The volume.
This is Prime Cuts, the best of the Colin Coward podcasts loaded last couple of weeks, Nick Wright and I discuss Stefan Diggs and the Bills, Powder Keg and the frustrations Nick has with Twitter under Elon Musk. Jason McIntyre tries to sell me on a couple of NFL bets. Oops. Tonight, host Jason timp and I talked about the wild overreaction to Victor wembin Yama's Summer League debut, and the Three and Out Host John Middlecoff and I discuss lots of NFL topics, but first my top takes of the week.
So one of the reasons you should be a nice guy or a nice woman is because if you work at a company long enough, mini the people you work with will splinter off. They'll leave, they'll move to another department, they'll move to a rival, they'll move cross town, they'll leave. And so companies more than ever are fluid. Employees more than ever are mobile, and so your reputation will travel. My dad used to say all the time, be nice to people. Lubricate society, because at some point your career
will be decided by rooms. You're not in you know people, management will vote on you, owners will discuss you. And so Kyler Murray is viewed recently as being dysfunctional. But Cliff Kingsbury, he was his coach. Cliff Left has all sorts of info on Kyler Murray. Steve Kime GM left has all sorts of info. Kim also had a staff.
Kingsbury had a staff. Look at the people over the last three years that have been with the card executives, coaches, players, Larry Fitzgerald that are now gone, and when people ask all those people about the Cardinals, they ask about one person in particular, Kyler Murray. So I defended Kyler Murray pretty righteously. For his first three years, he kept getting better. He threw a beautiful football. He reminded me of a smaller Russell Wilson, who I think is a Hall of Famer.
And it's a dysfunctional organization starting with ownership, so tough division, weird ownership. I kind of defended him. I said, I'd sign him. You're trapped. You got to have a guy.
But what's interesting this offseason, as the Cardinals once again have blown up their coaching staff and made changes in the front office, It's amazing when I went to UFC, or when I go out, or when I'm at any sports function that involved anybody in the NFL, how many people are talking about Kyler Murray and it's not good. So I always say, new information equals new opinion. If you were on a flight and you got new information from the radar, would you want the pilot to avoid
a lightning storm or fly through it? If your doctor takes an X ray, your son, your daughter gets new information, would you want to stick with what they thought the problem was or would you want them to function based on the new X ray? Fans Earl is so beholden to you said this a year ago. Yeah, no, shit, information changes. So my feeling on Kyler Murray today is different than a year ago. There is so much information
now that has left that building that it's just incredible. Scouts, coaches, executives, people in this sport talk and they talk about Kyler Murray and I have a hard time with indifference. It's Ben Simmons. It doesn't matter how good you are if you don't love it, if you have to be prodded into prepping, prodded into playing, you don't want to run because you don't want to get hit. I struggle with it. You can have so many flaws. I can't live with indifference.
I can deal with ego, I can deal with soft. I can deal with emotional to some level. I can't deal with indifference. Like when I hire people at the volume, are you ready to compete? Do you love your job? There's nothing you can do with indifference. So Kyler Murray, there's all sorts of comments he made in the last couple of days about last year. It was a negative vibe. It was this. It was that I don't have Kyler Murray as one of the top ten quarterbacks in the league.
And I was jotting down a list yesterday morning, just kind of going to the season. And you can say what you want about Kirk Cousins and Dak and Derek Carr. They're not his talent. I would sign them before Kyler Murray. That's how far my opinion has fallen. And it's all based on new information. So I was looking at the NFL standings before I came on today, and when you look at the quarterback position in the NFL, we don't
have unrealistic expectations for rookie quarterbacks. I think all fans are reasonable that it's hard and you're going to be overwhelmed. Even Joe Burrow overwhelmed early. And there's not a ton of pressure on the people that are at the top of the food chain. Josh Allen, we know what he is. Lamar Jackson just got paid, Jalen Hurtz did. I don't think they're in pressurized situations. And I also don't believe Dak and Kirk Cousins. Again, most people see them as
good B plus quarterbacks. I don't think they face like more than just week to week Sunday to Sunday pressure. And as I looked over perused the standings in the NFL, I thought there was really only two quarterbacks that I felt like there was a lot of pressure on them, and pressure I would define as they are viewed by a certain group, perhaps small, as much more talented than their current production is exhibiting. And let me give you an example,
justin Fields. I think he faces real pressure because I think people in Chicago and a lot of people in the media think, based on highlights, not overall beginning to end game production, that he's a massive talent. And I just think he's talented, but at this point, I think he's a sixty to forty hit and a forty sixty failure slightly more than fifty to fifty. I think it works, and I think it mostly works because I think he now has two productive receivers, perhaps three with Claypool cross
your fingers. Two productive tight ends. A middle of the pack but better than people think O Line and Luke gets. He's an excellent oc young, smart guy from Green Bay. But I think of all the quarterbacks in the league, people would say, what about Aaron Rodgers takeaway was they're gonna win somewhere between nine and twelve games. Playoffs are not, He's a Hall of Famer. They'll be better. Everybody gets it. Will they be great? Probably not, But somewhere between nine
and eleven twelve games is where Aaron's gonna land. He knows it, the Jets know it, and we all know it. That's not pressure. Justin Fields is different because he shows flashes of brilliance. This is the year that bears ownership and front office and probably coaches make a decision on by Thanksgiving, he's the guy or not. So I feel like Justin Fields faces the most pressure in the NFL as a quarterback, you could name anybody. Jared Goff, He's been to a Super Bowl, he's been paid. We know
what he is. A B plus quarterback. Trevor Lawrence, He's excellent. There's no pressure in Jacksonville. He got to the playoffs last year. But Justin Fields, there is a group of people that think he's a tremendous talent. And where where as Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson went from just talented pivoting to also very good pocket quarterbacks, Justin Fields has not exhibited that yet. And this is the year, and I would say by Thanksgiving, people upstairs will make
a decision. The only other quarterback I feel like there's real pressure on is in the same division, Jordan Love. Listen, you replace Aaron Rodgers. There's pressure. This is also a winning organization pressure. This is also probably the second best after Detroit roster in the division.
Pressure.
Jordan Love's been given a contract that's very team friendly. So again, because he's been in the building for so many years, I think they'll know by Thanksgiving. In the building, I had an agent that once said this, Nick con your bosses will make a decision on your career nine months before they tell you. I think by Thanksgiving, Justin Field and Jordan Love, both teams upstairs, will have made
a decision. That's real pressure because in both cases, especially Fields, they're viewed by a small number of fans as being really special talents. And I'm not sure either is, but both will feel that pressure this season. So, you know, I asked Jimmy Johnson years ago about leadership and what is leadership and he didn't have an answer for it, but he said Troy Aikman was a leader, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. And you know, one of the first times I was really impressed with Dak Prescott
and I wasn't blown away with him. I watched him play at Mississippi State. I thought he was a better thrower than t Bow. But I'm like this guy, I you know, there was a reason he got picked in the fourth round. Dan Mullen once told me, the former Mississippi State coach, they never thought he was, you know, an NFL quarterback. But one of the things that impressed me very early on with him is Dak Prescott's in tangibles and Dez Bryant who Basically, the Cowboys had to
babysit out of college. They had to have a security team, which I'm not sure if Dez has ever acknowledged that or admitted, you know, that's just a lot for a team to have to worry about that after college. You're not prepared to like stay out of trouble. It was
hard for the Cowboys security detail around the clock. And Dak Prescott had to deal with that right out of the gate, goes thirteen and three as a rookie and had that poppy hovering over him, and it was That's the kind of thing that explains Dak Prescott's mental toughness. He's dealt with injuries, He's dealt with criticism, he dealt with the COVID season, He's dealt with some controversy, and Dak Prescott has always been his very strongest in those moments. He's not an elite arm talent.
He's not.
He's athletic, but not super. His arm's fine, it's not special. He's accurate enough, but not elite. He's a BB plus quarterback. But he dealt with des Bryant and the neediness and the high maintenance and it didn't get in the way of wins before the Cowboys finally just said enough is enough, as they should have. It's going to be interesting to watch Josh Allen with Stefan Diggs. Now, Stephan Diggs, in my opinion, is a better player than Dez Bryant and
is not nearly that difficult. But with both Kirk Cousins and with Josh Allen after a couple of years, you see the theatrics and you hear the concerns, and Buffalo is clearly if you watch the draft or receiver a tight end free agency, they went out and got another running back. They're trying to be less reliant on Stefan Diggs. This is where leadership will come in with Josh Allen. No, Josh is a better athlete than Dak Prescott, bigger arm, more mobile, better athlete up and down on the board
aaaa plus AA. But leadership is Deck's strength. And when you can be a great player and a great talent and a great leader Mahomes or Burrow, that's when you separate. To this point, we know Josh Allen is a great athlete. This will be the leadership year. Dealing with Stefan Diggs in this drama and at some point Tom Brady went to Bill Belichick when they got rid of Randy Moss. Tom Brady was not shocked by it. Obviously, Brady had
discussions with Josh McDaniels Bill Belichick. Right, those don't go public. But they didn't just walk in and say Randy's gone. It's not the way it works. Tom was too powerful. Even though he and Belichick weren't close, you know they would come to him. Sometimes you have to take a step back in talent. The best Patriot teams were not the ones with Moss. It was the teams where you had liable wide receiver, tight end targets, reliable, choreographed you
knew where they would be talents. So the NFL, the margins are too tight for drama. The noisiest team every off season is one of the more disappointing teams every off season. So I'm really interested to watch Josh Allen this year. First time real drama, A real talented but at times difficult teammate that is crucial to the offense. I've seen Dak deal with stuff like this a plus. Best part about Dak are these moments. Josh is the
better talent. How will he react to it. All right, I bring in my buddy co host First Things First, also host of What's Right with Nick Wright, and we do this about every six weeks. We do about forty to forty five minutes, and this is kind of the slowest time of the year. It was always in our industry that after football there was about a month and then you'd kind of move into March madness, NFL draft, NBA stuff. But it used to be that I look
forward to August. But Sean McVay screwed that up by not playing any starters in the NFL and going eight and h so they're really the preseason now is reduced to talking about CJ. Stroud and Bryce Young. I mean, it is amazing that August used to be a time that I really looked forward. You know, it was post NBA trade deadline, and it was like, you know, you go take a ten day vacation and then you're like, all right, some of this stuff last year, Kenny Pickett was my primary topic in August.
Yeah, it's not great.
I mean, I'm not saying you weren't great, but it's just August because of NBA movement and because every summer there's a KD trade demand or a Dame trade demand, and these things that seemed to drag on. I think August has replaced July as the dead is time on our calendar. And I am like, very excited to be talking football again, because you've been talking a lot of football throughout we have. We haven't been talking so much. And now I'm kind of over the Dame thing. I
know he's going to go to Miami. It's all posturing. There's a really interesting part of the Dame story, which is the assistant GM in Portland does a great job, I'm sure, but his name is Mike Schmiz. He worked
at ESPN from twenty seventeen until nine months ago. And now seemingly all of the reporting coming out of you know that network is along the lines of, oh, you know, Portland has the leverage, Portland's got you know, Miami's got up the offer, And I do wonder how much of this is you know that Mike Schmiz was there and now they're trying to get the best deal possible, but he's going to end up in Miami. I'm kind of over that story and that there's really not much left in the NBA offseason.
Yeah, I stumbled. It was the last thing I talked about today for only three minutes. Is that there's two sorts of like what we would call classic Diva wide receivers. There's the guy that is constantly difficult but productive Des Bryant. I mean they had to hire a security team, pretty babysited in as a rookie. And then the first year with Dak he was still highly productive but got needy and they just decided, much to the chagrin of Jason Garrett. He told me that he said, I was fighting for him.
He gives me eight ten touchdowns of the year. How do I replace that? And then there's the Stefan Diggs Randy Moss model, where they're not trouble, they're highly productive and at some point, at like year three, year four, they flex and right. And I said, okay, that's different. Right,
there's a lot of companies at the volume. If I knew somebody for three years, I'm getting somebody that's highly productive, then maybe they flame out or that's somebody that's very hirable, right, not somebody that's high maintenance.
Day one.
So I said this, the bills are telling you they're going to get out of the Steffon Diggs market.
Very quickly.
They go and get a tight end in round one two. NFL gms told me easily the best tight end. So now they have Kincaid and Dawson Knox, they upgrade running back, they immediately sign more, they double down on their defensive front. And what it tells me is they're trying to become more run oriented, better up front, ground control, and get out of the Steffan Diggs. And I'll argue this just like New England did with Moss after two three very productive years, you could get out today and he's got
value if he blows up again. Half this league, three quarters of this league, nick gms are like, no, thank you.
They're gonna be afraid of it. The only I listen, here's the the Digs thing is such a problem for Buffalo for a number of reasons.
The typical easy fixes for the wide receiver.
Clearly will not fix this because they're not the problem. And by that I mean sometimes it's I want more money. He got the contract a year ago, like they you know what I mean. The money has been paid. It is not a money thing. The other one, if it's not money, is usually I want more targets. Over the last couple of years, he's one of the two or three, maybe number one, but most targeted guys in the whole league. So it's like, uh, oh, it's not money, it's not targets.
How do we fix this? And I have been kind of I don't know what the right word is. I have found it unbelievable that Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills set this fire publicly and then are looking around angry at everyone for watching the flames. That the timeline of this is day one of Bill's mini camp. Evidently Stefon Diggs is there, then leaves before practice. Sean McDermott goes to the media, is asked about Diggs not being there and says, oh, I'm very concerned, takes a long
pause and goes very concerned. Well maybe you shouldn't have said that, buddy. Then the next day he's there and McDermott goes to the media is like, I don't know what everyone's making such a big deal about this. I excused him, It's like, what you fucking.
Told us you were concerned? And then they canceled.
Practice the next day, and then Josh Allen was on a podcast, yeah, a couple of days ago. I forget who it was. But when a player runs it and they asked him, it was, you know, one of the It wasn't one of yours, but it was similar to Richard Sherman's podcast. So I'm like that, I forget who it was on I apologize and he was like, yeah, the media won't stop talking about this, and it's like, man, we wouldn't have even known about it, but your coach
screwed up there. And then when you add to it that the last image we have of Diggs is him yelling at Josh Allen.
On the sideline. That seems to be a problem.
The only question I would have there is Colin, why haven't they just signed DeAndre Hopkins to kind of regain control of the situation, because I do think Gabe Davis might not be a number two. He's certainly not a number one. I do think they need a receiver there. If they're worried about Digs, maybe they just think, you know, he's under contract, we're gonna be fine. But that to me is a if you had to right now, And this is something I mentioned to you on TV you
can only choose one of these two doors. The Bills make the super Bowl or the Bills miss the playoffs. I am definitely choosing to miss the play I'm not picking them to miss the playoffs. But I think they're more likely to miss the playoffs than have an awesome year and make the super Bowl. I think that's for damn sure.
A social media question good. The user experience at Twitter has gone in to the tank. I said, when Elon must took it over, I said, I'm not gonna I'm just gonna watch it and see what happens. Very quickly, it got annoying, then violent, violent videos. Now I'm constantly muting them ads. I'm constantly muting them. The user experience is more toxic than it's ever been. And I don't think. I don't think Elon he's obviously a bright guy, he's creative,
but I also think he's distracted. Threads now gets unveiled and I went on it, my staff put me on it. I find it irritating when you look as a young broadcaster coming up, you've been very I think you've used been very dynamic on your Twitter spaces to you know, engage with people. I find the Elon Musk Twitter experience, and I try to be fair about it, just increasingly a poor experience. So I'm not on it at all. Where are you where? Where? Where are you as a younger person on social media today?
So there's a bunch of social media stuff I'd actually like to talk to you about. So for me, I and it was one of it was kind of a sad choice I made, but that I felt I needed to do it, or it was good for me to do it, because I do miss out on some inner I miss out on maybe some ideas I wouldn't otherwise have thought of. But I four years ago, five years ago, around the time I started to have a real national profile, just said I am never I shouldn't say never. I
am almost never looking at my mentions. I am not engaging in it whatsoever, except for if people don't know when the back when Twitter was, you know, pre Musk, if you were verified, you had a separate mentions tab that would only show you tweets from other verified people. And so what that would mean is I would if any athletes, if any other journalists, if any other broadcasters were engaging with what I was saying, positively or negatively, I would see it.
But and that maybe.
People going to say that's elitist. I'm not listening, but it was, it was, it would It was too toxic of just you. I don't care how kind of you know what I mean above it you claim to be. If if you have thousands of strangers saying basically you suck, it's going to get in your head somehow. And the flip side is if you have thousands of strangers saying you're the greatest, it's going to get in your head somehow.
And the things that and that you talked to Ethan Strauss about this, the things that get the most applause on social media are not necessarily representative of the things that are what I what I use social media for, which is a professional vehicle, you know what I mean. And so I stopped looking at my mention, so like I to this day. I just yesterday at the Yankee game, some guy came up to me was like, and I don't know why so many people e f and hate you.
I think you're great, And it was like nice of him, but I also, like I was thinking, I was like, honestly, I'm I'm blissfully unaware these days of how many people hate me because you gotta find you. You better see me in person and tell me, and I have seen. So that's a very long even and it's not even a full answer. The reason I mentioned it, musk ripping off that verified tab to mean anything was to me very damaging on my ability to engage with anything on Twitter, very damaging. Uh.
And so that to me was that's a shame.
Now then you have like, hey, sign up for blue Sky and I got an invite code, and then it's like sign up for spill and then yesterday it was Threads and I'm all probably be a begrudging late adopter, but I I don't know, man, I got six hundred thousand followers on Twitter. I also am blessed to have a platform outside of social media where you want to see what I have to say. Like I'm on television every day, I do a podcast. It's not my only outlet.
So I remember I lived in Connecticut nine years ago, and I remember exactly where I was. I was in my driveway, I was on my cell phone, and you and I would talk about once a month about business and stuff. And I said to you, I said, just be patient. We'll work together. I said, I respect you. You like the right stuff. You're not overly dramatic, you have a sense of humor. I'm like, you probably don't
remember this call, but I do. I remember we had a gravel driveway, and so it was probably ten years because it took us a year to fix it and all the gravel would get stuck in our time. So we made it, you know, Cement. And I said to you, I said, you're gonna this thing's gonna work. Like all these bloggers most full of shit, they don't break any stories. And I had gone to my ESPN bosses and I said, whoever runs the big lead, he's actually breaking stories. He's
not just aggregating stuff like he breaks stories. Do you remember me telling you, and this is probably ten or eleven years ago, that we were going to work together.
I can, I say, I vaguely recall that, Colin. I know we would have conversations from time to time about the industry, the business, which way it was headed. Could you could already see kind of the tea leaves were shifting. Things were moving kind of quickly but also slowly, the same way cables erosion is happening now. You could kind of see how blogs, which had kind of disrupted newspapers and sports, all of a sudden, blogs start to get
phased out as social media pops up. And I could kind of see like, Okay, we're making money on the big lead. Things are going well, but yeah, I need to start thinking about what's next for me, what's next in my career? And when you mentioned TV, I was like, well, geez, I didn't go to college for that. You know, Am I going to be prepared? And I think you. I recall you telling me, hey man, you've got nothing to worry about. Just be yourself. And that's kind of been
a lot of the advice you've given me. Just be yourself. You do your homework, you're well researched, be ready when your numbers called. You know, I feel like that pinch hitter in the dugout, waiting for that opportunity and then the coach says, all right, get on deck, you're up to bet. And you always got to be ready.
So the New York Times disbanded their sports department. You and I talk a lot off the air. It's probably our primary discussion off the air is either rumors in sports or rumors in our industry. So when they bought the Athletic, it was, you know, it was they showed their hand. It wasn't going to be the New York Times Sports department. The Athletic was going to become the sports department. I think everybody in the industry sort of knew that. I always looked at The New York Times
Sports as sort of people a little precious. If you cover bad minton, I'm not going to take you seriously. They did didn't really like appear to like sports, So you know, for a global newspaper, maybe that works.
But again, I.
Think I can think Tyler Kepner did great work with baseball. I read a lot of him. But I could also think you could see this coming from one hundred miles away. They they have sports writers that like write once a month. It's a grinder's world. There's lots of people in our business who are good, they're just infrequent contributors. And as somebody that now owns a company, I need daily or bi weekly work. Were you shocked by the Times move, No, not at all.
Like you said, there's these feature writers that was like the golden position in newspapers. Right, like how you would write for Sports Illustrated. You'd like one piece, it would take you a month to write it. That would be your story. And it was like, that's a plumb job. Who would Who wouldn't want to work like that? But you could see The New York Times was kind of trying to zig when the industry's zagging, like, hey, you want to read about the NBA, that's all over the internet, radio, TV.
We're going to give you all the tennis you can handle. We're going to back up the brinkstruck and unload on golf and like you said, badminton, and we're going to go for kind of these peculiar stories maybe about table tennis or what have you. And yeah, they would do great investigative work. But again, it's not the kind of thing Colin where it's just sustainable where you write one story even a week like that just doesn't work. I mean,
think about it. You when you do the Herd, you've got to lead every hour with heavy, strong takes to keep the sports fans coming, and you got to do that five days a week. Like this idea that writers and journalists could work once a week, once a month, that's just that's archaic. That stuff does not exist anymore. And you know, you see where this is headed, like this is the New York Times, you know, the one newspaper subscription that's worked. They just said no to their
sports section. It's over. So you got to start thinking about where this goes in five years and ten years, and it's not a pretty place. Obviously.
It's almost like a liberal idealistic tunnel on Skipper figure this out at dizone. There's plenty of quotes on the internet where John made some you know, some purchases when he was at his zone and he figured out touching all the bases is irrelevant. You got to go after the big stories. It's all anybody talks about, and John Skipper, I don't have them in front of me acknowledge that is sometimes you know, I think sometimes left leaning journalists feel like they want to touch all the bases and
cover the people that don't get love. It's over. Like the athletic. I go for NFL, NBA playoff takes UFC. You know, there's very few things. In fact, I don't even go to the athletic for UFC. I go to him for NFL, college football, NBA sometimes, you know, I have places I go for UFC. I mean, I basically have four sports. I love NFL, NBA, college football, and UFC. I'll pay whatever it takes to get it. And then I don't really count the United States men's national team.
That's like, you know, that's sort of a that's our team. And then I like college basketball and I like baseball, but I'm not going to pay big money for him. If they're there all watch I'll discussed infrequently, but I do think there's sometimes in the journalism world there's this sense we're going to cover all the bases and it doesn't matter. You've got to cover. You were at the big lead. You didn't I remember this. You didn't waste
a lot of time trying to appease everybody. Take me to your thought process on creating a blog that you sold for seven figures.
Well, when you try to please everybody, you please nobody, because nobody's going to be happy with your work. I'll never forget Colin. I would wake up before school every morning in around six o'clock on the East Coast. My dad would be leaving for work. He'd pick up the Washington Post from the driveway and I'd say, Dad, you know, peel me out the sports section, and I would look at the sports section and read about what happened in sports the night before, Like that's how we used to
get news. Okay, Now you wake up, your alarm to wake up is probably on your phone, and instantly you've got a run down of what happened that matters. And I know there's NHL purists who believe, like, oh man, the NHL draft was crazy. I'm sure it was, but the number of people who care about that does not matter to me. Running a website, people want to know what's going on in the NBA, NFL, college football, and then they want the other stuff like Britney Spears versus
Victor Wambinyama, wackiness like that. They love those wacky stories that anyone can relate to. Listen, I played tennis myself. I entering a tournament later this month. I can't tell you the last story I read about tennis. Okay. I don't play a lot of golf. I know a lot of friends who play golf. They don't read golf, Like, there is not really a lot of compelling stories in those granular sports. You've really got it as you told me once when I got a radio show on Fox
Sports Radio, play the hits. That was like your number one thing. Play the hits. You could lead with Aaron Rodgers one day, Cowboys the next day. Play the big stories. People care about that deeply. As much as I I want to bag on the Houston Texans, you know I can't open a show with that here. You know on my podcast, I wasn't blogging much about the inferior teams in the NFL. You got to give the people what they want.
You've also always had an eye and I've always loved it, but you've had an eye for gambling. You're very good at it. And you know, again, I try not to be precious the there's a you know, a sense that you know gambling. Be very careful about gambling. People can get hooked. The average bet when I worked with FanDuel, the average bet was four dollars. Ninety nine percent of the people are not betting what they can't handle. Are there people that can't handle that responsibility? Yes, thirty million
Americans are obese. There are people that can't handle bagels. There are people that can't handle alcohol. The disturbance rate or distortion rate for gambling is one percent. It's six percent for alcohol. Lots of people can struggle with alcohol, not that many people, you know, the stories are anecdotal. There are people to get lost in it. Overwhelmingly people
at four or five bucks. That's what they gamble. So I want to go to your over unders in the NFL because you and I are aligned on almost everything. The one thing or not you hate the Rams, now I worry about because I have friends that work with them about being a Homer. But I've got friends all over the Chargers, and I'm always reluctant to embrace the Chargers.
But I do think it's a head coach quarterback league, and I think there's four positions you got to get right, head coach, quarterback, somebody in your front five defensively, and a big time weapon, and I think the Rams have all of that. I also think they're incredibly young on defense, but that's about Kansas City last year was young on defense. If you have an elite defender up front, you can be really young in your back seven. Because we talked
about this with Webbin Yama. Offense is refinement. Defense is blowing shit up. Defense is about fast speed, can you disturb the offense, young defenses. The Jets have all sorts of young players. They're fast. If they get injured, they get healthier faster. So I think the Rams tend to be better than people think. What is your and again, coach, quarterback, weapon, defensive linemen like you get those four right? You can
have flaws everywhere. What is your primary concern with the Rams? Well, they're clearly top heavy.
But I do want to let me prefaces by saying I'm a big Rams fan now that I move to LA Like, Yeah, I like them, I root for them. I go to some Rams games. I know people who are friends with Stafford in vacation with him. I listen. I like the Rams. I've rooted for Stafford. I like Cooper cup Colin. This team is Honestly, the Rams are closer to being in the Caleb Williams Sweepstakes than the playoffs. That's the reality. I had someone how I've been saying
on your show, give me their defensive depth chart. I don't know anybody other than Aaron Donald. They have. They drafted I believe fourteen rookies and they signed twenty four undrafted players thirty eight. I don't know how many are going to make the roster. But Colin, you look at that to depth chart, too deep chart on the defense, and it is one of the worst in the league. They are super top heavy with Stafford, who, by the way,
had a major elbow thing. And I'm just saying, like I said on your show, that there's a world where Aaron Donald maybe gets traded. Like if I'm McVeigh and I was close to retirement, what would you want to do? Keep going with this old crew, or all of a sudden you start out, you know, two and five, one and four. It's like, ooh, I don't know what we have here. And when I'm looking at over unders, I bet the schedule. I think that under on the Rams is one of the best bets on the board currently.
I see it at six and a half. Colin, I know you like the Rams. You know lesson you need all these guys like you are way off market. Now, listen, that's not the worst thing in the world. Last year at this time, nobody had the Eagles winning the Super Bowl or going to the Super Bowl, you know, so
you know, maybe the Rams exceed expectations. But at six and a half, it just tells me man that schedule, the age on this team, you know they could be in a lot of shootouts and being on the wrong end of a lot of them.
Okay, you're most interesting over You have the Ravens over nine and a half. My concern is of their top nine players, eight have an injury history. Of the Steelers top nine players, none do.
TJ.
Watt was banged up last year. But when TJ Watt's healthy, the Steelers win seventy five percent of their games. But you have them as an over Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Deshaun Watson should be better. There will be an argument by Thanksgiving. It may be one of the best divisions, if not the best division in football. So where do you get ten plus wins for the Ravens. So I look at this usually, you know macro sense, it's NFC overs AFC unders. That's pretty much how I would lean because the AFC
is so incredibly stacked. Why I look at the Ravens, Colin, You know, I know we've made fun of not Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, right, Lamar Jackson last few years has been hurt. But what's funny is with him healthy despite how bad the supporting cast has been They've been a first place team in November, and all of a sudden, Lamar Jackson goes down and the kind of the bottom falls out, injuries to the offensive line, injuries to the defense, defense
getting old. I like the reinvigoration. Offensive coordinator. Munket comes from Georgia, and some people have broke down on YouTube some stuff that he used to do spread offense even with Stetson Bennett. Okay, I know they had a defense that carried him to two Natties, but Stetson Bennet's do some interesting things in the pocket, a lot of pre snap movement that you know, the analytics guys loves. And there's a world where Lamar Jackson is in play if
he's healthy for an MVP award. He's got the best supporting cast and skill position he's ever had. And you know, I think this was in a movie or something, but you know, always bet on Harball because both Harball brothers have done a lot of winning and John Harball is just a winning coach man. This guy knows what to do. So I would lean on the Ravens nine and a half. So one other bet you have that's interesting. You have
the Texans under six and a half. And so I have a friend who kind of deals in the world of quarterbacks college and pro and he's not judgmental. He travels around, he sees a lot of them, and he was recently at an event where C. J. Stroud was at the event Texans rookie quarterback, and his takeaway was, I don't get it, like I didn't see the juice. He's quiet, he doesn't jump out as a leader. He throws a nice catchable ball. Ohio State has never had
a great NFL quarterback. And my argument's always been j MA because it's always been is that in the SEC, there's six or seven teams with NFL bodies everywhere, but in the Big Ten outside of Michigan, every team Ohio State plays is significantly less talented. And you're just it's an easy college life for quarterbacks. As good as a Georgia quarterback is or an LSU quarterback is, they're facing NFL defensive bodies every Saturday, big stadiums, loud, lubricated. It
doesn't matter how good your offensive line is. Two is getting banged up. Jalen Hurts at Alabama, You're going to get hit in the SEC and Ohio State's offensive lines five star. Ohio States receivers five star. It's an easy life and it's not a great place to prep for the NFL. And so when my friend told me this, he said, I just and he's very bright and he knows this stuff. He's like, I just don't see it. What is your best guess? On CJ. Stroud? We both
admit Bryce his size is a concern. He's probably the number one guy. There's a lot of back and forth on Justin Fields. There's a lot of back and forth on CJ. Stroud. Generally there'll be a quarterback that we all sort of go, yeah, he's the best guy. Caleb Williams. Next year, he's the best guy. Luck Trevor Lawrence, right, Like, there's a guy Burrow. You thought he was better than I did, but he's gonna be fine. CJ. Stroud's in that justin Fields category, the Sam Darnold category. Like people
are taking sides. What side are you on?
Yeah, I'm on the side of The Texans are probably a four win team. Colin. They were an abject disaster last year and now you have a rookie quarterback. As you said from Ohio State, which hasn't produced any great ones. By the way, two years ago, Stroud, you probably had a better receiving cast at Ohio State than he will this year. Remember Olave Wilson Harrison like, he doesn't have
those guys in the NFL. Now, rookie head coach who is a defensive head coach, and you go on rants probably weekly about how defensive head coaches that's not your jam in the NFL. First time play caller, I believe that is so much newness. And this is the second straight year in free agency where they just go and they just get guys. There's no like, ooh, that's a great buy, that's a great bargain, what value. You don't hear any of that With the Texans free agent moves,
the GM in trouble. This franchise is just I don't see it. This is definitely an under six and a half for me. I actually feel they're in the basement in the division. It's not that hot of a take, but I think the Indianapolis Colts with Shane Steichen, offensive guy, will finish ahead of the Texans.
All Right.
We sent him to the Summer League, and as usual, he crushed it Jason timp coops tonight. I thought Wemby's first performance was a lot of jitters. I mean, the idea at nineteen of going into a foreign country and be the star attraction against you know, guys who are literally trying to make the league and are fighting for their survival and roster spot. You know, he knows he's already gonna make the team, so I thought it was
kind of predictable that he would struggle. It was choppy, I gotta tell you, though, when I watched them today, you know, his size is just so impactful. There's just there's just no way around it. He's gonna He's gonna have twenty five point nights. So let's let's start with the difference. You saw Jason game one, Game two. What jumped out to you?
This is so funny To me, that news cycle was objectively hilarious. It's like, Okay, here's this guy who already has been good against pros in France, who already was great against the G League night team, like destroyed them in two games in America a few months back, in like one game in Summer League, and everyone was rewriting whether or not this prospect was worth all of the hype, and then big shock he comes out with twenty seven and twelve with three blocks. Today, the big thing that
stood out to me was just process. Like, honestly, I would I looked over at Carson and Logan our nerd Sash guys right before the game, and I'm like, I wonder if they're gonna play basketball or just throw him the bat or just throw them the ball, let him play ISO pickup ball. And that's what they did in that first game. For several possessions, He's just standing on the wing dribbling like he's Kevin Durant against Kai Jones.
And that's literally the hardest way to play basketball. And you know, I kind of did a little thing on my show today. Every young player has a floor in a ceiling, and their floor is mainly based on what they're already great at, and then their ceiling is based on whether or not they can address their weaknesses. He has things that he's great at. He's the greatest combination of height and length and coordination of any center that we've ever seen. He's already got great defensive instincts and
a good amount of offensive polish. So if you play easy basketball with him, he will excel. There was a sequence at the end of this game where he set a ball screen, there was a switch, he flashed to the middle of the floor. They threw him the ball and he just quick shot a little turnaround fade away over his right shoulder to make it to get it back to four. Very next possession, guy drives along the
left side, the rim protector gets occupied. He just relocates to the left wing and takes a wide open catch and shoot three, and he makes it to get it back to one. I'm like, this is what it's gonna look like in San Antonio real basketball, where he has an opportunity to demonstrate what he's great at. And I'm not surprised at all that he popped in that setting.
I thought all of the reaction to Game one was really misplays, disrespectful to what he's already accomplished as a pro, and just it was predictable.
That he would it bounce back the way he did today.
Yeah, in the game one. In Game two, there was a moment where somebody ripped the ball out of his hands, and I do think like if somebody said to me, like, what's the one glaring weakness, I would say weakness. He's nineteen, Like, you know, guys are you know he put the ball up a couple times and guys just grab it and pulled it out of his hands. And it's like, yeah, you can tell he need. You know, when you start looking at these veteran NBA guys, they look like they've
been in a professional weight room for seven years. Like it's just a different definition. So if you told me like, I could see them building a schedule and saying and I thought I said this with Okac, they should do it for chet Holmegron fifty eight games. Just take some road trips off, stay home, lift weights for four days instead of that two team road trip to say, you know, Houston, Orlando, stay home, eat, work out, try to make as many home games as you can right and have a limited
road schedule. Not that you don't need to go on the road, but there'll be times. I just want him to stay home, sleep, eat, lift and play fifty eight games. And I feel that way with Wemby. It's like, obviously he has his motors running. I mean, when you know, when you were nineteen, you could polish off two turkey sandwich is glass of milk, two cookies hour later, you're starting right like that's who he is. He's nineteen, He's going to burn seven calories, and it's like the only
thing I look at. I think he just needs to get stronger. He just needs he needs just nights off, because you know, I've talked to NBA guys about this. You start burdening calories when you're nineteen, twenty twenty one to twenty two. It's hard to keep weight on if you're playing forty at night in this because these guys, a lot of these guys Jason, especially college guys, didn't play any defense in college matchup zones, and you kind
of regard a space. It's the first time you've had to guard a guy, so like it is a whole different ballgame. So I just think, I think he's just gonna get a little bit stronger. But there were a couple when you need those back to back dunks, there are these moments of like he's just gonna get some Like there's you could you know when a players great when you perfectly defend them and they score like length is undefeated, like it just wins all the time. If
Durant's six ' eight he's not the same player. He's just really really good. So and I thought, I will tell you this, he's a really gracious kid, like I think he's really grateful for it, and I think it matters, like I don't see any I thin. He's just really, you know, very grateful for it. I don't know. I think he's got the perfect you know, I'm gonna throw a through really quickly. So Popovich got Lucky Robinson Duncan
like the nicest guys in the world. Right. Then he gets Kawhi, who's difficult, right, and he leaves and he says to himself, I'm not doing that. Wemby has got an old school grateful personality, a little bit the old school, right, And the foreign players, as we've discussed, come into the country and they're very appreciative. It's new. All visitors are more polite, right you go overseas I do or more polite. I think he's been waiting for the next you know,
just happened to be an international player. I think they're gonna do really well. I think this is going to be Popovich just third run to you.
Absolutely.
I mean the beauty of having a personality like that at a position like that. If you think about duncan is, it makes it really easy to bring different types of volatile ball handlers around him, because not only is he unassuming, he is your foundational piece. He's the guy that you build your entire defense around. On offense, he's the guy that's going to pick and pop to the top of the to the key, or to beat switches with smaller guys, he'll bury him in the post. But he actually needs
a primary ball handler. And so when you have a guy like that who also has a great attitude, it's going to make it really easy to find players that want to play with him. I really like the point you made about putting on weight, because I've never thought of it thought about it that way in terms of cutting back his playing time as a vehicle with which to put on muscle, because it is so difficult to maintain weight at alone gain weight during a basketball season.
Every year I'd play, I'd go into the season at like two twenty seven, twenty nine, and I come out of the season like two seventeen, two nineteen, because like you, just all you're doing is playing and playing and sweating and playing and working out and going to class and you just don't ever have an opportunity to do what it takes to keep the weight on until you get to the offseason. So I like that idea of kind of like minimizing his workload as an opportunity to put
on weight and to help avoid injuries. But you know, it's funny because the ceiling with him is completely ridiculous, right, the crazy high level shot making, the one legged three point shot that he takes from the top of the key that he actually made quite a bit when he was in Europe, all the stuff that he can do defensively. But overnight he's going to be really good in ways
that impact winning. In terms of rim protection. He closed out a ton of possessions at the end of that game, just snatching defensive rebounds over the top of everybody getting to the foul and he shot twelve free throws tonight just because when he reaches to shoot over the top of people, they go for the ball and they get four armed because they're just not close to where he is. Right.
But here's the thing. He's not gonna win Rookie of the Year most likely because it's gonna be someone like Scoot Henderson, someone that's gonna put up a ton of numbers that's going to pop earlier in their career with the way that their skill set goes. He's gonna be the kind of guy that all your long people are going to be looking for opportunities to minimize what he's doing.
This is the dude that five to ten years from now has the potential to be both the best offensive player in the league and the best defensive player in the league. That is the ultimate ceiling there, but that will take time. He's not someone that's necessarily going to pop statistically early on, and so I hope people I
hope people treat him with that level of fairness. But as far as Popovich goes, and I don't know if you saw, there's kind of a caveat there where like he may not actually stay on and coach that whole time because he's also the president of basketball operations. So they might work something out where they phase him out, but then maybe he can pick the successor at that point. But because of his specific personality and his skill set, they're going to be able to find pieces to surround
him with. People are going to want to play with this guy. I think the Spurs are going to be relevant for the next decade.
So I mean one of the coaches that's clearly on the hot seat is Brandon Staley with the Chargers, no question, if they don't make the playoffs, defensive coach, third year wasting justin Herbert's career, it'll be the only elite quarterback in the league that's not like growing.
Right.
So my takeaway is if they don't make the playoffs and in the AFC, you got to win those close games Chargers, which historically you haven't, right, you just can't give away games when you outplay teams. If they fire Brandon Staley, I think they'll make the Calder Lincoln Riley. But what saves USC is that he makes over ten million a year and that he'd want fifteen because he can stay at USC as long as he wants. And I think Kellen Moore would get the job because the
spanosy is historically don't spend on coaches. You could give Kellen four and a half, you know, four and a half, five and a half, six and a half, But I think the two coaches because you can't go from defensive coach the defensive coach. If no, you'd have to go offense. And my guess is the people in LA would say take Lincoln Bruin fans will certainly screamed at, but I think but I think Kellen Moore would be next in line. So to me, Brandon Staley has the most heat on
him in the league. Is there a second?
That's a good question, you know, I think Jerry shown to be a little more patient in fairness Mike for two years that they have been successful and it's not like they're going up against the bar where it's NFC championship or bust. Right, they haven't been in one in two and a half decades. I would say, you know that it feels like the Tomlin and the Harbaugh feel a little bit untouchable. I saw a story today and you and I have talked about this over the last
several months. It's unique because this guy's and six Super Bowls, but there is a weird elephant in the room. Pressure on Bill. I think there was tangible pressure of him being aggressive and stealing his offensive coordinator from his good friend Nick Saban. Obviously they have a relationship, but you know Nick doesn't love losing offensive coordinators all the time, like he fights to keep those guys. They usually go
on to be head coaches, not another offensive coordinator. I guess Brian dabol did it too, But I think there's enough smoke where there is no one's acting like Belichick's the village idiot. But isn't there just a time where every coach, well, usually it doesn't go like Popovich where you just don't win for seven eight years and kind
of get to survive. Usually during that period it ends, I don't care how many championships you have in the history of sports, and how are they going to be that good relative to the AFC Colin.
And also, if you read Ian O'Connor's book on Belichick or Jeff Benedict's, when you start reading these books, it's pretty clear that the Craft family, Robert Steven somebody has been at least one of the sources for some of the Belichick criticism. So it's they, You know, Bill, My wife used to say this, he was an HR for a long time. She said nobody, and it's not true, but she said, very rarely in her career when she
fired somebody. Were they surprised? Right now? Now, we just had some horrible media layoffs, but very rarely as a coach fired and everybody goes, WHOA. When Belichick he's always had kind of a you know, he's short with people. He can be sort of condescending right media certainly for sure. Obviously he didn't get along great with Brady. No dinners
together in twenty some years, so it wasn't great. But for the Crafts or somebody in their circle, there's a lot of inside information critical of Bill and those books. It had to come somebody in that family or near it. I think they would first go to him and talk about a consulting, seven figure consulting role. But fourth place
is fourth place. And I think the minute he went defensive coordinator to offensive coordinator, he sort of laid the groundwork because what happened is he not only made the offense worse. It's a little bit of a speed bump for mac Jones, and reportedly Benvollen said this week that mac Jones and his family have forged a relationship with the Crafts so smart, so they're hearing things, They're hearing
the frustration. I don't think it's outrageous after the year, if Bill steps down and there's a backdoor deal of some monetary noteworthy monetary value.
I just don't see in the AFC. I mean, they would have to have the number one defense in the league. They would have to just be an incredible special teams team. Now granted they've been good in those units, but I'm talking the cream of the crop, because just look at their offensive personnel.
It's not explosive enough.
And you can't just go nineteen eighty seven, you know, try to run for twenty eight hundred yards in this leak current league, especially in the division there in which can all score points, right, have explosive quarterbacks.
That's the other thing when.
You're an owner or you know, and the fans, you get to see the Miami Dolphins offense and Josh Allen and now Aaron Rodgers. That's six games right that your watching start to finish and you kind of really know. And they've had a front row seat now in Josh Allen kicking their ass for a little while, and now with Tua being more explosive, or even if Mike White has to play the amount of talent they have on offense, they're going to score points in Miami. So I'm with you.
I think he has I think trouble is ahead. You know it doesn't make him like he's got stupid overnight or now he's an idiot, And I think other teams would be very interested. But that also be interesting, right a guy over seventy very stuck in his ways. He was used to making a lot of coin. I mean someone just giving him four years eighty million dollars.
It used to be that Belichick would work young front offices and poorly owned and run franchises like he did a lot of deals with Cleveland, you know, Buffalo.
Yeah.
The fact that he re signed DeVante Parker, who is last in the league three years in a row at separation, the fact that they signed Juju Smith Schuster. The Chiefs worked the Patriots. The Chiefs got the value in the ring, didn't have to pay Juju. So the Chiefs now are working the Patriots. People are working the Patriots. It used to be New England work the other teams. So by signing Devonte Parker and not having really a high end tight end, what does it do? It makes Mac Jones
less crucial. This team can win one way. Now, run game in defense, that's it. There is no because Ma's not an offscript player. So what it does is it forces I mean, Devonte Parker can only be schemed open. He doesn't get open. So what it does it forces mac Jones to be incredibly coachable. I mean, who in the world in this league on offensive coach would re sign the Vontae Parker for three years none.
It's insane. It's insane.
It really forces mac Jones to play Bill's way. That's what it feels like to me. I mean, Juju Smith Schuster kind of a slot guy, doesn't really separate. DeVante doesn't separate. By the way, what do they do in the draft? Two kickers, three guards. Again, speed Deficiency's offense never addressed them. They went three defensive players first, three guards, two kickers, didn't go to receiver until the end. So again, he's creating a team that can win in Bill's worldview,
not Max, not where. Remember when Brady and Randy Moss really lit the world up. That's kind of the beginning of where Bill lost his leverage. It wasn't in the super Bowl. It was like, oh, Tom's the greatest quarterback ever, literally shattered records. That's when Tom started doing more commercials, was more comfortable speaking out, And I think that's coin of the tipping point. Where Bill felt I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to make a guy and then lose control
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