Is Lamar Jackson NFL QB1? Herbert Overrated? Fire Tomlin? CA Fires

not going anywhere. But we did want to make sure that Hafter, I'm done with the nightcap and that we can talk about all of these sports things going out and out in the world. And today we got a bunch of good things to talk about. Majority of them come from the NFL world, and we have wild Card weekend and there were some disappointments and we got to ask some very tough questions. Number One, is Lamar Jackson QB one in the NFL, Now that's the question, justin

Herbert the social media quarterback? And is Mike Tomlin should he be fired in Pittsburgh? Should they part ways move on? And everything in between? And we got to talk about the California fires that are going on. So that's what we got today. So but first before we even get started, I want to send prayers, thoughts and prayers to everybody who has been affected by these fires. I've had friends, family, all sorts of people impacted by it. Houses burned down

and everything. My family is safe. We're grateful for it and grateful for your prayers and thoughts and everybody who's checked in. So we appreciate that. All right. So we'll start though with NFL Wildcard weekend cause and it all started really with Lamar Jackson and company in the Pittsburgh Steelers, and how you know, we were gonna view everything that

happened with them. Lamar finished one hundred and seventy five yards two touchdowns, and then he ran for another eighty one yards as well, and they're twenty eight to fourteen victory over Pittsburgh where I think at one point time

they're up twenty eight to nothing. And so we're gonna start with the Lamar Jackson part of this because the question is is Lamar Jackson QB one in the NFL now, as in the best quarterback in the National Football League Because there's a lot of people that want to put that on Josh Allen because he was the guy that they wanted to be the MVP. Oh, they were pushing.

And but now when you come with Lamar Jackson winning the division highest inner touchdown interception ratio in NFL history, now all of a sudden, the whole MVP race changed. And I believe that Lamar will win MVP now because he was voted first team All Pro, which a lot of those voters are saying, people that vote for the MVP. So I'm not sure how you can have a guy who is first team All Pro but then not the MVP.

I know we've seen it in the NBA where Lebron was first team All NBA Defense, Mark Gasol was second team defense, but he won defensive plaarity. I know sometimes weird stuff happens, but I'd be willing to bet that Lamar Jackson wins. And remember, this is a guy who Bill Pollion and other people when he came out of Louisville were like, yo, he's not a quarterback, he's a running Essentially, what they were saying was is that he's

a running black. That's what it was. Because so many times talent evaluators and everything else they don't know how to well, they're getting a better job now of understanding how to deal with a person's athleticism, because a quarterback's athleticism, because it used to just be oh, we're gonna throw him at wide receiver, put him at running back. He

could make exposed to plays for us. When in reality is if you have that type of dynamic player with the ball in his hands every single play and he can process and has the arm talent to be able to do it, that's the position. Well in the leadership ability as well, that's the position that he should be playing and not any of those other positions because of the magnetude of the position. So we've seen Lamar Jackson

develop as a passer every single year. And I was looking at his stats and I was like, wait, hold up. We all know that this is his best year in terms of touchdown passes. His previous high was his first MVP year in twenty nineteen, where he thirty six touchdowns six interceptions. Well, this year forty one and four, but he threw for over four thousand yards for the first

time in his career. So we've watched through his seven years in the NFL, We've watched that guy get better and better and better as a passer every single year. Then the narrative was, well, he can't win in the playoffs. Well, he's winning in the playoffs and winning in a dominant fashion now, and I believe for this season, Lamar Jackson is QB one. He was the best quarterback in the

NFL in twenty twenty four. I still have Patrick Mahomes number one in my overall, but after this this year, this is something where if Lamar is able to get his team past Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs or to a super Bowl winner super Bowl, now we may have to have a legitimate conversation not just off of one season, but next year that could really change them overall rankings, because right now, I got Lamar Jackson number one best quarterback in the NFL for twenty twenty four. Pay attention

to the details. For twenty twenty four, Lamar Jackson was the best quarterback is the best quarterback in the NFL. I got Joe Burrow number two, got Josh Allen number three, Patrick Mahomes number four, and Jared Goff number five, and then after that we got like Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, the rest of the crew. Those are the rankings that we got for this year, and we got to be able to get new information and say, yo, what that dude doing is special? And look is wide receiver corps.

He's got Zay Flowers, who's out who's a good player obviously, Rashad Bateman, Mark Andrews, Isaiah Likely. He's not playing with t Higgins and Jamar Chase. He's not playing with that. He's not playing with Justin Jefferson. He's not playing with any of the top, like the top five to ten wide receivers in the entire league. That's not what he's

playing with. I can't even imagine if he had those guys. Now, with what he's been able to do, and you look at the maturation from the original offense that he was into now what he's done with todp Monkin love it. But also in that game though the Steelers were playing, and of course Mike Tomlin around this time of year, he becomes an absolute lightning rod. People got their hot takes and everything that they think about Mike. Well, the

question is should Mike Tomlin be fired? Should Pittsburgh move on from him? Now, one school of thought, if you fire Mike Tomlin, he's gonna have a job in ten minutes if he wants one. There are a bunch of coaches who will fire their coaches to have Mike Tomlin. Now Here are Mike Tomlin's strengths right, his best strength. And I know people who coach for him currently, know coaches who've coached for him in the past. They all

talk about two things, his leadership and his consistency. And to be a head coach in the NFL, you have to be a great leader of men. And Mike Tomlins has obviously won a super Bowl in the beginning of his tenure with Ben Roethlisberger everything else, and at that point in time, their defense wasn't as good as it is now well, despite how bad they looked against the Ravens in the playoffs, but he has built a culture

there where people are trusted. People trust him, they believe in him, They know his consistency, and I believe that fans. Of course, you grow tired of being just pretty good, right, and you want to get to the mountaintop. But I've always believed that fans actually have a tougher time with their team. Yo yo, and like being good being bad and you win a championship, be sorry is held in the next few years, and so you have to applaud Mike Tomlin's consistency, but where I believe, I would not fire

Mike Tomlin. However, though, I do believe that Mike Tomlin needs a reset, and not a reset on his characters, well on his character, not a reset on his morals, not a reset on his leadership, not of any of those things. I think he needs a reset on his offensive philosophy. I never like the hire of Arthur Smith as his offensive coordinator, and I do believe that he's got a step into the modern age and just the

whole thinking about offense. He's got to hire one of these hot shot young Ben Johnson type offensive geniuses on offense and let them cook. That's what he's got to do. And he's done a good job hiring at other positions and put together a good, loyal, reliable staff. And I know he doesn't like to make a lot of changes, but that's probably the one change that Mike Tomlin needs to make, is an offensive philosophy change. Say hold up,

hold up. I know that this is my team and this is my imprint everywhere, but what I need to do is say hold up, hold up. I gotta do something like Nick Saban did. And remember Nick Saban was stuck in a less miles sec run and punt football type of game, and then he woke up one day and was like, oh, damn, I need a quarterback. I gotta be at a throw to ball. We can line up in four wideouts still be able to run the

football and everything else. He recognized that football was changing and that he had to change his philosophy and the way that he was going to run the team, because it's not just getting a good offensive coordinator. It is because the head coach rains down in terms of the way that the team will operate and the mentality. You look at a guy like Dan Campbell over in Detroit. Yes,

Ben Johnson is really good at doing his job. But if Dan Campbell was being more conservative and was like, we're not going for it on fourth downs like it's fourth and inches, punt the football and all that stuff, that then changes the whole mentality of the team. It changes the mentality of Ben Johnson as a play caller, everything in between. So that's where Mike Tomlin has to have some sort of growth, right And now, do I believe his message is running stale in Pittsburgh? Absolutely not.

His team goes out and plays hard. He finds a way, no matter what you give him at quarterback, finds a way to put together a winning record every single year. So if number one, you can find him a quarterback, and truth be told, you don't even need to have a great quarterback. You need a good quarterback. When you look at what a team like the Minnesota Vikings has done and Kevin O'Connell, what he's been able to do with Sam Darnold, that's what he needs. He needs the

Kevin O'Connell in Pittsburgh. That's what he needs. Because your quarterback play can work in the right system, if you have the right offensive prowess, you can make it work. Just like a guy like Kyle Shanahan, He's made it work with lesser quarterbacks. Brock Thurty's not a top five, top ten passer in the league, but does he look like it a lot of times one hundred percent because you're able to run the system and it works and

everything else. So that's important. So I would not fire Mike Tomlin, but there is some consideration that he's got to do some things significantly differently. What else is going on? So over with the Philadelphia egos. This team is clearly good. They won their playoff game. Everybody is, you know, joyous and excited. They beat the Packers twenty two to twenty last night, and you're like, hold up, hold up. Jalen Hurts threw for one hundred and thirty one yards two touchdowns.

But the male content showed up again, and the mal content is aj Brown, who finished the game one catch for ten yards. Now, part of this is wide receiver diva wide receiver because you just won an NFL playoff game. You dominated the game twenty two to ten, and you're upset that you only had one catch and visibly upset in front of the media to where they know that there's a problem with something. And yes, I do understand as a pass catcher that you want to be involved

in the offense. You don't want to be out there just doing cardio routes. You want to or running for the love of the game. You want to be you want to feel like you contribute it to the winning. But sometimes that's not going to happen and it's gotta be okay. And you pouting in the locker room is lame. AJ Brown pouting? Oh Man I'm not gonna say anything. You're actually saying something. Don't do that. You are actually

to the rest of your teammates. Everybody is looking at you like this, dude, bro, I get that you want passes, but we won in the playoffs. We are one step closer to winning a Super Bowl. Maybe next game you'll have thirteen catches for one hundred and seventy eight yards. Maybe that's the case and it'll all balance out. But this sort of attitude only brings up, only brings a distraction,

a disturbance in that locker room. And I wonder if Justin of Justin Jalen Hurts comments about him reading that book on the sideline because and if you don't know, aj Brown brings that book on the sideline, Apparently nobody had really paid attention, and everybody just asked him, why the hell is he reading the book on the sideline, and he was like, oh, it helps me with my mental game. It's all mental and okay whatever, and they asked Jalen Hurst. Jalen Hurts says, I've seen him with

the book. I never seen him read it though, And I don't know if that was a shot or not, because Jalen Hurst looks like the dude, like the dry eyes, clear eyes, the yeah, the clear eyes, guy who can tell a joke with a straight face, and you know, and he's telling a joke or was there a little bit of seriousness behind it? Because I do not believe that the problems that AJ Brown presented this season about Jalen Hurts are going to be fixed no matter what.

And if I'm the Eagles, I'm probably shipping AJ Brown out after this season, no matter what happens, because I don't believe that you can necessarily win a championship with a guy who is this unhappy sixty seven catches, one hundred thousand and seventy nine yards and seven touchdowns, and I know that he's like, this isn't my usual production. Well, in twenty twenty four you only played thirteen games, so

that contributed to it. And last year you had one hundred and six catches for fourteen hundred yards, like every year is not going to be a career year and you but you did go for your third straight thousand yard season, and that's got to be the thing. And you focus on how do we get better? How do I get open better? How can we change the offense so it's cleaner for the quarterback, so we can all

eat better. But for you to be complaining on a team that has that finished fourteen and three and just won a playoff game, those are off season concerns that you need to address. Don't be a powder in the locker room. Don't do it. It's not good. The next thing up that we gotta discuss is Justin Herbert, a social media quarterback, is getting way too much praise and all of this stuff. This is easy target, man. This is a dude who is a one hundred percent easy target.

It is easy for people to look at Justin Herbert and say, oh my god, he's overrated. Look at his playoff wins, Look at the last three must win games. Yeah, was that Jacksonville game where they lost what a twenty seven point lead in the in the play of a couple years ago? Was that bad? But situations and nuanced matters. There's a reason why the Chargers fired their most recent head coach, Brandon Staley. He was supposed to be a

defensive genius. Justin Herbert is putting up all type of crazy stats and you're not surrounding him with a decent defense, like your overall defense is that his entire over his entire career with Brandon Staley, averaged like twenty three to twenty four in the league. And you're supposed to be a defensive guy. They're like, oh, but the best quarterbacks win. The best quarterbacks typically have good defenses too. Tom Brady never well, actually only two seasons in his entire career

finished with a defense that was not top ten. You don't think that that helps with your offense sputters, or you have some tough times, or your wideouts are are hurt, not pay well, anything like that. You don't think that helps. It absolutely does. So Justin Herbert is an easy target. He is the guy that Emmanuel Acho is pointed out like that he's going to go get So he actually needs Justin Herbert to make the playoffs every year, have some success, so then he can bang this drum. He

can bang it all year next year. We don't care what happens in the regular season. We need to see what you're gonna do in the playoffs. Well, he's on the first season with a brand new coach the Chargers. Inexplicably, if we're being honest, the Chargers inexplicably went eleven and six this year. Nobody thought that that was going on. Nobody, And you look at their offensive weapons. They got JK. Dobbins and Gus Edwards at running back. Those are two

decent backs, neither one of them special. And your best wide receiver is a rookie in lab McConkie. Yes he's good, Yes he had a great game nine for one ninety seven and a touchdown. But that's all you got. A slot guy, that's what you got because Quinton Johnston, former first round pick out of TCU, has not been good. DJ Chark has just been okay. Will Disley's been cool, Like what are we doing? So, yes, this is Jim

Harbaugh's first year. They were getting by this year on playing on, like on being scrappy, like damn near like Dan Campbell's second year with the Lions. They pull you down and then they beat you. They drag you down in the mud and then they beat you. That's exactly what this Chargers team did. So the idea that Justin Herbert somehow sucks that he's not a good quarterback, social media quarterback, all of this stuff in between it is

absolute nonsense. Now, year two when the Chargers re up their their wide receiver core because they have to this offseason. If they go next year and they lose in the first round of the playoffs and Justin Herbert has a has a you know, a bad game, then then yes, that's something to talk about. But Herbert finished fourteen for thirty two, which is below fifty percent, two hundred and forty two yards, one touchdown, four picks. Two of the picks were his fault. Twoitte picks were not his fault,

but the quarterback gets charged with all four. But let's be nuanced in the situation if you're not putting together because it number one of it is hard to win in the NFL playoffs hard. The better teams almost always win because they're well coached. That's how they got to the playoffs. But the more talented teams typically win playoff games,

especially in the earlier rounds. So let's not make a mistake, and let's actually judge Justin Herbert on what the dude has done, Like we did thirty eight hundred yards, twenty three touchdowns, three picks with this wide receiver corps. Oh and you know, oh my god, I can't believe he's doing it. So what did you expect with the playoffs? I mean, like, let's be honest, did we expect the Chargers to end up in the AFC Championship game after

watching them this season? No? So why then attack a player, call them a social media quarterback because you're looking for clicks. This is engagement bait and we see it for what it is. All right. Oh, the last thing that we got to talk about is the La fires. And I'm here in La so obviously I got a first hand seat at what's going on. And yes, it is rough out here, but let's dispel a few myths and narratives. Number One, the whole city is not on fire, despite

what you're seeing on the news. The whole city is not on fire. Are there two very significant fires that have happened. Yes, the Eating fire out in Altadena, Pasadena, which has destroyed thousands of structures and people's homes, businesses, everything in between, and the Palisades fire, and both of them are still raging, so yes, majorly affected. Then there was a fire in Hollywood that burned up a couple structures too. They were able to get that one under control.

The one that was close by me the Kenneth fire, they were able to get that under control. So Number one, want to give credit to our fire department. Want to give credit to the inmates who are out here fighting these fires, because there are a large portion of the firefighters are inmates working for a dollar a day everything else, and you know, trying to get time off and have a career when they come out and everything else. So number one, despite what the media tells, you know, the

city is not on fire. This is an interesting concept because half the city is operating like normal, like businesses going, people are going out to go eat all of this stuff. But then you have another quarter of the population who is impacted by the fire, whether it's close to them, whether they have been evacuated where they're constantly feeling the

stress of the evacuation and everything else. And so that's a quarter of the population, like people who are living under this stress with their kids out of school and everything else. And then you have another quarter of the population who has directly been impacted by their house burned down, that happened to their family, something like that. So the entire city is not impacted. There are certain pockets of areas that have been dramatically impacted and life has come

to a grinding halt there. And it has even moved the NFL game this Yeah, it also moved an NFL playoff game which is gonna happen tonight where you have the vikings and the rams, which was supposed to happen at so far, but then they moved it down to Glendale, Arizona instead. I probably would have liked to see him go to Vegas because that probably feels a little bit closer.

But anyways, so the games in Glendale, Arizona instead, and ironically it's at State Farm of Stadium, where a State Farm Stadium where just so happens to be one of the companies that has dropped a lot of people's fire insurance out here in California. But that leads to the second point. You've had everybody from President Trump to people who are Democrats, Republicans, everybody in between, criticizing Karen Bass,

criticizing Gavin News everything else. There is fair blame to go around to a lot of people for things that have happened. But let's clear a few things up. Number One, these are not wildfires like you would typically see in the summertime here where like the where the the shrubbery wasn't cleaned and everything else I can attest to, at least where I live at the fire departments have been mad vigilant about brush clearance on people's houses. I gotta

notice about it. My neighbor got a huge fine about it. So there have been some things, but like, can we please stop? Can we please stop all the blaming and and all of that until after the disaster is over. Until after it's over. It'd be like your kid falling, falling down getting hurt, and then everybody been and while you guys are driving to the hospital and your kids in surgery, and everybody's like, this is your fault and this man, let's worry about all of that after So, yes,

is there blame to go around? Am I happy with the situation? I no, But let's unpack all of this because what happens is is when you have the leadership who is in charge, and people are throwing arrows darts and blaming them for everything that has happened. Now that compromises your decision making because now you know the whole world is looking and now it's like, oh, okay, hold up, how is this decision going to play publicly versus what

is the right thing? That's the difference, because sometimes it's leaders you have to make unpopular decisions that turn out to be right later, but it may not play well publicly, especially when you're under this much scrutiny and when people are calling for you to get recalled as the governor and everything else, impeached and everything in between. So that's the part I don't like is, yes, our leadership should be under significant pressure because they are responsible to the

people who voted them in. But also, let's play the blame game after How about that? Does that make sense to anybody except for me? And yeah, you guys, this is the Unafraid Show Daily Live. I appreciate your time, appreciate your energy. We will be back tomorrow, so make sure that you tune in Monday through Thursday, here, on Twitter or YouTube, everywhere in between. Peace Autum,