The volume all right, Chad Millman, co host of the Favorites Sharper Square. All odds provided by DraftKings. So I had a rare I don't think I had an undefeated week this year three and oh last week. And I think it's actually easier in the playoffs. I've had back to back weeks because the quarterbacks are all you know, it's sudden death, it's the best quarterbacks. Yeah, it's don't want to start with this before we start with anything.
You know, there's this sense that, you know, Kansas City, Jason McIntyre's on this thing about the calls going a certain way, and I always point back, Kansas City's gotten the benefit of the calls. Well, my argument is, we all know coaching matters more in football than managing in baseball or coaching in basketball. We know coaching college or pro. You've seen Jim Harbaugh take over the worst defense make it the best. Coaching matters in football more than other sports.
You have like a phone book that offensive players have to memorize and system scheme, culture building. And I remember when I lived in Connecticut watching all the Patriot games, and I can remember watching for years and it just popping into my head when they were playing a team and a team fumbled, I'm like, God, I don't think the Patriots have fumbled since Thanksgiving. And you went back and looked and they literally were the team in the
league that didn't fumble. And I'd asked Patriot players about this, They're like, oh, yeah, Bill would not let you stretch for extra yards. That was a fine, that was a suspension. You could only do it if it was fourth down in the ends. Otherwise you were not allowed to stretch. And I look at the Chiefs and I say to myself, really good coaches are really good teachers, and you can teach your way out of penalties with good communication, thorough repetition.
Damian Woody always told me Patriot practice was different than every other practice has Detroit his Jets practices. So what your take on the Chiefs get all the calls, because if you go back and look at the penalties during the New England era, they were last penalized as well.
I think it's bullshit.
I think it's a media constructed argument because people are looking for reasons as to why the Chiefs keep winning other than they have a generationally great quarterback, a generationally if not historically great coach. Our mutual friend Ryan Risillo had a great stat on his podcast the other day. The past two years, Kansas City opponents have been flagged for forty eight penalties in the fourth quarter in ot of one score games. Colin, how many have the Chiefs
had in the same period, twelve forty seven. So let's not get off, Okay, Well, you have in the Chiefs are a coach who has found the perfect cheak code for his scheme. He's got a guy who is ultra competitive, who can make magical plays, who, by the way, as Tom Brady pointed out on your show, having to defend Patrick Mahomes for four downs in the playoffs is just
so freaking hard. You don't get to seven conference championship games because people are calling penalties against the opponents more often. Ask Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson has two MVPs. He might get a third. He should get a third. How many AFC title games has he played in? How many Super Bowls has he played in? He is as brilliant an athlete and as brilliant a quarterback as there is in the NFL. He's not getting there. Patrick Mahomes and the
Chiefs do something different, and I think it. I think it's in the head of every single team they play.
Well, let's start off with the Commanders and the Eagles. I'm gonna take Philadelphia minus six. I'm also going to take the over. I do think they've played twice. Philadelphia should have won twice, but Jalen got hurt, Kenny Pickett came in. So I think the number I look at over two games is average yards per carry, and it's five and a half yards for Philadelphia. Well, that's just that's a physical mismatch. The O line for Philadelphia is almost better to a man than the D line for Washington.
That's not going to change. That's not scheme. The guards for Philadelphia are like six seven and a half. It's like the biggest guards in league history. There are four of Their offensive linemen are like arguably the best in the NFL at their position. So they will run the ball and they will move the ball. But I do think the Commanders will have to score and know what going in, so they'll take chances. They'll do some four
down stuff. So my take is it's a fairly high scoring game, which makes me more comfortable laying the six with Philadelphia Sharper Square.
So it was sharp at four and a half, it's gotten to six. It actually got up to six and a half. And wise guys have been buying back and in a lot of the conversations I've had this week, and Simon Hunter and I talked about this on the Favorites today when we sort of bring in the feedback from professional betters, they were liking Washington and it honestly doesn't make sense to me or to Simon and apparently.
To you either.
Last week people were coming in and they were hammering the Rams. I love the Eagles all week, and if not for Jake Elliott missing a couple extra points, that game is not a push, it's a cover for the Eagles. Yeah, same thing this, I don't get it. I feel like there's so much recency bias in relation to Jaden Daniels and both of these games. Weirdly, there is so much public support for the road underdogs against the higher seeds because of the status of the quarterbacks and the seasons
they're having. Josh Allen is having a better year than Patrick Mahomes, Jade Daniels having a better year than Jalen Hurts but people are forgetting that this Eagles team is not built around Jalen Hurts, right, It's built around Saquon Barkley. And one of the things that I tried to unpack this week when I was thinking about this game is the Eagles win so often with explosive plays. We saw this past weekend two huge runs from Barkley, a great
run from Hurtz. That's how they're scoring touchdowns right. Earlier in the season in November in Philadelphia against the Commanders, the Eagles were losing most of that game. I was at that game. They won that game because Saquon Bardley had two long touchdown runs. So you think about explosive play as well.
Is that random? Can you predict it?
I think is more random when it's quarterbacks throwing long touchdown passes with the circumstances have to be perfect. It's less random when it's your running back who has an offensive line that is as dominant as you.
Just talked about.
Who's by the way, his rushing prop is one hundred north of one hundred and thirty yards, which DraftKings has announced is the highest total they've ever had for a rushing prop in the years that they've been doing business. So I'm with you, man, I like the Eagles. I think it's the right spot. I think they're the better team. I tend to favor the dominant, physical team.
So yeah, is there a prop you could give our audience that you like? I like the over in this game, but a prop you.
Like, zach Er is over three and a half receptions.
I think that the Eagles defensively on the edges at cornerback Quinnyon Mitchell is supposed to play. We already know about Cooper Degene and the slab Darius Slay obviously. On the other side, that's where Jaden Daniels, who was already predisposed to wanting to go to zach ertz if Terry McLaurin isn't available, isn't open, I think that that's where the offensive opportunities are going to be.
So, Zach Er, it's over three and a half.
You know, it's interesting. I was talking on the show today ten years ago Peyton Manning, Big Ben and Brady, where these iconic legends past their prime. In fact, Peyton was in Denver, but I remember thinking at the time, she's what is the league gonna do? What is the league gonna do and now we've got Lamar, Mahomes, Allen and Throwin Burrow. Yeah, but in the NFC ten quarterbacks in the last ten Super Bowl appearances for NFC teams, it's a lot of rotational quarterbacks. That's why it almost
feels like Jaden Daniels has a shot. Hurts would be the second time for him. So I do I said this today as I watched Jaden Daniels, and I feel like the NFC got their Mahomes that every they'll be tailing Washington going forward. I don't think it's a particularly warm take. I feel like he is either Lamar or Mahomes. But the NFC has had this sort of goff an
older Stafford, a prickly Aaron Russell, Wilson aging Kyler. Murray's talented, but there's just been a lot of these qualifiers and they haven't had their no issues, low maintenance, high thrower, good mover. I think he's the Mahomes of the NFC.
What's really going to be interesting. I agree with everything you said. What's going to be interesting is next year. Next year, the Commanders are already sixteen to one to win the Super Bowl. That feels very aggressive. Whyren't we saying the same things about c J. Stroud exactly a year ago?
And did c J.
Stroud not come back down to earth the defenses, not spend an off season figuring out that he's not great against certain defenses, that it's going to be challenging for him to succeed at the level that he did in his rookie year.
And he didn't.
Not saying he's not great, not saying he's going to be great. But of all the great quarterbacks you just mentioned when the season began, c J. Stroud was on that list.
Now he's not.
So next year is there going to be an opportunity to fade the Commanders? Like in reality, the Commanders should probably be seven seven and a half point underdogs in this game. The Eagles are dominant physically on the defensive side of the ball and on the offensive side of the ball. The Commanders are not going to have their right guard Sam Cosmy, who's their best offensive lineman. The
eagles best defensive lineman is Jalen Carter. And normally you're not going to worry about a right guard being out as being a challenge for your pass protection. But when Jalen Carter is rushing up the middle. Your right guard might be the guy who needs to grab a piece of him every once in a while. You're now not going to have a guy, and so all of a
sudden these things change. You're already getting the benefit. I think of Jaden Daniels being someone who people believe is a cheat code, and they're overvaluing that in the scope of the entire game.
Yeah. I will say though, that CJ. Stroud didn't have the mobility edge, which I've always thought mobility's best for a quarterback in the first two years because as you're learning NFL coverages and waiting for the light to go on, you can just pick up first downs moving, whereas c J. Stroud is going to pick up first downs throwing, and so he is much more susceptible. As coverages get more sophisticated, you face better teams. He had injuries on the old line.
They didn't have protection. I think running quarterbacks Lamar. He never really dipped mahomes Allen. They just kept getting better.
Off.
Was was beholden to how good his O line was. You know, bad Whitworth good, Whitworth leaves not as good or around that time when Whitworth was aging, and then he goes to Detroit. Not good, early line got better,
He's better, So I think I think Jaden. I think C. J. Stroud's NFL comp was Goff, and like Goff, he deteriorates with really bad line play significantly, whereas I think Jaden is Lamar and Mahomes where it's just ascension because he moves the chains while he's figuring out defenses and it takes about even Mahomes said it was the beginning of year three when everything just sort of slowed down. So I don't think I think he's I think we're really looking at something special here.
I don't disagree.
I think the guy is a brilliant player, and I think it's more evidence that you want to get quarterbacks who have a lot of experience playing in kind, who've taken a lot of snaps, who've played a lot of games. That's always been a threshold for GMS and coaches who are looking to draft quarterbacks. I remember when Philip Rivers came out, he had played so many games in college, people didn't really know who he.
Was at NC State.
I know I'm throwing a name out there, from like twenty five years ago. But I remember this so clearly. I was at ESPN the magazine, and we were doing a draft issue, and it was the first time I ever heard a scout talk about the importance of seeing quarterbacks on tape with a lot of games as they
get older. And we're seeing that with Jaden Daniels, like his experience level keeps him from being really frightened in these experiences because he's so much older than the average quarterback coming out, and he's had so many more snaps, and he understands the rhythm of the game and understands the moment a little bit better in addition to his unbelievable talent. But I can guarantee you right now we can set a number on it. The number of times will set it at seven and a half at.
This time next year. How many times over.
The course of Sharper Square have I said to you, well, commanders are overvalue here because Jaden Daniels is getting too much credit and too much attention. I guarantee I'm going to say that an every other week basis to you on this show.
Let's go AFC. I'm riding with the bills. I have for the last month. I feel they're the best team in football. The Rams had to play a perfect game at home to slip by in the Rams, I think we're a very good team at the end. I'll take the one and a half again. I think there's going to be points scored. I think there's limitations on stopping Allan and Mahomes. I think you get into these games. Coaches are more willing. Brady and Andy Reid are more willing.
To take risks.
It's sudden death. You empty the playbook because you have two weeks to prepare for the Super Bowl, so just empty the playbook. I take the over forty seven and a half bills plus one and a half. I can absolutely see Kansas City winning. I think this is the best version of Buffalo for two reasons. One, they do not turn it over, they're not heavily penalized, and you can't get to Josh Allen. They're the mature version, which
Baltimore hasn't become yet with Lamar. They're still. Like I've said this before, Buffalo's always been a Ferrari with Josh Allen. They just no longer get speeding tickets. They don't make the mistakes. They don't get caught like they slow down in front of the cops. So they have all the talent, but they don't have that sort of and Baltimore's trying to work theirself out of this. That's sort of like, we can't slow down. We just we go one hundred
miles an hour. So I think they've become they become the Chiefs, and I think eventually they're going to beat the Chiefs, which they have in the regular season. Sharper square bills plus the points sharp ish.
It's been an interesting number.
It opened at one and a half, and even though the majority of the money, which indicates professional betters like the bill, and the majority of the tickets, which also indicates the public likes the bills, it's kind of stuck at one and a half.
In fact, there's been a.
Little bit of sort of juice movement, meaning they're making it more expensive to bet the one and a half on the Chiefs because they want you to take that one and a half because pretty soon they're going to go to two. I think that you're on the professional side, not in a dominant way. I'm going to play devil's advocate. Everything you're saying is right. Josh Allen gets out of the pocket. To me, he's as frightening as and frustrating as Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes and their running game
this year has been so freaking good. They played the number one team in defensive rush success rate in the Broncos and rush them on the ground. They played the number two team in defense rushed success rate in the Ravens and crush them on the ground. The Chiefs are not nearly as good at defending the run as either the Ravens or the Broncos. And they're going to have to figure out how to manage Josh Allen when it's third and one or fourth and one, who's clearly unstoppable.
How they're going to have to manage James Cook. All that is true, There is zero evidence colin that Patrick Mahomes is going to lose this game. Zero like in November on in games where the weather is forty degrees or less, twenty three and two in his career. The last loss was to Tom Brady in twenty nineteen. He's won twenty in a row. Andy Reid with Mahomes with an extra day of rest, just one extra day of rest, which he has twenty and three fourteen and one at home.
It's just.
Why would I want to do this. I've been given every opportunity to bet the Chiefs as a.
Short home dog.
Patrick Mahomes seven straight AFC title games, three Super Bowls in the past five years, going for third in a row. He is going to challenge Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback who's ever played, and he might do it before he's thirty two years old. Like, what am I doing here? Why would I bet against Patrick Mahomes. I had a buddy call the other day and tell me I'm all over the Bills. I'm like, why and why would you do that? With confidence? Like you just can't. It's it's hard.
I get it. I'm afraid of it. But there's no way I'm betting against Patrick Mahomes. There is no way. But yeah, I like the.
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So I saw a story this week, and apparently sometimes in the media, I think media people like to be viewed as smart and they try to figure stuff out. I'm I'm guilty of this. I'm always trying to figure out theories or why, and sometimes the answer is always the simple answer. So I saw a story this week and it just made me laugh where the college football game was down three million viewers and everybody was flummixed. And I'm like, guys, men like Trump statistically in this election,
young men love Trump, young men love football. Inauguration Day was Monday, That's the day of the National Championship, and so the number was down about three million viewers, especially when Notre Dame fell behind thirty one to seven. That's the answer, right, Like, it wasn't that we hate Ohio State and Notre Dame. It was every four years in inauguration with a polarizing Trump, who for the record, does very well in this election with young men.
Yeah, I saw the numbers too, It's so funny you say that because I saw the numbers this morning and I saw a story just the headline, you know, down whatever percent it was ten percent or whatever, it was right twelve percent.
And as soon as I.
Clicked out, and I'm like, someone's going to try to explain why this is. This isn't rocket science trying to find patterns when you do year over year comps. You can do year over year comps with every podcast in the Volume network. You can do it with your show. The circumstances are always different. We do this at Action all the time too. How come this Monday night game is down from the year before, Well, who was the matchup?
Was it a game where you had Was it a night where you had two Monday night games play being played instead of one? Because when you have two Monday night games, traffic sometimes dips a little bit because attention is diverted and games start a little bit earlier, so people aren't online as early. Like, there's so many easy to unpack answers to so many of the questions that are asked in sports. It's phenomenal that we try to make it as complicated as we do. And to your
point about politics, mixing with sports, and impacting sports. Two years ago, ninety three of the top one hundred broadcasts in the United States were sports. This past year, twenty four eighty one of the top one hundred. Do you know why, because there were so many debates and so many political events that we're leading the coverage that we're
getting so many more viewers. So of course there's going to be changes on a year to year basis because of the overall world and what's happening, not because of anything about myopically what we think of Ohio State or Notre Dame.
Well, I have, I have. I worked in local TV for over a decade and so I still you know, I still have friends in local TV. Not as many. Many have retired or dodd or things or moved on. But you know, it's like you're going to notice over the next ten years there'll be a little bit of renaissance in local TV ratings. Why because of climate change and whenever you have severe weather or disasters. Local reporters are better than national reporters. They've built trust for the
audience and they know the terrain. Dallas Reporter, a Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York reporter if something happened to the Brooklyn Bridge. Forgets CNN, I'm watching the local guys, right. So LA local news ratings went up four hundred percent over the last two weeks. And I watched the coverage.
It was significantly better than CNN. And it's not a political It was significantly better than all national coverage because the local reporters they all live in these towns and they knew They just know the topography and the canyons and the history, and so you know, it's you're gonna watch local TV ratings and you can call it whatever you want. But we're just getting more severe weather. It snowed in Pensacola a foot, whatever, LA had a blizzard
two years ago, whatever. So yeah, I think most of the stuff is fairly explainable. So when local TV ratings have a renaissance here in the next decade, that's mostly what it's gonna be.
I love that you talk about the weather component of it, because those are the only people I remember growing up when I watched local TV, and even here in West Herford where you used to live, like Stacy and I, my wife and I, we love the local weather guy, and I love the local weather guy because he knows our town, and he knows all the towns around us,
and he knows the difference between here, we're in the valley. Here, you're a little bit on a hill, so it's going to be a little bit colder here in the morning, you might have a little more frost. I live by what this guy says, and I completely connect with what
you're saying. What's actually frightening. I don't know if you saw it this week, but there is one broadcaster that owns a lot of local stations that is letting go of all their local weather people and having a singular sort of source of weather information and segments that is then being distributed out to the local channels. It's sort of like the single service provider within an organization, which is idiotic.
That is the.
Opposite of what I would do over the next ten years. Get rid of the local sports guys. Love them to death, but everybody's watching some other platform. I want massive weather people locally for the next decade. Whatever you want to call it. We're just getting more combustible weather, hot, cold, wind, rain, whatever.
It makes no sense, I saw it. I'm like, the one thing people care about is weather. It's the only thing people are checking for in the morning, Like that is what can save local television. And you're going out there, you're firing all the weather people. It made zero sense to me.
Zero Sometimes I wish Sometimes I wish I was a billionaire. Not because I'd buy a bunch of stuff, because I've never had a second car. I'm not a boat guy. I'm not a jewelry guy or a watch guy. I'm not a collector. I'm really not. I don't care. But there are things I would like. Things I would like to do in society they can't afford to do. Like I'll be honest with you, when Fox created a weather channel, I wish I could have been the CEO of Fox's
Weather Channel. I would have loved that job. And if it, if it paid what I make and I could still make my mortgage, I was I've always wanted Like Byron Allen, the former comedian who became a wildly successful entrepreneur, bought the Weather Channel, and I think it's the only time I've ever been jealous of another member of the American media. Was Byron Allen bought the Weather Channel, and I'm like, damn it.
By the way.
It might be Byron Allen who fired off a local weather people because he was the weather to come from the Weather Channel.
All I know that is forget Oprah. That's the most successful local media person in the history of our business. He's the one guy I'm jealous of.
I'm just checking right now.
Yeah, Alan Media Group replaces meteorologists, dozens of meteorologists with pre recorded feats.
So I don't know.
I think we got a call brot Byron and we got to tell him we think this is a bad idea, and we are very respected and admired members of the media. Do you have a take on the Jaguars firing Trent Balky the GM and Liam Cohne deciding to go back to the box as an assistant. I'll love Ben Johnson the year before in them not being able to find someone to take that job.
Plot twist Bucks offensive coach Liam Cohen has now done a U turn is speaking with the Jaguars in person for their head coaching job. So when you ask what do you make of Trent Bulkey, this, Tom Pelasero reporting this and Ian rappap this is what I think of Trent Balke. Bulkey's there I'm not interested. Bulkey fired, let me turn around the U haul. Is amazing that that just tells you that Balkey was the orange cone in the road.
He was the roadblock.
But it also goes even to prove the point coordinators and job applicants and potential head coaches are willing to be more selective, I think than they ever have been before. And if they don't feel like they're being set up in the right circumstances, they're not jumping at a job.
Yeah.
Cohen's good, Jack Laville, Yeah, no, he's he's good. I mean, Baker leads the NFL in touchdown passes the last two seasons. I like Mike Evans, I don't like him that much.
Also, Todd Bowles just impressive. The fact that he had Canalis turn turn Baker Mayfield around. Liam Cohen turned Baker Mayfield around. He's gonna have to go find him again a new guy if William Cone takes this job. But I'm starting to like Todd Bowles quite a bit as a head coach.
Yeah, his first year in New York, he almost didn't know where to stand. He was such a kind of gentle, low key personality. He was, you know, in the city with Rex Ryan, it was like where is he? And he spoke like an assistant or a coordinator. He just didn't want to be in front of a microphone. But I always thought he was thoughtful that anytime you heard him talk, you know, he came across as like humble and focused. Andy And I also think the internet doesn't
allow this. People improve, people get better, Yeah.
They just yeah.
I mean it's like like Brandon Staley's not going to get a second chance, maybe as a coordinator, but not as a head coach. But you know a lot of these guys Raheem, Morris, Todd Bowles, there's something there. There's a reason you hired him, Like you know, it's almost like when you get a divorce in life. Well, there's a reason you together for twelve years. I mean there were some positives there. You produce good kids. You know, you're good co parenting. There's no reason to hate each other.
Like it's shit happens. Like you're in big cities. You have a bad stretch, your quarterback gets hurt, you don't have a backup on the roster. I mean Mike McDaniel from Miami a year and a half ago was the bell of the ball and now we're all.
Like, you know, he's kind of.
It doesn't feel like he owns the room like Dan Campbell. I'm not sure if this works. It's the way it works in life sometimes.
All Right, buddy, I meant see you later.
The volume