Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Big Ten Confusion & Alex Smith’s Comeback

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

Geoff weighs-in on Big Ten players still pushing to play, Jerry Jones vowing to have fans in Dallas and Alex Smith’s inspiring and risky comeback; also: Dez Bryant in Baltimore, the return of Hard Knocks and Big Ben. Plus, find out why Geoff hates the beach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's tuesday august 18th big 10 players are pushing to play alex smith is back but should he be on the field hard knocks has also returned in the nba playoff start of the week off with a bang last night i'm jeff schwartz and this is jeff schwartz as smart as you alongside as usual gabe goodwin gabe i like you have switched rooms you have showed a side of me that i did not know side of you i should say i did not know you have a room now which feels like it looks like your liquor cabinet and i'm impressed with the amount of liquor it appears you consume at your house yeah well it's a lot of costco branded liquor if you will notice uh big fan of the costco tequila and costco rum and uh yeah i mean you know haven't been able to dip into that as often these days, but over the course of a few years, you acquire some bottles.

Good to have you back on the show. And we got a lot to cover, man. There's a lot happening, even though there is no football. It does feel like we're getting to football, right? We got pads on the NFL now, college football with the SEC set a schedule last night, and we're moving toward football. It feels like, are you positive that we're getting football in September? Well, no, I haven't been positive of anything in life lately, but I feel as good as I have felt that it's going to actually happen. How it goes, who knows? But seeing hard knocks felt like the beginning of football for me. That's just sort of a trigger in my brain. You mentioned a few of the

big stories we're about to get to. I want to throw one more at you just real quick. So we know Jason Wright was hired by the Washington football team as their new team president. He's the first black president in NFL team history. It's sort of odd that that's a first. But nonetheless, good news progress for the league progress for a team that obviously hasn't been great in this territory. So quick reaction to that. I mean, obviously, a welcome piece of news. Well, look, he's very qualified, which is the number one thing that's important for this job, right? As a guy who's qualified. Obviously, it feels odd that in a league with so many black players, there has not been a black president before. But obviously, that has now been fixed. Washington has made that move. And look, Washington's had a lot of positive pub lately,

whether the name change whether Alex Smith news which we'll get to later where this hire so the Washington football team is moving in the right direction as far as change and again I think it's important to talk about like the qualifications are there too right it's not just a hire because they're hiring to hire somebody it's very qualified for the job former NFL player highly educated motivated individual so I'm I'm really glad that they did this and then step in the right direction for the NFL, which again, lacks minorities in position of power in the NFL. Coaches, front office, scouting department, and it needs to change.

And this is a good first step. Yeah. And one other thing we've talked about in the past, usually with John Lynch in mind, is more former players in positions of power to be able to speak up. He's going to have oversight over a huge percentage of the organization. Having a guy who played seven years in the league and understands the mindset of a player could be great. And so it's historical because he's African-American, but it's also a big step for former players as well. So good on them. Let's get into it with probably the biggest story of

the last several days, one that I know you spend a lot of time thinking about and battling people on Twitter about. So there's a lot of ways to pick this apart. A few facts. Ohio State star QB Justin Fields and several other players and their parents, weirdly enough, we'll get to that, plus 200,000 signatories all said we want to play in the Big Ten, even if the Big Ten season is canceled. All right. Meanwhile, NCAA chief medical officers say there's no path forward with the current testing plan. And in Oklahoma, nine guys tested positive over the weekend, nine guys who are meant to play. And UNC is shutting down campus because they have a little bit of an outbreak themselves. We'll see what it means for the football team. All this, don't worry, good news. Trevor Lawrence spoke to the president and Trevor Lawrence,

according to Trump at least, wants to play football. So I guess, Jeff, nothing to worry about here. We should be fine. Well, remember, Gabe, is that we don't want politics in sports, right? Heaven forbid the politics are in sports. Well, wait, we'll accept the time when politics helps you in getting what you want out of sports, which obviously is to play football. And you're right. Justin Fields, the Ohio State quarterback, has put together a petition to try to get back to playing football. That petition is not going to work. They're not going to get back to football because of the petition.

They're going to get back to football in the Big Ten possibly for other reasons. Okay. And let's break down what's happening right now. So the Pac-12 and the Big Ten are not playing football at the moment. And I do think, barring a really crazy change, that's not going to be any different come September 26th when the SEC is supposed to start. They're just not playing football. The difference in the conferences is that the Pac-12 put out a detailed memo saying,

here are the reasons why we are not playing. One, testing availability. Yes, there's a new saliva test. I'm very happy for our country if this is actually going to work as well as it said it's going to work. But it takes time to ramp that thing up. So lack of testing was number one. Number two was the spread of the virus in the communities where Pac-12 cities are.

It's big metropolitan cities. There's uncontrollable spread in a lot of those cities. Three was the myocarditis, the heart condition. I'm butchering that name. I get it. I think number four is basically California just couldn't let their four schools start practicing. It wasn't even allowed in the state.

So very valid reasons, right? It's not really health and safety of players. It's the virus. The virus is the problem, right? Not politics, the virus, right? When you say that politics, quote, quote, politics is the reason why football is not being played, you are doing yourself a disservice. You don't want to have the hard conversation to actually understand why they're not playing football. The Pac-12 has told you why we're not playing football. Saying politics doesn't actually do anything, right? It cuts you off from actually having that conversation that I'm having with you right now

about why there is no college football out West and in the Big Ten. The difference here, it's a big difference game. And there's more reasons why the Pac-12 is not playing, including the presidents just don't care about sports out West. And it's fine. It's just the way the Pac-12 is. I think you would agree with that.

Like USC's president right now, and you're a fan of USC, there's like 1200 scandals that they're dealing with right now at the presidential level. If we can avoid a scandal of playing football during COVID, then they're going to do that. It's not a very tough decision. And so the problem with the Big Ten, Gabe, is there's no transparency, none. And as we're getting closer to, or really not really closer, but just more heat and attention onto the Big Ten via the parents. I don't know, do Pac-12 parents don't care as much about football?

I don't know. They're not going out there and petitioning. The players, obviously, on the conference aren't. And that's, I think, because, by the way, the Pac-12 has stuck together in this. No president, no coach, no athletic director, no player has broken ranks. They've all been together on their decision. But we're really having a problem with the Big Ten. It's starting to become clear that they don't really know what they're doing, in my opinion.

The athletic director for Penn State, Sandy Barber, said, it's unclear whether there was even a vote or not regarding shutting down. The president of Minnesota, who was part of this voting process, said, we did not vote per se. It's a deliberative process where we came to a decision together. But I absolutely support the decision that we came to. Safety first. Absolutely safety first.

Gabe, they didn't even vote. They told us they voted and did not even vote. So if you are a fan of the Big Ten, you have every right to be upset because they have not been transparent with you. When you have Michigan State having intramural sports, but you can't play football, when you have Ohio State students going to campus, but you can't play football. When you have Ohio State students

going to campus, but you can't play football. The Pac-12 has no one going to campus. It makes sense if they don't play football. But the Big Ten has all these reasons why you think they would play football. And Gabe, I don't know what's happening in the Midwest right now with that conference. No, they seem all over the map and having the biggest star player at the best team in the conference lead a charge for we're playing even without a conference, you know, and thinking that

they might play an ACC schedule or a Big 12 schedule has a lot of people excited about the possibility of seeing Ohio State still compete for a national championship. But it proves, yeah, you're right. The conference doesn't really mean

a whole lot if each team can kind of do what it wants. I'm curious, though, because we've touched on this, but now it feels more real. The possibility of spring ball, it's come up a lot in the last couple of days. You've said no way that's going to happen. Does this change anything? Does this make it more or less likely?

No, but I think a lot of the players want to play now, and a lot of the players, like Justin Fields, would just skip spring ball and go to the NFL, especially if the three other conferences play. It's really fascinating to see the evolution here on the player side because on August 5th, 1,000 Big Ten players joined the We Are United movement, right? Yeah.

Do you remember? It started with the Pac-12, their demand letter. It went to the Big Ten. They had a separate demand letter. And then it obviously went to Trevor Lawrence who kind of created a We Want to Play document, which morphed both of those, took out a lot of economic stuff, put together.

Part of that process, Gabe, and this is something that I've been arguing about on Twitter a bunch with a lot of people that just don't seem to care for the health and safety of the players, said that part of this said they wanted no liability waivers and they wanted hazard-related economic support for playing through COVID. 12 days later, at the time that we're recording this, all of that is thrown out and they just want to sign the liability waiver and play.

Right. Like what happened in 12 days? I mean, they called your bluff, I guess. They canceled the season. It's interesting to me that people – and it's not players. It's pundits, it's other people that cover the sport are saying, yeah, just let them sign the liability waivers. So you want them to do everything that a pro athlete is doing besides getting paid.

Like this makes them pros, guys. To sign a liability waiver, to never get insurance for any COVID-related symptom, to not have any sort of economic benefit of you're making your school money during a pandemic and you don't see a cent of that. Now, I'm not really for paying players per se, but like this is a pandemic. You should get paid to play in the middle of something where you can't even be on campus. I'm in North Carolina. They shut down school. They had four clusters of COVID in the first week. So you're telling me that North Carolina players, you want them to sign a liability waiver

to waive all future settlements, medical expenses, whatever it is for playing through COVID. Their campus is so bad right now, they had to shut down campus. But you're okay morally with them signing away all their rights so you can watch football. Is that where we're at right now, Gabe, in kind of the rooting for football experience? Yeah, that's where we are. I mean, I think you're saying it somewhat rhetorically,

like you wish that I was going to convince you that people were better than that, but I don't think that that's the case. I mean, listen, every conference wanted to play. We've seen the numbers. Every school, every major school and every major conference is losing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars not playing football. It's 50 to 100 million for every team that does not play football. Even if they do, they're still going to lose some money because it won't be a regular year. Yeah. No one is taking this lightly. I mentioned it sort of half-jokingly, but I'm curious if you think that Trevor Lawrence, the best player in college football on probably the best team, uh, apparently having a conversation with the president and telling the president, according to the president that he wanted to play, does that

have any meaning at all? Because it's undeniable politics are part of this and, and why the schools out West are comfortable saying we're going to skip this year, but the schools down South would never even think about it. That's politics. I mean, that's – people are voting based on this kind of stuff. I think people are misusing the idea of politics, right? Like they're just – like I said earlier, they throw out politics to have – to not have the uncomfortable conversation that I had earlier with telling you why the Pac-12 shut down, why the Big Ten is where they're at, and what politics are actually

playing a part in this. And no, it's not like, did you think people were saying, well, the governors are pressuring the presidents. Guys, I cover a conference at Pac-12 that has Utah, okay? Probably the second reddest state outside of Oklahoma. They were part of the Pac-12 shutting down. Have you heard anything from Utah about the political leanings of their governor and whether should they play or not?

The governor of Arizona has basically given COVID two middle fingers, all right? And he was willing, not he himself, but the state, the universities in the state were willing to be part of the PAC-12 shutting down. It's not like a red and blue thing like you think it is, okay? It is, to your point, it can be a regional thing where the South has taken more of a laissez-faire approach to COVID. Therefore, they want to play football. The West has not.

That is political, but not in the way that you want to tweet about it being quote unquote politics, right? People are so wrapped up in the idea that there's like a conspiracy in the Big Ten. Guys, Ohio voted for Trump. Pennsylvania voted for Trump, I believe. Michigan voted for Trump. Like, it's not a screw you Trump. Like, I don't know. It doesn't actually help that if you are a fan on the fence and no college football would maybe push you to Trump who wants to play college football. It's not a thing. It's not an indictment on Trump. It's just regionally there's been a laissez-faire approach or not to COVID. And that's kind of where we are with college football right now. Yeah. Okay. But,

and this will segue us to the next. I think the argument that some people have made or would make is that you got to blame someone if college football goes away. It's cultural, right? Like the South without college football, large parts of the Midwest without college football, that might hit home in a way that every other piece of bad news the last six months has not. And then you got to blame it on someone. You might blame it on the governor. You might blame it on the president. And in that sense, it's political. So I don't think like you're saying too many people believe

it's some grand conspiracy, but- Oh, there are people that do. Well, your Twitter mentions are a special place. I don't want to get into that. Let's stay in this sort of hemisphere, but shift to the pro ball. And hopefully this will have a little bit closer to X and O talk instead of politics talk. But it starts with sort of a controversial one from Jerry Jones, who says that the Cowboys are going to be keeping fans in the stadium this year. He does not have very many details on how many fans or how it'll be set up inside the stadium, how many, you know, where people will be able to sit, what rules they'll have to follow. But he is saying we're going to have some people there. A lot of people think

that's a pretty cool thing, including our buddy Colin Cowherd, who tweeted Cowboys owner Jerry Jones puts himself out there and get some crap. But I love that he wants fans in the stadium. I miss that. If I can sit in a restaurant without a mask did last weekend in Park City, Utah, then you can have some fans in a stadium. All right. So on the one hand, that makes some sense, right? Uh, on the other hand, a lot of football fans still don't seem to be getting this whole mask and, uh, you know, distancing thing down. So many instinctively think Jerry Jones is awful. And this is like a Mr. Burns thing. And he's just like, excellent. And putting people's lives at risk. Uh, I don't

know which one is reality, but this has people fired up like everything else these days. Thoughts? Yeah. Before we were recording, the Chiefs announced they're going to have 22% capacity for their stadium this year. This is the first team to actually devise a plan. They're going to basically have pods of no more than six people. You have to know the person you're with or kind of quarantine with the people you're with. I'm not sure how they're going to prove that, but basically they're going to have pods of six or less people.

They're going to put together sanitizing protocols. They're going to put together distancing protocols. They're going to have contactless payments. They're going to do everything they can to make sure they have a good enough atmosphere where people feel comfortable coming to games. And I'm for this. I am for this. I feel like if you can do this well enough, like they talked about, and look, they talked

about, too, achieving accreditation from the Global BioRisk Advisory Council, which is the industry's only outbreak prevention, response, recovery accreditation for facilities. Like they're going to use hospital grade disinfectants. No, no, they're going to have tailgating, but you can't really like be next to each other. They're going to do this the best they can get this done. And I feel like this is a good start, Gabe.

It's a good start to try to reintroduce yourself into kind of a more normal society of living in a safe manner and watch football games. Now, the question becomes, would you go, would you not go? I feel like, you know, I would, it depends. I'm kind of torn on whether I would personally go. I feel like if I knew I could make it from my car to my seat without kind of being in some room for 10 minutes next to someone else, I'd probably do it, honestly. I think that the way they've set it up is healthy and safe and safe. And the transmission outside is not as high as it is inside. It feels like this can be the norm for nfl fans in certain states i think i saw another state i think i saw someone today before it went on so they're gonna have no fans in the stands

this year so it varies obviously by region like we're talking about for college football but i think this could work i think this is a way to make it the best fan experience possible while being safe as well okay so it's not just jerry j Jones being the caricature of Jerry Jones that we all like to imagine. There are many other owners who might do the same and fan bases that go for it. I think there is some of the caricature part because he hasn't released a plan. No, I haven't seen that. The Chiefs are the only team that released a plan. Right.

So like we have a plan now. We've seen the Ravens say we're going to have 15%. Jacksonville said maybe 25%. But this is – and so this is a plan like the chiefs have released a i want to see the cowboys plan what's the cowboys plan gonna be and look and they've talked about having 50 capacity at ut games this year and so you know maybe 50 50 feels high and that's 40 000 45 000 people in that indoor stadium like it feels like a lot but again like at some point Gabe we're gonna have to try to restart life and I don't know when that point is and maybe it's not

football season um but at some point you say hey look if you want to come to the game it's your you know you're you can't obviously sue them if you're out in public you're gonna get COVID anywhere but like you kind of have to restart life at some point this is a small way to do it it's your – you can't obviously sue them. If you're out in public, you can get COVID anywhere. But like you kind of have to restart life at some point. This is a small way to do it. It's not that – 22% distance and you have – you stand the signs and you wear a mask and you be respectful. I think this can work. Yeah.

Okay. Fair enough. I just – I'm not sure the people who should be deciding when we get back to life should be uh nfl owners who are looking to make a profit and people who paint their faces and are willing to go sit in a stadium but but that's okay you know health experts or those people either way but look but look sports has led the way on a lot of this stuff okay the saliva test that we've we praise our own the show was helped with development of of um the nba look at the nfl game the nfl not nba fans the money right from the nba backed the study right but

it's a completely different set of standards sure um right but we're talking about the idea that we can take something from sport and use it in like real life yeah use it like okay so they're using that in real life, obviously, and they've been testing that. But, you know, the NFL has proven, they have 2,600 players in camp right now. They have, I think, 15 players on COVID IR. They've proven that if you test every day or test,

I mean, they're testing extreme level, but you test often, you contact trace, you social distance, you do everything that your health, but you test often, you contact trace, you social distance, you do everything that your health experts tell you to do, you can get over COVID. Guess what? Plenty of other people around the world have done this, except our country. So if you look at the NFL and say, hey, this is the way you listen to your health experts. The NFL has done that.

I know it's fun to bash the NFL and there's plenty of times to do so. This case is not. They've done a fantastic job. And again, have you seen anyone else put together a comprehensive plan to have 15,000 people in a place at one time? No, only the NFL has. And so this might be the way to look at, you know, how you could do concerts. We've seen concerts now where, and I think we might talk about this later, where people

are sitting down. They're in little boxes, like they're trying to find ways to get these things going again. And so I feel like the NFL could take a lead on some of these big setting environments. All right. I'm not going to poo-poo any longer because you're probably right. There's probably plenty that can be learned and the ops and organizational stuff is helpful to all kinds of stuff let me ask you more on field type questions and we'll move to the next topic um home field advantage is this thing that we all believe is real it's worth about three points in vegas if you know if you believe the experts but this year home field advantage seems a little screwy and hard to predict because if at most you got, you know, 20% of the fans there, they can't be as loud. It just doesn't have the same energy. So I guess I'm curious, what do you think home field

advantage will be worth this year? And are we going to feel a difference, you know, in teams like Seattle and Kansas City, who you mentioned, is it going to be as hard a place to play? Seattle and Kansas City, who you mentioned, is it going to be as hard a place to play? I don't think so. I think a place like Denver with the altitude would have a great home field advantage. I don't think that we're going to find it quite the same this year. I mean, Arrowhead, and it's funny,

Chiefs lost three home games last year. Seattle lost their home games last year. Home field advantage was not as important last season. But I do think that it's still going to be weird playing empty stadiums. A lot of players get juice from the stadium and atmosphere. And so you're going to have to find other ways to get amped up for games because you're not going to have that. And even just for road teams, I mean, it's fun to walk in a road stadium

and hear everyone boo you. Like it kind of fires you up to know that you're the enemy in this stadium. And so those feelings are going to be gone it's gonna feel like a preseason game and so how are you able to um you know how are you able to fire your own self up and self-motivate will be very interesting this year i got two ideas i'm thinking of on the fly one in pittsburgh they should install like 30,000 little mechanical things to swirl around terrible towels every third down. Right? So imagine you look up in the stands and there's a bunch of terrible towels whipping around like that.

That'll make up for the fact that leap to propel guys into the stands and be caught by something safe where there are no fans. Two ideas I just gave away for free. You like that? The Giants baseball team, it's just absolutely pitiful. There's always seagulls in their stands late at night in games when there's no fans. So the other night, they just put a bunch of cardboard cutouts of seagulls in their stadium. Yeah their stands late at night in games when there's no fans so the other night they just put a bunch of cardboard cut out to seagulls in their in their stadium yeah okay that's finding ways to to be clever yeah um all right well uh i guess it sounds like you're saying the cowboys eventually will have a plan the chiefs already have a plan and we're hopeful that enough teams have plans that the whole country can learn from the NFL. I hope so.

Let's move along to another topic. This came up recently, but now it's like big news in the league. And you barely touched on this, and I really wanted to hear more. So I'm bringing it up again. We probably all saw this video of Alex Smith being doused with champagne by his young kids after he was cleared for football activity and taken off the pup list this weekend. So this seems sort of miraculous. For people who don't remember, Alex broke his leg in a disgusting way in multiple places back in November 2018. He nearly had his leg amputated after battling this really brutal, disgusting infection.

He was almost dead, frankly. I mean, it's a terrible, scary story. He had a muscle transfer, several several surgeries almost two years worth of rehab and now technically speaking he could theoretically play we saw him throwing in pads earlier that's really nice to see is so this seems like great news but based on some stuff you told me the other day should we be skeptical is this all good news? Well, look, it is great news Alex Smith has rehabbed back from this injury to even be cleared to practice in football. I don't know if you watched Project 11 on ESPN.

It's on ESPN+. You go find it. It was a gruesome injury, right? I mean, look, the tip fib itself, players have had that before. Jordan Gross, I was in Carolina with him. He had a tip fib. He was fine, right? No infection.

Got it fixed. Played, what was it, five in Carolina with him. He had a tip fib. He was fine, right? No infection. Got it fixed. Played, what was it, five more years, I think, after his tip fib. Alex Smith obviously got infected and it didn't look very good. They had to take a part of his thigh and put it to make basically a shin calf muscle. Like that's how much the sepsis and the flesh eating kind of like took away of his muscles. So it's a gruesome injury. And I give him so much credit for rehab. I know how hard it is to rehab.

I never had an injury that bad, but I understand. Look, when you go through a rehab like that, Gabe, you have to have an end goal in your mind. It can't just be be better because be better is what? What does that mean, right? I just want to walk again. I just want to play with my kids. What does that mean, right? I just want to walk again. I just want to play with my kids. Like what is be better? I just want to get better.

That doesn't really work in my opinion for rehab. Like my goal was get back on the field, right? His goal is the same, was do what I can to get back on the field and start playing again. Is it realistic for him to play? I don't think so. I'll tell you why I don't think so. One is that he still has severe drop foot, right? So if you look at that video of his, he's wearing the leg sleeve, his ankle is like foot doesn't work, right? Because his shin muscle doesn't really have a shin muscle

anymore. So his leg, he has to wear a brace to keep his ankle inflection to run, okay? So obviously he can still do that, but the idea that he's going to be quick enough to like avoid contact in the pocket and do all those things to me does not sound ideal. And I'm quite honestly terrified if I'm getting hurt again. I mean, that leg is not going to be stable. He has muscles in weird places. Like it's the idea of him getting hit in that leg and it not being as strong as it used to be terrifies me, right? And I don't know, I it used to be terrifies me, right? And I don't think it terrifies him because obviously you can't really have that fear

in your mind, but that terrifies me. The reason I think is twofold why he is kind of on the roster right now. One is they owe him the money. Player doesn't play, he's owed the money. He's guaranteed roster spot this year, guaranteed salary, injury protected. Two is that we talked to the star of the show about Washington needing wins, right? Needing good wins. Not on the field, just off the field.

And this is a great win for them. It's a great story for the Washington football team. Alex Smith, who everyone loves. I play with him in Kansas City. My brother played with him in Kansas City. He's a fantastic – Adam Snyder, a good buddy of mine. I played with him in San Francisco. He's a fantastic—Adam Snyder, a good buddy of mine, played with him in San Francisco. He's a great human.

His family's great. His perseverance, what he does in the community. And so we're rooting for him to do this. Secondly, he has been a great mentor. Look what we did with Pat Mahomes. Look what we did with Colin Kaepernick. Both guys specifically credit Alex for their development. You know, sometimes when—and we've talked a lot about mentoring, right?

Sometimes you say, oh yeah, you know, that could kind of help me a little bit. Like Pat Mahomes says, I would not be the player without Alex Smith. And Alex kind of disputes that, but nonetheless, like, so he can, he can, he's there for Dwayne Haskins. Like he's there to help Dwayne Haskins out.

And so I don't think he ever actually plays again. And I told you before, I'm, I don't want him to play again. I just gave you the reasons why, really, the leg. I mean, and, but it does not take away from his story, Gabe. It doesn't take away from the miraculous ability of his body to recover and his mind to give. It's not taking away the amazing fortitude his family had to show going through his process. I mean, imagine being his wife and seeing his leg about to be cut off and he's got terrible sepsis i mean the video the one part of the entire project 11

that my wife had to stop watching after that was i mean he was literally going to shock you saw it was a part of the video when just about three or four days after surgery and alex is kind of like just like in his bed like groggy and you tell like, he's starting to like die. I'm starting to die. And like that, like it was close. I know we kind of say so, you know, over hype, maybe the idea of like someone on their deathbed, he was close. And so the remarkable ability of him to get back to where he is should not be at all, you know, like I don't want to give it a disservice by saying I don't want him to play again, but I don't.

And so I don't want to give it a disservice by saying i don't want him to play again but i don't and so i don't think you will but i'm interested to see if you know also too there's no pre-season games so he can't like prove himself and so dwayne hats is going to play and you know kyle allen will be the backup and alex will be the mentor who's getting paid to be the mentor and i think that's the way it'll work out. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously nothing to disagree about. I do want to bring up a couple other things, part of the stories that you shared. His wife talked with ESPN a lot for that piece and others and she sort of told a story from the decision just a couple days after the injury when they had to figure out – this flesh-e eating infection was sort of moving its way up his leg. And they had to figure out what they were going to do to sort of rebuild his leg and keep him safe. So the doctor said, obviously, one option is amputating.

Two is muscle transfer. And one transfer option would be your lat. This is what they told Alex. And Alex said, you're not taking my lat. I need that to throw. It's everything. You can't take my lat. So this guy was maybe going to die from an infection and was unwilling to do what it took to basically survive and keep his leg for the possibility that one day he could throw again.

And now here he is. And I saw him, he's throwing it just fine. I mean, everything else that you mentioned is of course scary, but he can still throw it. So that tells me that the guy does really seriously want to try this thing. Of course he does. Again, the mentality of the athlete is no fear. I'm not going to get hurt. I've been through this. I was hurt seven times in the NFL. I had six surgeries plus I dislocated a toe.

It was out for three months. I get this. I get it. I get the feeling of showing people you can do it. Proving to yourself you can do it, right? That's all this is about. Proving to yourself he can do it. There's no fear in his mind.

We do irrational things to prove that we are tougher than we think and again i'm not disparaging alex but like you know we we just we have to convince ourselves that we're invincible to get us through the rehab rehab and i talked about this many times and i'll reiterate again it's so mentally grueling because you make such incredibly you make such small steps every day that like you might go a month without doing anything great. Like you might not, you know, you're working things, things are getting better, but you might go periods of time without anything actually improving in your mind, right? Like, okay, I can't do this.

I can't do that. And so it's mentally taxing. And if you have the end goal in sight of, I want to play again, I'm going to play again, it helps you do it. Yeah, at least if Washington had to pay Alex this season, excuse me, if they didn't have to pay him, he'd be gone. He would not be there anymore.

But they have to pay him. That's why he's there. And obviously the mentor, Dwayne Haskins, as well. But it's, so no, he doesn't think he's going to get hurt. I don't think his wife thinks, I don't actually, look, I know his wife came out and said that, you know, he got cleared and we trust our doctors, which they should. I'm not, but I'm sure in the back of her mind, she thinks like, I hope he doesn't play again. Like, come on. I mean, like that, like that, that I know she's supportive and she should be.

I can't imagine she wants him actually play again. No chance. Although she did say in one of these pieces that it was his choice. I mean, of course, but that's just saying the right thing. She can't possibly be running for it. But also seriously, right now there's no risk for him. Yeah, keep going. If Ron Rivera actually said, Alex, you're playing this week.

You're actually playing. I wonder if his mind and his wife's mind go somewhere else Alex, you're playing this week. Yeah. Like you're actually playing. I wonder if his mind and his wife's mind goes somewhere else because that just to me seems – Yep. Again, it's easy for – it's easy – it's a great, great story and they should lean into it and give Alex all the praise. But again, there's no preseason games. Are you telling me that he's going to come off an injury like this

and just be thrown in as a week one starter? Absolutely not. No, I mean, look, like you said, walking around looks like it's kind of difficult for him. So there's just no way I'm sort of surprised a doctor even allowed him to be in this position. But it is a great story. Let me ask you this, and then we'll move. We'll move on. Do you think the most likely scenario uh even if he wasn't with Washington who like you said needs some good stories uh isn't the most likely scenario that he takes like the final kneel down of the first victory of the season like it that he goes out there and kneels the ball one last time you know on the field and we get an emotional moment while the clock runs out like isn't isn't that what we're hoping is going to be the end because yeah

seeing him actually try to take snaps and move around is would be terrifying um yes but you have to you have to dress him yeah for that game obviously right with the idea that he might actually have to play if you get injuries. But, I mean, if you're going to your third string quarterback, then you're probably not going to be in that many good games anyway as the Washington team. I'm just saying that that's a risk, is that if you do that,

you're acknowledging that he might actually have to play at some point, in the worst case scenario. Well, all right. So then maybe what I just said is that- This is why the preseason would have been great for Alex. Because he can walk on the field in the preseason game, take a knee in the fourth preseason game.

We give him the round of applause he deserves. We give him the love, the praise, and then that's it, right? That's the end of it. They don't have that this year. There's no preseason. So I'm actually interested to see if he's doing like team drills i we haven't seen those videos yet and most of the time they don't show a lot of team drills on twitter anyways yeah um so i'm curious to see if he does team drills i can maybe ask and find out but i don't i don't

really know well keep us updated on that and uh thanks for sharing more on the story i'm glad we went back to it because um that's been that's been an interesting one to watch let's move the line shall we let's do it all right you sort of touched on this earlier but i'm going to bring it up again i want to know the percent of skeptics who will now see how hard the nfl is working to keep guys safe after watching hard knocks i watched hard knocks and i went holy shit man they are really watching out for these guys. Do you think that people will finally see the light? I hope so. You've had time to see the light.

If you go to your team's favorite Twitter or their website, they have videos of what they're doing to retrofit the facilities. What the Rams and Chargers are doing is nothing unique. I will say, though, this is going to be a really boring season i just have a feeling like it's just going to be i mean we want football back so badly that we're going to watch anything football related but i i don't know it seems kind of boring i will say though okay what i'd like to do this time of year to give me five for football and it feels odd man like i football soon but i don't feel like it's soon like i'm in

this i'm in this weird stage where i like i really wanted to play obviously but like i'm still worried it's not going to play so i'm not gonna get my hopes up quite yet um is you know is um go back and watch the old episodes like the rate the first season with the ravens is so politically incorrect yeah you can never air that now. Like it's the jokes made. So it's crazy how far we've come and what we're allowed to say now. Yeah. Well, now they're just doing fart jokes,

but you know, the whole final segment was about pooping in a, in a port-a-potty, but you're right. Some of the locker room stuff that used to be okay to say on, on HBO, they would never, the league and the teams, PR people would never let those guys be recorded saying some of that stuff.

Now, most of them have good sense not to say it in your microphone. By the way, did you notice Sean McVay has Joe Rogan body? If you took their heads off, same body. Yeah, it was a little like thicker than I thought it would be. By the way, clearly, he was clearly waiting for that whole scene to happen. He was excited to take his shirt off and play with his dog. Really, they hyped this dog up to be something special. The dog just bounced the ball back to him.

I was like, any dog would do that. You hyped up this dog. I thought it was going to be Air Bud Slam Duncan in the pool. No, that was just next year. He'd probably been laid off pizza for a week week he did a bunch of push-ups before the crew showed up he got in the pool he sort of tightened up a little bit so he looked a little bit more jacked than usual they got the shot he was looking for he's good to go for now he's gonna go back to being like that kind of like i'm saying joe rogan like a little bit puffed out like

almost like maybe there's something else behind those muscles kind of look. I think we're going to get there soon with Coach McVay. All right, let's move along. Big Ben, back in pads. Steelers are back. I want to know, games, Ben starts this season over under 13.5. Over. Last week on our show, I liked the Pittsburghsburgh sealers and matt and i both like

the pittsburgh sealers over their wind total this year and we can only do that if they've been in place the entire season um so they were eight and eight last year with like duck and other guys yeah but i mean but like but you're only going to get that if you if you're only going to get over 10 wins if Ben plays. Okay. And so I hope that he does. I mean, he started, let's see, he started 16 games, 15, 14. He started, I mean, he started, you know, 13, 16, 16, 11. I'd go over. I mean, listen, Ben has been one of the most durable players of this generation of future Hall of Famers.

He basically never missed time and then you know some injuries but okay so you figure if he can play he will play and you expect him to be healthy enough to give us almost all of all of a season yeah all right yes okay well then that makes the the stealer serious competitors because they already had the defense and should have listened on friday i know i'm sorry that i didn't sounds like taking the over was the right idea you have you have things to do it's okay yeah over under minutes i listened uh 0.5 the answer was under it's fine sorry uh all right i want to know just related before i move to the next thing we did we did hear unfortunately about i saw a couple uh kind of serious non-contact injuries today.

Guys, you know, pulling and tearing some stuff without getting hit. And my mind just went to this place of like, well, is that because everyone's out of shape? Is that have something to do with this weird COVID offseason? Or is that just, you know, fluky stuff? Guys get back on the field and they tear stuff. What do you think? Oh, I think it's just the way the football goes. I mean, we're seeing that as we get the pads on, like real practice is starting now that

we're getting injuries again. I mean, the Joe McCoy injuries was sucky. I mean, if you saw that, I tweeted out, go to my Twitter, at Jeff Schwartz, just non-contact tears his quad. I mean, yeah, some of these injuries are going to be kind of lack of football practice. But I think just this time of year, you just get these injuries. This is what football is. It sucks. It sucks.

Terrible part of the game. Okay. All right. So we won't chalk that up to COVID. All right. I saw this. I thought it was a joke. I feel like there's an algorithm that combines these names into tweets just to enrage people or fire people up.

But this one, I guess, is real. Des Bryant taking some meetings with the Ravens. This is just a few days after we heard that Antonio Brown might be having some conversations with the Ravens. So I'll ask Des Bryant snaps with the Ravens this year over under 0.5. Why are the Ravens need to add Des Bryant? No idea. Antonio Brown.

I don't get it. I really don't understand. I know they want to throw the ball more, but like you have't get it. I really don't understand. I know they want to throw the ball more, but like you have guys on your team to throw the ball to. What are you desperately looking for with those guys? I don't get it. I really don't get it. And they, I mean, they could have been a Super Bowl team last year and everyone still thinks they've got, you know, a top three quarterback in the league. and everyone still thinks they've got a top three quarterback in the league,

I don't understand why you'd do anything other than bring in serious, focused, football-minded guys. Guys who've been away from the league, guys who come with baggage, doesn't make any sense with a young quarterback. I don't get it at all. I don't either, buddy. I don't understand. Okay. Because they're really good at this, the Ravens roster building.

That's why it doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. I almost wonder if maybe his reps floated the story and the Ravens were just like, whatever. We're not even going to bother denying this. Like, who cares? It's possible, too. You know, like that just to keep him his name in the headlines. Because I was like, what the fuck?

Why would they possibly be thinking about that? I mean, nothing against Des. Like, maybe he can still play, but why that team? It doesn't make any sense. All right. To shift gears, sort of stupid now. You've made us smart enough for now, so I'm going to bring it down a notch. I want to know more NFL cuts this week for sneaking girls into camp over under 2.5.

All right. Yeah, the next two topics are going to be a lot of fun. They're radio topics. It's fantastic. This is a podcast, obviously. These are definitely August radio topics. They're radio, and I love it. Okay, so a Seahawks player snuck a girl into camp,

into the hotel, I should say, and he got cut. Now, he was undrafted for agent. If it's Russell Wilson doing that, he's not getting cut. A couple things were really funny. You mean Mr. Unlimited? Mr. Unlimited. First is that he snuck her in wearing Seahawks gear, just pretending she was a player.

Mike Vrabel was told about the story of the Titans coach and said, I hope she didn't look like a football player. It's a fantastic football joke. Such a meathead joke, by the way. It's amazing. It's what you expect from Vrabel said who said he cut off the tip of his penis if you won the super bowl so like i mean that's just like a football guy right through and through even though he's already won a super bowl as a player like that's just that whole comment to me is like odd like you've won a super bowl already why would you you want another one i guess as a

coach but still like i just i whatever i wonder what he cut off for the first one i don't know nonetheless let's get back to the topic at hand. So during training camp, if you're in the team hotel or you're at the dorms, you can't have visitors, even on a non-COVID year. This is not even COVID related. You cannot have visitors. Gabe, you get off nights. This is what you do on off night during training camp.

I have, I'll tell you, this is a story that I will tell you off the air. It's not an on the air story, but my wife and I, we did some, you know, you got to find a way to get it in during training camp for the first couple of years that we were together. Like you only get, Gabe, when I was with John Fox for the first like three weeks, if you're a young player, you get one night, one half like night off. Like you get off from like five to 10 on a Wednesday in like the first three weeks of training camp. So you find unique ways, you know, newly dating,

you know, the passion is still flowing and you find unique ways to, so guys, you know, they're going to find ways to get it done. But I didn't do it in the dorms. That's not allowed. And so the player made a but i didn't do it in the dorms that's not allowed and so the player made a mistake don't do the dorms or the hotel i should say there's so much so much to unpack here um i'm gonna try to keep it to the radio friendly uh parts of this what uh you were the first person i saw identify this as not a COVID story. It's not.

Everyone else was like, he's breaking protocol. What about the quarantine? You're like, dude, you get cut either way. It's not. Yeah, it's just not a COVID thing. This is just breaking the rules. All right. Well, that's why I love you because you cut through the normal media laziness.

So that was interesting. Here's the thing I didn't understand. And I tweeted about this and a bunch of friends of mine and former colleagues up at ESPN, I clearly agreed with me. Um, I don't know, man, if you work like a late night shift in production, you know, like I've worked overnight in Bristol. If you can't last two weeks without company, um, man, there's not many jobs that you can have in this world i guess other than nfl player like two weeks is not that long for most guys no yeah i'm fair yeah that's not a controversial statement oh yeah by the way this guy will get older one day and get married and have kids like when you're married our perspective is different with married

with kids with working wives during quarantine like it's it's different when you're 21 22 man you're in the game you're in the game game yeah i guess if the ig look the nba is letting wives and and others into close friends into the into the building it's to prove a prior relationship so i guess you can show those instagram dms over to uh the nba security um i want to move on to the last over under because this is this is we're going to talk a little bit about this my wife screwed me this weekend not in that way apparently the opposite of the way that that sounded all right so i'll ask it times jeff takes his kids to the beach again before Labor Day over under 0.5. I might never go back to the beach, okay?

Let's – okay. You live by the beach. I grew up by the beach, okay? I went to Pacific Palisades High School. I drove on PCH every day to my high school. I just don't like going to the beach, Gabe. Like I find it boring. Like I need – it's just like I don't relax very well and so like my idea of

relaxation is not sitting in the sun sweating while looking at the ocean like that's not something that it's exciting to me you know I try to bring my iPad out there to watch a show in the glare and it's just like I'm not a big book reader maybe I should be it's even worse with kids all right so I don't mind I should say the resort thing where you go get a chair and they have an umbrella for you. That's like, okay, right? They, you know, they bring you a fruity drink, whatever. Plus, when I go with my wife, I'll just be like, I'm hot.

I'm going back to the room. And she doesn't care. Just lets me go back to the room. I'll take a nap and she just hangs out at the pool all day. That's like, that's fine. With the kids, though, it's much worse. And here's, so I get there. We have this wagon, okay, to put all our shit in.

We have a 10 by 10 pop-up tent. All this crap. If you go to Instagram, you see the videos, right? Chairs, all this stuff. So I take the wagon out of the box and I'm like, Meredith, these aren't sand tires. Like they're not beach tires. They're regular tires. She goes, oh, I'm sorry. I, these aren't sand tires. Like they're not beach tires. They're regular tires. She goes, oh, I'm sorry.

I thought I ordered the wrong. So I'm dragging this fucking thing that's like 50 pounds through, you know, a foot deep of sand all the way out there. I'm in pouring sweat. My bathing suit's rubbing in my crotch the wrong way. It just was miserable. Nothing about that. And then I go set up the tent. The kids scream the entire two hours I'm out there.

They always need this and that. They can't do this. They're running away. There's flowing sand everywhere. I got sand everywhere. I just, none of that is fun for me. None of that seems fun to me. And then I pack everything back up

and drag that shit back to the house. And then she bought me a chair that of, was supposed to be a big guy chair. It was not. I broke it within three minutes. Like, just completely broke it. It was terrible. And then, to make matters worse, Gabe, well, actually, the story ends up being good. But Saturday, my daughter gets a fever, 102.5.

So, guess what? We load our crap up in like 30 minutes. We're sitting with another family. This is like at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday. We throw my truck there and her car. We throw everything in there and we drive back to Charlotte right away. Now, she tested negative for COVID on Sunday, so she's fine now. But nonetheless, so I'm already like over the beach.

I'm not going back to the beach on Saturday. We went the morning. the i told her i'm not going back to the beach on saturday like i like we went the morning i'm like i'm not going back this afternoon i'm not doing it you can go i'm not going and she's really cool about that by the way i know i make her out to seem like she's but she's cool with that and like i was just ready to relax like then i and so it just was i just i just don't like it like going to a resort fine i guess but i don't want to be in the sun i sweat all the time i don't want to sweat even more so under is that what you're saying yes like you live by the beach yeah it's fun to go like walk like walk your kids on the beach i have no problem like taking my kids to venice beach when i'm in town like you're doing like the pier the boardwalk

but do you ever just go like and lay on the beach like that it's like i don't want to do that anymore i did that as a kid no i actually i said to my wife the other day that i would like to figure out a way that somebody can take our kids and we can just live in our own house for like one day and go to the beach without kids the way that like i see a lot of people seemingly having a very good time for me there's almost nothing fun happening at the beach right now it's just like you said it's super hot it's like i'm terrified my kids are younger than yours so i'm like basically a full-time lifeguard uh i'm upholding them i got all kinds of flotation shit all over them. It's a mess. Yes. Yeah.

Like, and my daughter is a daredevil. She just like sprints in the water. Yeah. No fear whatsoever. Now, luckily the, the water, we were like in a little bay, like the sandbar went like 500 yards. Like there was a foot in the water. It was not a problem, but like just sprints in the water. She gets sand everywhere.

Like it's just, there's like nothing fun about doing that. Well, I'll tell you what's fun. The upside about it is for all of us getting to watch you lug that little, you know, wheelbarrow full of gear with these razor thin tires. It looked harder than any drill of you trying to push a sled in camp. Harder than any drill of you trying to push a sled in camp. It was so bad. And then when you went and you lay down on that chair and just pancaked a chair. It's just, oh man. Even if you were having a hell of a time, we were loving it back here on social.

It was just so bad. And then like, at least we had the jams going. If you watch the video, we got a little, some jams in the background. But like, it's just, I don't like it. My wife loves the beach. So I just indulge her and obviously like, but she could do without me. She doesn't need me there. Like I just, I don't just, I don't serve a purpose of the beach.

I don't do lug crap. That's like my purpose. We're just packers as dads. That's what we are. Well, I mean, beach or otherwise, that is basically the job. So, um, Jeff, you gave us some good insight today. Uh, screw the beach. Ravens don't need Dez. Um,

NFL is doing a pretty good job trying to figure this whole COVID thing out and college football politics are part of the game at this point. So, uh, you made us smarter. It's politics in the way that, that we discuss, not, not quote, unquote politics in the way Twitter wants to discuss it. Let's make that very strict. Um, all right, let's end on a, yeah, I hope that we're very clear on that. All right, guys, thank you for listening. Thank you for reviews.

I've got a lot of reviews, tweets about it. Thank you for the support. We'll be back on Thursday with Matt. We're doing AFC South, NFC South, and two more prop bets. And all right, guys, have a great couple of days. Talk to you then.