Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Chiefs Redemption, the AFC Hierarchy, and MNF Picks

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Gabe joins Geoff this week as they discuss all things across the NFL in week 9. They talk Chiefs establishing themselves atop the AFC, the Ravens and Bengals being not too far behind, and the struggles we’ve seen in Buffalo and Miami. Then they preview Monday Night Football including Geoff’s selections on Prize Picks. Sign up using code GSSY for a free $100 price match.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you you It's Monday, November 6th. I'm Jeff Schwartz. This is Jeff Schwartz of Smart. We're live on Twitter and on YouTube, and we are on your favorite podcast platform of choice. We're brought to you by PrizePix. It's a skill-based, real-money, daily fantasy sports game. Go to PrizePix and use code GSSY for a first deposit match up to $100.

You pick two to six players if they will go more or less than the PrizePix projection. You can win up to 25 times your money in any entry we're making my selections for the mind i football game later in the show it is a battle of gabe's two favorite football teams the charge and the jets the jets by the way if they win tonight guys we'll talk about this game later full preview later it'll be five and three with aaron rogers back on the horizon very soon it has been a good weekend for gabe because his favorite football team did not play they will play today and his favorite football team also fired the defensive coordinator gabe we'll get into all of that in a little bit a great weekend of nfl action how you

doing buddy okay i'm swatting away your multiple attempts to troll me just now and uh i will just say that the we can save time on the preview of that game. You have picks to make. The preview is Spider-Man meme. It's just East and West Coast versions of the same stupid team that I, for some reason, chose to root for. And yeah, Grinch is gone. He can no longer steal defense or whatever. But yeah, man, wild weekend of football.

Lots to talk about. Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. We always start in the NFL because that's what this show mostly does. We'll hit college football at the end of the episode, along with the prize-priced projections for the United football game. What do you want to start with, Gabe? Well, let's start with the team that we often start with because this week they basically played the Super Bowl of the weekend.

We all got up early and watched the Dolphins Chiefs out of Germany. We were still belly laughing from all the hilarious press conference moments Mike McDaniel offered us. Boy, he was hilarious. It turns out the Dolphins just maybe aren't as good as the stats would suggest. I believe that McDaniel is a pretty good coach and Tua is a better quarterback than people give him credit for, but they can't beat good teams it's taken them a year to beat a team with a 500 record and they lost to the chiefs again so maybe like let's be more realistic about them jeff so they're six and oh this year against the chargers patriots broncos giants and panthers they play the patriots

twice um none of those teams will have a 500 record other than the Chargers, who have a chance to get there at some point this year, I feel like. They've outscored those five opponents 234 to 125, obviously very famously scoring 70 on the Broncos. They're 3-0 against the Bills, Eagles, and Chiefs. They're outscored 100 to 51 in those games, and really outside of the first couple drives against Buffalo and maybe the last five minutes of the Chiefs game, they weren't really close in those games and really outside of the first couple drives against Buffalo and maybe the last five minutes of the Chiefs game,

they weren't really close in those games, right? Like it never felt like at any point in those games, they were really like in the game. Now they're obviously down 21-0 to Kansas City. At halftime, Kansas City, whoo, they tried their best to lose that game. But it's very clear the Dolphins sort of have – we know what they are now, right? They have an M.O. They are going to play well against bad teams. sort of have, we know what they are now, right? They have an MO.

They are going to play well against bad teams, but until they fix their offensive line with health, health is a problem there, right? They're having trouble against these physical defensive lines, and they have to find a way offensively to have sort of a second option. Like Tua's very good when his first guy is open, but what defenses have been able to do is say, we're not giving you your first guy.

Can you find the second and third guy fast enough for your offensive line to hold up? And that's a problem for Tua at times. And their defense has not been as good as we thought with Vic Fangio. The Chiefs' issues are not really related to Miami, in my opinion. So they are what they are, which is good. Have a lot of room for improvement but they're they're not at all a contender right now for any sort of postseason success success they'll get there and then they'll flame out they're basically the cowboys i mean i think they're six and three i don't see why they wouldn't. I mean, right now in the playoffs, they are, you know,

they're ahead in the AFC East right now because Buffalo, I don't know what Buffalo is. They're 5-4, which is kind of wild to look at. Right now the Jets, by the way, are ahead of Buffalo in the playoff standings in the AFC. How about that? So the Dolphins, they're good, not great. They have a buy as they come back from Germany.

I had a buddy at the game, by the way. He said it was electric. The atmosphere looked. He said it was fun, a lot of fun there. It's Raiders, Jets, Commanders, Titans, Jets, Cowboys, Ravens, Bills. I mean, there's a possibility they have. That's a lot of wins. What?

7, 8, 9, ten, eleven. I mean, there are eleven wins, at least a minimum ten wins, playing Cowboys, Ravens, Bills to end the season. So the offense will be in the hunt for the top seed and the AFC. They won't get it, but they'll be close. All right, let me throw this at you to drill into the game a little bit more X and O here. Tyreek Hill, obviously their their first option didn't do a

whole lot pretty quiet game and the theory i think a lot of dopes like me would have is well yeah that's because the chief's coaching staff knows all his tricks they know how to contain him you know they they who knows him better than spags and that team is that real or do you just have an off game what's real is the Chiefs defense is really good. That's the real part, Gabe. It's not that they had an off game where they knew what to do versus someone else. It's just Chiefs defense is really good.

They're really good. They're top five defense in the NFL, and they've been the best part about this team through nine weeks, which is crazy to say, right? I mean, whoever thought that we'd be talking about the Chiefs defense. The ability to draft and develop in the secondary and linebacker and the first level has been incredible.

Like they have a bunch of guys that played a bunch last year as rookies. They're obviously showing much better in year two. And they've stopped. Everything's better. They're stopping the run better. And they're without Bolton right now. And when you have – so when you bring pressure, a lot of times when you blitz,

you require your secondary players to maybe block, to maybe hold up a little bit longer than usual because they tend to be a little bit more man coverage. But also if the quarterback misses, if the defender misses the quarterback on this pressure, you know, guys might be open. But also, when quarterbacks see pressure, they want to throw the ball quickly, and you have to have tight coverage so they don't throw the ball quickly. So both of these have to align, right?

Tight coverage allows your defense to get home. If they don't get home, you want to be able to play coverage. It kind of all ties together, right? Spagnuolo has those defensive backs to do this. He has defensive backs that can play the man coverage to allow multiple guys, by the way, to pressure from either side, but also allow the defense to be in a good position if they do throw the ball quickly, which, again, you try to do that, but if you're tight man coverage, you can't.

So they hold the ball to sack. Or if tight man coverage you can't so they hold the ball it's a sack or if someone misses you play good enough coverage to where you can't get burned right like they do both things really well and so he's kind of in his quote-unquote bag as the young kids say in his bag right where he just has a lot of things he's doing defensively to confuse teams because he has the personnel to do all of it and and that's without chris jones really doing terribly much the last couple weeks like chris jones has not been the pass rusher he was last year at least not in the playoffs um he's good but you know bad penalty last weekend um or yesterday i should say i think the defense is good man it's it's that simple it's just a good defense

all right yeah and pat statistically at least is not really separating himself from the pack even of quarterbacks his numbers are just fine it's a weird offense because the the all the uh the analytics put him in the top five epa and dvoa but i don't see it on when i watch him play i don't see it on film he's they're still missing something a wide receiver um reishi rice feels like he can be that guy but he's still a rookie and it's going to take some time um but the offense is just not something missing a little bit from that first drive was incredible that scripted first drive was great six six attempts six different targets um and then sort of just like one more off at the touchdown just went flat in that game second half just wasn't very good um so still work to be done in the bye week

but again i mean i i mean i trust the chiefs to figure out their offense like that feels like the least of any concern with kansas city yeah uh let me ask you this i was watching the game and um one of the fun moments was when the german fans started singing country home um but that's a song about west virginia so do you think that do you think that germans know as little about america as we know about germany like i would i would just sing whatever german song i knew and it might be about frankfurt instead of berlin or whatever well the question is is it west virginia or is it west virginia what so have you heard that drunk guy who did at the bar doing this long it was a it's a big internet meme video where the guy was drunk

it was like it's a song about west virginia or the western part of virginia it's the it's it's incredibly funny yeah he was he was trying to figure out as he was loaded at this bar whether or not the song was about the state of west virginia or the western part of state of virginia so um never mind then that that would normally you get these references game i'm surprised i'm normally the pop culture guy doesn't get anything yeah i also might have said the name of the song wrong i don't know the point is uh it was a cool crowd, and I was surprised to hear them get into it. I like the official saying false start in German. Did you hear that? No, I didn't notice that.

Yeah. He said false start in German, which was good. Playing to the crowd, I like it. Again, the crowd for an international game seemed way more collegiate than I think we had seen in previous crowds at london and whatnot so there's one more i think there's another game in germany this week yeah i think it's like patriots bears it's like a terrible game right is it patriots bears or bears are part of thursday night football oh it's patriots someone it's not my patriots colts colts that's right nice

um by the way we went three and two again we're 29 13 and three yeah nice job on your picks you are you are providing some winners i would say stay away from the giants from now on please um oh that's bad yeah uh let me stay in the afc though good crowd crowd looked awesome on sunday night football love what they did kind of a halloween theme in cincinnati uh it worked um i don't think there's a whole lot of debate left about who like 1A or the second best team in the AFC is, at least at the quarterback position. So Burrow beats Allen seems pretty much to be back. And I guess we all have to worry about them again. Their division is pretty good. And I want to talk about the Ravens in a second, but starting to feel like

the Bengals are where we wanted them to be and separating a bit from the pack, right? Oh, yeah. The Bengals are back. I mean, they have now shown a pattern, right? Start slow for whatever reason and then just finish much faster in November and December. And they beat the Niners, they beat the Bills,

and both games weren't terribly close in the end. And they played really well. Joe Burrow's escaping the pocket again. He's making the crazy plays with his legs. And the confidence in this team is back. Defensively playing well again. I think, I don't know if the Chiefs, the Chiefs get defaulted to be the best team in the AFC.

I think the Bengals, Jacksonville, and Baltimore are playing better than Kansas City right now, even though the Chiefs are 7-2 and have the one seed right now. They beat Jacksonville. They beat Miami. They will play Buffalo. They will play Cincinnati coming up. They have the Eagles.

The Chiefs do in a couple weeks. But the Bengals, the Ravens, and the Jaguars right now, I think easily have a claim to be the best team in the AFC. It's Jaguars. All right. So let me go to the Ravens for a second. It could be another one of those seasons where we look up and they're just better than everyone. I, I heard a stat yesterday. All right. Lamar is now, I believe he's now 18 and one against NFC competition.

So sounds right, yeah. Yeah, so I have to ask, the next time we get a Lamar Jackson, you know, a guy in his prime looking for a lot of money and considering leaving the team he's always played for, why isn't that guy just going to go to the NFC? Where it's Jalen Hurts and nobody versus the AFC where you're Lamar Jackson is like the fifth best quarterback. Yeah.

Like, what am I doing? Why is it so imbalanced right now? Well, the NFC had a bunch of old quarterbacks and they're now gone. Right. I mean, you look at,

at giants Packers, Niners have been good at having able able to find a quarterback, right? Frances quarterback now for many years. Cousins is now hurt. Now you're, you know, for a long period, you had these veteran quarterbacks that were good. And then the young guys just haven't panned out, right? I mean, Justin Fields doesn't pan out.

Colin Murray's been hurt this year. I'm sure missing, you know, the whole South is a dumpster fire with Bryce Young. It looks like Bryce Young was probably the wrong choice over C.J. Stroud at the moment right now. I mean, the second best quarterback in the NFC is, if you were to do a draft, well, so if you were to do a draft, I think you would take Dak Prescott second of the nfc quarterbacks at the moment we're saying jalen is clear number one in the nfc right now i think jared goff might be playing better than dak prescott that makes sense right um i do think that sam howell has shown some signs of life in washington okay uh but yeah i mean that's i mean look i mean it's it's pretty bad

right you have i'm looking at it right now you have uh josh dobbs jordan love and then whatever the bears throughout there each week derrick carr taylor heineke baker mayfield bryce young brock purdy geno smith an injured rams quarterback and whatever the cardinals throw out there it's right ripping and clayton tune i believe is who we're talking about there but here's the thing you're gonna have arizona and chic at the top of the draft this year taking new quarterbacks. You're going to have an ability to get Caleb Williams and Drake May into this, right?

The Vikings, very welcome to take a quarterback in the draft this year. Any of the NFC South teams outside of Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, New Orleans could definitely look for long-term answers. So we might have all the young quarterbacks making their way to the NFC conference where we've recently seen almost all those in the NFC. All right. Well, you mentioned the Vikings quarterback situation, and we're talking about no names.

So let's talk about Josh Dobbs, who probably people had just realized was the quarterback of the Cardinals. As soon as we noticed that, he gets traded to the Vikings to help them with depth. He's not even supposed to start this week without even practicing, without even knowing the names of all the guys on the offense. Josh Dobbs ends up in the game for the Vikings and leading this dramatic win.

And then this video surfaces of him literally working out the cadence that he likes to use with his center and his offensive lineman around him before winning the game. It was a pretty awesome video. It's kind of a hard thing to describe, so I'll just turn it over to you and say how incredible is what Josh Dobbs did this weekend? From a dopey fan perspective, it seemed outrageously cool and hard to believe.

I can't say enough how cool this is so okay cool josh jobs josh jobs gets traded to the vikings on tuesday as depth now he might have been a thought to start at some point over over um jaron hall it's kurt cousins tears achilles jaron hall gets hurt in the first quarter jobs has to come. We learn after the game. And this is the way it works, right? The one starting quarterback gets all the reps, especially when the new quarterback just arrives on Tuesday. So we have the – Dobbs comes in and plays on Sunday.

Before he goes in the game, he has to go to the offensive line ask them what the what the five cadences are for the game does not know the cadences so the video you see is josh jobs with the center and the offensive line going over the cadence right said hunt what anyway he said hunt right so what anyway he said hut or you know or on we're going on you know hut all right like he's going through all the cadences right the kill, like, he went through all five of them. And then he had to learn some of the teammates' names, which he said afterwards he doesn't know all the teammates' names that were in the huddle.

And one of the benefits of the coach-to-quarterback communication system is he can tell them the play call, but also sort of give Dobbs, you can talk up until 15 seconds after the play clock. You kind of give Dobbs an idea of where to go with the ball. But Dobbs said he would go in the huddle and ask guys like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Now, again, like the thing about football is it can be very complicated at times.

It can also be as simple as I'm running a go-round, I'm running a curl, right? And Dobbs is playing a football to understand what those words mean, right? He's playing a football to understand what an empty protection is or what a six-man protection is um and so if you piece those things together you get what dobbs did this weekend which again very hard to do and it's because he's a veteran player who's played on three teams i think in 44 like like was it 44 days like that's some crazy number or 44 months something like that like five teams in six months or five to six months i'm like something yeah say number like that so he's seen a lot of football he's been around a lot of football um and it is um it's pretty remarkable to uh to see what he did

this weekend and the way his teammates treat him after the game and the way it just was great man it was super cool it's like one of those you know those disney movies like just to have him come in and win that game like he did not knowing exactly what to do trying to learn things here and there it's it's uh it's it's pretty awesome yeah well i mean he's a bit of a nasa loves him because he studied what a aerospace engineering or i don't know he's basically a an astronaut. So they've adopted him as their own. And I'm wondering, though, if it's like the magic trick is as impressive or less impressive than like the plot of Apollo 13. And they have to basically rebuild the rocket to like propel them around the moon and come back home safely. And the whole all of Houston is like piecing it together in engineering form and just feeding it into the Tom Hanks character so he can figure out a way to get back to Earth. And that seemed like what was happening with Dobbs. Like everyone comes together to be like, all right, man, I'm just going to do this.

You got to snap it on three. Then he's going to run the out, you know, and like and they only have until that point where you said 15 seconds, it cuts off. Yeah. I mean, so why do we have to pretend that football is so complicated sometimes? If you could just act that way all the time, why wouldn't every team win? Well, but here's the reason why is because that works against the 27th ranked Falcons defense, right? Like, that's why, right? Like, and it works very, it works sometimes, sometimes, right?

For the most part, it's like, it looks like Tommy DeVito playing for the Giants right now. We're just a complete dumpster fire, right? It doesn't look like that. And I would imagine next week, if he plays, it probably doesn't look that good next week. Like, it just happened to be in this one game, a cool experience against a bad Falcons defense. Again, if they did this against Kansas City,

he would have got his ass kicked by Spag's defense. Against the Jets, he would have his ass kicked. Like, it just happened to be against the Falcons in this moment. This is why i saw someone tweet out well this means so and so could have done this at quarterback position it doesn't mean that doesn't mean that it's i think it's just an isolated instance that was super cool but in the end your job is to win all the games and this is one cool moment for josh jobs and the vikings i'm glad we will talk about and give him the credit he deserves he's been putting some shit sandwich he was traded

to arizona right before the season traded the vikings right before and he has earned himself a job for 10 more years game like he will have a job as long as he wants the nfl because of what he's able to do because like i'm saying when you put a backup in in, A, you don't want to look stupid as a coach. The backup doesn't know what they're doing. And two, you just want a guy who's reliable. They might not be a good player. They're reliable. They're not going to have fuck-ups.

They're not going to have mental mistakes. They're not going to get someone hurt. Josh Jobs checks all those boxes. And plus, it seems like he's a great dude. He's a leader. And so he'll have a job, man. He'll never be a franchise guy, probably, but he'll have a job for 15 years as a quarterback like good for him yeah josh mccown is basically what he is forget dogs he's a mccown brother now

chase daniel he's probably better than chase daniel he's a josh yeah josh mccown it's probably a good way to look at it who's also a quarterback coach of the panthers i think i didn't i think he's i think he's here in carolina yeah all the mccowns are coaching now i uh i wonder this though since this weekend was one of the worst i've ever seen with starting quarterbacks or guys who got in and played meaningful time and yet also people are complaining about you know too many roughing the passer calls and you know you know it being a flag football league now do we need even more rules to protect quarterbacks? Because, you know, fine, Josh Dobbs, great moment, good for you.

But no one's paying to go see Josh Dobbs play against Brett Rippon or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's just a bad year for injuries. Just a fluky thing? Yeah, I mean, look, you have two quarterbacks who tore their Achilles, which is probably unlikely to happen in most years. Daniel Jones tore his ACL now. You have two quarterbacks who tore their Achilles, which is probably unlikely to happen in most years. Okay. Daniel Jones tore his ACL now. And then even teams like, you know, Mahomes,

they have not been as good this year. Jalen Hurts is a little beat up. It's been one of those years where, you know, Anthony Richardson, who had a spark for the Colts early on, he's hurt. It just got a lot of guys. The Texans have – the Titans are putting guys in and out it just it's a bad year for injuries man and then the the the South NFC South doesn't even care to have a good quarterback so um it's uh that's part of the season sometimes you just

have injuries yeah I heard an idea once that there should just be like a rotating backup quarterback pool and there should just be better people who can like the josh dobbs would be the head of this list right and taylor heineken belongs in this group we just don't need to have three guys who stink by the way every team should have a tasem hill i don't want to argue that with you everyone should have their own tasem hill save your problems by putting tasem hill in the game as your emergency quarterback it'll be fine let's talk about a quarterback who looks really good. I know you're just nodding.

You don't like that idea. Let's talk about C.J. Stroud. So the easy take, right, is, oh, my God, the Panthers screwed up. We sort of alluded to it earlier. They should have taken C.J. instead of Bryce. I don't know if it's that simple, but what do you make of C.J. Stroud airing it out like crazy, had a great game this weekend, has a winning record now.

And the stat everyone's pointing to is he has more touchdown passes already than Kenny Pickett has in his career. A lot more games. What do you think of CJ Stroud? All right. So when we talked about Stroud this offseason, heading into the draft, there were two questions, really just two questions,

but it ended up being just one question, which was, which CJ shot are we going to get? Are we going to get the one that had like 20 starts at Ohio State that sort of stood in the pocket, a little bit stiff? Not saying he's not an athlete, but kind of stiff in the pocket, not very creative, you know, a little bit of a long windup, looking for the deep shot all the time. Or are we getting the Georgia game quarterback

who played Georgia in the playoff game and played the exact opposite way he played Ohio State his entire career, which was, I'm going to be the playmaker. I'm going to be the best player on the field in this game. I'm going to use my legs. I'm going to be confident. I'm going to be the playmaker. I'm going to be the best player on the field in this game. I'm going to use my legs. I'm going to be confident. I'm going to be the man. The question was, Gabe, which game are we getting?

Are we getting all the 20 other games or the Georgia game? We've gotten the Georgia game. This reminds me of Justin Herbert, who was a time in Eugene. It was like, and then you look at the Rose Bowl, and you're like, oh, okay, Justin, you run the ball a little bit more, throw the ball down the field, and you got that Justin Herbert, and you have gotten that TJ Stroud so far. A confident thrower of the football who can move his legs,

use his legs to move in the pocket and make plays down the field. We knew he had a big arm. We saw it at Ohio State. He looks fantastic man it's very clear too that um you know a lot of times coaching hires get hyped up i'm sure that could be wrong at some point about this but like d'amico ryan's was like he's the greatest young coach you know and you know me and you are on the more the skeptical side of all that praise early on. Hold on a second.

We don't know. Yeah. He seems like he's a good football coach. He seems like he's – his team is playing better each quarter of the season, which is a young football team. You kind of take it by like four-week stretches. And, Gabe, you're going to love this.

Their backup running back made a field goal for them in this game. They eliminated the kicker, Gabe, and it cost us the cover we had texans minus two and a half they scored to go ahead at the end they won by two but did not kick the extra point because they didn't have a kicker so it cost us the cover but a a running back made a kick for the texans gabe i noticed i was waiting to have my chance to bring it up. Obviously, I'm going to butcher this man's name, Dare Agunbowale, who made that kick. Yeah, he nailed it too, right down the middle. Yeah, first position player to hit a kick in a regular season game

since Wes Welker did it back in 2004. I didn't remember that. Justin Reed made an extra point, didn't he, for the Chiefs? It might have been an extra point. I think this was a field goal. No, it was. The point is an athlete can learn how to kick a football, and we got a lot of athletes out there, so let's let them do it

instead of having a bunch of guys who aren't any good at football specialize in kicking and taking up roster spots. We don't need it. Taysom Hill could probably kick some field goals if we asked him to. Let me ask you this with CJ Straub every week a different guy has a huge game at receiver or tight end in in Houston like and for fantasy players is a real nightmare because just as soon as I learn who somebody is then the other guy is the one who has the big game right so I'd heard Robert Woods Tank Dell's there Nico Collins is there some guy named Noah something or other I but he is then the other guy is the one who has the big game right so i'd heard of robert woods

tank dell's there nico collins is there some guy named noah something or other i didn't even recognize the name obviously schultz the tight end there's a lot of guys catching a lot of passes from cj stroud is that just how he likes to play like if you look at him on tape that's what he did at ohio state is that just how it's going to be forever with him that's what you should do though you should spread it around you throw it to the guy who's open like i mean he doesn't have a davante adams to force the ball to justin jefferson right i mean right so throw the ball the guy that's open this is what he's done by the way this is what he's done so well his early career he just throws the open guy like there's a there's you make it sound very simple i mean that's a simple part of

playing the sport throw the guy that's open. You have to know who that guy is, obviously, and a lot of that is pre-snap work. But a lot of quarterbacks just don't throw to the open guy. He doesn't care. He throws to the guy who's open. That's great. It's fantastic football.

All right. Well, let's talk about a team then who cannot throw to the open guy who is also the best player. Until yesterday when they finally started to figure some things out, the Raiders. So they finally fired to figure some things out the raiders so they finally fired josh mcdaniels and there's a million ways we can go with this you know which way i'm gonna go with it the patriot way is officially dead jeff being a jerk it just doesn't work nobody

likes it antonio pierce steps in they blow out the giants yeah you know everyone's happy josh mcdaniels is hanging around he's apparently part of the reason he's fired is for defending the patriots back from when they you know played the giants in the super bowl years ago okay so have you seen uh pft commenters uh he does every now and then he pretends exclusive from the athletic athletic okay uh he does he says he has an athletic premium plus subscription he puts out like the most insane story but he does it in the font of the athletic stories yeah so you can you look so it looks real okay he did it one last week for something it was this is four times a year it's incredible he got i got that one sent to me by a bunch of friends who don't work in the industry. And I was like, guys, it's not real.

This is a bit. Okay. Nonetheless, the Jay Glazer report that Antonio Pierce got up and said, like, you have to play with some sort of like grid determination. You can win every single game, no matter the odds. Look at what we did as the 07 Giants against the Patriots. And McDaniels defended the Patriots got angry about that okay that if if PFT commenter had put that out as his athletic premium article that that would be just as believable like I cannot believe that that's actual thing that happened in the NFL with grown men.

I don't know what, like, and the Raiders win obviously was, you know, the Giants, when Daniel Jones got hurt, that was it for them. But that probably just felt like cathartic to not have, you know, to not have, you know, Josh McDaniels there. It was very clear. you know, to not have, you know, Josh McDaniels there. It was very clear. It was talking, the other report came out that, so they had sort of a come to Jesus meeting on Thursday and they asked McDaniel to be more hands off, like stop berating everyone.

Supposedly he like took it to heart. So practice was very weird because McDaniels was not like correcting people as he had been in the past, which I'm, the report read, like you guys asked him to not do this and he didn't do that. Then it was weird. He followed your opinion. He followed your advice, players. Stop braiding us.

So it's a wreck, man. I'm glad that era's over with. He'll never be head coach again. He's been one of the worst head coaches in NFL history. He has not made it through even two and a half years, I think, one and a half years, any of the places he's been at. He's just done as a head coach. He's not a a good head coach no one will hire him again yeah he seems like he's gonna end up either working for nick saban or his buddy bill belichick again and

meanwhile belichick is stinking it up and people are talking about him leaving or them tanking uh i think just being an old crank doesn't work or being a guy who's a total jerk to everyone with no earning none of it bill belichick at least has the rings like you got to put up with him this guy's just a schmuck when belichick goes to coach the chargers next season how you gonna how you gonna treat that nah it's okay i've barely ever been a chargers fan i can just stop being a judge let me ask you this here's an interesting idea if i'm the raiders if i'm mark davis right i think every now and then like just surprise everyone coach is fired instantly i got a winning team it's keep seems to keep working they get rid of john gruder with spazakia steps

in they go to the playoffs they dump mcdaniel's now antonio Antonio Pierce is the coach. Everyone's happy. They're having the best game of the year. Why not? Yeah, so get rid of Pierce and bring someone else in. I mean, look, the coaching bump seems to happen for one week. The question is now week two, right? Like what happens? And I looked already. Like I was going to fade them, just automatically fade them this week.

But they play the Jets next week, and I'm not doing that. So that was going to be a fade I was going to do, but I can't do that anymore. All right, well, that's a nice tease, because we do have to talk about the Monday night game. We've got to give people some ideas for how to fill things out before the game tonight. We also probably should touch college football for a second.

So let's take a very, very quick break. If you're watching live, don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. If you're listening, here's your break. We'll be back on the other side with Monday Night Football and college football. All right, Jeff, we are back. Jeff Schwartz, you are still smarter than me and most of us. Maybe.

Maybe. This would have been a fun week to talk about the team you played for and love and the team that I root for, and I can't tell if I love or not. But my team's terrible, and my quarterback's crying and falling out of the number one spot, and your team is ascending to playoff futures so oregon usc not as exciting as it should have been um no it will not be well maybe not for you it'll be exciting for me um the problem with this oregon usc game buddy is it's going to be at 10 30 p.m

eastern and uh yeah boy over here in the east coast is going to struggle with that one i know look the story is alex grinch got fired, USC's defense coordinator. It was about time. USC's defense was historically bad. And, you know, Gabe, I'm not a petty person, really. I don't need people to tell me that I'm right. But I haven't got any USC fans to tell me I was right yet. I haven't got the same ones that told me all offseason,

oh, USC's going to do this and that. Oregon sucks. And Dan Lang can't coach defense and blah blah blah blah i was right again shocker i'm right again um looking around if when you want to be good on defense nfl college it has to be intentional right same on offense i'm not saying that you don't know. The Chiefs. We talk a lot about the Chiefs in this. They were intentional with going to draft defensive football players

to be better at defense, right? They were intentional with doing that, okay? Lincoln Riley is not intentional about being good on defense. He's not. He doesn't recruit high school football players, especially on the defensive lines. He doesn't do that. For whatever reason, USC fans claim they don't pay

high school players. It's the funniest thing of all time. Oh, we don't pay high school players. Oh, what about the five-star quarterback that just committed to you guys? You don't pay him at all? You just show up at USC for free? Everyone else is getting paid around here, but your boy just shows up for free? Okay, sure. Whatever you want to say. You don't pay guys. Whatever.

They don't practice like they need to practice to be a physical football team. Their guys on the defensive line are small. Look, Oregon's offensive line this weekend is going to do mean things to USC's defense. USC's defense is small. They're tiny. They're tiny.

Look at them on film. They're tiny. They're small. You have to be intentional with wanting to be good, and they're not intentional with wanting to be good on defense. On the other side, Oregon was intentional. They brought in 10 new defense alignment, nine high school kids, and one transfer from South Carolina.

Like, they're intentional with wanting to be better on defense. USC is not. That's why USC is here right now. And it's, you know, look, I mean, look, Oregon's going to win. I think Oregon's one of the better teams in the country. I have not said this in a long time. I think Oregon is a playoff team. And I think they, if things break right, they could be in the championship game.

I think they're that good this year. I think they're that good this year. And I never thought I'd say this, but Bo Nix might win the Heisman. He's really good. He's playing like, I mean, obviously, it's going to come down to probably the Pac-12 championship game, but whoever wins that game will win the Heisman.

But I put out a video of all the throws he made against cal it's it's really good he he's him he right now him and him and uh michael penix have the same odds to win the heisman yeah i was gonna say it would have been it would have been ex-first penix it's kind of fun to say it would have been uh it would have been – we get it, buddy. You do? So immature. Say it again. Father of three, just immature. Immature. Business owner and all you think about. I got him. Touché.

I didn't, actually. So I have to joke about that another time. So, yeah, look, Oregon's going to win. Oregon's really good. Washington's really good. It's nice to have Pac-12 football for one last season be really good. I will tell you what, though, Gabe, don't look now. Alabama's still really good.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, like there's going to be a – it's going to be interesting because Alabama, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida State, I mean, that like the the four playoff teams are coming from that group of teams um but bam a man like they're just they're the tough man you're right i quite literally nap on them like i'll they're just for some reason their games just haven't felt interesting to me and that's like a cbs game that i'm like ah kids are kind of quiet for a few minutes this is the time when i'm going to kind of lay here and

read something and kind of fall asleep this game doesn't really interest me but i think the whole country is doing that and by the time they've had you know 10 12 weeks of a quarterback and they're scary they're going to be scary you know who's not scary texas you know who's not scary anymore colorado we'll talk about them when they can figure their stuff out well very quickly colorado just i know you want to avoid this subject i'm going to give me two minutes this is my podcast i want to avoid it you were right take a victory lap here's the thing so when we look back on this season the colorado win against TCU will be the one we look back and say, that changed the entire narrative of the sport this year, right? Colorado upsets TCU.

Two things are true. Colorado is better than we thought. TCU is far worse than we thought. Both those things are true, right? They're both true. But if I told you that Colorado was going to finish 4-8, which they're likely to finish, after 1-11, you'd be like, great. That's fantastic. The problem is which they're likely to finish, after one and 11, you'd be like, great, that's fantastic.

The problem is how they're finishing, right? They're not getting any better. And when you have a team like Colorado that's a brand new, basically a brand new team, you want to see that improvement each and every week. And all they have done is backslide to the point where now Deion's firing the OC, who the OC, by the way, Sean Lewis, has been great at Kent State. Like he knows how to call offense so the thing that worries me is that

you know they have adversity and the first thing to do is fire your OC and blame your offensive line like it just it when there's no it doesn't feel like there's a lot of inward like what do I gotta fix it's what do you have to fix like what do you have to fix and like and like coach like you brought that offensive lineman in they're all your guys except at the center those are you guys you brought in they're transported boys you brought in high school boys you brought in you hire sean lewis like you hire like that's your problem and it seems like there's a lot of deflection on whose fault it is in Colorado. When things were growing great, I'll take the credit. Things are going poorly.

It's the OC's fault. It's the offensive line's fault. It's the DC's fault. It's this one's fault, that fault. The Pac-12 is putting on too late at night. It's everyone else's fault except my fault. Game management, which he did apologize for, has been terrible all season. It's something that they've learned at all in any situation.

The game management has been atrocious. It seems a lot of finger pointing, buddy, Gabe. Not buddy to Dion, but a lot of finger pointing. And not a lot of finger pointing back to the head coach. Yeah, I think that feels accurate. This is just the literal definition of the word and i don't mean this in the pejorative like i think if you have a narcissist uh famously and delightfully as your head coach a guy who who sees the entire world sort of through his own lens and can lead a lot

of people to a lot of good places that way i mean dion does a lot of good but yeah i don't think he i don't think he has the perspective that you're saying he would need in order to fix some of that stuff so you get the good with the bad i mean this is true in in all walks of life diana's done a good job this year yeah but it's just um there's a limit if you're if you think you are the beginning and end of everything then there's a limit to what you can accomplish uh all right well let's let's talk about the Monday night game because I'd like not really to talk about these teams, but I would like some good prize picks advice. I think you've been making me a little bit of money, so I want to make some more.

Yeah. So we do this. What are you expecting tonight? We do this every Monday night for the Monday football game. It's our prize pick segment. I'm doing a three-square entry tonight. You can build a two- to six-square entry. Use the promo code Jeff to get 100 – excuse me, promo code is GSSY,

$100 match deposit. And here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm thinking for tonight. Okay. We're going to play a couple things here. We're going to play Justin Herbert more than eight-and-a-half rush yards because the Jets pressure a lot, play a lot of man coverage. Herbert's going to have to escape.

8.5 yards is not a lot. That's one big rush on third down. Now, I'm curious about his finger and whether or not he's going to try to run the ball, doesn't want to get hit, but I think he's going to have to at some point in this game. So only 8.5 yards, more than 8.5 yards. In that same vein, I have Austin Eckler more 30 and a half receiving yards because of the screen game when you play a lot of man coverage throw a screen one block just the offensive lineman to block one guy boom out the gate right especially and also a lot of the the pressure echoes a dump off guy like boom just dump

off dump off dump off breeze hall more than 56 and a half rushing yards tonight chargers run defense not been good under brandon staley the jets want to run the football they want to protect zach wilson and quarterback so that's what i'm questionable and that's what the other two i feel great about but i have breeze hall more than 56 and a half rush yards tonight i have this game being tied with three minutes left because every Chargers game is tied with three minutes left. If you, Gabe, as a hardworking person who earns their own money, you or anyone else, anyone listening to this show, if you put your money tonight on the Los Angeles Chargers

to win or cover this game, that's your fault. You've thrown your money away because the Chargers are not the wager to make in this game. And if you do, you're throwing your hard-earned money away. I would not want you to do that. You bet on the Jets or nothing else tonight. Nothing else tonight, Gabe. Jets or nothing else.

That's it. It's the only wager you can make. Well, I love your square with your players. Yeah, I like that entry. I think that's fun. I think the logic is sound. I would also be the most nervous about the Brees Hall. But coming back to your overall game pick,

I think you're an absolute moron if you allow yourself. I don't care what the against the spread says. I don't care what the numbers say. If you allow yourself to let an evening of your week be dictated by the new york jets you are a fool okay nick just texted us and said chargers minus 17 and a half plus 500 yeah no nick that's a that's a hard no um gabe minus 17 what the hell you'd have to what how would you tease it to there like that's nuts you you can pick an alternate line you could do that like i i took alternate i took usc washington over 91 and a half at plus 230 yeah that's smart no these two teams are the ultimate one score

teams like this is a one score game and i think it goes the other way i think in the competition for who can be dumber i think that that the Jets will always lose that competition. They won't embarrass themselves. The Giants lost against them two weeks ago. Very quickly, before we get out of here, how many minutes do we have to watch Aaron Rodgers warm up for tonight to tease us about it? That's going to be the most interesting part of this game.

What are you talking about? That's all I want to watch. Wait, are you hitting on Aaron Rodgers coming back to watch wait are you in on aaron rogers coming back to play this i'm in on interesting jeff and you know what isn't interesting zach wilson so yeah i want to see how soon can this guy inject whatever the hell he injected into his ankle and get the hell back out on the field gabe we have you need to do an intervention with nick he has bet way too much money on the chargers in this game. He has sent me his bet slip.

All of us has bet slip. I have a real concern about his gambling problem. We need to have an intervention. Part of why he helps produce this show is so that we can win people money, making smart picks, putting together intelligent squares with prize picks. This is, this is, you got some good brains behind the scenes. You don't want casuals. You want people who live and die by this stuff.

Not, not the one who's taken four adjusted line of wages from the chargers tonight. Is Wendy playing tonight? Can I watch the MVP? I don't want to watch the jet. Dude, your children's are playing tonight in basketball.

I don't even hear Kansas state. No, Bronnie James. Trojans. Yeah. Yeah. The Trojans are playing tonight kansas state they're playing in vegas the late game tonight i think it's nine eastern i

think right the organ plays first organ georgia and then it's going to be uh usc no no brawny no brawny james tonight can you give me can you just lock me in here give me my square one last time tell me how to do it again and then i want to go home so i can get ready for a terrible monday night football game that involves two teams that have broken my heart for my whole life you go to prize picks two to two to six square entry you can choose two to six i do three most of the time i don't i like doing doing three promo code gssy matchup is up to hundred dollars you choose more or less right More or less than what the projection is. Here we go.

Justin Herbert more than eight and a half rushing yards tonight. The Chargers, I mean, the Jets pressure a bunch. They play a bunch of man coverage. There's a middle field be wide open. The same vein, Austin Eckler more than 30 and a half receiving yards. Screen game, dump offs. I like that. Brees Hall, the Jets running back more than 56 56.5 rushing yards against the Chargers run defense.

It's kind of sketchy. The Jets, we know, want to run the football. One big gain here to get me more than this. That's where I'm at with my price-picks entry for tonight. I like it. Let's watch some football tonight. This might be a game that I fall asleep at halftime. I'm not going to lie.

All the games that matter are ones that you fall asleep early and so let's uh let's not i watch a bangles bangles chiefs bangles uh bills to finish last night okay all right good for you uh jeff been fun uh talking football with you as always thank you for making me smarter and we're back on friday can we take a bet on whether matt's going to join me on friday what do you think no not yet no no man it's one it's one hour they're fine he could do one hour of his friday lucky i'm gonna try to convince him to do one hour on friday the head of hr at the company he works at i advise him to take all the time that he needs oh i know he should take all the time he needs i'm just saying that like he can an hour might be good for him on Friday

to talk about football. That's all I'm saying. It might be. We were texting. We went three and two. We texted this week about it. I'm very happy for him. It's fun.

It's very quick. Not even a parent corner. I'm four out of five with nothing but the Chargers to cash this week. I'm not going to rip off Bill Simmons' parent corner here, but getting the text from Matt about being a new father is just the best because it's exactly like the same things all of us went through. It's just great. I'm like, yep, that sounds about right.

Good luck. Talk to you in two years when it gets better, buddy. Have a good one. Yeah. He sent me something on Instagram at like two in the morning or whatever. And I was like, yeah, this is what happens. You're going to see the bottom of the internet every night for the next nine months. And then for two years after that, you aren't going to know a single thing that happens

in the world ever. You're never going to know anything anymore. So just soak in all the information now while you're stuck in the room with your phone. Cause then as soon as this thing's walking, you're effed. It's over. I texted him this morning at six 30 when I woke up and said,

as I knew he'd be awake probably. And I said three and two, buddy, good job. He goes, and he texts me a couple hours later. He goes, I was awake when I got that text.

I go, I know you were. That's why I text you. Cause I knew you'd be awake. Yeah. For about four more months, you'll be awake in the middle, all hours of the night.

So congratulations to Matt. So Friday, we'll have, we'll do something Friday. We'll have a guest on, we'll figure it out. But we'll get back to you guys then. Enjoy my night of football.

Talk to you guys on Friday. Peace.