of money to get David Bailey from Stanford, Romello Height from Georgia Tech, Lee Hunter from UCF, Skyler Gill Howard, the dude he was, who's running 19 miles an hour on a pick six earlier season from, from Northern Illinois. That D line has been pretty amazing so far. You're seeing the production. I think that like those, those investments are certainly paying off. I think those are the two programs that probably put together the best portal classes. And so far it's looking, it's looking like it on the field.
A
I want to get to that Tech Utah game here in a second. Also some Indiana, Illinois stuff. But just finishing our discussion on the portal, I was, I was talking to somebody the other day who was actually in basketball, you know, and, and Pitino made some headlines after this great ro St. John's where he was like, look, this is kind of what we're going to do here at St. John's we're just going to go into the portal. I'm not going to spend all of this time and all this investment. I'm sure, like, look, If a top five kid in the country wants to play at St. John's I'm sure Patino's going to pick up the phone. But are you starting to get a sense of some of these programs looking at quarterbacks this way and going, you know what, like, let me see you do it somewhere instead of chasing you around from your freshman year in high school on. And you know, again, I think if someone calls Ohio State and it's like, hey, the number two prospect at the position in the 29 class wants to come to Columbus, they're going to say yes. But do you think we're seeing a shift where more programs are going to just want to hammer the portal a quarterback for Somebody that's more proven even if they're on their way out.
B
Yeah, I mean I think there's like certainly for Michigan, Bryce Underwood's a better take than anybody out of the portal. Right. There's still going to be those outliers. But I absolutely, I think it's like you take the Gunner Stockton example. It's going to be really hard to be that guy that stays in a program a couple of years and goes out and wins a job in the off season. And in fact, you know, around Christmas time when, when Georgia, you know, thought Carson Beck was going pro, they brought in Fernando Mendoza on an official visit and really thought about taking him because yeah, we like Gunner Stockton. We think he can be the guy. But there's always going to be some really good ones out there that have starting experience that have, you know, I think Mendoza, a lot of people view him as like man, right situation could be a first round type of guy. There's a lot of tools you like there and so yeah, certainly it's not just going to be the like we have a disastrous situation. We're in a first year, we're totally rebuilding. It's going to be like there's just always going to be really good alternatives unless these rules completely change. We just continue to see it's a really strong group of experienced arms out there who people are willing to pay a million or 2 million bucks for easily now. And so to be the guy that just kind of waits your turn. It's why we don't see it. It's why it's why we don't. You know, usually if you haven't started by your first two years, you're going in the portal.
A
Let's talk about that Big 12 game with tech in Utah. Did you get a lot of hate from Utah fans not having Dampier in your top 10 transfer portal impact guys?
B
I. No, no, they're not so far. But I think that he's after this pod probably.
A
Yeah.
B
After this. Thank you for bringing attention to it. He would be six out of, out of six for sure. I mean he'd be, he'd be right there. I and I think, you know, we don't have pac12 after dark anymore but he is like our pac12 after dark allar right now. He's like if you are watching these games and they're not, they haven't played great competition and, and ucla, you know, certainly has not played well since. But Dan Pier is, is pretty, he's pretty special and you saw that last year at New Mexico. He was one of the best dual threat quarterbacks in the country. Just one of the most productive and. And was able to play well against some tougher opponents. But so impressed by him. It's just, he's just a creator. I don't know that he's going to lead the country in total offense, but he is. The whole thing runs through him. And I think what he and Jason Beck have done at Utah have really flipped that offense. They had to add a lot of pieces in the portal and really rebuild that. But when you combine that with having two first round tackles, to me so far I've had Utah is like, I think they can be a playoff team this year. I think Texas can too. And I think this could be an early preview of what we get here in Arlington in December.
A
Yeah, Morton, I'll say it for the last time this season. All he does is put up numbers. Never gets mentioned ever. For Tech, it sounds like, because it's at home. And you know, I was looking at some trend stuff this morning and good luck ever finding a preview anymore. I'm sorry, but it's just so hard to find any. Just real good game breakdown preview. It all ends up being this like collage of other people's information and it, like I read, I tried to read three and I actually read zero this morning. So there's some trend stuff, but it's, it's hard now. Yeah, it's just, it's just hard to find like, hey, can I find like a real good preview of, of a game? Because you're right, like I'm not super locked into Tech with their schedule. I watched the Utah UCLA game and to your point, it was on, it was late. I wanted to see. Damn Pierre. I wanted to see how it was going to look. I wanted to see how Nico was going to look who did not make this transfer portal impact list. We'll just leave it at that. But you know, Utah being at home and the carryover of like the trends really didn't mean anything to me because last year was a disaster for Utah. So, you know, a big bigger picture. I think it feels like you're leaning Utah here just because they're home.
B
I think so, yeah. Last season, Whittingham called that a Twilight Zone kind of season. And just watching them live, they just did not, they did not look at all like the team that was just, you know, beating people up in the PAC 12. And I think part of that is just a transition to a conference and part of it was just horrible luck. Last year, I think Texas Tech has looked pretty unbelievable so far. They're playing easy competition, but offensively, they do whatever they want. Defensively with Shieldwood, I think is doing a great job. It helps when you get a lot of pressure up front. Like, I think this is probably the first time Texas Tech actually gets challenged and a cast to maybe kind of grit things out for four quarters here. But you're totally right on Morton. I mean, he doesn't get talked about. This would be a game where I think probably there's. There's automatically, like, if you win this, there's going to start to be a little bit of, like, Heisman respect on him a little bit, just because, you know, he's the guy that makes that thing go. And if they keep him healthy, they fully expect to be in the Big 12 title game. That's. That's the question mark. And. And Joe McGuire loves Baron Morton. They were not looking to go take Nico or anybody else out of the portal. They believe in him. He got banged up in the first game. Seems like he's good now. But I. I think I actually like Texas Tech to win, but I think I do. Yeah, I do. But this will be the first time that they actually have to, like, go do it the hard way. I think it's. It's been really easy so far. And, you know, certainly folks at Texas TEC, they have the best roster in the Big 12, and it's not even close. They think it's the, you know, one of the best ever. So they build a super team. And this is one of those weeks where you're, you know, you got to play like one.
A
All right, well, then, trying to figure out this game. Indiana's favored five and a half against Illinois. It's the first time that these teams have faced each other when they were Both ranked since 1950. You know, we could go strength to schedule here because Indiana it's not. But, you know, I'm sitting here going, well, hey, at least Illinois played Duke. And then Duke is down 24, three to two lane, which I thought was going to be this, like, massive revenge game. And it sounded like Tulane was more fired up for that one. But again, at least Illinois went somewhere and did something offensively. No, Indiana is killing it. They're actually, with all the hype from Mendoza, they're running the hell out of the football. The defensive numbers are somewhat alarming for a team that, you know, if you go yards per possession, opponent yard per position against that schedule. So I don't know what to make of this, maybe I was a little bit more impressed because Illinois got to play South Carolina and then Indiana was in the playoff. I thought that that playoff, or, excuse me, bowl win for Illinois was, Was super impressive with that stacked South Carolina team from last year. And I really like Altmeyer a lot, and I probably know more about him than I do Mendoza. It's. It's a big number and it seems like Vegas really respects the carryover and the signetti part of this in a way that maybe I wasn't expecting when I, when that line first came out.
B
Now, what is it now?
A
Five and a half. Oh, wow.
B
Okay. I. Illinois is one of those teams that, you know, when you. This is like just the tradition of the preseason poll is like, okay, well, when you have, when you win as many games they did last year, there's just this kind of rollover hype of like, well, we have to put them somewhere in the, in the teens and preseason polls and stuff like that. I, I think they've played up to expectations so far. I think things were necessarily not perfect against Duke and a little sloppy at times. But I agree with you. Altmeyer is, is terrific and there's a reason why a lot of people were, you know, willing to pay him some money if he was willing to leave there. Hank Beatty, the way he stepped up at receiver, I think is a big difference for them. Indiana, I think I like Indiana in this one and I think Indiana, the way they went about it, it didn't get as much attention and obviously people just made their judgments on Indiana from how the season ended. But, like, I think they kind of went out and got everybody they wanted this off season and that didn't have to necessarily break the. They're very good and very targeted about how they go about the portal. I think they hit all their needs really well. I think that's showing up so far. They have a lot of confidence in Mendoza. You're right. The run game, I think the investment they made there and who they brought in, I think is helping a lot. I like Indiana, but can they recapture the magic of last season? This is a big prove it game, I think, for them because they're going to be in close games again and, you know, I think that there's enough new pieces there that, you know, we're about to find out.
A
Is there anyone, like, who was your national title winner pick before the season started?
B
Oh, gosh, probably was Texas.
A
Did you not do one?
B
Sure, I'm sure I did.
C
It was.
B
It probably was Texas. Yeah. I would Assume so.
A
Okay. No, I'm not like making fun of you or anything. I just. I. It was just funny to hear you'd be like, I'm. I'm actually not 100% sure.
B
Please don't look that up.
A
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get right on it as soon as I get done with this today. Is there a few weeks in. Is. Is there a team now? Texas is going to be your answer other than Texas. Let's do that. Is there a team that, you know, you loved that. Now you're like, I don't. I don't see it. Like, I'll give you just an example. I felt like with more at quarterback at Oregon, it was a massive question mark. You know, we covered this with Canal with other guys. Six of the top eight teams in the ap, it's like six of them have complete unknowns at quarterback. And this is assuming a lot after three games. I. I don't care about the schedule of Oregon. I think more in this offense is going to be. I think he looks awesome. So that might be a team that in the beginning, you know, what are they? Seventh, you know, fourth or fifth now. And some of the stuff where I'm like, more bullish on them. They've got Penn State in a couple of weeks, so we'll find out. They don't have Ohio State this year, but is there a team that you feel like you either, like more. Way less than some. How the early voting has gone?
B
No, I think. I think you're right about Oregon and I got to go visit them in November and, you know, there's pre portal and all that stuff, and you're kind of trying to feel out like, hey, how's going it? How has Dante looked in practice? Like, are you guys trying to, you know, go make a run at one of these like you did with Dylan Gabriel? And the comp that I heard at that time was like, he looks like C.J. stroud in practice. Like, the accuracy, just the leadership, the way he moves the ball that they were like, nah, we're really happy we got the guy. He's up next and he's going to be really good. And I think we're seeing that so far. I mean, that's a. That's a high standard to live up to in terms of what Stroud did Ohio State, but they've certainly supported him. You know, you lose Evan Stewart at receiver and yet no step back offensively. They add Makai, he's from Tulane and don't even need him to be a Featured back. Like they're spreading carries among seven guys at running back. Defensively, loved what they added and it's all fit together. Like, I just think Oregon is one of those that they know how close they were last year and you know, one really looks back and say, like, man, won the Big Ten. What a great year. It's like, no, they, they know they, they felt like they had a championship team last year and it didn't all come together in the Rose bowl, obviously. And so I think that's a team, like, if they're at the end of this, wouldn't be surprised, especially as we see some of these teams, Texas and Clemson and even LSU in some ways where you're sort of like, yeah, okay, you know, they're on paper, you love it, but they're still working through a lot of stuff.
A
Yeah, LSU's offensive numbers are actually like shockingly bad. You know, I still would like to think that Clemson win was a big win, despite what you think of Clemson, because I watched the game and I thought it was a tough game and it's supposed to have a bunch of NFL players on defense and, you know, there's a bunch of linebackers that I didn't know anything about that I thought were terrific. And in the Clemson games, I've watched because oddly enough, I watched like the first half of that Troy game to go like, what the hell's going on here? I feel like I've watched a lot of Clemson and it's been disappointing. So, you know, each week it feels like that lsu, when it gets him. It's just that when you look at everything that they needed, they needed the secondary to be fixed. It's fixed. They lose both weeks brothers. Well, there's three of them in the Florida game and yet there's still dudes, you know, the, the edge guy they brought in Peyton, but this off, there's just no way. I can't fathom that this offense isn't going to be good in Baton Rouge now. Good enough to win a national championship. It's just statistically you're expecting with Nussmeyer and all of these weapons, you're like, they're going to be average on offense. Like that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
B
Yeah, it's surprising that we're, we're, you know, we're almost out with non conference and I feel like we haven't really seen the Barry and Brown Nick Anderson break out yet at receiver and felt like that was an amazing duo to put together in December when they Were trying to just go upgrade at receiver and obviously the standard is incredibly high there. But to add those guys to who they had coming back, he felt like, man, that really sets Nessmeyer up to go look like a first round guy. And so, you know, they've made some plays. I'm not saying they haven't, but yeah, I don't really feel like we've seen their, their, their best yet. You know, you see the impacts across the lineup. Like they certainly got what they needed. But yeah, offensive hasn't quite. It's not added up into like a. Yeah, they're just going to be like, you know, 50 points a game against a bunch of teams on their schedule. So. I agree. I'm excited to see when they really put it all together.
A
Yeah. And you know, back to like even the Dante Moore thing because I can be. Look, I haven't watched every game that's the headline. But there are certain teams like with Oregon because I just want to see what it's going to look like. I've watched them a little bit more despite not having that great of the out of conference schedule stuff even though they started conference play with that Northwestern game. But there's just some more throws like roll out facing pressure and he's totally comfortable with it. Like he's not spazzing out. Like I would say even with Gunner Stockton, I didn't know that he had that fourth and sixth throw in him. I had that Cash Jones completion. I'm like, okay, you know, this is maybe some of the gamer stuff but they're. There's just moments that I'll have on a Saturday.
B
He like doesn't know where to go with the ball.
A
Say that again.
B
You're watching Arch and he doesn't know where to go with the ball. You know what I mean? So is these guys that don't have the experience, like it's, it's just not automatic that you come out and look like Dante Moore. Like Gunner Stockton have like it's. You got to give them credit for, for being locked in and ready to play their best ball now.
A
Yeah, I mean it's some silly stuff with me just on a Saturday where I'm like, okay, well that looks like a really in control guy. And then you know, more of the freshman for Oregon. The receiver from Texas has looked like everything that he was expected to be. And then obviously Sadiq a tight end. I even like the kid they brought in from Louisville, which it was funny the first play they ran against Oklahoma State they ran kind of this play Action thing where he was going to be empty on the left side of the field. And Johnson is a freak. I mean, he's. I think he's from Englewood and he went to Louisville. And you're like, wait, they've got another guy after Sadiq who looks like he shouldn't even be. Should have like a parental slip or something to be allowed to plan. And they, they threw the ball to him. And then I immediately went back to. Looked at the first game. I was like, I was wondering if they. Because they bring him in, they transfer, he gets a couple targets, he doesn't have any catches week one, if they were like, let's get him. Let's get the ball in his hands. So he just feels good even though he's never going to be the first option in any of our tight ends stuff. So, yeah, there's just like little things that I'll notice on a Saturday where I go, you know, Oregon, I don't know, we're just going to assume Moore is going to be really good. And the UCLA part of it didn't really go that great. I feel way better about him just three weeks in because I think it was just a complete question mark for me before the season.
B
Well, he was going through, I mean, in, IN. In 23, he was going through pretty, Pretty brutal time as a freshman at ucla. I think his mom was dealing with breast cancer. Like, you know, there's a lot of. And that's a lot. That's a lot to be thrown in a way. And obviously that team wasn't great. And so I think it's. You don't see those as much where a guy's like, yeah, I'm going to go to my next spot and I'm willing to just like, sit out of here and, you know, kind of go off the radar and put in the work and learn from a vet like Gabriel. And so, you know, credit to him for putting himself in the right situation there. And, you know, I think Will Stein's as good as it gets in terms of just drawing it up and having, you know, having a philosophy and how he wants to attack you. And so, yeah, I think, I think Oregon, it all sets up perfect and they got Penn State. Next week they go to Happy Valley. And I think that's going to be, you know, white out. It's. If you want to find out, like, if Dante Moore is ready for all this, that's, you know, that's the game where we're going to see it. But I think that's A program that is just rolling along here and, you know, you bring in some of the guys like Dylan Thieman from Purdue, like, you're just bringing in guys that, you know are all conference players and, you know, your organ. They want to be there, they want to win, they want to get drafted. So. So you don't even have to pay top dollar for these guys. They want to be there. And I thought in terms of, just on a per player basis, I thought their portal class was maybe the best in the country. Just in terms of the little that they needed. They got elite talent.
A
I have no idea what to do with that Penn State game because I was looking ahead of the schedule and going, all right, well, now SC's ranked and I'm excited to watch SC. Like, I want to do a deep SC dive this weekend because this game, that means a little bit more for them. So let's just end on the Texas thing. And it's not, it's not about your pick necessarily, but like, you brought it up with, you know, quarterbacks looking comfortable. It's not just about the stat line, all that different stuff versus what we see with Arch, where it just seems like he's not seeing any of it. What's your big picture, Arch Manning kind of storyline thought on, on where this is all going after we've watched it for a few weeks, I think we.
B
Have enough tape to say he's not a top 10 quarterback in college football yet. I think. I think there's. I think it's okay to say that. And I'm not. I'm not hating on him at all. I think it's. This is the media machine that comes with it where it's just like, well, yeah, I mean, he probably should put him number one in a mock draft. That probably makes sense, you know, just based on the little we saw last year. But I think you got to remember, like, there's a reason why Quinn Ewers was nowhere close to 100% last season. And they were still going to do everything they possibly could to have Quinn Ewers out there because of his experience and his operation of the offense. You know, Arch started a couple games, but there was never a moment where it was like, yeah, maybe we should. Maybe this guy is just so much better than Quinn Ewers. We got to go with him. And so I think it's just, it's a process for Archman. He was not ready to start day one at Texas and he spent a couple of years here learning from the same coaches. There hasn't there's been stability behind it. I think he's better than when he came in, but you know, we probably expected too much and I think that some of it is just like there's a lot of guys around him who are extremely talented, like Ryan Wingo and Colin Simmons, who even Sarkis said like these guys are proud, progressing a little bit and they're still, they're still just sophomores. They still have have a lot to learn and we expect a lot of them just based on Texas being in the playoff year after year now. But you know, the offensive line lost almost everybody and you know, they're still trying to kind of find that, that, you know, stability and get that thing gelling. I think the receiver group is good. The running backs have been banged up. I'm not trying to make a bunch of excuses for Archer. Arch knows he has to play better, but I am surprised, not surprised by how it went in Columbus necessarily, but surprised in the two game sentence against San Jose and UTEP that it just hasn't looked easy yet.
A
I enjoy your stuff, Max. We'll have you on again. Thanks.
B
Thanks Ryan.
A
The Ryan Rosula podcast is brought to you by FanDuel football fans, every NFL Thursday is your chance to hit the jackpot on FanDuel. Because with FanDuel's Thursday touchdown jackpot, you can win a share of $2 million in bonus bets each week week. To get in on this Thursday's action, all you have to do is place an anytime touchdown score bet before the game between the Dolphins and the Bills kicks off. And if your player scores the first or last TD of the game, you'll win your bet plus a share of bonus bets. All right, so let's take a look at some things here. You got Josh Allen anytime minus 175. You've got first plus 480. James Cook's actually plus 420. So if I were going to do it anytime, I could see Miami going, hey, let's get Tyreek1. He's actually second in targets to Achan. So considering the running back leads the team in targets, first or last is plus 800 for him. First for Tyree kill is plus 1400. Could you see McDaniel and Tua because he doesn't have a touchdown against this Bill secondary that I don't love, could you see them being like, hey, this week we want to really try to figure out a way to to stretch this defense to get them thinking about this deep shot and they take one, they make Tyreek happy and all that kind of stuff. I like hill plus 170 anytime better but let's say first plus 1400 to get in on the jackpot. So this Thursday any play can be the play of the game with FanDuel. That's FanDuel.com Ryan Rye and for your chance to win a share of $2 million in bonus play your game of FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL must be 21 and older and present in select states 18 + and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in must apply profit Boost token on select market prize pool to be split equally among all eligible participants who make the correct first or last TD pick bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire 21 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fandel.com gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut this episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. NFL Sundays are back and you won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday Ticket YouTube TV lets you carry every game every Sunday all in one place. And now get NFL Sunday Ticket month to month and cancel anytime. Head to YouTube.com rosillo and sign up now. Now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games. Base plan required. Renews every month during the 2025 regular season only. Your membership for the following month could be canceled anytime before your renewal date. Terms, restrictions and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. Our next guy has nothing to promote and he seems thrilled about it. Mitchell Schwartz, former tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs, joined us on the podcast. He has joined us before. It's good to see you again.
C
Yeah, good to be here. It's always nice when you don't have tun your responsibilities.
A
There you go. Your responsibility is just educating on all of this. I was watching the first Monday night game Tampa and Houston and it was just a nice reminder too of like what it's like to watch a full game instead of red zone because of all the things that you learn and I imagine you probably like can't stand red zone. Although it's good for people that do what I do just to keep your eyes eyes on a bunch of different things and kind of the storyline of games. But we were talking yesterday and I'm watching and I'm thinking am I falling in love with every single pass rusher in this game? Or is there perhaps more going on with the lack of protection for both Baker and C.J. stroud? So what was it? What was that game?
C
You're right. On all accounts, I don't like red zone, and there were some issues with pass protection. You know, the weird thing is, is both of those games actually started pretty clean in the first quarter. Typically, if the pass protection starts good early, it stays good. You know, you worry when you're getting after it in the first quarter and your quarterback's getting killed. It's probably going to snowball. But it was pretty good. I mean, from the Tampa side, you had, you know, one of the best left tackles in football. Worse is out. We all know that right tackle is really good. Just signed that big contract. He gets re injured, he goes out. So you're down your top two tackles. There's really zero teams in the NFL. They're going to be successful. I mean, from the Kansas City perspective, we talked all last year about Joe Tunney and how well he did, and all of a sudden that became a liability. And that's just one tackle spot. Now you got, you know, two of those guys. And having to kick a center out to left tackle is particularly interesting from the Tampa perspective. So those guys were doing pretty well, I would say, to start that drive at the end of the first half, they started getting beat. I mean, Daniel Hunter is a freak show. You talk to any offensive lineman, he's one of the weirdest guys to game plan for. To go against what he does, how he does it, the way his body moves, it's just strange. So he's going to get, you know, a center playing left tackle. That's not to be unexpected. But then you could kind of see the left tackle start to lose confidence and start to lose trust in what he was doing. I would say there was a little bit of a snap count thing as well. I always look to snap count for teams on the road. Are they getting off the ball? You know, looking at the Eagles guys, the way they time it so well, I would say Tambo did not have a consistent snap count timing. Those tackles were not getting off the ball. So you're feeling a little bit panicked. You're feeling like you're late on a guy like Hunter, that's not going to go well. And then right tackle, I mean, that's, you know, you could act like that's the second backup who's now in the game. And he was a little bit late going against Will Anderson mostly. And Anderson, I mean, you him super strong, really powerful, doesn't really want to win outside. He'll use the speed to kind of threaten you up the edge and then he'll bowl right through you. Even bowling through some chips on the way to the quarterback. So I would say from their perspective, it just, it started really well. Both of those guys lost in that two minute drive at the end of the first half and I think lost confidence in themselves. And then it kind of devolved from there. The Houston side, I mean, we talked about this O line all off season. They get rid of Tunzel, they get rid of some other guys, bring in some guys from other teams who maybe didn't have the most success, but they thought they were going to have a better offensive line. I'd say the tackles played pretty well overall. All there are a couple, you know, pretty ugly reps on the inside. And then it just seems like schematically they still don't have a handle on it. You know, last year there was a lot of times where guys would just run free when they shouldn't be running free. You know, as people who fall off as line guys. You like to, you know, talk about the O line, Twitter and how nasty we can get. There's a lot of times guys run free and it's not the O line's fault, and we're very glad to point that out. But Houston for the last couple years has had a lot of times where guys are running free. It is the O line's fault. So there are a couple of those in this game in the second half that Bulls is scheming it up. I mean, that coffee house stunt, which is where Levante David fakes like he's dropping in the coverage O line kind of loses sight of him. He gets home free. That's one of them. There was another time they had an overload pressure and the guy comes free. But C.J. doesn't see him. So I think there's some issues with him maybe seeing blitzes. There was one from last week that he should have been clued into as well. I don't think he's seen the defense as well as he needs to as well. Even if a guy is coming free, usually you got a hot, you got an answer. You should be drifting away from it to buy yourself an extra tick or two. I just don't see that enough from him. So from their perspective, a little bit more interior, a little bit more schematic from Tampa's perspective, I think you feel pretty good about things when worse and get key the right tackle Come back.
A
Yeah, it was just. I had so much fun with that game because it felt like impossible. You know, you're sitting there going, when, when is this going to turn around? Like, you know, you can look, it's.
C
A miserable feeling to be an offensive tackle tackle and to feel like you've kind of done everything you can try to do to be successful. And the guy still keeps beating you because the right tackle against Anderson from Tampa, he kept getting beat on power. Like usually you go get on the guy, you get on quicker, you jump him, something to stop up the timing. None of that worked. Left tackle Barton, he's thinking, I'm gonna go fly out there. And Hunter, well, Hunter can beat you inside. He's thinking, I'm using my hands. Hunter does his weird alien jump around stuff and makes it work. So you just feel really lost and you feel like, I don't know what to do. Literally, I don't know what to do. I guess I just got to keep going. And trying to. And not having confidence in yourself is just a killer. And it's a major credit to Baker and for Tampa being able to put together a two minute drive to go win the game when your O line's been getting crushed and when the quarterback's been getting hit. And obviously we've all seen that clip of him just magically having an injury and then disappearing to go talk of shit.
A
Yeah, I mean between zero yaya and then gains, I was like, are these guys going to be in the hall of fame? Because like I'm just watching them destroy everything. And in zero's energy throughout the game is its own skill. But I, I kind of like what you're talking about here with Hunter. If we can stay with this in that it almost sounds like you have more of a nightmare about somebody who it. It's not that necessarily the headliner. It's somebody who's just physically different. Like the thing I always talked about with Von Miller was that Miller had some weird torso to leg ratio where I think his legs were shorter. Shorter than somebody that would normally be that size. And then he had the arms so he would get this insane bend. And granted Von Miller was a headliner and all that kind of stuff, but when he was at his best, you'd watch his body angle and I would just think like, how like you think he's actually going down into the ground and then he just like pops back up like some sort of zombie. So I'm just wondering like it, when you think about Hunter, like, who are some of the other guys, you're like, you know, you may not realize this, but this guy was a massive person problem.
C
Yeah, Hunter is the big one in terms of again, just being weird and giving you stuff that you're not used to seeing. Like the way his body moves. What was that?
A
Like what though? What?
C
Like, so his ability to get. So if I'm playing right tackle, Hunter's ability to get his right arm underneath your right arm and sink, it would be a rip. And then he can make a 90 degree right hand turn to the quarterback back. The way he does that, you just don't see it. You get, you see guys sinking a rip and they kind of like turn the corner on that loop. You know, we all kind of know that defensive line loop. Hunter has the ability to like pin your right arm, get under it, and then just like teleport to the right. It's really freaky. It's really odd. If you ever watch him when he's going to make a tackle or he's, he's diving on a pile, he like leaps and puts like a Superman thing. He di. It looks like old school Madden where like the guy was chasing the, the receiver and he just like dives 10 yards ahead of him and makes the tackle. Hunter looks like that guy, he leaps in midair and he just flies and makes the tackle. So he's able to like, to your point, kind of create these angles, create these situations that you're not used to seeing. So when I played him back when he was in Minnesota, this is Gez eight years ago, seven years ago now, I was trying to think, how do I take this away? You know, from the tackle perspective, what does this guy do best? What does he do most often? How do I take it away? And so the thing I realized is everything he's trying to do is sink that right shoulder, sink the right shoulder, kind of get underneath you get to that corner. So my thought process was, well, how do I defend that? So from my perspective, again, right tackle, my inside hands, my left hand, I'm thinking I'm going to punch his right shoulder with my left hand. And if I stop some of his momentum, he can't sink that right shoulder. He can't get it in there. So one of the only games in my career I was inside hand dominant because I was just targeting that right shoulder, waiting for it. My thought process, if I punch that, he can't rip with that. And it actually was decently successful. He still gets me a couple times because he's him and there's a spin move that I thought I did a pretty good job on on. But that's kind of the thought process where you go into a game and you have to do something you've basically never done in your career you're not comfortable with and that's the only way that you can block the guy. Yeah, it makes you really uncomfortable for me. JPP was another guy like that in terms of, I mean he, he was really good. He's not a sleeper, but in terms of the way his body moves and how like long and gangly and kind of knock knade and the toes and all that stuff, it just looked like a giant like praying mantis running at you. Like you didn't really, really know what was what because everything was kind of coming at you in different directions. So, yeah, there's definitely those guys you face where it's, it's just a different picture than used to. They move differently than other humans, than everything that especially that guy you're going to go against every week in scout team. You know, he doesn't have the freak show trait. That's not to be a dick, but that's probably why he's on scout team. So you get used to seeing a certain level of human movement and you've got these few guys scattered throughout the league. Like in terms of the Von Miller band, well, why is Miles Garrett so good? He's got von Bend at 65280 and looks like a freaking tank when he's out there, you know, illegally playing basketball when the team doesn't want him to. So you, you've got these guys with all these different attributes that are one offs, just complete one offs. I mean, I can go from the offense line perspective. There's a bunch of guys like that too who are just completely one off. But yeah, that, that's, to me the most fun part of football is that kind of game within the game. Not to be all cliche, but how do I go against this one guy who presents something I'm never going to see again and how do I make it work? How do I block this dude and, you know, how do I protect the guy behind me?
A
O line reps? I didn't keep track of every first unit snap count during the preseason, but two weeks in, it looks pretty disjointed. And I don't know if that's just. I haven't watched football since February and so now of the things that I'm paying attention to, I think it's some big deal. And it was the exact Same thing thing one year ago at the start of the season. So it may be completely misguided. So I'll ask you, what do you see from offensive line play this early?
C
Yeah, I think defenses, I mean, the cop out answer is defenses are getting so much better at disguising and doing things that you're not used to. I mean, this was kind of, you know, five, eight years ago. The McVeigh stuff became really into, you know, tighter formations, kind of squeezing everything together and then you can use your space from there. Andy Reid brought the whole fly motion thing from college and that tricked linebacker's eyes and kind of got some things going. And then defenses have responded pretty much that Fangio tree and then the two high stuff. But essentially they've realized, hey, if the offense is going to trick us, why don't we start tricking them? So I think when you're looking at some of the offensive line, some of the quarterback stuff, it's way more difficult to play those positions than it used to be because of all the different looks you're going to get. And if you do watch preseason football, which I don't think anyone necessarily should watch unless they're watching their own team, team, it used to be vanilla. I mean you've, I think Dilver's told the story on your pod. But other guys have told stories of them lighting it up in the preseason and all they face is cover two. And it was just really simple and really easy and you can get tricked and thinking guys are good. Well, now you watch and they're doing designer blitzes. They're doing zero pressures, they're doing eight guys up, dropping, only bringing three, but you don't know which three are coming. That's just a standard part of defense. Now that's not, oh, we're going to save this for a special situation. That's like first day of install. They're installing crazy stuff because that's just how defense is run. So. So from the online perspective, you're probably behind a little bit on some of these guys figuring out how to attack you specifically, because when you say week eight, you're going to predominantly watch weeks three and four in terms of game planning. Now the coaches and the guys in the back, they're watching everything. They're putting all the blitzes together so they'll pull from a larger menu. But from your perspective as a player, you're probably only watching those few weeks. You're kind of getting the blitzes that are most common. Well, these defensive coordinators, they're spending all off season, looking at week one, week two, week three, who are my opponents, especially if they're division games, games, they're designing pressures and blitzes to specifically attack what their guys are doing. And so I do think offensive linemen are just across the board, maybe not quite as good as they used to be. And you know, the practice is definitely a little bit of part of that. Defensive linemen are better, schemes are better. And yeah, my offensive line coach in Kansas City, Andy Heck, he was, I think in the early 90s draft, 92, 93, something like that, maybe a smidge before. He played every single snap of his first four preseason seasons and he was a first round offensive tackle. Four games, Every single preseason, every single snap. That's the way it used to be. Guys played the entire preseason if they had to or if they were forced to. So, yeah, there's definitely a little bit of a difference in terms of how many reps you're getting compared to back then.
A
The Genti play on Geno, which I still can't believe how weird that feeling must be on that specific play where Gino's like, I'm about to get killed. And then it's like, no, actually my offensive lineman sort of escorting me away in a very, like, friendly manner, away from the chaos to even get the ball out. But the big part of it is Genty, the running back, the rookie, I don't know him, so I have no idea if this is a. Hey, he doesn't get it. It very clearly could be a rookie in his second game, just confused as hell. And of course the clip looks bad because you'd just be like, find somebody, find someone. So that's either incredibly fixable or it speaks to something else. And I think it'd be a horrifying assumption. It'd just be totally unfair. Horrifying. It's a little dramatic, but it just would be unfair to be like, that's who he is. Is that something where an O lineman in film just goes, hey, dude, just hit someone. Never let this happen again. Where you're just kind of watching your quarterback figure out if he's going to survive.
C
Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's the coaching point. Like, dude, even if you screw up and you go the wrong way and you're out there confused, like, just find work, do something to make it look like it's a football play that you're trying to. I have been there more in practice, in games, but if you're confused and you're like, oh man, did I just mess up and you're kind of like lost in that zone. It's weird for Tab during a play, but you definitely see it every now and again where guys just kind of short circuit and everything goes haywire and they just don't really know what to do. And they look like an avatar out there just circling the wagons. Yeah. So the coaching point, just figure it out. I think we've heard some chatter out of. I was about to say Oakland, but out of Vegas where. Where he is not on the field maybe as much as we expected him to be. And it does seem like there's some mental things in terms of let's pick up and going the right way on one of those plays that isn't all there. I've seen some stuff from. From Raiders fans like, why is, you know, this other guy playing a lot more than our guy who runs dudes over and runs over. I don't know if it was Derwin, but one of those good Chargers guys. Yeah. I mean, coaches don't want to play players who are less like good and. And who bring less to your team. Like they. They want to play the guy they chose, but it was sixth overall. They want to play the guy who doesn't get tackled. They want to play the guy who. The fans come to see this, who's really special. There's always a reason that guy's got not playing. Sometimes, admittedly, the coaches suck and they're wrong and they're just not playing the right guys. But for the most part, there usually is at least a reason why a guy isn't on the field or isn't getting playtime. So I do think it seems like mentally, I don't know if Chip's got a huge volume. I don't know if just pass protection wise, he's not quite as clued in. Maybe the ability of Gino to get to some stuff that isn't just like core past concepts. Maybe you need a guy who's seen some more things and used to it and then can fire a little bit quicker on those. But I'm sure he'll get used to it and get out there. And then the other thing is like you don't want to become predictable. So if it becomes that, well, Genti doesn't know what he's doing in past protection and we have to protect him. All of a sudden he's on the field, it's 85, 90% run. That's getting pretty predictable. You don't like to see that. So you do need a little bit of kind of the facade of balance, even if you don't actually have a balanced offense. So you can't have a guy who's like just out there to run the ball unless it's 3rd, 1, 4th and 1. It ruins too many things. It ruins the ability to kind of do some stuff that you need to.
A
I'm glad we didn't start with bringing you on to be the Chiefs whisperer, but we're going to go there now. What did you think about the super bowl rematch this past past weekend?
C
I would say I. I was pretty bummed out. I. This is probably the most down I felt on the Chief since I left, aside from that Raiders game two years ago on Christmas where it just seemed like the season was kind of over. Now, of course they flipped the switch, won the rest of their games, won the super bowl. But to start the season, it's been everything that I thought would get fixed this year. It's been sloppy guys going the wrong way, guys on executing. There's some schematic stuff. I mean, if you want to get into that run game. Game I don't. I think it's really hard to be a shotgun run team when the quarterback isn't a threat. You know, I know you've talked about, well, these quarterbacks that are running the EPA numbers are through the roof because running is so valuable. So how can you, you know, accurately judge all that stuff? Well, the two run offenses that I think have suffered the most are Cincinnati, who, you know, we've kind of talked about for a few years, not having that run identity on offense, and now the Chiefs. Now that basically the read options kind of off the table. Pat doesn't run unless it's a scramble. It's really hard to be in a shotgun and to run that offense. You don't get quite the run sale on some of the play actions. You don't get to put a defensive end in a bind as much in terms of is it outside zone, is it naked, all these different things so schematically, yeah. I'd like to see them go away from some of the shotgun run stuff, go under center a little bit more. But at this point in the season, is that going to become their identity? Is that something they're going to thrive with and be great at? I'm not really sure that you can change it that that quickly. So that's where I'm a little bit worried kind of long term. I will say to start this whole thing off, you're down your top two receivers. Your offense isn't Going to look great. You know, A.J. brown's out and the Philadelphia offense looks like crap. Jamar Chase goes out, that offense goes through, goes down, Tyreek's out. You know, all these singular top receivers, Justin Jefferson, those guys go out. Now the Chiefs don't have anyone near that level to be fair, but the top two receivers go out. The offense is going to get worse. Like who are we kidding here? Receivers off are as good as they are and getting paid what they are because there's such big impacts on offenses. So you're down your top two guys and you can argue the fourth or fifth guy in a rookie Royals who supposed to play a decent role. Yeah, it's not going to be great, but because of that, the run game's got to step up. You got the highest paid center who was the highest paid right guard. Now the second highest paid right guard, right tackle, who's the highest paid at one point. You know, I'd say Josh Simmons is playing up to expectation. Maybe not Chiefs on social media expectation, but to the expectation of, of kind of normal people, people. And Kingsley, the left guard, if he's your quote unquote worst offensive lineman, that's a pretty good offensive line. I would say they're not playing as well as they need to. They're not protecting Pat the way they need to. They're not being firm enough in the pocket. A lot of his throws, a lot of his issues come from I think, feeling guys around him, not being able to fully follow through, not being able to step into throws and drive it when he does, when he has a clean platform, it still looks really good. Just went booger there, really good. But yeah, I, I think that there's just so much that's going wrong that I don't like. That carried over from last year that going to training camp a couple times look to be fixed, look to be better. This is the least optimistic I've been on them in a really long time and I'm not really sure how they dig themselves out of it, to be completely honest.
A
I know the audience has already heard this before, but you know, considering Mahomes is on this path of, of chasing Brady, and then you go back and look at Brady, it's like, okay, well how do we talk about him every single year? And like, all right, well, he went from 04 to 14, you know, with a gap in between there of not winning a Super Bowl. They were in two Super Bowls, the two Giants losses. So it's conference championship games. You know, there's that weird year where he got hurt in 2008, and they still won a bunch of games because the schedule was easy, easy. They come back, they lose a wild card game, there's a division game. And you don't really ever think about this stuff year to year when you're talking about Brady. And my fear is, well, I'm a Mahomes fan, so, you know, to say my fears, if I'm really that worried about it day to day here. But the reality, I should say, of this sport is there's going to be a stretch where maybe they miss the playoffs, they lose a wild card game, they lose a division game. I mean, they could go five years without being in a Super bowl and that would actually be normal. But then it's going to turn into like, whoa, what is? What's wrong with pat? And he's 30 years old and there could be this complete second act where he's back in Super Bowls. And then when we're done with the 20 years, then we can start talking about where it was. So this is actually normal that they're not going to make the super bowl every single year. But I think it's still weird to look at him at 30 and go like, we're never going to see the guy that was like doing what he was doing when you were still there. So what do you think is so different about. I mean, I know part of it's. They don't have Tyreek. They, they've invested more on defense because he was carrying them so much on offense. Like, I know, I think some of the answers already, but to give us like a more in depth thing where I imagine he's going to have an absurd 50 touchdown season again, he's the best quarterback in league. He's only 30 years old, but we just haven't seen it for a long time. And there's, there's clearly trends to argue that this has been a downward trend now for multiple years despite the team success. Success.
C
Yeah. It's interesting to look at Brady's duration. If you kind of flipped the way the teams have, or the Chiefs specifically have gone the last eight years and went backwards in terms of the offense, it'd be like, oh, my God, this guy's ascending in a linear fashion and he's getting amazing. And the defense was better early on and he, you know, took his lumps as a young quarterback and now he's the best quarterback in football, but started out as the best quarterback in football and then, you know, having having quote unquote down a Couple years. I would agree. It doesn't look quite as good as 2018, 2019, 2020. Right now, it. The feeling is that he's falling off. I'd say he shoulders a lot more than he did back then. He's playing with guys across the board who aren't quite as good. I mean, I'm glad we got that Randy Moss season in New England because then you finally saw, man, if we get some elite talent on the outside, yeah, all of a sudden our quarterback is now putting up, you know, record setting numbers. So there's definitely that impact. I just being an offensive lineman and kind of understanding how Pat ticks, I. I always come back to offensive line play. I just think over the last few years, it hasn't been good enough. I don't think the pockets have been good enough. I think when he feels pressure, when I'd say that combined with the lack of, you know, receiving talent, to be able to just create separation to get guys open, having to feel like things need to be forced met more than, you know, just kind of coming free naturally. The combination of those two isn't awesome. When the quarterback doesn't feel like he can stand in there and take his time to get through progressions and wait for guys to get open, and then he feels like, well, the protection is going to get to me and the guys aren't getting open. So now I either got to force it or I got to scramble, I got to move, I got to bounce around in the pocket to buy time. It's a really crappy feeling. And I think when you want to distill it kind of all down to one specific thing, it's that it's a combination of the O line not giving him enough time and receivers not getting open enough, enough, you can put a lot more into it. Is that scheme, is that talent acquisition? Is it all these other things? Yeah, it's. It's everything. You know, football's too interconnected to not be a little bit of everything. But when I watch a Bills game and I watch Josh Allen, he just looks comfortable in these vast pockets. He's got all the time in the world when he needs to just sit back there, wait for a guy, wait for a guy, and then boom. 40 yard, you know, post over the middle. I just don't see that as often from Kansas City. And I think that's where it all comes back to the, the resources are there, the money, the draft picks, all that's been spent into the position. And I don't think they're Making him feel comfortable enough in the pocket. You could put a little bit on pad if you need to that, oh, he should feel more confident. He should be able to make, you know, throws where he can't follow through. Is he would say yes. He said that in press conferences. I need to be better, I need to make those throws. But a guy like that doesn't, you know, again, if we want to say he's not quite as good as six years ago, that doesn't just happen, you know, stuff around him had to have happened to pull him down a little bit. And I'm never not going to start an offensive line first. And I think, yeah, the O line needs to be a little friendlier for him and give him a little bit more space, a little bit more time, make him feel like he can stay in there and step into a throw and rip it and get that follow through.
A
How many teams do you think are better than the Chiefs right now? Now in the afc.
C
I mean the two for sure. You could argue the Chargers, they've already beat them and they definitely look better through two games. But as this was my kind of, you know, 50,000 foot view, that game against Philly felt terrible. The one against the Chargers felt terrible. Obviously the super bowl felt terrible, but the first two games to start this year felt awful and the Chiefs were still kind of in it at the end. And Philly's supposed to be the best team in football and definitely the most talented on pace paper. A terrible matchup for Kansas City in terms of Philly's offensive line of defensive line and Kansas City's O line and the lack of pass rush outside of Chris and still it was a three point game and I'm not going to get into the tush push offsides thing. Kansas City's benefited plenty from offensive lineman moving right on the edge of the snap count. So it'd be hypocritical to do that. But still a three point game and very easily could have had a chance to go tire or win at the end there. So as terrible as it feels, still able to, you know, kind of be in these one score games. So I think Buffalo's better, I think Baltimore's better. I'd be unfair to the Chargers to not say that they're a better football team right now having beat them head to head. But past that, I don't know, is anyone else in the AFC really blowing things off? I mean, a lot of love for.
A
Denver, but you know, they, they take the loss this past week, but we don't know what that means now with the Colts ridiculous offensive start, I would not pick Denver over them. I'm just to think of like, who the other teams are. Clearly Cincinnati always gets thrown into the conversation of kind of whatever that next tier is.
C
But without Burrow, then, yeah, you can't say that. Yeah, that sucks, man. I. It's so fun. As much as people want to think I'm like a Chiefs homer and obviously I'm more invested in the Chiefs. Like, I love good football. I want to see the best version of football. I. I kind of don't really watch college football much anymore. I just. That's a kind of different discussion. But I like the best version of things as they are. I think college football is a little bit different product. I don't think it's as good of a version football. So I want to see the absolute best on the field, you know, putting out the best product. And it just. It sucks to see bro Herd. It sucks to see all these other guys hurt. You want to see everyone doing what they can as much as they can. So that one's really disappointing, especially because Cincy, like finally spent money and finally put a little bit of cash into the team. And I'm just thinking on the back of my head like, man, this is the last time Cincinnati spends money on. On their own guys. If this is going to be the outcome come.
A
Well, speaking of. Well, I can't really segue that into speaking of wanting to watch the best. Your guy, left tackle for the Giants, James Hudson. Four penalties on that once, that one possession, four penalties and six plays. I think some people were saying it was like it had turned into five straight penalties at one point on.
C
You could argue that was the best because that was the best stretch of penalized offensive line play I think we've ever seen. Seen.
A
Yeah. Have you ever lost your. Well, I already know the answer is no.
C
No, I have lost my. I haven't lost it physically. I. I lose it mentally and I. I lose it on my teammates, which is unfortunate. But we were in Denver and going to these designer blitzes, all this stuff. They. They had this look where it be, you know, three rushers and they'd put like two guys outside of each edge guy, guy. So it looked like there were three guys outside each offensive tackle, only one guy over the nose tackle. And the idea is, you know, any one of these guys can rush. We're kind of putting them in a bind if they. They got to send four guys to a side to block everybody up and then you're leaving two on the other for the running back. So it's this really tricky defense to kind of figure out how do we protect us as the quarterback. And we, I think, had a tell on them. Like, it's whatever side Chris Harris was on, number 25, he's a great player. There was some sort of blitz thing where if he was there with this, these two guys on the opposite side, like, the blitz is coming from here, here. We spent all week going over it, and it's a really intricate look and really difficult. And we get the look. We're trying to figure it out. I'm at right tackle. I see Chris Harris, I'm like screaming at the O line. This is the. We get. This is the way to pick it up, blah, blah. And we fall start. And this is like the second or third fall start of the day. And it's a critical third down. It's a tough game. And I just absolutely lost my. And I think it was actually Cam Irving, left tackle, and someone else to guard. I went off and just started screaming in on the field, started screaming, went back to sidelines. I. I went nuts. Like, the coaches had to be like, mitch, okay, we. We got this. But, like, that's the stuff that really got to me. So there are a couple times where I would just lose my. Lose my mind because it's like, this is the thing we practiced all week. It's the critical moment. We're finally getting it. We're able to make this happen. And then something as simple as a snap count thing pops up. But, yeah, I've never. I've never gone haywire quite in the way he has. You just don't see that very often.
A
No, you don't. Last thing before I let you go. The Derwin James pick on the right tackle for the Raiders to get Khalil to kind of like stunt around. And it was a great job by Orlovsky of pointing out this. This move here. Should that be illegal?
C
No, dude, no. There's so much stuff that goes on in the. This is the.
B
I'm always thinking of, like, the old.
A
Justin Smith stuff that he used to do, that defensive lineman for the Niners where he would just hold you. And they were never, ever going to call that, like, it was always so. And by the way, I don't think it should be illegal. I think it's an unbelievable design. I just didn't know maybe if I was going to get some serious offensive line bias. So we're. We're glad.
C
No, no, no. Absolutely not because if I say that they can't pick us, then we're not allowed to hit them. You know, as a. As a free guy who gets, you know, uncovered and goes to hit the defensive end, I do think the Justin Smith thing like that is defensive holding. If. If you're going to hold a guy and like, he would come and gr. Behind the shoulders and he was the definition of country strong. I think he went to Missouri, so there's some. Some legendary stories of him. Yeah, probably should be defensive holding. But in terms of, like, picking guys and. And finding guys unaware, dude, that stuff's all legal inside the box. Like, I think it's great scheme. You know, we saw that a little bit when I was playing in terms of, you know, a linebacker picking a tackle and having to then pass off a stunt with like a running back at times. And now the running back maybe has to, like, stop Derwin Tackle's got to take over and then he has to pick up Cleo Mac over the. The top. Going back to Houston, the week one, the Rams did a version of that where Jared versus the guy over the top. So if you're talking about Jared Verse potentially coming unblocked and a running back having to pass off a linebacker and then go block Verse, like, those are really good schemes. Really fun. The tackle's got to be aware. Getting back to, like, aware football, you always got to kind of have a sense of who's around you. So. No, I love that stuff. I think it's great. Definitely should not outlaw it, but if they are going to grab us and hold us and prevent us from going where we need to go, go, we can get into that discussion a little bit.
A
I used to love watching offensive lineman just lose their minds against Justin Smith over the course of a game. Like when he finally might get called for one and then he would kind of like, put his hands up and he'd been doing it the whole game. And then the offensive lineman's like, looking at the officials being like, thank you. Finally, like, this guy has me in.
C
A vice because he was so strong that you couldn't just block him. So it felt unfair that he could also grab you and grab the offensive guard and the combination of those two things. Because with Justin Smith, like, it's pure strength. There's. If you can't block that, you can't block that. There's nothing you can do. You know, you can't cut a guy on a third and eight. You can't just cut the defensive tackle. So, yeah, it was definitely the frustration of probably getting your ass kicked by him all game. And then all of a sudden he does this thing and grabs the crap out of you. Feeling like that's not fair. He was, you know, we started this with guys that offensive lineman talked about. He was one of those guys. Like, he brought it. He brought it every single snap and it was just pure strength. And if you weren't strong enough, you didn't have the ability to stop him. You just weren't going to block him that week. He was that, that good and that strong.
A
I love that Derwin play. And I hated seeing Matt go down. Cause and then they. It's almost like the TV cameras, if it's a leg injury, they give you a warning and maybe they show it once, maybe one other angle. Arm injuries don't get any love whatsoever. They're just like, hey, here's this guy's arm just bending the way. It's not like you're wondering on one of those replays is like, is he going to stand up with half of his arm missing? So that sucked. That sucked because I really enjoyed his game. This was great, man. Let's do it again soon. Thanks.
C
Yeah, thanks for having me.
A
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D
I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.
A
I have every toy you can possibly.
D
Imagine, and best of all, kids, I am liquid.
A
So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. We'll start with life advice. Rr,gmail.com. we just got finished. You know, sometimes the way the taping works, but this is literally minutes after we say goodbye to Max Olson and Saru just reminded the entire crew because Rudy welcomed Kyle and I. I didn't remind the crew.
D
Kyle. Kyle came in and was just kind of waiting for us to do life advice. And then I, I, I was, I didn't have a comment at all. Kyle was the one that said it.
E
Yeah, I was, I was camera mike off through the last question you guys rapped, and he was just like, it was silent. And then he was like, you went right to your phone. I imagine you're busy guy. You know, I imagine it wasn't personal. And then it was like, 30 seconds. He goes, well, anyway, thanks so much, Ryan. You're like, yeah, dude, of course. And then Trudy jumped in, was like, you know, like a little quip about the actual scheduling of it, and it was over. And once he left, I was like, man, that was kind of Cold Wargon.
A
What did you think happened there?
F
It's what Kyle described. I think it's funnier, though, when the guest comes on and you're just kind of, like, looking down. Like, you look up at them, and then you look back down, we're gone.
A
And then sub.
F
He's like, hey, how are you?
D
Thank you.
C
What?
D
I'll say, what percentage of guests do I say the first thing? Am I the icebreaker on?
B
It's.
F
It's a bunch.
D
It's high. Yeah, because it's just silence. And I'm like, hey. Like, hey, Mitch, you got us. Hey, Max.
E
Hey, can you hear me?
A
Yeah.
E
Just want to make sure. Tech check.
D
Brian, do you have us? Yeah.
A
Oh, yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I guess that was a bad goodbye with Max.
D
I'm almost like, I just hate.
A
Should we post the video of it.
C
So people know what, what it was like, goodbyes.
A
No, my. I have family here, and so they're, like, trying to be quiet. They don't know when they can come up. So I'm trying to, like, you know, deal with that because I want my family to feel comfortable. But I think whenever any family staying with me or a friend staying with me or whatever, there'll be, like, a freak out of, I can't. And it's like, well, you can send me a text. I can text you back. So if the phone part of it made it look worse, that's on me. Yeah. Hand up.
D
I think it was the phone part. The 30 seconds of silence. Silence, you know, it could have been.
E
Yeah, it really felt like a time of silence. Yeah, it really did feel, like, just a little bit too long.
A
Anyway, I guess I just don't understand the point of, like, really long goodbyes for guests.
D
I guess I don't understand the point.
C
But, you know, you want to die.
B
Out of your house, you know, you.
E
At least walk him out of the house. You're not like, all right, dude, thanks for watching the game. Say goodbye.
A
Right? Yeah.
E
Could have walked about.
A
You know what I think it was is vampire Van Pelt's goodbyes were so long and they were so gracious. It drove me fucking crazy. And we brought it up, and it actually kind of became, like, a funny thing in the beginning. Van Pelt's like, kind of, you know, who do you think you are to be telling me how I should be doing this? And it's like, dude, we only have every second matters. You know, It's.
D
Get the five minutes.
A
Yeah. The guy filling out his diary. What if at 4:38 of his local Chicago ratings diary tunes off on his dilometer because our goodbyes are too long? So, you know, some of those goodbyes were so long, it felt like we could have just, hey, if you're going to ask him how his kids were doing, we could have just asked another question while we were here.
E
So it's a trauma response. It's a trauma response.
A
Yeah. I think it was a habit of, like, whenever I'm going to be doing goodbyes, I just want to be. Be. Sometimes it's like, oh, my God, you're the best. No one's doing it better than you. Greeny used to do that with me when I'd be on get up. He'd be like, the best guy to have. And one time on tv, I was like, the best. I'm like, come on. Just better than I am.
D
Yeah. That was your third phone call. Come on. I will say, I forget if it was on the actual interview or beforehand, but you did. I mean, you do do, like, pleasantries, like you said. Hey, Max, I've been reading you all summer. Appreciate it, Rudy.
A
Trying to make it seem.
D
No, no, no. I just. If that wasn't on the actual record, like, I do want people to be aware of that, but, like, the. I don't know, there's just like a. Hey, man, like, thanks so much for the time. Like, we're gonna keep it moving, but let me know if you need anything kind of thing. But you literally just. Interview is done. Phone down. 30 seconds of silence.
A
Yeah, I guess I'm kind of like, we. We started a touch late today. I mean, literally only a couple minutes. And then I knew I was going a little later with Mitch Mitchell, and then I was kind of bumping back Max, and then I felt like I was keeping him too long. And then I know Kyle's kind of like, wait.
E
So I was like, when can we have bagels?
B
25 more minutes.
A
I know. And I got some awesome bagels yesterday from the farmers market. Some of this organic cream cheese. So I, you know, people are waiting on me. Yeah, but, yeah, that's. That's kind of what it is. Like, I'm also thinking about everybody's time. I'm thinking about Kyle's time. And again, that's probably the radio thing of, like, everything was that kind of clock. And I don't want to be ending 20 minutes later just because we're bullshitting the whole time. And so, yeah, I don't know. Look, these guys have done it before. They know the deal. Come on, give us your shit. 30 minutes, 45 minutes, maybe an hour if it's turnout and then we're good and we're out of here. Like, I'll never forget. I'm going to tell this story. Fuck it. I did first take a few times, and I just really hope awful announcing doesn't take another clip of this and turns it into something. But I was with Skip, and I think they made me put on some, like, Jalen Rose training wheels because it was like, we can't just put you out there yet talk about sports on TV alone. And so we were going over the topics and, you know, I. Skip and I actually got along pretty well because we're always both at the same hotel. We loved college football. We would talk a little bit. And then, of course, I've covered this before. It got really weird. And he was totally wrong and I wasn't going to apologize to him for something I didn't do. So I was banned from the show. But prior to the banning, he. Those guys on that show wanted to act like going out there was entering the Roman Coliseum. Okay? It's like I'd already done TV in Boston for forever. I knew I was fine with it. I wasn't even remotely nervous. And then it was like this walking down the hallway to the set, and he's like pulling me aside. He's like. And if you don't believe it, the audience will know. And I'm thinking to myself, like, what then? What have you been doing? He's like, you know, and it was. It was like, you know, your kid was going to see a boob for the first time. Like, behind that door is a boob. You know, it's like your life will.
D
Never be the same.
A
Yeah, right. Like, once you're out there with the glass gladiators, you know, win the crowd and you'll win your freedom. And I'm like, dude, we're doing a Steelers segment. Like, I got it. So maybe it's just like, I think everybody in the business knows what we're doing here. Like, hey, we asked you to be a guest. Here's what I want to talk about. Boom, you're on your way. But, yeah, I guess I could be nicer.
E
I've seen it plenty of times when you say goodbye on the air and you go to be like, hey, man, thanks so much. And he's like, boom, he's gone. Usually in the higher profile guys, but they're just like, their on air goodbye is as good as any goodbye they would give you afterwards. So to be fair, you know, there's a full spectrum.
A
Sometimes Tim Kirchen used to just hang up.
E
Not even goodbye. You say goodbye, he hangs up, okay, see you.
A
And then the producer would be like, he's gone.
D
Stuff to do.
A
Kirchen, the quickest goodbyes ever in the business. Rudy. I.
D
He's definitely one of them. I'm trying to think of anybody. I mean, the. There were a lot of people who just wouldn't even say goodbye, though. Like, you would ask the last question. Like, in the process, if you sing Goodbye, they would just hang up. So it'd be like Ryan could be like, hey, like, hey, Tim, thanks for coming on today. And there's be like, you know, three seconds of silence.
B
Like, all right, coming up next.
D
You know, like, that used to happen a good amount.
A
Yeah. The. The move is once you've been around for a while and you do the phoners, you just hang up after the sky says goodbye to you on the air.
D
Yeah. No, goodbye is Kind of a dickhead, though. I don't know. Say goodbye.
A
Three seconds. Come on. I think you can say goodbye on the air, but there's usually the producer. Like, we had a producer in Boston who used to just harass Buster only for fantasy advice. Like, we'd be pissed. We'd know he had them. We could see it on the phone. Long blog. And we're like, all right, you know, coming up, you know, bus only is going to join us right now. Whatever, whatever. And then the guy would be sitting there talking to him, harassing about fantasy advice, and we'd be like, hey, can we. Can we put the guest on now, please? And then we'd get him, and then the guy would pick up, and, you know, it'd be five minutes of commercial, he's still on the phone with a guy. Nobody wants that. Except for that one guy, right?
F
That guy was psyched.
A
All right, let's read emails, because now I've.
D
Max just texted me. By the way, he said, thanks again. Really appreciate it.
A
Is Ryan okay? I'll let Ryan decide. If we have another kid, maybe we should give it to Oregon. Hey, guys. 62168. No gym stats, but working on my skinny fat with a few body weight exercises, plus some biking and running, basketball comp. Jeff Shepherd. Oh, also, Ryan and I share a birthday, so I've got a real icebreaker if I ever meet sv. I hope you do that. Hey, man, what's going on? So. And I have the same birthday. Cool. Actually, Van Pelt will talk to you for an hour.
D
I was going to say, I think it would go the other way. He'd be like, wow, that's actually. He want you to like him.
A
That's amazing. Let's hang out for the rest of the night. Here's the deal. Wife and I have three amazing daughters. I was under the impression three was the max. And as the youngest approaches her second birthday, the talks have increased about number four. At first, it was comments here and there that I played off. Well, recently they've intensified, and I asked her on a scale of one to 10, how much she wants a fourth, and she said eight. I'm at a one. I have many fears about a fourth. First of all, if it's a boy, I don't want to hear people say, oh, you finally got your boy. No, my girls are not stepping stones just to a boy. I honestly hope it's a fourth girl. Why are you so angry at a boy? Right?
E
What's that about?
A
I don't really want to raise a boy who's even 50% like me. My cousin recently accidentally went for four and ended up with twin boys. That's my exact nightmare scenario. Can we get. Yeah. Can we get a twin number, percentage chance of having twins? Can we get research on that? I got it.
D
It is genetic, though, right? Like, twins usually have twins or not usually, but higher likelihood?
F
Approximately one in 30 pregnancies.
A
Wow. That's way higher than.
E
Way more than I thought.
A
Way higher.
D
That is really high.
B
Yeah.
E
But then doesn't, like, isn't there also a chance that one of them, like, you know, kind of, like, gobbles the other one up or whatever that's called.
A
Whatever the term is.
E
Isn't there also a chance of that, though?
D
Yeah, I don't think that would count.
F
As having twins then.
D
I think that happens, like, pretty early on. Like, I don't even know that. That's, like, okay, all right. It's like eight months, and they're like.
C
Hey, the other one.
E
I mean, who knows what.
A
What's real and what's not?
E
But I just. I'm wondering. It's like, 1 in 30 just seems really like.
D
It does. That's surprising. I thought about that. I was like. When we had our first kid, I was like, man, like, it wouldn't just be awesome to have twins because we knew we wanted two. Then you just kind of, like, you just rip the band aid off completely. You don't even know how bad it is because you don't have one kid, and everyone's like, no, you don't want to do that. You want to do that. And I'll tell you what, the jump from 1 to 2 is way freaking harder than having one. And if I didn't know how hard it was initially, initially, he would probably wouldn't be that bad. So I don't know.
A
I would think it's just awesome to have, like, a defensive back and wide receiver to train with each other, and they're basically like, you know, it's a bit like some storyline with a superhero, and they figure out some way to, like, match his DNA and that he basically has to figure out a way to beat himself. Right. And so you would have that. You'd have that for basketball.
E
Crazy.
A
Yeah. Yeah. You'd have it for trivia night.
D
Is it always weird, like, the Morris twins, right, where, like, one of them is better than the other one? Like, isn't that kind of awkward? I don't remember which one was better. Was it Markief was better? I forget. No, Marcus.
A
Yeah, Marcus ended up Being better. Before the draft though, there was kind of funny because there was a bit of a zag of like, maybe Markief is actually a little bit better than Marcus. But I think Marcus is scoring. I don't know that there'd be much debate on the high level scoring that he reached versus Markief. But which one's better on first off take though?
D
We don't know. That's the real one.
A
That would be an awesome first segment. And then the zag is you have to pick the twin. That's clearly not better.
E
That's the short straw. You draw the short straw.
A
Like, just remember once you're out there, like, will you get the fuck off of me? Now all my fears are going up against saying, saying that I've tried to live my marriage by. What does love, love require of me? That's some pretty mature stuff. Do you guys ever ask yourself that? Married guys?
E
Honestly?
A
No.
D
No.
A
Should you?
D
Maybe.
A
Yeah.
E
Easy for you to say, buddy. Why don't you just read the emails?
A
I don't know. I think it's kind of cool that he has that kind of self awareness. I mean, I don't know that I throw it on a T shirt or make a little sign and you know, sell them framed at Michael's. But you know, whatever. Guys stepping up, asking themselves, being responsible, who would root against that? An attempt to be a better husband and father. I've stopped and asked myself that question daily. So if she wants number four, Do I put aside my fears and do what love requires of me? Ryan, I believe you've not had the chance to welcome child of your own in this world, but I might give you the opportunity to be responsible for life being formed. Should I just say yes to my wife and have the force?
D
It's a great email.
A
Yes.
E
Yes.
A
Yeah. Oh, man.
D
I was going to go the other way.
F
I was going the other way too.
E
Don't you talk about like, ideally, don't you have a plan for having children you talk about. Sounds like one half of the plan is like a little shaky, dude. I mean, if the only conversation you had was like you asked her on a scale of 1 to 10 how much she wants another kid and she was like eight, I doubt you said one. She probably has no idea that you're like emailing us guys about. Sounds like there hasn't been a real thing where he's like, all right, here's the one thing I'm worried about. I don't know. It sounds like if you have three kids, the youngest one's two. She might be a stay at home. You might be a single income, and you might be freaking out about that. Or if you're just like, it's much extra work.
A
I don't know.
E
But I would think this is like a pencil in 20 minutes for this.
D
No. Feels like. Yeah. Discussion that used to be had.
E
Get a one word answer from Ryan Rosillo.
B
What's the one person.
E
I don't know the one.
A
This episode gets home from work and is like, we're in.
F
It's on.
E
Takes a deep breath.
A
All right. Crack open the Chablis.
D
The 1% is the thing that's. That's making me Zach the other way. Like, you. That's. I mean, you don't want to have enough kid. So this is against your will. Essentially.
A
10.
D
Actually, three kids is a lot of kids. You know, three.
A
Okay.
D
But here, it's not like you didn't tell. You didn't do your part. It's not like one kid. Like, one to two is like, all right, yeah, have another one. That's fair. Don't leave them alone. Three to four, like, you've done your job, dude. Like, I don't know what to tell you.
A
And he doesn't even want a boy.
B
Yeah.
A
Hates him.
D
You're not even fighting.
E
Boy is weird. That's just strange.
D
Girls are. I will say girls are bad. I've got. I've got two daughters, and one of my best friends has two sons, and we live wildly different lives as parents. I mean, the boy thing is just infinitely harder now. Now, you know, everyone's like, oh, wait till the teenage years. I don't know. We'll see how that goes. But girls are pretty fun when they're kids.
E
Girls interested in poop jokes.
D
Oh, yeah, yeah.
E
Oh, that's fine. I worry about missing out on that, but that's good.
D
Oh, no. She loves poops and farts. All that stuff. She likes to announce when she farts now, which is fun. You don't have to tell that. Say that out loud. You can tell me if you want, but no, she's like, I farted in the middle of a room of people. Like, all right, cool.
A
Everyone smiles.
E
That's great.
D
Yep.
F
Sorry, did our guy say how old his oldest is? Is this a situation where, like, the oldest kid is now taking care of the youngest kid? Does that change the math for you guys?
A
I know that dance.
E
I think we only have the stats on the youngest being two, if I recall.
A
Yeah, the youngest is. Is only two. Here's. Here's the thing, I think there's like some very, very specific stuff of like hey, each kid cost this much and then whatever. So you know, financially, if you're in a spot to be able to do it, okay, you're not going to be thinking about it as much if financially, you know, look, four becomes a strain. It's a working theory and again as a non parent, no one's going to want to hear it. I think once you get kind of in that 3 to 5 range, it just ends up costing the same and they have to survive and they have to battle it out. You know, I don't think the mass is, is like a, just a direct correlation. Yes, college, fine, whatever. And yes, it's going to be more, it's not going to be less. But there's going to be a lot of like I've just seen it too much up close. The way the first kid is treated versus the way the last kid is treated. And sometimes that's great for the last kid but there's also stuff for the last kid that you're kind of like, where's the intensity? Where was that intensity? Yeah, for me we're all that we had there early on. It's like, yeah, what like, you know, maybe you're not going to private school. Maybe, maybe your hoodies are going to be a couple years older than everybody else. And it does sound like, you know, usually what you'd let your 10 year old look over your 6 year old, right?
E
That I don't know who's the 10 year old?
B
Yes.
A
Okay.
F
My brother was two years older than me. My parents would go out and like he would be in charge of me.
A
What age?
F
12 and 10. 10 and 8.
C
10.
A
8 sounds right. 75 is pushing it.
F
Yeah, 75 is pushing it.
E
But maybe it's not money. Maybe he's just like, I don't have those two years of like we're coming out of the rough night's sleep with this, this guy, this two year old right now. He's like, I don't know if I could sign up for that. You know, it might not even be like an overwhelmed money or like planning or whatever. It might just be like I really thought I was going to get a normal sleep schedule again. And this isn't something, you know, could be a combination of factors.
D
You know what I think it, you know what I think it is? Because I've sort of reached this point where I understand why people have a bunch of kids. Kids are fun as hell. Like the good parts are awesome. But it's like, you know, like when, like, you know, like a, you know, 13, 14 too. Farming. Yeah. You put them to work. You know, like when. Like a 14 year NFL veto answer.
A
I like Lonesome Dove. I mean, it's ridiculous. He's been big lonesome sons and there's no one to help and she's got these daughters and I mean, things ultimately sort of worked out. She inherited a lot of Gus's claim. But anyway, you guys are saying something.
D
No, I was saying, like, you know, like the 14 year NFL vet and he's just like, I. I want to play. I feel like I can play games again, but I can't go through the off season, the week of practice. Like, that's like having a kid. Like, sure. Having a kid in on its own is awesome. Kids are so fun. But it's the whole process.
E
The locker room's awesome.
D
The nighttime. Yeah. Like, the feeding, the daycare. Like, it's all the stuff that you don't think about. It's like, oh, yeah, kids are. And have another one. It's like, yeah, no, I know that part.
E
But it's all wiping asses for six years straight. Every two years is a new ass to wipe.
C
That's crazy.
D
Correct. And like, when they're cute, man, they're cute as hell and they're fun and like, they're the best. And I, you know, I love being a dad, but like, I. I think I've reached a point where, like, this is the last time I want to go through that process.
A
So you're done.
D
I am medic. I am medically done. Or, well, surgically done. Breaking news.
E
Breaking news.
A
Wow.
D
Well, it can be reversed technically, but I am. Yes.
A
Yeah, that's a little bit more than the pup list.
E
Do you wait till March Madness? Like, like, like those commercials said?
D
No, I should have done that. Well, I did it the last, I think the last week of my paternity too. So it was. Dude, it was no joke. It was weird. I don't know, like, I don't know how deep we want to get into this, but it's a very weird feeling. At first I thought I was fine. Like, that wasn't a big deal at all. And I had like, the new version one where there's. It's like, not really not in business. Evasive. And then I got home and I was like, whoa. Feels like you, you know, like, you know, like when you get hit in the nuts, it feels like that 10 for like a day, you know, it's very strange.
E
10% seems more that I'd want to deal with.
A
What if you build up a tolerance and just slowly hit yourself to 10% level for, like, a month straight?
E
Start hanging out with Ryan's buddy again.
A
I know the goose. Like, hey, can you do that again? I'm going under in two weeks.
E
Don't let me see it coming. Don't let me see.
A
Yeah. Wait till I have two drinks in my hand. All right, next up, Buddy thinks he's a player evaluator. 32 years old. I live in the Southwest. 511, 205, no gym stats, haven't played basketball since high school, varsity. But my player comp would be end of career. Udonis Haslam. Don't see a lot of minutes. Boy, he doesn't get enough credit for a few sizzlers he'll throw out there during a season, huh? I think. Yeah.
D
Speaking of first take, right?
A
Didn't see a lot of minutes. Good culture guy. At least that's what I tell myself. I need help with how to respond to my buddy. He's in middle school, baseball and basketball, coaching out. Feels because of this, he has the ability to evaluate talent in these sports. He is knowledgeable in both sports, but now prefaces everything with as a coach. Dang, that's tough.
D
Yeah, hate it.
A
That's tough.
E
If your sport has a fifth quarter, I don't think you can say that.
A
That's in a recent. In a recent text exchange, he said that a rookie on an MLB team we both like is lazy and he wouldn't put up with the way he's playing as a coach. And he said the player's acting like he doesn't want to be there and has no heart. He has done this several other times. What's my play here? Do I ask for scouting reports, players, just to fuck with him? Do I send him scattering ports or tape and ask him for his feedback? Do I always just call him coach now?
D
A little background.
A
He's one of my closest friends and we like to give each other a hard time. Love the pod. Yeah, that's.
E
You gotta ask him about life stuff, too. Like, as a coach, how do you think I should tell my boss that I need more money? I think, like, just bombard him with extra stuff. That maybe you'd. Maybe you'd like, you know, Coach Carter or something. Like somebody that, like, you know, one of those movie coaches that you like, steps off the field and coaches you as well. Maybe that's how you should do that.
D
Yeah. The group chat should not hear should just, you know, pummel him with the ironic coach sayings and just things.
A
Yeah.
F
Calling someone coach pisses them off so much. I had a buddy once in college, we called him Coach. Got him a whistle as a secret Santa gift.
A
Not happy.
E
Damn.
A
Why?
D
Why did you do that?
A
Yeah. Yeah.
F
You know, I don't even remember at this point. He was the general manager of, like, the radio station, but I don't know if that was why.
A
That doesn't make any sense.
D
I would say I don't know the connection, but there's a guy in my.
E
Ancillary LA friend group who just. Dudes didn't really think he was the smartest. And his nickname is Doc Doctor, which is hilarious.
D
That is pretty good. Yeah. A bunch of.
A
Go ahead, Siri.
D
I would say a bunch of my high school football buddies that I. I was like, not really good friends with, but friendly with. They would all. They called each other coach all the time. But it was like kind of like an ironic thing, like, what's up, coach? You know, they would just do that.
A
Yeah, I've seen that before. But that's not what we're talking about here. Look, if he's seriously, like, earnestly watching professional players playing a game and he says he doesn't like something and he's a middle school basketball coach and he's like, that guy couldn't play for me. He's involved, inviting war path type commentary. Yeah. Yeah.
E
Figure out what would hurt the most and hurl at it.
A
Right. And say it a lot. Yeah. Until he stops because he deserves to be made fun of every single time. There can't. Like, he can't be 100 serious about this. If he is, I think it's all on the table.
E
Change the group chat name to like assistant coaches meeting or something like that.
A
I just summit.
D
Listen, he's shaping young minds, okay? He's not just a coach. He's doing all the above. He's a leader in the community.
A
That's what I said when I interviewed a coach, junior high basketball. I was like, it's not just about the basketball. At this age, a lot of things are learning about each other, about themselves. Teachers union kept me out of it. They're like, he's not a teacher.
F
It's all politics.
A
Yeah. The guy was like, I would have hired you if it weren't for the union. Who knows? Who knows what I'd be doing right now.
D
Yeah. Geez. Wow.
E
Real fork podcast, probably.
A
Yeah. Imagine. Who know? I just. I just played it all in my head. Shamanade Quarter zip.
E
Spent a lot of time on Max preps and Huddle and, like, he's got.
A
A lot of personality. And I'm just kind of going on pods, being like, you know, you know, maybe the. Maybe the Big east wasn't for me. It's not like they didn't, you know, it's not like I don't win here, you know, like, super bitter about never getting to, like, a Power 4 job, turning 50. Like, maybe I'd be just like Signetti. Yeah, probably. Probably not, though. All right, that'll do it for the pod. Thanks to Kyle, thanks to Rudy, thanks to Jonathan Frius, thank you to Oregon. That's the Ryan Rossilla podcast. You can watch us say goodbye to Max Olson on the app.
D
We're going to leave the whole thing in.
A
No, no, this will be bad for this.
D
You've already seen it if you do.
C
Doesn't even make sense.
A
No, because I think I pull my phone up, so I'm not sure I want that in there. Okay. I like to send nudes during interviews when I feel like the content's getting stale. Yeah, that's something about me. Anyway, YouTube page. And yeah, Ryan was still a podcast. Run your Spotify.
F
They were gonna name me Michael Jordan. My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it. So they named me Michael. Jared.
A
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Episode: Best CFB Transfers and Arch's Issues With Max Olson. Plus, a Deep Dive on the Chiefs' Struggles With Mitchell Schwartz
Date: September 17, 2025
In this episode, Ryen Russillo dives into two major football topics. First, he welcomes ESPN’s Max Olson—leading college football transfer portal analyst—to discuss the biggest impact players, transfer strategies, and early-season surprises. Then, former Chiefs tackle Mitchell Schwartz offers an o-line expert’s perspective on Kansas City's early-season struggles, trends in NFL offensive line play, and memorable lessons about blocking the league's freakiest rushers. The show brims with layered analysis, inside scoops, and the candid, humorous rapport characteristic of Russillo’s conversations.
[01:07 – 33:10]
[36:18 – 68:50]
The episode balances high-level football analysis with relatable, humorous banter typical of Russillo’s style. Both expert guests offer frank, sometimes self-deprecating insights, while Russillo presses for clarity but keeps things light—particularly in personal storytelling about coaching, the psychology of blocking superhuman pass rushers, and the (inevitable) absurdities of postgame goodbyes.
Listeners seeking a deeper understanding of the college football transfer portal, modern offensive line play, and the Chiefs’ current issues will find this episode particularly enriching.