Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Carson Wentz Injured Again and the New SEC

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Geoff is joined by Gabe Goodwin for a jam packed episode talking Carson Wentz's foot injury and the Colts future. They then dive into how coaches around the league are dealing with vaccination reluctance, the future of the SEC, and Geoff's weekend trip to Vegas. 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 3rd. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Gidgoo, and this is Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. We're breaking down the headlines from the first week of training camp, including Kirk Cousins and the fragile-minded body of Carson Wentz. I know Gabe decided to talk about my weekend in Vegas. Oh, yeah. Before we get to all of that, we will talk about my time at a rave this weekend. I am fired up because it is football week. I know it's the Hall of Fame game don't talk shit about the Hall of Fame game

we're going to gamble on it we're going to wager on it we're going to enjoy ourselves we're going to watch ourselves watching the four string Cowboys against the four string Steelers at 11 Eastern on Thursday night because I'm happy football is back

I can't wait and you know the last 18 months have taught us that any kind of competition resembling the thing we once loved being back is a good thing. Remember, you know, it was a year ago we were watching like any damn thing. I think that you shared some marbles rolling down a hill to compete on. So, you know, you're right. Even if it's not first teamers playing real games, football with pads on special. And we will watch it all. And we will watch it all,

and we will gamble on it, by the way. So if you just follow me, at Jeff Schwartz on Twitter, I will give you a gambling play. Most likely, I'm just going to bet on the Steelers to win the game, because I feel like that. Defensive coaches care more than offensive coaches

in the preseason. The numbers have shown that out for a lot of years now. So we'll get to all that in a little bit, Gabe. But let's start out with the big NFL news out of Indianapolis. So we'll get to all that in a little bit, Gabe. But let's start out with the big NFL news out of Indianapolis. Yeah, let's talk about the team that I would say you don't want to bet on right now. The Colts, because Carson Wentz, who's the Colts quarterback, he's injured again, having suffered a quote unquote twinge in his foot at training camp on

Thursday. Well, the twinge is now going to lead to surgery, which could lead to five to 12 weeks of him being out. I just can put this out there, Jeff. We've talked about him a lot over the last couple of years on this show. I'm basically done with this dude. I'm tired of him. I keep waiting for this resurgence that doesn't seem to come. He reminds me of that pretty kid from Twilight who was like a big deal in the time of that movie. And then ever since I've been told he's like the next, you know, great actor of our day. I haven't seen him do anything good since. Like, what is this? Do I have to keep taking Carson Wentz seriously forever, even if he can't play?

Did you just attempt a pop culture reference to me, assuming I would get the pop culture reference? If a Twilight reference counts as pop culture, then me assuming i would get the pop culture pop culture if a twilight reference counts as pop culture then yes i did um i i get where you're going there look um i think it's seriously time to to wonder if this is went his career path and and being injury prone it was my career right it's sick surgery in the nfl plus dislocated toe never fun it's never fun to be labeled injury prone and there's two types of injuries, right? There's the injuries where you're just not prepared. A hamstring, and we talk about this with like Anthony Davis, right, of the Lakers.

Just kind of these like hamstring, groin injuries, calf strains, things that you can out-train essentially, right? You can't out-train breaking your foot. And suppose this was an old injury that just never got fixed and now got worse. You know, my injuries, you can't out-train seven people falling on your leg and you're breaking it you just can't out train that and so you become injury prone it's a luck situation it's very simply luck it doesn't feel like Carson Wentz has the luck on his side my brother who's a free agent right now has played nine years the NFL and he played 8,000-ish snaps in a row without missing one. It was second all-time to Joe Thomas

since they started kind of recording these stats. And when people asked him or had asked him, hey, how come your brother was so hurt and you weren't? Something along those lines. It's luck. It's luck. That's what it is. And the luck is not on Carson Wentz's side. And to your point, there were people that were very high on him this year. I was not one of them, right?

I thought if Carson Wentz went from the worst quarterback in the NFL last year to the middle of the pack, that's a huge jump of one year, and that should be expected as the best outcome for Carson Wentz. But this season's a scrap, you know, Gabe. It's done. Even if he comes back, and let's say we cut in half six weeks, okay? So he misses week one against Seattle. It's done. Even if he comes back, and let's say we cut in half six weeks, okay? So he misses week one against Seattle.

He comes back, and their stretch to open the season is absolutely brutal. It's a grind of a stretch to open the season up. So he misses all training camp in a brand-new offense. Now, you could argue, yes, he played in this offense with Frank Wright, but, you know, okay, that's a couple years ago now, right? You kind of need to integrate yourself back into the offense. He missed entire training camp. He has the Rams, the Titans, the Dolphins, the Ravens as his first four games back. Then he gets the Texans.

You skipped the Seahawks, the opener with the Seahawks. Well, I think I'm saying if six weeks he misses the Seahawks game. So he misses week one. Then he has the Texans and then the Niners and Titans. Like this first eight weeks of the season are not easy for the Colts and now you're going to do the quarterback who best case scenario probably doesn't play week one maybe back week two maybe back week three and the year of development you were hoping for Carson Wentz is probably not going to happen right because of I just mentioned no training

camp coming off injury and we know that when Carson Wentz is best part of that in most quarterbacks outside Tom Brady part of that is making those plays outside the pocket right and now he's going to come back on foot surgery he's not going to want to make those plays outside the pocket and um I look I was not high on him this year but I feel kind of bad that luck's the injury luck keeps hitting him but Gabe I think you're right. It's time to move off of Wentz as a quarterback who will ever be a lead again. Too injured. The 2017 season was an outlier. He's going to be injured again this season.

I don't know how you can look at Wentz if you're a Colts fan. It sucks right now if you're a Colts fan. You had Andrew Luck for so many years, and that didn't pan out. And now you have Carson Wentz, and the first first year there it's going to be a wasted season yeah and I just vote for let's just not talk about them or him anymore and I got no issue with Carson God bless man I hope I hope he gets healthy one day and has an average career but I feel like too many off seasons of the last five years have been a debate about what, how great Carson Wentz is going to be this year. And it's never happened. Okay. It just doesn't happen guys. And I'm not blaming a dude for, like you said, bad luck and injuries,

but even when he's healthy, I I'm not sure this guy's that great so now they're gonna turn the colts who everyone was guys like you no offense football geeks were like so hot on the colts last year watch out for the colts oh man they're a well-built team oh their defense oh man and and then you know they get the coach and the quarterback and suddenly everyone wants to call them a dark horse super bowl contender well i'm guessing sam ellinger and brett hundley who they signed and someone named jalen morton if i'm reading my notes correctly they aren't taking you to super bowl yeah the guy who's who is the number two right now is jacob easton out of washington yeah and he went to georgia transferred to washington played one year there um i text a a friend of mine who's a

washington fan well huskies fan, unfortunately. We still get along somehow. And I sent him the text, hey, Jacob Eason started because Washington hasn't had a quarterback start a game since Jake Locker. And he's like, you know what? Bet on him for the first three quarters, and that fourth quarter he'll blow the game, which is exactly what he did at Washington.

He's not a guy game that you want running your program, especially not now. And Colts fans argue, well, let's see the worst case scenario. He's out 12 weeks. That puts him out,, well, let's take the worst-case scenarios. Out 12 weeks, that puts them out, I think, the first five or six games of the season. He said, well, we just want to split those games. If we split those games, we're in good shape. But I'm not sure Eason's even that guy to split those games.

If I were the Colts, you're kind of in a win-now mode, okay, with the way your roster's set up, with the way your division is, right? Jacksonville is possibly rising. Dude, your boy caught a pass from Lawrence the other day. I thought it was like, oh, my game must be so happy. He caught one pass. Tim Tebow looks like an offensive lineman now. He's very big and he's very slow.

And then you look at Houston right now, shit show, right? Dumpster fire. And you look at Tennessee, who they did some good things in the offseason, but I'm not quite sure that this is a time for the Colts to kind of strike so what do you do now there's two options Jimmy G and Marcus Mariota Jimmy G right now supposedly you know and can't battle Trey Lance has looked great for the Niners and you know the questions are even being asked of Shanahan. Hey, is Trey Lance going to be your first team guy? Has he deserved those reps yet?

And every answer is, no, not yet. But we're talking about a game, right? We're starting to talk about the way Trey Lance is performing. Maybe we see a Bradford-Wentz situation. You remember all the way back in 2016 now when Wentz got drafted, Bradford was supposed to start, Sam Bradford. Immediately, he gets traded right before the season starts, and Wentz becomes the starter for the Eagles. And then the other option is Marcus Mariota who's better than

Carson Wentz he just is um now I think Marcus Mariota's ceiling is not as high as Wentz's and West can eventually surpass him but Mariota is a veteran we saw him playing one game last year look he's not going to be great but he provides you more options than Jacob Eason does. He's got one year left on his deal. He's relatively cheap. I think, Gabe, that if this lingers and the Colts don't feel comfortable with Eason, they should go get Marcus Margarita from the Raiders.

Okay, interesting. By the way, poor Jacob Eason, taking some totally unnecessary shrapnel in this conversation. Why? I forgot to even mention him, and then you dumped on him. What's so interesting to me is how we get so enamored with backup quarterbacks. You know I do not do that because a lot of times

they're backups for a reason, right? People are like, oh, Jacob Eason, Sam Ellinger, trade for Nick Foles. Nick Foles hasn't been good in four seasons, guys. We're not trading for Nick Foles. He's not going to save your team. I would go get yourself a guy you know they can play. Jimmy G, Marcus Mariota.

Go get yourself someone you know. You know when you put him in the game, he won't screw it up. Okay, how about Gardner Minshew? I mean, I don't know if I would trade him in division. That wouldn't be bad. It would be better than Jacob Eason or Sam Ellinger. But I don't think Jacksonville. And if he goes to the Colts, he could take a shit finally, right?

He's been waiting to shit. He doesn't want to be number two. He'll be number one in Indy. And he could take a poop. So I could see Minshew wanting to do that, to play, obviously. And he's young and under a good contract. that to play obviously um and he's young and under a good contract um but you also want a guy honestly who's not going to show up carson wentz like you know like that that's that's well that's why foals is there because they won a super bowl when he came in and did yeah but but falls and

you want someone like mario is going to sign a one-year deal who really has no future with Indy. Like, if Gardner Minshew plays well, he has two more years there. Like, you would think that fans would start enamoring for him. I'm not sure anyone's going to be like, oh, we've got to keep Marcus Mario to pass this season. But Minshew is an option, I think, if we're going to be trading division. All right.

Well, we'll keep an eye on that one. I prefer we never talk about the Colts or Carson Wentz ever again, but I'm sure it will come up. Let me throw the other funny anecdote about this, and we'll move on. Sorry, Philly fans. So if Wentz played 75% of the Colts' offensive snaps this season, or 70% of the snaps with a trip to the playoffs,

if either of those things happened, Philly is compensated with a first-round pick in next year's draft. Since neither of those things will happen, now they're going to get a second-round pick. So people are saying Philly is, in fact, cursed by this because they actually figured out a way to deal the dude and get a first-rounder, and now it doesn't even look like they'll get that.

Yeah, and then for the Eagles, too, Devontae Smith, their newly-directed wide receiver, surgery as well. He's out for two or three weeks. Maybe not surgery, but out two or three weeks with a knee injury. Eagles just – and I'm already on the fade Eagles train anyway. That's not going to be very good this year. So it is – it's going to be a rough year for Philly and most likely for the Colts now.

Yeah. Okay. By the way, we have our producer, intern, PA extraordinaire, Hank, who is a Texas Longhorn, leaves some notes in our rundown these days, Jeff. And I don't know if you've noticed this. You called him out for misspelling HIPAA last week or two weeks ago. He now puts in parentheses, I guess, his scouting report on players. So guys who are studs or not studs.

So I'd just like to say that Sam Ellinger, according to Hank, is a stud. The guy I'm about to mention is not a stud. Apparently, the Vikings third round rookie, Kellen Mond, tested positive for COVID on Saturday night. Kellen, not a stud. Other unvaccinated close contacts on the Vikings include the quarterback, Kirk Cousins, one of their best receivers, Adam Thielen, a couple guys on defense.

So now all those dudes have to isolate for five days because they've been in contact with someone with COVID and they don't have the vaccine. They'll miss a week of practice. Coach is obviously pissed. Similar stuff's going on in Washington where Ron Rivera, Ron Rivera can't even convince two thirds of his team to get vaccinated. He's begging them to get vaccinated.

It feels like coaches are at a breaking point. Are we screwed this season? Are there some players who are just never going to get this thing? Well, there's players that they're never going to get it. And let's talk about why Mike Zimmer is mad. There's a selfish reason for it, and I get his selfish reason. It's his job status.

If Cousins can't play a game because of COVID, and they lose that game, and that's the difference between going to the playoffs and not, guess who gets fired? Mike Zimmer does. And guess what? if you're a coach you can control almost everything right what plays you call who you put in the game how you train how you practice how you scout who you hire you control all that you can't control whether or not

a player gets vaccinated now you can you. You can talk to them about it. You can strongly talk to them about it. You can bring in experts. But Gabe, it's not mandatory in the NFL. So someone like Cousins who hasn't got the vaccine could cost your team. Again, now remember, this might be the only time it happens this year. They just missed five days of training camp. But it feels unlikely with the way the delta variant is going that there's only one time an unvaccinated player of any team of any team who's you know who a high profile player will be out

and this is what i've said all along it's a competitive advantage if you have a team especially all your top guys are vaccinated right because the chiefs guess what don't have to worry about this chargers guess what don't have to worry about this because if you're vaccinated and you have a close contact with someone who is COVID positive, you don't have to quarantine, right? You don't have to quarantine. Now, the rules might change as we move along, but I've said for a while now, it's a competitive advantage to be vaccinated.

We're seeing now with the Vikings where they end time at Washington quarterbacks. Jake Browning was the only quarterback available for scrimmage this past weekend. They don't want to roll the season with Jake Browning. And so, again, the NFL is a conservative. Are you telling me that Mike Zimmer is not a conservative? Again, I hate to make this political, but I think he is.

But he also wants to win. He also wants to make his money. He wants his team to do well. And so people are deciding. Again, I hate making this so political where it's like, depending on what side you're on, you take the shot. He also wants to make his money. He wants his team to do well. And so people are deciding. Again, I hate making this like so political where it's like, depending on what side you're on, you take the shot. Because I know that plenty of people usually aren't taking the shot.

But in the context of this, you know, he wants to win. This is about the NFL, right? The NFL ownership, they're red, they're blue, whatever they are. They're green. They want to win money. They want to make their money. And so the NFL is going about this way if you're mike zimmer um i i have to imagine you're upset because it hurts your chances to win which ultimately hurt your chances to to do your job yeah i mean part of me thinks that he's making it known how he feels to sort of get it out there

to the well as the owner gm whoever internally and also all of us out here in the world and media like hey i don't have any control over my quarterback on this one he's the guy i remember a few months ago said if i die i die you know like i can't be responsible for this grown man doing what we all think he should do and he ain't doing it i think he's trying to get ahead of that for all the reasons you just said but so i guess guess my question to you is, and I'll shift it over to Ron Rivera, who so many respect so much. What good is a coach if he can't get through to his players on some of this stuff? Like, I thought they were leaders of men and all that stuff.

Like, why wouldn't a player listen to their coach on something like this? Well, the reason why is they have their own personal beliefs and they're going to go about their own way. I mean, we've seen a lot of teams are nearing that 90% threshold. And coaches have said, hey, we have eight guys that just won't do it and nothing will convince them to do it. And maybe missing games will convince them, maybe their coach getting upset with them.

But I think Zimmer's also publicly mentioning this, I think, to publicly try to put some pressure on his quarterback and make sure that maybe because of the situation, he does get vaccinated. I fail to believe that people, especially players who are unvaccinated, are going to get vaccinated now. You've had your chance to do it, and you just haven't done it. I don't think it's going to change very much.

No, especially if you're also, like, so much of this seems to be about public pressure and ego and shame. Like, I can't see Kirk Cousins responding to this with, you know what, actually now is the time. And so I guess to make it about football for a second, we can come back to the sort of COVID stuff in a minute. I don't think of Kirk Cousins as some irreplaceable guy. In fact, he's like the ultimate replaceable guy.

And so all the quarterbacks we just named are candidates to do a good job in Minnesota where the run seems most important, where Justin Jefferson looks like the best player, where the defense is, well, at least sometimes pretty good. What about just throwing them on the bench and saying, we don't need you around. Like, let's go to somebody else at quarterback because you're, you're, you're jeopardizing our team. The problem is he got a new contract last year. So his cap at this year is $31 million. His cap at next year is $45 million. And his dead cap next year is his axiom as a salary, $45 million.

So they don't have a choice here. They have to play him. You can't sit a guy who's making that much money. Next year his cap at is $45 million. You cannot sit a guy who's going to account for 20% of your cap next season. So they're stuck with Cousins, and you have to hope if you're Zimmer or you're the Wolves who own them that the public shaming gets him to get this done. Okay, I'll bet against to, to get this done.

Okay. I'll bet against that being what gets it done. Let me ask you a couple of quick hitters here. Cause I think you laughed this off when I texted it to you. I want to make sure it was just because I'm an idiot. Is there any possibility that some players are not getting the shot because they want to skip practice? No, I don't think so. Okay. Fair enough. And then what did you make of this tweet

from former chiefs fullback anthony sherman i couldn't tell if this was performance art or real here goes uh the nfl is making players wear colored wristbands now based on vaccine vaccination status funny i thought we all agreed on the evils of segregation back in the 60s here we are again only this time it's based on personal health choices instead of skin color is that real did he really want to go there and is that really like a thing that some guys other than just him might be thinking right now and then he tried to backtrack it um with some tweets about how we took his his own tweets out of context. It's just, look,

we're not comparing COVID to the Holocaust and the Nazis, and we're not comparing COVID to segregation and to anything else. We have to stop doing this. Guys, it's okay to have an opinion, but but man a lot of us are looking stupid on social media it's just it's not a good look even if you disagree with what the nfl is doing this is not the case to be made for the nfl changing their policies i don't get it gabe

it feels like every now and then a player overreaches and says it and the only reason i bring that up with you is because you were a player youreaches and says it. And the only reason I bring that up with you is because you were a player, you've been in a lot of locker rooms, you've told us about guys who you've had nice disagreements with, or who you'll never really relate to on every level. And I'm just wondering if there's any possibility that this tweet is speaking for a greater population of players, or this is just one former guy who made a bad comparison. And we can leave it at that if that's all that it is, or if there are actually people who really feel like their rights are being infringed upon when the league makes a few rules so we keep hearing that cole beasley and

others um are speaking for the rest of players okay like 22 teams have 90 vaccinated i don't know it feels like the minority right that doesn't want to get the shot um and players have said i wasn't really going to get it but then they made it you know they made it mandatory or mostly mandatory um so i don't think a lot of i think in his circle a lot of players might feel that way in in in beasley's circle but all these teams are getting vaccinated so they're the ones who um i feel like, again, the vocal minority. I mean, if you're pro-vaccine, what are you going to say right now? Get your shot. If you're anti-vaccine or anti-NFL policies or whatever else,

then you're the loudest voice right now, right? You're kind of going against the grain. And so those voices get amplified right now. And I look, I like Sherman. I play with Sherman. I enjoyed him. Every time I see him,

we hang out and we talk and whatnot. But again, we can't compare COVID to segregation. We've seen people compare some sort of COVID. I saw there was a, a, a protest here in charlotte yesterday because the health care system here is mandating vaccines and someone had a sign with a swastika on

it saying it's like we're not we're not doing that we're not doing that guys it's not the same it's not even anything remotely close to the same so i know players haven't gone that far i'm just talking in general like so let's and and you know the i've said this before gabe the most frustrating thing to me and sherman's not playing right now i think he retired he's a sheriff now and he had a pretty epic retirement video is that the players have access to top professionals in this in this world they can call their team doctor they can call their trainer and get and get on the phone with someone who's an epidemiologist who's a virologist whoever you want to talk to and get real information from them face to face or on facetime or on zoom whatever you want to do and we can be smarter about the way we talk about covid and we talk about vaccines

and we talk about the nfl protocols we can be that smart, but we're choosing to not. We're choosing anecdotal evidence or whatever Facebook says. And it's just, it bothers me because I can understand if you're just sitting at home right now and you're not affluent and you don't have the resources to go talk to doctors and you are getting your information from other sources. Okay. And that's all you can do. Right. You don't have contact with someone who can help you out.

But we have resources to talk to experts. And there's no reason that we are players, not we, but the players on the fence about the vaccine should not talk to these specialists. Well said. My buddy is a doctor and he shared a meme with me and a few friends that said, you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer. You want to build a house, you go to an architect. You want to fix your car, you go to a mechanic. You have health problems, you go to the internet, you go to your neighbors, you take some weird ointment, you read the newspaper, you get to your own drugs, and then maybe you see a doctor. It's like, it's the only thing where we don't just go

to the expert first. So hopefully some of these players who are holding out and giving their coaches headaches right now will eventually come around and we won't have a season that is ravaged by forfeits and a bunch of guys sitting out. So I'll tie it back to football for a minute. We'll move on to college ball. How do you bet? This is a weird question to ask you, given people's health being online, but like, how do you bet teams when you don't know at any moment

you could have a bunch of key guys sitting out? If the Vikings were playing this week, I think the line's going to shift quite a bit. What do you think on that? Yeah, the gambling part is interesting because you can't bet the under on all these teams but if you're a washington football fan if you're matt ford right now um how do you feel comfortable in your team winning a lot of games that you might not have everyone to play this week if you're a vikings fan how do you feel comfortable your

quarterback your quarterback could miss multiple weeks by the way right he's in a wide receiver he's you know he's an unvaccinated wide receiver test positive for COVID. Cousins has been in the wide receiver room all week. Talking to wide receivers. Offense alignment. A quarterback. A family member. Anything.

And you have to look at fading these teams this year. Like the Bills, for example. Some of the stuff these players have said, I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, they're really good at football. I get it. But like, so I think, you know, the teams that are over 90%, Godspeed, good job. You'll be fine.

The ones under and the ones still lacking behind, Gabe, especially important positions that we don't, of course, we don't know everyone's, like, for example, Dak said that whole HIPAA thing. I think he's vaccinated. I think he is. I think he just said that because that's you know he wants to keep everything private which is fine it's the wrong use of HIPAA but whatever but I think most

NFL quarterbacks have been vaccinated um and if your quarterback's not that's gonna be an issue all right um let's shift away from pro ball and COVID and talk about another sort of wild story that I don't know maybe I'm just not following the right people this doesn't feel like it got enough coverage for me so far so Texas and Oklahoma are officially going to the SEC in 2025 if not sooner I think some lawyers could get involved and make it come sooner

and football as we've always known it Jeff is officially dead that's it the SEC is to college football what Amazon is to the mom and pop shops. I'll be the old guy yelling, get off my lawn about changing traditions here. This sucks. I don't like it. I don't like seeing Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC. I don't see how this helps the sport.

I don't see how this keeps what we love about Saturdays the same any longer. It seems stupid and crappy to me. Tell me I'm wrong. Oh, no, it absolutely sucks. It totally sucks. Tax Oklahoma going to SEC 2025 is probably the latest they do it. I think the earliest could be next year. I don't know how they play three more seasons as a lame duck in the Big 12.

But here's what I've come to. And I cover Pac-12 football on my radio show for a living. Obviously, I watch all college football. There's reports today that have been refuted, by the way, that Clemson and Florida State have been contacted. I don't think they have. But SEC is just like the changes we've seen in college sports, whether it's name, image, and likeness, whether it's the transfer portal,

which again, the transfer portal, man, it's not been good for the most part. If you are not a quarterback who's a five-star, you're not going to, you're not making a parallel move or going up, right? You're typically going down. Again, the grass is not always greener. I said this would happen, but I've accepted it.

So with realignment, Gabe, we might not like it, but we have to accept it's happening. And if we can't adapt to the newer world of college football, then we just aren't good at our job. I mean, you have to adapt to this. I'm a Pac-12 guy. If you're the new commissioner for the Pac-12, you have to adapt now.

Now, there's many ways to adapt, right? The thought is Oklahoma, Texas form a 16-team league in the SEC now. Everyone has to shuffle around, right? There's eight Big 12 teams now, which is funny. There's a Big 12, eight Big 12 teams. What do they do? Do the Pac-12 absorb some of them?

Do some go to the Big 10? Do we have four mega conferences, which I think eventually will happen, or really two mega conferences? Or you don't have to panic. The Big 12 adds the four best AAC programs, American Athletic Conference. So Memphis, Houston, Cincinnati, and UCF. And they're the Big 12.

They've got 12 teams. The Pac-12 stays put. The Big 10 stays put. The ACC stays put the big 10 stays put the acc stays put but the question becomes gabe is if you're again if you're the commissioner of the pac-12 conference you're the commissioner of the big 10 conference you're commissioner of the acc conference do you try to be proactive and beat other conferences in forming a super conference right so for example again the pac-12 i have, again, the Pac-12, I have no interest, and the Pac-12 doesn't either, in adding a Big 12 team.

None of these teams provide any value to the Pac-12, zero. The goal of adding teams to your conference is increasing revenue for everyone, right? So it's not just getting a bigger amount of money, it's making sure your schools get more money. For example, if every Pac-12 school gets $10 million now, okay? So you have a one-year deal for $120 million. And let's say that you add four new teams, but the four new teams don't bring in $40 million extra of your TV deal.

So your overall number might be $155 million for a new TV deal, but now everyone's getting less than $10 million per school, right? So that's not actually helping anybody. You need to add teams to increase the revenue above and beyond so the distribution to each team is more. So adding teams to add teams make no sense unless you're making more money on the whole. And look, I know Big 12 fans are upset about this. Kansas, your basketball program, great.

And you make a lot of money. But football kind of drives the boat. 85, every 85 cents on dollars of football though is in the media is from football. Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, like those aren't schools that add value to the Pac-12 conference. But the Pac-12 might say, hey, look,

we need to do something because we're going to be left behind. What if we call the Big 10 up? Hey, let's have a partnership. I don't know how that works, but let's form, you know, we're going to be left behind what if we call the big 10 up hey let's have partnership i don't know how that works but let's form you know we're very aligned academically we're aligned to the rose bowl let's form a partnership together who knows what that'll be gabe you're a usc guy people have talked about the big 10 poaching usc or the sec poaching usu i think it's very unlikely but poaching usc away from the Pac-12 conference. So again, don't like it.

Have to adapt. This is the new way forward. And I'll just end with this, I guess. This is bad for Texas, man. I don't know what they get out of this. More money, I guess. Congrats, but you weren't winning anything. You're not gonna win anything now.

Well, yeah, that's where I wanted to go with this. Besides the like, you know, inner Bernie bro and me getting upset about the, you know, the rich getting richer and the little guy having no chance in this world anymore. I don't understand the logic of it for Texas and Oklahoma. And I also don't understand the logic of it for college football fans who've been sold the idea that like college football is all about tradition, right? That's the whole, the whole beauty of Texas, Oklahoma was the tradition, apparently. Well, if you're going to start blowing up all the traditions and moving teams around and changing all the schedules around and basically be void of all tradition and just have it be about

TV rights deals, then I don't even understand what the point of college football would be. I mean, that's all I was told my whole life was different about college football and the NFL. But now it just seems to be about the profit. And yeah, Texas, what are they, the fifth, sixth best team in the SEC? Yeah, I mean, football-wise, yeah. I mean, they have the number one athletic department revenue. But football-wise, you look at, know bama georgia oklahoma now i mean they're four to six and every few years every few years auburn yeah florida florida a&m

is getting better yeah yeah i mean a&m did this at the peak of their power and they became mostly irrelevant in the SEC. Mostly. I mean, some fans will come at me on that. Jimbo's getting them better. I mean, they're recruiting better. But, you know, I just, the thing that's kind of I go back to is like, it was unnecessary, right? I mean, Oklahoma Tech should make a ton of money doing their own thing

in the Big 12. Oklahoma has won the conference six years in a row. They made the playoff four times. They didn't have to do this. I get if you expand, if you're Utah and Colorado and you went to the Pac-12 conference, I get it. Nebraska, go to the Big 10, Rutgers, right? This doesn't feel necessary.

That, I think, is what bothers a lot of people. Yeah, which also makes it hard to claim that college football is somehow not just about revenue. Like, the only motivation here would be money. There's nothing else that would drive this decision. So then how do you also, as leaders in the world of college football, claim that you're not just running a business? You it's just it complicates their whole argument in general about the what is special and the special status that college football has if you're just making these moves for a few million

more dollars a year yeah i mean it's it is about the money i mean this, this is now a big money industry. The questions that follow, I think, after this, and I think we're getting to the point is, the SEC is probably, and this means NCAA, is probably done. Like, in the current form, they're not going to happen anymore.

They are, it's over soon. It's going to be more like professional sports pretty soon well with that in mind let's sort of try to go move into the future here and everyone's got a theory but i'm most interested in yours you know you sort of teased this out are we looking at now four super conferences within the next few years you know and then that inspires some big tournament every year and that tournament maybe isn't under NCAA rules but it's just like some it's like champions league for amateur football here in America so there's a possibility of you know four you know four I think 14 four league, 16 teams.

If we're going to go that direction of, we're going to kind of break everything up, right. We're going to have, you know, we're going to end up having, you know, four teams join the pack.

12, the big 12 is gone, right? Four teams join the pack 12. I think the big 10 needs two or four more teams to join their conference. And the ACC ends up with Notre Dame has to be part of this. And then you get, and I think like one or two teams, I think,

have to just drop down a level to make this work. But we will get there soon, Gabe. Again, I do not think that people have to panic – or conferences, not people, but conferences have to panic when it comes to realignment. Again, if you just sit still you're fine but i could see the new patrick commissioner who is very business savvy uh saying hey man we got to make a move we need to go get someone to you know join the big 12 or to me big 12 joins us or we go do

a partnership with with the big 10 so I'm curious to see how this happens. And I don't think it happens during the season. I feel like once football starts, football's the topic. And I'm excited for it to start. I mean, look, UCLA, Hawaii, August 28th. It's coming up soon, man. Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to the season. I think SC has a good chance this year.

Their schedule is very favorable. It is. No Oregon, no Washington, no Friday night games. Utah at home. Notre Dame is going to be a tough one, but they're going to be favored in 10 or 11 games. Yeah, well, we'll be talking about it. Jeff, why don't we take a little break?

We'll come back. We'll go back to the NFL in our little move in the line over-under game, and we'll make some quick bets and get out of here. Take a quick break. Be right back. Boom. And there it is. Wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. That's cool. But with my wireless, I get unlimited for just 30

bucks. Impressive. But does yours have 5G included? Of course. And my wireless saves me 400 bucks a year. That's because you all have Xfinity Mobile with your internet. It's wireless so good, it keeps one-upping itself. $30 per line per month. Taxes and fees extra. Compares pricing of top carriers.

Xfinity internet required. Reduced speeds up to 20 gigabits of usage per line. Most reliable based on RootMetrics UL's report. Results vary. Non-endorsement. Alright, Jeff, we're back. It's time for Moving moving the line you know how this works a little over under game these are all make-believe this week i want to know justin fields w's over under trey lance w's as a starting quarterback with their respective teams this year who has more wins if trey lance if they play equal amount of games, Trey Lance will win more games because they're teammates. That's part of the variable here.

I think both guys, I've said from day one, Justin Fields will start day one. I said put money on Trey Lance to win rookie of the year. I'll go Trey Lance here. Yeah, I think the Niners win more games than the Bears, and I think Trey Lance is the starting quarterback in enough of those games for him to have more Ws than fields. But both of them could be 10-11 win teams this year, right? I mean, it's possible. I would feel far more positive in the Niners being better than

the Bears. Yeah, okay. And per previous conversations about the Colts, if Jimmy G were to move there or where some other team loses a starting quarterback, we still think he's like the number one trade bait in the league, if that could happen. Yeah, I could definitely see the same thing happen with Sam Bradford and Carson Wentz, as I mentioned earlier, right?

You just end up training camp, you know, the Colts are like, dang, we need a quarterback or someone else gets hurt. And Jimmy G's the guy. For some reasonimmy g for five or so years has been the like well if you had to have a quarterback he could just step in and run your offense like people just think he's that guy so i i mean he he is that guy but again that guy probably you're not winning super bowl with no you're not winning the super Bowl. But if you lose your starting quarterback in the preseason,

your goal is no longer to win the Super Bowl. Your goal is to not suck. And so he can keep you from sucking. Correct. All right, well, let's talk about a team whose goal is definitely to win the Super Bowl. And who the hell knows if their quarterback is really on board or not. I want to know, Rodgers finishing the MVP voting over under 2.5.

Is he a top two or three MVP vote getter this year? Good question. So basically going to run back what we did last year, right? Mahomes. Is he going to try like he did last year? I think he's going to try like he did last year. I'm going to go no because we might have a quarterback come out of nowhere and be in the conversation.

I don't know who that's going to be yet. I feel like there's always someone. Like Rodgers, like last year, right? I kind of didn't play very well in 2019, kind of came out of nowhere. Mahomes will be up there. I mean, Tom Brady might be. I would say no.

Okay. So he has a good year, but he's not an actual MVP candidate like he was last year. I'll just go with no. All right, fair enough. Let me just sneak this in because I wanted to mention him because i like talking about the browns nick chubb signed an extension a little early it'll give him a chance to sign a new deal before he turns 30 which is good for him he could put up some monster numbers this year any shot a guy like that surprises us and becomes

an mvp candidate browns could win 12 13 games i mean what was derrick henry at mvp voting last year he was right up there i don't remember which place he came yes he definitely he definitely could but i don't think he's gonna be he could be in the conversation i'll go with yes he could be yes okay well i'll take it um all right here comes a question that you or one of the guys working on the show came up with i have absolutely no idea what this story is about i i'm gonna probably just check my text messages while after i tee this up can you explain to me what's going on with the cardinals and kime and and coach and basically over under seven and a half games until somebody over there gets fired um yeah so they they drafted Zayven Collins to play linebacker with them.

And Cardinals linebacker Jordan Hicks said that Steve Kahn, the GM, called him a few days after drafting Collins to tell him he couldn't compete for the starting linebacker job. I've never heard of this before, where a guy was drafted at a non-quarterback position and it was the middle's first round and like they told the other guy uh you're not you have no chance to play even if you fake it hey yes open competition like what what incentive does hicks now have to go hard none none he'd make the team sure he just'd just do enough to make the team.

That's all he worried about. It's a bad look, man. You should not tell your players this. It's implied. Trevor Lawrence is the starting quarterback for Jacksonville. Sorry, Minshew. It's implied. But I'm sure they say it's open competition to Minshew.

Go win the job. The fact that this is so concrete. What is it even Collins doesn't play well? He's not ready to play as a rookie. Well, now you kind of screwed two players, right? Because Hicks doesn't play as hard, let's just say. I'm not accusing Hicks of not playing hard, but we'll find out. And then now Collins is not ready, and you have two players not ready to play.

It's a bad look for Steve Kahn. Bad, bad look. So it seems to me that the real essence of what we're getting at here with coach and GM in Arizona is they have a wildly talented team they have a team that so many people wanted to believe had kind of reached a new level last season at least most of the way through last season and yet they kind of get in their own way and so is this a year where the Cardinals step up and become what we wanted them to be or where they fall back and become the Cardinals again they fall back and become the Cardinals I mean they've been the Cardinals like I just I don't trust the staff I have not trusted Kingsbury for a while now and that's not going to

change okay all right because remember there was that whole time we talked about the NFC West every week last year because every week it looked like the best team in the NFC was coming out of there whichever team it was. And then at the end, the Cardinals just weren't part of it. They just weren't relevant anymore. Yeah, I mean, I just, I, Kingsbury's got to show me more. He's got to show me more. He's a handsome bastard.

We know that. I mean, I'm handsome too, but you gotta show me more sometimes. Okay. All right. This, I don't even know if this will spark a conversation. I'm just genuinely, but you have to show me more sometimes. Okay. All right. I don't even know if this will spark a conversation. I'm just genuinely curious what you think about this. Odds we see Simone Biles' situation in football this season. And what I mean by that is that someone might say

that they're mentally unprepared to play. We have. We have. Okay. Brandon Brooks, the Eagles guard, has anxiety. He missed a game or two a couple years ago with crippling anxiety. Obviously, different than the twisties, which Simone Biles had. She's performing.

By the time you listen to this, it'll be Tuesday. I think she's performing tonight on Tuesday. Again, so maybe she's gone over it. And look, I watch the videos. It looks scary, right? I mean, if you can't control your body in the air then you have a chance to get injured i get that um but we've had nfl players um brandon brooks specifically sit out for anxiety woke up in the morning couldn't play crippling

anxiety but it's not a quarterback right i mean that's simone biles it's tom brady of the sport um so what happens if tom brady wakes up and says hey i can't do this um yeah it it uh i think we would i the the media that praise simone biles i think would handle it differently if it was tom brady or quarterback do you what i think that goes without saying like if it was Tom Brady or quarterback? Yes. What? I think that goes without saying. Like, if it was Pat Mahomes, and Pat Mahomes was like,

I can't play today because of my anxiety, how would people handle that versus how they handle Simone Biles with gymnastics? Yeah, well, I want to put aside whether or not people handled their commentary on Simone. No, I'm just talking about the people that praised Simone, not the, only the people that praised her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How would they handle a quarterback doing that?

I don't think that they would be calling that quarterback a hero and courageous. Agreed. A number of the other words that I've seen used to describe Simone. Agreed. I think that that quarterback would be heavily criticized, but I could be wrong, and I have been kind of surprised

at how many people were so effusive in their praise and support of Simone that I wondered would they remember doing that and be that way for Pat Mahomes if that were to happen. I don't think so, but I'm now wondering maybe some player had wanted to do this and couldn't. but I'm now wondering maybe some player had wanted to do this and couldn't. I think there, well, definitely in football, there is kind of that tough guy mentality, right?

And mental health is looked at, you know, and for you it's like a soft, right? You're soft and weak. I think we're moving out of that time where people do discuss mental health now and i really and i saw you know i saw sports psychologists for 10 years i i'm not um and it wasn't for i didn't have anxiety or anything like that you need someone to talk to about you know life and whatnot um and it was very helpful so i i get you know need to talk to someone needing therapy um and needing to control you know and train your mental side i think I think trainers are doing a better job of that now, teams are doing a better job.

But I do think that if a player sits out because would the equivalent be I just can't throw a pass today or I'm terrified. I'm trying to find a – To me, I don't want to trivialize any of this, but it seems like I can't go run a route i'm afraid to go over the middle and get hit or yeah you people would call you soft if you did that right they would whether they should or they shouldn't they would and i'm wondering now because of the amount of attention this situation has had in july if by sept September the people who cover it will have the same attitude.

I don't think so. And I think also with the team aspect of football, and Simone did have to back out of the team competition. And again, I think actually that helped the USA because their score wasn't very good. But if you sit out and you hurt your team, then people look at you sideways even more. Yeah.

Well, we'll see. I mean, it's obviously a different kind of sport with different athletes and different coverage. I'd just be curious if this, you know, it took a while for a current NFL player to come out and say, I am gay. That just happened this offseason with Carl Nassim. Obviously, there had been gay players or guys who had come out privately.

Yeah, but it took until, for whatever reason, until 2021 for someone to say that publicly and want to continue their career in the NFL. So maybe there have been a lot of guys who have wished they could have said, I just mentally, I don't feel ready today and never said that to a coach. And now that they've seen how Simone was received, now they might. I don't know. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I'm wondering if it will have a ripple effect.

I don't think so. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's shift gears to something far far less serious but to me very important um jeff from following you on social media and texting with you a bit over the weekend uh it's it's fair to say that you had a wild experience in las vegas at what looked like an enormous pool party. I don't have a lot of the details.

Here's what I know. There was very expensive food and drink on hand, some sort of musical performance, and you and your wife in bathing suits. It was a lot. We went to Las Vegas for a birthday party, and my wife's friend came into town as well and so we had a little a little hanging out time and we went to wet republic to watch cascade perform and you guys know my love for can you say what is cascade yeah it's a edm electric

dance music uh you know it's like we went to a rave is that one person yeah he's one person yeah okay um went to a rave and at the wet republic uh in vegas and we got like a little day now a little day bed to sit on because i was not going to just stay in the pool for five hours yeah of course and because of that there's a you know spending minimum it wasn't that it wasn't actually as expensive as you think it would be. We only spent $8 over the minimum, so it was a perfect day. The food was great, by the way. Fantastic food. We got there a little bit too early because Cascade didn't come on until 3.

We got there at 12. We should have got there at 1 o'clock, whatever. But what made news off my social media was the tender tot yacht. Yeah. So there was a wooden yacht boat thing that took two people to hold. And there were tater tots in the middle and chicken tenders on the side.

And it was $1,750 for the tender tot yacht. And they had the sushi yacht as well. But the tender tot yacht was the most expensive. It's $40 worth of food for $17.50, but when you're paying 10 grand for a cabana, which again, we did not have a cabana, that's like nothing. You have to spend $10,000,

and you can only get so many bottles of champagne, so many bottles of, like how many bottles of hard liquor do you need for four to eight people? Like you need to spend money on a attendee yacht and so it was a glorious thing i saw um i was shocked by the price there was a bills fan there who was above me and he was like he got my attention and he looked at he put he um pointed his shorts he was wearing bills and was like josh allen, Josh Allen. I was like, but no, I said hi to the guy.

He was very nice. And yeah, it was a long, it was loud. It wasn't that hot. We had a thunderstorm delay. We had lightning. Everybody got out of the pool. It was a wild event. Okay.

I need to spend a couple minutes unpacking some of this. So you're saying you did not actually eat any of the tots or tenders no no no that wasn't for me because i i wanted to know over under 475 dollars worth of at least retail price worth of chicken tenders and tater tots okay so did you eat so we ordered so there were four of us, and we ordered two chicken tender plates. So it was $25 for five tenders and some french fries. An average guy could carry that out. Yeah, it wasn't a problem.

But I had some grilled shrimp, because when you're on a diet or a rave, you've got to keep the diet going. So I had some grilled shrimp, and we had a little pizza. So here's what they tried to do. So there were four of us and we didn't eat a lot of chicken tenders. So we got 10 tenders and fries. And the food was, again, fabulous.

It was really good. We're like, why don't you buy the chicken tender platter? I was like, nah, I'm not spending that much money for chicken tenders. It's $100 for a chicken tendy platter. And I was like, nah, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. This lady was, the host was very miffed that we like barely spent our minimum she kept trying to get us to spend more money like we don't want to spend more money it's four of us i don't drink how much the girls aren't going to

drink that a lot mike who's was there he he's not drinking he had a couple jamesons whatever but like she kept trying to get to spend money we We're like, no, we paid the minimum. We'll spend exactly the minimum. And you know, 11, 11 ounce bottles of Fiji water, six of them were $78. I spent a lot of money on water. I bought like 25 waters. Yeah. I was the only sober person there. Well, okay. Let me ask you maybe indelicate question. I don't, I don't really do hard drugs so i don't know if this is is there something about the kind of drugs people do at an edm show and chicken tenders that goes together why so much emphasis on chicken tenders easy to eat probably but i i don't uh partake in that in that as well so um hard for me to tell you whether or not chicken tenders go with ecstasy.

Not my thing. Okay. And you have told us about how you go to... I can't even say this without laughing. How you have been known to sit at EDM concerts. You go and attend. You enjoy the music, but you like to sit down. Who could stand for that long?

Yeah, I sat down. So describe your physical setup at the EDM. music but you like to sit down who could stand for that long yeah i sat down just so you're just describe your physical setup at the edm so we had we had a day bed which is like great like a lounge chair essentially yeah and there was an umbrella and i stood under the umbrella or sat under the umbrella the entire time and your wife is now dancing around oh my wife is like having the time of her life yeah she's dancing yeah dancing her ass off. Yeah, she looked like she was having a lot of fun. And every other person there is dancing and doing whatever they can do to have the time of their life. No one else, I'm assuming, is laying on a daybed in the shade.

No. And I was told that Cascade also does not drink. So me and Cascade were the two most sober people in the entire place. All right. While you were there, did you place any bets? Did you use a little time at a sports book? No. Well, yeah, I gambled, but not as – I'm going back in August.

I'll make all my future wagers there. But, no, we – there was a guy at the $15 craps table at the Venetian. I showed up. This was during the day too. And he had so many $1,000 chips lined up on the rail that they were out of them on the table. So I had to shut the game down for a second, bring in $25,000 chips to exchange them so he had 215 000 that they had to basically

you know uh color up and then he had some more left on the rack and he rolled for 22 minutes and i tripled my money he most likely tripled his money and he walked away with close to a million dollars, I would imagine. So that guy's not worrying about buying the tater tot yacht. No, and I felt really inadequate because I was betting $15 on the pass line and my man over there was betting way over,

the maximum was $5,000. He was betting way over $5,000. I don't imagine they're turning down somebody wanting to put 15 grand down and lose. Well, it sounds like you had a nice trip to Vegas. One day we finally been able to hang out in person in LA. I think the next time we do it in person, let's do it in Vegas.

I don't know about August. That sounds hot, but maybe in the winter sometime. Not in the casino. Well, all right. Good point. I got a little smarter today. We covered some serious stuff. We covered some stupid stuff. But I'm

ready for football season. It feels like it's finally almost here. Football is finally almost here. It is here this week and it will be all glorious. We will talk more about it and we're going to have some preview episodes moving forward. Matt and I will go through divisions and we'll give you guys props and totals and everything we like

in each division. We'll continue to talk about everything that has to do with football. We're going to include more college in here as well. So if you come here for the NFL but you like college, this is your place to be. We'll start mixing in some college as well. Again, I cover it for a living and I like talking about it. So we'll do more of that. Alright guys, have a great couple days.

We'll be back later this week.