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Ryan Rosillo
Hey barstool listeners. You can find every episode of the Ryan Rosillo show on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.
Danny Cannell
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Ryan Rosillo
The Ryan Rosillo show presented by DraftKings. A lot of football for you today. Except for maybe like 60 seconds on Anthony Black. We are going to talk with Mike Sando, the quarterback tier God. But in a hypothetical scenario, if all the quarterbacks were available on the trade market, who would have the most least value? We're going to preview the College Football Playoff games with Danny Cannell. We are also going to spend some time on learning to maybe not love Jacksonville, but like Jacksonville Shanahan Coach of the Year, some general observations and complaints, and Philly's big win at Buffalo and what it actually means. We've got life advice Christmas recap, so enjoy the show. Holiday football has arrived, the regular season's wrapping up, the playoffs are on deck, and every win matters more with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. The unexpected can turn game day into payday. 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Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required for additional terms and responsible gaming resources see DKNG Co audio limited time offer week 17 five things before the interviews today on the show one more week of regular season football with the NFL. Only a couple things at stake here, so I can't wait for Pittsburgh, Baltimore and also the NFC South. So Jacksonville, you wanted the credit, you wanted the respect. Well, you've got it. At least you've got it for me on this one. Houston, probably the best win of the week if you consider the opponent on the road, the playoff implications of everything that they did and just being dominant for most of the game against the Chargers. So look, you go out to LA, 362 yards of total offense, five sacks against an offensive line that can't protect Herbert. But again, that game was pretty one sided earlier on. So when I look at Jacksonville, I'm not going to say that their win against the Colts is the best win, but it was a game I wanted to watch from start to finish, much like the Denver game. And so considering Jacksonville goes into Denver and come into this game against Indianapolis is only three and a half point favorites against Philip Rivers in his third game here you're like, okay, well this, this would make sense that Jacksonville is actually like going in. I was like, I think they might struggle today just because of whatever this carousel of who's good in the AFC that we keep experiencing every, every single week. But after that Denver win, like that feels like a spot and then you're still on the road and you're kind of like, all right, we'll see if this one gets a little weird. They were the better football team for three plus hours. And you know, looking at Trevor Lawrence and over who he's been now in year five, remember that Matt Ryan line we had him on recently? It was like when did you actually feel like you felt comfortable and figured it out? He was like probably year five, Matt Ryan's first four years better than Trevor Lawrence's. But the last years of Trevor Lawrence, I would say every single year of Trevor Lawrence. Whenever I'd look at the qbr, which is in the end all be all but kind of gives you a pretty good perspective of like, hey, where is this quarterback in comparison to the rest of the guys that are playing? You know his QBR rankings, 28th his rookie year, whatever. No big deal. Some guys are complete disasters their rookie year. I do like some of the stuff I'm seeing from Cam Ward more and more the last couple weeks, 17th in QBR, 17th in QBR, 16th in QBR that he came in actually this game, like still 19th or something in the NFL. But if you go over his last month and not the total qbr, but the average QBR scores, he would have over the last four games, it'd be 86, which would be like, even better than Drake May, who's leading the NFL in QBR right now. So that's the level that Trevor Lawrence, I just spit all over the place, has been at the last month. Okay. Jacksonville has a league high six red zone turnovers. I've seen this point brought up. I mean, that sounds like, hey, what's wrong with you? I mean that seriously, when it's six, when it's six in this many games, I mean, it seems like a pretty high number. Again, it's leading the league. But if you dig into it, you know, like, is this like some fatal flaw that this team has? Because I think you're going to hear that number brought up as we gear up for the playoffs. So they have a fumble at the Colts 17 in the first quarter, and then the interception was on a second and three at the Colts 16. But was it a bad interception? I've heard it described as a bad. Oh, whichever, you know, another turnover in the red zone here. Let's go through what that play was. Now you can argue when it's second and three and you're at the 16, you don't want to raise your level of risk. He was throwing a one on one route against Jermaine Pratt, a linebacker. Pratt makes an insane play. His head is turned. He turns at the last minute and is like, on the ball because he reads the receiver. Reacting to the ball in the air. We talk about this all the time on this podcast. I am more than willing to excuse interceptions against linebackers for the most part. I mean, unless the linebacker's actually facing you. But a lot of that stuff on those routes and linebackers turned like you can. There's a reason why quarterbacks throw that ball so often, because they're like, the linebacker's never going to make that play except when they do. So I don't look at that turnover as like some alarming thing of, like, inconsistency with Trevor Lawrence. I understand 100% why he threw it. He understands that. The coaches understand it comes back to the sideline. He's frustrated. But it's not like some moment where it's like, I'm not figuring it out. I read something wrong. I was totally lost before the snap. He's like, look, I'm going to beat this linebacker. Worse will be incompletion. You're like, I can't believe he just picked that ball off. So not a bad interception from this guy at least. So now we're looking at the Jags having the most wins in a season since 1999 if they get the win next week against Tennessee. A funny talking point about Jacksonville and even Carolina from those mid to late 90s runs. So Jacksonville starts off Tom Coughlin 4 and 12, then 9 wins, 11 wins, then 14 wins. The Panthers made the NFC championship game year two. And the argument I remember because I was there before I was ever on the air, believe me, I actually was young at some point. The argument was that, you know what's really unfair, what these expansion teams get to do? Because look at Jacksonville's success and look at what the Panthers are able to do in year two. It's actually unfair to the rest of the teams because of what draft positioning? Because they gave him high picks. The expansion draft, which was like, I think There was only eight unprotected players on a 53 man roster and then a clean cap sheet which is like, so it's our fault that your cap sheet is messed up. But that was a real talking point. I remember thinking, is that true? Is it true that an NFL expansion team actually has this massive advantage and you'd rather have that to start all over, which is kind of a different conversation altogether, that it's fundamentally an advantage for an NFL expansion team? Or is it just something that happened where the Panthers got the quarterback? Tom Coughlin was really good at this. They got in Brunel, even though Steve Brunel I think was their first pick. Does it really mean that there's some advantage or are we just playing the results and thus the origin story was born for your boy. So with this defense which has picks all over the place that feel like they're making plays, the number four turnover margin per game, Houston's actually number two. Look, it's going to be about, do you trust Trevor Lawrence more as a quarterback in the playoffs than the quarterback that he's going up against? And again, we don't know the seatings because you know the week to go. We don't know what the matchups are going to be. But I'm telling you right now, I think both Jacksonville and Houston are better than the 1 and 2 seeds in the AFC. I think Jacksonville and Houston are better than Denver and New England. And if you look at Jacksonville's schedule, the reason why I think that is because depending on what happens with the playoffs in the NFC south and the way the scheduling works out, it could be five wins against playoff teams for Jacksonville, plus a Kansas City win. That doesn't even count. Right? That's with Carolina winning the NFC south. With New England, they've got a Buffalo win. They've got a Baltimore win on the books. If they win the AFC south against Pittsburgh and then they've got the afc, the NFC south winner because they've beaten both Carolina and Tampa Bay. So, you know, a couple more wins, much tougher resume. We shared that number with you where I think if you go through the draft order right now, it feels like the entire Patriots schedule. I'm actually going to do that later this week. But New England's also a 21 zip blown lead away from winning 13 straight. And Drake May was literally perfect yesterday. But I'll say it again, I think Jacksonville and Houston are better than the top two seeds in the afc. Do I still hate watching Philadelphia play football? The answer is no. The defense feels all the way back. Even without my guy Nicole Dean out there at linebacker. They held the number six offense in the NFL and the Bills to 12 points. All of them were in the fourth quarter. Yes, I understand that the conditions were rough, but look, this is a team defensively that's held their last three opponents to 30, 30 combined points. And you know, you can say the game turned around on this fumble call. That was a really tough call against Allen and the Bills, but the bills still had 49 more minutes of football to play. They still touched the ball. They had nine more possess and it didn't matter because Jalen Carter, after the shoulder thing, looks like a stud again. Jalex Hunt, couple sacks. Nolan Smith even starting to notice Nolan Smith. Jalen Phillips has been a huge pickup for them both. The corners are locked down, guys. And there was a rant probably two months ago where I think I did the exact same thing, naming all of these Eagles players on defense, being like, why are you guys, like, why are you not awesome? I think that part of the team is awesome again with Vic Fangio and I'm not worried about it whatsoever. I think they're primed to maybe go on a run. But why did I start? I hated watching the Eagles because Jalen Hurst's quarterback, he was great in the first half. Five of five on third downs, perfect quarterback rating against the blitz in this game. And Then the second half happens. And this is one of the all time numbers from the entire season that I'm going to throw at you here. All right, so Ben Solak and ESPN research, good friend Ben Solak, can we say that. So Hertz didn't complete a pass in the second half in this win. All right, this is the second time Hertz has done this in a win this season with the Eagles. So here's the note. The Eagles are the first team since the 1987 Patriots to win multiple games in a season in which they didn't complete a second half pass. Hertz is the first quarterback in the play by play era that's since 1978 to go 07 or worse in multiple games in a season. It's so weird talking about him because you're like, you know, two Super Bowls win one and I, I don't know, maybe it's because. Maybe it's because people after the super bowl win were like, no, no, he's way higher. He's way higher. Why do you not think he's way better? I don't know. Because I don't. So there you go. All right, hit the sounder. Let's do some numbers. Do you know how easy this is for me?
Danny Cannell
Do you have any fucking idea how easy this. This is a fucking joke.
Ryan Rosillo
Carolina 8 and 8. And aside watching Seattle, Carolina, that was the other game I was super locked in on yesterday. Not that this is new. I think this is going to be a nice Carolina story. Year three for Bryce Young. They get into the playoffs if they beat Tampa in the showdown next week. Tampa, you want to talk about some of these teams? Pittsburgh, Tampa losing these games in Week 17. Bryce is 29th in yards per attempt. Okay, 29th of the 12 quarterbacks lower than Bryce. They're either quarterbacks that were playing because the starter was hurt, they're quarterbacks that were benched. They're Cam ord or they're 45 years old. It's year three. I don't think it's going to happen for Bryce if they make the playoffs. Prepare yourself for the result. Storyline. Bryce figured it out. He's doing some things. I like him. I was rooting for him. I thought he would be better. I don't think he's the guy. Carolina's point differential is minus 67. Tampa's is minus 33. Kansas City, your Chiefs are plus 36. We already touched on worst loss. It's Pittsburgh. I know Cleveland, Miles Garrett and everybody's kind of taken a victory lap on the Sense that, hey, they cared more about me not breaking the record than it was them winning the game. Granted, if you're Pittsburgh and you don't want to have to worry about a showdown with Baltimore next week for the division, which is now the situation that they're in, you got to win this game and you score six points against the Browns. But they also dropped back and threw at 39 times. So I don't know that the number one priority was making sure that Garrett didn't break the sack record. Pittsburgh was also 3 of 15 on third downs. I have a complaint that I want to file here, and I don't know that this is specifically a Fox thing, a CBS thing, an ESPN thing, a red zone thing, a YouTube TV thing, a peacock thing, a Netflix thing, an Amazon thing, or a Sunday ticket thing. Not getting on those guys. But the Josh Downs catch in the Colts game again against Jacksonville. It's third and 10. Philip Rivers throws it out to the left sideline. Downs looks like he. Well, he makes the catch, but you're like, is there any way his right toe was actually down? Because we're used to that right toe drag. It didn't happen. It didn't look like it was down. So Philip Rivers gets right up the line of Scriptures, snap the ball. It's like no challenge. Flag was out. Greg Olson was on it. We go to commercial, and then we come back and Jonathan Taylor's running into the end zone. And you're like, what the fuck is going on here? This is happening all the time on television broadcasts right now. I know the rights, I know they went up because the cap goes up. I know the money's pouring in, but this is happening way too often. It happened in the Denver Orlando game. You know, I'm sitting there. We go to commercial. Magic Nuggets, terrific game. Nice little bounce back from the Magic after that disaster against Charlotte the night before, plus four and a half. So, you know, I'm like, denver has. I know Denver has a possession coming out of the commercial. Next thing I know, Anthony Black's dunking. I'm like, how did that happen? Was Anthony Black traded? No, he wasn't traded. He wouldn't trade him yet. So it was because we were in a commercial and we came back. This is happening, folks, way too much. I feel like we're a couple years away from the announcer. Like, after Terry Crews annoys the fuck out of us for 30 seconds. No offense to Terry Crews. I get that the commercials are supposed to be annoying and Dodge makes a great product, but I feel like we're a couple of years away from the announcer coming back. Be like, all right, third down. Couple runs weren't that exciting. Didn't miss a thing. Third and seven at the 40. There's a limit. I'd like to think there's a limit that we're going to be able to put up with. So the downs thing was upheld. Taylor runs in the touchdown. There was a flag. They called that one back. I was rewinding before the commercial. Cause I was like. I thought I was all over this. Like, what is going on again? It wasn't any broadcast fault. It wasn't the announcer's fault. It's just a trend. As a guy that has been known to watch a game from time to time. We end on this. The Gayle King Award. Switching to men's tennis. Oh, before awards, Kyle Shanahan. He's your coach of the year. Vrabel's going to win it. He's the odds on favorite, but it should be Shanahan based on schedule, based on injuries. I don't want to talk about it. It's actually the Greenie Award. I think it's Shanahan, and it's not particularly close. So the Greenie Award. We already did that one. Coach of the Year award. Back to the Gayle King Award. Men's tennis. Men good at football. Better than women, at least. Also, better at tennis. Kyrios. I don't know if you guys saw that yesterday, but fucked, right? Man. Men, the Big Shack is out now, and it's a serious burger. We're talking two Angus beef patties, three buns, new secret sauce. It's stacked, balanced, and built the right way. You get everything you expect from Shake Shack. Fresh ingredients, that toasted potato bun and sauce that pulls the whole thing together. It's big, it's fresh, and it's legit. One of their best burgers yet. I was doing some Christmas shopping with my boy, and we get stuck at one of those malls, you know the ones, and he was like, I want something to eat. And all he's been doing, he's just been on the Shack burger this entire time. I mean, the little guy's not afraid. He's like, I don't need a spot. I don't need nothing. I don't need you even looking at me. Don't judge me like I'm. I'm gonna get there and darn it if it doesn't make me proud every time. And so, unfortunately, we had to go somewhere else, and he just looked at me like, he found out he was adopted and he's not. But he looked at me and was just like, you ruined Christmas, you ruined New Year's, you ruined next Christmas by even trying to do this and not making sure that we ended up at Shake Shack. And so it's been tough. But the thing is, what's made it the toughest is that he's right. Granted, I didn't want him to saying that to me at a food court in front of so many people and embarrassing me and just dressing me down the way he did. But I can't tell my son he's wrong when he's right about the burgers. It's big, it's fresh, it's legit, one of the best burgers yet. That's what he said to me. If you've been waiting to see what all the hype's about, today's the day. Go to Shake Shack and order the Big Shack. Sounds familiar. Made different fun exercise here as we wind down the rest of the NFL regular season. But I always think it's kind of fun to take stock of, like, the quarterback market, whether it's at the end of the year, maybe after the playoffs, and also as you gear up for the next season. Mike Sando from the Athletic, who joins us throughout the year, is just great on this because he is the QB tier God. A piece that we love doing and talking about every single season. When he talks with front offices, talks with coaches. So to try something a little bit different as we wind down this season, we wanted to look at the value of quarterbacks. It'll also be kind of interesting how this compares with, like, resetting it and then thinking about it this summer, Mike. But if we were to take all the quarterbacks in the league, we're not going to run through every single guy that's taking a snap here or all 32 projected starters, but trying to figure out the most trade value, like which quarterback right now has the most trade value, which is in that first tier of guys. I went through it. We have not talked about what the results have been, what kind of work that you've done, but why don't you continue to kind of set up the process that you went through so we run through the next 30 minutes.
Danny Cannell
Yeah.
Mike Sando
Ryan's making me nervous because he's, like checking in with me repeatedly, you know, like during the game last night, I'm like, holy geez. He's like, hey, you know, you've talked to some front office people. I'm like, oh, My gosh, this is. He's really going to be ready for this thing. So basically, you know, there's some precedent of, of trades of quarterbacks in the NFL. So the Russell Wilson deal, it didn't work out for Denver, but I mean, he was perceived as kind of a near your prime guy, had been to a Super bowl, sort of ascended into the upper tier, you know, and we saw what they got for him. Ended up being, I think, what was three, three ones involved in that, you know, a big sort of fan.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Sando
And fan. There's players going back and forth, a couple players and that sort of a thing. So I kind of used that as, you know, some, some historical comps and. And so I. The way I kind of looked at it was more who the player is and some of their age. Let you know, the contract thing. To me, I have a column in my thing for a column. I have a little spreadsheet here. Big surprise. There's a column for their salary or something, and that's a consideration. But to me it's not a major. Look, if you're signed for years to come, Lamar Jackson's value to me is higher because there's a couple years left than if he didn't. But a lot of these guys are going to get new deals probably anyway if they get it, go to a new team. The money isn't really the issue. It only really becomes an issue for me. If you're upside down like a Kyler Murray or a Tua Tango below where you're inheriting a big contract for a mid player, then obviously that diminishes the player's value. But I don't think, you know, Josh Allen costing more than, you know, who's a good, a good young quarterback is the, is the. Is a deal breaker now I don't want Josh Allen. Does that make sense?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I think there's a big difference between, like if you were listing NBA value, the contracts play a much bigger part. Although I would say contracts of recent history are not nearly. Like there was times throughout the NBA where you had some of these deals, especially when you had longer max deals with a different cba, where if you got that wrong, it was like you might be screwed. When I look at the contract situation for all the quarterbacks that we're going to talk about here, like Goff making 53 million a year, like, does that mean that he's less valuable than. I don't know. I mean, maybe there is a kid. Maybe I'm doing a bad job with the Examples like Darnold and Baker. But to finish the thought though, I just don't think quarterback contracts are all that big of a deal. One, because the cap goes up almost 10% every single year. And it's, it's basically like the quarterbacks don't get paid on like, hey, my guy's better than this guy, so now he's going to make more. It's like, no, my guy is up now and your guy was up two years ago. So that's why Dak Prescott ends up with $60 million a year.
Mike Sando
And then also, you know, the team that is trading away the player oftentimes eats some of the burden or the, you know, at least from a cap standpoint, and I've always been trained, it's the cash that matters. That's what people care about the most. The cap can be manipulated. If you have cash, the cap matters way less. You know, the cap matters way more if you don't have a lot of cash and don't want to spend then, you know, than it does. But for these quarterback contracts, I don't think it's a huge consideration unless, like I said, you're not very good in your contract side. No one wants to, you know, the price you'd be willing to pay for Kyler Murray is different if he's got a three year deal at a million dollars a year or he's got a three years left at 50 million a year. Right. That's a huge difference. I'm not giving you anything for Kyler Murray and that contract right now. I don't want it. But if he was signed for three years and a million a year, I'd give you something. Does that make sense?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Right. But the problem is, is that Kyler is an average annual salary of 46 million and 2 is an average annual salary of 53 million, which I love. They got the extra 100,000 there. 53.1 to get ahead of golf, to get him ahead of golf, to get him ahead of Purdy. Because it was like, hey, we're going to make sure our, our guy gets a little bit more than the last contracts that were signed. All right, so let's, let's get to it. So I want to try to guess at least the first couple. All right. And this is the first example of like, does Drake may end up being the most valuable quarterback in a hypothetical, hypothetical trade market because he's making over 2 million combined the next two years and is putting together what could be an MVP season?
Mike Sando
I didn't, I Didn't do it that way. I mean, if you have that evaluation of him and, and yeah, I had him kind of in the second. Second tier. I, I put. You want me to say who I got where I can.
Ryan Rosillo
I'm gonna guess Allen's one.
Mike Sando
Yeah, I've got him. I, I've got. I've got four guys that I put in the. Hey, it's four number one picks or three ones and elite. Elite player. Three ones and a starter, that type of a thing. I got four guys in that bucket.
Ryan Rosillo
All right, so it's Allen, it's Mahomes, it's.
Mike Sando
It's Herbert and Burrow for me.
Ryan Rosillo
Herbert and Burrow. All right, because I was going to guess Burrow and Lamar.
Mike Sando
Burrow scares me a little bit with the injuries. I just think those guys transfer to whatever we're doing anywhere and I'm not overly concerned about the rest of their career or falling off other than Burrow a little bit with the injuries. So, you know, he's one we could quibble with a little bit. But I was going to put him there in that top group and I think that is a, A massive haul. Like, like the, the Bills aren't taking four ones in an elite starter for Josh Allen, correct?
Ryan Rosillo
No. Why would you. There's no point.
Mike Sando
They wouldn't do it. But that's. I kind of put that in like the. That's the kitchen sink, ask for whatever you want group and you know, maybe within that you'd rather have Josh Allen than Mahomes coming off of the injury or than Herbert or Burrow. I might.
Ryan Rosillo
So.
Mike Sando
So Allen may be the, the top guy there, but I put those other guys kind of in a similar bucket. And then I had Drake May right after that. You know, then going to. With Lamar I think is right there too, but I had him a little after and Lamar just kind of seems like. Depends on the year what you think of him a little bit. I wrote about that today. He's had two great years and a bunch of decent years.
Ryan Rosillo
If we stay with the top guys here, then again. So your evaluation of May is even with this being one of the few examples where the contract thing would feel entirely different. Because I mean, May, again, to put together the numbers here, I think it's. It's 2.2 million over the next two years. But your resistance to that or anyone's resistance would be that May has only done it for one year and that you can't put him ahead of Alan or Mahomes even with the contractual savings.
Mike Sando
Yeah, a little bit of that. Now. If I were starting my own team, is this a little bit of a different thing? I may decide I would roll with, with Drake May. I'm just trying to look at an actual market like what that may look like. And I, I think having one really good year is different than having multiple really good years, you know, and I, as I said to you last night when we were chatting briefly, like I think I did anyway, like, you know, a year ago Jaden Daniels would have been higher than he is now. Right. Because he's had one year. And so I don't have really any concerns about Drake May. I think we would have had some of Jaden Daniels, of his durability and that sort of a thing. And, and I don't really have him with Drake May. I think he's really grown and jumped this year. So if you wanted to put him, you know, in that top group, go for it. I just think that there, it's, there is somewhat of a distinction between the one year performer and every year performers.
Ryan Rosillo
I like that rule. It usually is a rule where you prevent yourself from making massive overreaction mistakes here. But just knowing that May's making a million a year and the other guys are making 50 plus million a year, all the way up to Dak making 60 million a year, it's different. Who would you rather have right now if you were an expansion team? I mean, this is stupid, but yeah, yeah, say you're an expansion team and again, for whatever reason, you could have your choice of Mahomes or Allen moving forward for the rest of their careers. Who would you take?
Mike Sando
I think I would take Josh Allen. I think that I would now, you know, if I feel like Mahomes now with this injury and, and some of this is maybe biased towards what they've been doing offensively. I just feel like he's been carrying so much of a load and it's just been, it's, it's been a little bit of a while since they've just been a super explosive offense where he's really, you know, producing the way maybe Josh Allen has done a little bit more recently. So, you know, you pick one, I'll take the other. I think Mahomes is obviously probably been better at this point, but I do like Josh Allen long term.
Ryan Rosillo
The way I would run this exercise is I would say was there ever a point in the previous five or six years where I would have ever, ever debated this? And the answer is no. I know there was some momentum for Allen before this season and what we all saw from this offense with Mahomes, you're like, what is going on with this team this year? But I think ultimately like, all you have to do is look up front and they've done a really bad job with. I mean, look, I'm even watching Sky Moore run around for the Niners being like, hey, you know, was there, was there something there with Kansas City? I mean that's, that's, that's not really the exercise here. But yeah, if I, if you were presented this hypothetical and you're like, okay, Allen is the choice, more people would pick Alan. I don't know if front offices would, I think NFL fans would be like, I'll take Alan, he's a year younger. The contract thing, it doesn't really mean it anything. Even though Mahomes, when he signed that massive 10 year extension, you could. Well, I argued at the time, I'm like, this isn't 450. This is a savings. Like, this is a huge favor that he just did the Chiefs. If I've never ever thought about it and never had to debate it, then that's why I would be like, I don't know. Although wearing the Wyoming jersey today, it makes me feel like I should probably take Alan. So I'm just going to be stubborn.
Mike Sando
About if Mahomes was fully healthy right now and they had a, you know, 12 and 4 record or something. I mean, I think we'd probably lean, you know, maybe lean that direction. I think it's debatable right now just the way things have been going. No disrespect to my homes, but I think Allen is just such a, such a physical beast who can just do it all and carry the team and hasn't had the now, you know, a significant injury, I'd be real happy with him.
Ryan Rosillo
Okay. Yeah, that's totally fair. Burrow, I'm with you. You know, he's only 29 to start the 26 season. You know, Mahomes is a year older than Allen. So going into 26, I was looking at the ages. Mahomes would be 31 if he's healthy. Allen 30. Burrow, 29. His average annual salary is number two with Allen up there. But you know, he's got a, he's got the track record here where he's had three seasons where he's been hurt, he's played, he's started more games than I think people would realize. Like if you said, hey, give me how many times he's missed starts, he's had three full seasons and he's had three kind of half seasons. And he's obviously, you know, he's not that much younger than those other guys because he was so late coming out of school. It'll be 29 and start next year.
Mike Sando
I know. And so that, that's one where I've got him as, you know, be the fourth guy in that bucket. And I would, I would put Herbert possibly above him, even though it'd be close. It'd be close. Just on the physical part of it. I do think, you know, the physical part concerns me and always has a little bit with Burrow. I just feel like he could have a, you know, a little bit of a broken down second half of career. Remember Kurt Warner? That's why he left the Rams. You know, he just was banged up and he was so great when he played, but it was hard for him to, to always sustain it. So. And I think Kurt Warner played like three full seasons and went to the super bowl every time that he played a full season. But it's hard, you know, it's just hard. He's in the hall of Fame, but it's just hard to, you know, to be. That's. That's a little bit less value somewhat to me than, than. Than someone who I look at and just feel physically is going to make it.
Ryan Rosillo
So Herbert Burrow, Allen Mahomes, who's in the rest of the second tier as far as trade value? Well, that's.
Mike Sando
I'm. Yeah, I'm putting those guys in the. In kind of the top tier. And then my, My next group is probably. It's probably May and Lamar would kind of be my next group there. And I'm breaking a little bit of my rule that May hasn't played as much. So I initially had Lamar a little. A tick higher, but just in terms of what his value would be, but that this is one where there's. There's things that concern me about Lamar if I'm entering into this relationship with him. And, and one is the magic of the legs will not be the same second of his career. And I think that's a big part of what makes him great. And then I don't like the fact that we can't even talk to his agent. He doesn't have one. I don't like that as an organization. I think that's a. I wrote about it in my column today. I think it's a big deal. I think a lot of the reason why it feels like sometimes the Ravens and Lamar sort of Fall out of step a little bit every once in a while is because that line of communication is very difficult when you got to talk to the player all the time. The agents manage so much for these quarterbacks. So you're going to have Lamar Jackson and then eventually you're going to sort of be hoping you can be back in phase with them. And that, that bothers me a little bit. And then like I looked at my column today, it's, it's amazing. Like his two great seasons and one of them wasn't even his MVP season of 2019 and 2024 are like the two best seasons for the last 25 years stat wise. His other seasons, if you combine them together are about 17th out of 40 players that played, you know, basically every season, 2021, 23 and 2025. That's a four year block where you know, he's missing games and the production just hasn't been the same. So love him. You're going to get a lot for him. I feel like if a team acquired him you could win it all. But there are a little bit of concerns along those lines about just a long term part of the relationship.
Ryan Rosillo
So that's two players in the second tier. So then let's get into this meaty group here because this was harder than I thought when I was going through it and doing on my own last night.
Mike Sando
Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
So did you. Trevor Lawrence, more valuable, you know, because of this last month? Like would he even be discussed in this group or is he.
Mike Sando
I think he's kind of in my tier after this next year. So this next tier for me was kind of Caleb Williams, CJ Stroud, Jaden Daniels and Jordan Love. Can you see that as guys that are, you know, in love? May sort of be. Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
I don't know what to do with Jordan Love anymore, by the way. Like, I still believe in it at.
Mike Sando
The bottom of this. But, but these are guys that to me it's two number one picks and another pick. Does that make sense?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, because CJ feels completely overlooked while that team has turned things around. And I know it has way more to do with the NFL's best defense, but he's still good and there's talent in there from him that I'm like, you know what? And we all loved him his rookie year. So if you put some of the numbers side by side too with it, you're like, look, he's, he's kind of even better than he was his rookie year. I don't know if the EPA number's Still back?
Mike Sando
Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
Some might, some might not. I don't know.
Mike Sando
Right. There's. He's one I struggled with, but I put him in there and, and I just kind of feel like those are guys that are young, have been. Either have been productive or in Caleb Williams case, looks like he's on the upswing with a good coach where there's more out there. Right. We don't know what the ceiling is yet, but we think it may be even higher than where they've played. And they've played pretty good at times.
Ryan Rosillo
Right.
Mike Sando
You say that they've had, you know, they've had winning seasons where they had. Where they were a driver of it. Now, Caleb Williams is probably early enough in his career that we're giving a little bit of doubt there, but he was a consensus number one pick. Everybody liked it. He makes spectacular plays and we're seeing him in some structure this year where, you know, you probably are more optimistic than you were a year ago, right?
Ryan Rosillo
So way, I mean, way more optimistic. I look, I think some of the stuff that Collinsworth was saying about him in last night's game, despite putting up 35 points and you know, you're on the road to Sunday Night Football and you've got a fourth down throw to get it. Well, actually it wasn't fourth down because they've gotten the first down and DeAndre Swift, one of the first times all season long, actually cut it inside as opposed to outside and maybe getting out of bounds there. But Caleb isn't able to make the throw. I know that he had. Was it, was it more wide open on the back end? Like, I just wish people would watch these replays and understand how hard it is at quarterback at that point.
Mike Sando
The last play.
Ryan Rosillo
Well, yeah, the winning play or in the Bears case, the losing play. But you know, just to say, oh, you didn't see this guy that was wide open. It's like, do you know how hard it would be for him through all the confusion, trying to stay on his feet and he's locked in on the things that he's locked in on to then pivot. I mean, yeah, sure, he could have thrown a pop up over there. Look, this isn't the point.
Mike Sando
I don't know about that. I mean, yeah, to me on that, yeah, we won't get too deep into that play, but I mean, there's a guy rushing in his lap. You know, the windows were closing. It wasn't there. There wasn't a lot of guys open.
Ryan Rosillo
I just felt like we agree then. No I'm just talking about the Chris.
Mike Sando
Retreating with the guy coming there. He couldn't get even. He couldn't get it there. And he's got. He makes amazing throws. Like there's not a lot of guys who, I mean, look, Josh Allen had a layup yesterday for him and. And you know, dribbled it off his knee, it looked like.
Ryan Rosillo
But.
Mike Sando
But that shows you how hard this is. You're playing in a rainstorm, you know, it's not easy. You got a bad foot. So I got no problem with Caleb on the last play for just, you know, that didn't show some limitation to me. He can do amazing things.
Ryan Rosillo
But see this, this Caleb conversation is really. Because I would say he's more valuable in the trade market than Jaden is. Because of Jaden's injuries.
Mike Sando
Yeah. And it would be the other way around.
Ryan Rosillo
Last year we wouldn't even. We would just say onto the next topic with all this.
Mike Sando
I think that's why I think that, yeah, there's speculation, there's speculative component with both of those guys.
Ryan Rosillo
Right. But the ceiling part of Caleb probably breaks whatever tie you would have. Unless like some people listen to this. Can't stand Jordan Love. Think he's one of the most overrated guys ever. Stroud again, seems to be just completely out of the day to day consciousness of the way we talk about the NFL. It does seem maybe a little crazy for me to have Caleb ahead of both of those guys. But I think it's about year two with Ben Johnson and going. It's such a jump from year one to year two. We're so excited about the physical gifts. Shanahan raving about the guy that Caleb's probably the leader out of this group. Group off of what we've seen.
Mike Sando
Yeah, yeah, that. I think that's fair. I just want to look at something here real quick. That's crazy. That's crazy. I was going to say on the Jordan Love stuff's interesting. So Caleb Williams, CJ Stroud and Jaden Daniels have all won the division. You know, as starting quarterbacks that were playing pretty well. And I was going to put Jordan Love in that bucket. And I realized the packers have never won the division with them. The packers haven't won the division since Rogers was there.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. By the way, did you see that number? Where. I don't know. It was my guy Florio who had it. Where if the playoffs hadn't been expanded, the packers would have never made it during this run.
Mike Sando
I mean, I get that, but you play sometimes. Would you play differently if you knew there's only six or. You know what I mean? That's kind of like saying that shot would have missed on an 11 foot rim. Well, I wasn't shooting on an 11 foot rim, dummy. You know, I would have shot it different.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, you know what? All right, you know what, I'm going to take away the observation. Okay, so yeah, whatever.
Mike Sando
It's not that simple. But like a little bit of me is like, all right, we know what the rules are. So they were trying to make it into seven. You know.
Ryan Rosillo
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Danny Cannell
Homemade classics like chicken and dumplings.
Ryan Rosillo
And a country store full of fun finds. Swing by and visit Cracker Barrel today. I don't know that we have spent a ton of time on desean Watson. So we're in now. Kind of the dak. Trevor Lawrence.
Mike Sando
Why was he even mentioned? Oh, you're going by salaries or.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I have the salary list in front of me.
Mike Sando
Oh, okay.
Ryan Rosillo
Gotcha.
Mike Sando
Yeah. No, no.
Ryan Rosillo
Well, if you want to talk about modeling a franchise quarterback for multiple years.
Mike Sando
Oh my gosh.
Ryan Rosillo
How come Purdy? How, how is Purdy not in the third?
Mike Sando
Well, I've got him in the next group and maybe he should be higher. But I had a group of four guys that I sort of had in the hay. First and a second round pick maybe. And this isn't going to be for everybody and we can really. Some of these guys are going to be hotly debated. But I sort of had Trevor Lawrence, Brock, Purdy Goff and Jalen Hurts in there. And look, Jaden, Jalen Hurst just went over seven in the second half. It's probably not, you know, but, but they've. He's played great in some big games, obviously been a Super bowl mvp. But you know, I think each one of these guys come with some things where, where I feel like maybe they can be franchise quarterbacks. Certainly Purdy has played great, but with every one of these guys you can say a yeah, but Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, buddy's been inconsistent. Great talent. Yeah, but he's been inconsistent, hasn't done it over multiple years. Brock Purdy. Yeah, but he misses games and everybody looks good in Kyle Shanahan's offense. He looks better than Jimmy, but we can go through the all time leaders in the history of the league and yards for attempt and all these things and Jimmy's going to be in the top 10 with Marino. Right. So I get it. Purdy especially was Great last night. He's better than that. But, but, but you can say a butt on him, and I think you can say a butt on Jared Goff. Does anyone look better or worse based on how good his protection is? You give him a great offensive line, he's going to lead the league and it'll be top five in the stats you put him on. You have the, you should be hoping.
Ryan Rosillo
Brian Flores is getting a head coaching job in the afc.
Mike Sando
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, and then Jalen hurts. Same sort of thing. He's proven it. He's been, you know, you look at the winning and, and they've had great offenses, but, but, but, but they're winning with defense now. It's, it's always been a run game component. He's a big part of that. I think if he has to pass, it's not his game. But he's got some skins on the wall. So do you. You okay with that group there?
Ryan Rosillo
I am. I mean, the hurts conversation is like, all right, so what do we have to have? We have to have two, like, number one options at wide receiver. We have to have arguably the best running back of the time of when he's been healthy. We have to have all pros all over the offensive line. We have to have two Pro Bowlers at corner. We have to have first round draft picks all over the front seven and Nakobe Dean. So yeah, if we have all that, our quarterback might be. All right, so I'm just over the hurts conversation in general. I feel like I had a breaking point earlier this year and it led to kind of like a bigger Eagles observation, even though I just enjoyed so much of what they did defensively against Buffalo yesterday. But this isn't. What did they do defensively? Buffalo conversation here.
Mike Sando
You're done with it. Like, you're just done with him as a viable player.
Ryan Rosillo
You don't want to talk about viable, viable, strong. But I, I, I think that because they've had playoff success, they win a Super Bowl. I mean, the MVP thing to me is like the quarterback almost always gets it no matter what.
Mike Sando
I'm with you. I'm with you. They won it. They had a great defense. You know, that was part of it.
Ryan Rosillo
Right? I mean, I loved when he got out of that safety yesterday because it was like, you know what, that's part of the good part of Jalen Hurst here. But again, like, I'm comparing it to what, Goff.
Mike Sando
Yeah. In that bucket, though, Would you rather have got for Hertz? If you're, if you're just gonna build a team right now, and I'm taking golf.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. I, I, It's a reluctant. Even though I've just spent, you know, this whole time breaking down the hurts part of it, the golf thing that scares me is it does seem that if you're geared up to disrupt the timing for him, it's, it's not, it's not gonna be great for you, however fast. I think he's going to throw to more places on the field than Hertz will. I think Hertz has, like, a pretty, pretty defined area where he doesn't want to throw the football.
Mike Sando
The Eagles offense, if the Eagles have golf this year, is A.J. brown in the news every week for being unhappy?
Ryan Rosillo
No. But is Jared Goff healthy at the end of the year on all the push tushes? Because I would say hurts is physically.
Mike Sando
They'Re not doing that, but. Yeah, but they're going to, they're going to have, you know, field in different ways so that the running back shirt, a defender, whatever, you know.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. This is a, this one's tough, man. I think I'd probably rather have Purdy out of the entire group.
Mike Sando
Yes.
Ryan Rosillo
Even though the Shanahan thing is totally legitimate, I spent a lot of time at the beginning of the pod talking about how good Trevor Lawrence has looked this last month. It's been terrific. I need it to be more than a month for me to start saying I would take Trevor Lawrence over Purdy, over Goff, and even Hertz, probably, you know, because I think Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, go ahead.
Mike Sando
He has just not been consistently accurate over the course of his career, and that's a hard thing to just suddenly be right. But I do think that the team, I think they're playing more complimentary now. I think they're better coached. You know, their, their defense is part of this. I think the coordinating job by Liam Cohen is much better than it was the last few years under Doug Peterson. So I think the gain is probably, you know, he's getting some advantages now in terms of how it's set up and being under less stress. I think his pressure rate's down. I think his time to throw is down. It feels a little bit more like he's in a real offense and it's doing some of the work for him. And so I am more optimistic about him than I was even entering the season, you know, just wasn't sure. I know Liam Cohen had done a nice job before with Tampa, but, you know, Baker Mayfield has done good with a bunch of different guys there, so I just kind of wasn't sure, but I'm liking it, liking it a lot better.
Ryan Rosillo
Okay, what's the next group?
Mike Sando
So the next group I have, it's sort of. These guys don't all maybe belong together, but this was sort of like maybe late first round pick or you know, some kind of a first, depending on where you're at in your team. And I have two young guys in Bo Nix and Cam Ward, and then I have two old guys in Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford. I think they're just valued to me a little bit similarly for different reasons. I think Prescott and Stafford are two older guys, but they play at a real high level. You know, Stafford was sort of criticized the way Dak has been, has been able to do it in the playoffs, but he gets with the right team, the right group, and he wins the Super Bowl. I feel like Dakota isn't as good as Stafford, but with the right team, right group, maybe the GM not holding press conferences every week, maybe the defense, not historically bad. I think you could, I think you could, you know, win with him. He's just. They're older guys, more expensive. It's really a couple year proposition. Maybe less than that for Stafford. Maybe it's three, four years with Dak. And then to me, Bo Nixon, Cam Ward are two, you know, young guys who. We've seen production from Knicks, but, you know, we're not sure how he plays in a great context with a good defense. Sean Payton, all of that good offensive line, you know, we didn't have that, that can't miss pedigree coming in. So we probably just feel good about him, but not great. And Cam Ward's early enough that maybe there's some speculative value. They're still in a really bad situation. Kind of the opposite of, of some of these guys who've had success early.
Ryan Rosillo
Right. But I see this is tough because the Rams wouldn't trade Stafford for Cam or even going into next year because they would just be like we. I mean, unless they're in passive valuation.
Mike Sando
Well, what the first. Yeah, I'm not sure, but Ryan Callahan and ask him about him or whatever. But I. The Rams may. The Rams are a bad example to use. I think your point is correct. But the Rams are the type of team that might do something like that just if they were to win it all this year or they thought it was towards the end of Stafford, they've, they've looked for others. It would be a move to the future. Right. And Stafford's older. There's a Certain point to get off the train. So I could. I could see them. They may not be came award.
Ryan Rosillo
Well, Tennessee wouldn't do. I mean, Stafford's kind of like an impossible. He's going to be 38 in February and he's. He might be Tennessee. This wouldn't do it either.
Mike Sando
Yeah, Tennessee wouldn't do it either, but.
Ryan Rosillo
Right.
Mike Sando
You know, that's one of the. So I have another little column in my spreadsheet that is internal versus external value. Does the team that has the player value them more or less than the market? Right. So.
Ryan Rosillo
And usually it's always more.
Mike Sando
Yeah. The example that I gave, like, we haven't even mentioned Tyler Schuck. Like, I had him in a group of lower. But. But like, I don't think the Saints would trade him for the number one pick in the draft next year. I don't think they would really. I think they'd rather have him.
Ryan Rosillo
Would the Giants trade? Go ahead.
Mike Sando
I don't know what the Giants think about Jackson Dart, but the. The Saints would not trade. I don't think the Saints would trade Tyler Schuck for any quarterback in that draft, Jackson Dart or anybody. And that's an example of, hey, they've got this guy in their building. They're watching every Saints game. How many Saints games are we watching? You know, the whole game. And when you listen to stuff, that's. When you listen to stuff that's coming out of there. I mean, former players, the Scott Shanleys of the world, Tyron Matthews, I mean, they're anointing. Okay. They are super excited about this guy. And I think his production's been really good. The last he got dinged in the draft a little bit for reasons like being a little bit older. Okay. Would you rather have JJ McCarthy at his current age now or 26? What would you rather have? You know what I mean? It's not like he's 38 and going to have to retire. He's going to play. He could play 10 or 14 years. He's pretty good. So that's an example of somebody who maybe should be in one of these higher buckets. But I didn't put him there because I don't know that the rest of the league would view him that way. Right. He hasn't done anything. But internally in that building, there's super excitement and you read it every week.
Ryan Rosillo
I don't think they would trade him. Well, we know they wouldn't trade him for Jackson. D. The Giants part of it that turns into something else where it's like we.
Mike Sando
But that's the internal external. Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. So you have. They wouldn't trade him for Bo Nicks?
Mike Sando
The. The Saints.
Ryan Rosillo
The Saints. Yeah.
Mike Sando
No, no, I don't think they would at all.
Ryan Rosillo
Do you think Denver would do it?
Mike Sando
I have no idea what Sean Payton. Sean Payton may think that his guy is the prototype that he wants. You know, he drafted him. So I would imagine Sean Payton may like Bo Nicks more. You know, I don't know that, but he drafted him. There's. He's not. Bo Nicks is not on the Broncos, if any. Almost anyone else is the coach of the Broncos, probably.
Ryan Rosillo
So what's the next group, then? Is this the dark group?
Mike Sando
Well, I think there's. On the fringes of this group. I just said, is Baker Mayfield's going to be in there, do you think? Is. Baker Mayfield probably belongs in that group? I had him like a tick lower, but I'm going to put him in that group, too. And they're on a cold streak right now, but I like them, don't you.
Ryan Rosillo
I liked him more last year. I think he's been really adventurous with the ball, and it hasn't always led to turnovers. Like, there's a couple games where he felt clean, and I was like, man, he is like, there's the gunslinger thing. And then there's some times where, like, look, they're down 2010. There's still some time left. He takes a shot on. I think they're what, at Miami, inside the 30 or 32 or something like that? That was just a spot where it's like, you know, and again, the division's on the line. I just feel like he is either whether it's offensive line issues or not having the full complement of receivers at times, but I felt like it's been a consistent thing where he is. I always talk about that level of risk, like, I want you to be willing to take some of it. And I. I think he's. He's kind of gotten back to some of that stuff where the beginning of the year it was working. You know, they weren't having the leads and he was. He was finding ways to win some of these games, but it wasn't really necessarily costing him. And maybe a change in the Philly game, maybe he's dealing with more stuff. I know that, again, a lot of the things around him have been super inconsistent. Maybe that's. But I feel like the way he's been playing lately is. But he's still young enough, you know, I mean, he's not like super, super young as some of these other guys that we're talking about here.
Danny Cannell
Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
We're also like in the sixth group here. So it's not like we're sitting there.
Mike Sando
Yeah, but, but I'm going to do something here, you know. So I read off that group with Nick's Ward, Prescott, Stafford, kind of the weird group. I may put dart and shuck in that group too.
Ryan Rosillo
Okay. It's your grouping.
Mike Sando
Yeah, that, that's what I'm going to do in that group. I've got notes all over my page here now. I kind of like that in that group. And then that would then leave to me another sort of Pennix JJ McCarthy group where, hey, maybe your draft eval is what matters most here. They've got injury concerns. They weren't, they weren't unanimous, you know, go in the top five type guys. But there were people that liked them enough to take them that early. And I may not be one of them, but there could be three teams or whatever, you know, that, that would really like these guys way more than. Than that. But I'm putting them in the kind of. I mean, I don't think you're getting a first round pick for those guys, do you?
Ryan Rosillo
No.
Mike Sando
So I would put them in kind of a group where they were drafted in the first round. All hopes not lost by any means. But I got more questions than answers and maybe more skepticism than optimism until we see more. But I'm going to still keep them in a little bit of a higher group than my next group.
Ryan Rosillo
Is there anyone left?
Mike Sando
This could be unfair. Well, what could be unfair is what do you do with Bryce Young?
Ryan Rosillo
I wouldn't trade for him.
Mike Sando
Right, but would you rather. Hey, GM Resillo. We got a tight window here to make a trade. We can get for a, for a, for a second and a fourth. We can get you Penix McCarthy or Bryce Young. Who do you got?
Ryan Rosillo
I would go penix McCarthy. Bryce Young.
Mike Sando
Okay. I feel like if I had to play a game this week, I would do Bryce Young over those other two guys.
Ryan Rosillo
That's fine.
Mike Sando
But I also feel like there's a ceiling with Bryce Young to where I wouldn't want to have that. Just from a size standpoint, be my quarterback.
Ryan Rosillo
I touched on in the open. I think it's year three and we kind of know what it is.
Mike Sando
Yep. And then I sort of had this other group of. Now, you know, Darnold may be, you know, Darnold may be somebody. Darnold's somebody. I would probably put above Bryce Young and. And Pennix and McCarthy.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, that's fine. But you wouldn't put him ahead of Darnold or. Who would you rather have, Darnold or Baker?
Mike Sando
I think I'd rather have Baker. What about you?
Ryan Rosillo
I think I'd rather have Darnold.
Mike Sando
Okay. Why?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I don't know.
Mike Sando
And I. You know, I. I'm open to it being Darnold, too. I feel like Baker's had a few more years of production. I. I just don't feel like Baker's ever really had terrible years, other than, you know.
Danny Cannell
Right.
Mike Sando
I mean, he had some tough times in his career, but when he's been healthy, like, he's been pretty good most of the years, Right.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. I think the end of the Cleveland stuff, it was pretty clear that guy was hurting.
Mike Sando
He couldn't throw.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah.
Mike Sando
And I think he's tough, and I think people rally around him, so. So you take one, I'll take the other. I think we'd be happy with that. And then I think we're really into the Geno Smith, you know, Rogers, Daniel, Jones, Cousins. I put Kyler and Tua sort of.
Ryan Rosillo
Together, but Kyler and Tua at this point, are a negative asset. Right. So this is where the contract thing kind of comes back full circle, where you're not getting anything for either one of those players. Is that fair?
Mike Sando
Yeah. They're in their own bucket, where.
Ryan Rosillo
You.
Mike Sando
Know, maybe they could be a starting quarterback, but not under these terms. Like, do the teams have to cut them or give you something for you to take them? Who's acquiring Kyler Murray?
Ryan Rosillo
I don't know. I mean, this is why it's. We do that NBA NFL quarterback thing all the time. Well, we do it every year. You know, whatever. It's some fun, stupid little exercise. But, you know, in the past, you've done Kyler and Trey Young, and at that point, it was like, hey, they put up numbers to the face of the franchise. The fan base wants it to be real so, so bad. And the national media are the jerks because they're like, yeah, I don't really know. And then, you know, it just turns into this entire thing. And, like, for years and years and years, Atlanta fans are just telling you how wrong you are about Trey Young. And now, you know, look, they wanted to trade him last summer or two summers ago. There wasn't much of a market. There's even less of a market now. This Atlanta team was really good without him. Now he's healthy, and he's coming back. And I'm watching that Knicks game the other day, and I'm like, are you really going to put him back in to close out these last five minutes? And they're a point now where they kind of feel like they have to. And I end up losing a close game at home against the Knicks. I mean, that'd be actually good for Kyler because he'd be playing. Granted, it's different being the quarterback in basketball, but the reason I'm giving you the long Runway on all this stuff is that everyone else knows that you're probably like, Arizona announced if he were healthy, it would still be Brissette, which I thought was shocking. Yeah, Jacoby Brissette.
Mike Sando
I mean, nothing against Kobe Brissette, just a really solid backup. But there was zero chance of being anyone you want to build around.
Ryan Rosillo
Like, that's a point. They're making a point to go. We're, by the way, just so everybody knows, like, Brissette's still the guy no matter what. So I don't know who would be. Who would be desperate enough. And I also think it's totally fair to be, like, what's Kyler like? Like, what's his mind? It's somebody who. There was plenty of criticism about what he was like as a teammate, how serious he was taking the stuff. Maybe he's a little bit older. Maybe all that stuff's kind of fine. But, like, I don't know that you're bringing in Rudy here. If you're the next team.
Mike Sando
He's a. He's. He's in the category of, yeah, you can come here and compete for a job, but you got to show us he's not. We're going to come in, you're going to be our guy. And we want the rest of our locker room to model themselves after your work habits and your approach to the game. Those are two very different things. And I'd be very reluctant to. I think. I think having the right guy at that position when he's. The guy is really critical. But lots of guys can come in and compete for a job under our terms. Right. And so if you, you know, wanted to do that, that. That's fine, like, bring him in. But is. Is Kyler Murray, with all the money he's made, is he gonna. And all that's owed to him, is he gonna have him compete somewhere for nothing? Well, I guess we'll find out.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that one. All right, check out Mike Sandoz piece in the Athletic, the pick six. Every Monday morning. Must read for all NFL fans. And I'm sure we'll check in with you again, man. Thanks.
Mike Sando
Thank you. That was fun.
Ryan Rosillo
So y' all know that we're big fans of Cracker Barrel, and this holiday season, I will be sat at their table with a big plate of country fried turkey. And, Brandon, I'll be right there with you. And I'll check it off my Christmas list in the country store while I'm at it. It'll make a nice holiday tradition. Oh, that's so cute of you. Enjoy all the more holiday traditions only at Cracker Barrel. Little college football playoff preview with good friend Danny Cannell from dusty and Danny SiriusXM every morning. And the COVID three pod. You guys have probably a million shows this week, I assume, right, Danny?
Danny Cannell
Yeah, a little bit. Previews brig game breakdowns, locks, any way you can do reaction shows. It's pretty loaded slate this time of year, which Courtney and the girls always love when they're ready to go to the beach. I mean, they literally. They're off of school, and Court's like, you want to go to the beach? And I was like, I have to work. And she was a little bit upset. Then I told her I was doing your show, and she's like, oh, it's with Ryan, so it's good. Like, she wasn't as upset as she would have been. It was like, no, this is special.
Ryan Rosillo
I appreciate that, Danny. So Danny Canal's family sacrificing for the show here. Make sure you say hi to Court and all the girls for me. So I appreciate it. Will do. Okay, let's look at it this way. Of the four games, the most confident, the least confident that we are picking, so you can go first, obviously, most confident pick for you.
Danny Cannell
And now these are with the spread or just straight up?
Ryan Rosillo
No, no, just straight.
Danny Cannell
Straight up. Oregon, Texas Tech. I like Oregon a lot. I think they're. I mean, I. I eventually picked them to win my national championship in my bracket. I think they're really good. I think they're getting healthy at the right time. I think their schedule and some of their wins are tougher than, like. Like that beating Iowa on the road in that winter in that weather. Like, everyone's like, yeah, well, they should have beat Iowa, that Iowa's defense is always really good to be able to beat USC the way they beat them and then beat Washington to finish out the season. I thought their finish was really, really strong. And I think they're getting right at the right time. And I don't I don't want to bash Texas Tech, but I do think their defense is slightly overrated from statistical standpoint because I don't think they have faced a great offense, a great quarterback for the majority of the season. You know, Sam Levitt, and that was without. It was our one loss. Sam Levitt was best quarterback they faced and they lost the game, you know, so I just, I think the Big 12 might have been a little bit overrated. Texas Tech is a really good football team. Their defensive front seven is pretty nasty, but I just think Oregon is in different class with the athletes they've got across the board.
Ryan Rosillo
See, I knew that because it's my least confident pick of the four. Just because I, I've heard you talk about Texas Tech and I. Look, I don't think that you're out of line with that because I was going through it again last night and I was looking at from like the Baron Morton standpoint where I think all of us appreciate that he's the kind of quarterback, because he's been there for a while, that, you know, text like, we know we can trust him, him. And when he got hurt in the Utah game and he brought in Hammond and Hammond clearly, you know, is a big time recruit and he's certainly more athletic, a little bit more dynamic. Probably threatens you running the football a little bit more. You're watching it going like, I wonder if they would make the switch, you know, and we had McGuire on the show and you know, it wasn't like he was going to say, yeah, it was really tough decision or whatever. But you just, when you watch Baron Morton play, you're like, you know what, it makes all the sense in the world. But in the first game against byu, he wasn't great. They didn't really need him to be great in either of those matchups because it's just like that was kind of like another topic all together. It's like you really want to sit here and talk about like how BYU got screwed? Like, come on, man. So over the course of the year you think, okay, like, what's even close to what they've faced in Oregon? And I don't, I, I don't know what it is. And even, even though Levitt was great, we know what Arizona State did last year, like this Oregon challenge is a completely different level. And I guess I still felt more confident about the other games.
Danny Cannell
There is a great unknown, like, they might be really good. They just haven't, you know, like, that could be a factor too. They might just be as Good as we think they just haven't been tested. I think Utah was a really good win. You know, that was in Texas Tech and that ironically was. Baron Morton had a. His worst game was knocked out.
Ryan Rosillo
The Utah game. The Utah game is at Utah.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, that's. It was in Salt Lake, right? Yeah, that was when Baron Morton got knocked out. But he had two picks, zero touchdowns. He was playing awful and Hammond came in and actually played great. But it was also a game where Devin Dampierre was kind of banged up for the utes and like he, like. Because Kyle Whittingham doesn't give any injury reports, no one knew like he missed the whole week of practice before coming into that game. That's probably from a physicality standpoint in the defense. I would say that and BYU are their biggest tests. But again, I think some of the, like Bear Alexander all of a sudden is playing really good, sort of his contract year, if you will. Amari Washington, a couple big dudes in the, in the interior of that defensive line. Bryce Betcher is a really good linebacker. Mateo Uyungale, like, they've got a lot of really good players on their defense too. So. And again, I just think that Dante Moore will easily be the best quarterback they face. And even if they're not 100% health, like even if Evan Stewart doesn't come back. But it's Cory Moore who I do think will come back and will play Malik Benson. Like, I just think they're a caliber of athlete and I haven't mentioned Noah Whittingham who's. They have a great run game. Like they're. That's going to be a really interesting challenge to me because Oregon likes to run the football. Will they be able to establish the run against this Texas Tech front seven?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I think we agree that Texas Tech, although you're sure, you know, this is where it's tough when you're looking at some of the statistical stuff and you're like, okay, well what was your 12 game experience versus some of these other teams that have had really tough schedules. So then when you're looking at some of the yards per play, opponent's yards per play and all that kind of stuff, you're like, all right, what does it actually mean? Because Tech across the board is awesome in all of these different categories. But I'm with you. I cannot shake how impressed I was in that Iowa game. Like, I looked at that game as incredibly impressive because the injury situation for Oregon's receivers, they lose the right tackle and they have to Kind of just on the fly, be like, all right, we're a power running team and we're going to be a power running team. In these conditions against Iowa, where you wouldn't normally expect to be able to just push them around, it's like Iowa would be like, go ahead, like, please do this. And they gashed him. So with the receivers getting back healthy, I don't know if it means steward as well, but what I like about Oregon is that I do think that there's an adaptability depending on how the game goes. And it's funny because you watch that game against James Madison. And by the way, I have a number for you on defense, opponents, yards per play. So if you go all college football, all fbs, James Madison was fourth in the country on defense. I mean, it kind of speaks to the non power four teams in this debate that we've had of like, okay, should these teams be in the playoffs? I think I'm okay with one, I'm certainly not okay with two. But to watch that game and have it be 34. 6 and go, this is just. It's a different version of football and it's like a nice story. But now you have a chance at a national championship. And the great thing from that 34. 6 lead for Lanning is that they've got a couple turnovers, they take their foot off the gas, and now James Madison scores 28 points in the second half. So it was like a great playoff win for Lanning then to be pissed off the entire time.
Danny Cannell
Yes. Did you see the video, Kirby Smart getting after Georgia like a practice when there was like somebody outside in the parking lot and he was just laying into coaches, everybody. I would expect that's the type of coaching you'll get from Dan Lanning this week. Like, you kidding me? We gave up that many points. We gave up. We. We let our foot off the gas. Totally agree with you. That is the best case scenario. You win the game, but your team doesn't feel like it. You get after them. They're not, you know, they're not going to be, you know, at all overlooking the next opponent or feeling really good about themselves. And I think the point spread is another thing that you can like. You're not that heavy of a favorite in this game. So I think this game's going to be really interesting. I think Dante Moore too. I do think. I think Dante Moore has a ton at stake in this playoff where if he does get hot and if they do make a run, potentially the national championship or even Just to the national championship game. I think he's gonna. They're the NFL scouts and gm. They already like him. I think they could fall in love with him if he has a strong playoff performance.
Ryan Rosillo
Who do you like better as a pro prospect? Himr Mendoza is today.
Danny Cannell
I like Fernando Mendoza better because I've seen more of them. I. I would love to see Dante Moore get another year of experience and then, you know, challenge for the number one spot. But, I mean, that's gonna be him and Arch Manning coming out together, so I don't know if he wants to, you know, go through that. But I think Fernando Mendoza is the real deal. I just seeing him at Cal to what he was able to do and help that team be competitive when there wasn't all this talent around him. And I still think one of the most impressive plays I've seen from him is getting up off the deck after he was absolutely wrecked that first play of the Big Ten championship game, Ohio State. He's just. I think he's kind of all exactly what you want from a. On the field and off the field. You can trust him. And I think he's a very. I think he still has a lot of. A lot of good football ahead of them. So, like, I know the Dante Moore, the upside. Everybody talks about the upside till to come, man. I want to know exactly what I'm getting, and I feel like I know that with Fernando.
Ryan Rosillo
Fernando Mendoza, Oregon also, as far as sacks allowed, and I'm talking, like, not per game, not over the course of the season, but just percentage of drop backs where they're allowing sacks. They're 13th best in the Power 4, so you're looking at that going, all right, this is. This is going to get back to kind of the schedule part of it in the Big 12 play of, like, can this front that was built to get after and disrupt because they've done it all season long. Is that going to be some kind of, like, wait a minute. You know, this is a different challenge here with Oregon altogether, but I actually have that as the hardest one because I just. It's the Texas Tech and kind of the unknown part of it where it's like, are they really at this level?
Danny Cannell
And if they can't run it, let's say Oregon can't run it. And because. Because if you remember, like, all the Money that Joey McGuire and Texas Tech put into this defense is on the defensive front. Like, their secondary is their biggest question mark. So if it does become a Dante Moore game, and they do have to Throw it. I still think that advantage goes to Oregon.
Ryan Rosillo
I went Ohio State. Miami is the easiest one for me to pick.
Danny Cannell
Which way?
Mike Sando
Because I.
Danny Cannell
This game has thrown me for an absolute loop because I get. If you pick Ohio State, but I have no idea where they're getting the nine and a half point spread on this one. I think Miami is a really good football team who has a really good offensive and defensive line. I think there's a massive. I think there's also. They have really good weapons and Malachi, Tony and CJ Daniels and they just found a running game in Mark Fletcher where I can could see a very similar game that unfold in the Big Ten championship game unfold with these two teams. A lot of defense, you know, points at a premium. And if Indiana was able to get to Julian, saying five times confuse him, I just.
Ryan Rosillo
Are.
Danny Cannell
Is Ohio State's offensive line issues fixed? Have they fixed that problem? Maybe, maybe they've made some adjustments. Maybe they'll give him some tight end help. But I still think when you look at Ruben Bane, Akeem Mezador, they could be problematic for Ohio State.
Ryan Rosillo
Ohio State gave up six sacks through 12 regular season games. And then to your point, five in the Indiana game. And I was talking to somebody else that was there for the game and they're like, well, Ohio State's game plan absolutely sucked. And you're just like, okay, but at what point do you look at Ohio State in that game? I mean, the rushing numbers are thrown off because of all the sand sacks, but like, they ran it for 2.2 yards per carry against Indiana. So you think there's similarities between Indiana's front and. Well, the thing is, it's crazy. It's like you're not looking at Miami's front going, oh, this underdog group here, there's probably higher profile. There isn't. I mean, there is more high profile guys with Miami's front than there are with Indiana's. I just was so impressed with the way, not only, you know, look the way Indiana's played all season long, but it was pretty clear. And I keep bringing this up, but on the third and short, the third one, the fourth one, when they had those decisions to make at that point, like, Ryan Day did not like his team in that matchup. And you could tell by the play calling. So I think the rest of it is that, like, I, I'm not surprised Miami beat A and M. Okay. And that had more to do with my feeling about how like Marcel Reed, I thought was like, incredibly hyped. Up all season long, it was like, hey, who's the quarterback on the best SEC team that's still undefeated? Okay, we'll make him a Heisman finalist. And I'm thinking to myself, as I see the odds, I'm like, what are you guys watching? So to have Miami go down and get that game, have Reed make the mistakes, but, I mean, Tony's the MVP of that game. He completely changes that game on two plays. But I still kind of was like, so I'm going to pick Carson Beck to beat. Like, I'm going to. I'm going to watch this game and then pick this team to then beat Ohio State. Even though, you know, tougher challenge going on the road at A and M.
Danny Cannell
So I think there's some similarities because I liked Miami, too. In that game. When you looked at Texas A and M schedule, they played the bottom half of the sec, the one big test. They beat Notre Dame early in a game where their defense, which is supposed to be awesome, gave up 40 plus points. And then they had their biggest challenge right before was Texas. They go down to Texas. Quality opponent they faced. I think there's some.
Ryan Rosillo
By the way, is it okay to say that AM's defense actually was pretty good this year?
Danny Cannell
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But I think, like, when we're talking about elite best of the best, you know, I. I think there's, like, there's a delineation there where it's fair to say, like, somebody's overrated when it comes to, like, are they top five, like, legit? So Ohio State's defense, clearly one of the best in the country. Their offense was all star, like, incredible. But I do think the schedule, like, the offense against two of the best defenses they faced in Texas, only put up, what, 14 points. And then against Indiana, struggled to score at all. And then, like the middle of their schedule, they didn't really play a lot of great teams, and they dominated a lot of them. And in some of their biggest challenges, they came up short, you know, and beating Texas, that was with Arch Manning, his first game, when clearly he wasn't the same player as he was at the end of the season. I don't want to take away from that. Still a good win. But I just wonder if Ohio State is, I'm going to say overrated, but a little overrated because their talent across the board, like NFL talent. There's gonna be so much NFL talent on this field for both sides. I mean, they have four, maybe five guys on the defensive side of the ball that are probably Going to be first round picks. You know, they've got the best player in the country on both offensive and defense and Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith. But like why couldn't they beat Indiana then? You know, I mean is that was that but and then that might have been a good thing. It might have been a test for them to reveal some of their weaknesses that they go back and fix and they come out and they address their issues and they steamroll Miami. But I, I, I think Miami's going to be a bigger challenge for Ohio State. Like I actually picked an upset here. I picked Miami to win the game. But the thing that makes me most nervous about is the spread is even close. But I think that's a lot of the, the talent edge that goes to Ohio State. But I do think if Carson Beck can and I, I, I did not look into his stats at all from the game against, against Texas A and M because the wind was 30 mile an hour gusts and you could see the impact it had on the kicking game. It was almost impossible to throw and so Miami just shut it down. There were a couple throws that I think he makes where they popped a couple guys open and he just overthrew them. I put those all up to the wind gusts. As long as he doesn't turn the ball over, I think they have a really good chance to be in the fourth quarter.
Ryan Rosillo
So do you have that as your second easiest then or. I mean because I also realized too like sometimes you just want to pick an upset. You know, when you do the job, you're like, you know, let me just.
Danny Cannell
Not go chalk every single game from my second easiest. I'd probably say George Ole Miss. I think Georgia beats Ole Miss. I think that's my second easiest. Like second most confident.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, same for me. Same for me on that one we.
Danny Cannell
Saw and it's kind of me we a lot of these rematches, we saw them already happen once. I know Ole Miss was leading going in the fourth quarter, but I actually think Georgia's defense is better now. Even though it's only five or six weeks later. They've been doing a better job. I feel like Kirby Smart watching what they did well through three quarters, he'll take away what Ole Miss did. Well, you know, I don't, I don't even put much stock in Lane not being there or not. I just think George is the better football team. And Gunner Stockton, I think he'll tear up again the Ole Miss defense the same way he did the first time around.
Ryan Rosillo
First five possessions For Ole Miss in that game, they scored touchdowns and four were long drives. And then there was the 75 yard play. So that's five possessions, 35 points for Ole Miss against Georgia's defense. You want to talk about impossible things that would happen over the course of a college football season, like, that's not happening again. I can't believe going back to that game last night and thinking, like, they just gashed Georgia like this. And I think the Georgia story, at least on defense, has been like two different things because it's, what do you expect from Stockton? And usually you shouldn't expect too much. It's like, is this running game actually this good? But if it's Georgia. But I expect by the time October, November rolls around, there's three guys in that front that are like, okay, well, this guy's the next guy. And there's probably a couple guys from the secondary I like better than even the guys up front. But watching them collectively, like, you can go pick any of the games towards the end of the year. And I know no one, like, feels good about Georgia after the Georgia Tech game because the offense couldn't do anything. But if you watch them defensively against what I think is, you know, a good, decent Tech team, even though they lost their bowl game. Wait, yeah, they, they, they blow that one to byu. I think this Georgia defense is starting to look more like Georgia. So when I, when I combine, like, what happened in the first game and, you know, it's, it feels a little unfair to say, like, hey, Stockton will do that again, but then say, well, Ole Miss won't do that again. I feel way more confident saying Ole Miss is not going to be able to score 35 points on their first five touches of the football against Georgia.
Danny Cannell
Totally agree. I do think Gunner Stockton I do think you can count on to play big in these games. I mean, some of their bigger games on the bigger stages have been sort of when he's played the best, you know, he had the four, four touchdowns against Texas, four against Ole Miss, Alabama, he hit the one, the wide receiver dropped, the touchdown that would have put him ahead in the second half, probably won him the game. He reminds me a ton of Stetson Bennett. I know he probably doesn't want to be compared to just another white quarterback who looks like he's off the intramural field, you know, from a, you know, fraternity league. But he doesn't have the best physical skill set. And yet he's stepped up and proven to be a gamer. He gets a lot of hitting Yards too, with his legs. It's not pretty, but he's. He can scramble around some too.
Ryan Rosillo
His season high on yards. Tennessee 304 in that overtime game where he still had the best throw, I think of his entire season on that fourth down or at that point, because you could tell like Herb street, the way he was talking about Stockton throughout the course of the game, it's like, yeah, you know, he's just basically telling you what the coaches are saying that he needs to be better at. And it's like you can't just tuck the ball and run when you don't like the first thing you see the entire time. And so it felt like we were like, okay, we're getting the full fully formed version of Stockton. And then that didn't really happen. He didn't carry over through the rest of the season, but his second highest total was against Ole Miss. He was really clean the entire day. And that opposing yards per play number, I'm going to run through all the playoff teams. So Ohio State was number one in the country with that. Texas Tech was number two. This is the James Madison number, by the way, where they were four before the Oregon game. Oregon's fifth, Miami seventh, Indiana's 14th, Georgia's 20th, Bama's 26th. Ole Miss is 51st.
Danny Cannell
That's where I think Georgia can just score. It will on him, you know, Kewan Lacey. I don't. He wasn't able to run it against him the first time around.
Ryan Rosillo
31 yards. Yeah, but I mean, you can't really knock their offense in that game. But.
Danny Cannell
Right, right. But I mean, Georgia, didn't they not get stopped at all? Didn't they have like. Didn't they have every drive? Didn't they score?
Ryan Rosillo
I don't think they ever punted.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, right, right. And I would expect more of the same. That one probably would be the biggest upset. Like if we're talking about surprises. Most confident. If Ole Miss beats Georgia, that would be the biggest surprise of the weekend.
Ryan Rosillo
So it sounds like you're more. See, that's why I'm shocked that you had Texas Tech and Oregon as a more confident selection over Georgia Ole Miss, because I. Last night when I was sitting there, like, who cares? I mean, it's not like it was super intense and it kept me up all night, but I was. I probably as I started making the case, as we've just made the case, it's like it sounds like both guys are way more on Georgia than any of the other games.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, I was reevaluating reassessing. I might re rank them.
Ryan Rosillo
Re rank it at the end of it.
Danny Cannell
I just, I'm excited. I'm going to the Orange bowl, so I'm going to be there. I picked Oregon to win the national championship. So I'm like very bullish on Oregon.
Ryan Rosillo
But.
Danny Cannell
But if you had me put the most amount of money on a game this weekend, I probably put it on Georgia Moneyline.
Ryan Rosillo
All right. So I had Iubama third.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, I could buy that. I think that game could go either way. I like Indiana. I am not certain. And man, it got a little uncomfortable with me and Dusty this week on the radio because I said Oklahoma was a little bit overrated. He did not like that. He accused me of not watching any film so I had to remind him of who's had better record and picks. Got a little bit uncomfortable. It got a little uncomfortable.
Ryan Rosillo
But he accused you of not putting in the hours.
Danny Cannell
I know, I know. It's kind of.
Ryan Rosillo
Does he not know that you had a fully. Like the New York Giants installed a video system when you were, you were a second year guy figuring it out, right?
Danny Cannell
Yeah, exactly. I took that thing home. It's a good thing they didn't have a test on what was on those tapes. No, I do not think like, I do not think Alabama's problems are fixed because of a win against Oklahoma. And I do think it was a great comeback. Coming down from 17 down, Ty Simpson made some big throws. Defense, you know, comes up big with a big, with a big pick six, which was maybe one of the worst throws we've seen and like worst decisions we've seen from John Mateer. I mean that's, that's basic day one stuff for him not to recognize they're dropping out. It is not a blitz. The route should convert to a fade and he just throws it right to the stop. Route was supposed to be. And you just gifted them that one. So like, I don't think Alabama's defense is all that because they stopped Oklahoma's offense with a quarterback who on the season was 12 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. So I still think I'm worried that Alabama could be the team we saw against Georgia and the SEC championship game, the one we saw struggled to beat Auburn. And I think Indiana is a really good football team. Stephen Daley does concern me. One of their best, you know, rushers, he was leading in tackles for loss, leading in sacks. He's a really good player. I just think they're really good. I still think it takes people a hard time to look at the talent that they've got on this team that they hit in the portal. I mean, they went out and addressed a lot of those issues this offseason, and I think that's why they were able to beat Ohio State. I think that was fluky. They physically went toe to toe with Ohio State and withstood the challenge and came out on top.
Ryan Rosillo
Bama, we know they can't run the football. And then when you're looking at Oklahoma's defensive numbers, you're like, do you even bother? Like, is a carry even worth it? And they ran it for 28 yards on 25 carries, which I actually thought was pretty good for them, right?
Danny Cannell
Positive.
Ryan Rosillo
It was a good job.
Danny Cannell
Guys like their offensive line, their offensive line is just. I think that's the bigger problem than Jam Miller being healthy or who's been running the ball.
Ryan Rosillo
Totally agree.
Danny Cannell
Has not been that great.
Ryan Rosillo
When you think about them and you watch their handoffs, it's like, okay, I just got the ball and now there's all this traffic like this. Not rarely are you watching any kind of push where you're like, the guy's clean line of scrimmage, three yards. You know, we start getting into those numbers of like. Like how many yards before contact and that kind of stuff. Like, I can't imagine how bad they rank. And if they ranked better than I thought they did, then I would just disagree with the number because you just don't feel like there's this huge push. Even in situations where it's like, all right, we're going to sell out to run block here. So I don't think it's Jam's health. I thought Hill was going to maybe change things around because he's so physical and he's so big. He's 250. That hasn't really been the case, but I love the receivers. And even with this Ryan Williams milk carton part of the season where you're like, what happened to this guy? Lots here. Brooks, that 59 kid, is a stud. I was watching his high school stuff last night because I was trying to get the best pronunciation of his name. And I'm still not 100%. I kind of Constanza there a little bit. But I love Simpson. I love the toughness that Simpson has shown. He knows there's going to be series where they don't block well for him and he feels like he's running around. He's probably going to get hit a lot in this game. But even. Even without knowing what you're getting From Ryan Williams, which, you know, this is somebody who's supposed to be able to flip the entire field. There's still enough in the receiving game and if Cuevas is good to go, you know, not having him in the past, you've been like, all right, well this is a huge problem here because he's been so good at tight end and it just feels like it'll have to be some sort of free for all Simpson and receivers game to put up enough points. But I do like their front more than you do and more than I did in the beginning of the year because the beginning of the year too with Bama, you're like, where's the guy? Like where's. Where's this game record? And there's definitely whether it's Pierre, whoever else you want to pick. I do feel better about Bama's pass rush and some of those guys developing over the course of the year.
Danny Cannell
Agreed. I mean they're not, they're not slouches by any means whatsoever. I do think too one thing that Ty Simpson was doing earlier this season because I remember watching him against Missouri in tight pockets, like guys all around him just delivering the ball perfectly downfield, like down vertical routes.
Ryan Rosillo
The sideline throw that he had late.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, like throwing the ball downfield under duress and then he just kind of lost it. And it started with that Oklahoma game when he had the pick six and then there was the fourth down throw that came up short. It just wasn't a very confident throw. If he has found it and he kind of does get it going and he has that type of performance, then absolutely Bama could, could hang with him and could possibly win the game.
Ryan Rosillo
I saw Mendoza number flying around and when it was so bad that I'm like, no, I shouldn't say it was so bad, but it was based on like production against the worst six teams versus the best six teams. You know, when you really dig into it, you know that kind of stuff. And so if you go with Mendoza against Oregon, Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State, if you're including Penn State, you have to include Illinois because Illinois is good. You know, I know it's maybe a little disappointing with the momentum that they'd had when they played them. Illinois was ninth in the country. And that's why I thought the Iowa game was going to be really interesting for Indiana because it's like, is there going to be some sort of let down here? And it was a really competitive game but. But you can sit there and go, all right, well he has a 104 touchdown interception split and that's with five touchdowns and a clean interception sheet against Illinois in that game. So he lights them up for five. So that means there's a lot of single digit touchdown games there the rest of the way. Cause it's a 23, 2 split on touchdowns interceptions against everybody else. So I was basically seeing like an argument being formed against like hey, do you realize Mendoza like statistically destroys all these bad teams but against the tougher competition. But, but then you start to ask like about his toughness. And if you want to go through the Iowa game where it's a third and 10 touchdown to win that game for 49 yards throw like they, it was, it was, I think it was zero coverage or it was, it was a heavy blitz and it was kind of like one on one. And if he hits the receiver perfectly, he knows he's gone so he makes that throw. I think the mental toughness of responding after the pick six against Oregon, huge, totally calm, like looks like it's not going to be an issue what he had to do in the Penn State game. And then the physical toughness that you referenced when you came on after the Big Ten championship game, as you just did again to get blasted that early in that Ohio State game and you wonder like, oh my God, like is this, like is this Indiana story over? You know, granted they're still going to be in the playoffs, but like is this guy going to get up? You can't question anything about the mental or physical stuff based on everything that I've seen and just laid out for you and the audience here. So even though I've seen that number kind of crafted to tell some version of a story against a tougher competition, I just don't believe it. I don't think that's a fair assessment of who he's been.
Danny Cannell
I mean all you have to do is watch the game against Ohio State when his numbers were very pedestrian. I mean it was 15, 22 for how many yards? Ether for two, 22. One touchdown, one interception. I mean he won him that game, you know, no question. I mean the Becker throws, plays, the touchdown throw to Elijah Surat, the throw to close out the game. You know, he just, he. Yeah, he finds ways to make plays and he doesn't make the big mistake. The other thing too is Indiana is probably one of the more balanced teams out of all these as far as run pass. That's why he didn't throw for 40 touchdowns. And he probably could have put up bigger numbers if they had really Wanted to. They run the football and they're pretty committed to being, you know, a run based team which I think especially in the bigger games when they want to try to control the clock, keep themselves in favorable situations, they don't really care about how much they throw it. They want to be balanced up front. So I think that takes away some of the numbers from, from Mendoza as well.
Ryan Rosillo
So it sounds like we're both picking Indian.
Danny Cannell
I do, I like India in this game.
Ryan Rosillo
So to re rank the confidence rankings here, it appears you are going Georgia Ole Miss over Oregon, Texas Tech.
Danny Cannell
Yeah, I'll keep Oregon. Texas Tech too.
Ryan Rosillo
You keep it too. All right, so I'm Ohio State 1, Georgia Ole Miss to Indiana, Alabama 3. And I really don't think that I'm, I'm doing a Jersey historical thing there as right is like, I don't know, maybe I am. I, you know, that's what's kind of fun about this. Even though the spreads aren't as tight as you would want them to be. But again, we can't get like so spoiled. We're like, what do you want every game to be? 2 and a half points. Like that's just not going to happen.
Danny Cannell
Right.
Ryan Rosillo
Even, even in an older system, you know you had some terrible, terrible. Even with four teams, you'd have one of those first semis be like, oh my God, this game's going to suck.
Danny Cannell
And there's one of these games might be sideways that we don't see happen. It's like it's okay. It happens. Like we always as fans, we want the perfect like game winning field goal or walk off touchdown throw. It's okay if team dominates in sports. It happens.
Ryan Rosillo
If Indiana wins the entire thing, that'll be three different teams from the Big Ten winning national championships.
Danny Cannell
Or Oregon, my pick.
Ryan Rosillo
Oregon, your pick. That'd be. Yeah, there you go. There's four teams in play here.
Danny Cannell
There's a, there's definitely a shift that has taken place and I think the shift that has happened. I think I told you this last time or one of the times we've caught up. The shift that is taking place is the SEC is getting deeper as the teams that were able to spend the most pre nil hoard all the talent like Alabama, Georgia, let's take those two for example. They were always able to. And I talked to Damien Harris who I work with all the time about this because they used to have like when you looked at his running back room or you looked at the wide receiver room, it was so deep because you had three or four first round guys that were juniors and seniors, but then you stashed a couple, you know, four and five stars who were eventually going to be there on the depth chart. They were freshmen or sophomores. Well, now those freshmen and sophomores either aren't going in the first place because they have an opportunity to make money somewhere else. And then even worse, like if you have them there for a year, you're. There's zero chance you're going to be able to keep all of them if there's two or three. And you're probably going to lose one or two to another team in the sec. So you're not able to be as dominant with as much depth. So the, the talent at the top that's always been so strong for the sec, which has been able to dominate, win championships, it's spreading throughout the entirety of the sec. And I do think the SEC is still way more at the forefront of pressing the envelope with the rev share and nil go and what's. Well, who, what. Like no one is paying attention to that in the sec. And I do think outside and I don't think in the, in the Big Ten, I think there's a couple. I think Ohio State, I think Oregon, you know, Michigan, the top teams there are still spending more than everybody else. And so they're able to hoard more of the talent and keep it there then. Because the rest of the Big Ten isn't really trying yet. I think they're going to. I think you're starting to see that. And I think Indiana is a good example of somebody who has tried and it's worked. Michigan State just got a $400 million check, you know, and they're bringing in Pat Fitzgerald. Like, they clearly want to be more competitive. I think it's just taking longer for the talent to, to siphon through the rest of the Big Ten because the other teams are still playing catch up at the bottom tier.
Ryan Rosillo
I think we actually agree for the first time in a while here because my.
Danny Cannell
So the Big Ten rules college football is what you're saying?
Ryan Rosillo
No, but that's what's going to happen. I mean, look, it already happened after Ohio State won it last year. Like, I was seeing people that I respect their work, but I also like wonder if the clip, you know, when it's like, it's almost like the new Heisel Louisiana Times, the monopoly is over.
Danny Cannell
Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
You know, it's just. There's something to be said if you're a college football writer and you're just like the SEC dominance is done and like people are going to be psyched to read that or they're going to be so mad they're going to hate read it. And when I think back to like this, this whole year, you know, this is, this has been a year now where I'm like, okay, I know there's all these SEC teams that are ranked, but. And I think they were deserving the ranking. I'm fine with the playoff committee stuff. We all hate the Notre Dame decision. It was a perfect storm of events for that to happen. And ultimately the head to head ended up being something that, you know, was something the committee was like, we can't do this. But as far as title contenders, like, it's, it's not, it's not been the same. And I think, you know, whether it was the Michigan, Alabama game, I'm like, did I like Alabama better then? Well, sure, you know, Saban's there, but I didn't like Milroe. I like Simpson a hundred times more than Milroe, but it was more complete team. So when I think back to like the last couple years, it's like these contenders from the sec, you know, technically Texas last year obviously, because it's real. And then Georgia having to go through the quarterback change that they made and you're like, yeah, these teams are all right. You know, they're good teams, but I don't know if they're scaring the shit out of you. And that was always. The thing is that these teams were normally. And like there would be that non conference game week one and you would go, did you see what Georgia did to Oregon? Like, are you kidding me? Or LSU against Oregon. Alabama had that Michigan game that we all went to in Texas years ago. We were like, this is horrifying. So that feels different. I think it is different. I think it is very clearly different. But I'm preparing myself and I don't know if you'll mean it earnestly. And I don't know if anyone covering it will be like, hey, it is. Because there's been such a demand of. It has to be over. It has to be over. I want it to be over so bad that if you have a third Big Ten team win. And that was always my argument with the SEC is like, how many other conferences could have four teams win a national championship for seven straight years? And like we're arguing about this and now like Ohio State, you know, look, they might win this whole thing if Indiana wins it, if Oregon wins it. I think For a lot of the season, I felt like. Like, Big Ten had the three best contenders. So if you're talking about, like, what does best conference actually mean? Like, that's a really hard thing to ignore. Even if it really frustrates me where there'd be certain SEC and Big Ten schedules where I'm like, do you realize how ridiculously different the back half of these schedules are, which you've alluded to here as we've been talking about it? Yeah.
Danny Cannell
And as somebody who just wants to see good, like, good college football, I want to see the Big Ten become more like the sec, where you don't have to watch. I want that blowout Rutgers or Maryland or whoever it is, you know, Like, I want to see the bottom of the Big Ten get better and see some of, like. Because what's interesting is we were talking about. You were saying one of those SEC teams would annihilate everybody. That was supposed to be Ohio State going into the Big Ten championship game. It was like, is it Ohio State or the field? They look unbeatable. They brought and come down to earth a little bit, but they are sort of that type of team that has so many draft picks, so much talent on their roster. But ultimately, I want to see the Big Ten, you know, start to get deeper so we can get more competitive games in the regular season. We get better, Matt. I mean, some CBS has the Big Ten contract, and trust me, there's a lot of weekends when it's. This is the best game that we can get, and there's the third pick, and it's already down to a. Was it Penn State, ucla? One of the week? You know, it was just.
Ryan Rosillo
Well, that was. That was like the Black Friday game where it was. It was Indiana, Purdue on NBC. And you're like, all right, well, I realize you guys have the game of games here for this conference, but, like, that's. That's your Friday night game. Because I don't know how anybody who's totally fair and reasonable about this stuff is like, when you looked at the SEC package of all those games over that weekend, you're like, this weekend's absolutely loaded with awesome games. And the Big Ten had. They had two. Because I think it was. Was it Oregon, Washington, too, as well? So there was at least like two games that I was excited about with that conference, but I was like, that's a marquee Friday night Black Friday. People are at home. Kind of like this malaise of the first holiday weekend before the big holiday week of Christmas and New year's and all that kind of stuff and you're like, that's the third game that you have to choose from there. So I hope it's deeper. I hope it ends up being as competitive as the sec. But it sounds like what I'm learning from this conclusion is that you now retroactively go back and realize a lot of your criticism of the SEC's dominance was maybe misguided.
Danny Cannell
No, never. Because I do remember that one. I think it was the 2016 bowl season when it was just a disaster for the sec and they actually, the SEC did destroy bowls because they were the ones that came up with we didn't care. So now no one cares and it doesn't matter. And they have player opt outs.
Ryan Rosillo
And so everyone's kind of like Florida State that year.
Mike Sando
That's right.
Danny Cannell
That is true.
Ryan Rosillo
That was. That bowl season for you was.
Danny Cannell
That was fun.
Ryan Rosillo
It was like your Academy Award speech. It was like, hey, he finally got one.
Danny Cannell
I just remember coming into the studio like on cloud nine.
Ryan Rosillo
Van Pelt apologized to you, I think. And I didn't, I wouldn't. I was, I went like line by line through every single game and I was like, this is a dead cat bounce. I was like, I'm not apologizing to you at all.
Danny Cannell
The next thing to watch out for, keep an eye on this, because this is a story that I don't think enough people are paying attention to. The Rev share and the nil go the College Sports Commission. If they don't do anything, teams are going to keep. That's why we're seeing these record setting nil deals. And some schools are still trying to play by the rules and like submit everything and do it right. Those schools are going to be left behind.
Ryan Rosillo
I love Stu Mandel's piece on the athletic this past weekend. It was, it was awesome. It went through the whole thing. And by the way, I would tell like the nil people out there year don't charge the kids 20%.
Danny Cannell
Right?
Ryan Rosillo
You know, like they're ripping them off. It's for the kids, right? It's for the kids. This is, this is great, this new system. They can finally dig in. So help the kids out and don't charge them 20% as if it's some sort of marketing deal where you're already making a percentage off of the salary part of it. Because that's kind of the construction of how like player stuff. And granted a lot of player stuff's like 3 or 4% because they have unions and they have people arguing with this stuff. So I would ask, like, like the people that were on the nil side, like, why are you taking 20% from these kids if you know it's a great opportunity for these kids? You know, maybe just make a 10%.
Danny Cannell
Yep.
Ryan Rosillo
Or five.
Danny Cannell
They are just making too much money.
Ryan Rosillo
All right, Danny, you're the best. Enjoy the bowl games and we will talk to you soon.
Danny Cannell
All right, man. See you.
Ryan Rosillo
It's the holidays, y'. All. And there's nowhere with more comfort, warmth, and great last minute gifts that at Cracker Barrel, I'm all about their cinnamon swirl French toast right now. It's a gift all its own. But yes, they have more clothing, candy, and home decor for everyone on your list. Have you even started Find all the more holiday joys only at Cracker Barrel.
Danny Cannell
You want details? Bye.
Kyle
I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.
Ryan Rosillo
What's up?
Danny Cannell
I have a ridiculous house in the south fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible.
Ryan Rosillo
Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. The email address IsLife Advice rrmail.com. we've got Ceruti, We've got Kyle. I think Tom will ever jump on kind of like an out of nowhere war gone thing. I don't know if Tom can pull up a camera and say hello, but I just. You never know. You never know what kind of resources you're not mining. I could, but we don't have the graphics for the four shot.
Tom
All right, next time.
Ryan Rosillo
That's Tom, just the voice of.
Tom
Wait, Kyle, we can't even hear you right now.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, Kyle's mic doesn't work, so that actually worked out well.
Tom
He's just talking.
Kyle
God, I've been talking the whole time. What a great start.
Tom
There we go.
Ryan Rosillo
How are you doing?
Mike Sando
Great.
Kyle
Great holiday.
Ryan Rosillo
How about you? I went viral, which was.
Kyle
Yeah, you knew you were doing that, though. You knew that was gonna hit well.
Ryan Rosillo
Then the next day, I was like, how do I. I was like, where's that woman with the grapes? Like, I'll post that or something. Like, I was just trying to. I was trying to figure out a way to keep the momentum going. When you go viral like that, there's all this pressure on you. Like, what's next? What's next for the big guy? And I just. I couldn't. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't find a great video.
Tom
Congrats on your 15 minutes, I guess.
Danny Cannell
Yeah.
Kyle
I've watched that clip a lot of times. Your clip, not the grape one. It's just still a good watch. Still hitting, as they say.
Tom
That was like a Shaq dunk, too. Like, legs out, you know, it is like a Sha up on the rim. It really was.
Ryan Rosillo
There's talks of, like, the next T shirt or the next item, because.
Kyle
Oh, man, just the silhouette.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. The RSLO hoodie is not for everybody, which I fully understand. But, look, the Legends guys are my guys. I'm an investor. So we were like, hey, the first thing, we want to make sure we do it this way or whatever, because that's something we'd made in the past. And that model shoot that I had done at my house in front of the exposed concrete, people love that picture. I thought it looked really good. So I don't know. I mean, you don't post it, so that was actually at that guy's house. So the founder of Legends invited me over Christmas Eve, did a big dinner with his family. And so it was his kids. It was his nieces. And they have a full turf backyard, Just activity fest. Lacrosse nets, hockey sticks, and then an adult adjustable hoop with a breakaway rim. But they were all mini balls, so that's all we had to go on. And so his son Cam, who actually is a model.
Tom
No big deal.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. And bd, but he doesn't carry himself like one. That's what I love about him.
Tom
It's good to know.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, he's a sick athlete. Sick athlete. So how old is he? I think he's seven. We've hung out a few times. We've gone boating together, went to a luxury box together. So, you know, Cam and I, we don't hang out all the time, but I always like to feel like there's something.
Tom
Yeah, he's got a lot of stuff going on.
Ryan Rosillo
I love that that video ended with.
Kyle
Him being like, hey, he can't do that.
Ryan Rosillo
That was awesome. I think that was her. Are you sure?
Kyle
Somebody said it. I mean, I was more focused on the dunk than the what happened after.
Ryan Rosillo
But so, yeah, I played one on two. It was actually a tight game, and so I was able to dunk. And then I posted it with skating from the Peanuts Christmas album, which is still, I think, one of my favorite songs of all time. Vince Garaldi. That's the brushes. They use a lot of jazz drumming, Kyle. They don't. They use this all the time.
Kyle
You are a freaking onion Layers dude.
Ryan Rosillo
But there was a lot of criticism of the handle.
Tom
Saw it.
Ryan Rosillo
Yep. Went at a couple people. But yeah.
Tom
Got your STP on.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I did a little bit. A little bit.
Tom
I will say watching that, did it cross my mind, like, what is the limit of like how many kids, 7 year olds could you beat in one off on one on how many? What's the number?
Ryan Rosillo
You know, I could have handled a.
Tom
Third, but like you weren't. Like if you could really, like you didn't know these people. Like consequences didn't matter. Like you could be physical. Like is 1 on 107 year olds realistic?
Ryan Rosillo
If I wanted it bad enough.
Kyle
Full court.
Ryan Rosillo
But if they start passing it around, like 7 year olds just are not designing stuff. Like they didn't set many screens. Like if they had set a couple screens, then maybe there's some more layups for him there. They're in love with threes because of Steph. So I knew as long as I could rebound, I probably had a pretty good chance. But the mini ball, a deflated mini ball on the turf in the rain, was a little tough. It's probably hard.
Tom
Yeah. Really test your skills.
Ryan Rosillo
So, yeah, it went viral. And then Christmas Day, I was asked, do you want to go lift with Lane Kiffin? And I was like. I said, I'm around usually. I'll probably want a break from the five NBA games and the three NFL games. So I'll do it. I was like, I'm in. And then the guy hit me back up. He's like, I haven't heard from Lane. So that was actually going to be my Christmas. Basketball, football. I made some steak tips and then lifting with Lane Kiffin.
Tom
Did you see Lane, that video of Lane speaking of going viral, didn't he bring a shopping the actual. What is it? Even the basket home. He brought it. He just didn't know that you weren't supposed to bring that home. Which is just an incredible look into how many times has Lane Kevin gone shopping in his life?
Mike Sando
Yeah.
Ryan Rosillo
I hope it's not a recruiting violation. Tell me about you guys. Run me, run me through it. Kyle, give me.
Kyle
I was buying gifts for different people this year. I mean, shout out to sports. That was good. Like I just went to like a sports store in the mall and it.
Ryan Rosillo
Was like, oh, just not sports in general.
Kyle
Well, just having genre of shopping. You know, I've got in laws now that we're seeing. And I was just like, what? What are we doing? It's like jets trash can, boom. Yankees grill set, boom. It was just so great.
Ryan Rosillo
Like sliders.
Kyle
Well, yeah, that was my most proud gift, I think jets trash Chad was, I mean, as on the nose as it gets and honestly, a huge hit at Christmas. When it came out of the rapping paper, everyone loved it. So. But again, just shout out to those sports stores that will just, like, you look for the team of the person, you know, and just. You don't have to think about it too much. It's great. I got a lot of those things. A lot of pat stuff, just like golf balls and tees and, you know, just shout out to the sports for just making gift giving easy for the dudes in your extended family.
Tom
100%. What did I do? We had family over. We did a brunch situation on Christmas, and my sister got married the day after Christmas, so we were in New York City for that.
Ryan Rosillo
Oh, snow. Yeah, Right.
Tom
So we were in.
Ryan Rosillo
I didn't call you till Sunday.
Tom
It was pretty great because the. Originally. So originally the kids were supposed to come. It was like a blizzard that day, too. But then the babysitter fell through, so we didn't have to bring the kids, which was love it. Like, love my sister. But, like, that was the best case scenario. So we actually kind of enjoyed ourselves. Went to a karaoke bar south to Montero. This place is awesome. I talked to this guy, the owner, I think his name is Joe. He had all these boat things on the wall, like pictures of just like different cargo ships. I was asking him about it and he was basically like, well, let me tell you, he started, like in 1930. He's like, that boat. Five guys, man, that boat. There's no cranes, no nothing. He was like, basically calling all the people now that he's building, like, pussies, essentially, soft. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, Great dude. Anyway, sang Wonderwall Radar. But, yeah, it was a great night. Great night. Sister got married, good times. Then drove back the next day.
Kyle
You know, you made me think of something that I'm having to deal with now. Like, when there's like a inclement weather on the weekends, I'm like, what are we doing, man? How bad do you want it? Is this a bad look? Should you be going out to go mess around when we're talking inches of snow? So that's been a whole new thing I've had to contend with. You know, my family, like, you know, wait, where are you going? You know it's going to be like 4 inches today. I'm like, yeah, it's just. I've been wrestling with, like, you know, actually taking the weekend to its fullest potential when there's, you know, a couple Inches of precipitation on the horizon.
Tom
A bar during a snowstorm is awesome, though.
Kyle
Then you got to get home, though.
Tom
Yeah, but if you're. I mean, you're right. Like, if you're in New York City and you could just walk, like, it's perfect. Like, obviously, if you're driving. I don't. We did.
Kyle
Crown jewel problem.
Tom
Don't remember that at all. So. So shout out to the Uber driver who got us home. Probably a little bit hairy, because that was a good time. Yeah. And honestly, weirdly enough, I felt fine the next day. I slept, like, for 12 hours, but I felt fine the next day. No kids. It was great.
Ryan Rosillo
Take me to the Four Seasons.
Tom
Well, you get the blackout shades in the hotel room. And I couldn't have told you if it was 2:00am or 9:00am and. And turned out it was 10:30am that's.
Ryan Rosillo
That Ryan. Ryan Whitney, when we had him on, we'd heard that breakout, and I was like, was that at some other players? Like, no, that was us. He's like, we're in Montreal. And the cab driver was yelling at us. He was like, get out of the cab. We're just throwing our money in there. Like, bring us the Four Seasons. Bring us the Four Seasons. Like, God damn it. Just bring us to the Four Seasons. And the guy's like, finally. He was like, fine. And he drove like, a hundred yards up the street. It was like Four Seasons because he was French and he was, like, trying to. He was trying to help them out. I love that story because sometimes you just got to get home. You don't even care. All right. Yeah, I think that'll do it for the recap. Anybody get a great gift?
Tom
No, but the kid thing is great. My daughter, gosh, she's really into bluey, obviously, as most kids are. And she got this. My grandma gave her, or my mom, her grandmother gave her this hide and seek bluey thing. And you basically hit its nose and it plays this dance mode song. So that's been playing for about. About 48 straight hours. Pretty great. But, you know, it's fun to see her have fun. Yeah.
Kyle
Yeah. I bought super high bounce balls for all my buddy's kids, and they're like, thanks, man, but those are awesome. I just love.
Tom
Nothing is safe in the house.
Kyle
I love a super high bounce ball. And then I got some weathertechs for the Forerunner, and the Forerunner is still my favorite thing that I own. So. Yeah, Big one for you.
Ryan Rosillo
Boy, was it. Do you kind of like being home now and being able to buy Seasonal floor mats.
Kyle
Do I kind of like it?
Ryan Rosillo
Yes, absolutely.
Kyle
Absolutely.
Tom
He's been planning this for years, dude.
Kyle
I mean, I've been plotting.
Ryan Rosillo
This has been a hell of a no. I know you've wanted to go since I met Kyle. Yeah, anything, ever since I've known you. But just every now and then I feel a little left out when I can't. Like, hey, do I want mud floor mats?
Kyle
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Like, why would you do that? Even though Christmas Eve I spent cleaning out a gutter at someone's house, which was fun. That was awesome.
Kyle
Oh, you got roped at. You got conscripted into the gutter cleaning.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, that. Basically, I'm going to sound like a dick when I say it, but yeah. Rental property.
Kyle
Oh, no, I get it now.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. I wasn't just doing somebody a favor, but it was like, nobody was around. And I took it upon myself because I was like, I'm going to be a little handy. Next thing I know, I put my. My boot through a bucket because it was so annoying, because I can't tell if it was designed wrong. I think there might be a pitch issue and more than a drainage issue, but I got in there and cleaned out a year's worth of street debris bare handed. I'm like, if you cut yourself, this is a year's worth of shit that's been on the street, not the full media. I'm just talking, like, dirt and sand and whatever. So. All right. I think I spent too long on that because of the way the taping schedule works today. So let's just dig into it. 611 90, 27 years old. Lift four days a week. The other three days I do cardio or play pickup. Basketball player comp. Is ronda Hollis Jefferson, NBA version, not the 23 FIBA World cup version.
Tom
He Georgetown, right?
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. No. Is he.
Tom
Who am I thinking of?
Ryan Rosillo
Richard Jefferson. Well, I see. Because I'm thinking, was he Arizona?
Tom
He was. Yeah, you're right. Wow. Who am I thinking of? Who is that guy in the Sixers?
Ryan Rosillo
Victor Page?
Tom
No, I'll figure it out. Keep going.
Ryan Rosillo
All right, so we had an email. I closed it out.
Kyle
So to do some basketball player Google searching.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Cause double check, because I was sort of, like, blown away that you were saying Georgetown. Because I'm like, no, now there's a.
Tom
Specific guy I'm thinking of on the Sixers. But hold on. It's going to take me a second, so keep reading.
Ryan Rosillo
Are you talking about the year they were tanking and they had, like, Three Hoyas on the team. Yeah. Was that that center?
Tom
No, it was like a wing. He's like a three point shooter.
Ryan Rosillo
Because whenever anybody like goes, the dumbest thing ever is that a college team could beat an NBA team. I think that, that that Sixers like the peak hinky team because I've gone through it in the past and you go, total minutes of the guys are on this roster and the total minutes that they played in the NBA after they were on the six or sinking roster, that team may have actually lost like one of the Kentucky teams that had five first rounders on it. So. And just an aside. Okay, so back to our guy. Great comp. Rattled us because we screwed that up, right? Hollister Thompson. There you go. There you go.
Tom
I had the Hollis in there.
Ryan Rosillo
Okay, there you go. Great call, man. Yep, I'm single. Doing a self scout for 26. We should do our self scouting reports at some point. Early 26, just update those on the year. But we started our New Year's resolutions December 1st on this show. We'd like to get a month ahead of it. I realize the only girls I date are blonde female women with graduate degrees. Recent example, school nurse, flight instructor, med student, lawyer, nutritionist. I haven't dated a blonde female pastor yet, but God willing that will change. So the guy likes the blondes. I think that's a nice mix of professions. Yeah, flight instructor. That seems very different from school nurse. I don't know, maybe they were. Maybe. I don't know. Context if you want. I'm graduating in June with a master's degree in economics and business law. I have a six figure job lined up after graduation in Scottsdale. I rate myself as a 7 1/2. LinkedIn profile pick attached. But great on a curve because Scottsdale has pro athletes and fitness influencers everywhere you look. Yeah, Jeremy Scott, fucking smoke show. And pretty much any woman with a pulse gets hit on 24, 7 here. So imagine how an attractive, well educated blonde woman is treated. I've had some luck dating here, but nothing long term. Considering my lack of long term success, should I change the the style or the type of woman that I date? Supply and demand principle suggests yes, but is it even possible to change your type? The guy sent in a picture looks like a good looking guy, six, one terrific tie collar little madman look type. So he looks like. I've always joked that Scottsdale, if you're in a rut, go to Scottsdale because it's out of control. And I think there's just a sexual energy to the place that is unlike anywhere else. But it might be older than you. It might be that I wasn't there all the time when I was in my 20s. I'm just telling you if you were a guy where you were prioritizing that maybe you've gotten divorced late 30s, early 40s, and you've got a little bit of coin and you're like, I want to put out a Robert Graham shirt and stand around at Mastro's. You could probably do pretty well for yourself. You seem to one to be a lot younger than that. And you also seem to actually be looking at this as I want to meet somebody that I have a long term thing with. So I think it comes down to back to discussing, which we haven't even discussed yet. Can you actually change your type?
Kyle
The type is like guidelines. I mean, this guy is talking like he's building a 2K character or something. Like, it has to be this. I don't know, it just seems like just because what the type is. Well, no, I've had a couple of friends that were like that and they're so annoying when they talk about their type.
Ryan Rosillo
But can you share some of that annoyance?
Kyle
I've never been. It's usually like, I don't know, I don't even want to get into this muddy water.
Ryan Rosillo
This seems stupid.
Kyle
Why would I even do this? Why would I do this? I'm not doing it. But it's just, let's say the conversations, when I hear about what is acceptable to them is a bit annoying. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm annoyed with this guy, but these are the kind of conversations that I have a shorter fuse with when I'm listening to them.
Ryan Rosillo
That's all.
Tom
I think I had a type when I was younger, but I, I don't know.
Ryan Rosillo
I got older.
Tom
No, no, like I, you know, I think it was. It was obviously like pretty traditional, like nothing crazy. And now I, I don't know.
Ryan Rosillo
Preppy, though.
Tom
Preppy, yeah. You know, two collared shirts on. Five, you know. Yeah, Maybe double one white, one of color. Yep, exactly.
Ryan Rosillo
When's that coming back? Can you bring it back?
Tom
Everything's coming back. Well, Abercrombie's already back, so.
Kyle
Well, you. You were way out in front of that one.
Ryan Rosillo
You were. You. I can't believe you were even working anymore with your absolute. Should have bought more stuff for fun.
Tom
But no, I feel like my taste has changed. But I definitely have two. I have two buddies that I'm thinking Of right now, I could tell you exactly. I could look at a girl and be like, he'd be into that girl. We went on the golf trip, we saw one of them, and I was like, my guy Mike would be 100 into that girl. 100. Now, would she be into him? Probably not, but different story.
Ryan Rosillo
Damn, Mike. Yeah. I mean, I think you can. Like, it sounds like your type. I mean, even though we could sit here and talk about being blonde, and I don't know if, like, Arizona has a higher percentage of blondes. Like, honestly, one of those. Scottsdale. Yeah. Like, if we had to draft hot blonde towns, Scottsdale would go early.
Kyle
I don't have any stats to back it up, but it's just an eye test.
Ryan Rosillo
That's. Yeah. I mean, should you move to Cuba? I don't know. I don't know what to tell you here on this one, but does it have anything to do with blondes and then feeling like you're repeating a mistake? Or does it have way more to do with the fact that you seem to be a little bit more. And I mean this as a compliment, but you really know what you want. You seem to want the relationship to be at a level of maturity that maybe those in your peer group are not ready for. So maybe they're not working out because you keep picking blondes. They're not working out because you're like, hey, this is what I want out of life. And this is. So you're looking at, like, this string of dating and breakups as some sort of failure, when, in fact, you may just not find the person that's aligned with where you're at in your life.
Kyle
So he's not worried that the blonde population of Scottsdale would line up with whatever his stats are that he could maybe catch one?
Ryan Rosillo
Is that.
Kyle
I guess I'm a little confused with what this email is actually about.
Ryan Rosillo
That's also a good observation. It feels like because he's had this string of unsuccessful relationships that he's equating it, like, to it just being these blondes, but they're all from different, like, professions. Like. Yeah. I'm asking if he should ask himself. But they're all successful.
Tom
He had said in there, like, either I date, like, what, people with grad degrees or what was it? Whatever. It was like, is he saying, like, hey, I should date? Just kind of like, I'm not. I'm gonna go stereotypes somebody who put up more shit. The crazier blonde. I. I don't know. Like, I've just, like, it doesn't have to be.
Kyle
Looks only like her bar blondes.
Tom
See what her. Yeah. There are a lot of different varieties of blondes out there.
Ryan Rosillo
You do well in Provo.
Kyle
Still love that line.
Ryan Rosillo
I don't. Look, I, I think guys can change their type, but it just usually means like, hey, I really like blondes. Except for this brunette who's a nine.
Tom
Correct.
Ryan Rosillo
It's like, you know, I'm sorry.
Tom
Yeah, like I wouldn't date prime Kate Beckinsale. I'm only into blondes. Like, it just doesn't really work that way.
Ryan Rosillo
I like darker features.
Kyle
Those are the type of conversations that I have to tell you. I have a buddy who is just like, I would never. I don't care. I don't care. You know what I mean? Those are the type of conversations that.
Ryan Rosillo
I was referring to earlier.
Kyle
Those actually happened.
Ryan Rosillo
So. All right. Did I overreact to my drunk cousin at Christmas gym? Stats? 32 years old, 5' 9, 190. Only real status that I regularly bench. 225 for 12 to 15 reps. All free weights for the lower. You're 190 repping out 225, 12 to 15 times. I'm going to have your back no matter what this email says. That's a great stat. My cousin showed up at my family's Christmas Eve dinner noticeably drunk, acted like a dick. And I've been thinking for days about whether I overreacted to his behavior. Every year my family has a Christmas Eve dinner gathering at my mom's house. About 15 to 20 people, four dogs, smallish house. God, that guy from last week would have freaked out about this. Seating dogs. Right? I want that guy to check in with us. My 35 year old cousin has always been by far the least friendly of the typical family members at this gathering. Usually it's a surprise if he says more than a few words the whole evening. This year he showed up late, clearly drunk. Like couldn't put his sentence together drunk. This led to a series of drunk behaviors throughout the night. Cussing loudly in front of my toddler, kicking a dog and said, well, no one's going to have this guy's back no matter what he is. He's done and saying things like this family multiple times. All would piss me off.
Tom
I'm going to say, you're good, dude. Yeah, what could he have possibly done that we'd be like, actually you went too far guy. Like, if he beat this guy up in the family party with other family members, like thank God nobody else wanted.
Ryan Rosillo
To do it, but you did it, dude. I mean, imagine. Imagine showing up to your family's deal and being like, fuck this.
Tom
Why are you even coming?
Kyle
At that point too teaching the toddler some new words. Yeah, I mean, listen, lasting impact.
Ryan Rosillo
If this is what you're going to pull, don't show up. Later, when I went to the fire we had going on in the back porch to throw some cardboard in it, his dog was laying by my feet. He said, if you step on my dog, I'll fuck you up. Up. My response was, I bet, comma, bitch. He mumbled something else about the family, at which point I put the cardboard down, went inside, told my aunt, his mom, that if he was at the next gathering, we also do Christmas morning breakfast at a different location, I would not be coming. This led to an argument between my aunt and cousin and almost everyone leaving. I've been wondering for days whether I overreacted. Should I just let it go as harmless drunk behavior preventing Christmas Eve drama and potentially future family conflict? I was going to say, like, going into it, you know, I think whether it's your own experience, like, I have a higher tolerance for people fucking up a night, whether it's me regretting fucking up a night or bartending and just being around people fucking up the night all the time. Like, I feel like, hey, you know what? But when you're home, when you're around family and this is the route that you're going to go, you did nothing wrong. And the mom is way more aware of this behavior than your reentry into it around the holidays. So whatever the mom and the cousin were yelling about, and in this case the mom and her son, can you imagine where she is at with this guy? So. So it sounds like if everything you're telling us is true here, you actually handled it pretty well. And yeah, you could have just eaten it and said, whatever, we'll get through tomorrow. It's not going to be that big of a deal. But that argument was going to happen with the mom and this guy. No matter what. It's already happened. So I don't feel like you were the catalyst to this. Maybe in the way that you feel the next day.
Kyle
As a guy who stumbled into a Christmas dinner two, two years ago and regretted it, I'm glad everyone was nice and wasn't like, if he's at the next thing, I'm not going. So when you start throwing food, you weren't an asshole? No, I was a little bit loud in the restaurant.
Danny Cannell
Friendly.
Kyle
Actually, a good time was had by most. A couple people who noticed mentioned it later. But again, I was a little loud in the restaurant, nice restaurant, but again, didn't love that. It's like, you know, you could have just maybe not not showed up there. You might have got that, that point eventually, but you don't show up, up, you know, the first inning like that. So again, I'm just saying, I think, I think that it, the grace is nice when we're talking family. I would have more waited to be like, how did he react to. Was there a little bit of remorse before you start talking to, you know, about family ultimatums that same night? I maybe would have, you know, waited until the next day and be like, if he's doesn't feel any remorse and isn't like, man, I wish I could have that one back then you make a statement like that. But again, I don't think, I think it was probably shocking and it was a terrible time for all and you definitely weren't, you know, wrong for feeling and saying your things. But I think I would have maybe held off on the ultimatum till the guy was back to his normal self and see what he actually felt about it.
Tom
Doesn't it sounds like this is, this is his normal self sounds like this.
Kyle
No, it sounds like his normal self is a little closed off and maybe not the funnest guy around. But I mean, this was, this was a shock.
Tom
Yeah, I don't know, man. Like, Christmas is one of those things where like, just you don't mess with Christmas. Like, if you're like, I don't. You don't want somebody killing the vibe. Especially if you've got a ton of family, there's kids there and this guy is just dog. Like, I would, you know, younger me would probably not do much. I don't know. If my kids were around, I'd be pretty mad about that. You know, kicking the dog is a whole nother thing to the side. I mean, obviously that just tells what kind of person this is deep down. But I think, yeah, I think, I think you kind of handled it well. And yeah, I guess you could have waited till it was done and just say afterwards, hey, you know, is so and so going tomorrow? If not, we're not kind of handing it slightly privately, but like, maybe this guy needed like a kick in the ass to be like, like, stop doing this or either just if you're going to keep doing this, don't come. I'm kind of tired of just like forgiving people who just make bad decisions and changing your plans. And how you want to have a great holiday with your family having to change that to accommodate them. So I kind of like that you put it all out there. I'm sure there's other family members. I mean, maybe not because you didn't bring it up, but I'm sure there are other family members. Like, thank God he did something, because is anybody going to say anything? I've been in a situation where you're at a family thing. You're like, is somebody going to say something? Because this is kind of awkward that nobody does. And it just keeps being. And somebody keeps being enabled to do something, and it just, like, makes things worse. So I thought you kind of handled this with the best care that you possibly could have without being, like, a huge ass. And, you know, it's a legitimate ultimatum to give. So I think. I think, you know, you might be uncomfortable about it, but, like, somebody at some point had to do this, and I think your family's probably going to be glad that you did it at some point.
Ryan Rosillo
I think that covers it. I check in with Tom, but we don't have the graphics for it.
Tom
Next time.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, maybe next time we'll introduce Tom to the audience here. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Tom. Thanks to Steve. That'll do it for the show today. We will be back on. We'll do what, like a recap Thursday night? Right?
Tom
We're gonna go Friday morning.
Ryan Rosillo
Well, all of it's gonna be Friday morning. Okay.
Mike Sando
All right.
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. So we wanted to just let everybody know what the schedule is. We'll have another episode this week, so make sure you subscribe. And check out the Ryan Rossillo Show, Barstool Network.
Mike Sando
Sa.
Date: December 29, 2025
This episode is a packed double feature:
The tone is classic Russillo: analytical, conversational, and occasionally irreverent, with some strong opinions, deep dives, and a few laughs. The “Life Advice” segment with Ceruti and Kyle follows, focusing on holiday stories and relationship/life quandaries.
with Mike Sando, The Athletic
[Starting at ~20:40]
Russillo:
"I just don't think quarterback contracts are all that big of a deal. One, because the cap goes up almost 10% every single year... The cap can be manipulated. If you have cash, the cap matters way less." [24:27]
[25:24–29:46]
“I’ve got four guys in that bucket… Bills aren’t taking four ones and an elite starter for Josh Allen, correct?”
— Mike Sando [25:39]
These are the only QBs you’d get “four 1st-rounders and an elite starter” offers for.
Debate: Would you really take Allen over Mahomes?
Sando leans Allen ("such a physical beast… hasn’t had a significant injury"), Russillo stresses historically it’s never been a debate but admits this year the gap closed due to KC’s struggles. [29:07–31:29]
Burrow is included due to talent but docked slightly for injuries and age (late college entry).
[33:17–35:19]
Drake Maye’s rookie contract makes him unusually valuable—“if you think he’ll keep this up.”
Lamar: Talent undeniable, but issues flagged:
- Longevity concerns (athleticism will fade)
- No agent, communication headaches
- Weird production swings: “His two great seasons... the others are about 17th out of 40 QBs.” – Sando [34:43]
[35:30–40:54]
These are the guys that would fetch two firsts and more. High upside, ascending, still on team-friendly deals (except Love, whose status is still polarizing).
Russillo: “Stroud seems just completely out of the day-to-day consciousness” [39:19]
[41:34–46:18]
All have value, but each comes with a “yeah, but”:
[47:20–54:14]
Two proven but older/pricey veterans, two intriguing young guys. Also in flux due to team context and contract status.
“I think you could win with Dak... just not as good as Stafford, but right group, right team, maybe.”
— Mike Sando [48:54]
Baker Mayfield, JJ McCarthy, and Michael Penix Jr. are placed just below here.
[54:57–56:46]
[57:29–60:04]
“Who’s acquiring Kyler Murray?”
— Russillo [58:11]
with Danny Kanell
[61:04 onward]
Danny Kanell: Oregon over Texas Tech
“I like Oregon a lot. They’re getting healthy at the right time… their schedule and some of their wins are tougher than people realize.” [62:22]
➔ Russillo: “That’s my least confident pick!” [63:38]
Both have Georgia over Ole Miss #2
Ohio State vs Miami
Indiana vs Alabama
[103:15 onward]
A fast-paced segment with Russillo, Ceruti, Kyle, and Tom swapping Christmas stories (one about going viral dunking on a kid), rapid-fire advice, and two listener emails:
This is a football nerd’s dream episode: a deep, honest evaluation of quarterback value from the front-office POV, a sharp dissection of top College Football Playoff games, and the usual Russillo crew banter to close out. The blend of hard analysis and locker-room personality makes for highly listenable, worthwhile sports radio.