Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Browns Get Humbled, Kellen Moore Gets Shifty & Tanking Ain't Easy

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

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I know what type of men we have in this locker room. And quite frankly, I don't really give a damn what happens on the outside. I know how we're going to react. I know what we're going to do, how we're going to bounce back. And we've got a Monday night game coming up. So we don't really care. From The Athletic, I'm Jeff Schwartz. Right out of the gate, the Browns get humbled.

Everything's clicking in Dallas. What it's like to play for a team that's really tanking. It's Tuesday, September 10th, and this is Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. I'm Jeff Schwartz, obviously the host of Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you. Fabulous NFL weekend. And we're here to talk all about it. And you guys know how this works. Gabe Goodwin, producer number one, is going to fire some hot takes to me. We heard about NFL week one.

A lot of overreactions as usual because he is the fan. And we know that after week one, we do not overreact. Gabe, please overreact. I am ready to overreact and I am not smarter than anyone so these takes are going to be dumb no listen i i just try to sift through the internet and find the prevailing wisdom out there and then fire at you to see if it's right or not you ready start us off i know we have a fun fun topic number one all right this one's an easy one so by now i think we all know the antonio brown saga and how it ended uh takes

ranged from the pats are a super bowl lock now that they've perfectly orchestrated this 4d game of chess to fool the entire league and get antonio brown giving up nothing and then of course others believe that he's a ticking time bomb who will destroy the Patriots in the Patriot way. There's evidence for both takes. I just want to note that Tom Brady has invited this grown man, Antonio Brown, to live in his home, presumably to keep an eye on him. So there's a lot of ways to go with this, Jeff. But I'm guessing that the take that this was all a big plan is the one that you want to pounce on. Yeah, it was not a whole big plan, everybody. Look, Antonio Brown might have wanted to go to the Patriots back in March.

We know they offered him. Now we know. And I actually just at the time, the Patriots would try to trade for Antonio Brown. But obviously, the Steelers aren't going to take it because they're their rival. By the way, the Patriots own the Steelers. It's pretty remarkable that it's quote unquote a rivalry, even though it's very, very, very one-sided rivalry. And he signed with the Raiders. He got all that money.

Not really a lot of it, actually, but it's going to be guaranteed. He got a small signing bonus. He shows up. He has the cryotherapy chamber feet. He's got the helmet issue. He then has the blowup with Mike Mayock. He then posts the letter of the two fines that he had gotten. I talked about those last week.

And then he has a tearful apology to come back to him. He comes back. And in between coming back and apologizing and then getting fined another $200,000, he puts a video out of him and John Gruden talking. And John Gruden supposedly okayed the video, thought it was fantastic. And then after he gets fined $200,000, Antonio Brown then basically asks for his release.

He gets his release. He signs with the Patriots, right? The signing with the Patriots part, out of all of this, is actually the thing everyone sort of expected, that if he was going to be released, it was going to be to the New England Patriots. Eventually, he will sign with the New England Patriots.

So here's the deal. I think Antonio Brown himself had no idea what he was doing right now. I know he hired a social media consultant team to make him basically look bad enough to where the Raiders would eventually have to release him. But I think he gave that tearful apology or emotional apology. I'm not sure it was tearful, emotional apology. He wanted to come back to the team because first and foremost, he wanted to get paid. He wanted to get paid. I'm not sure, Gabe, he wanted to play for the Raiders, but he wanted to get paid.

And the Raiders at that point were still paying him. As soon as he got the $200,000 fine and his contract voided, I should have added that part as well, contract voided. He then wanted to leave the team. Whether or not he wanted to go to the Patriots in that moment, I'm not quite sure. I do think, however, that his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, was working behind the scenes to make this happen. I know Belichick mentioned that him and Drew

have a good working relationship, and he now ends up on the Patriots. He forfeited $30 million to make, it's really a one-year deal for $10 million plus incentives. And a lot of those are not likely to be reached incentives. So they're high catches, 105 catches, something like almost 1,300 yards, 16 touchdowns. You know, those are $1.5 million each.

Not going to get those. So he lost out on a lot of money, but now he's at the place that he wants to be at so in the end it feels like Antonio Brown quote-unquote won this but he still looks crazy in my opinion and I know Gabe you feel very strongly that he will ruin the Patriots well I'm I'm let me put it out there I'm not a Patriots fan uh and I know that they've taken in some guys with some troubled past but what I have seen lately, and I'm no shrink, so I don't want to use the wrong words,

but what I have seen lately is so erratic and so unpredictable that it looks to me like more than just a guy who's a diva. You know, like there's something else going on with this guy and I don't know that just being, Patriot way is going to correct that. I understand that that might have helped some guys who got in trouble with the law or some guys who didn't mesh with their past teams. This dude seems different to me, and I think he really could explode what is working for the Patriots.

We saw week one. I mean, their offense works. I don't actually see the upside for the Patriots. I think the upside for the Patriots is that it's a relatively cheap deal. I know it's guaranteed money, but again, just like the Raiders did, if Antonio Brown acts crazy, they could find a way to forfeit his guarantees. I think they said he gets $5 million now, $4 million later, so he could find a way to forfeit his guarantees

and recoup a lot of that money back. But Antonio Brown knows this is the last opportunity for him. If the Patriots were to release him, he's not getting many opportunities at many other places because how could they trust him? If the Patriots cannot make this work, how is it going to work anywhere else? I mean,

a couple other teams I had an idea, like maybe Dallas would sign him. Kansas City's an off limits uh i think for antonio brown but maybe dallas will do it or you know washington he doesn't want to play for the redskins so he knows that this has to be done um because otherwise he has no other choice he cannot go anywhere else if he does not make this work i think he will attempt to make it work now whether or not it actually works i don't know i think it will work um just for the season it's just it's basically it's a one year rental one year rental that's all he needs is belichick wants one year to make the offense work without gronkowski because

his defense dude is really good did you see his defense is really good you see him shut up Pittsburgh I mean like he knows he just needs Antonio Brown to just be like okay and be a deep option because the offense needs to just keep up with the defense yeah but but Jeff I mean go with me and a lot of fans on this this is not like when they said what the heck let's give Tim Tebow a try. We can sustain the distraction, quote-unquote distraction of Tim Tebow, and see if there's some upside there. Who knows?

Maybe it'll work out. This is very different. This guy's going to be around no matter what. No, he's not going to be around no matter what. He doesn't have to. They can get – look, they don't have to keep him. The money, it's well worth the risk. They don't have to keep him.

It's well worth the risk. They will gladly eat the $10 million of that contract if AB is not behaving and just move on. So what about the conspiracy theories that even if AB, and we can agree, he was not playing 4D chess here. This was not some plan going back to March. I want to repeat that again. It was 100% not a plan for him to do this. OK, by him. But it did appear and Cousin Sal and others have brought this up. So I want to make sure I'm referencing that.

It did appear that the deal fit together rather neatly, rather quickly. Like I was refreshing Twitter still when we went from what he's out. He got out. He posted that silly video to, oh, he's on the Patriots. And yeah, we all joked that was the inevitable end to this. But how does a deal like this get done that quickly without people working behind the scenes? And isn't that a problem? I mean, you know, the rules a heck of a lot better than I do. How is that even possible? So I think that the deal got done pretty quickly without there being a lot of talk in the

background. And the reason I think that is because I think we often think deals happen over a long period of time when in fact they really don't. They're not, they don't happen, you know, as drawn out as we think they do. Right? They happen in one or two days because teams have parameters for what they're willing to pay guys already. So they kind of know, okay, look. And look, good teams do advanced scouting, right? And they know, hey, if Antonio Brown gets released, because we can see the

tea leaves, it's going to happen. Here's who are willing to pay him. And they may or may not have told Drew beforehand, which obviously would probably not be legal. Yeah, that's the part that I think is confusing. But look, the second he gets released, you call over, you call him over, hey, Drew, it's Bill.

We want to offer him a one-year deal for $15 million. Ten of that guaranteed. Okay. And he probably said, okay. Like, the Patriots already did their due diligence him a one-year deal for 15 million dollars uh 10 of that guaranteed uh okay and he said probably said okay like they the patriots already did their due diligence on what contract they'd likely be giving him and so that's why it comes together so quickly in my opinion well then we're all probably overpaying uh lawyers and agents for if it takes 20 minutes to figure out a deal like this with a guy like this then maybe none of us need to be paying all these lawyers the way that we do.

But we can move on. I'm telling you, these contracts are pretty standard language. Obviously, when you get into some of these crazy ones, the addendums and the other language can be, but the standard contract's not that complicated. All right, fair enough. I think we can all agree that this cost the the patriots their chance at a grok uh gronk comeback i don't no more gronk i don't think he was coming back anyways okay fair enough let's move to the the

number one topic that triggers you more than anything um i'm gonna just try to get through setting this up before you jump in but uh you you fire away when you're ready big boy uh so the unanimous preseason champs got a wake-up call week one the cleveland bakers oh oh oh oh yeah okay oh no you know what i'm gonna let you i'm gonna let you set this up because i just want to simmer in and i know what you're about to say and just know that i was right so keep talking yeah so the cleveland bakers lost badly at home to the Titans on Sunday. Baker was picked three times. The team committed 18 penalties.

Oh, I feel so good. Yeah. The highlight, if you want to call it, was Odell Beckham Jr. wearing a $200,000 watch on the field. That was cool. Of course, because that's the most important about playing football is wearing fashionable watches when you're making millions of dollars. Look, Gabe, I feel vindicated. footballs wearing fashionable watches yeah when you're making millions of dollars look gabe i feel

vindicated i said all off season that we need to pump the brakes on the browns that we need to slow down on the hype of them making the super bowl of them winning division of them being any more than a team that contends for the playoffs. And guess what? They came out, and the game was closer than the final score indicated, which was 43-14. It was 15-13, and then the Titans had a long 75-yard screen play, and then the game unraveled. That was late in the third quarter. So the game was closer than we thought it would be.

But the things that worried me about the Browns team happened in game one. So first, let's talk about Baker Mayfield. Three interceptions. Last season, he played his worst games against the best teams he played. The teams that are going to make the playoffs. By far, the worst games he played. The Texans, the Chiefs, the Ravens.

Beat up on really bad teams. But guess what? The Titans are going to be a good football team. They might not win the division, but under Vrabel, they're going to play tough. They're going to attack the quarterback. Offensively, obviously, they're going to run the football play extra pass, which the Browns defense was fine.

But Baker Mayfield did not play well again against a good defense. Secondly, I told you guys that we know nothing about Freddie Kitchens as a coach and that that plays a big part in how the Browns play. Guess what? The Browns came out and committed 18 penalties, the most since 1951. Their game, their starting left tackle kicked a dude in the face and got thrown out of the game. Lack of discipline is 1000% on the head coach. How about this, Browns?

How about you just shut up now? You go about your business, and you worry about winning a football game, not doing every interview possible, not talking to Colin Coward, not arguing with people, not wearing $100,000 watches on the field. Just go out and worry about football. Be quiet.

And I said this before, I'll say it a thousand times, the NFL has an amazing way to humble you. It humbled me. I had a game where I thought I was going to play really well against a nobody I allowed three sacks and gave up four pressures and had three penalties the NFL will humble you now that all being said game and I was totally right on this game I picked Tennessee to win I feel vindicated I feel it was I loved watching it and all being said the Browns are probably going to be fine they're probably going to win nine games still they still they're still supremely talented but this is a great it's a great wake-up call

for everyone who thinks that you can be different at quarterback personality-wise I'd say the one position in most all sports where the same style of guy has won year after year after year. And Baker Mayfield was trying to break that mold by being outspoken and by being brash and being outwardly cocky. I'm fine with being cocky, and it's part of the job. Are you telling me Tom Brady's not cocky? He did all of that, but he had not backed up with wins yet. And now they got humbled,

and I hope to see a different Browns team on Monday Night Football against the Jets. I think the Jets can easily take this game. It's in New York. But again, we have not seen the Browns under Freddie Kitchen face adversity because guess what? They haven't done it yet. He's a first-time head coach.

So we'll see how they do, Gabe. I think that it'll be tougher than than they expect on Monday Night Football um and I just feel very vindicated I feel like I was well I know I don't feel I will know it's exactly right on the Browns yeah yeah well you deserve a victory lap I mean you got it right one week out of the year so good job uh I'll be there next uh Monday night so I'll be able to report back what it's like I want to bring up something that you brought up in preseason because it was what immediately jumped to mind while I watched all these penalties pile up.

You had talked about how when you're a guy like Baker and you do all this talking, it actually does put a little extra into the defense, right? And you were telling us stories about how there was a guy who hated this one word, and you guys all took your turns saying that word to him. And so I'm curious if some of those penalties, especially the kick to the face,

are the result of everyone on the Titans realizing they could needle these guys and find the right thing to say and throw some stuff back at them and call them GQ or whatever they're doing, and that that all disrupted what was working for the Browns and that they, that did go into their head. Do you think what you were guessing would happen happened? Well, I'm not sure that the specifics of the trash talking really made a difference,

but I do think that they put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves by outwardly talking about Superbowls and division wins and feeling dangerous. And remember your team takes the personality of your quarterback. And when your quarterback is out there running his mouth the entire offseason about how dangerous they feel and how the expectations. And I'm OK with saying the expectations of Super Bowl, but it felt like they talked about arriving before they've arrived. And that puts pressure on the entire team. And when things don't go well, when Tennessee comes in and punches you in the mouth which is no surprise because they're physical defense um an undisciplined team who takes things for granted who feels they deserve to win is going to be more chippy and look Miles

Garrett through an open hand punched and Deacon ejected um the Browns were out of control and it's a direct correlation to the head coach kind of being his first time coaching, head coach kind of being loose, and Baker Mayfield saying whatever he wants all the time, not having any restraint. So none of it surprised me. All right, well, let's go to a quarterback

who doesn't talk much and does that. He doesn't play do the talking game. He sure does. So the Cowboys gave everyone on the team a deal, it seems like, except Dak Prescott, who then just went nuts on the Giants. 405 yards, four touchdowns. Yeah. Giants just get smashed.

Cowboys win 37-17. Some would think that that means Dak's price tag is going up as he still negotiates a new deal make that money yeah but uh jeff here's the thing he beat the giants oh geez they were at home the giants had zero sacks and zero turnovers they were terrible last year i think they're worse this year way to to go, Dak. Way to beat a college football team. Like, this does not mean anything yet. It does.

And I'll tell you why it means a lot. And, you know, a pet peeve of mine, and the way we talk about football is what you just said, which is that, you know, player X, team X played a bad team or bad player. And therefore, we can't judge that game. Well, we can because, Gabe, you know this. You've followed football long enough. The best teams beat up on the terrible teams. That's what they're supposed to do. Because how often do we see a good team play down to a bad team?

So when the Ravens come out and win 59-10 against the Dolphins, there is something to take away from that in that the Ravens, good football team, beat a very bad football team. If that game was 17-10, I think it would be like, oh, maybe the Ravens really aren't as good as we thought. The Cowboys beating the Giants, that's what they're supposed to do.

The Cowboys are my Super Bowl pick in the NFC, by the way. They were supposed to do that yesterday. Their defense, outstanding. The Giants' play calling was suspect as Barkley had 11. I think Barkley had 11 carries for 120 yards, which is amazing. He looked good. But here's why I'm excited about the Cowboys. It's less to do with the actual win of the game

and more to do about the offense. So here's some. Graham Barfield on Twitter, at Graham Barfield, a recap of Kellen Moore's debut as Cowboys play caller. So Kellen Moore, a Boise State fame quarterback, is the new play caller in Dallas. And the defense looked, excuse me, the offense, I should say,

looked completely different. I noticed it right away from watching the game, and now I have the numbers to back it up. They used play action pass on 48% of Dak Prescott's passes, 14 to 15 on those passes. They used motion on 73% of their plays. I'll get to why that's important in a second. And they used 11 personnel, so three-yard receivers,

one running back, one tight end, 73% of their plays. So the first one, play-action pass. The reason why play-action pass is the best is because you typically get huge windows to throw to as defenses are reacting to the run, and there's not a lot of reads. It's one or two reads. Okay, it was over route.

The linebacker bit. The safety's deep. Hit the over route, right? I mean, it's not that hard, right? And they're big, huge chunk plays. The Cowboys have fast wide receivers. motion on 73 of the place so motion gives you a great read of man or zone coverage so if you motion a guy across let's say you have a wide receiver on the left you move him to the right if the corner runs with the wide receiver that means it's man coverage so now

whatever route is called or whatever run play is called, you can adjust based off of man coverage. If you motion the guy across and the corner stays there and the safeties rotate across, corner drops down, it's zone coverage. And you can dictate what play you want to run there based off of that. In the run game, you motion guys. It pulls defenders out of the box as you motion guys. It gives them, I like the word

eye violation, Gabe. So you have a linebacker who's looking at the play, and here's one guy running left, the handoff is going right, the quarterback is going left, and it's eye violations, right? He just looks at someone for a split second he's not supposed to, and the lineman's on him. So motion is fabulous. Last year, the offense

was too stagnant. And the 11 personnel, I think it's important to. So motion's fabulous. Last year, the offense was too stagnant. And the 11 personnel, I think it's important to note because of a couple reasons. One is that the Cowboys love to run the football. We know that with Zeke Elliott. Love to run the football. They often run the football at the bad box counts. So what I mean is that we have the box, right?

Tackle to tackle. And in every run play, we have to account for all the defenders we're supposed to account for all the defenders right so you have five offensive linemen blocking five guys and then there's maybe guy free and the wide receiver has him or tight end has him the quarterback's eyes have him on rpo you want to typically have everyone accounted for like cowboys often would just run the ball to run the football and not have every defender accounted for they'd have an extra guy in there we couldn't block. Well, 11 personnel, you're not really going to have that problem because

defenses come out in what's called nickel. They have four defensive linemen, two linebackers. Well, we have five offensive linemen and a tight end normally. Six on six, right? If your tight end's short, you zone read the D end, you hold his eyes, and you run the play away from him. So all those things are positives. Last year, 25% play action pass for Dak Prescott, 48% in game one.

So to me, Gabe, it's not that they beat the Giants. It's the process by which their offense looked that has me excited for the future of the Cowboys. So I was listening intently to all of that, and I do feel smarter. I just have an honest question. i'm not being sarcastic isn't what you're describing also the easiest way to take advantage of the five rookies who got playing time on defense isn't that the easiest way to expose a couple guys on one side of the field who have absolutely no idea what they're doing they didn't go after jenkins the experienced quarterback they went after the guys who didn't know what they were doing and right but again but gabe again to my to my point this entire time

is that how often do we see offenses in offensive coaches not take advantage of favorable matchups and not just kick the shit out of bad defenses. We see it all the time. And so the Cowboys kick the shit out of a bad defense as they're supposed to. They game planned to put Dak Prescott in the biggest possibility for success. And to me, that is what stood out, where the Cowboys previously had not done that before and now obviously they have done that and here's another thing too is that this is their offense so like they it's not like they just put in a new offense to really go after

the giants rookies today like this is their offense so they're going to be able to have advantages in scheme and play calling. If you obviously, if you assume that this continues all season long, just as they had this weekend. Okay. They got to do this against the Packers and the bears. Well,

of course I'm excited to watch it all, but just remember to the offense lines, healthy Travis Frederick's back at center. They just signed Lyle Collins. Lyle Collins had a great hustle play on the screen. Their defense is really good. They might not need to score 37 points every week. They might just need to get

24 because their defense allowed only 21 points. Step inside the dog pound with the athletic Zach Jackson. Zach brings you the latest on the Cleveland Browns every single week with exclusive audio and special guests on Civilized Barking. Like his last episode, which featured Jason Lloyd to dissect the Browns' 30-point loss to the Titans.

Sorry, Browns fans. Not actually really sorry. Make sure you subscribe to catch every single episode at theathletic.com slash civilizedbarking. Well, let's talk about a team uh might allow more points than any team in history the miami dolphins who gave up 59 to the ravens including five passing touchdowns on 17 of 20 from lamar jackson uh after the game the there were reports that multiple players asked to be traded away from miami because they don't want to be part of a tanking team. Now, this is usually the type of thing that dummies like me think is real, that teams in the NFL can't actually take tanking seriously because, you know, they all, it's a battle out there. You wouldn't be

safe if you were tanking. Everyone's trying and giving a hundred percent you know cliche cliche cliche cliche but they're tanking right like that's all that's happening out there what what else can we take from this they're 1000% taking so there's a taking the NFL is very tough right so taking the NFL is tough because you cannot tell the players to not play hard on Sundays and coaches by the way what you know they're going to keep coaching hard on Sundays too. They're not going to – they still prepare very hard during the week and they want to win the games. The way you tank is you trade away all your best players and you play bad quarterbacks.

That's how you do it. And the Dolphins trade away their best players or just didn't sign any of them. And they have two mediocre quarterbacks. Now Josh Rosen might be good eventually, but not with that offensive line. The tradeaway still is obviously in Tunsil. So that's how you do it. Now, as far as the report about the players wanting to get out of there,

I mean, I've never heard of that before. And it's pretty maybe unique to the Dolphins situation. But, of course, those players hear more in the facility and know exactly what type of team they're trying to be. So I would actually trust that they think they're going to tank. Now, I played game on a

tanking team before. In 2010, with the Carolina Panthers, we cut all our veterans because we were in the uncapped year and our owner did not want to pay more than he had to before the lockout of 2011. We cut seven guys over 30. That's what I want to say.

We had a very young team. We had Jimmy Clawson, a quarterback, who weren't very good. We averaged 12 points a game the entire season offense. That's atrocious. 12 points a game is utterly atrocious. We were bad and we were trying to lose. 12 points a game is utterly atrocious. We were bad. And we were trying to lose. We ended up drafting Cam Newton

the following year. We were trying to lose. We weren't trying to be good. So, it's very tough as a player to have to go through that. And what you have to do is you obviously have to go into work every day and do your job. And you have to find ways

to manufacture fun. And as Offensive Line in Carolina, we did a great job of trying to manufacture fun to make it enjoyable to come to work every day. Because it's a tough job when it's going well. And imagine if it's going terribly and you're trying to lose. Like, we knew John Fox was fired after week seven. He told us. But we had to stick there, obviously, and work every day.

So you make it fun. And you just know that when people are, as a player, as an individual player, you know that when people are watching that film of yours, trying to evaluate you, scouts, they're not saying,

oh, but they're trying to tank. Let's ignore the game. You have to go out and play hard. That's why tanking is so hard in the NFL. I have a great story, Gabe. We were playing the Steelers that year.

And we're playing them week 16. It was a great story, Gabe. We were playing the Steelers that year. And we're playing them week 16. It was a Thursday night football game, the last one of the year. We are 2-12. Pittsburgh is somewhere like 10-2 going to the game. Somewhere around there. I mean, like 10-4 going to the game. They were actually, yeah, they were 10-4 going into that game. We were 2-12.

It's the only time in my career that we ever joked about getting our butts kicked that night. Like we were joking as an offensive line about how bad we were going to lose that game. I mean, like it was – their defense was very good. Like, very, very good. I think they were one of the top defenses they've had

in a long time at Pittsburgh. They had all – you know, Paul Amalu and R.C. and Ike Taylor and Casey Hampton and Kiesel and Harrison and Ferrier and all those guys, right? I mean, the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. They're fantastic. And they average, giving up games, 66 yards per game on the ground. Okay?

So our goal as an offensive line, yes, I looked up. They're DVOA, football outsiders, number one. They're number one in total defense for DVOA, which I love on Football Outsiders. They're number one in rushing. They have 66 yards a game rushing. And our goal that game, while we were kind of joking about

how we're getting our asses kicked, was to rush for over 66 yards in that game. We rushed for about 76 yards. There actually is no box score on ESPN.com. Like, they just have wiped the box score out from the game. It was that bad of a game. Wiped it out. We had 103 yards total on offense and we threw for for like 27 yards and we got

our ass kick 27 to 3 um it was a terrible game it was a terrible season but we tried to find some fun and some ways for us to be motivated and this was one and some ways for us to be motivated. And this was one of the ways for us to be motivated was just to try to set goals for ourselves. We actually had 74 yards rushing, 119 total and 45 passing. Just we had seven first downs all game. Like, come on. That's so freaking pathetic. But hold on. So you all knew that you were the team wanted you to lose.

No, no, no. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. This is the hard part about the tanking. It's hard for people to understand. So there's all these different levels to this, right? So there's the ownership. There's the front office.

There's the coaches and the players, right? Let's put them in four levels. So the coaches and players 100% want to win every week. Yeah, you guys accidentally won the prior week. I don't know what happened, but you beat the Cardinals the week before. Yeah, the Cardinals and the Niners. So that season, I only felt we were going to win two games all year, which was the Cardinals and the Niners, which we did,

because both teams were really, really bad. But okay, the players and the coaches want to win what about those other tiers like so that that's that's where as a player i'm not quite sure how an owner feels or general manager feels towards winning or losing because they're more big picture weren't obviously week to week game to game because we know our job is on the line every single week and so we still wanted to win the game now we knew we were gonna get our asses kicked because we weren't very good and pittsburgh was really freaking good on defense do we average 12 points a game that season 12 dude that's that's hard to do

to the first five weeks of the year we scored 18 7 6. Yeah. No, you guys stunk. We've established that you were a really, really bad team. But it worked because you got Cam Newton, and that turned things around. So what are they doing here? Because they've got Rosen. Well, I think they've already decided they don't like Rosen. They've already decided they don't like Rosen? Otherwise, I think he would have started. So why not throw him out there?

You're not learning anything about Ryan Fitzpatrick. I think he would have started. So why not throw him out there? You're not learning anything about Ryan Fitzpatrick. They tried to throw him out there, but it wasn't very good. Okay, but so then if you get the number one pick, what are you going? You're going for Tua or your boy Herbert? I'm not sure those guys are turning this year out. I'm not sure they are either.

It's a strange tank. I'm not sure those guys are turning into scenario. It just seems strange. It's a strange tank. Well, look, you have to hope that with Fromm and Tua and Herbert and there's someone else will come out of nowhere that that is your future because obviously Fitz is never your future. And maybe they thought Rosen was your future, but obviously they don't seem very high on him.

So I guess they're just trying to have a ton of draft picks. So they're just trying to make sure that they give themselves as many options as possible. They might trade back for number one if they don't like a quarterback next year, but they want to have as many options as possible when the season comes down, to assume when the draft comes out at the end of April, to have many options as possible when the season comes down, you know, to assume when the draft, you know, comes out at the end of April

to have many options to do everywhere. By the way, Gabe, the Patriots are favored by like 18, 19 over the Dolphins this week. How many points would you need to take the Dolphins?

No, I need to be at. I need to be at 21, 21 or 21 and a half. I take the Dolphins. All right. Why don't you tell people about some other shows they can check out on the athletic?

And then we got a little over under game. We'll hit a few more storylines. Talk about a few other bets we can make. The Razor shows inside look at the New England Patriots featuring the athletics, Nick Underhill, Jeff Howell, as well as Super Bowl champion, Matt Chatham. Tune in each week for smart football commentary coming out of Foxborough. That's the Razor Show on the Athletics Podcasting Network.

All right, Jeff, it's time for Move the Line, a little betting game we like to play here. These are not necessarily real bets, but they're fun to debate, so here we go. Deshaun Watson lost to the Saints last night, but he looked good. We still like the Texans. So over under eight and a half wins for Deshaun and the Texans this season. So I actually had them. I think one of the teams were under seven and a half wins this year.

Was that in their total? No, that comes there. So that was a Colts total. Maybe I had the Texans under. And obviously last night's loss showed a little bit why I have them under. So we'll get to Deshaun Watson in a second. So last night, the end of the game, they go down, and they go down and make that great touchdown, right,

to go up, what, two points with, assuming a point with, what, 35 seconds left. Then they proceed to run two straight, two or three, I think it was three straight, prevent defenses, and let Drew Brees tear them to shreds. The last one left game, six seconds left in the game, they have one timeout, the Saints do. So the Texans have to know that they need about 10 yards for a field goal, and they have to do it quickly because they only have six seconds left. Because remember, the wide receiver's got to catch the ball

and then get down and have time to call timeout. So what do the Texans do? They play like supremely off coverage, allow Gein to catch a 10-yard pass, and just fall right to the ground, call timeout, and then Will Lutz comes in and kicks 57, getting 57, very difficult to win. The reason why I still don't like them

is because they have Bill O'Brien as their head coach. They have a terrible offensive line. Now, Watson holds the ball a little bit too long, but their offensive line's terrible. If Deshaun Watson played on a team with a great offensive line and a great head coach, he'd be a top five quarterback. He is that good.

He is overcoming terrible surroundings to still basically play real he went into the superdome and led a team back to the brink of victory when everyone thought they were going to lose i like deshaun watson it's a lot of fun to watch but i do not like bill o'brien i don't like the way he manages this team and their offensive line is God awful. So I'm, I'm hearing you say under eight and a half points. Okay. Fair enough. And I like that. You said if he had a coach and a line,

he'd be a good quarterback. No, no, no. If I looked like George Clooney, I'd be an actor. Still a good quarterback. All right.

Okay. All right. Let's talk about a team a little near little nearer and dearer to my heart. The Jets, who lost a heartbreaker week one. People still like Gase and Darnold, though. Let you talk about that. I'm adjusting there over under to five and a half for the rest of the season. What do we think of that number?

Yeah, pretty bad loss. We're up 16-0 against the Bills, and the Bills didn't play terribly great, right? It wasn't like a fantastic win they pulled out there. Not good for the Jets. Look, I wrote this last week. I wrote this last week. I don't know if you believe it. I think that Sam Donald had a better year than Baker Mayfield.

Now, not the best start. A lot of dink and dunk. Not driving the ball downfield. I'm going to still go over. I think they're a sneaky wild card team, but you can't put 16-0 leads at home to the best start. A lot of dink and dunk. Not driving the ball downfield. I'm going to still go over. I think they're a sneaky wild card team. But you can't post 16-0 leads at home to the Bills. You just can't do it. So you're going to the game this week.

I'll be there. I'll be enjoying myself. I'll be rooting for the Jets. You'll find New York just for the game? No, I got other things going on in New York. You're the busiest person I know. Busy guy. Busy guy.

We'll see how I sound on Tuesday morning next week. It could be messy. Over, under on me making it on time. Don't bet on that one. All right, so you still like the Jets. You're giving me some kind of a hope. I don't actually see much for them this season. I've already given up.

I was all the way back in, and now I'm out again. Just a pathetic Jets fan. Yeah, that's what we all sound like. All right, let's move across town to the Giants late in that game to my surprise Daniel Jones got some snaps obviously the game was over but I was sort of surprised to even see him out there in a situation where who knows what could have happened so I'm curious if they were maybe trying to figure something out with him. Let's have some fun. Daniel Jones starts by week four and a half. So are you saying before or after?

I'm saying he starts after week four. Again, he is not starting until the Giants are out of the playoff hunt. Okay. I'm not changing my opinion on that because nothing has shown me otherwise. Well, didn't that already happen? Aren't they out of the playoff what do we think from what we just saw it looks like a play uh i i and their problem isn't offense necessarily till they're officially out of the playoffs he's not playing all right fair enough uh well we'll watch eli a little longer okay this one is meant to annoy you um so i i want to know how many no look passes we will see completed by patrick mahomes this coming weekend one and a half is your number um dude like

can we at least like post videos on internet when he actually completes the no look pass like god he didn't even complete that pass yeah while everyone was sharing it he he didn't look at least pat and missed a wide opener cipher tweeted out that he owes Kelsey a lunch for his transgression on that throw. Guys, Pama Holmes is fabulous. We do not have to make up ways to show he's really good on the internet. We all know he's very good. He played that game yesterday without Tyreek Hill for most of the game and played that game basically hobbled with an ankle injury. basically basically what's the best way to put it hobbled with an ankle injury

and he's still scored 40 points against Jacksonville like we don't we don't need that guys we don't need to overhype him he's already hyped enough and he's really good at it so why doesn't he just look I mean

well come on I mean, well, come on. I mean, your brother's blocking for him. He can't just turn around and whisper and be like, hey, Pat, Kelsey's open. Look at him next time. It'll be easier to throw it to him. He probably can't, but it's part of his style, man. It hasn't hurt him yet. I mean, it eventually probably will, but it hasn't hurt him yet. They had Brett Favre go out there and do a little package

you know like one of these little pre-game things and he was throwing no lookers brett farve's better at no lookers than patrick mahomes i'd just like to put that on the record it's not a skill that matters we need to get we need to wake up people all right last one uh another one for the internet crowd um gardner minshu who will be the new starter of the Jags will win over under 14 and a half of his remaining games the mustached Minshew Gardner Minshew

so I watched him play Washington State he was supposed to be the graduate assistant Alabama last year and Mike Leach talked him out of doing that coming to Washington state. He looked really good against the chiefs. Very efficient.

Now a lot of short passes, but you played a lot in the preseason. He played a ton of the preseason. I wonder if that's starting to, to show you, we saw the bears and Trubisky play horribly on Thursday night, which by the way, we haven't even discussed yet.

It's now a couple of days. I was again, just shorter, smarter than you. I think the bears aren't making the playoffs. I look pretty good on Thursday night. And Mitch, you play well in the preseason. It looked that way on Mondays.

They're winning 14 and a half games. Probably not. But I know you were. But I was impressed. Can he make them a decent team? Seventh round draft pick. I was pretty impressed with that. Yeah. I mean, you know, but I was impressed. Can he make them a decent team? Seventh round draft pick. I was pretty impressed with that. Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes I wonder, and you've been out there,

like he played well. He put up some nice numbers. I think most people just looked at a box score and a mustache and thought, that looks cool. Is there something to be said, though, for you don't really scout a backup, and when a backup gets in there in a game that's not winnable, he kind of can do some things? Like is that possibly all that happened here and he's going to get a real baptism soon that is the case i think with all backup quarterbacks is that eventually

um that that does happen so obviously see this week with the texans i believe they're playing the texans get a full game plan on uh on gardner mintry but nonetheless to come in the way he did um is still pretty impressive okay well uh we're talking about guys who make their debuts i'm going to transition to uh asking you a question from social uh we picked this one out we saw the dan g asked you what was your welcome to the nfl moment we saw minshu's what was your welcome to the NFL moment? We saw men choose. What was your, like, oh, boy, it's different in your moment? So, 2010, we're playing Tampa. It's my fifth start of my career.

I'm at right tackle, my third year in the NFL. And we're playing like a – I was playing like a nobody, like an undrafted kid. I started with my own draft pick. And all the guys all week were joking about how easy I was going to have it. Hey, Schwartz, you're playing nobody this week, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I let it get in my head. So I came out and allowed one full sack and two half sacks,

so two combined sacks. I allowed four pressures, and I got three penalties. Worst game of my career by far. Mind you, I only had like 10 penalties my entire career, maybe less, maybe like five. I didn't get any penalties almost ever. And it was a terrible game. But I learned that every single week, the player you play is trying to kick your ass and sack the quarterback.

And if you don't come every single week ready to play, you will be embarrassed. It was a great lesson to learn. I'm glad I learned it. But that was my welcome to the nfl moment do you remember feeling like oh wow every single guy is the best guy i ever went up against before i made it to the nfl or were there some guys who were like i'm not really sure why this dude's in the league oh what do you mean like as the the older i got the older i got you know there were guys i was like oh wow how this, how are these guys still in the NFL? But, I mean, coming out of college,

I just think about the Pac-12, it's tough. You're only playing one or two defensive ends every season. And typically, that was the guy at USC. Not so much anymore. Sorry, Gabe. That was the NFL guy. And then you get to the NFL, everyone's the NFL guy. That's the difference.

People ask me, what's the difference between college and the NFL guy. And then you get to the NFL, everyone's the NFL guy. That's the difference. People ask me, what's the difference between college and the NFL? That's it. You know, it's not really the speed per se. It's that you're playing the best player you ever play in college every single week. Yeah, that's, thank you for rephrasing what I tried to say. That seventh round pick who you were taking lightly

was all conference somewhere. Yes, yes yes exactly all right so you don't have any like more embarrassing story you want to share with us just that you gave up some sacks and i had a penalty i mean come on jeff i gave up three sacks well my guy did one and my uncle gave me three sacks that's a bad game i think we were looking for something like you know like prank wise a little i don't know maybe you like pooped your pants or something my pants um everything i mean prank wise i was i wasn't i didn't really get pranked much as a rookie i mean you know like we got like um i had

to get a bunch of food all the time and you know in training camp i you know got the bucket of water underneath the door it's kind of pissed me off it's kind of annoying you know when you have a hard what do you have like a we were a dorm in the floor there was no carpeting and so you know they put a bucket of water a trash can full of water up against your door yeah they called it a leaner there we go um yeah yeah that happened i had to sing um no i didn't put my pain we had a guy who did poop his pants like yeah he was running well i wasn't the the year before i got to carolina with a tight end who got hit and pooped his pants on the field um and then uh we had another guy that was it was middle of practice

and he just like went out on like a he ran a screen on air and he just pooped himself just ran right to the bathroom you're not the fill up the bathroom. That's okay. I expected this part of the show to be edited out. Welcome to the NFL. Why are we editing this out? No, we're not anymore. I figured when I was going on a fishing mission about poop that we were just going to press the edit button.

No, poop their pants before. What? So wait a minute everyone saw what happened and then he had to run into the locker room and like did he have a nickname from then on no i feel like that one no yeah no um but tight end didn't either um i don't think a nickname afterwards i wasn't there for that obviously um yeah those are two guys i know that poop themselves while they're playing i had a really really good, like, no, like, once my hands got taped for practice or games, I wasn't going to poop.

Like, I just knew, my body knew you ain't going. Because there's no way I was going to be able to wipe. I was like, so I'm not going. You got all that wrap on your hands. Six rolls of tape. Something extra there. So, yeah, it's a great way to end the podcast huh talking about when guys are pooping national football league in their pants and practice the practice one was

really funny i gotta say it was a guy that we all kind of like goofed on and like it was just it just like ran off the field into the back it's it's it was it was it's quite amazing gabe yeah well listen we're living up to the title of this show jeff you are indeed smarter than It was quite amazing, Gabe. Yeah, well, listen, we're living up to the title of this show. Jeff, you are indeed smarter than the rest of us as we end with five minutes of poop jokes. Why don't you sign us off and tell us what people can look forward to the rest of the week. Yeah, of course.

We have our show on Thursday that will be for The Athletic on theathletic.com, on The Athletic Pod. This show is usual on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts. I don't get a lot of questions about Google Podcasts, so I mostly tweet out the link to iTunes. It is on Google Podcasts. It's on Spotify. You can search for it there.

Appreciate the feedback as well. You want to rate and review, subscribe, unsubscribe, do all those fun things to kind of move the pods up the chart. I really would appreciate that. Of course, you know that we have a social social interaction so you want to send us a tweet send me a tweet uh we comb through my uh my mentions which which can be an interesting place to be at sometimes so thank you guys for wading through and finding a couple good questions and again i appreciate everyone listening until thursday take care everybody