The volume, what is going on every buddy, Josh Middlecoff three and our podcast.

Hopefully everyone is doing well.

As we headed into Thursday night, Mike Tomlin taking on Flacco and the Baltimore I mean the Cleveland, the Cincinnati Bengals, his third AFC North team.

Tomlin's not happy about it.

Do you like the Steelers a night?

And we'll get into something Rogers said earlier that just made me shake my head, as well as a couple of things I want to hit on.

I want to defend two a little bit.

And uh, I think we always think the grass is going to be greener on the other side.

And I read an article today that went, before you fire your coach, I just want you to realize the coaching candidates in this cycle.

One is Mike McCarthy, who might be the best.

Like that's it's not exactly Bill Walsh, you know, sitting out there on the open market.

So we'll dive into some football stuff and yeah, we'll also be live after the Thursday night game, like we after the Sunday night game, like we after the Monday night games.

I guess we got another doubleheader, So buckle up.

A lot of football going on and let's enjoy it.

But I do want to start with Tua because I'm at the point now where I'm going to defend him in this situation.

Listen, we know who he is as a player, right, No one's ever compared him to Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers in his prime.

Like he's a middle of the road quarterback that can play well in decent weather, struggles in bad weather, and it's going to turn the ball over some times because he has not the greatest arm, but he's better than you know, ten to fifteen quarterbacks on a weekly basis if the weather's on his side.

But the other day when he said his comments about the players only meeting, people freaked out and said he was throwing people under the bus.

One player's only meetings in football are kind of stupid, given that you're at the facility Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday for probably a combined seventy hours.

The amount of time, especially like a player's only meeting typically is like offensive guys or defensive guys.

You're around your guys constantly in the meeting room, in the team meeting room, in the cafeteria, on the practice field, like your entire life is is a player only meeting just the position coaches are there some of the time, or strength and conditioning coach are there some of the time.

You're constantly talking to your teammates.

It's kind of stupid when you really think about it.

And the other thing is football parallels the military.

Not in the sense that you can die.

I mean, technically you could die playing football, but it's not life or death like it would be for an Army ranger or a Navy seal or you know, someone in the Air Force.

But in terms of the hierarchy, you know, the head coach is the boss and everyone knows it, and a good organization once the season starts, knows that he's the head of the snake.

And I think when you look at this dolphin situation, Mike told you last year, he's like, I can't get people to stop showing up late.

Fines do not work.

It's like, this thing's done.

It's over, so you can run it back.

But the moment the head coach acknowledges people will not show up to his team meetings on time, it's never gonna function.

And the reason guys aren't showing up to the team meeting on time is because my buddies that are scouts right now on the road, they say they spend way more of their time accumulating information on the player off the field, his wiring, his character, all the intangibles than they do sitting there breaking down tape of the player.

Obviously, you want to get the player right, but when you're dealing with first second day picks, most guys can play.

The reason a lot of them fail isn't because they're not strong enough.

Isn't because they're not fast enough.

Not saying that doesn't happen a lot of the time.

It's the intangible stuff, and that's on the general manager to draft and sign the right type players in your building.

Most guys are not Peyton Manning.

Most guys are not Troy Aikman.

They can mf every single player, unfazed, lead the group to the promised land.

Whether a coach is around or he's not around.

Most guys need to be led.

There's a reason like Seal Team six doesn't set the mission.

Someone does above their head and they are just tasked with executing it.

It's no different than a football team like Patrick Mahomes doesn't need to rally the troops seven days a week.

That's what they pay Andy Reid to do.

And like the Dolphins, in a lot of these franchises, I think we have a point.

And it's almost a problem because these owners are so flush with cash they can fire and hire people without hesitation anymore.

Paying a guy five ten, twenty million dollars to go away is pocket change to mirror you.

And it's created a culture because these people have no they don't speak football, they don't understand football.

It's why business men for organizations that are on their second or third generations, like Kevin Warren with the Bears, like this president with the Titans, can finagle their way in Rich McKay with Arthur Blank and have incredible amount of power, right because those people speak numbers.

Those people speak business what the owner speaks, and the owner has no clue about football.

And if they can fool that owner and thinking they know a lot about football, they can take control of the operation.

And that's what's happening all over the league.

And Steven Ross and his franchise feels like a rudderless ship out there in the Atlantic Ocean, which is kind of warm and nice, and you know, you got some you know, string bikinis walking around the beaches.

But this football team.

Think God Mario resurrected the college team, because this team is just a joke and it's all falling onto a who I'm not trying to act.

And maybe there's been some people online saying he's been late to meetings in his past.

I don't know.

I'm not there, but this doesn't all fall on him.

He's just attempting to do whatever he can because no one else will.

I do think we got to be really careful this offseason about just like John Harbaugh is a good example.

Let's say the Ravens end up with five six wins and just have a season from hell.

There is going to be a large contingent of people saying fire him.

I did this last year with Mike Tomlin.

I said, listen, no one with a brain would say Mike Tomlin is a bad coach.

But has his time run out in Pittsburgh?

Does his message run flat?

And we can debate whether that actually happened or not.

Obviously this season's going pretty well, But like there are candidate, there's a specific candidate you can resurrect and get your offense into the modern world.

Ben Johnson one of the best OC candidates in recent memory.

And you could argue Vrabel is just a version of Tomlin, So that would be replacing one guy kind of with the same guy, but maybe gave a fresh message.

I was just open to the possibility.

Clearly the Steelers were not well.

Kind of a similar situation here in Baltimore.

It's like, hey, has his message, Ran Flatten?

Did he miss his window?

If this season continues to go really bad, let's get rid of John Harbaugh and hire Mike McCarthy.

Arthur Smith.

I love him, but Matt Naggie like the crop of coaches unlike college football, like Penn State is going to go all in, probably for Kurt Signetti or Matt Rule, a guy that played linebacker for them and has one at countless schools.

When Florida fires Billy Napier, they're probably gonna go after Lane Kiffen, a guy who is setting records for the amount of wins in a short period of time at a program that's never good.

Ole Miss Like, there are real good candidates in college football.

Dude to South Florida, the dude to Tulane obviously Matt Campbell, there are legitimate candidates.

If you're a big school to go land a guy.

Whether you dominate and win the press conference or not, the resume speaks for itself on a lot of these guys.

Not necessarily true when it comes to the NFL.

And when I looked at this list that the Athletic put out, Mike McCarthy was by far the best candidate.

And let me see this, I don't think he's a terrible candidate.

He can coach quarterbacks, he can be the offensive coordinator while being the head coach, and he's proved he can win a lot of games in the regular season.

Now over the long period of time now since the early twenty tens, his resume in the playoffs hasn't been that great.

Lost some big time games that he was favored to win, even in Dallas twice, lost at home in the first round.

The agreement Packers and Sanfrans go forty nine ers pre devastating losses.

Right, so he leaves a little something to be desired.

You could argue, what the hell's the difference between McCarthy and Harrball and Tomlin and some of these like, if you're gonna you might as well just keep the guy that you feel comfortable with.

But that's what we're dealing with here, and I think it's universal.

Get rid of this guy and some of these guys like Mike McDaniel.

Obviously you're gonna fire him, Zach Taylor, if you keep losing, it's gonna get fired.

But you fire Brian Callahan, who's taking that job?

You were just paying them.

And listen, most people in society would give their left, you know what, to make three million dollars a year if you're a head coach in the National Football League.

I mean, what's the average what's the average rate?

Nine million dollars.

If you average it out, there are ten probably plus guys making over thirteen million dollars.

How many people in college football make seven to eight, let alone nine or ten.

So when you pay someone like that, you're showing we don't think he's any good.

You'd be like, well, it's just negotiation, it's just leverage.

Well, it's just showing you you're getting a guy that has no options and that you won't hesitate to fire in a couple of years because it won't be you know, very cost prohibitive in terms of you losing money.

He's like, whatever, give them a couple of million to see you later.

Well, it's like, if you're the Titans, you have this young quarterback, like, why don't you just call Steve sar Keys or Lane Kiffin or something.

But those guys wouldn't even accept your phone call.

They make three or four x what you were just paying the head coach that you just fired.

And guess who they answer to Nobody, they're the boss.

So you can't even go down that road.

When I was with Philly and they fired Andy Reid, they have their sight set on two guys.

First, they went after Bill O'Brien at Penn State.

He turned them down, he'd only been there a year.

And then they got Chip Kelly, a guy that looking back, not a great hire, but at the time everyone wanted.

So I just think you look around this class, it's not great.

There does not seem to be a Ben Johnson, some offensive coordinator that's just a shooting star.

There are guys like Joe Brady that, depending on the week you watch him pretty good, pretty bad.

Clint Kobiak a couple of years ago fired.

You know, it's like, this league's weird, and I think all these teams now, they they just are.

There's never been more pressure right to try to win because the amount of money you're guaranteed to make money win or lose.

But if you are a competitive team, it is it's so lucrative to your bottom line.

The aggression from these owners, it's like, well, we just got to upgrade.

Well, and when you upgrade, it's awesome.

You know.

The Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel shocked that worked.

No shit, that was gonna work.

But that's not most of these situations.

I think Arthur Smith's a pretty impressive guy.

His story's pretty cool.

Worked his way up the Titans.

By the end, he was the best offensive coordinator in the league.

But he became a head coach.

Probably not all of his fault left a lot to be desired, you know.

And at the end of the day, when you're the head coach, last offensive coordinator and you're cool with running Desmond Ritter out there, I just don't take you as seriously anymore.

You could argue that Matt Naggi winning some games with Mitch Trubisky that can't complete of like the nine routes on the route tree, like seven of them.

Not that bad, but if I tell you that you you know, the Ravens fired John Harbaugh and hired Matt Naggie, you would be like, what seriously?

So I I just think we got to be very very careful when it comes to these situations.

And listen, some of these guys are gonna get a second opportunity.

And the other thing is when you give a guy a second opportunity, you know he knows that he can handle stuff right because he has sat at the chair where when a guy gets DUI when a guy just disappears from your franchise, like the situation with Josh Simmons right now, I have no inside information that you don't have.

I've just seen that he disappeared, and they know where he is, they don't know when he's coming back.

Guess what.

Andy Reid has experience dealing with situations like that.

Maybe not apples to apples this situation, but he's seen this before a time or two.

So while some coaches would just freak the you know what out, I might as well like what the fuck am I gonna do now?

Instead, Andy can take a deep breath, we can handle it.

We'll figure out.

Here are options, and no one prepares you to do that as an assistant coach or as a coordinator, because that's not your job.

And this gets back to the Tua thing, like Tua asked to act like he's Peyton Manning.

What are you doing?

He has enough trouble just completing the bang eight over the middle of the field.

Can we just have someone else be a leader.

I don't know the head coach, but he's wearing these weird ass capri pants that are up to his knees.

I mean, how could you wear those?

And I am pro the jogger pant obviously they look better on a taller, skinnier guy.

I have a pair from Viori that I kind of wear to travel around, but they go down to my ankles.

You can't really tell if they are just like kind of you know, sweat tight pants or joggers the way he's wearing them.

And Big Cat put this out, you can't be one and five and wearing these pants.

I completely agree, Like that look is you can't suck that bad.

You can't be How is a twenty eight year old guy who's a multi millionaire who is married with the kid going to take you seriously?

But they just can't and it's clear by the team that they don't right, And that's what all these teams are tasked with doing.

How can I hire a coach that everyone can follow because leadership that characteristic, which is hard to quantify.

It's impossible.

No one knows, but you know it when you see it, you feel a presence.

I've been lucky enough to work for Pat Hill and Andy Reid, and when they walked in a room, they had a presence to him.

I can't imagine sitting in a room when some of these guys walk in.

You're like, I'm supposed to take this guy, Mike mc daniel seriously, and people think I'm shitting on the guy.

He's a smart, offensive mind.

He has no business being a head coach.

Hell, Robert Sala has a presence to him, obviously.

He's, you know, a good leader of men when he's dealing with the defense, not a good head coach.

You know, it's it's like a quarterback.

It's extremely hard to do.

We can nitpick lane, right.

He used to have this happen.

I watched a documentary.

He's cleaning sober, his team's kicking ass.

I know he knows how to be a head coach.

He's been a head coach of big programs, he's been a head coach of little programs.

He's dealt with Nick Saban like, I know the guy can handle some stuff.

I'd say the same thing for Sark is a perfect no.

But can you handle a lot of stuff?

Hell yeah, Ryan Day, Ohio State hater.

But I respect what they're doing up there.

It's a pressure pack gig.

We saw the pressure with James Franklin crack the whole program.

It's split in half like the Titanic and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

They hit serious adversity because they had built up all season.

And I've seen a lot of different people.

Should he have been fired?

Should not have been fired?

Once your team legitimately quits on you, when you've put all your chips into the table, like you've lost all your money, it's over.

You don't have any more hands to play, you don't have any more chips.

And that's what happened to Penn State, right And that's why last week against the Rams, I was like, you know what, we have a long resume of John Harbaugh.

I don't care if he's gotten me and you out there playing defense.

They're gonna play hard this game, and what do they do for a long period of time.

It was three to three, and the Ravens were playing their ass off.

They just don't have enough bullets in the gun and they eventually, you know, lose by double digit points.

But it's like that was It's like, okay, I respect that.

It's like, listen, I had a couple of people forward me the social clip that I sent out about the Browns and Mike Tomlin talking about Andrew Berry treating these players like widgets, like you traded Joe Flacco.

You traded Joe Flacco to an Indivision rival, who, if their quarterback's healthy, is a preseason I don't know if they're quite a super Bowl contender, but they're definitely just like, you know, a contender in the division, a contender in the conference to win double digit games, and you just give them a capable quarterback, a guy that you deemed starting quality week one, and even if he's not going to start, because you want to start the younger guys, his value as a leader to teach these guys like how to be a pro in the league.

But you don't give a shit about that because you actually don't care.

You're like a stock manager.

You're just treating all these guys.

They're all widgets to you in everything's value and you can say, well, John Howie kind of operates like that.

Clearly, not have you seen the type guys that they have built that team around, and they balance it with the character with the crazy guys, with some of the flyers, like they cognitively think about that.

I know a lot of people in that organization.

So the reason they bring in Jalen Carter because they knew they had Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, and Jordan Davis right around him, that they would not have done that if they didn't have any of that infrastructure there yet.

Andrew Berry just like in the Cleveland Browns.

And I'm not going to beat a dead horse on this one, but they are operating a little bit like the Sam Hinkey seventy six ers, and no one in the NFL takes them seriously and clearly.

I think Kevin Stefansi's kind of caught in the middle because even he when they traded him, was like, yeah, didn't quite see that one coming.

And you look back, you're like, oh, Tomlin worked with Stefanski once upon a time in Minnesota, because you never hear a coach just shit on someone else in the NFL like that.

And I think he's kind of standing up for his guy because Andrew Berry, this, you know, Harvard former player, not NFL player, but college player, is really much more like a theo Epstein or you know, the guy who's running the Dodgers.

Here's the deference.

Those guys win.

You can't lose and keep acting like you're smarter than everyone else.

It ain't working.

It is not working at all.

And team building as a front office is really really important, and you see some of these people have no fucking clue what they're doing, and then these fans I feel bad.

You watch the games like the same thing every week, and it starts with the head coach and the GM that these people are placed in jobs that just have no clue.

So I guess I come around to maybe Mike McCarthy's not that bad of an option.

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The Steelers, their field Rogers called it a borderline unplayable.

The big Fella, Ben Roethlisberger came out and said that the University of Pittsburgh needs to build their own stadium, a little small one like twenty five k and just get out of there.

I don't know, obviously, the economic situation.

I'm sure the university pays the Steelers.

I can't imagine it's a lot of money.

Like, it's not like the roonies are dependent on that income to pay TJ.

Watt.

If I just had to take an educated guests a couple hundred thousand dollars a game, maybe, I don't know.

So if you play six home games, you do the math.

I mean we're not talking two million, max.

Maybe a million for the year.

I don't know.

Whatever the rent is, how does it make sense that I can go on my phone and basically have anything delivered to my front door, from food to TVs to a car within twenty four hours?

Get these teams worth billions?

Of dollars.

Let me repeat billions of dollars.

If the Pittsburgh Steelers just went on the open market, what would they go for?

Whatever the number is, add fifty percent to it, because one, they never come on the open market, and if they did, they would be overpaid for right based on whatever the quote unquote valuation was.

This isn't the twenty twenty five housing market.

I see it with my wife right now.

Everyone's you know, it's like, hey, buddy, your house isn't worth a million dollars anymore.

You know, you bought this thing twenty years ago.

You paid three hundred thousand dollars for it.

You're desperate to get You've already paid off the majority of your mortgage.

You're thinking you're getting nine hundred thousand dollars profit.

No, lower that, bad boyd eight seventy five interest rates your high, Take your profit and move on.

But if you think you're gonna be waiting a long long time unless interest rates precipitously drop the next six twelve months, which doesn't really feel like that's gonna happen.

All I hear is everyone talking about it.

It never happens.

So if you want to get your household and you want to still make a profit, like you can drop the price a little bit.

This is in twenty twenty one.

Times have changed.

Adapt that's not football.

Their prices only go up.

And I think the Pittsburgh Steelers are no different than a lot of these franchise I've said this forever.

These families that bought these teams decades ago, fifties, the sixties, they do struggle with the current valuations of everything because they don't operate like that.

Look at the Jets and the Giants when it comes to their turf.

Can you imagine paying players hundreds of millions of dollars and go, yeah, we're not on the best turf, or we don't take care of our grass.

We let someone else play on it the day before.

It's like, you know what happens when a major comes to your golf course, They shut down play a couple weeks before I play.

Where waste management is guess what?

They kick us off the course ten days before the tournament starts.

Why to get the course ready for the pros?

So to have a college team play on your field the day before, it's pretty insane and it's simple, just a money grab.

That can't be that much money.

So I just don't understand where we're still at the point where we're talking about fields, grass or turf when it comes to these NFL teams, but we constantly are every single week.

It's nuts.

I mean, it really is.

I just don't comprehend it.

But it clearly is not going away because at their soul that that that frugal nature does not change regardless of the money flowing in.

And last, but not least, I I took a gummy last night for the first time, probably like I don't know a year, maybe not quite a year, maybe like eight nine months, and it was like this saying this new sponsor, we got to send me some of the stuff, and it hit me.

I didn't quite look.

I thought it was CBD.

It was actually THHC.

And I was floating watching the Dodger game, and I was just thinking that it's pretty unfair what they've done, how good they are, And you know the thing, I got a lot of techs when it came to you know, I know a lot of Giants fans and they don't want to see the Dodgers, who I think we all have come to grips with if they're gonna pitch like this, they are gonna walk to a World Series championship.

And they're rolling out last night Otani's buddy from Japan that goes a complete game that they paid three hundred and fifty million dollars too.

They got Blake Stelle, who they paid a ton of money.

They got Glass.

Now they have all these guys they paid a bunch of money, and their business model is broken.

And I don't blame the Dodgers.

I commend them right from making a lot of money spending a lot of money.

That's the whole point.

If you're a fan, like I want you to be all in.

But a lot of these franchises, and I saw it forever, like with the Oakland A's, it's like, why don't we spend more because the franchise doesn't make any money?

So just because the owner is rich from other business endeavors, if he invested in this franchise, there's no guarantees going to make the money back, and more than likely he will not.

So I think the one thing football has and we should be and this is you know, my mind is just racing.

I' getting all these thoughts, trying to balance you know, not be too negative in my head and positive thoughts and writing down things that are firing into my head about what I want to talk about for the next couple of weeks on the podcast and these football theories.

Football really figured it out is their ability to spread the wealth in the partnership of the television revenue and the universal umbrella that everyone financially benefits from the Steelers playing the Bengals, the Airs on a Cardinals benefit, the Jacksonville Jaguars benefit, the New York Giants benefit.

We're in baseball.

They're kind of like independent operators that are combined as a league in basketball somewhere in the middle right, because the Lakers don't have much in common with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Where at the end of the day, the Cincinnati Bengals wanted to give Joe Burrow three hundred million dollars, the gavehim three hundred million dops.

They wanted to give Jamar Chase one hundred and fifty million dollars, the gave one hundred and fifty million dops.

That's just not the case in baseball.

And you're watching, like thee if they win a World Series this year, They're gonna be the betting favorite again next year.

They're not going away, and they're just gonna keep doubling down.

Where in football, like what the Chiefs did.

Why it's so incredible them making five of the six Super Bowls is that shouldn't be the case.

Everyone's operating with the same amount of draft picks, everyone's operating with the same amount of cap space.

You just choose how you get to, you know, use those resources.

The Dodgers have the ability to have like five three hundred to four hundred plus million dollar players.

There's like a handful of teams that don't have a payroll above like seventy five million dollars, let alone the capability to sign one of those players.

So props to them for just putting all their chips in the middle of the table and utilizing all their assets.

And I think football and this is this is gonna be the question with college football is how do we get everyone operating and rowing in the same direction where the television deal for the SEC and the Big Ten and the Big twelve, we're all together and we're all sharing in these revenues.

And the hard part is that they're at the point where they've been even though they've been in conferences, they've been independent in the sense that Ohio Steco's were way more valuable than Minnesota, let alone Rutgers.

Well, yeah, the Cowboys are more valuable than the Jacks and are more valuable than the Cardinals, just like the Packers generate more revenue than you know, the Miami Dolphins for the league in primetime games.

But guess what when the television money gets distributed, they all get the same check in the mail.

And that is the strength of the NFL.

And that's why I think, you know, sports like baseball, which obviously the pace of the sport unless you're stoned out of your mind on the couch like myself, like this is incredible.

It's slow.

And as someone that grew up loving baseball, I don't think I watched nine innings all regular season.

I've watched.

I watched a decent amount of the Dodger playoff games just because listen, I'm supposed to hate them, but I mean Otani, who looks like crap right now, It's just I mean, these incredible.

I freaking love Mookie Bets and I'm old school.

I like watching a picture.

Just go seven eight nine innings in a playoff game and just shove it right down your throat like that was badass to watch last night.

And yeah, just I just pays me to say this, but I think the Dodgers are gonna win a world series.

Okay, let's go mail bag at John Middlecoff at John Middlecoff is the Instagram fire in those DMS questions answered here on this little old podcast.

We will start with I actually a bunch of people forward me this and I saw it online.

Is Kyle Shanahan did the injury report today and it took thirty two seconds and he took six breasts.

So it just shows you the forty nine ers they've never had, never been anything quite like that.

Here's the question from Eric, how terrible with the forty nine Ers offensive line?

Oh, with how terrible the forty nine Ers offensive line has been.

Do you think Kyle Shanahan will change his philosophy on being able to scheme around a bad line?

I really don't.

I think his organizational philosophy is skill guys over guys up front.

Obviously, if he get a start left tackle, he'll do that, but he doesn't value those guys over skill guys.

He's admitted it.

His offensive line coach has admitted it.

They value wide receivers, tight ends, running backs, guys that could impact with the ball in their hand more than offensive lineman, which to me is insane.

It's harder to find good offensive line, especially now more than ever.

But is Kyle Shanahan going to change his philosophy?

At the end of the day, he's the boss, right, so John Lynch they answered him like he's in control and what he wants to do.

You know, as my dad said, when you start paying the mortgage, I'll listen to you.

So I'm gonna use that on my chriw too, And he's right.

So it's like, I don't think Kyle's gonna change, not at this point in time.

Even though the Ravens are one and five and the defense has been abysmal, I still hope they can make the playoffs.

The Bengals and the Browns are terrible, and the Steelers haven't played anyone, and I would bet a lot of money they start losing when they play tougher teams.

They will get Lamar back after the bye and should be able to win their next five games against the Bears, Dolphins, Vikings, Jets, Browns, which would put them at six and five.

The defense is obviously a concern, but they get turned around last year and only gave up seventeen points to the Rams despite the offense being awful with Cooper Rush.

I don't think you guys, even if get healthier, obviously you get Lamar back, you're not gonna lose every game.

But I can't just you're gonna look as abysmal as you've looked with a bunch of injuries to just get Lamar back and rattle off five victories.

Like remember you lost a lot of games with Lamar Jackson.

Meta Bouquet is not coming back.

There's no replacing that individual.

You've had other injuries in your secondary.

Now, like you said after the bibe, maybe some guys get healthy, but you guys early on were a little healthier and also losing.

So you definitely can just get back into the mix with a couple of wins.

But I cannot with a straight face go five straight wins.

I don't care who you're playing.

You have not shown now.

Should you beat the Browns and the Jets, Sure, but I don't know if here's a lock to beat the Vikings or the Bears.

You know the Dolphins can score.

The Dolphins just scored what twenty six?

Well, they lose twenty nine to twenty six against Chargers twenty six twenty three.

I forget the punel.

Yeah, I forget the final score, but mayke a score.

But again, I wouldn't say your season there's some one in five teams or seasons over.

Your season is not over, but you're in major trouble in your margin for error.

You can't blow one of those games that you're gonna be favored in.

In my opinion, the Chargers are in stage two of a process rather than stage ten.

The building blocks of the team is still young.

There's a reason they didn't go nuts and free agency in the last two years.

And are you still confident that Jim Harbaugh will win a Super Bowl before he retires.

Yes, I think Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert will win a Super Bowl in the next five years.

I do believe that this year, with some of the injuries, it's gonna be tough.

But I think they're farther along than two.

But they're definitely probably in the middle, not at ten.

As a Packer fan who lives in the metro Detroit area.

I'm surrounded by Lions fans who always seem to use the transitive property of equality.

We're getting deep now when telling you how bad your team is.

Example, Green Bay lost to Cleveland, and then the following week Detroit wins against Cleveland.

Therefore Detroit is better than the Packers.

The NFL is one league where there is where this theory is not applicable.

There are too many variables that can change on a week to week basis.

Do you use the transitive property to compare teams?

And I'm totally in agreement.

One thing I've learned being around the NFL on any given Sunday, That's what makes the sports so appealing is like, even when you're having a bad season, how often do does like a four win team get a cool upset in December?

It happens all the time.

You're dealing with human beings.

It's very physical.

Game plans can just be bad.

Obviously, teams, especially on like Monday night or Sunday night, if you get primetime games, you're a bad team.

Injuries play a huge part.

It's very, very difficult to play that game in the sport.

I would say the same thing for college football.

You know.

The other thing is when you're a good team, right Detroit, Green Bay obviously, the Chiefs, the Ravens, any team that has sustained success, overwhelm.

You're getting everybody's best shot.

Every single team is throwing the kitchen sink at you.

This year, the Eagles, every time they play, what do you think they're saying all week long talking about the defending champs.

We're gonna take down the defending champs.

So there's a motivational you know factor here A big fan of the show.

I love when you talk sports, but I like even more when you talk about life.

I'm twenty nine, single, make six figs as a project manager, Studes living aerospace company in the US, and part of me feels like a failure.

But I'm not married and don't have any kids.

I know you're recently married with a kid on the way, congrats, But did any part of you feel like you were behind in life in your thirties without a family.

I would say I have a lot of qualities that I wish I could change about myself, and I'm envious of other people, either in my life or that I see from afar that I could add.

I would say one quality I always had and I still have this even with a family, is I've never really compared my personal life professionally.

You're constantly gauging yourself against others, but I never really My brother got married in twenty eighteen.

He's five years younger than me.

He has a six year old and a three year old.

You know that, It honestly did not bother me at all.

Now part of it too, And you sound like I don't live around my family, like I moved away when I went to college.

I never came back.

Obviously I've gone back, but I just meant like, I don't live in where I grew up.

I don't know.

I just that's just one quality that never fazed me.

I just was so tunnel vision on myself.

And I'll say this for anyone that does not have children that are thinking about it.

You sound like you're doing pretty well at twenty nine, but to have a child, you better have some financial wherewithal I would not have been able to have a child at your age.

I couldn't have done it.

So that part of it was that, you know, for all throughout my twenties, then even my early thirties, I knew that.

Honestly, I wasn't even set up to get married, you know, financially.

I didn't feel stable, like you're stable.

Then.

I was a huge believer, like some stuff's out of your control in life, you know, professionally, personally.

And I've always like when you try and you push and you want something so bad, typically the universe gives you the opposite, and it's hard.

We're all human beings.

You're twenty nine years old, man, you got a great job, You're making some coin.

You'll be fine, You'll age well.

Typically men in your situation do so, you know, just hit the gym, stay good looking, and you'll be all right.

Have you listened to a recent episode where a Broncos fan seem frustrated with the NFL London game.

I'm curious to know whether you think there would be a point at which fans from the US would actively protest the expansion of international games, whether the league would even care.

As a Manchester United fan, I could not imagine the league a League game being played in the US or anywhere located abroad.

I'm also interested in your thoughts on how many gms, how many quarterbacks gms across the league?

Would you draft ahead of how many quarterbacks gms missing period or Comma, I see what you're saying.

Would take Drake May?

Do you think he has a special talent or does this run remind you sort of like a Jordan Love before he got paid.

I don't think the league gives one.

You know what fans think about these international games?

All they care about television product and if people are watching these more games, which I don't know, I haven't even seen the ratings on them.

I'm sure they're not doing bad.

They're not gonna stop, and I think they plan on selling the package to make the owners and players more money.

And that's what I expect to happen.

So I hear you actively boycott, it's just not gonna it won't have any factor.

Uh what you said about Drake May, I've been pretty impressed.

I mean, he looks pretty good.

Schedule shitty, but the talent on US team's not great.

I think part of watching him, part of watching Caleb the other night or Jayden Daniels, is like it's it's pretty like the physical characteristics, it's pretty evident, you know, Caleb, it was it was clear early, like this guy can really move, He's got a huge arm.

Then it's about playing winning football, making winning plays, making smart plays.

One of the best plays of Caleb's career is on that scramble late in that game when he hit the ground like that was really impressive.

How many guys brain fart and run out of bounce happens all the time?

So what game was I was ole miss earlier this season his quarterback did that, ran out of bounce and Lane almost had a conniption.

But you know, part of playing winning football is more than just throwing a deep bomb.

It's about making smart plays.

You know what did Bobby and I say?

Dumb loses more games than smart wins.

You know, obviously the spectacular plays, the scrambling to your right, throwing the ball deep is impressive.

But he seems like he's got a chance to be the total package.

And uh Rabel won a lot of games with Ryan Tannehill.

Ryan Tannehill is not as good as this guy, or at least this guy has the opportunity to be way better than Ryan Tannehill.

And it does feel like Josh is kind of fine in his stride with Drake.

I'd be pretty fired up.

If I was a Patriot, I think he'd go pretty high.

I think he'd go you know, not factoring in if you factored in age, you know, Mahomes would, Josh Allen, Lamar would still all go one, two, three in some order.

I think Burrow's major curveball.

Now with the injuries, he might not go as high.

Herbert would go really really high.

Then I think it would be up for debate.

And you know the Jade Daniels, Drake may c J.

Stroud a couple of years ago, you say would have been a lock.

You know, I'd have to text around, you know, the vibe on him.

It's not all his fault, but he hasn't played as well as I think the hype, so I mean, things change.

Like I said this the other day, like I don't litigate Patrick Mahomes on a weekly basis, People like why aren't you?

Why are we going nuts on Josh Allen because he's an elite.

You know, I said this the other day, and I'm gonna hammer this every day this year, like we don't, you know, try to determine the guy's season based on one week.

When you're Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson.

Now we nitpicked them harder in the playoffs and stuff, but like on a weekly basis, it's like, why doesn't he get the same smoke that Tua gets?

Did you hear what you just came out of your mouth?

Got a mail bag question for you?

As in the brat that's good guy.

What do you think about Rule to Penn State?

Personally?

I think Rule is extremely overrated and hasn't won anything and would be happy to see him move on outside of his relationship with the Penn State AD.

Don't see how you could sell that to their fan base.

You know, I think part of like I played there, it means a lot to me, I think that's overblown.

In twenty twenty five, I mean, these guys are making eight, nine, ten million dollars.

You know.

Mario Christobal I'm pretty sure grew up in the area, played there, and then they offered him an unlimited amount of money and the conference.

It was a much easier path at Miami than it ever was going to be an organ so there were more variables than just like Miami's home, which obviously meant something.

But I think when you look at Matt Rule, yeah, he played there in the early nineties, like the modern day cell phone didn't exist, the Internet, nobody had it, so to say, like, I just think I think that's overblown sometimes And in twenty twenty six, for the next five years, the only thing that matters are nil ability, to recruit ability to pay coaches.

If he gets a huge advantage at Penn State, then he should be very interested.

If there's not a big advantage for him to go, and he's comfortable at Nebraska and the ad likes him, and he's I mean, he's got a chance to win ten games this year at Nebraska, which would be incredible, you just stay.

But all my friends that in the scouting business loved Mett.

Role obviously did not go well for him in Carolina, doesn't really go well for many people there.

But people have always thought really highly of Melural.

I've never met the guy kind of like him from Afar.

I think the other thing is who are he comparing him to?

Right, Saban's an outlier.

You could have put Saban in his prime at any major program, and especially in the South, and he was gonna win.

He would have done that at LSU, he did it, but he would have done at Obama.

He would have done it a Florida.

He've done a Florida State.

He would have done a Clemson, he would have done it at all.

The at Tennessee who had done it all?

If he Texas would have hired him.

He was an unstoppable force.

But most guys aren't like Ryan Day's really what he's been doing is really impressive.

But he's at the number one program in the country.

They have the most money, they have the most prestige at this point in time, they recruit by far the best players.

He has unlimited resources.

You know, is Ryan Day if I just put him at the University of Washington or at the University of Maryland, is he not?

I don't know.

You know, I'm not saying he's gonna be bad.

But college Kirby has a huge advantage.

If you put Kirby at you know, let's just pick at at Mississippi State, probably not gonna look the same as gonna be a Georgia, Right, So Georgia has all the resources.

They have incredible high school football.

They will do anything for football.

He's clearly a good coach, But like you benefit, in college, it's easier to look better when you're at the top programs.

You know.

It's why it's really impressive what Signette's doing, even in an NIL era, Like a lot of people could add Fernando Mendoza, he was all over his ass.

Why why aren't some of these other programs, like where was Florida State?

Why didn't they offer the bag?

They went after this dude from Boston College who's been terrible.

So I just think that I think it's all about money, and not just he makes a ton.

I mean about what you can pay the players and what you can pay your staff, and the consistent NIL money moving forward.

If there's a huge advantage, he'd be crazy not to take it, especially when you factor in that he played there and he met his wife there.

But if there's not like stay in Nebraska, you could argue there's not that much difference, because there is.

To me, there's one program right now that's just in the big ten that's head and shoulders above everyone.

That's Ohio State.

Then right behind them is Oregan.

Then like listen, Michigan.

They have a bunch of money, they have the prestige.

I got no clue if their coach is any good.

None.

Seems like a nice guy.

Hardbough guy, tough guy, but like, is he a head coach in this conference?

Like is Sharon Moore getting into the playoffs?

I got no clue.

I mean, I'm watching their young quarterback and I get I'm not on rivals dot com.

Their receivers, the one freshman receiver for is pretty talented.

But you know, by all accounts it's they're gonna get better over the next couple of years.

But is r coach always doing I don't know, I really don't.

You know, USC feels like they're probably a year away from being a really factor.

Maybe they're closer than we think.

This week we'll find out in Notre Dame.

But like it LINKL be the first tell you I got way more advantages right now with all this money than I would at some of these other schools.

Texas Tech was always like a second third tier program.

Now they have unlimited money, they're dominating.

Like it is very possible that you'll look up and Texas Tech will be in the final four.

Like how did they do that?

Because they have a billionaire paying defensive lineman in the transfer portal to come to their school.

I mean, so the priorities now it's like whenever I hear people talk about facilities at this point in time like facilities should are all these facilities are fine.

Let's focus in on what we can pay the players, because that's how you land the players.

And at the end of the day, College more than the NFL is about the Jimmies and the Joe's, not the x's and those beside a couple of games a year.

Huge Steeler fan curious, how seriously you're taking the Steelers right now.

You seem a little barish on them earlier in the season, but with some of the top AFC teams dealing with injuries and the defense starting to look like its usual self, do you see them making a real push?

Two questions I got for him, first and foremost.

The quarterback forty one years old.

It gets cold right your home games in November, in December, it's frigid now.

He's played in Green Bay's majority of his career.

He's a cold weather quarterback.

But like once you get old, playing in the the cold is easier on your body when you're twenty seven, when you're thirty two, then when you're forty one years old, especially when you've had some injury issues.

The last couple of years.

So to me, it's like, what does he look like in some of these freezing cold games late in the season at home on the road against the Browns or the Ravens.

We don't know.

If he looks just solid, you're in good shape defensively, if your defense plays well, that translates.

We know that does.

But to me, what works in the cold two things defense and running the ball.

To me, do trades for a running back in the next couple weeks, because depending on gain, well, that seems a little risky clearly.

Caleb Johnson, I don't want to call it a lost season, but feels like he's not gonna be what you'd hoped when you drafted him.

Well, you know, in the third round.

He's not like you're starting running back and Warren talented player, but like, you can't ride that guy in a playoff game.

If you get a good running attack.

I do think you could win a playoff game.

Could you compete for the AFC?

I guess you never say never, but I would say winning a playoff game when you haven't won one in however many years.

And if you win a playoff game, meaning you beat the Chargers or the Chiefs or someone in the first round.

That's a pretty incredible win.

Like, there's a pretty good chance when the dust settles.

The wild cards are like the in some you know, former fashion Denver, Chargers, Chiefs, Jags, Like those teams are all gonna be hard to beat in the first round because they have a lot of strengths, good defenses, good coaching.

So winning a game, assuming the Steelers win the division at let's say eleven or twelve wins, you're gonna play Jim Harbaugh, John Harbaugh or not John Harbaugh, Sean Payton.

The Jag situation, which that would be, probably be the team you'd pick.

It'd be one you would you would one hundred percent pick the Jacks over Denver, the Chiefs, or the Chargers.

So yeah, I feel pretty good if I were you cowboy fan.

I've been following the team for fifteen years now, since I moved to Dallas at ten years old.

What it must feel like to be young again.

Do you think an elite coach would come to Dallas with Jerry as the owner.

I just feel like an elite coach would want more power and decision making and think that's not Jerry.

Also, it limits the range of coaches we get, Yeah, I mean it's not the coaches Jerry chooses, Like this isn't like recruiting.

They don't choose you.

Jerry's choosing them.

So if you just look at the coaches they've been interested in the last couple of cycles, like Mike McCarthy who didn't have any other options.

Schottenheimer definitely didn't have any other options.

And Shottenheimer's been fine.

But you're not like interviewing the Mike Vrabels of the world.

If John Harbaugh or Mike Tomlin were available, Like, you're not hiring those guys.

Jim Harbaugh was available a couple years ago, Like Jerry Jones was never gonna hire Jim Harbaugh.

Right, Pete Carroll types and we can argue how good Pete is at this point in time, but like that's Jerry's gonna hire Brian Schottenhimer, He's gonna hire Jason Garrett.

And you know, Jerry's in his mid eighties.

How much longer he will be going.

I think the question mark's gonna be when Steven Jones takes control and at some point in time when Jerry passes away.

Well, he approached this differently and will he not do weekly radio hits.

My guess is he probably won't and he won't want to, you know, copy his dad in those situations, and it'll be a much more desirable place for a quote unquote top coach to come or a top GM to come.

What if Jerry passed and like Howie Roseaman became a free agent or you know, a guy like that, and he was like, I'll pay you twenty million dollars a year, Come run, my friend.

If I'm Steven, Like, I'm all over stuff like that.

There is a question mark about the Steelers.

Was wondering your thoughts.

I had a take on the Steelers when they signed Rogers.

My take was this, and it still is.

Why aren't there more people talking about the Steeler team like the fifteen sixteen Denver Broncos with Peyton Manning at quarterback they won the Super Bowl, the dominant defense and an aging quarterback.

Because I was doing Raiders stuff, I saw that team for three straight years live they are now.

I don't go to as many games over the last seven eight years, but over my course of you know, basically, I would say for seven eight straight years going to games on a weekly basis and so seeing teams all over the NFL, obviously, I was scouted for a couple of those years, watching all the personnel.

They're one of the best defenses of the last twenty five years.

There was not a player on that defense who was not good.

They their defensive line was just better than your defensive line, right, And that's that's not a shot at your defensive line.

That's their defensive line was unstoppable.

They had Von Miller in the peak of his powers, DeMarcus Ware was still excellent, Malik Jackson was a monster, and Derek Wolfe, the Cincinnati pass rusher, was a good player.

And their linebackers were good, and their dbs were other worlds.

They had like three cover corners they had you could hit back then they had, say their defense just better in your defense.

So now, is Aaron better in that version of Peyton Manning.

Yeah, So, I don't know if that team would parallel.

It's it's not an apples to apples comparison.

I guess what I would say, I think that team was better than you, but Peyton was way worse than Aaron.

It's pretty remarkable that they won a championship with Peyton Manning.

That that version.

Honestly, they should have won earlier when he was like healthy, because that defense was just it's Seattle's and the forty nine ers early on with Harbaugh are two of the more physical defenses I've seen in the last fifteen years.

The Denver defense was by far the fastest, and I knew, you know, I remember talking to the coaches on the Raiders for a couple of years or like, they just don't have a weakness, you know.

They had a keep to leave Chris Harris, Junior, Bradley Roby.

They had multiple safeties.

I think one of them was a Ward, the Oregon guy who was just a hammer.

Brandon Marshall was a good linebacker.

Danny Trevathan, the kid from Kentucky probably a kid now he's probably in his mid thirties, but he was young then.

And DeMarcus where they were really really good.

They were exceptional.

So I would say they're better than you guys, but that's I guess somewhat of the mold of what you guys need to do.

They could just depend They could go into a game and being like the opponent's gonna not sniff twenty points.

It's like, all right, we're gonna find out.

I mean, maybe you guys are better than I think, and we'll find out as the season goes.

When it got when it gets cold, can you just dominate, because if your defensive line is gonna look now, it's Cleveland's offensive line right now, one of the worst offensive lines in the league because every other play it felt like there was a guy in the backfield.

So if your defensive line, on any defense, if the d line dominates, everyone in the backfield looks good.

Like you could make average corners look awesome when you're knock the crap out of the quarterback every snap.

So that that's gonna be clearly, clearly your route to being an awesome team is to have the best defensive line in the league and just having an unstoppable front.

And you draft the kid in the first round, you go with t J.

Watt.

You got multiple guys on the other side with high Smith and Herrig Cam still solid at his age, so that if that that unit just dominates, then yeah, you guys, that'd be tough.

It'll be tough to beat.

And as long as Aaron just play smart, doesn't turn it over like he normally does, you should be pretty bullish, so I'm excited to watch this game Thursday night.

The volume