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Download the game Time app doesn't take long. Create an account, use my code the redeem code columns SELN for twenty dollars off your first purchase. COLN terms apply. Download game Time today. What time is it? Game Time may have been the best Thursday night football game I've ever seen. Thirty six thirty Kirk Cousins, Oh my God, five hundred plus yards for kirk Cousins. Was it four touchdown passes? Baker had what three touchdown passes? It's just a flurry.
I lost count. Jeez, what a night. I mean this, I'm doing this on the fly here. I'm just looking thirty six thirty Yeah, Baker nineteen and twenty four three touchdowns. Listen to these numbers for kirk Cousins forty two of fifty eight, four touchdowns, five hundred and nine yards. Colin, I can't believe it. Lena paid Kirk Cousins and drafted Michael Pennix.
It should be fired.
Yeah, having two quarterbacks. It's terrible thing in the NFL. Just terrible. So first of all that that game was crazy. October has arrived and SOA's offense. I mean, this just shows you how close this league is. So Atlanta. I mean, you know, they get Darnell Mooney drops that ball six minutes left, and you're thinking they just blew it wide open Darnell Mooney. But Raheem Morris, like good coaches, kept his timeouts. They were able to stop tamp on that drive.
Time out, time out, time out, get it back ball punted in the end, zone, get it back. And this is what Captain Kirk does. He's a professional quarterback in this and this shows you. We talked about this on FS one today. The middle class quarterbacks. You know, your uppercross is five or six guys, and then you get into Look at all these middle class quarterbacks. Andy Dalton, Sam Darnold, Gino Smith, Baker Mayfield. Kirk Cousins is on the higher end of that, but you don't pay him
a fortune. They make good money. Kirk makes good money. But look at all the quarterbacks that don't make the biggest money. Kirk Cousins a lot of weapons, Baker Godwin, Mike Evans, Gino Darnold. You notice that if you're gonna have a B to a B plus quarterback and you don't pay him Dak money, look at the weapons. Dak's a B plus quarterback, A minus, you pay him big money.
They got one receiver, okay, and they can't They probably gonna afford Devonte Adams, but they have the worst running back room in the league and the worst run defense. So if you're gonna pay a quarterback the Mahomes money, Josh Allen Lamar, I'm for it, but that's why Kansas City never has a fully formed wide receiver group. But that game tonight's just a I mean, I got notes here. I've been watching it for hours and I'm sitting here
and forget my notes. It was just a great wild NFC South football game and you were watching two really good quarterbacks.
You know.
It's funny about Baker Mayfield. We talked about this today on the show. If you give Baker a pocket and Atlanta doesn't have much of a pass rush, I think al Michaels said to Night or Kirk Krbstreet said tonight that they just all season long, they have generated like no pass rush in the first half, and I forget what the stat was, But you give Baker time to throw and let him step into it. Dude's got a
big arm. Same with Gino Smith, big arm. Kirk Cousins doesn't have that arm, but his ability to melt the clock. He is a classic professional quarterback. He is a just a pro. That final drive is just so smart, you know what I mean? And give Atlanta backs and receivers Kyle Pitts credit out of bounds, get out of bounds. That's a team, you know. Raheem Morris got that job in Tampa wasn't quite ready for. It goes eventually to
Sean McVay. They become tight friends. Watches McVeigh. He becomes a very offensive, friendly defensive coach like Demiko Ryans, with Kyle Shanahan a very offensive, friendly defensive coach Demiko Ryans. Raheem Morris watched those teams situationally with their offense. You know, I thought just the way Atlanta preserved their timeouts tonight in the game, they could have easily lost. You don't waste timeouts. They had them late. You know, it was
funny when they gave the ball to Kirk Cousins. I forget, was like a minute twenty six left, and I'm thinking, you know, he's not Brady, but I'm thinking this is Kirk. They'll be fine. They'll get into field goal range, you know. I mean, you got and something has happened in the NFL. I can't explain it. It's happened overnight. Fifty yard field
goals are suddenly no big deal, no idea. I have no idea what's happened, But I mean this thing tonight, it's just like fifty three yard field goals are made with ease. So God, the NFL's crazy. But New York Mets. I don't think they have the talent of the Padres overall,
or the Dodgers, or probably the Yankees. But the fact that Pete Alonso, you know, he's a classic slugger, he goes into extended slum home run derby guy hits the biggest home run of his career tonight in the ninth for the Mets as they go on to beat the Brewers. But this is what's crazy about it. So the New York Mets have been a franchise since nineteen sixty two. I went and looked it up and that was like the Casey Stengele Polo Grounds nineteen sixty two. The Philadelphia
Phillies were formed in the late eighteen hundreds. So the first baseball team ever, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was like eighteen sixty nine. Well, the Phillies were in the National League like fifteen years later. I mean, I think they were playing in a street corner. I mean, who knows, I don't know, was it Connie Max Stadium or something like that.
I don't know.
Some baseball historian will know it. So just think about that. The Phillies have been around since the eighteen hundreds. The Mets have been around since nineteen sixty two. I'm reading it on a piece of paper right now. The Phillies have been to eight World Series. These two teams, Mets Phillies' rivals have never met in the playoffs. What they have never met in the playoffs before tonight? Have you ever wanted to win a beer at a bar with trivia?
They've never met in the playoffs. I think the Philly is the better team. But you know, the Mets have been read hot since mid June, a lot of come from behind victories, and there is a magic to it, you know, these teams. I mean, there's a reason you've heard comeback kids, cardiac kids.
You see it.
You see it in football and baseball at the time. They're just these teams that get on rolls. They're very comfortable playing from behind. They often have power in the lineup. So, I mean, listen, outside of the NFL, almost all sports are somewhat dependent on who gets into the finals. You know, you're Wimbledon's going to be rated higher if it has its biggest stars in it. You know, the US Open in golf obviously Tiger in some of the big hitters.
Now a Brooks kept can drive a number. Nobody questions that. Or it's the or the US Open at Pebble Beach or Pinehurst. Obviously there are you know, Ohio State meet to Texas in a national championship. That's going to get a twenty buck. Guys and Longhorns have two of the biggest, most rabid fan bases. You know, Michigan last year planned for a Natty, got a huge rating. It matters situationally, an fl kind of bulletproof beyond brand. So, I mean,
Green Bay is one of your more popular franchises. So it was Pittsburgh and they're considered smaller markets. But in baseball, Mets Phillies, that's who major League Baseball Center over to London to play.
That was an o.
Marquee, big power hitters, marquee, big major markets. And Podres Dodgers, which is a really used to be Dodger San Francisco, but the Podres Dodgers over the last four or five years become a great, great series. You know, Dodgers big brother, Podre's little brother. But the Podres now they pay like I mean, they have a salary cap that feels more Boston than it does historically San Diego. So that's going
to be a great series. The National League, I mean, Major League Baseball could not have picked four better teams.
To get in.
So Pete Rose passed away the hit king. You can't talk about Pete Rose when I first got into this business, and it was a slow day in June or July or August, if you wanted to get phone calls, I mean it was, and maybe this was fifteen twenty years ago, but if you wanted to get phone calls, Pete Rose Hall of fame, yay or nay. Pete wasn't an honest man. He was also a fairly complicated guy. You know, I just ended up watching a documentary on Pete Rose, and
I forget the streaming service it was on. So when I grew up, my favorite team in the nineteen seventies was the Cincinnati Red. So I'm sure if you've listened to me for years, you know that, you know, let off with Pete Rose and Ken Grissy Griffy batted second. Then it was Joe Morgan in a Johnny bench, George Foster, Tony Perez, Dan Dreesen. I mean I could go to the back catcher, Bill Plummer, saysar Geronimo Dave Concepsio. National
League pitchers hit Jack Billings, Fred Norman couldn't hit. Jack Billingham couldn't hit. None of the Red's pitchers could hit. But it didn't really matter because they had the big Red machine. They had this incredibly powerful offense, and Pete Rose was the engineer of all of it. He wasn't didn't have power, I didn't run particularly well, but he
was Charlie Hustle. And so you know, when I was a kid growing up, two of my favorite baseball players were Pete Rose and George Brett of the Kansas City Royals because of how they played. Now, Brett I thought was the better athlete and hit with more power and was a very very elite third baseman. So George Brett to me, always looked like the better athlete hit with power.
But Pete and George Brett played with the same kind of intensity and passion that it just when I was a kid in the seventies, it just jumped through the TV sets, so you couldn't watch baseball, which was a much bigger deal and had much greater social currency in
the seventies than it does now. NFL is king and there's nothing, you know, even close, but baseball in the seventies, you know, the NBC Saturday Game of the Week, Phillies and the Pirates and the Reds and the Dodgers were just stars studded teams and it was just can't miss stuff. I was a National League kid over an American League kid, and my first job at a college was broadcasting Triple
A Baseball one inning of the Las Vegas Stars. So I was really a baseball guy because you know, at that time, you know, I was playing little league baseball, maybe it was, and baseball marketed and had big stars. I mean, it's hard to name ten baseball players to now. Obviously there's Aaron Judge and Milkie Bett's and Otanian and you know, there's a handful of stars. But it just felt different in the seventies than it does now. And I love Pete Rose, and then Pete Rose goes to
the Phillies and you know, he's a character. But baseball in the seventies had characters, you know, Mark Fiedrich and Mickey Rivers and Pete Rose. I mean the owner Charlie Finley of the A's was a character and for some reason baseball started sort of getting into this in the nineties and beyond, sort of there's a way to play the game, the stewards of baseball, and it felt like it was just sucking the fun out of baseball. And in the seventies Al Raboski, the mad Hungarian for the Cardinals,
number thirty nine, the reliever. There was just all this big, crazy, wild personality in baseball and you just don't feel like you get it today. You get it more in other sports, but you know, in terms of pete and gambling, I think I've probably changed my opinion. I think I was more dogmatic about it early, but over the course of time, he's the hit king. And I mean, we've got a sport which was laden with all sorts of steroid use and abuse, and nobody really knows. Remember when they did
the Mitchell Report and what a circus that was. So it was the Mitchell Report, and they've got a significant amount of their information from like three clubhouses on the East Coast. Well, if you'd have done the Angels, the A's, the Podres and the Mariner clubhouses, you'd have had different stories. And so you know baseball, Major League baseball was so late on steroids. It may have started with Ken Kamanitti, the former San Diego Padre power hitting third baseman. Did
it start with Conseco? I don't really know the genesis of it, but I mean, so much of baseball has an asterisk, And you know, I kind of look at Pete Rose and I think he didn't really change the outcome of his hits, and so as a baseball player, Pete was. He was intense. He wasn't always up front from his personals to his professional life. But I can't I can't take away what he did as a player. I just have so many fond memories of his style, of his effort, of his passion, the Ray Fosse collision
at home plate. Everything about Pete was intensity, and I appreciated it as a kid, and I think as I've gotten older as a sportscaster, I still I think have a lot of passion for the business. But I'm not as dogmatic on issues. You know, I've had kids. People make mistakes, I make mistakes, So I posthumously I would vote him into the Hall of Fame. There's a lot
of characters in the Hall of fame. You know, years and years ago, I worked for a news director named Mike Cutler, and you know, he had one of the days we were talking about some issue in sports. For
all I know it was Pete Rose. And if I recall, Mike was more of a Midwest guy, and it may have been we were talking about Pete Rose, and he said, you know, you don't know what you don't know about people when everybody was judging Tiger Woods for his affair or affairs in his marriage, and I thought, oh, give me a break. Really, I mean, it's pretty legendary. Some of the great golfers of all time and some of
the most beloved figures in golf were hounds. I mean, so, you know what we have in society today, and I see this all the time, people with no real insider sourcing have the strongest opinions. And I've gotten over time kind of a little bit more forgiving on it, because the more I've learned through the years, and the more sources I've had on different stories, the less I realize.
I know, when I was in my twenties and thirties, I didn't have that many sources and thought I knew everything and Now as I get older, and I'm in my fifties and now i'm sixty, I have more sources and more contacts and more knowledge than I've ever had. And to me, it just kind of illustrates how little
I know is. There's so many things going on. I'm watching this Vince McMahon documentary right now, and I have friends connected to the WWE, and you'll hear a lot if you watch this documentary on Netflix about Vince McMahon. It's not the half of it. It is not the half of it. So we live in a world with social media now. Our people have strong opinions and don't really have a ton of insight or sourcing on stuff. So I look at Pete Rose and I think he was a great player. He was the hit king. I
let him in. That doesn't mean I have the strongest affection for his character or his personality and the things he did. Life's complex. People are complex. I can admire your achievements and not think much of you your character. I mean, we live in a country right now with Donald Trump. I'm vacation with conservatives. I've got conservative friends, Bill Volte, Republican. They don't like Trump. Things are more complex.
We tend to want things gift wrapped and in tiny boxes, and that's just not as I got older, it's just not how life is. You have to sacrifice, you have to be forgiving. And I know it's the Baseball Hall of Fame, but the truth is, all this stuff is subjective, and i'd vote Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. I think there's a lot of unscrupulous people in Hall of Fames. There could be some bad people voting on
Hall of Fames. I'd let him in, but he left an indelible mark on me, just as a baseball player. The way he played the game. George Rhett, Pete Rose, one National League, one American League. They just played at a different level with intensity, and it's in my head today. I can close my eyes and think of images of Pete Rose barreling over catchers and sliding in the third. I don't remember I didn't see it live, the Buddy Harrelson's story with the Mets, the fight that broke out,
I don't remember that. I've just seen YouTube clips and pictures of it. But that sort of defined sort of Pete Rose. And as I watched the Netflix special on him, he was a Cincinnati kid through and through, and I'd been in his presence four or five times, was in his presence four or five times. He was hard not to like. He was funny, he'd let it rip. He was sometimes, you know, borderline inappropriate with the things he would say. But he had a great love for the
sport of baseball. And it's a sport which hasn't felt the same to me since the seventies and eighties. It just doesn't have the social currency it used to have. I mean, I saw a story this week where, and I forget who reported on it, it may have been Andrew Marshan at The New York Post that ESPN is considering moving Jeff Passon their story breaker in Baseball to the NBA. I'm like, what they're struggling as a sport to get networks to latch onto another big contract. The Apple TV
Baseball deal didn't work. The Roku deal was kind of embarrassing. Baseball got thirty million dollars for a TV contract. ESPN and Fox don't feel like they want to go all in on baseball. And to me, in my life, Pete takes me back to a time when I was a young kid and it was my favorite sport the seventies and the eighties, and I can name infields and pitching staffs back then, and Pete was a part of that td Tuddy taking it to the house in for six,
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John Middlecoff, former NFL scout, has the Three and Out podcast. Chicago beat the Rams twenty four to eighteen, and again Rams don't have Pooka Cooper their best offensive linemen. If they did, I think they win this game. They just couldn't convert. They're not They can't convert in the red zone very well. They don't have playmakers. Every drive for the Rams feels like it has to be like a seventy play drive. But I thought Caleb Williams today speaking
of the North. Now, again, the Rams weren't fully staffed, but I thought Caleb Williams today with a run game so swift had I think seven catches, they had one hundred and twenty five yards rushing. Therefore, the offensive line was better because the defense had to be honest, I thought Caleb looked and again they had these young quarterbacks. Even Jaden Daniels can struggle with this. You know, the motion penalties they go on the road or it's loud.
I mean, even Jordan Love Aaron Rodgers today the Jets had five of them. That's tough. But I thought Caleb today looked, feet were better, poised, o line better, and he had a run game. And it's like, yeah, that's I thought Caleb played really well.
Yeah, I mean, I still think he misses some passes that he definitely hit a lot in college. I don't want to call them layups, but there were a couple of today at DJ Moore down the sideline. But this is the formula for a young quarterback. One hundred and thirty yards on the ground, and twenty three attempts. You know what they did last week, But fifty attempts when the majority of the game is within a score is insanity.
It's one thing when you got paid Manning or Aaron Rodgers and you're not setting the guy up for success. And I'm with you. I like, they just have to find a way now. They kind of like bench swift. But then he started making plays. They were saying during the week they were gonna give other running backs a shot, maybe to give him a little kick in the ass, Like you're dancing around too much. We paid you to depend on you to help this young guy out, and
he just listen, you don't turn the ball over. The reason we talk about turnover so much, and here coaches talking because of these NFL games. Even early in the slate, you're like this, this seven games going on right now is terrible. Half of them are all tight in the fourth quarter.
So you give the ball away. It's pretty devastating.
And he doesn't throw a pick and you're only throwing the ball twenty three times, Like that's a successful strategy against you know, most teams that you're gonna play. But you cannot add this guy to throw the ball fifty times a game and think that's conducive to winning. Not with the guy playing the fourth game of his career who has a little hero ball syndrome to him. Yes, so when you're asking him to do it a lot, it's gonna get a.
Little out of whack.
Well, and the interesting thing, the tricky thing for Chicago is, and you saw it again today, eber Flues's defense situational. He's pretty good. Matt knows what he's doing on that side of the ball. Now, Cliff Kingsbury obviously knows what he's doing on the offensive side of the ball. You're watching right now a masterclass. But a lot of these guys who are the great. Some guys are vice president, some guys are CEOs. Clearly eber Fluce knows defense because
you have to. They don't give you a lot of freebies. The Rams today again they had didn't have Cooper Puka, so it makes it really difficult. But when I watch Chicago today, I guess the word I would use is the one you used formula. I'm like, oh, yeah, this will work. They played even when they led, it was just the off. It's just amazing. What a decent it doesn't. You don't have to rush for two hundred yards one hundred and thirty. Just Swift popped about five runs several catches,
and it just that's the formula. I still think this is going to be a seven win team, but John, it will feel better than last year's seven win team. You'll look at it and go, oh, he didn't have Keenan for a bunch of games. The defense is excellent. It feels when I watch Caleb play and justin fields, I feel sometimes justin fields is it's he's lost. Caleb's wildly talented, he just sometimes misses easy throws. But I kind of I feel like today a couple of times
his expression doesn't change, he doesn't get down. There was a couple of the clocks winding down. I just felt, justin I just felt Caleb felt under control today.
Yeah, he definitely was less frenetic than the last couple of weeks. And that's where Jayden has really thrived. You're like, does this guy even get is he unflappable? But one thing that you just mentioned he's got going for him, and they've been hammered all year is Brian Robinson, the running back from Texas is a really good player, hand the ball off to him, and that just calms everyone down, and the Bears were not able to run the ball.
I think the problem though, big picture, if the Bears only end up with seven or eight, you know, you just got coaching flux, then you got new coordinators, and then you got more movement. I mean, that's just always an issue whenever we talk about young quarterbacks and just young teams in general, because they do have a lot
of talents. But if you couldn't win this game, Colin the Rams, you know, understaffed coming off a big win, so you know they can inhale a little bit that ten am kickoff for a West Coast team long trip.
This was.
If you're not winning this game, you're probably instead of heading for seven or eight, might be heading for five or six. So this was a big game for Chicago at home. Quiet the crowd a little bit because the fans are like, what the hell's going on here? Partly because the expectations were so high. That's why think about with Jayden Daniels, both of them, I mean, these guys went one too. Both of them won the last two Heismans. But the expectations for Jaden weren't nearly as high as
Caleb just because of the Avalanche hype. Really over the course of his college career from three years ago when he came in for Spencer Rattler in a Kansas game and ripped the ball out of the guy's hands, and you watch Jayden Daniels and you go, I don't know how you could look much better, just in terms of calm, poise, deep ball accuracy, accuracy across the field, just zero freak out whenever there's a rush, throwing guys open, like to me right now, and it's not apples to apples. They're
playing on different teams. His offensive coordinators clearly better. They sculpted an offense around him that just fits. He's in the shotgun. But Kingsbury's added more physical run game by Adam Anthony Lynn, who they stole from the Niners, who's kind of an old school running back guy, and it's just working. And I don't know how many games how
good their defense is. Ultimately, the Cardinals might just suck, but just if you just watch him independent of everything, you go, holy shit, this guy's this guy's got a lot going for him.
My surprise team in the NFL was Washington. I didn't look very smart after they got trounced by Tampa, but it looks good now. So it's really I was talking to Steve Kaim I had dinner with him the other night, and you know, people forget Kime two time executive year. He had a really tough owner to deal with, and Kyler was very difficult. Kyler just doesn't watch enough film and it's been an issue. I've supported him, but it's an issue. But I was talking to him about Cliff and he said, listen,
he said, Cliff now has tried head coaching twice. It hasn't worked, he says, But when you sit down with him and interview him, the reason he got head coaching jobs. He's really a brilliant guy. He's not he's not a disciplinarian. Things got a little loose, right like like it would get loose. But Kim told me when he went to Washington, he goes that Jade and Daniels Kid could not literally get a better guy. First of all, he's not a yellowness screamer. He's a teacher. He's fun. He likes to
make it fun. He gives you he watches what you do manufactures an offense based solely on what you do. And because Jaden moved, Cliff was banging on the table for this guy. He's like, guys, I don't want to hear about J. J. McCarthy. This is the guy. This is the guy. So he went all in on this. Adam Peters the new GM dan Quinn they listen to.
Cliff.
Cliff was like, this is it, and it's just this is very true. Brian Flores is the best defensive coordinator in football. His personality got in the way of his coaching as a head coach. Cliff's personality the opposite of Flora's. It's not intense, he doesn't bark, he doesn't discipline. Cliff's the opposite. So Floraes in Kingsbury are the antithesis of each other. But in both instances, one guy is too intense or was, and one guy doesn't want to manage and discipline and you have.
To do some of it.
Yeah, but Flores and Kingsbury are a plus plus plus at what they do and that we see this all over the world. Some guys are just salesmen. Some guys can be the president but couldn't sell anything. It's just the way the world works. When I watch that offense today.
It's crazy.
I don't remember seeing an offense they're not fooling people. What they're basically doing is they're getting they're winning the math game. They just looked like, I mean, these runs, John, these running backs aren't having to create anything off contact. They're getting four and five yard runs before anybody initiates contact. It just it just looks so easy. Maybe I'm waiting for them to struggle and get into a fistfight, but it's like they're just it's just up down seven on seven.
I've been saying this for a long time. The best part about the NFL. In most industries, you know, people fight and claw in the private sector in different operations to try to sit at the head of the table because it's so much more lucrative than a lot of
different management spots. But in football, the number two spot, whether you're the offensive or defensive coordinator, especially on a team where the head coach is the opposite, pays you like two to five million dollars and you have no responsibility when someone gets injured, when someone gets DUI, when who knows what happens, which we've all followed the NFL
long enough. Literally everything happens eight year problem. You're still getting paid three million dollars and it's got to be one of the best jobs in It's still you spend a lot of time. It's a lot of work, but in terms of the amount of money you're getting paid. And then when you're great like Flores or Kingsbury whoever the best coordinate Steve Spagnola and none of the responsibilities on you and you basically in those guys individual spots, they kind of get to be the head coach of
their group. Right, Kevin O'Connell's not telling Flores what to do, dan Quin's telling King's. It's an incredible gig. Now there is I understand there's a big difference between three million
dollars and fourteen million dollars or ten million dollars. But some of these guys, especially once they've tried it, like you could do this for a long period of time and just become a legend doing this, Like where is Cliff I would imagine maybe not the NFL, but like over the next couple of years, colleges are gonna call him again.
Right, Yeah, And they pay a lot.
I think forty guys make over four million dollars. I mean, you make a lot of money and you don't have to answer to anybody hard to get a better gig than that that he's got going right now, right in why And I'd say same thing for Flores. I do think Flores is gonna battle. You know, like you said, did you see the viral clip of Kyle lighting into Brandon Ayuk for wearing the wrong shorts? It came out,
It came out on Friday. Brandon, you came to practice with the wrong shorts, you know, in the regular season only, like the press is only allowed there out there for fifteen minutes, so it's the only time they were out there, and Kyle went up to him and lit him up. I mean it was kind of embarrassing for Ayuk, Like there's a dress code. He has the different shorts than literally the entire team, and that's type stuff. You know.
Some coaches, like one thing I heard about Cliff is like, oh just let that fly, let that go, and you can't like that ain't flying, and Kyle's not you know, Belichick here, But it's hard being like that's on you as a head coach.
Little things like the wrong socks.
Right, And I think Flora is dealing with the quarterback because that is kind of like the heartbeat of the organization is not really going to be anything. He's going to be able to answer as a coordinator. But eventually, if you're that good, you know someone's going to give him another because he's he's not good. I mean right now, he's elite. Like you said, yes, defense more than offense too. It's usually about like you got to have the Jimmy's
and the Joe's and who do they got? Harrison Smith's like my age, I mean, who who what are they? John Randall's not on the defensive line. What are they rolling out there in Minnesota? So it's those two guys right now. You're talking coordinators of the year through four weeks. So I mean it's Brian Floras and Cliff Kingsbury kicking everybody's.
I feel like every Kansas City game now looks the same. Everyone is that you know they'll they'll fall in a hole or you'll watch them early and you're thinking, this isn't the Sunday They just they're they're just not and then Rashee Rice gets hurt very early and I'm like, they're on the road, they're out of sync. Chargers had multiple sacks and then they just and I think so much of this is Andy Reid inspects they just slowed the game down. They're really good at killing momentum. Mahomes
had a couple of big runs. He had a couple of beautiful passes. Kelsey was more visible today and available. Obviously, with Rahee Rice out, Travis Kelcey becomes more available. But there is something about Kansas City is that we tend to love flash like Darnold's numbers, and I like, I like Kansas City, But I ask you, if they played Minnesota tomorrow, I would take Kansas City. What are we supposed to make of this team that isn't pretty? Every
single game is close. It doesn't matter who the opponent is. They don't start necessarily well, they always end great. Do you worry at all that Kansas City's sort of following in this it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. It's they're just winning the same way and they're not playing particularly well for long periods of time.
Yeah, I feel like Spags and Andy are just like, you know, you fill up refrigerator and they're making meal after meal and every time they're using different ingredients. You're like, how are you doing this? Eventually, if you don't go to the store, you're going to run out stuff to
make food with. And today after Mahomes, it's through a pretty bad pick early in the game, Eric terrible Kelsey and then he hit He didn't mean to, but Rashi Rice is their best receiver and he kind of ended up hitting him like he's John Lynch because he was trying to make a tackle, might have blown out his knee. Like that's so you let's just hypothetically say he's gone for a long period of time or the season. That's pretty devastating. They were playing with Kareem This is not
twenty eighteen. He's back on the team because they're starting running back. Just broke his leg and the other kid from Missouri, his own family through a wedding last Sunday because they didn't even think the guy was gonna be an NFL player. So I just I don't know, like it's remarkable what they're doing and they've been playing like
this basically for two and a half years now. He does feel eventually, like I love these guys and they are It's truly one of the great runs of my lifetime any sport, what they're rattling off now these over this five years, but specifically these two years. I don't know how you can maintain this. Eventually, you're gonna obvious they're gonna lose some games this year, but like they're margin foreir in a playoff game, it's just very, very difficult for them to score. And Mahomes cannot and you
saw Andy get kind of mad early. You cannot turn the ball over.
You know.
And I think Andy felt right away like this Charger team came to play this Jim Harbaugh, They're ready, like this could be fifteen to thirteen final score, and he airmails it and steal fumbles and it's like you could tell Andy was pissed because this has to be a flawless We hold onto the ball, even if we're gonna score fourteen points total, Okay, we'll win at fourteen to ten. We can't hand them the ball at their own thirty yard line. And I think if the two tackles are there,
Chiefs easily could have lost today. I mean, they are holding on. It's competitive character. The toughness. It's what you get out of like some of those late nineties Bulls teams, some of those Curry Clay Draymond teams, Like it's only they're the only team in the league that has this in the back to keep doing this, like eventually you just drop a game whatever, and they just they refuse to lose.
And they got nothing.
I mean, they're best receivers carted off the field five minutes into the game. They're riding Kareem Hunt. Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't even in the league like three weeks ago, but they had no choice because the other guy broke his leg.
Yeah, no, Isaiah watched that game. They got I mean, listen, they got an injury rebreak. The Chargers are missing tackles Abosa, Derwin Jay. They were missing their best athletes defensively, and you know it's the NFL. You have to make up for that. But as I watched them, you know they're going.
It's a tough opponent.
It's a tough opponent for that because their defense, Chris Jones and Spags, they just kept on any long third and long, they would just put ninety five over one of the tackles even though he's a defensive tackle. So it's like, yeah, I just become a defensive They wouldn't do that with Alton Slater in the game, that's right. So it was a total mismatch. You're just you just kind of screwed.
And I think what they do with Chris Jones. There's no rigidity with the Chiefs, Like you know, the saying I use all the time at the volume to everybody is don't worry about being right, get it right, don't get stubborn on stuff. It's a fluid business. Change The Chiefs, like you said, they go into the cupboard and whatever is available they use. Like they're not a rigid franchise, which, by the way, New England became in their dominance. I
mean Belichick basically took over the drafts. Belichick only wanted to coach players he liked to coach.
They got very rigid.
They started buying into their own stuff. And by the way, Greg Popovich, you know I'm not going to deal with Kawhi, well you probably should.
He's great.
The danger of the danger. One of the things I always respect about Saban. He just kept hiring great coaches. He went from a defensive culture to a quarterback wide receiver culture. Saban was just like whatever wins wins. And I always said that that's really different with Saban. He didn't have Belichick's ego. He was willing to just pivot off guys move into guys. I mean, good God, in the middle of a national championship gave me change his quarterbacks.
Saban was whatever wins works. I feel with Andy Reid, I get that, I get I don't feel like there's this definitive sort of moral standard, this saying, you know, just do your job. Kansas City doesn't have one of those. They don't have to do your job right, they don't have one. Well, they just they do what they have
to do in this series to score, all right. So I occasionally bring Danny Parkins on FS one, but we can kind of stretch things out here and go for forty five minutes to an hour on the volume, which I really like, and talk about a bunch of different stuff. So you don't want to make sweeping generalizations. But first impressions do matter. They matter a lot. So when Nick Sarianni had his first press conference, it was the worst thing I'd ever seen. Jim tom Sula's was second. So
I had information. I'd seen Tom Sula's presser. He did an interview after he was hired, and it was a disaster. Tom's slibit does. I'd been told by a source that I really trust Sirianni wasn't parady for the job. They weren't sure he was a great coordinator. And then he had the press conference, and so then he starts coaching.
It's really choppy. Shane steik and takes over play calling, it's really good, Shane leaves, it's terrible again, and so and I think back to the Sirianni thing, and so I didn't stick with my belief, Like my take was, Okay, Sirianni's got it. And now I go back and I look, and I think, why did you ever bail on that? Your first impression was right? Now, I will say Dan Campbell's opening presser was kind of vintage, a little caveman over the top Dan Campbell. But the truth is, we
don't think he's situationally a great coach. We think he's a culture builder. And he was building a culture so that was aligned with how really he is, and that's why his players play so damn hard. Even his first year when they weren't winning, God, they were playing good teams to the bell, and so I've always watched that opening presser. Tmiko Ryans excellent, Sean McVay excellent, many of the guys now again, Belichick was actually pretty damn funny
at the podium before he got all the rings. Then he turned angry. But I do watch that Wednesday press conference. My legendary or annoying hat on backwards take like I do think that stuff matters. I've had more coaches text me on that in the last ten years than you would believe that they they do take the wensday don't want to go ahead. I mean, I've had people say the truth is, we tell our guys, that's a big press conference. The banks behind you watch what you say.
That's a big press conference, the Wednesday quarterback presser. And I do watch press conferences for coaches because it tells me Brady talked and never said anything, Eli Manning talked and never said anything, and they turned out being two of the smartest quarterbacks of all time. So one of my takes is, I know it's a generalization, but I do take snippets from coaches the podium As a member of the media, I watch interactions. Kenny Pickett had a comment at a press conference a year ago.
I'm not going to repeat it.
It was about some body part of his and I was like, oh Jesus, this guy can't Nope, he doesn't get it. Like this doesn't work at all. Whether or not you agree with backward hat the premise of making a judgment for high priority positions on brief snippets. Now we do this with politicians freely, liberally and with conviction. Do you buy it for sports?
To a point, I think that grading press conferences at times is something that the media does and puts too much emphasis on, because it is something that we can relate to and we can understand. We are good public speakers. We know how to speak into a microphone, we know how to say interesting things. We don't know how to run the West Coast offense. We don't know how to block a three hundred pound guy who runs a four
or five. And so I think that there are some degree of they're playing our game, They're answering our questions. They're in front of our microphones, in front of our cameras, so they're on our turf. So let's judge them at our game, because it's something that we are obviously better at and understand and are trained for. We're the pros in that arena. So I do think sometimes we overrate it. But that is not just I say all of that,
then say to your point. Sometimes when I see a guy up there, I'm like, there's just no way that he can command a room, right, you know, or like there's no way that his players are not making fun of him behind his back, or whatever the conclusion is. So I'm not right. It's not a hard and fast rule of Matt Eberflus Bears coach. I think he's a nice guy who listens to his players, but I think
he's a little vanilla, little corny some dad jokes. I mean, I've had guys say like, yeah, you know, Dad, Joe, Grandpa Fluse, Like we laugh, we laugh at him a little bit, like, not in a mean way, not in a disrespectful way. But I don't believe that he's like all of their guys that they would go to the mat for forever, you know. I don't think he's that guy. Dan Campbell very clearly is that guy his team has
taken on the culture of Dan Campbell. I do wonder if there's an expiration date on something like that, Like if you give me the great culture builder or the great schematic mind, I'll take the great schematic mind. Like I'd be interested into knowing what Ben what Dan Campbell's team looks like. When Ben Johnson takes a head coaching job and a couple of the offensive players leave. You know,
I'd much rather have Kyle Shanahan than Dan Campbell. Would not even be close for me, because I've seen that Kyle Shanahan can overachieve. So I think that there's obviously something to it. These are billion dollar organizations, you're representing yourself publicly. It's a glimpse for us into their world. But I also think, I mean, how you know way more coaches than I do. I know plenty. I've covered the NFL for a while. What are their work weeks?
One hundred hours? One hundred plus hour work weeks?
Yeah, brutal.
They're in front of the camera for an hour a week post game Monday Wednesday. So I think we get so much content out of that hour that they're in front of our cameras and microphones that we by definition overrate its value because to them it's one percent of their work week. To us, it's one hundred percent of what we see into the building that isn't broadcast on our TVs on Sunday night, Monday night, and Thursday night. So I just do I think it matters, but I think the media overrates it.
I look at quarterbacks and coaches the same way. When I look at a quarterback out of college, there's got to be at least one wow. So Daniel Jones has no wow, so it doesn't work for me. Joe's accuracy was wow, Josh Allen size Lamar's speed, Jayden Daniels a little of both. There's a wow. That doesn't mean it's refined. But when I saw Josh Allen first year jump over a linebacker, I'm like wow. So my first take is a Trubisky no wow, Daniel Jones, no Wow. Ej Manual
no Wow. Like if I don't see a wow, it's not gonna last or you're gonna need a perfect coach. That's why I was into Sam Darnold. I was like, oh, I see the wow. He is freaking an athlete with a big arm and he runs over He's like a poor man's Andrew Luck or maybe a better man's Carson Wentz like he's you know, but we know he's not Luck. But I think he's better at his best than Carson Wentz. If I said to you best coach, Andy Reid, is there a definitive to you second best coach in the league?
Because Shanahan's liability has been late game lead evaporation, and there's I can give you about six different times in spot.
Yeah you can. But he's the Here's the thing. This is not a formula. It's not something that can be computed. It's just in my own head. A guy who watches damn near every game. I plug into the matrix for eleven hours on Sunday from one VM Eastern to eleven thirty pm Eastern, and then watch Monday night football and Thursday footbyes. Watch it all. I've got to in my head. How good is your quarterback? How good is your coach? How good is your coordinator? How good is the rest
of your roster? How good is your owner? How good is your general manager? How good is your cap space? Who's carrying more dead cap money? Who's supposed to win this year, who's supposed to be good offensively, who's supposed to be good defensively? And then I have all these factors,
and then I'm like, who's overachieving and who's underachieving? Okay, So like the Eagles, they spend more money on offense than any team in the league, number one in cash spent on the offensive side of the ball, and they have an offensive head coach, and they have a high profile offensive coordinator, and they're nowhere near the best offense in the league through four games. They are underachieving. That's a big knock for me on Nick Sirianni and also
Jalen Hurts. He leads the league in turnover since the start of last year. Kyle Shanahan, I've seen the guy in a Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo, and I've seen him in a Super Bowl with Brock Purty, and I've seen him in another NFC Championship game with Brock Purty. I saw him trade three first round picks to move up from thirteen to three to take an FCS quarterback It not work in Trey Lance, and then be better the next year like he is. It. It's crazy what
he gets out of Maybe you love Brock purty. Fine, maybe his special or his wow is anticipatory throwing, post snap processing between the years. Fine, we would not have said that at Iowa State. We did not know that. Good job by them. He was literally the last pick in the draft. I don't think they knew it either.
There is something too Kyle Shanahan overachieving that impresses me sure more than a And by the way, I'm consistent on this Andy Reid best season of Donovan McNabb's life with Andy Reid, Mike Vick's life Andy Reid, Jeff Garcia's life Andy Reid, Kevin Cobbs' life Andy Reid, Alex Smith's life Andre Reed. Then he gets the generational talent five thousand yards, fifty touchdowns, MVPs, Super Bowl, MVPs, rings, dynasties, you know. So like to me, Andy Reid overachieved with
all of those guys. And so that is kind of how I look at coaches, is are you overachieving or underachieving based on your circumstance. And I would put Kyle Shanahan to because to me, he is the most consistent overachiever without a Hall of Fame quarterback.
I'm watching Gino Smith make throws and if you didn't know it was Gino Smith, the timing routes, the back shoulder stuff, I'm like, I know, DK Metcalf's good, but there was a lot of pressure. It was on the road. It was thirty eight first downs, defensive head coach and a college offensive coordinator. I'm sitting there like, if Seattle had three of their four defensive front guys, that's a real game. Is Gino a potential hoisted trophy guy? Because
damn he's big, he's strong, he moves. I mean, Aikman was saying, this thing is he has got a heater on this thing.
He makes high degree of difficulty throws consistently. He's incredibly impressive. You know what's funny what I've been thinking about with Gino this year so far, I think one of the single biggest stories in the NFL. And there are a few I think that I just can't really stop thinking about, but one of them is we all say that we know that situation matters. It's not just like what if Mitch Trubisky would have been drafted to Andy Reid and
Patrick Mahomes would have been drafted to the Bears. Right, It's a great. What if? What would Mahomes' career look like? What would Trabsky's career look like? If Trubisky had Kelsey and Reed and Tyreek Hill in that infrastructure sitting behind Alet Smith the whole thing. I like to play that game on sports radio All the time we do these unanswerable hypotheticals. Sam Darnold is ballin', Yes, Gino Smith is ballin'.
Justin Field's career highs in efficiency, taking fewer sacks, turning the ball over less, higher passer rating than any time in his career, higher completion percentage than any time in his career, winning seventy five percent of his games. Baker Mayfield has found a home. All of these guys were left for debt. That's right. So we are all coming out now in saying, oh, of course, Minnesota's good. Kevin O'Connell,
great coach, Brian Flores, great coach. Can anyone find any member of the media that didn't have them finishing fourth of the division? I mean, and by the way, me too, guilty as charged, and I covered the NFC North and I've said that Kevin O'Connell's an awesome coach for seven years like five years whatever it's been, Like, so, can I see Gino hoisting a Lombardi Trophy maybe, Like it's it's not an anti Geno point for me to say no, Like is the situation good enough for him?
It's the NFC, it's not the AFC.
Sure you're right now, here's here's why I love Detroit. In that game, though, uh, people were going crazy over three and o Seattle and McDonald coming from Baltimore, our youngest head coach, their defense, the whole thing. I was like, Okay, they had beaten Jacoby bris Bo, Nicks and Skyler Thompson, right, like, can we we Every game matters in the NFL. Every week matters. But some teams were judging through the prism of four games. Seattle new coach, let's judge them through
just this season. Minnesota new quarterback, Let's judge them just through the prism of this season. But I judge Detroit, same head coach, same offensive coordinator, same offensive line, same quarterback, Aiden Hutchinson. I'm on Ross Saint Brown, Laporta, Gibbs, Montgomery. It's the same team that last year lost by three to the Niners in the NFC Championship Game. And it was one of the five best teams in the NFL
all season. Like they have a twenty plus game body of work to me of being a top five or six team in the NFL. Seattle had three games of beating bad quarterbacks. So I know that's not exactly an answer on Geno Smith, but I also look at that way, like Baltimore, I give them the benefit of the doubt, Kansas, I give them the benefit of the doubt. Like teams that Buffalo. I picked them to win the AFC East.
They've done it the last four years, like they to me, they deserve the benefit of the doubt over some of these newcome teams that we're thinking are gonna be the hot thing in the moment. So it's the NFC. Gino is slinging it, But I need to see them actually beat good teams with this defense, with this coach before
I think that they could go. And I mean, assuming you think San Francisco is gonna win that division, they'd have to go like at the you know, maybe at Detroit, at Green Bay, at San Francisco or something like that to win a super Bowl. That's just a very very tough path. Because I haven't seen them beat good teams yet.
Time for another edition of Sharper Square. Chad Milman CC of the Action Network. All odds provided by DraftKings So, Cleveland getting three and a half against Washington, they get Nick Chubb back. But I wonder if two things, Deshaun Watson is washed. Secondly, though they haven't faced great competition, Washington's domination of Arizona makes me think, do we have the next Lamar Jackson in Washington. There's a certain harmony
with Cliff Kingsbury and Jade Daniels. It's not like they're completing seventy percent of the throws, it's like eighty two. So my gut, my history says, Cleveland plus three and a half against a rookie quarterback feels like a really smart side Sharper Square.
It's there's gonna be games, Colin, and we've talked about this. We'll do the Sharp Calls segment on the Favorites, where the wise guys, professional betters will weigh in with their feedback on the games that we talk about. We talk about them on Tuesday. On Thursday, we go over Sharp Calls four or five games this week. Washington is one of them. Massive split. The right side is to play Cleveland at three and a half. You're one hundred percent right.
It's not because of the rookie quarterback. Jaden Daniels has already proven he's preternaturally gifted, like what he has done in the first four weeks of the season is indicative of what you will do over the course of a season. Right, and his accuracy stats, as you mentioned, they are not just good for a rookie, they are good historically in the history of quarterbacking. This is a bi low cell high situation.
Right.
You want to get off the Commanders right now, because they had that big win against the Bengals. Then they went and blew out Arizona in a game a lot of professional bettles were betting in Arizona. Meanwhile, Cleveland, they're fading. The line flipped last week when Max Crosby was out and Devonte Adams was out for the Raiders and the Browns went from being under dogs to being favorites and
then they still lost. Here's the challenge, and it's why the game is so split, and it's why a lot of wise guys are taking the half point, but a lot of people they're just passing this offensive line for Cleveland is in shambles, and now Ethan Pozick, who was the center who went out last week, there are questions about his ability to play this week. And they are already lacking other offensive linemen that has been killing their their running game, which has always been good. Forget about
Nick Chubb. If David and Joku gonna play. If Djoku plays, that makes Deshaun Watson a little bit better. But generally this team is struggling at every single position on the field defensively as well, like they have not been playing well defensively. Miles Garrett has already said he's got injuries to his feet that are going to require surgery. To listen, I want to bet the Browns so bad in this game.
I do, I really do, And like I can't pull the trigger yet I might, I might, the wise guys still might come in.
It's not one of my favorite plays.
So I believe two things are true simultaneously. That quarterbacking matters more now than ten years ago, and coaching does. I think there's a gap in coaching in this league, and you're seeing it on a regular basis. I think Minnesota has the best coaching staff in the league. Brian Flores arguably the best defensive coordinator, where top quarterback C. J. Stroud brought pretty acknowledge. I don't know what I saw.
Minnesota doesn't even have to give off a field goal. Oh, by the way, massive pressure on a team I think is one of the most poorly coached between Nat Hackett and Robert Sala. If it's three, I stay away. If I only have to swallow two and a half Darnold and Aaron Rodgers, it's a lot closer right now than you think. I would swallow the two and a half in London and take Minnesota sharper score.
So historically you're on the right side. I think their record for favorites in London just straight up thirty four to ten and one, yes, thirty and fifteen against the spread, So that is the right side. The wise guys have a they can't quit Annion Rodgers. They can't quit the Jets right now, so they have been coming in on the Jets. But I agree with you, the right side
is the Viking. It's not it's not a sharp side by any measure, but it is the side where you probably are going to have a better opportunity because of what's happened historically.
Okay, something that I believed for a long time, a little zigzag theory. When a really good team is humiliated in a standalone game, take them the following week. Yes, Buffalo minus one at Houston without Joe Mixon, C J. Strout all you all quarterbacks need run games, young quarterbacks especially, It's not quite the same without Joe Mixon. A healthy Joe Mixon. Buffalo is an excellent team, much more depth, more layered offensively than years before. The linebackers are healthier,
completely utterly humiliated. I would swallow the point and take Buffalo sharper square.
Square, totally square.
This is a massive public game where the fans are coming in and they love the Bills and normally and there are stats to back this up, which I'm sure we will get to. You get blown out. You want to be the team that is being bet on in the next game. Here's what's challenging for this game. Number One, the line has flipped. It's gone from Buffalo being the underdog Buffalo being the favorite. That is a side where
you want to be on the underdog. That is a historical trend where when the line flips you bet the underdog number one, number two on the field. The challenge with the Bills is at the middle of their defense, from their linebackers to their safeties is just trash.
Right.
Matt Milano has been out since before the season started.
His backup out tomorrow.
Hamlin is not a top notch safety in the way they have had top notch safeties in the past. Nico Collins is a game wrecker right now. So CJ. Shroud improves his third down efficiency just a little bit and will probably have that opportunity to take advantage of the middle of the field against that Bill's defense. Then all of a sudden, you're playing yourself out of a game. So the wise guys are on the Texans and they're hoping to keep getting plus one and a half so
they can get a little bit of a cushion. But again, what's interesting that half point means everything in these games where the spreads are between one and four, right, So that's a massive, massive edge.
So Green Bay and I said I didn't bet the Packers Vikings because my guess was the two possible outcomes, and I actually saw both in the Vikings Packers game. Yeah, Brian Flores first half against Jordan Love. Jordan looked like he hadn't played a lot. Second half gets his feet under him. Green Bay pivots at half, and then you see the real Packers team that can play with anybody. So I think the second half Packers is the team I'm getting. There's still a major problem with the Rams.
With no Pooka and Cooper Cup. They can't get touchdowns in the red zone. They have no playmaker. Tyler Higbee out Pooka out, Cooper Cup out, Blake Korum not playing much, missing their best offensive lineman on the interior. So the Rams, even when they outplay you, they're just settling for field goals. I think the second half Green Bay team minus three. I don't think it's a strong play, but I take the Packers. There is no home field advantage. It'll be
sixty five thirty five. Packer fan Sharper Square.
You have nailed the biggest prose Joe's game on the board with the pros playing the Los Angeles Rams. So on Tuesday, me and my co host Simon Hunter, you're always trying to put us against each other. We like to bring we like to bring love to the Volume podcast network, but you're trying to, you know, create animosity.
I like conflict.
Yeah, you like conflict. Listen, that's why you're a content genius. You know, conflict creates really great ratings. I came in and I'm like, Simon, the Packers are the side here. We saw the second half they were in that game against the Vikings. Brian Flores has been making C. J. Stroud and brock Purty see ghosts and Jordan love when it was coming down to it was right there like
that was a scary, scary game. If you were a Vikings Packer, you got to take the Packers here against a team in the Rams that can't put anyone in the field.
Come in to me, it was.
Don't get cocky, And sure enough, as the week went on, this was the game that all the wise guys were coming in on. You saw the line move from three and a half down to three. Even with all the tickets coming in on the Packers, it stayed exactly where it is. It's pretty astonishing how much the wise guys like the Rams.
Here.
I'm going to be on the Rams. I'm hoping that I can wait until Sunday and get three and a half again. When everybody is coming in and the public comes in on the Packers. One stat I can give you, and similar to why wise guys are thinking about the Browns, is when you're playing a team covering the spread by more than five points per game. So then in this case the Packers, they only cover about forty five percent of the time when facing a team with a win
percentage of less than sixty. So I know it's a lot of numbers, but basically, when bad teams play good teams, bad teams cover.
Giant Seahawks. Rarely have I ever been more impressed with a losing team on Monday Night football. So Seattle in Detroit, standalone game missing their top four defensive linemen, you knew they couldn't stop Detroit. Seattle has two things going for it. Their skill players Walker dk Metcalf tight ends Gino's playing. I mean he's completing seventy seven percent of his throws, and I think Mike McDonald's excellent. They're getting a couple
of their defensive linemen back New York. If Malik Neighbors doesn't play in this environment, I don't know how the Giants move the ball. McDonald is really clever and he's been really good against average a blow average quarterbacks. I came out of that Seahawks game and I'm like, I would not want to play them. I think if those two teams met again and Seattle was reasonably healthy, I wonder if I'd take Seattle. I'm gonna swallow the six. I know I'm a dullered, but sharper square.
Yeah, you're a duller because you're on the right side at a bad number. And what is the theme of today's show, Get the best.
Of the number? Right?
This game opened at five, I think maybe five and a half. That lasted for maybe seventeen and a half seconds before the wise guys took the five and a half took the six. By the time most of America got up on Monday morning, it was at six and a half, where it's been sitting, except for today, where it's starting to creep up to seven. You are seeing some sevens out there.
Don't do it.
There's a lot of games like you're just setting yourself up for disaster because there's so much variance in these games, and teams that have been seven point favorites or more this year are crushing it. So you're hoping there's some aggression, but this is like they're eight and five straight up this year, so you're really playing with fire to bet the worst of the number on a big underdog.
Okay, I like Pittsburgh minus two and a half of the Cowboys TJ Watt against the rookie left tackle. It's a standalone game justin fields under Arthur Smith is not as turnover prone. And I mean this is a classic example to me of what the Steelers can do offensively is run the ball, and the Cowboys defensive run defense is thirty second in the league. I don't have to love the Pittsburgh Steelers offensively, but there are things they're
excellent at doing. I'm not sure what Dallas does well at this point, I would swallow the two and a half in Pittsburgh Sharper.
Square totally sharp wise, guys love this game. It's sort of a reverse raw ro on Mike Tomlin spot. Normally you don't like back in Mike Tomlin as a favorite, right, and we saw that last week. I was all over the Colts last week when the Steelers were on the road playing in Indie. But he's coming off a loss. So even though he's a favorite. It's a good rob Ross spot for the coach who has been enormously successful motivating his team. But then all, let's look at the field.
Dallas was already thin and bad defensively. Now they are thinner and worse. No Micah Parsons, no DeMarcus Lawrence on offense, Brandon Cooks is out in the backfield. They really have no running game to speak up. From a matchup point of view, it lines up perfectly for the Steelers in every way they have an edge.
You want to be able to run the ball.
You want to get the ball out of Justin Field's hands, or you want to peep the ball in his hands for RPOs. Arthur Smith, Steelers offensive coordinator, has been amazing this year. Ye a game planning to put Justin Fields in a position to succeed. The only time it hasn't worked is when they were losing and all of a sudden he had to start making plays throwing the ball down field, and that's when he's fumbling. He's making bad decisions.
They will likely have a lead in this game. They will likely be able to nurse a lead in this game, and then it's going to be up to Dak Prescott to throw the Cowboys back into the game, and he's going to be going against TJ. Watt, and that's when the Steelers really cycle up the opportunity to win. So yeah, we're all over the Steelers in this game.
Saints plus five and a half at Kansas City with no Rashi Rice. So it's not a great offensive line, but check ho still not back, not as format ale a run game. You lost your number one receiver. Xavier Worthy could become a volume receiver, he's certainly not that now. I think the Saints can hang around Chiefs to win, but five and a half seems really really rich.
Sharper square, totally sharp.
The Saints are the right side here, and don't be sort of dissuaded by the outings they've had the past couple of weeks. They were incredibly unlucky. We've talked about the luck rankings on this show, which is basically a formula our math geniuses have devised to separate the signal from the noise and identify regression either positively or negatively. Right, So last week, the last two weeks, the Saints have been incredibly unlucky.
The Chiefs have still been lucky.
Right, and they will acknowledge that they are playing at a higher level than their talent because Patrick Mahomes is so much better than everybody else. This is the biggest difference in luck we have in our luck rankings this week, twenty eight spots separating them that number. If a difference in the luck rankings of twenty eight or more sixty five percent against the spread, if the team that's unlucky is on the road seventy eight percent against the spread,
I'll throw even more at you, Colin. Think about Patrick Mahomes as a favorite of more than a field goal under five hundred against the spread. You want to talk about Derek Carr. Derek Carr gets a lot of hate from everybody, deservedly so, but as an underdog the past twenty years, if he is playing a team that scores less than twenty one points in a game, he has a top five against the spread record. With guys like
Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees. How many points a game are the Kansas City Chiefs averaging eighteen something like that? So the stars are aligning for New Orleans to cover against the Kansas City Chiefs.
I don't know what the over under should be for Denver in Las Vegas. But in a game that could end up seventeen fourteen, I'm going to take the points with the Raiders two and a half against bone Knicks. I like bon Nicks. There's limitations. I just don't see the points here. I think Denver's defense has actually paid really well and I think it will hold brock Bauers DeVante Adams. I don't think that trade happens till after this weekend. I have to take the points here with
the Raiders in a division rivalry game. Sharper Square.
Yeah, that's why you do take the points is because it's a division rivalry game. Because why would you take a rookie quarterback as a favorite when he just came off a game where he literally had the most putrid offensive stats that have happened since the nineteen sixties. You know, minus seven yards passing at one point. But the challenge here and the wise guys are totally split, so you're not going to get like a definitive Sharper Square.
Personally, I have bet the Raiders.
At plus two and a half, but I know a lot of guys who are taking the Broncos their defense isn't just good, their defense is elite, like they're playing at a top five level. And you're going against a Raiders team where Max Crosby we still don't know what kind of health he will be in for the game. They have offensive line issues as well. Obviously Devonte Adams will not be playing in that game. I don't know that that matters to me. That's not a reason to
bet or not bet. But I do think Gardner Mischeu under pressure about sixty two percent QBR. When he's not under pressure, he's in the nineties. So something the Broncos do really well is pressure the quarterback top five, So that's going to be a challenge. I think I'm still going to be on the Raiders because ultimately I like the trend of betting the division the dogs in the division.
But it's a tricky one. It's not like a definitive Sharper square.
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