The volume.
All right.
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So when your team puts up the extra point, reward yourself with an extra pizza order Little Caesars on Uber Eats today. We did the terms apply. See the app for details. Pizza, pizza, extra extra. Something's going on here, all right? John Middlecoff former NFL scout has his own podcast, Three and Out. Can't tell you how many people come up to me in Chicago GMS. They're like, oh, I love I love middle Cough so much. They never say that about me. They love you.
To tell him. I don't know if middle Coff's going to the Hall of Fame, like like you so congratulations, by the way, that's that's pretty cool.
I appreciate it. Buffalo twenty eight Kansas City twenty one. I looked at this number today. To me, this was this was really the game is that Mahomes was uncomfortable and Josh Allen was really comfortable. He was sacked three times, hit fifteen times. And when Mahomes John doesn't trust his offensive line, it changes, it changes the way he plays, He presses, takes more risks. And I thought the game really came down to that is that. I just thought Josh was really comfortable and Patrick wasn't.
I just know this, if the Bills can find a way to play like they do against the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season in the postseason, they will win the Super Bowl because they thoroughly outplayed him today, outgained to by one hundred yards. We're up double digits in the fourth quarter. I mean it took a fourth and seventeen, which well, only Andy Reid would have a fourth and seventeen play that would come wide open. But listen, that Bills team that we just saw. That team can
win the Super Bowl. Yeah, but we see them on a weekly basis now look as good on defense, the pass rush isn't always there. Joey Bosa looked like, I don't know his third year with the Chargers today, so I don't know where that version of the Bills is always because they make a ton of plays when they have to against the Ravens and in the regular season.
I mean, Colin, this is now kind of a theme obviously at home and this is why I've been I've said from the jump, getting a home field for the Bills is really big, and today was a bigger game for them because at the end of the day, like Chiefs have already won Super Bowl, so I think they will eventually win another one. But if they get bounced in the first or second round one year, whatever. This year for the Bills, you just have to hold serve.
With the Patriots, they have an easier schedule than you they keep taking care of business. If they would have lost today, they would have been out of one game Deficis and they've already lost to them, So there was a lot of pressure. And in fairness, I thought they answered the bell. Beside a couple of plays in the second half, right, they were really good going.
Well, I mean, And the other thing that's I mean, Bosa is healthy. He's thirty, Greg Russo is twenty five. Aj Epeniza is twenty seven. These guys are in their athletic prime and they've drafted pretty well in the back end. So Denver is now on a heater. Denver's nine and two and now plays Kansas City next, and Kansas City is five and four, and so now Joe all got banged up today, but the Chargers are six and three.
So you get into a really weird situation here where if Denver beats, I mean, it was the worst thing possible for Denver. I don't know what the line is, I'm taking Kansas City against Denver when Kansas City loses. But I think the thing that jumped out to me today was, you know, we've talked a lot about the defense at Oliver didn't play, but we talk a lot about Buffalo's defense all year. So much of defense is
effort right. Like I was talking to somebody the other day about this, is that you know, offensive players on a high school they'll follow a coach. Offensive players want the coach.
You know.
Defensive players, you know they high schoolers, they want to go to big schools, right they most defensive coaches they see is the same thing. Defensive players are about wrecking things. And I do think when you take that Buffalo defensive front and they play Mahomes, they play differently. It's just a different It's different than playing Michael Pennix. And I've always felt offense is about choreography. But I felt like I felt like the defensive front today for Buffalo knew
the red light was on. That's what it felt like to me. It felt like they played with way more energy. Many of the same players played above what they've been playing at all year. I just I feel like defensive players can play at a different intensity level depending on the opponent. Ten times they've played five and five, and I don't know, I thought that was the difference. I thought the defensive line for Buffalo was great.
Well, can I piggyback off what you just said about the defense, I think, and I've said this now for a while that when you look at the NFL and they've tried to clean up the game, right, so now when you watch, you know, guys are much safer. They take a very conscious effort to officiate dirty calls. And I think most guys, now, if you're twenty five, you have gone through college in the NFL being taught how
to hit right and not use your helmet. But I do think if we miked up defensive coordinators, like if you got the defensive meeting room on Saturday night and before the team came out this week and probably all week, fans would be uncomfortable what's being said in there, especially from the Buffalo side, And you could go around the league. I bet if you got Brian Flores micd up this week on Wednesday night, on Saturday night, it would make
a lot of people uncomfortable with what they want. I enjoy that, and I know what I'm on, but I still think that the way they talk and what they preach is still has similarities going back to the eighties and the nineties. Yeah, and you know, Buffalo's front is really talented and they just lost at Oliver the first round draft pick from Kentucky. I mean Patrick Mahomes. Listen,
I'm with you. His offensive line was at tatters. You can't throw that interception late in the game because they never got the ball back, you know, essentially, right, So it's like that was killer and they just need some more impact plays on defense. We'll talk about the Steelers, well, what happened today. Their high priced guys, especially upfront, made huge play huge. So when you're playing in playoff games,
I'm sure we'll talk about the baseball game too. Sometimes you just need a random guy to make a big ass play, whether that's a tip ball for a pick, whether that's a fumble, and obviously your stars to make big plays. So you know, Buffalo in coach Reid and all the Bret Veetz, all those guys will tell you Josh Allen is the best player they play, Yeah, and
has been for now five years. I mean he because not only he matches his play against the other randoms against them, and he's one of the rare ones, if not the only guy who has consistently done that now for four or five years.
Well, they were sixty percent on third down. They had one hundred forty yards rushing. I thought, you know, and I thought it was going to be high scoring, and I said, I'll take Kansas City. But when these two teams play, you know, you never count Kansas City out. But I felt like today this was this was Buffalo's day because Buffalo had lost at home to New England. So again I watched that game. The intensity felt different today. It feels different in the stadium when Kansas City plays there,
you get NaNs, get Romo. It just feels different. And you know, Josh Allen, they said this during the game, seventy nine rushing touchdowns in eight years.
Jesus, that's just insane.
He is one of the things when I watch, and I feel this way to a lesser degree with Lamar Jackson, but I do think there are certain things I guess I would say this. I feel generally Kansas City has slightly better personnel than Buffalo, But right now, does Buffalo have the right ingredients star running back Mahomes doesn't better defensive front with more high level guys. Right Chris Jones
has not had a great year. So we know Buffalo and Kansas City have good gms and great quarterbacks and We know Andy's very clever in these games, but a lot of times John it's units. You know, the two times Mahomes has been blown out in Super Bowls, he had a bad old line. The old lines are both fine. Although Kansas City's got overwhelmed today, but that defensive front right now for Buffalo, it reminds me. It just there's just a lot of guys. I feel like there's just
a lot of guys that play. I must throw Milano in there when he's healthy. I mean, Josh is only twenty nine. He's going to have six more cracks at the super Bowl minimum. But I felt today watching him, I'm like, that's they've got it. They've had it before. But Cook playing at this level, Buffalo's got all the ingredients.
I would say this too. If Kincaid is going to look like that, SHA's what they drafted him high, to look like a Laporta, to look like a Tucker Craft, Yes, a Kittle, a Kelsey. So if he's going to play like that, I mean Cook, If you had to look at twenty twenty five, you would say Jonathan Taylor's had the best year at running back. McCaffrey is just week in week out bringing, and you would put Cook. I mean, he's been one of the best running backs in the NFL this year and you watch him on a weekly
basis not really debatable. So you get high level tight end play, you get high level running back play. I would say since Cook has become a high end starter, it's really changed the Bills offense and it's made Joe Brady look a lot better. The other thing is if you have a good defensive line. The Chiefs are missing their star rookie left tackle who's been gone now for several weeks. Today they had multiple injuries at right guard,
at right or at left guard, and at right tackle. Well, if that means your backup left tackle is starting because Simmons is gone, so you actually are going to like a backups backup. The Domino effect was pretty big, and you just saw him kind of under duress, and the reality is sometimes when he's under duress, he will make decisions like you know, other run of the mill quarterbacks and not one of the great players we've ever seen. And he did today all.
Right, Minnesota twenty seven, Detroit twenty four. Before we get to JJ McCarthy, golf got sacked five times, hit eleven ten tackles for loss. Brian Flores was on his game today. They couldn't run the football at all, so it was amor on. Saint Brown and Sam Laporta were excellent, but Detroit could not run the ball. And that's kind of
the engine that makes everything slick and click there. JJ McCarthy was after the first couple of drives, he was about fifty percent again, but I got two touchdowns, ran for another okay on third down. I thought he was very good in the script and stuff early. Overall, he moves well.
He looks.
It's funny about size. He looks a little small to me. It's so funny. Mahomes is six one and a half. He feels huge to me, I don't Aaron Rodgers is six one and a half. He feels six to four. McCarthy, it sometimes feels like he gets engulfed. But overall, I thought he moved well and played pretty well. Did you have a strong take on him?
I think your take on the waight, I think it's a girth thing, you know, the side of the thickness, because Russell Wilson never felt like he was small, right, even though he's five ten yearl because he's two hundred twenty pounds. Yeah, Caleb's a good example. Yeah, shorter, but feels like he's two sixteen.
And Caleb's six feet to I'm taller than Caleb by like an inch.
One thing we said about JJ last year during the injury, and I think Albert Breer and a bunch of guys, he lost a bunch of weight and was like one hundred and eighty five pounds, So I think it's harder for Mahomes probably wised to earn thirty pounds. So I think that factors in the number one thing with JJ today were the good plays were touchdowns. So if you're gonna count for three touchdowns, you could have twenty in
completions and have some terrible plays. It's when you're not scoring and bringing none to that to the table, it's just a complete disaster. Flora, As I thought, if you're gonna give one game ball to a coach, same it'd probably have to go to him because you're on the road in Detroit. That was that was excellent. I mean, his guys were flying around. Gof's good against the blitz and early on I think they had blitzed like five
or six times it sacked them. On two of them, Gough was all out of sink where offense was out of sink, and it felt like he gave the speech, we're going to have to win this thing because in fairness coming into that game and they kept hitting on it. On the broadcast of I thought Tom did a good job. He said, there's no one disputing his arm strength. But you know, Burkhardt must have come in late from the
baseball game last night. Was there talking about a guy grinding, And Brady's big thing was clearly he knows Kevin pretty well. It's like, sometimes you need to do a change up. Sometimes we need to get some off speed. Sometimes you need touch balls. Yes, because you watch the arm strength is fine, but on some of these balls over the middle on third and eight, and even at his interception was a little behind. His accuracy like some of these guys is a work in progress.
Yeah, JJ's interception was low and down it and the Lions player came over it. No, that's that's Matt Stafford is the master of tempo. Like he can sling it side arm, he can throw a heat and I think of it. It's just it is a little bit like being a baseball pitcher. I what I worry about what JJ McCarthy is, And I felt like this was Brock Purtty. You know, when the Niners, Christian McCaffrey is upright, I
don't even care who the quarterback is. I mean like, if Christian McCaffrey plays today at half their yards, it doesn't matter if it's Mac Jones or Brock pretty. I do feel with Kevin O'Connell justin Jefferson good left tackle. I kind of feel like it's hard to evaluate JJ because the coach, the left tackle, and the receiver are so good. It's like San Francisco with Kyle and Christian McCaffrey. And then when Kittle is healthy and Jennings can be,
you know, highly productive, how valuable is the quarterback? So this is an anti J McCarthy. I just think I think again, I think I just need more of him. I just have to see more games. I thought Brian Flores was game ball Brian Flores.
That's why I think it's fair for JJ McCarthy. The bar of how he's being judged should be higher than a lot of random young quarterbacks on bad teams. When you play for crappy franchises and you lose. I expect that, Like whoever the Carolina Panthers draft, I don't expect it to look great. But when you get Justin Jefferson in his prime, Howkinson, Jordan Addison, Kevin o'connoff. We had a coaching draft, where would Kevin o' he'd go in the
top five? Yes, so everything, And this was Trey Lance's thing. When you get drafted to a team whose expectations are, yeah, let's win fourteen games and compete for the conference championship, you.
Just get judged a lot differently.
And I'll give JJ credit in the Bears game, he had huge moments in a big time today. At the end of the game, with the game on the line, his coach put in his hands and he delivered. And that's where I think a lot of his defenders go with the quote unquote he's a winner. There is some winning characteristics when you're comfortable in big moments. You go back to that moment against Alabama where it looked like Harbaugh had this all time great roster and he was
gonna lose in the in the playoffs. To Nick saban On probably, I bet Nick would say one of his worst ever playoff teams. JJ made some great plays. You watched his first start against the Bears, Big Spot made some great plays. And today on I thought they were just gonna run it and just hey, lean it on floors. They put in his hands. Great throw, Colin, not a good throw, a great deal.
Yeah, Well, when I watched him at Michigan, that was always my take. Moves, Well, gritty kid didn't make a ton of big throws, but he'd make one or two NFL Sunday throws. He can make the big throws. So I just don't have a ton you know. I mean, like, say what you want about bow knicks. I've got like a six game winning streak and he's got a one nineteen passer rating, nine touchdowns, no pick in the fourth quarter. I've got a lot of samples of bow knicks. He
can have gaps, but late he's really good. So I with JJ, I've never been a huge believer, but I thought, you know what, to go to Detroit, you got the deal. Well, you know, you win in a lot of different ways. Every Sunday for Brady was great. That Teddy Bruski crew. There were days that Tom didn't do a lot of heavy lifting. He was twenty at twenty eight with a lot of underneath stuff.
So yeah, if I was going to defend, you know, JJ hasn't been playing, Carson has or but definitely Caleb Williams. They're i mean Caleb's defense. Sometimes you watch the Bears on defense and they just look atrocious in Minnesota till today. They had been pretty bad this season, Colin, I mean today was and even today they gave it. It's not like they gave up ten points. I mean, and they had some drop balls. I mean there were plays to be made. Like the defense is on those two teams,
I mean, bow Knicks. We might have just watched the two best defense in the league play each other today, right, The physicality of Denver and Houston and how good their defensive lines are. So anytime you have a defense that is that good does back you up when you're not making plays. But I'd say all three of these guys have one thing going for him, JJ McCarthy. Now, obviously
Caleb and bow Knicks making plays in big spots. And I think when you look at Caleb and Bonnicks, they've had a lot of snaps now in their career.
Well, they also have Sean Payton. I mean, look at the coaches.
Kevin O'Connell, Ben Johnson, Ben Johnson.
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hundred and nine with it. Gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. You know what's remarkable to me, and maybe it's I was thinking about this today. So the Rams beat the Saints thirty four to ten. Time of possession was forty three minutes to seventeen. I mean it was it almost
felt like a practice. Is that whereas Philadelphia and Green Bay kind of struggle to figure out what they are because the Dodgers are taking so much glare in Los Angeles away from football and should.
The Rams are really good.
I mean we forget they went in London and they blow out Jacksonville like thirty five to seven.
Rams.
Right now, john are really really good. Pooka came back today, Korum played okay. They have a two headed run game. Now, they have four healthy tight ends, Jordan Winningham that sixth round draft pick. They have a sixth and a seventh round wide receiver that can play a little bit. The defense is excellent up front, I think quietly. I mean, if you took and I really believe this, I think the Rams are the most consistent, best coached right now, healthiest team. I don't think the old line is great.
I think it's very good. I think they have a great guard tandem. But I you know, and I had this was a lower right hand corner game as I was watching Kansas City and Buffalo. But Jesus, I mean it was. I mean, we've seen a lot of upsets this year and a lot of weird shit. That thing today was a practice. It was just it was just easy peasy, and I mean it's Stafford. At one point, I don't know what he finished. He had four touchdowns, no picks, Jesus, they were getting seven yards of carry.
The rams are really good.
He was thirty four to thirty two for two hundred eighty yards and four touchdowns.
Thirty four to forty two.
Yeah, the other or no, twenty four to thirty two, oh for two eighty so he had eight incompletions. I'd say the scary thing these last couple of games is DeVante has five touchdowns. So when that you figure out that report to go along with Puka. Now Pook at any moment, you know, take some vicious hits. He runs guys over. You know, can this guy stay healthy? But
those two guys are on the field right now. They're as good of a one to two combos like in terms of production and what they bring to the tables,
like chasing Higgins. They're on kind of unstoppable. And the one thing with DeVante, he's very comfortable with the high end veteran quarterback in his prime with Aaron it's kind of starting to feel like that those guys cohesion, especially in the in the red zone, has Matt Stafford kind of quietly because you know, today I don't think a lot of people are dialed into the Saints game, right, But four touchdowns five touchdowns Jack, I think he threw
three in that loss against the Niners. He's got to be directly in the mix.
So I have said this before. This sounds crazy. So he was better than Aaron Rodgers in high school, and he was better than Aaron in college, and he was better than Aaron for the first four years of his NFL career. He's been better than Aaron for the last four years of his NFL career. Aaron had a ten eleven year stratch at Green Bay, where Matt Stafford was. You know, he was with a losing organization and Aaron had the well run outfit. What if Matt Stafford wins
another Super Bowl, now, think about that. He's got a better playoff record. He was better early, better late. If Matt Stafford win, well, he's already a hall I think he's a Hall of Famer now right, Matt Stafford's a Hall of Fame right now.
I put him.
Yeah, what if Matt Stafford wins a second Super Bowl? He's always been considered one of the best arm talents of our generation. That's indisputable. You could ask anybody the Brady's ask Aaron asked Far they all go, yeah, Stafford's it. Where do you put him all the time? Serious question? Matt Stafford wins a second Super Bowl? I'm telling you there's not a lot of guys I'd put above him. I mean, he didn't have he didn't have quite the
gravitas of your Brady, Montana, Manning, and Elway. But Marino's got no super Bowls. He's got two. I don't know Stafford is watching him this season? Shit, man, he is. He is dialed in, He's comfortable.
I don't know.
What do you do with him all time? If he wins a second Well.
To me, it's hard. I mean you could make the argument, Aaron's a top five guy, you know, with Manning, Montana, Brady Elway, pretty short list to me, I don't think most people would include Stafford in the top ten of quarterbacks. Now, granted he played for the Lions, not the Dan Campbellions.
Would you have put him by if he has a second Super Bowl. He's a better arm talent than Drew Brees.
Matt.
Yeah, to me, there is not if I could get here, here's the argument. If you could get twenty three year old Matt Stafford or and start listing out quarterbacks, he would go ahead of a lot of guys because he's showing that. What if Matt Stafford had been drafted by a hardball brother an Andy Reid a Sean Payton right when he was twenty three, instead of going to the Lions, who always drafted high right and they're two best players
beside him quit at thirty years old. I mean, it's a pretty the Lions that if you're a twelve year old kid right now, you can't even comprehend this conversation. But I do think that the time with the Lions, he has had years where he's thrown a lot of picks, he can be a little reckless. The way he's playing right now, though, like his ceiling. One thing I will say about this, His ceiling is as high as any player.
Yeah.
Ever, like he can go toe to toe when he's on. I say this about Camp. Camp can have individual games where he can outplay any guy in the league and that was prime Brady, prime Manning. Now Stafford's a better player than Camp but in that same vein of like, if you get Stafford in the right day or the right month, he can just be the best player in the league now. And I do think this second kind of iteration of his career with Sean is going to be a really powerful moment for his career, and he'll
have like the Kurt Warner type the individual seasons. I just think it's hard to shake that that lion stretch, because well, winning and losing isn't a quarterback statistic. Most good quarterbacks win a lot. Not all his fault, but I do think he probably developed some bad habits there.
Let's talk some World series. So that's about as good a World Series, especially Game six and seven as I've ever seen in my life. So I, you know, I thought it was really interesting. You know, Dave Roberts pulled all these levers, you know, like he just pulled all these levers, and to win a World Series where you know, he puts in Rojas and then the out the defensive outfielder in the ninth and he goes with Yoshi again. Everything worked.
But I think, you know, as I was.
I was talking to a friend about this, is that Otani, Roki and Yoshi, and right now Yoshi is arguably the best pitcher, and Otani is the best player. He's been moved to the pen. But these Japanese stars and Japanese baseball is like really high high Triple A. It's not quite the Bigs, but it's there's great players and it's a The Dodgers have so separated financially from everybody else on I mean on the West coast that I mean,
they always had money. But the gap now between the Dodgers and the Giants and everybody else, the Angels and the Mariners, is that these Japanese stars, between weather and proximity and how well run the organization is. And the Dodgers are smart, so they said, listen. The only downside the taxes just to fer the payment, so you can get paid when you've retired and lived somewhere else.
Is that.
A friend of mine in New York was saying, God, our teams are bad, but I said, New York is cold, it's intense, a much harsher media. The city tax La has spread out. You can hide. I mean, I never see I was in La nine years. I'm here right now. You never see pro athletes in LA. You can just hot. You never see celebrities in LA, and they're everywhere. There's writers, directors. I mean, look how many pro teams were in LA. You never see athletes ever.
It's just so spread out.
There's so many gated communities. Calabasa's Hidden Hills, Malibu. You know, everybody's got these enclaves, Beverly Hills, bel Air, Windy Roads, you can hide thousand oaks. And I think I think they I think the Dodgers right now. Steve Cohen's got money with the Mets, the Yankees have money. They just feel like with these Japanese stars. And you know the other thing, John, those guys don't listen to our media. It's like international NBA players. They come here, they play,
and then they go home. They don't get caught up. They play. So I mean, Yoshi plays so loose in these big spots. He's so unaffected by the intensity and the chaos of the World Series. I don't know. I just look at the Dodgers and I'm not sure there's another organization in North America that's run like they are.
One of my best friends played college baseball, and one of his teammates, you know, was like a fringe big leaguer, triple A guy, and signed a deal with the Japanese team when Otani right before he came over, when he was alleged over there, and they went over and visited and went to the games, and they were at the highest level, and they said that it felt like an SEC football game. The intensity in the environment in Japan, the way these Yamamoto and Otani grew up playing, I
mean they make it right. When they're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old started playing in that league and they just said the intensity of the crowd would be like going to Alabama Auburn. How much these people know about baseball and how much they care. So these guys the bright light's completely unfazed. When Otani was like one of twenty five through the first whatever of the playoffs, it wasn't because he was overwhelmed. He couldn't see the baseball right.
But the difference I would say of baseball, the Warriors can't win unless Steph is incredible during the playoffs. Right in the NFL, you could have a random guy make a big play in a Super Bowl or an NFC championship. But your stars, your star quarterback, your star pass rusher have to come through or you will lose. In baseball, that's not really how it works. Yeah, I mean I was a Giants fan. Cody Ross in twenty ten hit home runs off Roy Halliday that no one saw coming
in Philadelphia. The Dodgers won the World Series last night. You could argue because they rolled out four guys they're paying a combined one point five billion dollars two or because their ninth hitter in the in the ninth inning hits a game tying home run where they were going to lose the World Series, and then that same guy almost falls throws home and then their backup center fielder who had been benched. I'm watching with my wife. She falls out of her chair.
She's like, what just happened?
That had to be one of the crazier plays in World Series because it looked like he was going to basket catch it, and this random center fielder tackles him like he's Ed Reid across the middle and saves the game. But that's baseball, it's not. It wasn't no tany hitting. The walk up Will Smith, Will Smith Rojas and that big guy in center field.
Yeah, it's and that's.
What makes baseball pretty unique in the playoffs. It's not just your stars.
Yeah.
And I think and again, even when if you go back and look at the great Yankee teams with Jeter and Bernie and Posada, you know it was Scott Brocious from mcmnville, Oregon coming up big. So like nobody had a problem when the Yankees were buying the best players because people understood that Posada and Jeter, that was part of the Yankee farm system. Well go look at the Dodgers. They haven't missed. I mean they they draft I mean Max Munsey was released from Oakland. They I think they
traded for Blake Snell. I mean, these guys are available on the market. The Steinbrenners could have afforded to buy Yoshi. They spent three hundred million. The Dodgers said three thirty five. They don't win the series without him, so they identify who they want. They are aggressive. I think we're the Dodgers where I see their money being an advantage because Mookie Betts did not outside of September, just didn't hit this year, played a very good short stuff, didn't hit.
Freddie Freeman's more offensive the defensive player, and Otani had real struggles at the plate throughout the playoffs where the Dodgers have an advantage a the Asian Stars, obviously, but it's to get to get a glass Now or a Snell who may not give you a ton of starts during the regular season. Most teams cannot afford to pay a guy if he's not giving you twenty five. I mean, Yoshi's the only guy that he never misses a start, like he's a true bona fide ace like Verlin or
in his prime, you're getting thirty starts. They can go get a Snell and a Glass now remarkably talented guys and get ten twelve starts in the regular season and just push them off to September. That's the advantage they have. But you can also lots of teams could defer payments and they don't. The Dodgers do. So. Yes, money is clearly an ex but I think to your point, Yoshi was great, but there were a lot of guys slumping.
I mean, if you go back to this World Series, the Blue Jays out hit the Dodgers, I mean the Dodgers in game six to one. I think they had four hits. I mean they struggled the whole series to hit.
I actually think baseball is much closer to football in terms of in the Dodgers was two years ago. I mean almost got beat by the Padres in the play. It's the baseball. I don't care how good your team is in basketball. When I got the Kevin Durant Warriors, I'm gonna need Achilles tears and ACL tears to loose. Other than that, I'm a lock to win. Shaq, Kobe Laker, some of these teams, it's gonna be ninety percent chance I win. The Dodgers roster can't get much better, and
it was really difficult for them to win. I was just say they probably should have lost. You know, that's that's baseball.
Though they won a World Series last year with really average starting pitching, and they won a World Series this year with a really average bullpen, which is verse impossible to do if you're leaking in the back end. I mean, Yoshi basically is why they won the World Series. But I will say, having spent nine years a full time in Los Angeles, they just don't make a lot of mistakes.
They don't.
I mean, they let Zach Grinkey go. They could have made a big bid for him. He went to Arizona. They let Manny Machado go. They don't make a lot of mistakes. And they've also let Cody Bellinger go. They've let good players, you know, leave. So money's obviously apart, but you know, I mean the truth is in the NBA during the David Stern years, money was a part, but the New York Knicks weren't winning. Some people don't
spend the money as wisely. I mean, we know game day revenue, the Giants and the Jets have much greater game day revenue than green Bay. Green Bay spends their money more wisely.
When I was working in radio, I got to go to a lot of the A's were really good then, kind of in Billy Bean's prime in thes were winning a bunch of World Series. And I think sometimes with baseball, especially probably over the last decade, it gets overlooked because we spend so much time talking about these kind of the quote unquote nerds running the sport. I do think the best kind of nerds understand character and cohesion, and
one thing you watch with the Dodgers. Like feels like all these guys like each other and they had a good I would say with the Blue Jays, it jumped off the screen. It was like this team looks like a college team all playing together. The San Francsco Giants, you always had that Billy Bean always did a really
good job of finding the right mix of guys. Baseball is about more and you watch the Yankees, it seems like missing a little something that's the knock, Like at the end of the day in baseball, you still got to have some fast guys.
That can run.
And you watch the Dodgers. Definitely the Blue Jays, they got their best players are athletes. The Yankees are a good example. Their best players all look like, you know, move like defensive tackles. It's like you doesn't need a little speech.
Well, the Yankees strike out too much. They don't play small ball. The Dodgers have the ability to. I mean, listen, Toronto hit the ball more consistently. The Dodgers had the better starting pitching. I mean, if you go back to the last year's World Series, the only time the Yankees competed with the Dodgers is when Garrett Cole pitched, the Yankees didn't look athletic enough, didn't run the bases. Well,
they're not a very good defensive team. The Yankees strikeout too much, and they have tons of money, so you know, I mean, I think.
That's one of the most thrilling endings to a World Series all.
I think Game six, in Game seven, the final innings are the greatest, most drama field. You have to go back to the seventy five I think it was seventy five World Series. It was Reds against the Red Sox. It's that Carlton fiskomer at Fenway where he's you know, yeah, waving at it, and I remember watching that as a kid.
I mean, that's the first baseball memory I have is like the seventy four, seventy five, seventy six Cincinnati Reds because I was in Seattle, we didn't have the Mariners yet, and that's when I fell in love with football over baseball. But the mid seventies, the big Red Machine, I fell in love with it, and that had I mean, I
can go back to that series. Names that you guys you've never heard, but I thought the magnitude it was just so I mean, you had Dave Roberts had to pull so many damn levers, you know, going with Rojas like old guy. I'm not even sure when his last home run was. Dave Roberts said after his wife kept telling Rojas the whole series, you're going to hit a home run in this series. You are, And he's like, I'm not playing, I'm not kidding up. She's like, you're going to hit a home run tonight. So I just
thought it was It was just everything. The announcing the imagery Fox the Blue Jays, I mean Blue Jays over under was like seventy eight and a half. Talk about a team that just mashed and overachieved.
Good for them.
Let's pivot now to the Bears. Sure they got the coach in the quarterback, the defense stinks. We still don't like the owner, the front office. I doubt I love the coach. The quarterbacks super talented. There's a lot that they're not doing right, like a political party. The Bears now lead the NFL in big plays. That's good for me, and isn't it. They're a flawed team from ownership down. But they got the two things that appears right.
Absolutely, there's no question. I mean the one I always say is it's a fun turn of phrase. Is like the Bengals were the Bungles until they got Joe Burrow. You know, the Chiefs didn't win a single game with the quarterback they drafted since Todd Blackledge and then it was Patrick Mahomes, you know, So like it can change on a dime. And I find it to be amazing that the Bears are fourth and rushing fourth in yards, sixth and scoring crazy back in and explosive plays, and
everyone's like, is Caleb good? I'm like, listen, and by the way, to be fair, to be fair as someone who's watched every snap of every game closer than any team in the NFL, like they got some of those numbers got fat against Dallas and Cincinnati, objectively true. And some of the explosive play stuff is running game based, and they've been much better running out of the by Washington, New Orleans, Baltimore and then the game last week. But so it's not all because of Caleb. Caleb's not playing
as well as Drake Many. Caleb's not playing as well as Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes. But if you told me twenty five games into his career, on his third play caller and second head coach, that they would have, by the numbers, a top ten offense and a winning record in year two. One hundred percent of Bears fans would have signed up for it.
That's what I always tell whenever my wife's, you know, getting a little concerned about our kids. I'm like, if i'd have told you twenty years ago when we met, none of them would be in jail, none would have a drug problem, We'd have a vacation home and a nice house, and our kids would still call us. Would you have signed up for it? Yes, then don't worry about tomorrow. It's all good. Think about this. So my take is every NFL offense as a whole. Let me
give an example. I'm gonna give you the best offenses in the NFL two weeks ago. What you thought Green Bay today? They have no offensive identity. These are the better offenses the Rams Pukazoa was hurt and Stafford has no mobility. Philadelphia depends on the game in the half. Denver terrible offense for three quarters every single game. San Francisco battle line totally Christian McCaffrey dependent. Indianapolis. Does anybody like Daniel Jones. I just named the good offenses in
the NFL, right right. So the truth is, we pay so much attention to offense, Danny, and I'm guilty of this. We nitpick the Bears, big plays, run the ball, well coached, taken, no.
Doubt, no doubt, and and I have I came into the year with optimism, but with zero percent like they're a contender or they're gonna win the Super Bowl. So to me, this season has been it's been a little bit of a heart attack inducing. I might say some things during these Bear games that if like anyone other than like Nick right was next to me, I'd be like, that might get me canceled. Uh you know what I mean. Like it's a stressful watch. But I have no illusions
that this is a great team. Like the defense is flawed, the quarterback is young, it's a new system that they've got. They've had serious left tackle questions. Their two best cornerbacks are hurt. We don't know if Jalen Johnson is coming back like this year, he'll come back eventually, obviously, Like they're not gonna win the Super Bowl. They probably won't make the playoffs, though they might we'll see because weird things happen in the NFL. But again, like, do you
have the coaching quarterback? I can work with that. Yeah. Because they also it's not just like they got a lot of talent. I hear this all the time, like, oh, Doonsay is talented? Loveland is talented. They're right. Tackle Darnell right looks like a stud for you.
Andre Swift is an excellent top twelve back.
Yeah, manung guy who has been has been great the last you know, game and a half since Swift has been hurt. Looks looks good that they they have pieces, they have talent, and they are clearly on the up and up. And Caleb he gives them a ceiling that feels kind of limitless because of how crazy the physical talent is. Like if Ben Johnson can actually get him to be ninety percent of what his talent suggests that he should be, the Bears are going to be good
for the next decade. Darnald's an amazing story. We were talking about this in the show today.
I said, you see all the time where a great actor, Tom Hanks takes a bad movie the Terminal, and you're like, oh, Marlon Brando did that. You'd have you know, on the waterfront and he had six bombs. You see great restaurants lose a chef, they go from Michelin star to just a really good restaurant. You never see terrible hot dog and a stick becomes zaggat rated. Like, that's not the way it works. There is no terrible to great from actors.
You're either like straight to video. Lindsay Lohan doesn't become Meryl Streep. It doesn't work that way. Except Sam Darnald, it's not. Denny was terrible, then he became pretty good because Baker won a playoff game and in that year had a ninety six passer writing. He was never terrible, right.
I mean, Daniel Jones got a second contract. D Daniel Jones won a playoff game. Sam Darnald was terrible, but he also like what did he have forty starts? Thirty thirty five, thirty eight starts? Like it wasn't like that large of a body of work. He came into the league at t one. He was so young to think about that. He came into the league. Yeah, four years into the league.
He was younger than guys that were getting drafted, right, Yeah.
And that's I mean that's like, like I think Trevor Lawrence and Michael Pennox are the same age. Like right now, it's just like a weird It's like a weird thing to have to deal with. And so yeah, like, to me, the most interesting part of this is, I mean, obviously the Donald story is incredible, and I think, yeah, Seattle is the only team in the NFL right now top five in offense and top five in defense, Like we have to treat them as real. I did not believe
in that Vikings team last year. I'm just not gonna I do believe in this Seahawks team. But I want to know what teams are gonna do, Like are the Colts not gonna give up on Anthony Richardson, Like obviously Daniel Jones is working. They just traded for Sauce Gardner. They're all in. They'll probably franchise tag Daniel Jones, I
would imagine. But is the lesson that these teams are gonna take from Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield and Daniel Jones being like we can't give up on guys like we don't have to play them, but we cannot give up on talent, Like if we truly believe that there is a franchise quarterback in here. It would be it would haunt me if I'm a Browns fan to see Baker Mayfield doing this, or if I'm a Panther fan to see Baker Mayfield and Sam and Sam Darnold doing this.
I don't know how how you go to sleep, go to sleep at night?
Okay, so what a what a Baker and Sam have in common? Baker went to Cleveland and then Carolina poorly run teams, and then McVeigh said, I like him. Okay, okay, Sam jets Carolina. Then Kyle Shanahan's like I like him is that it could be in venture capitalism, it can be on Wall Street, it can be in sports. The smart take from the less skilled and the less smart
is that the smartest people in the NFL. Dan Neil Jones goes from the shipwreck known as the New York Giants and Kevin O'Connell in season Vulture circles all take him, and then from there Shane Steiken goes, no, all take him. Is that there's a handful of super smart offensive guys and they look at all these the smart people figure out who can play and who can't. And by the way, Kyle Shanahan looked at Mac Jones, shocker, Belichick didn't get him.
Jacksonville stumbled, oh, what a shock. Shanahan's like, actually, throws are really good ball. I think we'll take him. There's about eight guys in this league now, maybe ten, but eight, and they're really smart. They're with winning organizations. And this happens in every walk of life. They go to the bad organizations with worst gms, bad scouts, lousy coaches, lousy coordinators, scouting directors that are suboptimal, and they just raid them.
Almost all of these reclamation projects started with bad franchises and get picked up by the artist gms in the league.
Yeah, but the bad franchises don't believe that they're bad, like you know, it's delusional. Like so you're right, But Sean McVay can't sign everybody, Kyle Shanahan can't sign everybody, like it's some I just I don't know what I think.
Anthony Richardson's a decent example. And listen, Shane Steiken might just be an awesome coach, like won eight games and nine games with Gardner Minshew and Anthony Richardson and has a shot at the one seed with Daniel Jones, right, like Shane Steiken might just be the next name that we need to include with Andy Reid and McVeigh and Shannan is right, it's it's that is that is certainly on the board. But then my guess is two years
from now, Anthony Richardson is still a cult. They'll just be like, why I give up on him, Like, well, we'll just we'll keep him, We'll keep developing him. We're gonna we drafted him fourth overall. He can run like Lamar Jackson, but he's built like Cam Newton, like he's got an arm like Herbert, Like, we're gonna just see if we can develop him between the years and slow
the game down for him. So it'll just be interesting to me to see if teams, instead of like cutting guys loose, be like we'll just we'll sit you for a little while, like we're not gonna We're not gonna let the Baker Mayfield story happen to us, because it's just a painful thing for an organization to go through to like to see you you drafted the right guy, so it's not and then he's awesome elsewhere so like the only It's on you. It's just got to be
such a shameful feeling for those organizations. The volume